Playing Catch-Up (Reprise)

You didn't think I'd gone months having only watched 4 movies, did you?

Outpost
Surprisingly, I watched a 3rd decent horror flick this year. Ray Stevenson (Rome's awesome Titus Pullo, and the next Punisher) stars as the leader of a small mercenary group hired by a mysterious Englishman to serve as bodyguards on an expedition somewhere in Eastern Europe (which is the most specific the title card ever gets). Where are they headed? To a lost Nazi bunker, of course! Turns out the Nazi were big into conducting unethical experiments with human subjects (No! Really? The Nazis? I don't believe you). And because this is a horror film, there are other nasty surprises to be had. This is great B-movie fare, combining the best elements of Dog Soldiers and Event Horizon, but with Nazi pseudo-zombies. The characters are mostly one-dimensional, and everyone chews scenery, but the tone is kept creepy and the set design is a character of its own (very much like Session 9). And unlike other war-based horror movies (Deathwatch, The Bunker), this one pulls off its ending quite well.

Sharkwater
Sharkwater will probably be the most gorgeous film I see this year. Filmmaker Rob Stewart started as a professional underwater cameraman, so he knows how to capture the really great shots. And with Sharkwater, he uses those shots to bring light to a greatly overlooked problem: massive destruction of the shark population. Unregulated fishing is leading towards the possible extinction of sharks (the first time humans will have been responsible for the extinction of an apex predator). Even better than the beautiful cinematography is the ground-level view he brings. He collides with an illegal fishing boat, gets chased by gunships, is arrested, flees custody, and comes close to having his leg amputated. Exciting stuff for a documentary about big fish. The film's only real drawback is Stewart himself, whose passion for the subject is eclipsed only by his need to constantly make himself the main character. He's a buff, tanned surfer dude. And you can tell, because of the 20 or so shots of him walking around on the beach shirtless, staring meaningfully off into the horizon. When the camera is pointing the other way, the movie is great.

No End in Sight
This 2007 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary gives a fair, bi-partisan view of the Iraq war disaster (at this point, there really isn't any other word for it) and how it came to be. It doesn't set out to be an attack on the war, but the plain facts make it seem so. The filmmakers talk to the people that were there, from 20-something Army troops to former Secretary of State Richard Armitage. If I go into too much detail, I'll start ranting. Let me just say this: the person put in charge of running the traffic grid for all of Baghdad was a freshly-graduated Georgetown student with no traffic experience who didn't speak a word of Arabic. She was the daughter of a Bush campaign contributor. Ebert gave this 4 stars, and it deserved every one of them. It deserves every one of the many accolades it has earned. See this movie! It is on Netflix and can be viewed instantly. If I've made it sound like a finger-pointing, Michael Moore-esque film I assure you it is not.