Knowledge is true power and Miss Jiya, a teacher for a local school in Pakistan wields her knowledge with the ferocity of the superheroine “The Burka Avenger.” In a world where heroines are sexualized, it’s interesting to see that the Burka Avenger primarily clothes herself from head to toe in a burka, which allows her a stealth and grace that make her a deadly opponent; but definitely not deadly in the violent sense, but deadly in implementing non-violence and her intellect to defeat her foes.
Whether you agreed with Roger Ebert or his ideas in his last days of life, you have to agree after watching “Life Itself” that he followed the age old adage. He stood up to live to before he sat down to write. Folks that wrote off Roger Ebert as a rotund movie geek will be surprised to find out that beyond film, he was obsessed with living life. And though he was in some ways egomaniacal, he was also filled with humility, and used the power of the written word to boost the lives of people like Martin Scorsese.
You could likely consider “The Legend of Billie Jean” a precursor to “Thelma And Louise.” It’s a film about female empowerment, and young women dealt terrible injustices that become folk heroes. Not to mention “The Legend of Billie Jean” has every chance to become exploitative man hating trash, but very cleverly straddles the line between goofy eighties adventure, and compelling coming of age drama. I won’t claim “The Legend of Billie Jean” is a straight faced character study, but it’s a fun and often exciting tale of a young woman who takes the world by the balls when she stands up for herself.
Home invasion films have been a staple of cinema for decades. A family or group of strangers are held hostage by a group of people, and are forced to learn something about themselves, and others. Often times when the home invaders are monsters, the flaws come seeping to the surface. In either case, in honor of “The Purge: Anarchy” which seems to have gotten its own concept right, hopefully: we posted five great home invasion films. “The Purge” was by no means a great film, nor a good one, but it helped us re-live a lot of our favorite home invasion thrillers, and here are five of our favorites.
I’ve admittedly never read the graphic novel upon which “Son of Batman” was based on. I highly doubt I’m missing much, since “Son of Batman” is an unpleasant, tedious, and boring affair that offers little in entertainment value. I’m not sure why, but Damian Wayne, the son of Batman, is apparently very popular with Batman fans. But I can’t really figure out what his appeal is. Damian is obnoxious, irritating, and I really wanted to see him perish at the hands of Deathstroke.
It’s a shame that “The Purge” is only sub-par since the concept for it is fantastic. A new society allowing the world to murder, steal and wreak havoc for twelve hours as a means of catharses is a really good concept for a wonderful film. I imagine the scenario for the development of “The Purge” was something similar to “The Player.” A writer comes in pitching a great concept but with absolutely no story to offer the studio. So instead they just tacked on a half assed home remake of “Assault on Precinct 13” with a sanctimonious commentary on free will, and patriotism.
Superman once told villain Black Adam “I fight for people that can’t fight for themselves.” Unfortunately we don’t live in a world where there’s a Superman that can fight for the weak and speak for people without a voice. There are still plenty of Supermen and Superwomen out there, but it’s becoming so much tougher to find them these days.