Recount (2008)

This HBO feature offers a fairly detailed and engaging look at the legal and political battles behind the awarding of Florida’s disputed 25 electoral votes in the 2000 election. Though the makers and some cast members claim the film to be unbiased, and I saw nothing in the film that appeared to be out-and-out wrong, the Democrats are certainly the hero’s/victims of the movie. Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, and Ed Beagly Jr. play committed and highly ethical members of the Gore camp Ron Klain, Michael Whouley, and David Boies respectively. John Hurts Warren Christopher comes off as a kind of Neville Chamberlain figure, while Laura Dern’s Kathryn Harris is pretty much delusional and easily manipulated. Tom Wilkinson, who was so effecting in Michael Clayton as a remosrfull corporate lawyer, does bring some sympathy to the part of James Baker, but mostly he’s the hard-A bad guy. Still I like these kind of movies, they can get people talking. Three out of Five.

WALL-E (2008)

The consistency of the quality of the product that has come out of Pixar is truly remarkable, it’s the way Disney was back in the day. The companies newest feature length release, WALL-E, continues this pattern, in fact I’d say it’s their current pinnacle, and my favorite Pixar release to date. WALL-E is an absolutely wonderful motion picture, a herald worthy accomplishment. It is both a pointedly simple meditation on love, and a sweeping, even biting social commentary, one that only Pixar could present in so direct yet palatable a form.

The picture opens in the early 29th century, 700 years after humanity has abandoned the Earth to a veritable sea of garbage and ruin. WALL-E is the last continually running unit of what was once an army of matanince robots, all tasked with cleaning up the mess man had made of Earth. WALL-E spends his days compacting stacks of trash into cubs, which he then stacks into giant sky scraper like monuments to the wastefulness of the human race. It is our long gone species and its idea’s which fascinate WALL-E. In addition to his job ( in robot parlance ’directive’), and taking care of his pet cockroach, one of the last living things on the planet, WALL-E collects knick-knacks the humans left behind, and becomes obsessed with a surviving video cassette of the 1969 musical Hello, Dolly. From that Gene Kelly directed film he learns the concept of love, and longs for some equal to share his endless time with.

It seems that WALL-E’s fondest hope may be realized when he receives a visitor from space. A Macintosh looking probe named EVE, sent to Earth with a secrete directive. WALL-E attempts, quite awkwardly to court EVE, and eventually wins her over. When EVE is recalled to her mother ship WALL-E stows along, there to discover what’s left of the human race living in a giant outer space shopping mall controlled by the Buy-N-Large corporation, the mega syndicate responsible for the Earth’s condition in the first place. The people are fat, ignorant, lazy, and easily amused, waited on by an army of robots dedicated to their perpetual directive to ‘serve’ man. Here WALL-E will embark on a visually stunning adventure to prove his love for EVE, and maybe in the process save the human race from them selves.

The film borrows simultaneity from the great science fiction pieces of film making, most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as silent cinema (with large chunks of the film basically free of dialogue) most notably Chaplin’s City Lights, which is the movies tonal cousin. It’s awe inspiring, the shots of space, the ship, and the decimated earth, the latter almost heartbreaking. Defiantly worthy of a big screen viewing, or two. I was most pleasantly overwhelmed and inspired by this film, and strongly recommend the reader see it. The best movie so far this summer. Five out of Five.

American Madness (1932)

I have wanted to see this movie sense I first heard about it roughly a decade ago, but it was only on Monday that I came across my first copy of the film. This is Capra pre- It Happened One Night (1934) , but in its social consciousness it has perhaps more in common with the directors work from his Mr. Deeds (1936) to State of the Union (1948) period. The Film stars Walter Huston as an idealistic bank president, a character inspired by Bank of America founder Amadeo Giannini. Huston’s Thomas Dickson prides himself on running a peoples bank, where folks who can’t get a loan else where can come to get money, his only requirement being if this sterling judge of character feels he can trust them. Unfounded rumors of the banks insolvency, spurred by an inside job robbery, cause a run on the bank. Dickson’s efforts to save the institution he labored 25 years to build almost come to not, as he is left deviated by evidence his wife may have cheated on him (she did not). His top employee Matt Brown (a young Pat O’Brian) and his fiancée (Constance Cummings) call on some of Dicksons old loan recipients, who come pouring in to put their money in the bank, inspiring the board of directors to do the same and save the institution. Fine populist film making explores the directors love of individuals, but fear of ‘people’. Three out of Five.

