Tcarts76

This series was pretty good but most of it boils down to one reason. A great job casting Bel Powley.

Overall the series pulls you in and by the time it is over you really don't realize it is overall fairly bland. It focuses in on Bel Powley's character who works for Mr. Frank and ends up hiding him and his family including the now tragic iconic Anne Frank during World War II and the occupation of Holland.

Most of it is rather bland overpromising and under delivering. Bel Powley's performance though, steals all the oxygen from the more pedestrianess of the series and makes you want to tune in,. She is a bright, lively, young woman and makes you care about her, the dilemmas she, her husband, and the Frank's face. You still root for them even though you know the outcome already which is sometimes a difficult thing to achieve.

My only big problem is that this series is really bland sometimes feeling superficial and doesn't do justices to highlighting just the difficulties of day to day life with the deprivations of the war beyond some difficulties in hiding jews.

We seem to have a lot of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon fans on IMDB because they will give a whole lot of stars on name alone. I'm convinced a lot of reviewers really didn't watch this. The end scene is about the only part worth watching so fast forward, watch 10-20 minutes and you have seen the best this one has to offer, other than a Queen of Spain joke somewhere in the middle (I won't say what it pertains too so I don't have to check the spoiler box).

I guess you could pause to laugh at Matt Damon with a mullet, and Ben Affleck with blonde hair acting as gay as most medieval French noblemen probably were but this movie is dull and too long. You really don't need to see the same story three times and how in the F word did they get Ridley Scott to put his name to a 2 1/2 hour snoozefest,

Oh, I get it. Some people out there can cheer and give 9-10 stars for a "daring group trying something new," but shouldn't that "new" be entertaining or interesting? The best we can now do for a daring attempt is a pile of turd with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck not even attempting a British or French accent. Please, atleast if they tried to do that it could be a complete comedy and I could give it 5 stars...

No, it's 3 stars from this peasant. If you can watch the whole thing without fast forward you either have never seen a decent movie before or you deserve to be knighted yourself. It's only two steps better than being waterboarded. I'm much more upset people are messing with us by giving it 7 stars and up.

I guess this pandemic has ruined everyone's taste in everything, including, movies.

The first warning sign was that Trace Adkins was in this movie. He had a small role and didn't talk so much so he didn't hurt this one. I took the chance watching it because of the high marks it had (7.8 out of 10 at the time I am writing). What a mistake!

Steven Dorff is the only believable role. Everyone else failed. The script wasn't good to begin with, and the lines sounded like a second to last dress rehearsal. It has a bit of action but it was sparse.

The real problem is that it seems someone watched "Unforgiven" and decided that if they made it they would use a really well known outlaw. That is about all the thought that went into this. Obviously they didn't spend money getting a good scripts and actors were mediocre.

The Unforgiven was a masterpiece whose mostly boredom was played to great dramatic effect making the end well worth the wait. The contrast was sharp and biting. It made you spend most of the movie plotting a bad review but after the cpntrasting action you left ready to level the house of anyone who has wronged you and cheer gleefully. This movie does none of that.

Don't be fooled, this movie is a 3.

This movie has been done several times before but in the past there is actually action combined with dispatcher nonsense to make it worth watching.

Acting is ok but this is seriously one of those stupid formula movies. Find a template, hire big budget actor, soak the masses so you can make other stupid movies and everyone can buy whatever fads millionare actors spend their money on.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the only feature in this movie so unless you are a 40 year old single woman with a tub of chocolate ice cream or are with a 40 year old woman pretending to drink diet soda while you are looking to get lucky, watch some other version like Halle Berry in "The Call" or something,

Well, this one seems to depend on uninviting weather, a good cast but fr some reason I didn't find the character developement to be strong enough and the story came off as a bit to phoned in and hollow. Oh, it's watchable, and better than a lot of recent movies I have seen, but today with a flooded market of poor movies that is not saying much.

Maybe I am being a little hard on this one. I didn't hate it. There was just something missing that made it a bit shallow.

