Tag Archives: politics

Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025)

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June 15

Day 15

Today’s June Swoon 5 film is another Oscar winner that I had not seen prior to today. It won the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Feature in 2026 and it was entitled Mr. Nobody Against Putin.

My initial thoughts were that this was about the war in Ukraine, and, while the Ukraine War was a major theme of the film, the center of the doc was different.

Pavel Talankin was the main character of the doc, and he was a teacher/teacher organizer/school videographer at a school in the Russian city of Karabash, a town known as the most toxic and poisonous town in Russia. Pavel began filming in earnest after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when the Russian government required schools to have regular “patriotic displays” and use state-written curriculum.

Pavel was always one for openness and freedom, proving what he called a safe space for the students to express themselves. These governmental requirements became such an opposition to what he believed that he went as far as to resign. However, when he was contacted by  director David Borenstein about a response Pavel had made to an Instagram post, Pavel rescinded his resignation to compile more film for a documentary on how the war was affecting the school he worked at.

There were some amazing moments in the doc, none more shocking than when, prior to a Russian flag ceremony at the school, Pavel played the “Star-Spangled Banner” as performed by Lady Ga Ga. I was shocked that he was allowed to get away with that and that did not get him arrested or removed from the school.

The doc featured several other intriguing characters such as “Pavel Abdulmanov, a pro-Putin history teacher; a student named Masha, whose brother fights and later dies in the war; and former students who are drafted into the army“-(Wikipedia)

I was completely fascinated by this powerful, first person film and the perspective it brought to the situation that the school found itself in. As a teacher myself, I could not comprehend how I would react to the same situation and I pray that I never have to find out. Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a tremendous work with some extreme emotional moments.

Daily Countdown: Weird Al Songs #17

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#17

The North Korea Polka (Please Don’t Nuke Us)

Title: “The North Korea Polka (Please Don’t Nuke Us)”

Album: None

Appeared: HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Date: August 2017

Written: Al Yankovic

Genre: Polka

Topic: “John Oliver noted that North Korea has a surprising cultural affinity for the accordion. To take advantage of this, he brought in Yankovic and his signature accordion to ”communicate’ with the nation” –Entertainment Tonight

What an awesome surprise this was. Weird Al, who usually does medley polkas, provided an actual original song about North Korea. “The song was created as a satirical de-escalation plea during a time of heightened nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.” -www.weirdal.com.

Lyrics

Would you annihilate us if you had the chance?
That’s such an antisocial thing to do
You’ve got us crapping our collective pants
May I suggest you take it down a notch or two

We’re not exactly sure why you’re upset
Did that Seth Rogen movie make you super mad?
You’d like us if you got to know us i bet
We’re mostly harmless decent people, hey we’re really not so bad

My point is!
Please don’t nuke us North Korea
Right now we’re all a little tense
Believe me!
We don’t hate you
Frankly we don’t even think that much about you, no offense

Now you might call us “bloodthirsty dogs”
But that metaphor’s not very apt
Were just a bunch of simple fidget-spinning goofy dorks
Who probably couldn’t find your country on a map

No we’re not savages or cannibals
Well maybe just a really really really small percent
So I think it would be best if you’d knock off those missile tests
Don’t turn us into cinder while we’re swiping right on Tinder
Don’t jump start Armageddon or our beds will soon be wetter
Won’t you think this through for a moment please
Now why would you bomb our nice celebrities?
Oh why in the world would you kill Tom Hanks?
Cause nobody doesn’t like Tom Hanks!

So!
Please don’t nuke us North Korea
That would seriously ruin our day
Remember!
We’re not evil psychotic monsters
No matter what the news may say
We’re just those goofballs from the U.S.A!
(Please don’t nuke us)
(Please don’t nuke us)
(Please don’t nuke us)
Hey!

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/weirdalyankovic/thenorthkoreapolkapleasedontnukeus.html

The X-Files S8 E3

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Spoilers

“Patience”

Agent Scully and Agent Doggett went together for the first time as partners out to chase down DC Comic’s Man-Bat.

Okay, so maybe it is not specifically the Man-Bat aka Dr. Robert Kirkland “Kirk” Langstrom. But there sure were a few similarities to the two characters.

I thought that the scenes with Scully and Doggett worked fairly well. Scully going out of her way to try and fit into the role of Mulder in the story seemed logical and the conflict with local authorities continued to be a trope of the X-Files.

