Stacy Kingsley
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Movie Review - 13TH

7/9/2017

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What do you know about the prison system and how it came to be? That is one of the questions 13TH asks. It also begs the question of did America start things to keep African Americans in one or another type of chain and slavery?

13Th is a documentary about the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality, as stated on IMDb's database. It starts exploring slavery and how African Americans were treated, showing the scarred back of a man who had been severely beaten over and over as a slave. And let's get past the, some slaves were treated well, yeah, they may have been, but hey, they were still slaves so were they really treated well? There is a movie, part of the silent film era, titled THE BIRTH OF A NATION (no not the one from a year ago), that shows a man in blackface attacking a woman and then being killed without any type of justice or judgement. He is killed and proved guilty because he is "black".

Next the movie goes to show the beginning of the criminal system and chain gangs. The country moved from slavery to slavery of a different type with prisons and people being punished without pay.

The movie then moves to the time of segregation, and how we move from keeping men and women in literal chains to virtual chains. Separation of Caucasians and minorities didn't stop harsh punishment and actions against minorities. Yes the movie focuses on the plight of the African American, but all minorities were segregated and punished for being born anything but Caucasian. The movie touches on the murder of Emmett Till and the lynchings of the 1950's and 60's. The destruction of Emmett Till played into the ending of the movie as the people interviewed were asked do we need more images out there to shock people. One of the reasons Emmett Till's mother allowed an open casket for public viewing was for the world to see what had been done to her fourteen year old son. It shocked the nation to see his battered and unrecognizable face. And it should have.

After this the film makes a point of exploring the prison system and how from 1950 to today the incarcerated has grown so large, that there are over two million people incarcerated at this time, and this does not count the immigrants being held in detention centers as they are not considered prisons. America has a broken system in place as people who are charged with first time offenses are now, depending on the offense, stuck in prison for life without the possibility of parole.

The movie focuses a lot on poverty stricken communities, but the end does admit that the prison system, the entire corrections system is broken. To fix it we need to get out of the business of corrections and into creating more chances for rehabilitation, and restructure the time that criminals have to spend vs automatic sentencing.

I readily recommend this movie. It not only shows a side of the government that people often don't think of, but it also shows a lot of things to make all races think about how we are treating each other, and why.
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Movie Review - THE FINAL MEMBER

2/14/2015

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Every now and then I watch something random because I either think it's odd, I think it's interesting, or I think "what the hell is this and why am I not already watching it?" Tonight it was the latter of the choices, so I watched a movie titled THE FINAL MEMBER which is all about a penile museum in Husavik, Iceland. For over 40 years Sigurour Hjartarson has been collecting mammal penises and adding them to his collection, which eventually became the Icelandic Phallological Museum, his one quest and the one thing that would make his museum complete, a human penis. This movie follows the two men who have decided to donate their member to the museum.

In the end only one man has, at this moment, donated his penis to the museum, and it took his death to get it there.

Besides being about a phallic museum the psychology behind this was quite interesting, and of course the differences in the penis sizes between a sperm whale and a hamster are quite impressive. An older man, Pall Arason, decides to donate because his penis is a well used piece of machinery and he wants the world to see what he has to offer. He talks about the women he has slept with. Unfortunately he dies not know that when a man gets older his penis shrinks, so after a point he is worried that by the time it comes to donate it will be too small to be accepted into the museum, which has a five inch limit.

The other donor wannabe is an older American male who has decided he wants to donate his penis to the museum. His penis, which he calls Elmo, is the center of his world and he is obsessed on getting it out there and famous. He even sends Hjartarson picture of his penis dressed up as Santa, a roman, and other odd costumes. He goes as far as drawing a comic for his penis (which he is trying to get published) and getting an American flag tattoo on the tip.

The movie is an interesting portrait of the penis, and the exploration of the lives of the two men who have decided to donate their members to the museum. The quest to fill the museum with as many different members as possible was also quite compelling and I personally wondered how Hjartarson was going to achieve this goal.

I really don't know what more to say about this movie. It's a great eye into the Phallic museum and into those few who want to donate to the museum.
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    Stacy Kingsley

    Stacy has a lot on her mind, so sharing helps. She also has a great love of movies and books, so she decided to blog about it. Get her reviews here! 

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