Richard Jones

Who knew that 8000 years before the Egyptian civilization, there were tribes of people who built even greater pyramids, iron chains, and domesticated horses? And that there was an African guy who could speak all the languages of the earth? And that adjacent to perpetually snow covered mountains, there was a tropical rainforest as well as an African savanna? There is just so much history to be learned in this cinematic masterpiece. Throw out your textbooks, rent this movie, and become edumacated. And oh yes, spoiler alert: a young girl who was killed by an arrow magically comes back to life to insure a happy ending. Brilliant!

I didn’t know anything about this movie (other than the stars) when I clicked on it on Netflix. But after just a few minutes watching, I knew a lot about it. Like it was obviously written and directed by a woman AND I, a male, was not the target demographic. It is too impossibly cute, giddy, and overacted, and utterly utterly predictable. My girlfriend quickly became annoyed as I correctly predicted the lines before they were actually spoken. The Holiday is like a bowl of ice cream. It’s sweet, comforting, and devoid of nourishment. And you know exactly what it’s going to taste like before it reaches your mouth.

A good depiction of what happens when you put lethal technology in the hands of immoral people, like the hero of this movie. Little concern is given to the multitude of innocent lives that are lost by this pilot simply trying to save himself. Blow up a barbecue restaurant because it serves your purpose? Why not! Cause a heat seeking missile to be delivered into a skyscraper office building in the middle of the workday? Go for it! Plant the helicopter in front of a moving train without thinking about the engineer and potential consequences? That a boy! This is a sophomoric film with no redeeming value or moral message. It’s just about helicopters flying around shooting at each other. If that’s your thing, great. But I hope you’re never in a position of leadership in this country. By the way, the acting was stilted and forced, resembling the old gangster movies of yore.

I thought the movie was trite and predictable, A familiar story told in a luxurious environment. It’s seems to be more about Conspicuous and ostentatious consumption than authentic romance or cultural revelation, and played on stereotypical themes that would be criticized if presented in a Caucasian production. As a non-Asian, middle class, and not fantastically good looking (and lacking a high class British accent ), I found nothing to relate to in the story or the cast. I felt like a man watching Sex In The City or 50 Shades of Gray: Feeling a bit out of place as really fashionable and wealthy people cavorted in a world I had no connection to.

Journalism with an agenda, objectivity be damned. It relies on interviews with biased and disgruntled figures representing one side of a conflict, each with an ax to grind, and posits surmise and innuendo as objective fact. It’s bias is exemplified by its dismissal of disfavored protesters as mere lemmings being guided and manipulated by invisible evil forces, while characterizing pro Russian demonstrations as organic and authentic expressions of popular sentiment. This is not a documentary; it’s opinion masquerading as fact.