The Garden

Written and Directed by: Scott Hamilton Kennedy

There existed in downtown Los Angeles a large community farm. The food was simply grown by people for people. It began as an attempt to heal the city after the riots in 1994. For years it it existed peacefully, until one day the owner of the land, who had acquired the property under dubious circumstances, decided to kick everyone off. This documentary tells of the battle to control the farm.

Although I agreed with the sentiment of the film, it must be stated clearly that this documentary is clearly skewed to the side of the farmers. It's not clear how much effort was made to reach out to the other side of the story - and there's a real possibility that a genuine effort was made and declined - but the final product casts one side as the underdogs and the other as the millionaire, politically-connected villain. Not that this excuses the villain's behavior.

Regardless of the "sides" of the story, Kennedy does a great job of showing the personal, legal, and political struggles of the typically disenfranchised group of farmers. Just as they are literally trying to hold on to the land, they also have to work to hold on to hope and to keep their fledgling group together.

The movie definitely has a tear-jerker climax with some devastating imagery. (History spoiler: The farmers lose and the garden gets bulldozed. Seriously.) Even if the outcome is obvious from the start, it's hard not to root for the farmers along the way, which makes the ending even more upsetting.

Masterpiece? This film is not. It does show an allegorical tale of The Haves against The Have Nots and the powerful influence The Haves hold over our world.

I generally recommend this film because of the essence of the story it tells, not because it is a great piece of documentary work.

2012

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Written by: Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser

With the Mayan calendar fast approaching its end in 2012, it was inevitable that the film industry would try to capitalize on people's fears of mortality. In this case, disaster film expert director Roland Emmerich was picked to put together perhaps the ultimate catastrophe movie.

The end of the world-as-we-know-it begins when a solar flare sets off some kind of chain reaction which will cause the earth's crust to shift dramatically. International governments (including the American president played by Danny Glover) decide not to tell, but instead begin a secret project to attempt to save the human race. Meanwhile, most normal people (including John Cusack cast, oddly enough, as a chauffeur) begin to notice that weather disasters, such as tornadoes and earthquakes, are happening more frequently and with more intensity. Eventually, the civilized world begins to crumble as a chosen few desperately try to reach the international safe-haven in China.

There is a lot that goes wrong in this movie (and I'm not talking about the disasters), but let's start with the good.

Woody Harrelson. Woody Harrelson plays a back-woods government-conspiracy fearing lunatic radio broadcaster who tips off John Cusack's character that there may be more going on than meets the eye. Harrelson's character is by far the most fun and interesting, and it's unfortunate that he ends up with so little screen time.

Now on to what's wrong with this film - everything else!

To begin, the movie is entirely too long. Coming in at over two and a half hours, the movie is unnecessarily bloated and drags on far to long at many points. Some suggestions on how to cut? Start with the absurdly large cast. There are too many characters that the film tries to follow, and by the end the audience doesn't really care about any of them. For example, the entire subplot about the Russian billionaire's mistress having an affair with his pilot could be cut - it adds nothing to the film whatsoever, but consumes at least ten minutes of screen time. The same with the subplot about the scientist from India - not sure what he's doing in the movie at all.

Now, usually, when one goes to see a disaster movie, they expect to see some whopping special effects. Usually. Apparently Emmerich (who otherwise has a pretty good track record) missed the memo on this one. The special effects were underwhelming and unimpressive, and, after a while, repetitive. There are only so many "giant earthquakes toppling skyscrapers" sequences that a person can see before they lose their meaning. (One highlight, though, was the scene in which Cusack's car is being chased by a collapsing LA freeway - instant classic moment!)

The movie seemed to overlap and repeat itself too many times. It's easy to lose track of how many times someone says "It's happening sooner than expected" (or something along those lines). And there are three - literally three - scenes at an airport in which a plane has to take off in the midst of disaster on the runway. Sure, they happened at different airports, but a little variety in the disaster drama might have gone a long way.

Typically, I enjoy these types of movies for what they are. But in this case, I'd just had enough by the end of the movie. I'd only recommend this movie if you can't see any of Emmerich's other epic disaster movies. For what they're worth, "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Independence Day" give a much better bang-to-buck return. Sorry "2012" - maybe you'll be more exciting next year, but I'm not holding my breath.