The Leverton Review

 I think while the creators of this file definitely have an agenda, it stands on its own as a great work of art. The animation is excellent, and the world building is solid. A lot of films for children do not do a great job at establishing the universe that the characters live in, but this one does. The movie is full of some things that are shocking for a kid's film (and I don't mean two men dating)-the twists are unexpected.  It's great story telling.  I can see why Disney dropped it, they had a much weaker film, Buzz Lightyear banned in China because two same sex characters held hands.  This would definitely not receive a wide release in China, which is a shame because it is a great movie.

 I can get why this show has an appeal for some, but I did not like it. I don't like my fiction to be so bleak. I get that life is sometimes dark and no fun, but this show is completely without fun, and slow. It's hard to sympathize with the main character, who was money-laundering for the cartel.  It is a victim of the Skylar syndrome. Skylar is the wife of Walt in Breaking Bad, and when that series came out, many criticized her character for being shrill and unpleasant, when of course that would be natural behaviour if you found out your husband became a drug lord. Marty's wife had no idea about his money laundering ways, but that's okay because she was having an affair. This is a bleak, depressing waste of time. 

 There have been a slew of documentaries recently about the troubled teen industry, but this is the first that was made by survivors of one particularly bad institution. This industry feeds off of the idea that parents have made the mistake of coddling their children and some 'tough love' will turn their lives around. Who knows if this method could work in the hands of experts? The problem is that most people who start these kinds of programs have no educational qualifications, and they hire people with no educational qualifications because it is cheaper. They charge much more than traditional private schools because of this 'special' program-it's a scam. Not only that, the lack of outside supervision makes these places rife with abuse. And for what? A damaged beyond repair relationship with parents and, in this case, a phoney high school diploma. Yeah, the diploma from the school feature in this documentary was not recognized by the State of New York, so the people...

 Not a great show, but it certainly has its moments of fun. An alien is sent to Earth on a secret mission, and it does not go well. He attempts to blend in by taking over the life of a doctor with a cabin in a small town, and his lack of knowledge of humanity leads to funny encounters. The best part of the show is the relationship between the alien, Harry, and Max a young boy who can see his true self. Not the best show to watch, but if you like science fiction, it's a fun watch.

 This series shows why it is important that the legal system is run by professionals with the highest level of competence and integrity. The documentary focuses on a scandal that erupted after an investigation involving paedophilia in one family in Outreau, France.  The children in this family were one hundred percent victims of this horrible crime. Unfortunately, their mother, apart from being an enabler of abuse, was a pathological liar, and this led to many innocent people being accused of this crime. When word of this got out, it sparked a scandal in France, and many of the accused were cleared of any wrong-doing.  Perhaps prematurely (which the documentary does not address).  Three people who were cleared were subsequently charged and convicted of crimes against children. The trail itself was a sham....child victims were subjected to hours of testimony in public court, which is not something that is good for them, or conducive to the interest of justice. The def...

 This is a written and directed by the numbers true crime series from Netflix. It's not bad, but it is not especially compelling.  It focuses on the same group of investigators who deal with serious crimes in New York City. It does offer an interesting glimpse into that world, where the top investigators in one of the largest cities in the world do know each other.  Many of these stories, however, begin like so-New York was really violent back then, but you'd never imagine a business owner being gunned down in their own business.  Which seems like an odd thing to say....as if business owners were immune from violent crime in a violent city. Not that interesting, but maybe if you like the history of crime in New York, it's worth a watch.

 This movie was a waste of time. It tried to construct a narrative around the mission of the 'Monument Men' and it failed. Films have a beginning, middle and end, or at least they have a 'story' which is greater than their plot.  This has neither. The characters in it seem to be larping at war, which would have been a strange attitude for people alive to have.  One other thing that was off-putting was the principle message of the film, that this was the fight to save civilization from the dark forces of Nazidom. This elevates material culture to the position of being the only thing that represent civilization, and ignores the fact that the Nazis didn't take these things because they wanted to destroy them, in fact they fell into the same trap as seeing material objects as the only representation of civilization.  Also, Americans in the film talk about the priceless works of European art as "our culture" it seems a bit Nazi thinking to me.  But apart from t...