With the birth of the digital movie netflix age we have more access to movies and more filmmakers get their work seen. The bad part? We have seen a decline in watchable movies. Jordan Peele has made a few good movies but this one fails. This is either a phoned in request to make money to make more films, or we are just approaching the age where no one.makes any good watchable movies anymore.

This is a turd. The original starring Virginia Madsen.had a haunting feel, a well created mythology, and a terrifying feeling about what would come next that made it a good enough horror film to spur a sequel and now a remake. The remake just doesn't cut it. It brings nothing of the uncomfortable foreboding of the original and I was roundly disappointed because I anticipated watching a decent horror movie with an accomplished filmmaker. What I got was disappointment. What is worse is that I really can't even tell whose fault it is.

This one has some in the ing decent cast that should have made this a much better story. Instead what we got is more like a cliche cartoon. All of the characters are so plastic it is ridiculous. If they wanted to make a poinant story it needs mch better performances, some grit, and can't be a 1960's cliche production. That completely blew anything dexent I was hoping to see. I was disappointed.

This one gets a 5 but that is because they spent a lot of money going through the standard Hollywood motions with little else to show, and then threw in a few Hollywood cliches thinking that will make them a pile of money. Don't know exactly how this did at the box office but the movie industry only has to get you to buy a ticket, not watch the whole thing or like it, to make a pile of cash.

I have seen "American Assassin," and,"Le Femme Nikita" before. "The Foreigner," at least has the elderly Jackie Chan doing some decent stunt work/fight scenes. This one doesn't go out as silly and unreal as America Assassin, Blake Lively isn't sexy in this one like Bridgette Fonda in Le Femme Nikita, and Jude Law is no Jackie Chan when it comes to stunt work. If you are looking for Deadpool's sexy wife, kick ass action, or any above grade awesomeness you will be sadly disappointed.

The money was put in to pull together a five of a movie but it is still the same stupid story you have seen time and time again. Someone is hurt by terrorism/crime/broken heart etc, they are transformed into a superhero by the old sage and go on a deadly vendetta ride for personal justice. They then throw in the cliche of taking a beautiful actress and making her look unattractive, unless of course, she has to sex it up to get close to a villian she wants to kill.

If you want another algorythmed together movie formula where the writer and director have to do little work and the actors can just phone in their performances "The Rythmn Section," will wash away that hour and forty-eight minutes of your life. If you want to watch a decent movie, well, not so much. In the end this is a disapppointing film.

If you are going to make a movie about a man and his dog is it too much to ask the film makers to use a REAL dog? The Dog in his scam film is CGI as are other animals...

Next on the complte screw over list you give this the title of a mch loved book but then pull a bait and switch with a movie that bears little if any resemblance to the book.

Finally, even though I know Harrison Ford is as old as dirt and is phoning in appearances in movies, him being in it duped me into thinking this eas a serious movie.

Luckily I didn't pay to see this. I figure the "family" movie part was meaning that it would be a bit gritty but mild on the language and turn out to be something more along the lines of Togo.

I may just be dumb for judging a book by it's cover here but I believe the title the movie conjures is a deliberate bit of a con anyway. As they type of film that this was I guess it is OK, but I can't give it more than a 3 because if you are going to do a movie with a dog you should use a REAL dog, not CGI. There are millions of dogs out there, and Animal Planet even had a show where people showed the talent of their pets, so finding a real dog is not difficult and they sure are not near extinctions. Using CGI was just plain stupid!

Immogen Poots is a decent actress and a beautiful girl but here she has a character that jst isn't very likable.

The story itself is a cautionary tale but too bad no one is listening because it has been played before and and is a common one in real life. I have seen it play out in front of my eyes but when I saw it the SOB, worthless, abusive boyfriend was the 40 something year old guy with his own family business and the person that tried to help was the broke one with nothing. At least in that case the girl had an ex-husband that could take the kid.

I give it a six because the acting was not bad but the end was rdiculous and the main character herself is just not very likable at all. It's hard to watch a movie where you just want to scream, "You're a ridiculous human," the whole time unless you are watching "The View" which is unwatchable anyway.