27 Dresses (2007)

I like Katherine Heigl, not only is she gorgeous to look at, but she also speaks her mind. Witness her recent “snubbing” of the writers for her own Gray’s Anatomy, and a Vanity Fair interview in which she decried the film that made her an A list star, Knocked-Up, for its sexism ( A kind of oddly reversed sexism is defiantly on display in that film, but its also awesome so I forgive it). This being said I wonder what she would have to say about this film, 27 Dresses. It’s a formula picture by conception, and didn’t seem inclined towards taking many risks, though it did go meaner then I’d expected and for that I respect it. Heigl anchors the film well, develops her character to satisfaction, but is not exactly challenged. Still her charisma helps carry the piece, boied up as well by James Marsden, who gets to do more then just smile in this one. Judy Greer continues to play the bridesmaid both on film and in a career sense, star her in a picture and I’ll go see it because she’s certainly due. Three out of Five.

Friends of God: A Road Trip with Alexandra Pelosi (2007)

Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and maker of the delightful documentary Journeys With George, now turns her attention to the American Evangelical community. Friends of God is as its subtitle informs us a road trip, Pelosi and a small crew travel across the United States, primary in the south, to take a look at the goings on among the countries Evangelicals, with a particular emphasis on politics. All of the expected area’s of interest are covered, anti-evolution activism, the pro-life movement, opposition to same sex marriage, Republican political canvassing, road side crosses, youth outreach groups, even the Christian Wrestling Federation. It’s a good primer, and Pelosi manages to seem non judgmental despite our knowing full well what her politics are. Pelosi is less front and center in this film then in George, but her ability to be disarming is on full display, she gets full access to both rank and file evangelicals and their promanite leaders, including the now late Jerry Falwell, and now discredited Ted Haggard. Worth your 56 minute if you are at all interested in this area. Three and a half out of Five.

See Also: Jesus Camp (2006)

A Man For All Seasons (1966)

The recently passed Paul Scofield excels in his performance as Sir Thomas Moore, which shouldn’t be surprising as he played the role on the London stage. This is a sympathetic portal of Moore, who was doubtless a complicated man, which focuses on his unwavering sense of morality and religious commitment. A staunch Catholic, despite his recognition of the Churches many abuses during that era (16th Century), he opposed both Luther and his own King Henry VIII’s efforts at reformation. That opposition to the King would cost him his head, but not before a really good trial scene. Features a gregarious Robert Shaw, a small cameo role for Orson Wells, and a young John Hurt. Four out of Five. Also any movie with Leo McKearn is bound to be good.

Click (2006)

Mysterious Bed, Bath & Beyond employee Christopher Walken gives workaholic Adam Sandler a magical remote control to aid him in his busy life. At first we get some predictable, Bruce Almighty type sight gages, but later the film does get deeper as Sandler discovers how much he misses by "fast forwarding" through life, both via the magical remote and his more lineal workaholism. The message of the film is that we miss the important things in life, namely family, if we concentrate to hard on material advancement. The sequences in which Sandler see’s a future in which he has largely alienated his own family, and suffers various health problems from his lack of good self matenence, are unusually resent for the actors comic work, they even boarder on being moving. In the end Sandler has his George Baily moment of personal understand and reconnects to family life with renewed gusto. Three out of Five.

Internal logic issue: Heterosexual man fast forwards through marriage to Kate Beckinsale, I don’t think so.

Love Nest (1951)

With my recent emphasis on viewing all the Oscar Best Picture winners I hadn’t yet seen, and the generally weighty nature of said films, I decided I need to see something light and inconsequential. I selected Love Nest because it had then future Tonight Show host Jack Parr in it, playing a lawyer who serves as love interest to Marlyin Monroe, then on the cusp of her stardom (its doubtful that without Monroe’s presence this film would have ever been released to DVD). The nominal stars of the film are William Ludigan, who plays a solder just returned from the second World War, and June Havre as his wife, who has sunk their savings into an aging apartment building for which they will serve as land lords. Of course the building proves a money pit, and some of the tenets are characters. The biggest character is Frank Fay, who plays a kind of good natured con man and gives the performance of the film, as well as ultimately saving the day. Light and likable despite taking a little while to get going. Three out of Five.

