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
Footnote 2011 is a suprisingly good Israeli film
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/he/thumb/5/58/Footnote.jpg/250px-Footnote.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 14 ❤ 1 💬 99
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.
#footnote #הערתשוליים #JosephCedar #LiorAshkenazi #Israel #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #jews
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
Is Idiocracy 2006 intentionally stupid?
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Idiocracy_movie_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 11 ❤ 2 💬 2
We all know about absolute cinematic masterpieces like The Room by the legendary Tommy Wiseau. Films that were intended to be great works of cinema, but that failed so miserably at achieving their goal, that they spawn all the way around the scale and became great works of cinema, by mistake, anyway. But then there are films like The Grindhouse movies, or Black Dynamite, or Wiseau's sequel to Samurai Cop, who's goal was to be those intentionally terrible pieces of crap, from the get go. Is Idiocracy by Mike Judge from the first type of terrible movies, or from the second, intentional one? Is Idiocracy intentionally stupid?
#idiocracy #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Predator 1987 was always a B-movie
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/95/Predator_Movie.jpg/250px-Predator_Movie.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 20 💬 3
As I observed in my review of Predator 2, the Predator films feel very B-movie-like. And the first film, John McTiernan's 1987 Predator is not an exception.
#predator #horror #ArnoldSchwarzenegger #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Dream Scenario 2023 is about Richard Stallman?
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/50/Dream_scenario_poster.jpg/250px-Dream_scenario_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 17 💬 2
Kristoffer Borgli's 2023 film Dream Scenario starring Nicolas Cage is a movie about a man, who is being dreamed about by a lot of people. At first his family have weird dreams about him. Then people related to them. Then the whole world. At first the dreams make him famous. But then they take a turn for the worst. At first he is just doing nothing in those dreams. Then he is being a creep. And then he literally murders people in those dreams. Which makes the public, in the real life, react to him with greater and greater rivalry. Apart from, for some reason, people in France.
#DreamScenario #NicolasCage #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #RichardStallman #RMS
Summer of '42 ( 1971 ) is about Empathy
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/18/Summer_of_%2742_POSTER.jpg/250px-Summer_of_%2742_POSTER.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 21 ❤ 2 🔄 1 💬 8
First time I heard of the movie Summer of '42 when reading Tarantino's review of American Graffiti. In his review a large chunk is dedicated to this picture, because he is trying to illustrate the aesthetic similarities between the two pictures and the broader genre shifts of the 60s and 70s cinema landscape, that gave way to something like American Graffiti. Shortly after that, there was the review by Troler. And then finally, which made me grab my lazy ass and put it into the chair to watch this film, was a conversation I had with @Troler , where he so kindly spoiled the ending of this movie for me, while breaking down the cinematic techniques used in the film.
#summerof42 #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Lunatics! Episode 1 has dropped. And I have thoughts!!!
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/lunatics6.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 9 ❤ 3 🔄 1 💬 5
Lunatics! is a Open-Movie project by Rosalyn Hunter and Terry Hancock. I was following their socials ( mainly their Peertube account ) for quite some time now. And today, about an hour ago they released an unfinished version of episode one. Why does it matter? Well, they are working on it, if I understand correctly, since 2003, ( based on this video ). This unfinished episode is, therefor, 23 years in the making. My Moria's Race short-film with its 3.5 years is nothing in comparison.
#lunatics #openmovie #libre #blender3d #b3d #animation #review #movies #cinemastodon #film
Prey 2022 tries to be annoying to concervatives
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f4/Prey_2022_poster.png/250px-Prey_2022_poster.png)
Blender Dumbass
👁 16 💬 114
The Predator franchise started its life as a masculine super-macho, mega-violent little B-Movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In my review of the first film, I even speculated, for a second, that it might have even been racist. Something that a certain side of political spectrum finds to be a quality of a movie. That certain side of the political spectrum really didn't get when Dan Trachtenberg decided, he is making a feminist, native-American movie in the same franchise.
#Prey #Predator #movies #review #film #cinemastodon #DanTrachtenberg
Citizen Kane feels like a Scorsese picture
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Citizen_Kane_poster%2C_1941_%28Style_B%2C_unrestored%29.jpg/250px-Citizen_Kane_poster%2C_1941_%28Style_B%2C_unrestored%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 9 💬 1
Orson Welles ( born in 1915 ) being a 25 - 26 year old flipped the cinematic landscape upside down with his 1941 black and white film Citizen Kane. A film that feels like a mandatory watch for anybody who is even remotely interested in cinema. People say that Citizen Kane is the best film ever made and stuff. Almost forcing that film onto people in an uncomfortable way. Making you be sure that it is some sort of experimental, black and white extravaganza that you will not understand. And that it is way too old, for today's audience, to enjoy. And that to appreciate the qualities of the film, one needs to learn some academic bullshit and pay very strong attention, to try to understand why back in 1941 critics specifically, might have liked what they saw. The thought of watching Citizen Kane feels like homework. But then you actually watch it.
#citizenkane #orsonwelles #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #martinscorsese
Last Breath's story is too short for a feature film
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/15/Last_Breath_2025_film_poster.jpg/250px-Last_Breath_2025_film_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 15
Last Breath directed by Alex Parkinson is based on a real event when a diver named Chris Lemons got stranded on a bottom of the sea for a long time without oxygen. And the movie is about the tense rescue operation that was done to try to save him.
#lastbreath #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
A Sacrifice 2025 is a bit amateurish
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a8/A_Sacrifice_poster.jpg/250px-A_Sacrifice_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 9 💬 3
Ridley Scott has a full family of filmmakers. His brother Tony Scott is a legend. But Ridley also has kids. His son Jake Scott is a bad ass music video director that started already branching out into feature films. Luke Scott directed a cool little 2016 sci-fi horror film Morgan. And was a second unit director on a lot of recent Ridley Scott films. And then there is Jordan Scott, Ridley's daughter that wrote and directed the 2025 thriller A Sacrifice.
#ASacrifice #JordanScott #EricBana #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Frankenstein 2025 is... wow... just wow!
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/Frankenstein_2025_film_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 23 💬 1
Let's get this out of the way: Guillermo del Toro knows how to make a movie. The man is a fucking genius. And yet it seems apart from just being technically proficient, he is also a master of making corruption of the audience emotionally satisfying. Let me explain.
#Frankenstein #GuillermodelToro #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Snake Eyes 1998 is De Palma's attempt at restoring his Hitch spirit
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8b/SnakeEyesPoster.jpg/250px-SnakeEyesPoster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 16 💬 3
Watching the opening scene of Brian De Palma's 1998 film Snake Eyes makes you realize that this motherfucker is trying very hard. We have 13 minutes of Nicolas Cage running around a very crowded set. The scene is clever with its camera, giving us multiple layers of exposition in the same time. Like there could be a TV on the foreground and Cage on the background. And they seem unrelated at first, but the scene establishes most of it's plot details right in this very shot. And then the shot ends ( 13 minutes later ) at the exact moment, the script drops the "inciting incident". De Palma is really trying hard to direct the shit out this movie.
#SnakeEyes #BrianDePalma #NicolasCage #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Powered with BDServer
Plugins
Themes
Analytics
Contact
Mastodon