The Leverton Review

The story of Stan Lee as told mostly by Stan Lee.  While it is interesting to hear from the subject of a documentary, the film makers themselves should be a little more detached.  They do touch upon the idea that Stan Lee may not have come up with this iconic characters himself, but an interview with Jack Kirby is edited in a way that makes Kirby look like he doesn't have much of a case, and he did.  The other part of this film is that it really wants to be a happy story, but the end of Stan Lee's life was anything but.  He was accused of sexual assualt, and he definitely was the victim of elder abuse. (there was even a trial).  Neither of these things were mentioned. 

 I had a hard time trying to find this movie to watch. I finally found a very horrible version uploaded to YouTube. This version is missing the first part and I think a few parts in the middle. It's hard to tell why this is missing from Disney+, when there are things that are far more problematic on it. I think it's because this movie has never been very popular, at least in comparison to other Disney films. I'm sure there are problematic moments, but generally the story is quite a fascinating one. It's about a group of union Soldiers who steal a train during the Civil War and use it to destroy tracts and sabotage the Confederate war effort before ultimately being captured. It's based on a true story. One thing I think a more modern version of the story should stay away from is the idea of the lost cause. The characters in the movie talk a lot about their ideals, but one thing is missing from the conversation, slavery. Which is strange because there are scenes in wh...

 The glory tells the story of a woman who is severely bullied as a teenager and gets to a desperate point in her life and decides rather than killing herself to seek revenge against those who bullied her. It works really well as a revenge drama, but it does have a few flaws. The great part about this series is that it treats both the protagonist and antagonist in sympathetic ways. This is crucial because in one telling of the story, the protagonist could seem like a psychopath. And in another telling of the story, the antagonist might have been so one-sided to be completely uninteresting. The actress who plays the antagonist does a really great job - but there are two moments which I think rank among my favorite in k-dramas. The first is when her husband confronts her with the news that he might be exploring some dark secrets about her, and she says,"Look, I'm a shiny box. You like shiny things, don't open the box because you're not going to like what you find." T...

 This movie traumatized me when I was a child. Everything from the monkey heads, to the hearts being ripped out of chests bare-handed, to the very convenient pool of lava for human sacrifices. I recently watched the first installment of the franchise and with the second I can conclude that I do not like Indiana Jones. I understand it's one of those things that everyone of a certain age is supposed to like, but alas, I do not. There are much better movies starring Harrison Ford if you want to see him act, but this is basically what if the character of Han was a grave robber. When I was watching it with my kids, the first sequence made a very favorable impression, where there is chaos and a diamond and an antidote are being kicked around. But apart from that, not that great. I know that's a controversial opinion, but hey, someone has to dislike popular things.

 This movie was put together out of three episodes of a television series, and it shows. It's clearly divided into three parts, and the acting is the kind of the over the top that is often found in children's entertainment.  This can be funny at times, so the film does provide a little mirth. While its depictions of the Creek people are horribly racist, it manages to do a far better job with this issue than does Peter Pan. This is rooted in the fact that Crocket, for his time, was progressive when it came to relations with the native people of North America.  He vehemently opposed the Indian removal acts put forward by Andrew Jackson. This was a policy of ethnic cleansing, so removing the natives, so the white settlers could have good land.  It was widely popular at the time, and Crocket's opposition to it lead to the end of his political career. He decided to go to Texas, where he was killed in the Alamo.  The movie sticks very closely to real history for most ...

 Lady and the Tramp is one of the most successful Disney films, both commercially and artistically. It made almost as much money as Snow White, so therefore it's a commercial success, but whereas that film today feels really dated and is only important as a historical artifact, Lady and the Tramp continues to succeed as a piece of art. The great thing about it is that it's completely from the perspective of a rather spoiled dog. Lady is an unreliable narrator. We see the story and the events of the story, but there's no guarantee that that is actually what happened. She doesn't even know her owners' real names, she just refers to them as Jim dear and Darling. We barely see the faces of any of the human characters. Another thing that struck me is that the story obviously takes place about 30 to 40 years before the film was released in the 1950s. We see old-fashioned cars, telephones and a rather dated domestic life both for the richer residents of the city and the po...

 Peter Wohlleben is the author of two similar books which I enjoyed. The first is the Hidden Life of Trees and the second is the inner life of animals. In the first he argues controversially the idea that plants have some sort of sentience and in this companion book he tries to demonstrate animal sentience but not only among the usual suspects like highly intelligent birds, and other mammals but among fish and insects as well. I think out of the two books, the first is probably better just for the sheer audacity of its arguments. The idea that animals have sentience should be clear to anyone who has ever thought about the subject for more than 5 minutes. Human beings are animals, and we have a range of abilities that other animals have, and we lack some abilities that some animals have, so it is only natural to assume that there are different forms of sentience and human sentience is merely one of many. So I think if you're going to read one book about the topic this is a perfectly...