George Carlin Dies

You know I always liked George Carlin. Of course he cultivated the aura of a cynic, but that’s just because he was such a frustrated idealist. His recurring role on the PBS children’s show Shinning Time Station, as well as in some of the Kevin Smith movies, to me demonstrate he was really just an old softy inside. I’ll miss him, he was one of the few subjects I could talk with my Uncle Terry about.

My favorite George Carlin joke (probably because I find it so easy to remember): “Little known fact: A goldfish can kill a grizzly bear. Of course it requires a substantial element of surprise.”

Cinemathematics

Flickhead

The Evolution of Movie Credits.

Cyd Charisse: 1922-2008: "She had great legs"

The Happening (2008)

With his two last films (2004's The Village, 2006's Lady in the Water) widely considered failures, director M. Night Shyamalan despritly needed a success to break the streak. While early numbers for his most recent entry show it to have not been able to compete with The Hulk, I believe that The Happening will ultimately be regarded a success, though likely to do better business as a rental then theatrically. Here Shyamalan does not stray from the elements that have become his signature, a phanstamical story seen through the eyes of characters who provide counterpoint through some internal or relational crises, a strong sense of mood, and an eye for the dark and apocalyptic subtextes of the modern world, perhaps to obviously on the latter. However the film does show some progression by the film maker as the importance of ‘The Twist’ another Shyamalan signature, has decreased with each film subsequent to Signs (2002). Here the twist, if it can be called that, is tacitly reveled fairly early in the film, though the uber construction of the piece drops enough hints early on that an observant viewer, familiar with the directors style, should be able to pic up on the culprit within the first 15 minutes.

The movie is heavily influenced by two earlier and superior films, Hitchcock’s The Birds and Luis Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel, so much so that to me the film can be summed up as largely a hybrid of the two. However Shyamalan’s lead character’s (here abely if not amazingly rendered by Mark Wahlburg and Zoey Daschenel)* prove as always sympathetic suragets and worthy traveling companions for the films succinct 90 minute running time. Though the piece starts out very strong with some memorable images, it largely reverts to Shyamalan’s old type less then half way through, with much of the ending being relatively weak. Non-the-less I found that the directors bug did manage to get under my skin and I want to see this movie again soon. I am left therefor with an oddly compelling 3 ½ out of 5.

* I thought the films best performance however was by a construction worker in an opening sequence of the picture. You’ll know it when you see it.

Oliver (1968)

Kind of the last gasp of the old Hollywood musical, only it was made in England. This is of course a musical adaptation of Dickens Oliver Twist, and there are some pretty good songs, impressive choreography, and really nice production design, but I still got board. It’s well done, but I think my capacity for really enjoying these kind of productions dried up years ago, still I prefer it to My Fair Lady. The most interesting thing about this movie for me is that Carol Reed won the Academy Award for directing it. He does an able job here, but I much prefer his earlier corkier fair such as Night Train to Munich (1940) or The Third Man (1949). 2 ½ out of Five.

See Instead: Scrooge (1970); Oliver and Company (1989).

Confessions of A Superhero (2007)

Documentary about those folks who dress up as superhero’s and cartoon characters and take pictures with tourists in front of Grumans Chinese Theater. It takes a certain kind of person to do that for a living and the ‘characters’ profiled here are certainly interesting. Batman has an appropriately dark past and temper and may or may not have killed some people back in the 80's. Wonder Women always wanted to escape here east Tennessee preachers daughter existence and become an actress, now she’s stuck in a bad marriage and trying out for any part she can get (including a cashier in a commercial for an interactive American Idol game). Superman is obsessed, dating a grad student in psychology and claims to be the son of the late actress Sandy Dennis, which he may or may not be. Ironically The Hulk is the best adjusted of the group. Fascinatingly compelling character study that’s just brilliant. It bowled me over, I loved it. Five out of Five.

The Sting (1973)

Supremely well executed caper movie. Straight forward for a film about deception. A kind of spiritual brother to and unofficial sequel for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Four out of Five.

