blenderdumbass . org
Reviews
by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
From 1 years ago.
Information or opinions might not be up to date.
6 Minute Read
Footnote originally הערת שוליים is an Israeli film written and directed by Joseph Cedar. The film is about a very strange dramatic bureaucratic situation, where two professors, a father and a son, are in the same field, and one of them gets a honorary award for his achievements. But the bureaucrats made a mistake and told about the award to the wrong one of them.
↩ Reply
This is kind of a dual character study. We have two professors obsessed with historic ancient Hebrew texts. The son Uriel ( Lior Ashkenazi ) finds in the ancient texts a sort of confirmation, to the contemporary orthodox teachings. While his father Eliezer ( Shlomo Bar-Aba ) sees the same texts as a sort confirmation that something along the way went wrong. And that the contemporary teachings are false as a result.
↩ Reply
It is not clearly stated, but there is a theme to Eliezer's character, suggesting that he might be autistic to some degree. He is annoyingly pedantic about every single word everywhere. He can't stand people that disregard certain words, or phrase themselves not precisely. This is, by the way, why he thinks the contemporary teachings are false. He was researching the field for many years with an incredible obsessive attention to every single word. And he just simply cannot hold the same opinions as religious Jews anymore.
↩ Reply
There is a sort of villain character ( if you want to call it that ) Yehuda Grossman ( Micah Lewensohn ) who is a kind of religious person in charge of the academia. Who due to, what seems like, ideological disagreements with Eliezer, denied Eliezer an ability to be recognized in any way. And on one occasion, personally, sabotaged Eliezer's own work.
↩ Reply
It seems like the film's thesis is something along the lines of: Religious Jews follow a broken telephone version of the real Jewish tradition. And therefor to be a proper Jew you have to be a different, better, person. As in, in a clever way, the film suggests a sort of denouncing of the orthodox way. But in another clever way, disguising itself as preaching the proper orthodox way. Which it doesn't actually seem to preach at all. Eliezer says that he thinks things are wrong. He says why thinks that way. But never tells the audience what is wrong specifically. So maybe the message is simply: Orthodox = wrong?
c:0 ↩ Reply
The movie ends strangely, as if to say, it fails to end properly. It could be said that whether Eliezer gets his price is not important as long as he knows the truth. Because the movie cuts before we know for sure. But then I think the real reason the movie ended this way is that Cedar, trying to make the film more realistic, wrote into the script the real names of the current Israeli politicians ( at the time ), which he teases, will be the ones handing the awards. But then he cuts. Because apparently he knew from the very beginning that he will not get the real politicians to participate in the movie. I was kind of waiting for Eliezer to get onto to the stage and do something stupid. There was a tension about it present in the whole ending. But then the movie just ends. What?
c:1 ↩ Reply
I do think Cedar tried to inject in that ending some profound ( or pretentious ) meaning. And it does feel like it is at the very least pretentious, teasing you, the audience, as being not smart enough to find it profound. It is not a kind of punch-line joke ending that I have in all of my films so far. It is not trying to entertain the audience. It is trying to make the audience stop and realize that they didn't get it. And then pretend to get it, out of fear of being found out as stupid.
↩ Reply
The film has very good cinematography by Yaron Scharf and a kick-ass musical score by Amit Poznansky that goes for a very Spielberg like John Williams like feel. And to top that off Cedar's direction is actually rather cool. There are shots in that film that I have never seen anywhere else, yet the shots work really well. For example the first time Eliezer tells his wife ( Alisa Rosen ) that he got the award, he leaves the room and the camera is on his headphones that he left. But then the camera flies on its own to that other room, where he talks to his wife, in a majestic camera move. Good stuff! And then toward the end as Eliezer comes into the ceremony building, everything just becomes so dreamy and surreal for a bit. Also good stuff!
↩ Reply
Writing-wise it feels like there are some loose threads that are never explored beyond the superficial initial encounter. At one point in the movie, somebody steals a bag with stuff ( including documents ) of Uriel. Yet, all the movie does with it is, it uses it as an excuse for the filmmakers to push Uriel though a comedic sequence leading to something he sees. Which is then promptly forgotten about.
