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Bostonian916 (449 KP) rated The Current War (2017) in Movies

Aug 4, 2020

The Current War (2017)

2017 | Biography, Drama, History

7.2

(12 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Expectations should be aligned properly before viewing this movie. Please don't expect it to be historically accurate. Most of it is not. With that being said, it is a movie. In that right, it is quite entertaining.

The Current War aims to tell the story of the battle between Edison and Westinghouse in the race to electrify American and the world.

Period pieces can be tricky, as just small details can throw the entire feel of the film into disarray that the viewer has to struggle to regain the composure of. The Current War does a great job of not tasking the crowd with this. All of the costumes are wonderful, the sets, the automobiles, architecture...all of it is absolutely spot on. Truth be told, that's nowhere near an easy task even in this digital age.

My hope is that viewing this movie might spark some renewed interest in the events surrounding the world depicted throughout the film. There are many layers to the actual store that are fascinating, and helped build America into what it became.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971) in Movies

May 25, 2020

Playful, technically impressive and possibly very influential wildlife documentary. Scientist Nils Hellstrom, PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), MS (Master of Science), and WF (Wholly Fictitious), expresses his fears for the future of the human race, believing we are likely to be outcompeted by insects in every respect. Startling and occasionally grisly clips showing the lives of insects and other arthropods illustrate his thesis in great detail.

Well, Hellstrom (or more accurately writer David Seltzer, who went on to script The Omen twice) isn't a great biologist (he refers to insects as a species rather than a class), but the photography in the film is great and Lawrence Pressman's well-judged performance adds a lot to the impression the film makes: it's tongue in cheek, but still thought-provoking. As a gimmick to make people watch a wildlife documentary, it's an interesting one; you can sense echoes of this film's innovative use of music and narrative to add drama in many much more respectable nature documentaries (most of David Attenborough's blockbuster series, for instance). An oddity, but a good one.