I heard a lot of bad reviews before seeing this movie. Many said that they tried to lessen Harley Quinn's sex appeal and that was why it did poorly. While I could see why some may say that, I still think Margot Robbie brings the sex appeal anyway and that is not a problem. This movie suffers from several problems but that is not a horrible faux pas though, let's face it, Harley Quinn is a comic book character and sex appeal is the main sticking point for her character. I am being extreme gracious by giving this a 4 and that is because Robbie is always great to look at and may have been the only one not fully ruining men and women's Harley Quinn fantasies.

The biggest problem here is they took Margot Robbie who they expected to bring in A-list movie bucks but they used a really bad B-movie formula. Most of the movie is a Jason Statham or Jackie Chan movie. Nothing wrong with those guys but this is not Jason Statham Fast & Furious franchise but Jason Statham when he was second fiddle to Jet Li in the Hong Kong movie scene. It is not Jackie Chan in Rush Hour, but the Jackie Chan in multiple movies years prior to Rumble in the Bronx and only seen well after they had already been released. You have Margot Robbie who is about the hottest girl in Hollywood next to Samara Weaving and everyone else is the nameless faceless, non-acting Hong Kong movie scene. She deserves a cast and crew that makes big movies not this dribble.

Speaking of bad B-movies... Ewan McGregor has been living off the fumes of his one good movie, "Trainspotting," forever. He was in the horrible Star Wars prequels that everyone wishes were never made. To be honest, this was likely his second best role though he did once get to play act next to Scarlett Johanson in a forgettable movie before. The problem is you saddled him with a relatively unknown character and if you are going to make a comic book villian at least give him a mask that will challenge that of a middle school kid with $5 and a ride to Michael's arts and crafts. Rosie Perez? Are you kidding? She hasn't been in demand since "White Men Can't Jump!" If you wanted grandma as the bad ass female cop you could have probably sprung for Betty White instead.

Even though Suicide Squad was bad, you can't expect this pile of slop to haul in big dollars when you went out to get a quality purebred race horse like Robbie, but then saddle her with Hong Kong B-movie everything else. It doesn't help they made the name of it so long know one will waste time trying to remember it. You use the Hong Kong crew when you can't get play and roles in Hollywood. They make some semi-watchable action flicks that from time to time rocket ship a few stars to Hollywood big time movie fame. What you do not do is get your big time Hollywood superstar and send her to the minor leagues if you are expecting gold at the movie ticket office.

So. This is a documentary about the origins and making of the first Alien movie. I am a fan of the the movie and the movies that followed not counting the last two stupid ones that Sigourny Weaver was in. Overall it was a good little documentary BUT... It starts getting in the weeds when they start getting into a gender studies class and a whole lot of other nonsense. At that point it reminds me of some of the art history classes I have taken . I once had an Art History Professor that was kind enough to impart some actual knowledge upon us. I was reminded of this knowledge while watching this documentary. This professor basically told us that in the art world an artist can sit down and tell people all day what their piece art is, what it means, what inspired it, etc etc, but the truth in the art world is whatever art critics think it is, represents, and what inspired it. Those two things can be widely different. I feel that is the case with this documentary. They take a really good horror/sci fi movie, after it is 40 years old, and describe it as some giant philosophical humanities project. I don't buy it all, but whatever!

Just awful and cheesy. At first I thought maybe it was a comedy, but it wasn't funny either. I would have turned it off after 10 minutes but Natalie Dormer is in it, that kept me in for awhile and not because of her acting...but it disappoints in that department too.

So the Devil's Doorway is another found footage foolish endeavor. This one is dressed up to be filmed in the 1960's. OK, If I sat down and watched this movie, shot not as found footage, but a traditional movie... I would have likely rated this a 6. As it is, It gets a really strong 3. It's got some scares, the young girls voices whispering makes the skin crawl a little, and nuns are always scary. I usually don't like these new attempts at making a film look retro , as if it was made and filmed in a different era, but this one would have worked well...if it wasn't a found footage genre film. In fact I would even give it a 4 or 5 if it was a standard film that incorporated the found footage into it in some way. Instead The Devil's Doorway took the dumb road and made it all just a standard (and by standard I mean really bad) found footage piece of garbage!

I give this a 7. I think this was a very good look at the inner workings of the Times. There is nothing wrong with this documentary. It is well done.