 This is not a good movie, but it is a compelling one. It tells the story of the Ford motor company's quest to unseat Ferrari's dominance in the legendary 24 hours of Le Mans race.  It does this through the lens of the relationship between Colby Shelby, race car builder, and Ken Miles, race car driver. The race scenes are well done, and exciting.  The acting, and writing, are a bit.....much. I have seen Christian Bale and Matt Damon, who play Miles and Shelby respectively, in much better performances, but watching their performances in this is like watching a car crash. You just can't take your eyes off of them.  They make weird choices.....like Damon's chewing gum in pivotal scenes of the film, which I guess is to display the character's nervousness or something, but just comes off as gross, or Bale's cartoonish impersonation of a British man from the 1960's.  I see on his Wikipedia page that Bale is British, but the insults he uses to other drivers in the ...

 I decided to try a hobby that does not require much in terms of a financial investment, and one that would get me outside-bird watching. I went for a very long walk into an area of the city that they are developing, but where no one wants to live. There's a small lake where there used to be a mill.  I immediately realised that I was not prepared.  It is hard to see a lot of birds without binoculars, and I think a basic knowledge of bird calls also would help. I have a friend who jokes that she knows two kinds of birds-pigeons and not pigeons.  I laugh at that, but today made me come to understand that I know general categories of birds, i.e. ducks and maybe the most common species-Mallard, but I don't know any more than that. I saw a duck that I wasn't able to identify, it had a white face, reddish feathers, and it seemed it had some kind of crest.  I sat down on a bench and two mallards were sleeping in front of me about two meters away on the bank of the lake...

 I have so many thoughts about Buffy, so I won't structure this as a normal review but use bullet points. Buffy, at least the first five seasons, is the Star Trek of my generation.  It is the perfect combination of camp, camp action, comedy, and creepiness and terror. The character of Willow was revolutionary-she not only had a lesbian kiss, but she had multiple relationships with women.  However, she is clearly a bisexual, even if the writers of Buffy did not know such a thing existed.  She was attracted to men, had a relationship with one.  In fact, her being attracted to a woman comes completely out of left field, and her previous attraction to men is thrown out.  In the earlier seasons, the show was a perfect balance of the creepy and the comedic, but after season five it lost its steam.....I think the problem was the invention of the Big Bad story arc, which was also revolutionary, but it became predictable in this series, and similar series that follo...

 that aliens might have visited earth, and why wouldn't they? It's a fascinating planet. What I don't believe is that they randomly stopped some French guy and made him the Messiah. I also don't believe that they created humanity, because evolution is a good explanation for that. Rael seems to be a typical cult leader doing nefarious stuff because people let him. The one thing I don't really understand is how opposed people are to human cloning.  At the moment it would be a purely biological process - identical twins are clones, so why not give childless couples another option, apart from IVF?  If you know nothing about this group, it's a good watch. a

 But I found this compelling.  People are living their lives as they see fit, and they randomly become the target of a stalker. I have watched a few documentaries about stalkers recently, and in all of those cases, the stalkers had some kind of personal connection with the victims, this is a frightening new version where you can be stalked by a completely random person. As someone, who briefly had an encounter with a stalker, I am full of sympathy for people who went to the police, and they were laughed at. And as for those reviews that compared being the victim of a stalker to an annoying telemarketer, may it never happen to you. 

 To one of the biggest financial scandals of recent times. It does a good job of introducing the players, and explaining what happened. I have two observations. The first is that the audacity that some people have, you are caught red handled stealing money from the country you were elected to lead and you blame other people? Shameless. The other observation that I have is about the practice of paying celebrities to attend your parties. So basically if you have enough money you can pay pretty much whoever you want to show up, it doesn't matter what shady or immoral things you might be up to. It's a bizarre world.

 And very American. I can kind of see why the filmmakers went the wrong that they did, because they wanted to show how easy it is to get caught up in conspiratorial thinking, but the real conspiracy that they discover along the way is not paid much attention to. This case is another one where many people have opinions, one that someone they know would never commit suicide, even after pouring years and thousands of dollars down the drain. I do not know if the main protagonist of this series committed suicide or not, nor will ever know.  It should be obvious by known that American police are as a whole, not very good at their jobs, and need a massive amount of training that they do not get. 

 To watch as its main character loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and it is not very clear when he is telling the truth, and when he is lying. He seems to have made a living by making up stuff, and people around him believed him. I'm not sure how we are supposed to take this story - at the centre there seems to be a figure of ridicule, but then there are individuals who are scared to death of what has been uncovered because of this case.  The documentary itself is a bit of a waste of time, it deeps no deeper into its main character, although the production values are very high in this. Not recommened.