The Dear Hunter (1978)

Director Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece. It has a tremendous then young cast including Robert De Nero and Christopher Walken, though I think Meryl Streep makes the biggest impression, you forget just how beautiful she was at that age, not to mention talented. The film is also intricately constructed which makes it just that much more impressive as it is one of the most naturalistic films I’ve ever seen. Take the beginning of the film, the first forty minutes or so covers just one day, but it is done in an almost cinema verta style, with each scene building on each other, but not in a forced, or apparently even directed way. You get the impression that this is a very important day in the lives of this group of friends, it is the day one of them gets married, and three of them prepare to ship off to Vietnam, but you feel this as though you were the characters, you live it with them natural as it would have occurred, valuing it as such, not just as the ground points for a larger plot later to develop.

The plot itself could be said to be the lest naturalistic thing about the movie, how many solders in Vietnam were actually forced to play Russian roulette for their captures (as incredibly powerful and intense a sequence though this may be). However there is nothing fake about the performances, and the intensity of this key event of the narrative, allows for the actors to express the collective national experience of horror and disillusionment that befell us through Vietnam, and it also makes the ending, which could be viewed as corny, work. That these are working class guys, whose home in Pennsylvania’s poorer quarters and implied life in its steel mills is its own kind of hell, puts them more on par with the Vietnamese among whom they serve then the elites of their own society, who are entirely absent from the picture. In fact I have a hard time even calling this a political film, though the trace elements are undeniable. It is mostly a film about people, relationships, love, and the horror of war, things eminently more important and universal then mere political joking about Vietnam. A worthwhile piece that has rightly been called a populist epic, it’s a work of art that finds great beauty, sadness and reality in its subject matter. Five out of Five.

Emma Smith: My Story (2008)

The figure of Emma Hale Smith, the first and only legally recognized wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, is a difficult figure for mainline Mormons to grapple with. While intensely loyal to her husband she was vehemently opposed to polygamy, actively worked against it in Nauvoo. During the difficult succession crises following Joesph’s death Emma sided not with the pro-polygamy Brigham Young, but rather with the monogamy supporting Sidney Rigdon. She would go one to"poison" her children against the mainline Church, lending her support, if not terribly proactively, to the RLDS movement under her son Joseph III. She would even have a twenty year marriage to a non-Mormon Major who ended up cheating on her, and whose son by a mistress she would raise as her own. It is perhaps no wonder that her most well known biography is titled Mormon Enigma.

The complicated character of Emma Smith made me particularly intrigued to see how she would be rendered in a mainstream Mormon film like this one. I had not high expectations, and perhaps that’s why the film surprised me so much. I was in fact so impressed immediately after viewing that I could probably have raved about the thing, yet I held back and gave myself time to ruminate on the proceedings, knowing full well that if I thought about it awhile my enthusiasm was likely to moderate. It did. This not to say that I came to view this as a bad film, it is in fact a good film, with an engaging narrative and satisfactorily inspiring to mainline Mormons. Neither is it a historically inaccurate one, I myself noticed only one out and out inaccuracy.(1) However it is a carefully framed film, in which the events of Emma’s life are carefully culled to present a faith promoting picture fit for a Relief Society class. Any difficulties in the Smith marriage (of which we know there were a number) are completely neglected, save for polygamy (which would have been THE ISSUE of the final two or so years of the marriage) which is dealt away with in a mere sixty seconds of dialog, in which an elderly Emma tells her daughter Julia the she "will not speak of it".(2) In short the marriage comes across as though it were something out of Jane Austin.

But the story of Emma was ultimately a sad one and the movie does capture a good bit of that, the constant moving and persecution, her estrangement from her fathers family, the deaths of a number of her and Joseph’s children, Joseph’s death, and Major Biedman’s subsequent betrayal, all ending in a death from cancer in 1879. She bore it nobly I think, this movie certainly wants to make that point. The film however does not deal with its subject figure in the fullness of her identity but rather gives us a sympathetic and faith promoting construct, a mythology that will provide for the believing Mormon an acceptable model for approaching Emma Smith. But what more could one expect, nor how much better or more complete could her life be rendered, we have no way of knowing for sure what went on behind those walls in Harmony, Manchester, Hiram, De Witt and Nauvoo. Indeed it is as true of Emma as it is of Joseph, no man knows her history. Three out Five.