The part I find weird is that, watching this you can see the bias. the single minded intent, and the lack of diversity of opinion, pretending to be journalists going after a story. I actually don't so much believe the Times is actively as biased as many conservatives feel, It seems to me to be an almost an aloof bias. When they are breaking stories it is glaring that they don't have a single person on staff to bat a different point of view back and forth. They are all of one mindset, "Get Trump, trash Trump, hate Trump." They are indeed doing their jobs going after the story. There is no argument there, and that is what every news organization should do. But it becomes apparent, if you are not a "progressive," that they are all after an angle on the story, not the story. Every news clip they show is on MSNBC, or CNN. Every news clips on the Televisions of reporters and editors, is...MSNBC, or CNN. Could you imagine if the Times had pursued the Obama Admin in this manner? They would be blasted as racists, sabotuers, etc.

This documentary kind of hurts the Times. It appears through the edits that the Times only reports negative stories on Trump and dismisses anything at all positive. They have no one on the staff that even has a positive mindset towards Trump. In the first episode they show the reporter that covers Republicans and the Conservative movement and its clear from body language that he doesn't understand conservatives, and has a disdain for not only Trump, but all conservatives. This is ok, I guess you could claim that is a way to be critical but my guess is whoever they have covering the progressive movement is likely neck deep in the movement is extremely comfortable and cozy with those they are covering.

Another reporter, not covering Russia, says he tries to write about things that "piss him off." Of course he is attacking the Administrative state on de-regulation. He is admitting he is an activist journalist with a big conflict of interest. He doesn't seem to be concerned for the last admins. destruction of the rights of individual Americans, States Rights, or the trampling of these rights by unelected bureaucrats, but as soon as de-regulation is mentioned this guy is all over attacking the Trump admin. Is this unbiased reporting? No.

The biggest thing this doc shows is the lack of diversity of opinion at the Times. The Old Gray Lady is of one solid opinion and you cannot avoid seeing why they couldn't get the 2016 election right. They were angry about the election and only pay a passing glance to understanding how they got the election wrong. If they want to understand how Trump got elected they really need to dive into the arrogance of their staff, editors, and staff, and that lack of diversity of opinion. The Grey Lady needs an overhaul and it is not one that comes from "understand" by the current employees, but maybe could come with a change over of many of their employees. Go after the stories, they are great at that, but they must have a much more diverse conversation about their narratives. The reason Trump resonates when he talks about "Fake News," is because the media doesn't even recognize their own bias. They spent 8 years cheering on, backing up, and extolling the glories of one point of view. They got so in deep with that Admin. that they completely insulated themselves from any opposing view. This attitude has poisoned them all. At this point, I don't know if they will have anyway to recover at all. America has more opinions than the left.

The mechanics of this movie were good, the quality of the movie was good, the acting itself was just OK but a little bit lacking, for that it barely scratches a 5 for me. First let's get a pure aesthetic thing out of the way. If you are going to make a war film, get the actual equipment right. The U.S. Army uses Blackhawk helicopters and have for quite awhile now. Go to the military's public affairs office, find their office that works with Hollywood and the film industry and arrange for some Blackhawks not Huey's. The movie comes off as high quality enough to take that step. Oh, and you are not going to have those gun truck, Humvees with turrets, supporting you without someone in the hatch with some fire power.

Now. The acting here was just OK, not great, maybe good. The scenes though and the whole plot reveal at the end...it is just hogwash. Plain and simple. This is not how soldiers behave and not what I (as a veteran) can tell you, would even be imaginable. The platoon/ company/ chain of command dynamic is completely absent. The squad dynamic is altogether wrong, and those are huge plot holes. The writer has only a small vague understanding of how men and women in our armed forces behave, and interact with each other and how military operations work. I am trying not to give away any spoilers but the incident in the film is something that would be a million to one shot of happening in real life, and the way the follow on was carried out would have even longer odds. That doesn't even get to the odds that soldiers would think in this way, let alone carry out. Frankly, I can't even imagine a scenario where anything like this could actually even be conceived or even began to be carried out without hitting immediate large roadblocks that would cease it immediately in today's military. Again I can give it a 5 on some of it's cinematic merits but ultimately it doesn't overcome huge realistic obstacles. I don't believe it has any political/ideological objectives as far as being pro or anti-war. If it did it fails on that but I'm hoping that there wasn't one. Mostly this just suffers from a real lack of realism which draws in a lack of real connection and feeling. If they changed it into a more entertaining action movie that might make it more passable, but for the drama they were trying to portray it was overall lacking.

