Disc Reviews

"'I've been given me the toughest job I've ever had in my life, but also the most rewarding. What can be more important to the war effort than preserving the fighting strength of our troops? We must maximize the odds of every soldier that passes through our portal... His country is counting on him. His country is counting on us."

The first thing you have to understand about Vietnam was that it was unlike any war the country had ever participated in. Up until this time, the United States had not failed in conflict. The Vietnam War was also the very first war to show up in living color each night on our television screens. War correspondents had a new weapon in their arsenal, and it was called the television camera. The nightly news was dominated by these gruesome pictures of death and destruction. As the body count mounted, so did opposition to the war. By the time the war finally did end for Americans, over 60,000 Americans had been killed in action. Approval for the war fell to less than 20%. The war dominated our pop culture. Music, in particular, reflected the frustration of the times. The war even led to the voting age being dropped to 18 so that a soldier could have the right to vote. The war brought on the modern Veteran's Administration to deal with the thousands of wounded when they returned home and throughout their lives. The impact of the war was huge, and it took a show like China Beach to humanize one of the most divisive events in American history.

"You're so unprepared for this..."

If you're a fan of the 1985 comedy staring Michael J. Fox, that statement is particularly appropriate. We all remember the cute high school romp where Michael J. Fox discovers that his family has been hiding a long dark secret. They are werewolves. Now, the young teen finds himself having to deal with the usual growing pains of adolescence on top of dealing with the family curse. Before long he's a basketball star and the most popular kid in school. A fun time was had by all. The film spawned a sequel with Jason Bateman and an animated series on television. It was all a hoot.

Oscilloscope Laboratories distributes unusual films. Unusual and special. They have packaged two documentaries together: Only the Young/Tchoupitoulas. The first is about kids wandering around a suburban wasteland in desert California. The second is about kids wandering the streets of New Orleans. They are very different experiences, but they are both about the flow of real life. They both have voices that are real and at times inspired. They are about avoiding dramatic structure and explaining and just revealing.

Documentaries used to be very predictable and somewhat uniform in approach, but all sorts of stylistic variations, conceptual approaches, and philosophies of content have been mutating over the last 40 years in respect to what defines a documentary. A documentary style that epitomizes the traditional approach is the style that Ken Burns exhibits. His prodigious output is meticulous and universally loved. It takes a subject and then thoroughly and extensively examines that subject with great reverence and detail, usually to be broadcast on PBS over many nights. This is best reflected in one of his most popular series, The Civil War. It usually involves photographs and videos when available with copious dramatic narration including famous actors reading from the words of historical figures. Then there is the example of Fredrick Wiseman, who would take the subject of some modern institution and then simply record footage of people enmeshed in the institution and allow those events to speak for themselves without narration. Between those two extremes many variations have occurred. The History channel is well known for playing fast and loose with the way they put together their “documentaries”. Many have a large percentage of dramatic re-enactments of events that may or may not have happened.

If I had to sum up Last Kind Words in one word, I’m afraid that word would be “forgettable”. Harsh, I know, but that is but the most fitting because the movie failed to leave a lasting impression. I don’t need much to find a movie entertaining: A steady storyline, interesting characters, and good dialog; my issue with Last Kind Words has to do with my uncertainty about the kind of film it was intended to be.

The story follows Eli (Spencer Daniels, This is 40), a seventeen-year-old only child whose family is forced to relocate to his father’s hometown after his father is laid off from his job at a power plant. His dad manages to secure work for the family on a farm owned by Waylon (Brad Dourif, Catch .44), the older brother of his father’s former flame who ran off back when they were teenagers. Despite being employed, the situation has put a strain on Eli’s home life as his father has turned to drinking to cope, making him very abusive towards Eli and his mother.

Usually when a kickboxing film comes along you pretty much know what to expect: a bunch of fighting with a paper-thin plot to string all the fights together.  When I got Bunonhan I thought I knew what I was getting into, and really I was just ready to sit back and watch some cool fight sequences.  Instead what I got was a complex story about families and betrayal where the fighting in the ring is just as deadly as the criminals that are willing to betray and kill anyone for money and land.

Bunonhan is nothing more than a little village where the lives of three brothers collide.  Adil is a young Thai kickboxer who’s made a living at the sport.  In a match where it seems he has no chance of winning, a fight-to-the-death match, friends quickly charge into the ring and carry Adil off to safety.  Though their intentions were good, Adil knows that this will only put a price on his head considering the amount of money the fight promoter lost.   The promoter hires a well known assassin to find Adil and kill him; the assassin hired just happens to be Ilham half-brother to Adil.