The Itinerant Librarian: Media Notes: Roundup for February 2022

Monday, February 28, 2022

Media Notes: Roundup for February 2022

This is a somewhat random selection of the movies and series on DVD and/or online I watched during February 2022.

Movies and films (links to IMDB.com for basic information unless noted otherwise). Some of these I watched via TubiTv.com or other online source. The DVDs come from the public library (unless noted otherwise). In addition, I will try to add other trivia notes, such as when a film is based on a book adding the information about the book (at least the WorldCat record if available):

Invasion U.S.A. (1985. Action. Adventure). Plot description: "A one-man army comes to the rescue of the United States when a spy attempts an invasion." The one-man army is Chuck Norris in this 1980s Cannon Group actioneer produced by Golan-Globus. Basically a group of terrorists invade the U.S., and it falls up to former CIA agent Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris) to stop them. Rostov, a Russian spy, was spared by Hunter years prior on orders of the CIA. Now he is back with an army of terrorists, and Hunter, who wishes he had killed Rostov back then, reluctantly, acquiesces to the agency's request to stop him. By the way, Norris is listed as one of the screenwriters. Billy Drago is in this, playing a seriously creepy bad guy, a role he does very well. Villain quality often improves in films he is in, but sadly he is not in this one for very long. The movie overall has a somewhat slow pace, in part because they have to build up the suspense for the invasion. There are some explosions here or there, but overall the pace is a bit on the slow side (even for a Chuck Norris action film). Action really picks up about 58 minutes in or so; it is an hour and 57 minutes movie, so about halfway. On a side note, keep in mind, this film is pre-9/11. Also it is in the 1980s, so no cellphones with cameras, etc. either. Having said that, to be honest, a terrorist group invading places and wreaking havoc quick in parts of the U.S. could possibly still happen despite all the supposed vigilance after 9/11, and society, or parts of it, would start to fall apart not unlike in the film. In a way, some things have not changed that much other than who the villains may be. In a way, given the more volatile politics now, and more seriously well armed civilians (well, some), things could get worse fast, and I am not sure Chuck Norris would save us. So the film offers an interesting commentary if you take a minute to think about it. Otherwise, as an action flick, as I said, the movie is seriously slow the first half. The second half picks up, yet the scenes seem disjointed. It seems more like moving from one scene to another without connection. Sometimes Hunter just appears out of the blue to save the day. The ending gets a bit ridiculous, and over the top, but that is about on par for one of these movies, and we eventually get to the final confrontation with the hero and the villain. Overall, probably somewhat overrated for a Chuck Norris film. On a bit of trivia from IMDB, this was MGM's second highest selling home video after Gone with the Wind until 2007. I think a lot of people saw the cool movie poster and fell for that. This one is not among Norris's best. I'd give it at best 1 out of 5 stars. Norris has better films, find those instead. Via TubiTv. Watched 2/11.
Vampire Cleanup Department (2017. Action. Comedy. Horror. Hong Kong film). Plot description: "A professional vampire fighter makes the shocking family discovery that while he’s not completely human, he’s also not totally a vampire either." After a close encounter with a vampire, a young boy is invited by his uncle to join the Vampire Cleanup Department, a secret group that hunts Chinese vampires. They deal with the vampires and then clean up the evidence. The boy has little going for him: he is weak and seriously clumsy, but he will have to learn the trade. Naturally, when you join a new job, you have to work your way up, and our young hero has to start from the bottom to learn. On his first mission, he sort of saves a young female vampire who had been buried alive by her evil vampire overlord. The film overall is more a sort of light comedy with a very light romantic interest element. His training is sort of a cross between Karate Kid (remember the wax on, wax off? well, here it's sweeping floors) and Rocky (remember Rocky learning speed by chasing a chicken?). What little action we get happens at the last 20 minutes or so as the VCD gets taken over by the police, who have a special squad. The police have no real idea what is going on, and the squad is more than they seem. Meanwhile the old vampire that was assumed killed returns for a final confrontation. If you are expecting a horror actioneer, this is definitely not it. This is more a bit of fairy tale with some light romantic humor thrown in and the story of a young boy learning the ropes of his heritage. It's cute and entertaining at times but no big deal. It does have a bit of heartwarming ending. I'd say 2.5 out of 5 stars. Via TubiTv. Watched 2/12.