Ben Affleck destroyed every once of awesomeness brought on by the Batman of Christian Bale. Just Bad. The special effects are straight out of a video game, not fit for the big screen. This is awful. The only thing that saves it is Gal Gadot, if your into guys I guess looking at Aquaman might float your boat but you sure aren't looking for acting , decent story , or script. This just bad. Even the parts with Superman were epiccally bad from the dialogue to the costume itself (are we back to leotards?). Why hire Amy Adams if you aren't going to give her anything to act out? You could stack up all the Avenger character movies (including the first Captain America which was as corny as they get) and each one would likely be better. I did give this a 3, not a 1 or 2, so I am being kind, but it was a ginormous disappointment. Please don't sink Gal Gadot's career on this crap, get some writers, use better special effects (or special effects people) and for god sake ditch Ben Affleck. Hiring him is like buying your kids birthday present out of the bargain toy bin at Kmart when you can afford an entire toy store. Stupid, phoned in junk. Not impressive which is why it took me so long to actually watch it.

This movie is a 3 out of 10 at best. Unless I am missing the part where this is supposed to be a comedy, there is no way this trash can get a review over 5. I checked, it still isn't listed in the comedy category so if you want to watch it butter up your cornhole, and get ready to be screwed out of 2 hrs and 12 min. you will beg for back. The whole world could come out of a nuclear war, leaving 3 movies on the planet to watch, and this would come out as a persons last choice.

The dialog is just plain stupid. An eight grader with ESL probably wrote it. The storyline, they likely made up as they went. Vince Vaughn kind of reminds me of John Wayne a bit in this movie. Oh no, not the big strong tough mid-career John Wayne, but instead, the old, could barely move, run or bend over, pooping in diapers, end of career John Wayne. Some how Vaughn is supposed to possess the power and muscles of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, and the fighting skills of Jet Li, despite walking and moving like an 80 year old with a stick up his butt looking around for a walker.

I hope Vince spent a lot of money to get good reviews for this dumpster fire because the quality of what I saw, you could find in any dumpster. Sorry, just telling you like it is. Stay away from the stench of this one. You would be better served by picking up and watching some Steven Seagal dubbed over in Russian crapola...But then again, you may like to contribute to horrible film making, I know I regret it...

The characters are pretentious, the story lines ridiculously out of touch with reality, and the acting is pretty poor.

First, the lead character, is definitely easy on the eyes, but acting abilities...not so much. The show itself, seems to have zero fact base in what the FBI does and mixes it up with NSA/CIA type operations, and on top of it they would like you to believe that FBI recruits come out of the academy, with super human abilities, super human intelligence, and are immediately given positions above all those serving in the field for many years. Not to mention everyone in the academy is a terrorist, has terrorist ties, is a suspected terrorist, or has some desire to act as a terrorist. Apparently the TV FBI is worse at vetting than a potato.Apparently Quantico is just a college dorm full of annoying but cute children, the only thing missing is STD's. Or maybe the pretty is all that matters...

The show focuses around one agent and it is as though she is the complete center of the world. At first this fits because hey, every show has a star but this show does it in such overblown annoying way that you just scream "WTF!" every 2 mins.

Excessive dialogue is used to cover shoddy acting but that actually makes it worse. The only thing this show has going for it is pretty actors, and a fast pace. Other than those 2 things...it's crap.

This show had all the promise of a good show, but ends up being nothing but cheap hype.

The acting is so-so at best but you would think Vincent D'onofrio would be able to pull a decent performance, but no, it's crap. Ana Ularu as "West" probably has probably the only decent performance. The lead, Dorothy is played by Adria Arjona, who is a beautiful girl, and I'm sure may be able to act, but this is just a stepping stone to minor movie roles at best. Not her fault, she doesn't have much to work with. The look and feel is bad. I kind of got the gist that it would be, but thought MAYBE they would exceed my expectations, but no.The sets are cheap looking, the effects bad, and the script, just blah.