 Human Resources is the answer to the question of what would happen if you took all the children out of Big Mouth? The results are not great, but on the other hand they are not terrible. The conceit is that the imaginary creatures which are metaphors in the main show actually have an existence outside the lives of their children, and what they do is their career. So it's kind of like a combination of the Office and Big Mouth. Some parts are really funny like the family dynamic between Mort and Connie and their child and some parts are heartbreaking like the story of a woman who feels guilty for missing out the on the death of her mother, so she has pushed her father away. If you like Big Mouth, you'd probably like this, although it's not as good.

 One of my greatest joys as a divorced dad is to introduce my kids to movies that had a massive impact on me when I was growing up. Some of these films my children merely tolerate, although for me, they definitely still hold up. I'm thinking of Ghostbusters, the Blues Brothers, and even Dirty Dancing. Others they decide that they really quite enjoy, for example my son got into Star Wars and introduced me to the Mandalorian. This movie was the first time I really did not feel satisfied with something from my childhood. Yes I watched this when I was a kid and yes I probably loved it, but in my humble opinion it does not hold up. There are going to be questionable parts about any movie that is almost 40 years old, but with this one I think there's just too much. There's too much random violence, so much so that my son was asking me are you sure that this is a movie for kids and I had to say well it's not exactly four kids, but it's supposed to be a family adventure mov...

 Welcome to Wrexham is one of the best sports documentary series ever produced. You may think that I am being hyperbolic, but I am not. There are some things that don't land particularly well, which are to do with the trapping of Hollywood and celebrity. But at its heart, this series takes a look at what it means to be a football fan and what it means to have a football team in a town that has its glory days firmly in the past. There are intimate moments from players, team staff, fans, and locals. The series shows how the team is so important for the town because without it the town wouldn't have much else to offer. If you are unaware, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhinney purchased this club a few years ago and the documentary is a way to create interest in the project. It's a bit long and some of the episodes don't land, but it is a great document of one small town's football club and a quite remarkable season.

 This is the bizarre story of how an industry built on lies struggles with technological innovation and ultimately co-ops it. The lie is the fact that diamonds are remarkably common in the world and paying an exorbitant amount for an engagement ring is a tradition that was invented by a cartel. When you think of cartels, you usually think of drugs, but in this case the DeBoers company controls most of the diamond prices in the world. The idea of giving a diamond as an engagement ring is a remarkably recent phenomenon, and it only exists so that the cartel can make money. More recently, the ability to make synthetic diamonds became such that it is impossible to distinguish real diamonds from synthetic ones. And DeBoers was terrified because they had cornered the market with an expensive product, and so ultimately that they decided to market their own line of somewhat overpriced but still cheaper than the real thing synthetic diamonds. I've told you the thesis of the documentary, but...

 This is one of those rare documentaries that would actually be better told as a fictional movie than a documentary. It's the story of Steve Glew who made millions of dollars smuggling Pez dispensers into the United States. Steve's story is interesting because he grew up very poor, and he discovered something which would ultimately make him wealthy, but then he got bored with doing that, and he wanted to be more creative, and then he crossed a line which he was unable to come back from. Also interesting is how Steve's nemesis is presented as this arrogant villain, but in actual fact everything that Steve was doing was technically illegal. So you feel kind of bad for him because he seems to be a sweet, good-natured individual, but on the other hand it was a completely predictable failure. So an interesting watch

 A k-drama that starts with a unique premise, but ultimately falls into the same traps that plague the worst of the genre. The basic plot is that a famous pitcher for a South Korean baseball team is arrested after he beats a man to death who was sexually assaulting his sister. The good things about this series are the fact that its main character Kim Je Hyuk is portrayed as being incredibly talented at baseball but an idiot. Having the drama be set for the most part in a prison is a somewhat unusual choice, which in the hands of a better writing staff could have been successful. The main problem of this series is an inconsistent tone. There are scenes that are truly horrifying, and then they are juxtaposed with these sweet comedic redemption arcs. Although honestly, I am personally offended by this series because of what it did to my favorite character. It's the only depiction of a gay man who is open about his sexuality that I have seen in a k-drama, and they completely ruined his...

 Arnold Schwarzenegger is a larger than life character, both literally in his prime, and in terms of charisma. I think the era when I grew up was the era of these really muscular action stars not only in films but in other entertainment like the WWF. And it's kind of funny how there was a big scandal when it was discovered that professional wrestlers were using steroids, but Arnold had admitted to using steroids a decade previously in the great film Pumping Iron and claimed that all bodybuilders use steroids. This documentary series does a good job of showing his charisma but also the contradictions in his character. For example, he is well known for his environmentalism, but he is also credited with popularizing hummers, the most anti-eco form of transportation man has ever invented. There's also this contradiction between his supernatural drive to be successful at whatever he does and the darkness that resides in his soul due to being raised by an abusive Nazi. And while it i...