↩ Reply
The movie has a kick ass tight script with very much attention put to words people say and write. And it has a lot of good payoffs based on those kinds of things. Yet some things feel like setups to something, while they are never payed off. Which is weird. It doesn't break the film. It is still rather good despite some of the things feeling random. But I couldn't help myself and think of various things that could be done with those setups.
↩ Reply
I will review more films from Israel. I'm trying to learn what I'm dealing with, as an Israeli film-maker myself. This was a good film. I hope the others will be good too.
↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!!
↩ Reply
1
Find this post on Mastodon
Havoc ( 2025 ) is a pornographically satisfying violence movie
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Havoc_%282025_film%29.jpg/250px-Havoc_%282025_film%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 13 💬 2
Again I found a movie that makes me question my own ideas as a filmmaker. Havoc ( directed by Gareth Evans ) is so stylized and fucking awesome that they had to go a CGI route for a lot of the shots to even be possible in the first place. Which created a similar situation, which I discussed in my review of Shazam! 2.
#havoc #tomhardy #GarethEvans #film #review #movies #action #martialarts #cinemastodon
Final Destination ( 2000 ) is a suprisingly well directed movie
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Final_Destination_movie.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 18
There is this hype wave over the Final Destination franchise because of a new movie that was released in the series. At first I resisted it, but then I saw a few shots from the opening of the first film, directed by James Wong and thought that it was actually something good, that at least worth my attention.
#finaldestination #jameswong #film #movies #review #cinemastodon
Ready Player One is about Privacy, Digital Rights and Ageism
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Ready_Player_One_%28film%29.png)
Blender Dumbass
👁 26 ❤ 1 💬 7
A lot of people have a mixed bag of feelings when it comes to Steven Spielberg's 2018 masterpiece Ready Player One. They dislike the nostalgia bait, and the countless references. They poke fun at logical inconsistencies. Yet nobody can deny the fact that Spielberg apparently is incapable of making a terrible movie. Still, how many of you actually looked at Ready Player One seriously? How many of you thought about it's messaging? How many noticed the politics that Spielberg is hiding in plain sight?
#readyplayerone #stevenspielberg #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #privacy #digitalrights #eff #fsf #richardstallman #ageism
Anna 2019 is Luc Besson at war with Christopher Nolan
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f1/Anna_film_poster.jpg/250px-Anna_film_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 48 💬 2
Christopher Nolan was developing his spy movie Tenet for decades before its release in 2020. In 2014 Nolan already was fully in the writing process on the script. While the general public didn't know much about the project, other filmmakers, including the French director Luc Besson probably could know something about it. And so trying to beat Nolan at his own game, Besson quickly wrote and directed his own spy movie with a palindrome title: Anna.
#Anna #LucBesson #SashaLuss #ChristopherNolan #CillianMurphy #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Transformers 5 is Too Good to be Good
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Transformers_The_Last_Knight_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 92 ❤ 1 💬 1
There is this satisfaction when it comes to animation, that I know from personal experience where the longer you work on a shot, or a sequence, the more details there is in the animation, the more satisfying it is to later just watch this insane level of effort simply wash over you one frame after another.
#transformers #MichaelBay #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #kingArthur
The Taking of Pelham 123 ( 2009 ) is Tony Scott continuing to mess with Michael Bay
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cf/Taking_of_Pelham_123_%282009_film%29.jpg/250px-Taking_of_Pelham_123_%282009_film%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 30 💬 4
Tony Scott's 2009 film The Taking of Pelham 123 is a remake of a 1998 TV movie with same name, which is a remake of a 1974 movie with the same name, which is an adaptation of a 1973 book, with the same name. Strangely enough, apart from Denzel Washington playing the hero and John Travolta playing the villain, the film also prominently shows John Turturro and Ramón Rodríguez which, the same year, also appeared in a Michael Bay film Transformens 2: Revenge of the Fallen.