If you want to pull off something like a fantasy, worthy of Oz, go big or go home. In an era of great fantasy like Game of Thrones, you just can't do this. I don't know why anyone rates this garbage at a 7+ at the time of this review, but maybe they like stage acting. This feels like it's just on a stage, and any minute you think you are going to see a stage hand walk onto the screen by accident.I think plays on a stage are great, but if your going to make a play, with sets for a play, keep it on the stage. Disappointing.

This show is stupid, period. I do have a bit of a prejudice after seeing other Brit Marling junk, but this was a series and I thought I would give it a try. I was hoping it wasn't more of the same crapola, and disappointingly it was just that. Don't waste your time. I find myself disappointed in the human race to see this rated (at the time of this review) at an 8.1. Please people, you need a severe need for a rise in expectations if this rates over a 5. Maybe people are embarrassed they watched the whole 8 painfully, mind-numbingly, boring episodes and rating it over 3 was just their mind trying to justify it, I don't know, whatever.

You might like it if you spend way too much time talking about new age crap, your favorite yoga poses, and other crap most real people don't give two craps about while you sip down your organic pumpkin spiced soy latte. Otherwise, leave it alone. Brit Marling always plays the same new age, ridiculous, cult leader like character in absolutely everything she does and it is just plain annoying more than anything. Give it a rest cupcake!

Oh, I won't give away the ending, but to be honest, it was stupid. I give it 3 stars because it at least will keep you in for 4 or 5 episodes, after that you pretty much have to watch the rest to see what kind of dumb ending is going to pop out of it. So, go ahead, waste your time...

Why in the world is this rated over a 7? I guess we really do have a dumb population. The story would be half way decent if Oliver Stone actually hired someone to advise on the inner workings of the army, government, domestic vs. international espionage. etc. But no, we are left with Ollie's ridiculous conspiracy theories. You know, Oliver Stone knows it all these days.

Within the first 5 minutes you just have to accept that Oliver Stone has bought his own media raves from his early career and has parlayed that into movies that lack even the smallest effort (see Savages, yes, savagely horrible is what that was.). Then, like that isn't enough, on cue, Nicholas Cage walks into the movie.

Whatever you feel about the Snowden revelations (and I think the stuff about the domestic spying program coming out was a good thing), this movie is just expensive crapola for Oliver Stone to put out his own tin foil hat opinion. I could be fine with that, but the lack of effort to even gain some kind of understanding of certain things before you put them on film is just so blatantly cheap, and dumb, that this movie isn't worth the effort of watching.

All I know is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt always seemed like a decent capable actor, but this movie should be a negative in his career and whoever advised him to take the role should probably go back to Venezuela with Mr. Stone and stay.

I won't complain too much about this one because it is what it is, and to some degree it explains why our country , right now (2015) is hurting today. We have become a country of know it alls who are actually really naive to the rest of the world and Mike Shiley's journey proved it. I think he has valid points of view and I do commend him for going out there when many in our own media will not, so kudos there.

I give a 4 because it is straight forward and isn't a big slick operation. Mike Shiley's feelings are pretty much made known throughout but at least he had one torture victim and told a little about the Kurds. Much of what he shows though is a fairly naive kid who had zero idea what happens in war, and this film way to fa above the surface to really show any understanding. He doesn't understand the military, he doesn't understand warfare, and he doesn't understand how wars are fought. I believe he suffers from movie ideas of war, and what war is. The sort of world war II front battle line wars with John Waynes and throngs of happy people welcoming soldiers with flowers, and no civilians get hurt or killed. no buildings are demolished and it's cut and dry, nice and clean, good guy on bad guy. In reality it is far different from that and by the time this documentary is over, had been finally edited, etc, etc, you still get the feeling he is still very naive.

