Day: August 10, 2016

I haven’t talked a long time about the last spirit awards. You know, the independent film awards that takes place the day before the Oscars? Where most of the winners are actually movies up for Oscars as well?

I tried to watch a lot of them, but after the awards, yeah, I cared less. But I really wanted to see (T)error, one of the films up for Best Documentary. Title wise, it looked interesting, but I just had no way of seeing it. Thankfully, end of June Netflix added it to its roster. And yes, it took me a whole month still to watch and review it, but that is because I was hit with an influx of documentaries in theaters that sent me screeners.

Needless to say, when I finally made time to watch it, I was very excited. I didn’t even try to write another review during it. Hell, I didn’t even multi task and watch the Olympics during it. Just me and a documentary, full screen, subtitles up just in case, ready.

And also, just to be clear, about 20 minutes into it, I thought about stopping it for the night and reading instead. But I will get into that with more detail later.

Just what is (T)error about? Well the filmmakers were friends with Saeed Torres, and eventually, they found out that one of his jobs was actually as an FBI informant. He was a Muslim in real life and was very devout, but he also infiltrated specific Muslim sects in America when they needed him, to get information on suspected terrorists. Well, Saeed was thinking about finally stopping this job, he was tired of it. So sure, he let them film his perceived last “mission” and he didn’t tell the FBI he was going to do it.

This isn’t the face of terrorism, this is just a troll on the internet. Come on, FBI.

The man above is Khalifah al-Akili, American born, raised Protestant, and later turned Muslim and got really into it. Sure, he might have gotten a bit to into the Jihad side of it. He had a lot of books on guerrilla warfare, military tactics, and more, but was he a terrorist? Was he going to attack America?

That is what Saeed, or Shariff (his undercover name) had to find out. That meant moving into his community, going to his mosque, befriending him, and yeah, eventually finding out how serious he was about the whole thing. While the FBI prodded Saeed along, making him ask more and more invasive questions while also making harsher and more direct suggestions to Khalifah.

And well, I won’t go into any more of it. Because things started to get really crazy. Or upsetting. And shocking. And it went to 11 and at that point, yes, then I could no longer look away.

Like I suggested early, the documentary started off slow. And yes, it was one of my biggest issues with it and enough to knock it a point down the rating. It started out excited, but got bored with the early aspects of him heading to find Khalifah, with his past history, etc. But god damn did it get really good. Like, really really good. Like, more people should see this damn documentary.

We got shady government actions and more folks. If you are one of the people who binged Making a Murderer, you would love this documentary as well. It goes places I didn’t think possible, while maintaining its credibility as non involved documentary people. Sort of.

And yet, I almost stopped it earlier on to go read.

I have never read or heard The Little Prince book before, but that because I had an empty childhood. Just kidding, I had Pokemon and that was enough for me.

I did, however, play a board game The Little Prince: Make Me A Planet before though. Only once. And like, three years ago. But it apparently stuck with me, so that many elements present in the game I was able to remember and notice in the actual film version of The Little Prince.

But let’s get to the issue. This took way too long to get released in America. It was released in the summer of 2015 last summer in France! Agh! Not America! It was supposed to be released by Paramount in March in America, but a week before release they suddenly decided to drop it from their schedule as well. No news on distribution or eventually released. Sometime later, the pros at Netflix said they would handle it and gave it a nice worldwide release, finally in America and other countries. All hail Netflix, bringer of tales, singer of stories.

They took one long look at the script and declared the crazy old writer to be a genius!

As you would have guessed from the title, The Little Prince is a story about a girl. The Little Girl (Mackenzie Foy) is being pressured by her mom (Rachel McAdams) to get into a very good school for kids. The interview does not go well, so they decide to move into a house in the school’s neighborhood, getting in by proxy. The girl’s whole life is scheduled by the mom, to ensure future academic and financial success.

The reason they were able to get the house is because it was next to a shoddy house. In the house lived an old man, an aviator (Jeff Bridges). He was constantly fiddling with his plane and making a racket. Eventually The girl goes and talks to him, finds out he also is an artist. Over time, he tells her the story of his encounter with The Little Prince (Riley Osborne), a boy who lived on a planet barely big enough for a single person.

The aviator learns of his travels around the galaxy, learns some life lessons and so on. And you know what? The little girl is going to learn some lessons of her own.

Also featuring the voice work of Marion Cotillard, Paul Rudd, James Franco, Benicio Del Toro, Ricky Gervais, Bud Cort, Paul Giamatti, and Albert Brooks.

“Trust me little girl, I’ve got a beard!”

The Little Prince was unlike most other animated films. Yes, it is accessible to families and kids of all ages, but it seems like something an adult would learn more from than their kids. We have a story within a story, where the inner story is the normal The Little Prince story. The added elements of the overworked girl are completely original and the entire last third act is all about her and her own adventure.

I was worried that it would be too complex for kids but a 5 and 6 year old seemed to enjoy it throughout, despite the slower beginning. The layered stories kept me interested, but the ending wasn’t as good as the beginning and middle.

The animation was different for the different story parts as well, with the animation for The Little Prince segment being unique and fantastic. The rest of the animation is pretty standard CGI and a bit uninspiring. It makes sense for the animation to be different, but one would hope that the animation for the majority of the film was just standard.

The Little Prince is still worth your time, although book elitists may get annoyed at the extra material. My only real annoyance was that the new material wasn’t as interesting in the very end and that the animation was a bit uninspiring in an otherwise inspiring story.