 I am a decidedly middle-aged man. Most of the time, this is a fact which I am able to ignore. But sometimes I watch something or someone says something and I realize that this is not the world in which I was born. I cannot comprehend why this documentary exists, are people out there who really want to be mermaids professionally? That is to say, I do not believe there are people who want to pretend to be mermaids professionally. But the tone of this absolute piece of garbage suggests that this is a growing and wild phenomenon. I doubt it. But it may just be my age that I had not heard of the merpeople subculture before. The other elephant, or mermaid in the room as it were, is the fact that there is nothing quirky about this documentary. It has a sort of flat and uninteresting tone. There's no pushback from the documentary makers when their subjects make claims which are ambiguously truthful. In the hands of a more skilled documentarian, this would be a treat, but what is actually ...

 This is a show which made no impression on me whatsoever. It answers the question of what if a person who completely did not deserve it got superpowers. This question has been answered in much more entertaining ways in other media. It might only be interesting because it gives a glimpse into what daily life is like in Spain. But if this is the typical TV show from Spain, it is easy to imagine why their television has not captured the imagination of the world. It's boring, mundane and never even remotely funny. I made it all the way through the first season, but was unable to make it past the first couple of episodes of the second.

 This documentary explains a social phenomenon that I have always wondered about. I've always been curious as to why when the topic of sexual assault is brought up, there are numerous people who say yes, but false allegations can ruin lives and this is much more of a problem than sexual assault is. In the United States at least, there is a disturbing yet simple explanation for this. This is the fact that police officers are under a lot of pressure to close investigations because an investigation which leads to a conviction is seen as a success for them. This coupled with the fact that sexual assault claims are very difficult to investigate makes it ironically much easier to frame the whole thing as a false allegation, and in many places false allegations are actually criminal offenses. The documentary does a good job of examining many situations in which the police seem to have just decided it was easier to charge the woman with a false allegation than actually investigate the clai...

 This is an interesting documentary that asks what happens when the people who enforce the law break it? It narrates the true story of white boy Rick, a teenager who was groomed to be an FBI informant, then abandoned to a life of crime and then ultimately arrested and sentenced to one of the most Draconian prison sentences for being a drug dealer. He received life in prison. I have so many questions about the situation. Obviously, the first question is why was Detroit allowed to be such a corrupt place in the 1980s? The mayor and candidates for Mayors basically were friends with and protecting drug dealers. The movie does address some of these allegations, and there are charges that come out of that eventually. But it has to be some kind of crime to groom a 14-year-old to be an informant against very dangerous people. He was almost assassinated twice. I don't know about you, but I've never almost been assassinated, so I think there should be some charges for whoever was respons...

This documentary is ultimately disappointing. It doesn't do a good job of explaining the rise of Pornhub as a social phenomenon. It is also afflicted with a severe case of both side ism. What I mean by that is that it gives equal time both to the supporters and detractors of the company. And this has been, a surprisingly dangerous phenomenon in modern journalism. It suggests that if you take one extreme position and contrast it with another extreme position, the result is the truth. But in this case, it clearly can't be so. Either Pornhub did nothing wrong and their users abused the system, or Pornhub did in fact violate laws and help in the exploitation of minors. I think you can find better examinations of the Pornhub phenomenon both its advantages, and it's dangerous than this. For example, there's a great podcast series by John Ronson called the Butterfly Effect. 

 Not a bad book, but it is very obvious that a Russian had a hand in writing it.  There's a lot about the suffering that they themselves have endured, but nothing about the wider context of what Russians did to Europe.  For example, they causally mention that the war began in 1941.  This ignores the real beginning of the war in 1939 when the Germans and Russians invaded Poland.  Apart from that, the experiment is explained in a way that should be easy for the lay reader to understand.

 This movie is another of Walt Disney's true life adventures. It's not a bad film, but it certainly lacks the charm and bizarreness of some of the other installments in this franchise. The narrator makes no moralistic judgments upon any of the subjects in the film, and there are no strange hoedowns involving scorpions in the middle of the film. It does give you a good sense of what nature documentaries were like 70 years ago but apart from that it's probably not worth your time. 

 A lot of people rightly give credit to the Disney company for groundbreaking work in the field of animation, but often their live action movies are not given the respect that they deserve. This, along with Treasure Island, are two surprisingly influential films. Treasure Island is influential because it gave us our pop culture idea of what a pirate should sound like, and this film is now the standard adaptation of a Jules Verne novel. Even what the Nautilus actually looks like in our imagination is the Nautilus of the film, not of the book. The acting is quite good in the film, especially that of captain Nemo. Kirk Douglas also makes some interesting acting choices which is well worth the watch. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has an interest in the novel, or Disney Live Action films, or to people who just like films.