This is a film that will have all the tin foil hat crowd all up in arms. It's proof that stupid has no bounds. I always have to laugh at conspiracy theories that idiots come up with to hate Bush. People that were born before the end of the cold war have been buying this stupidity for years. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, plain and simple. He was a mentally unstable. He was the kind of communist that communists would run from. If you ever see some of the forensic evidence and recreations.The "magic bullet" reacted just like most bullets do with that rifle. One shot took out an electrical cable. The car was a parade car so Kennedy was elevate. All reputable forensic investigations say the Warren Commission got it right. Please stop believing in magical unicorns. This film is best watched by people that need a good laugh.

As far as Bush goes, idiots come up with theories of some evil plot because they are to stupid to think for themselves and look at reality. The real problem with Bush the elder was that he didn't get a second term. The whole "New World Order" and "Shining light on the hill" wasn't some corporate conspiracy. The fact is that the guy ran the CIA before being Vice President. His term came when the Cold War ended. This "new world order" conspiracy is bunk and what he was really saying is that we did business with and backed some really bad people to keep us safe. Now that the Soviet Union was out of the game, we could start to make things right, and better for everyone. That is why he went after Noriega and Saddam. CNN and Ted Turner, big anti-war nut jobs cause Saddam to be left in place. Had that not been the case, the world would be a much better place.

SO this little film is based around U.S. whistle blowers in regards to the NSA's information gathering programs. I will say that overall it is interesting and a decent film. There are some parts of this that are absolutely legitimate, and another part that is ridiculous. It also features Ed Snowden.

The NSA data collection is a bit of a tricky subject. The NSA collecting data on U.S. citizens is something I think is absolutely wrong and an invasion of privacy. Snowden, in my opinion should not be treated as a hero. I do, however think exposing the domestic spying program was a noble thing and I have no problem with him for that. This is something that should not be done, especially when they lied to Congress in hearings over this. This has been going on for years and I am almost baffled on why people did not know about this before Snowden because PBS did a documentary on this years earlier. That and the questions of privacy are legit.

Now let's get into the weeds a bit. Snowden did not expose JUST the domestic spying program He also exposed operations outside the United States on foreigners and other nations. Why are people upset over that? The NSA is a spying organization. God forbid they actually spy... It also represents a double standard. After 9/11 intel agencies had to shoulder a lot of blame with a lot of people thinking they should have known about 9/11. A lot of people blame intel agencies for having bad intel when it comes to Iraq. Well, what do you want? They are not doing enough if something happens, but they are doing too much when nothing happens and we are safe. I understand foreign countries getting angry that we spied on them. Then again every country spies on others. It's part of securing your own country and when another world leader acts shocked, it is faux shock.

Although I a do not condone this gathering of U.S. citizen data, non U.S. citizens in foreign nations are not subject to the U.S. constitution and to get out raged about spying abroad is just plain idiotic.

Another part of this is an overblowing of what is going on. I agree personal communications should be off limits (when done on U.S. citizens) but the meta data collection pales in comparison to the amount of that can be gathered legally from things like social media. When you post something on social media you are pitting it out to the world. It is very easy for someone to just send a friend request and a lot of people play the "Lets see how many friends I can get," and will approve any and all requests. This makes a lot of things very public. Most sites you join come with disclosures that no one reads. So the NSA has no problem gathering info on us without invading your privacy.

The going after reporters thing is also wrong. We have freedom of the press and the press isn't going to turn down leaks. Publishing is simply what they do and should do. In defense of the NSA though, the existence of these data gathering programs are a genie you cannot put back into the bottle. They exist and because they exist and have the potential to stop some violent acts, the government will do with the tools they have at their disposal. Given what we have seen with the Boston Marathon bombing, two men who the Russian government actually warned us to keep an eye on, it's likely that this is not as big of a threat at this time in comparison to the reach and abilities that Snowden has attributed to it. I will also say that Snowden comes off as paranoid, somewhat delusional and reeks of a young idealist who was intent on trying to make a name for himself in these disclosures. Don't sit and tell me the merits of what you exposed when you expose things other than domestic spying. Especially when it has national security implications. Every U.S. ctizen should have zero problem with a spy agency keeping an eye out on other countries unless you take for granted the relative safety we enjoy.