farhang-bayat Reviews

Who Is America? (2018)

Sacha's Victory Lap over the Corpse of an Ideal

[10/10 · 16 July 2018]

I've been a huge fan of Sacha's works especially his Da Ali G days. But I did not see this coming from a mile away!

Honestly, I have been getting extremely disheartened by the political direction US has taken recently. The Republicans in charge are doing their best to get their goals across and all the media does is shine an either extremely positive (FOX and co.) or extremely negative (every other news channel and late show) light upon their actions. All we have are these jokes about why Republicans are dumb or long discussions over why democrats are fakes.

So, all I could do was sit at home, watch the country get reshaped, ridiculed and praised at the same time not having any idea what's gonna come next.

Sacha doesn't lessen any of my concerns here either, he seems as unsure of what's to come next just as me. However, he sees things as an outsider and what he sees is what I think I've seen; the decay of a right side to all this nonsense.

This is when things get interesting. Sacha doesn't shy away into self pity like I did. He treats all these matters as they are; the corpse of a ideal;, the once-believable thought that maybe a discussion could change your opponent's mind is out the window.

What do you do with a corpse though? You can either cry over the body you cannot save anymore or you can have your way with it for one last show. Stick its head, touch its skin and go "ewww!". He chooses the second; he dances over the corpse of an ideal way beyond saving.

The result is a fascinating four piece; Bernie seems to have given up all hope on common republicans, old-fashioned republicans believe that liberals have "Shape of Water" relationships in their marriages, an art gallery expert is too politically correct-restricted to show her justifiable disgust and finally a tally of republicans end up promoting gun licenses for 4 year olds.

Almost 20 years ago Sacha caused a controversy in US based on how uninformed people were of other cultures, lifestyles or generations. Now he just sits around letting people tear each other and themselves apart just because someone "not-like" them is there.

If Da Ali G was a little fire in the woods Sacha worked hard to stir that got some attention, Who is America is Sacha laughing in disbelief watching a forest fire nobody seems to mind. I don't about you but I'm ready to watch the mother burn with him!

Boyhood (I) (2014)

I'll never watch the Oscars again

[10/10 · 4 March 2015]

Thank you so much Oscars!

A bunch of ego-centric, self-loving, attention-needy group of people who feel the obligation to reward each other, have made history in what will be known as the year that "They f***ed up". This is a bigger rob than or at least as big as the one where "Citizen Kane" was not awarded Best Picture.

Now, keep in mind that Boyhood is not one of my favorite films of all time or anything.

But it's that grand, it's that important, and it's that different an experience that not recognizing it seems like a crime against humanity.

Many people will tell you that this film is boring, that nothing really happens, that the characters just grow in front of your eyes. To those people, I should say "THIS is life!"

This is life at its purest, most boring and still beautiful state.

How many of us feel like we just swift through the days without making a real impact?

How many times have we done nothing but observe the world around us without saying a word that actually mattered? Does that mean we weren't real? Does that make your life seem pointless? Does that make you boring?

The truth is, life is a very boring ritual connected through little flashes of fun, learning and experiments. It's those moments that help you get through the longer unimaginably boring hours awaiting.

So, keep this in mind; Boyhood is definitely DIFFERENT but never pretentious.

As far as the film is concerned, it more than anything feels like a recollection of the protagonist; the kind of things you remember about your life when you're standing on top of a mountain staring into a view too grand for you to digest; it's about the little things: the first time you got high, the first time you moved, the time you were bullied and so forth.

The truth is, as Richard Linklater has masterfully shown here, they don't come off as much when you look back at them, but it was the same little things that have made you different from anybody else around you.

Again, this is a film of moments, of recollections. But if I had to pick one as my favorite, it would be the scene with the teacher. It's so simple, so down to earth and so realistic it may as well be anyone's experience. It's easy to dismiss this as another one of those moments that just happened and didn't make a difference. But I like to think that it did, that it changed the protagonist's life around and that's why he remembers it.

The actors here have done something incredible; Patricia Arquette's final scene is as electrifying as anything ever captured on camera; it's not an act anymore, it's life. Ethan Hawke is marvelous in a role so minimalistic it could've turned into absolute garbage or space filler but instead he turns it into one of the most joyous performances in a supporting role ever. Even the kid actors, who everyone seems to want to hate on, have done an impressive job. I'm specially talking about the Ellar Coltrane who has managed to grow in front of camera and still not feel like a forced entry every time we set eyes on him as a year has passed on.