John Doggett is an interesting piece. He seemed more willing to buy into the paranormal than Scully would have been, but he proved himself with his late second return after what looked to be a potential watery grave. I was never worried that Doggett was going to be killed, but it was a dramatic moment as Man-Bat and he fought in the water.

The ending was a bit anticlimactic as the Man-Bat just swooped down, was shot at, and disappeared. Doggett’s idea that he had shot him, as did Scully did not feel like a satisfying conclusion. Sure, it fell into the type of ending the X-Files thrived on, but this did not work as well as many of these previous monster episodes did.

Overall, it was an okay episode, and it furthered the partnership of Scully and Doggett, which was a vital component for the rest of the season.

Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

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January 29

With just three days remaining on the Genre-ary for 2025, I watched an Oscar-nominated doc called Catching the Friedmans, another tough watch because it centered around a teacher and his son who had been accused of sodomy and sexual abuse of kids.

Director Andrew Jarecki, who was the director behind the amazing docu-series, The Jinx, was the driving force behind this documentary.

According to IMDB, the “Documentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.”

There are plenty of scenes in this movie that came from home video recordings taped by the Friedman family themselves. Most of these scenes were really tough to watch considering the way some of this was portrayed. It painted a horrible picture of most of these people. There was a dramatic scene taped at Jesse Friedman’s trial of a parent chasing after him screaming that he had raped his son. Unbelievable.

Elaine Friedman seemed to be a spiteful woman, but it is hard to imagine the situation she found herself in daily. Her husband was a pedophile. Her sons hated her. A lot of the recordings by her kids had her screaming like a banshee. She did not come off looking well. Then, the final scene of the doc seemed to go against everything that the doc had shown us up until that point.

The doc sheds plenty of question on the case overall, especially when it came to Jesse. Arnold, the father who was an admitted pedophile, said that he had committed sexual abuse on two kids, but not the countless number at school.

I’m not sure how I felt about this doc because the voice seemed to be all over the place. I’m not sure what the doc was telling me about this story and it felt as if details changed throughout. I do not have a better understanding of what the truth was in this case or to what level these people were guilty or innocent. Maybe that is the idea with the doc… that truth may be elusive and that you may never know for sure what is happening in the heart of a family.

American Tragedy (2019)

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January 24

When I saw the synopsis for this documentary for the Genre-ary, I anticipated this film being a difficult watch. Strangely enough, this was not the emotional and gut-punch of a doc that I thought it would be.

This film was about one of the kids who participated in the shootings at Columbine. Surely, this would be a devastating film.

I was not prepared for American Tragedy, which I viewed on Amazon Prime, to be quite as dull as it was.

According to IMDB, “April 20, 1999 Columbine High School was under attack by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, attempts to reconcile how the son she thought she knew, the son she loved could willingly be a school shooter. ‘If love could have stopped Columbine,’ she says, ‘Columbine would never have happened.’ What would real prevention look like? Is it possible? Is America ready?“

The film spoke to Sue Klebold during the film, but I just did not get the expected feelings from her that I expected. Perhaps it was from years of hardening herself from the anger and the unexpected behavior, but a lot of the sections with Sue felt like the story was being told by someone else. I am sure that is not the way she felt, but it does not translate to the screen in this doc.

There were a few moments that stood out, but they were few and far between.

This is a shame that this doc does not connect with the viewer as much as it should have.

ReMastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black (2018)

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January 6th

Today’s Genre-ary documentary I found on Netflix and it was a short doc about the time Johnny Cash was asked by President Richard Nixon to come and play at the White House.

The doc gave us some basic background on both Johnny Cash and on Richard Nixon. The Nixon section was specifically focused in on the Vietnam controversies among his presidency.

The doc talked about Nixon using the “Southern Strategy” that has been well documented in Presidential politics since the sixties when the south became more of a Republican stronghold instead of a consistent Democratic voters. It brought up how Nixon used some dog whistles to bring out the “Silent majority” to support the Republican party and create a nation of divisiveness. It was very connected to the present day politics and how it has its roots in this time frame.

The doc never went into too much detail about any of the sections, as it was just under an hour long.

It was interesting seeing how Johnny Cash was affected by his own trip to Vietnam and how he made some changes to the songs Nixon had requested Cash play at the White House. Both of the songs he asked for were songs that took shots at some of the marginalized people of the time, including hippies and those on Welfare.

I liked this doc, but I really believe it could have gone into much more details about the performance and about the two figures of American culture. It touched on a lot of the issues, but it did not go into enough depth.