The Purge: Election Year (2016)

As a primer for last night’s Vice President debates, I decided that I had to find a movie that could serve as a proper introduction. And while my selection may not have been as perfect as something like It or Killer Clowns from Outer Space after watching Tim Kaine’s clown impression, I do believe my selection was somewhat fitting. What was that? It was the 2016 action/horror flick The Purge: Election Year.

Plot/ Years after sparing the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Barnes has become head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, a Presidential candidate targeted for death on Purge night due to her vow to eliminate the Purge.

While there are issues with almost every sequel that exists, there are times where these flaws become very evident and can turn a viewer off. In this one, one of the most visible was the over use of stereotypes within the storyline that did not need to be used to get the point across. Personally, I hate seeing stereotypical behavior because it can take away from the overall message of the film. Like with the first films, the cast is decent with a couple solid performances, there is enough action, the blood and effects come across really well, and the storyline is intriguing (even if the idea and political overtones are polarizing and may not resonate with everyone). Of course, the politics in this movie will definitely turn some viewers off (even though it may skirt around our reality), as it comes across in a way that exploits many of the truths that people across this country (and the globe) want to ignore. As with many action/horror films, the performances are uneven and the dialog is all over, but those aspects do not really bring the movie down. In the end, this one will not be for everyone and it will likely fall into the love/hate spectrum that many horror flicks fall into. For me, I think it was an interesting change in the mythology of the series and a fitting movie for this overwhelmingly surreal election season. Who knows, depending on who wins the election, these movies may become survival guides.  

Occupy Unmasked (2012)

After suffering through Airborne, I decided to get back into something more hard hitting. Yes, I guess it was time again to venture into documentary world. I was going to jump back into the 911 conspiracy, but decided against it, I needed a little bit of a change. I did not stray that far with my selection, Occupy Unmasked from 2012.

 

 

This film is driven by the late Andrew Breitbart, who died sudddenly from a massive heart attack in March 2012. In this documentary, he dove deep beneath the surface  of the movement, and documented it in a way that the mainstream media, who have turned their back on the American citizen, should have.

 

 

Plot/ Occupy Unmasked takes viewers into the Occupy Wall Street camps around the country from New York to Los Angeles providing a first-hand look at violence and intimidation occurring within them, as well as to expose those at the heart of the events and to reveal the highly orchestrated nature of the movement. Exclusive footage and eyewitness accounts document criminal activity and raw brutality in the camps the majority of these incidents have not been reported by the mainstream media, which has in contrast portrayed the Occupy movement as self-organizing and non-violent.

 

 

This documentary on the Occupy Movement is one of the better documentaries I have watched in sometime. Hard hitting, pointed and powerful, the information that is put on display again points toward a lack of truth coming from the mainstream media outlets. A solid combination of news footage, first-hand accounts, and investigative journalism shows the dark underbelly of this movement, and how it began from a bogus concert advertisement to an anarchist movement made up of privileged and uniformed supporters of the far-left (see Michael Moore). All the while, the movement gained support from the Obama Administration as their chaos grew.  In the end, this is an eye-opening documentary that shows the dark and violent side of this radical movement that the mainstream media failed to cover or portray in a true light.