1. The publishing of the early (in fact the first) anti-Mormon book: Mormonism Unveiled, is implied to be around 1832, when in fact it was published in 1834.

2. Such dialog is in itself not at all a stretch, as Emma didn’t like to speak of plural marriage and throughout her life insisted to her children that their father never practiced polygamy, but rather that such arraignments had been introduced to the Church by Brigham Young and others, something she knew to be false.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

I was excited by the prospect of seeing another Indiana Jones movie when I first heard that the fourth installment was finally coming out, but when I saw the trailer I started to think that maybe it had just been to long. The great thing about the Indiana Jones saga however is that it is a history of all the 20th Century, though from a decidedly macho-American, Saturday morning serial point of view. I was a big fan of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, both the ambitious early 90's televison series and the ‘young adult’ novels which I devoured in Middle School (they had this great rhythmic structure where every other chapter ended with a cliff hanger) .Crystal Skull provided me with all that I would want in an Indiana Jones adventure, all of the right buttons were pushed: A well executed period setting, action sequences, Karen Allen, uniformed foreign villains, ancient treasures, bobby traps, magic type things, smart alacky remarks and the much hated snakes (plus the hat). It was great, both as an independent story and an homage which brought that childlike quality all back, though it also probably helped some that I hadn’t seen anything Indiana Jones in about a decade or more. I just loved it, I wonder why so many of my friends have been holding back on their praise, the movie was everything it could possibly hope to be. Five out of Five.

Nit I Noticed: During the first of the ‘Red Line on a Map’ travel sequences the ‘thin red line’ passes the nation of Belize. This labeling is incorrect as in 1957 that region was known as British Honduras, it would not change its name until gaining independence in 1981.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)

The big ‘liberal’ documentaries (Fahrenheit 9/11, An Inconvenient Truth) get all the media love and attention, while the ‘conservative’ ones are ignored. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is the only documentary I can think of, with such an obvious built in audience of religious conservatives, to achieve wid-spread or semi wid-spread theatrical distribution. As I generally make a point of seeing films, especially documentary’s, that are ‘controversial’ and hence good conversation and blog fodder, I caught this one on its last night at the local Reel.

Hosted by that one of a kind showmen Ben Stein, simply put this is a film about the concept of Intelligent Design and how it is excluded from serious consideration by the scientific and academic ‘establishment’. Now Intelligent Design is a concept that requires a little unpacking, these are vague words especially when used in combination, and could really mean any number of things. Generally as discussed in the media ‘ID’ is treated as a code word for literalistic Biblical creationism, something one would call teaching Genesis in schools, if one didn’t want to admit to (or deal with the legal ramifications of) teaching Genesis in schools. This definition is certainly what is meant by some Intelligent Design advocates, but it is neither the exclusive nor even the most accurate summation of ID.

Intelligent Design could be most basically rendered as the idea or theory that life, in its great complexity was not arrived at by chance, but rather bears the imprint of some intelligent originator. The traditional sky God who came down and made the Earth and everything on it out of nothing, would be but one example of an intelligent designer, however one for which specific evidence is not found, as far as objective evidence is scientifically understood to be. Intelligent Design simply questions the old Darwin understanding of life coming about and evolving through shear chance, random genetic mutations simply improving on one another, increasing complexity derived not through any kind of direction, but via what could only be described as luck, and luck of only the most insanely minuscule of mathematical probabilitys to occur.

The film sites, via expert and cheesy illustrative cartoon, how the most basic form of life would require at minium 265 proteins coming together in an exact sequence and working in concert. This is likened to getting a floor of slot machines to all pay out there total holdings one after another, with just one turn at each machine. It’s not very likely, indeed exceedingly not likely, and indeed apparently even less likely then the example given to occur. In addition to which the doc points out that there is no scientific agreement on how life first started on this planet to begin with. The old stand by, which I learned from science class and Star Trek, is that lightening struck a boiling mud puddle some where a billion years ago, causing some amino acids to bond together and create life. In effect this is a variation on the spontaneous generation theory once popular in ancient Greece, and now so much discredited that I remember disproving it as a class exercise in elementary school. The other most prominent theories are that life started on the backs of crystals, which are prone to variation and mutation, and on which simple proteins and acids would have been piggybacked into odd formations that eventually resulted in life. The other theory is that aliens ‘seeded’ life here, (again with the Star Trek) which is in fact a form of intelligent design, though then you get the question of from whence the Aliens, which is basically the same as the from whence God question, so there you go.

