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Mars Attacks! (1996)
Mars Attacks! (1996)
1996 | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Lavishly camp black-comedy sci-fi extravaganza. Motivated largely by their innate gittishness, Martians attack the Earth (the clue is in the title), and various people naturally respond in their own personal ways. Much property damage and rather dated mid-90s CGI result.

One of those bizarre mutants that should never really have got past the script stage, let alone received a $70m budget: the release schedule inevitably resulted in it being hailed as a spoof of Independence Day (hard to spoof something that wasn't meant to be taken seriously in the first place), but this is much more a send-up of classic 50s sci-fi B-movies (various spot-on parodies), as well as being a startlingly subversive black comedy. You can also sense Burton trying to do his version of Dr Strangelove, with Nicholson in a multiple role, but it doesn't have anything like the same sharpness or impact. A bit patchy overall - some laugh-out-loud moments and game performances, but also a lot of dead wood and characters and jokes that just don't work. On the whole, though, the fact that films like this still get made suggests hope is not yet lost for the world.
  
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
2013 | Drama
So I have been putting off seeing this movie since it was released. Well, not really. I just never made it a priority. There was always something else to watch or capture my time. I wish I wouldn't have waited so long to see it.

I was under the false impression that Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt would be primary characters in the story line. They played their roles, but the true ownership of the script has to go to Jessica Chastain (whom I have a newfound respect for) with a side of Jason Clarke. To be honest, I hadn't read much about the movie either. Mainly just had an idea of it being about the assault on Bin Laden.

There is a level of mental anguish during the movie that I didn't expect. You come to terms with the reality that these people are living trying to fulfill their duty while being able to sleep at night and having a need to protect their families and loved ones.

Zero Dark Thirty isn't an outright action movie as expected. There are some action sequences and those are done well, but the real strength of the movie is the mental gymnastics endured by all involved.
  
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Alexis Taylor recommended On The Beach by Neil Young in Music (curated)

 
On The Beach by Neil Young
On The Beach by Neil Young
1974 | Rock
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The second side of this record has three songs that I think are some of the greatest sung by anyone. 'On The Beach', 'Motion Pictures' and 'Ambulance Blues'. They are my favourite Neil Young songs, and they are very introspective and miserable, but they have something about them that makes me want to return to them again and again. I don't find them self-indulgent or too bleak to listen to. It's a deep record and I get a huge amount from listening to it. There's something about Neil Young, he can just do so many different styles, but I guess he's most well known for the After The Goldrush or Harvest records. This is darker, but there's more to get lost in, for me. It sounds a bit all over the place. The first side of it, the tracks are produced by different people over different sessions. Neil Young was making an album like that around this time where he was cobbling them together; he'd make an album then decide not to put it out, and then he'd take tracks from one and then put them on another. Despite those different sounds, it works as a whole record. Neil Young was the first songwriter whose songs I learned to play on the guitar."

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