THE CULTURE HIGH (2014)

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The follow up documentary to The Union: The Business Behind Getting High this takes a deeper look at the reasoning behind the long prohibited plant and mines this subject with depth, intelligence and logical argument.

Why is this war being waged against a plant and its many beneficial properties? How is the general consensus going to be changed? Why is it like this? Who lied and when?

The Culture High answers these questions and more. Filled with talking heads from many highly esteemed professionals; doctors, high ranking police, politicians, musicians, journalists, scientists and psychologists, this blows the lid off the many mysteries surrounding this sacred herb. The illegality of it boils down to politics, big corporations, lies, propaganda, the drug cartels all the way to the prison business corporations (and it clearly is a business that certain people are making a LOT of money from).

What was great about this documentary is that it eschews the usual ‘pot is fun’ mantra to excavate what this means to us as a society and the many benefits of legalizing it across the board. This is a serious documentary that is intelligent, informative and insightful.

Featuring interviews with, amongst many others, ex-police detective, Ed Burns (writer and producer of The Wire), entrepreneur Richard Branson, The Young Turks presenters, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, writers Howard Marks, Graham Hancock and Howard Bloom, musicians, Snoop Dogg, B Real and Wiz Khalifa, producer Bianca Barnhill, David Nutt, who was famously sacked from his position on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs because his study contradicted the party line and many more, this is a doc you need to check out.

Filled with facts, figures, research, debunked myths and hope for the future, this is one for the converts and the yet to be educated. Adam Scorgie, who presented The Union is on narration and producing duties here and does a sober job of getting the facts across and Brett Harvey does a fine job of directing, as he did with The Union.

Watch and recommend to others. Education is the only way to break through the lies and ignorant views that have been criminally perpetuated over the years.

4/5

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CHAPPIE (2015)

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In 2004 Neill Blomkamp made a short film called Tetra Vaal, about a weapons corporation who make police robots. It was smart, innovative and it looked incredible.

 

This short gave birth to the idea of Chappie, a robot designed to be law enforcement whose maker, Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) discovers a way to give Chappie artificial intelligence. And so, Chappie is born, learning very quickly under the guidance/parenting of Wilson, Ninja and Yo-landi Visser (the South African hip hop outfit, Die Antwoord) and Yankie (Jose Pablo Cantillo from The Walking Dead), Chappie grows into an amalgam of moral sense and street-smarts.

Wilson works for the company Tetra Vaal, which is a weapons manufacturer run by Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver) as does Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman sporting a haircut from the bogan barber). Wilson is an engineer at heart and wants to advance his research with the A.I. but is stopped by Bradley as she feels it is not worth the companies money. He goes ahead anyway downloading the consciousness into a robot headed for the scrap heap and fun ensues.

I was looking forward to this film a lot, having avoided Elysium due to poor reviews, I was excited about the prospect of Blomkamp revisiting his original story.

It is a fun film that isn’t amazing but manages to entertain. The problem is the script that is just not tight enough. There are holes and leaps that defy logic, and I’m not talking about putting consciousness into a machine, that, I can suspend my disbelief for, it’s more about the composition of the story-telling. It doesn’t quite gel. Jackman is uninspiring, not terrible, he can act, maybe he’s miscast or more likely, his role is not fleshed out enough, a stereotypical villain role.

The effects, like in District 9 are great, seeing Chappie go to work is a joy.

It is strange that Ninja and Yo-landi are ostensibly playing the characters they utilize in Die Antwoord and using their own names, an unnecessary choice on behalf of Blomkamp. It was fun seeing them do their thing, though.

The problem with Blomkamp’s work to date is the scriptage. D9 was so different that any qualms were quashed by the journey but here it feels that he has work to do. There is potential, masses of it, but it falls just a tad short.

Worth a watch if you are into sci-fi, robots and big concepts.

3/5

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