The real magic though comes from Richard Linklater, he turns away from his dialog-driven trilogy into a time-driven epic and he DOES NOT disappoint. Another aspect no one seems to want to talk about is the passage of time and culture, what other movie do you know that has managed to put in all this cultural reference into one pack? Technology, lifestyles, hairstyles, clothing, and most importantly music.

This films contains such a wide range of music it almost feels like Linklater was dared to put all these genres into one film and yet, it feels natural: From Britney Spears, to Blink-182 to Yo La Tengo, nothing seems out of place. The same way that you look back at your life and wonder how you used to like Backstreet Boys and then Eminem and then Linkin Park and how now you listen to indie rock and mock all the aforementioned.

At the end of the day, maybe this movie felt too close and personal to me to ignore. It was one of the last movies I watched with my family before leaving to come 10,000 miles away for 6 years; maybe that's why it felt so good to me.

But at least I'm willing to admit this not like those piece of s*** actors and directors who decided it was OK to reward a film as pretentious as Birdman and ignore this humane gold!

Dexter (2006–2013)

What could have been...

[4/10 · 9 October 2013]

I just started writing this review out of anger, because I still can't believe that I wasted 96 hours of my life on this piece of garbage. (Well, 48 to be exact) Dexter used to be so bad-ass once; it started with the premise of a serial killer who only kills bad guys to satisfy his thirst for blood. The first season was alright, with one really cool revelation at the end which added so much to Dexter's depth as a character. The 2nd expanded on that idea and was much better than the last. The 3rd, while a step back, was still great television and the 4th had one of the cruelest endings I had ever witnessed...

Then came those awful four seasons. The 5th starred Julia Roberts who's not anyone's favorite person in the world, grew into something okay and then ended dreadfully. Really, why the hell would Debra let two serial killers get away just because they were avenging some bad people? So why doesn't Dexter come out and go "hey Deb, while you're at it, I've been killing bad guys for 20 years apart from this, we cool?" but of course there's always a next season for that. The 6th season, which was very negatively received, had nothing! It just used shock horror, mutilated bodies and statue bodies to cover the void Dexter was starting to create. What the hell was that stupid revelation where we find the bad professor is dead and it's all his student's work? Why the hell would we see the psyche of another serial killer for six whole episodes? When did this show become "Dexter and Tom Hanks' Son"? And of course there was that EXCITING cliffhanger (that could have happened 12 episodes ago), and of course Showtime announced there would be two more Dexter seasons, so, no, nothing was going to happen again. The 7th season actually started nicely, with tension but then turned to the same sleeping pill Dexter had been for the previous 2 years. Introduction of Hannah didn't help either, her character was flat, boring and just played badly. I can't think of any other reason for her character to be there except for the actress to get naked, which she didn't do anyways. So this season ended so predictably that I didn't even think about Dexter for one whole year. Then the last one came; weird characters popped up: First was Zack, who was a bad guy for 3 episodes, a nice one for 10 minutes and then had his head opened up, but left some clues for Dexter. Great storytelling indeed. Then there was the bad guys who were all treated by Evelyn and apparently one of them ate people now and the other was into feet. Of course each of them lasted for 5 to 20 minutes each. So again, great job. Then came the Ryan Gosling lookalike who popped his eyes open to scare people and nothing more. Let's see what else, Evelyn talked a little, played videos and died, Deb did drugs, healed, kissed that pretty cop and died. Dex killed some bad guys, dropped Deb, drove into the storm and didn't die.

And what a storm that was! CGI effects that even made a film like Disaster Movie look like Citizen Kane, and of course every time a black smoke comes over Miami the whole town goes insane, and of course nobody learned that Dex was a serial killer, and of course Harrison will be better off with Hannah than with whoever the hell is taking care of Astor and Cody, and of course Astor and Cody won't even get a goodbye call from Dex since he never loved them and of course that pretty cop will let Dex off the hook after he so calmly killed a prisoner because he caused his girl to go under a surgery and then die and of course some idiots will call this series the greatest television show of all time and never watch Breaking Bad or The Wire or for that matter even According to Jim which I personally hate but would rather watch 100 times rather than this vulgar garbage and of course...

I gave this show 4 stars because of its great first 4 seasons, now I would've advised you to watch those 4 seasons but then you would be so drawn to the show that you'd start watching the rest as well and then you'll feel as crappy as I do now. So please don't watch this. It's for your own sake.