This documentary brings to light the (hopefully not actually) coming apocalypse of pseudoscience. Nonsensical illogical delusions are gaining mainstream legitimacy and penetration into the collective social consciousness. Upon seeing such display of flagrant anti-scientific anti-intellectualism, in one scene demonstrating these delusions can be passed down by generations, it is a wonder why the alleged all powerful "scientific elite" haven't stamped out this kind of anti-thought for good. If only. Behind the Curve presents a warning to the future, if scientific illiteracy has got to the point where the idea that the Earth is actually a frisbee is growing in traction... Then what direction is society truly heading in? Maybe it is not climate change, raging pandemics, antibiotic resistant superbugs, or global thermonuclear war that humanity must ultimately fear... But rather the gradual disintegration of our ability to reason and interpret reality. A great fear of mine is not so much society facing an apocalyptic scenario... What I fear most is if in such an event we willingly and enthusiastically deny the circumstances... So much so that even our pain is not acknowledged as real... And all of reality itself becomes perpetually undeterminable in a sea of mass psychosis.

Cue the next implausible surveillance state dystopia. While this kind of system may be somewhat plausible in Asia and other parts of the world with generally lax checks and balances on government power, it is implausible Brazilians would support a blatantly ludicrously abusable and invasive system... To suggest otherwise is a stern insult to their intelligence, no matter how ignorant segments of the commons are to the dangers of totalitarianism. In Omniscient, the state has achieved totality in information gathering, or at least near totality. The issue is their surveillance "dragonflies" suffer from tunnel vision, unable to capture a full degree of spatial awareness beyond their focused target. Basically these small tiny flying machines are assigned to surveil each person within city boundaries... Of course if you sneak in and don't manage to bump into anyone under surveillance... You beat the system. Worse yet, these dragonflies have replaced all means of accountability and law enforcement, save for some humans still being used to make arrests. These dragonflies are connected to a system of artificial intelligence, basically a machine learning platform, coded by humans by a private company... These things alone determine whether or not someone is guilty of a crime... Summarily... With no courts or human review. So, the protagonist's father is killed, who is an employee of said private company... This is merely a conspiracy to get the protagonist to break into said company (which she also works for, following in daddy's footsteps)... And break the system even more... Giving her access to the surveillance footage, of which humans are never intended to see... Being the good and well-intended person she is, she only uses it to discover the culprit of her father's murder... The culprit initially points to a hired gun, who... Snuck into the city via the sewers, completely getting around the supposed "omniscient" automated Big Brother... Who turns out to be hired by the same person who assisted the protagonist to break into the company in the first place to get access to the surveillance footage... This person intends to use such access to give them unprecedented power by having seemingly limitless information on everyone within metropolitan boundaries. There's multiple blatant problems with this whole story... For one, I find it extremely implausible that metropolitan Brazilians would support a system that puts the justice system entirely in the hands of an artificial intelligence designed by a private company... Never mind permitting themselves to be under surveillance at all times of the day, no matter what situation they're in. The problem isn't so much the reliance on said technology... It is the total lack of accountability of said technology. Too many things could easily go wrong, and while such a system may be plausible under strict checks and balances... It is an insult to the intelligence of Brazilians to suggest they would support a system with absolutely no checks and balances, save for some drastically apocalyptic event that permanently alters society as they know it. This series may have been better to be done in a very alternate reality, or in a different country altogether. While Brazil is far from being a perfect democracy today, it is also considerably far from the kind of totalitarianism depicted in the series. The other issue with this series, like many, is that it does have some sexual gratuity... With absolutely no necessity to the overarching plot and theme of the series. Basically, at one point, the viewer is treated to the camera focusing on the erect nipples of one of the actresses. This only happens for one episode and is completely unnecessary. All other love scenes do not show such, so it leads me to believe that the director simply did this because they could with this specific actress. While I don't have a problem necessarily with "love" scenes, this one just seemed to be there just for the sake of titillating the audience, a cheap tactic of keeping viewer interest without going to the effort of adding substance or depth. All romantic subplots in this series are devoid of any actual emotional intimacy, although this may be intentional to show the naivety of the youth in this alternate society. Now, the show does have some good moments, especially when the protagonist is going through the struggle of beating the system herself to investigate the murder of her father, but overall it is forgettable and doesn't bring anything really of depth or originality to the genre. The performances are well done however.

This one is a bit out of my ballpark as I can stand very few anime. Parasyte revolves around an interesting premise, that of a human co-existing with an alien(?) parasite. The characters however are not that all interesting. Cue the stereotypical shy red-faced Japanese-uniformed high school girls that show less intellectual diversity and intelligence than the parasites themselves. Of course our protagonist just so happens to be the also very cliche shy mysterious boy that finds himself with "much power comes great responsibility." The camera uncomfortably lingers at some points on the underage female cast, although does not cross the line of indecency. The government is depicted as semi-competent, albeit naive given their trust of a sadistic serial killer. Where the parasites came from is barely explored as the episodes cover the misadventures of the teenage male protagonist. By the end, it seems, oddly so, that society is just moving on, apathetically, from the terrors that previously inflicted them. Despite having an ability to detect parasites, they seem to overlook the protagonist, possible due to him passing the "hair test" theorized before. What saves this series from being a mundane brainless and cliche-ridden high school fantasy is the wonderfully animated body-splitting parasites that remind me much of The Thing and Dead Space. The drama of living with the parasite is interesting at first, but does tire out. The series would have been better being much shorter and without the auto-tune incessant vocal soundtrack. The somewhat interesting comparison of the parasites and humans also adds to the watchability of the series. Overall it is a good decent watch, but nothing outstanding or super memorable.

Within the first hour of the film... The Godfather, THE Godfather... Michael Corleone Is accosting Vincent Corleone for NOT going to the police after an attempt is made on Vincent's life. I'm sorry, what!? The mafia's main business (i.e. crime) is running protection rackets... And this mafia family's godfather tells his family members to go to the police for help? Did Michael lose his balls at some point after Part II? Michael is actually... Quite literally trying to make his family business "legitimate" and for some reason still has somewhat cordial contact with the woman who aborted his would be heir in Part II... Each scene from the next is a variety of cringe, silly, boring, and mediocre... Mixed in with a nausea-inducing incestuous flirtation between Vincent and Mary Corleone... The latter of whom is the daughter of the film's director! I couldn't bare watch anymore of the film after the first hour... And especially knowing that I have two more to go... It is hard to believe this was made by Francis Ford Coppola.

The Godfather: Part II is beautifully directed and acted film, with an especially stellar performance from Al Pacino. The film is careful not to glorify the mafia and maintains their depiction as sociopathic power-hungry social parasites, who do not hesitate to opportunistically victimize the innocent in pursuit of their own gains. Also included in the film is many historical allusions as it takes place during the dawn of the Cold War. The setting of Cuba during one point in the film is an interesting reference to the political and socioeconomic situation of that country at the time. The only obvious problem with this film is that it is split into two storylines... One of Al Pacino's character, Michael Corleone, in the "present time." The other of Robert De Niro's character, Vito Corleone, during his early upbringing in Italy and eventual rise to power in New York. These two separate timeframes switch throughout the film and just make it feel a little disorganized. Would have been best to split those two timelines into their own films. By the end of the movie, The Godfather: Part II just feels slightly too long.