Given the inherent limitations of any theory as to the origin and progression of life, it would seem appropriate for the scientific community to reflect the zeitgeist and be open to a variety of explanations. However, as the film painstakingly and perhaps overly documents, qualified scientists who undertake to work on or publish anything that takes the idea of intelligent design even remotely seriously, tend to lose there jobs or at lest not get tenure. For more information on this you can reference Seattle’s Discovery Institute, which seems to be the scientific hub for the pro ID vestiges of academia, and apparently catalogs such horror stories.

But why would the scientific establishment be adverse to even considering ID, especially given the limitations of the theories so far expounded? This is because, says the doc, ID challenges the dogmatic assumptions of many scientists in the same why that evolution challenges those of the religious fundamentalist. Darwinism is an article of faith, codified and hallowed, enshrined as a unquestionably basic componit of the universe. Stein takes us to the home of Charles Darwin, now meticulously kept and preserved as a museum. You see old papers and specimen jars, bones and scientific equipment. There is a Victorian sitting room where you can just picture Charles and a close circle of associates siting and conversing, challenging assumptions, and unintentionally creating a new dogmatism. This holding of Darwin and his thinking as essentially the religion of the secularist scientist is further brought home by an eerily life like statue of the man in the museum presumable adjoining his old residence. He sits like Lincoln in his monument, inscrutable, mystifying, yet of a great presence, like an old Catholic icon, there for the veneration of the faithful and the subtle existential angst of the unbeliever. The place is a scientific Vatican, Jerusalem, Mecca or Temple Square.

Like the more virulent defenders, apologist, and unrelenting zealots of the old religions, this scientific establishment has sponded its own aggressive front lines. Surely there is a fear that if something as basic as Darwinian evolution is effectively challenged that other things will follow, an unraveling of authority, a domino theory of what could diminish science and its prestige. For that reason there is little coloring outside the lines allowed in ‘the establishment’. 2006 was a banner year for those most pointedly desiring to fight back against the tied of anti-scientism, which they believe (and from there point of view perfectly rightly) to be wedded to ‘religion’ especially of the conservative variety, but actually encompassing anything that accepts the sky god (or any anthropomorphized god) of tradition. Christopher Hitchins, Richard Harris, and Richard Dawkins all had best selling Scientific Atheist Verses That Evil and Debilitating Superstition of Religion books that year, quite an accomplishment, and indeed a possibly foreboding sea changing for America.

Of this triumvirate Dawkins serves as the films intended straw man, and the object of the confrontational climax with Stein, a conceit apparently now required of popular documentaries. Stein doesn’t defeat Dawkins, he holds his own, and in fact seems to go out of his way to be generous to his interviewer/ would-be assailer, something which the film attempts to take advantage of. When asked how such a proof of Intelligent Design would come about, were it to come about, Dawkins indulges in the intellectual exercise and paints a scenario, which the film construes to be Dawkins admittance that such an event could still in fact be possible. That’s a low blow, but Michael Moore has been guilty of worse, though his have generally been better executed.

I admire this film for the assumptions it questions, for putting a microscope to its subject matter and critically evaluating it. Though far from perfect in its execution it does a good job of prompting discussion and for that should receive accolades. Some could say it strays a bit in the militancy of its metaphors, such as the Berlin Wall of science, but it is intended to be a confrontational work. The time taken to point out that Darwinism was a major building block for Eugenics and hence the Nazi’s holocaust is well taken, but extreme and unthinking devotion to any set of principle yields bastard children, wether they be Catholics or Communists. The image that I most carry from the film was an aw inspiring CG animation of the workings of an animal cell. It is a machine, I can’t really buy that that happened by chance, in that way I am at least Deist. I don’t know a lot about science, I think I know a little more about religion, but mostly I like to think about these important questions of where we came from and what life means, and this movie was an aid to that. My expectations were far exceeded. Four out of Five, a plus for issues tackled, a minus for polemical elements in the presentation.