#TheTakingofPelhamOneTwoThree #TonyScott #movies #review #film #cinemastodon
The Odyssey to see The Odyssey (2026)
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/user_upload/Troler/YVK9X1UWS9TUUQWG.png)
Troler
👁 12 ❤ 1 🔄 1 💬 3
As it is, the movie is infused with Nolan realism. Everything is serious and grim. The contrast between mythological events and reality creates this clash. I have not seen Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy, so I cannot tell how much of this juxtaposition has existed before. Still, the contrast of what I saw on screen and how the movie portrayed such events, threw me off the loop.
#theodyssey #christophernolan #LudwigGoransson #AnneHathaway #MattDamon #RobertPattinson #Batman #odyssey #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Eden 2024 is very interesting in context
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ab/Eden_%282024_film%29.jpg/250px-Eden_%282024_film%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 18 💬 2
In the summer of 2025 Sydney Sweeney made a controversial, seemingly Nazi-propaganda advertisement for a Jeans brand that claims that she "has great Jeans" ( which is a pun for "genes" ). Being a blue-eyed sexy blond woman, made the "genes" pun quickly interpreted as a endorsement of eugenics. And a lot of people on the conservative side equated her "huge tits" to the "death of wokeness". While people on the left decided to attribute her success with her sex appeal, almost accusing Sweeney with sleeping with executives, to become famous. And yet despite all this, Ron Howard's 2024 thriller Eden ( which is starring Sweeney ) has Ana de Armas at a role of this super-hot lady that sleeps with men to get what she wants.
#eden #ronhoward #anadearmas #SydneySweeney #JudeLaw #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
F1 is suprisingly relatable
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/38/F1_%282025_film%29.png/250px-F1_%282025_film%29.png)
Blender Dumbass
👁 16 💬 2
As you probably figured out, the movie is about racing. It is kind of similar to Ford v Ferrari where you have an underdog team trying to compete on a race with Ferrari to win the race. In this case though, Ferrari was not the fastest car on the track. The fastest one was from Red Bull. And not just from Red Bull. It was Lewis Hamilton who is an actual real F1 driver, who also played himself in the film and who was one of the producers on the film.
#F1 #racing #movie #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #BradPitt #JavierBardem #JosephKosinski #formula1
Parallax at Max: Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/user_upload/Troler/WPA11XXZK2DCU22T.jpg)
Troler
👁 9 ❤ 1 🔄 1 💬 11
Am I bad guy for being so positive about a movie of a person I do not care much about? Well, there is nothing to fret, as the 3D film directed by Billie Eilish is palatable for everyone looking for entertainment. Certainly no masterpiece, the film still hold water in its flow. 3D doesn't work if there is no parallax. And parallax just out there doesn't work if there is no reason for it to exist. The documentary provides ten times that.
#BillieEilishHitMeHardandSoftTheTour #BillieEilish #JamesCameron #horror #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Layer Cake 2004 explains Kingsman
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e8/Layer_Cake_Poster.JPG/250px-Layer_Cake_Poster.JPG)
Blender Dumbass
👁 11 💬 3
In my review of She Rides Shotgun I briefly commented on the performance of Taron Egerton who you may know from the 2014 British Spy film Kingsman: The Secret Service by Matthew Vaughn. Today I gonna present to you a sort of half assed theory about how Kingsman happened due to a different Matthew Vaughn picture: 2004 Layer Cake. And alternatively how Tarantino brought to us the Daniel Craig era of James Bond.
#layercake #DanielCraig #MatthewVaughn #JamesBond #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Guy Ritchie's Revolver 2005 explains Luc Besson
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b6/Revolver2005.jpg/250px-Revolver2005.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 40 💬 10
I don't remember when was the last time I had watched a movie so strong that my mind literally cannot stop obsessing over it. Being on a Luc Besson marathon I discovered that there is a misunderstood film which Besson wrote together with Guy Ritchie, which was directed by Ritchie, which is called Revolver. The 13% score on Rotten Tomatoes, in my opinion is there just because the critics were literally too dumb, or too insecure, for this movie. Or because this is something the Ritchie and Besson literally wanted to achieve. If the film became a hit, or was well received critically, the message of the film would not have worked as well as it does.
#Revolver #GuyRitchie #LucBesson #Jewdaism #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Powered with BDServer
Plugins
Themes
Analytics
Contact
Mastodon