Television and other series (basic show information links via Wikipedia unless noted otherwise). Some of these come in DVD from the public library. Others may be via YouTube, which, as noted before, I keep finding all sorts of other old shows in it, often full episodes:

C.O.P.S. (1988-1989. Animated series. Police. Action. Humor. Children and Young Adult). See my comment on this in the May 2019 roundup. I've been watching this in and out. I start this month on episode 48 (out of 65) as I continue catching up on watching the series this month.
Inside Hitler's Killing Machine (2016. Documentary). A three-part series looking at Nazi Germany's extremely efficient operation of genocide that become known as the Holocaust. Overall, a good documentary. I liked in particular it discussed parts of history that are not usually in most general histories of the time, and it integrated current (for the time of the documentary) research. I was moved to watch this in part given events in the U.S. this month such as that school board banning Maus of all things.

First episode looks at Hjalmar Schacht, the Reichsminister of Economics for the Third Reich; in essence, Hitler's banker. Schacht is not a figure often mentioned in history's of the time, so that caught my eye. He served 1934-1937, before World War II, replaced by Goering. He was one who was acquitted at Nuremberg; however, he was no angel. Though he did help Hitler rise to power, he did turn against him and was arrested by the Gestapo. On an interesting side note, at one point the documentary points out how even Americans like Prescott Bush (father of George H.W. Bush) invested in Nazi Germany in the early years as it rearmed along with other American companies. Overall, the banker was also quite the opportunist, and to an extent had some luck on his side that enabled him to live to a very old age. This was a pretty interesting episode on a little known enabler of Hitler who thought he could use Hitler for his own ends, only to find Hitler was using him as he had used so many others.

This episode is based on the biography (the film description wrongly calls it a "novel") Hjalmar Schacht : le banquier du diable. I could only find the French edition.

Second episode description: "It is a word that sends a chill down the spine: 'Ahnenerbe'. This was the name of the research institute set up to prove the scientific foundation of Nazi ideology. Driven by a scientific megalomania, the race for new discoveries led the institution to carry out countless acts of barbarism." Wikipedia, which I linked as reference, describes it initially as a think tank. This is another element of the history I did not know much about. I mean, I knew the Nazis had intellectuals to do their bidding, so not surprised they had institutes to create their content and make it look academic. It was more than a think tank; it was a base of operations for Nazi scientists to do experiments on humans, on a horrific scale. Needless to say this episode does have some gruesome photos, so viewer discretion advised. As example, this episode focuses on the small and only concentration camp in France set up by the Nazis, which is preserved as a historical museum now, to illustrate the kind of experiments the Nazis did in pursuit of their racist ideology. That was not all, the institute also took part in pillaging works of art and other ancient artifacts from conquered areas as well. What is interesting is over time the institute had to reshape and refocus itself. Hitler often cared little for their actual work, and Himmler had to keep coming up with ways to keep the institute running. The institute members overall did it all, so to speak from archeology and intellectual "theoretical" research to gruesome inhumane scientific experiments, and in the end, they generated nothing of value and enabled and/or took part in abominable atrocities. This story is what happens when scientists and scholars have no ethical nor moral boundaries and then put their skills to serve terror.
Episode 3 looks at the Nazi camps and the architecture and mechanisms that led to the Holocaust. The camps started as prisons for his political opponents and soon became outright factories of torture and death. Documentary takes a close look at Sachsenhausen, a camp that is often not heard about much in general histories, but it was to be the model for the other more infamous camps that came later. What the Nazis learned in it, they applied and amplified elsewhere.