What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

"Bridge of Spies": http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bridge_of_spies/

There's nothing wrong with the movie. My wife thought this would be a better bet than my choice of "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse": http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scou...?search=zombie She was probably right.

The movie is about heroism which is an ambiguous state since just about everyone who did something in the movie could be viewed as heroic from some perspective, even the ones shooting into Donovan's home. They all acted selflessly and for some higher end and took risks although some of that selflessness is now viewed as self-righteousness.

There was one scene where Power's insisted that he told his captors nothing and Donovan replied that Powers knew what he did and didn't do and it didn't matter what anyone else thought. That seems to me to be the key challenge that any hero has to face: rejection by the community he is serving.

Score: 9/10

Just watched the Coen Brothers' adaption of True Grit. There is an odd mid film sag in it, yet it is still a masterpiece imo. I loved the intelligence of Reuben Cogburn, Mattie Ross, La Boeuf, and in particular Ned Pepper. What I loved above all, was the way the vengeful nature of Mattie Ross became apparent. She was at least as intelligent as the others, much more so probably, but the others had a wisdom she lacked. She paid a heavy price.

Also, Domhnall Gleeson: small part but one of the best actors of the world. Jeff Bridges is still one of the best.

Spectre: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spectre_2015/

There are bad guys who have infiltrated the government and are controlling all the data in the world. They are going to do something bad with it. The main bad guy is the son of the man who raised Bond. My wife wanted me to explain the movie to her after it was over. I couldn't, but things blow up and the good guys win and the bad guys lose and Bond gets the girl. And the car.

Score: 8/10

I know it's not a movie but I went to a movie theatre here on the ice yesterday and saw live stream from London, Hamlet to be accurate and enjoyed it a lot. The stage looked great, Claudius was great, Ophelia was kinda crazy and Hamlet was great too. Clearly a lot more money in the theatre in London then here on the ice, not saying it isn't great here, it's just, everything is bigger. Filming a play is very tricky business and I think we could learn a lot from whoever it was that managed the filming.

Set in docklands, this British film has a hard row to hoe in that it's audience needs to believe in the central character being a part-time hangman who marries a much younger woman without apprising her of the fact: he is able to do this because he has another name and a job as a hairdresser that protects him from vengeful relatives of those he has hanged.
When he inherits a number of barges from a river transport company that his father owned,he gives up the barber's business and takes up semi-retirement whilst carrying on as a hangman.
His wife agrees to live on one of the barges but a young longshoreman her husband employs begins forcing himself on her which eventually leads to both men fighting. The husband falls into the river and is believed drowned; at which point the woman commits suicide.
Now it gets really weird because the hangman secretly survives and turns up at the prison to execute his employee who has been found guilty of his murder.

5/10

Back in the 1950s you got a better dressed class of criminal in British adventure films, albeit that they were usually swarthy individuals of foreign extraction and whose nefarious schemes were upset by clean-cut Englishmen.
In the above example, a group of Spanish and French smugglers are being sought by an English chap whose brother has been murdered by the gang.
Set in Barcelona, the plot involves jewel thefts and the export of stolen gold items painted too look like cheap metal copies which are then transported to England for resale as gold.
With the help of a Spanish nightclub singer and a British customs officer, the hero eventually tracks down the gang leader and marries the singer.

Tiresome nonsense typical of the period and instantly forgettable.

4/10

Atlas Shrugged (Part 1): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/
Atlas Shrugged (Part 2): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_ii/
Atlas Shrugged (Part 3): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atla..._is_john_galt/

Although I heard of Ayn Rand's book, I have never read it. I was kind of hoping to watch these movies as a form of speed reading. Of the three movies the first was the best. The actors changed in the second and in the third. This was disorienting since I watched them one after the other.

It is the near future, 2016 and following, and there is a depression caused by inflation. The Taggert family owns a railroad which is now the chief surviving means of transportation. There are two heirs to the Taggert family, an incompetent male and his sister Dagny who keeps things running in spite of her brother. There is also a sequence of prominent people who voluntarily disappear and the mysterious phrase "Who is John Galt?" keeps coming up.

Dagny and a steel producer lay a new line of tracks and they have an affair. Although these two enjoy some successes the politicians gain too much power and eventually civil liberties collapse as well as their efforts to keep society running.

Dagny finds John Galt who lives in what looks like a high-tech, survivalist Shangri-La using gold coins as money hidden behind a technological illusion of mountains that Galt probably designed. Galt is on a sort of strike against society. In addition to striking he and some of the others have also vowed to bring society down. They sabotage efforts to get the country out of the depression and they ultimately succeed in shutting down the US with its incompetent government. Dagny and Galt have an affair.

Those in the commune have to swear the following oath:

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man nor use another to live for mine.

There is a final scene where the government captures Galt and straps him against a wall with his arms stretched out as if he is being crucified. Then they give him electric shocks. He seems to temporarily die but Dagny and others save him at the last minute. He resurrects and he lays in her arms in the helicopter like Jesus in Mary's arms in the Pieta statue except Galt is not dead and they are going back to the commune where they will live happily ever after.

As I see it, especially considering the sabotage incidents, Osama bin Ladin would have been proud of them.

Score: 2/10

People Places Things: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/people_places_things/

Will is a graphic artist and teacher. During their twin daughter's fifth birthday party he finds (I assume) his wife upstairs having sex with one of the party guests. This destroys their relationship but it takes about a year for the dust to settle and for both of them to move on. The kids are charming and the two fight scenes these guys have are more realistic than any I've seen in any movie. Don't worry. It's a comedy. Will finds someone better.

This was written and directed by James C. Strouse and it was done so well I plan to look for more of his movies.

Score: 10/10

Grace Is Gone: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/grace_is_gone/

This is another movie written and directed by James C. Strouse.

Like "People Places Things" this is a story about a father and two young daughters and a problem with the mother. In this movie Stanley's wife is killed in Iraq and he doesn't know how to tell his daughters what happened. Instead he takes them on a road trip first to visit his mother where he finds his brother and then on to an amusement park in Florida. The oldest daughter, about 13, suspects something is wrong, but the youngest, under 10, is still innocent until the end. It is only after they had a day at the amusement park that he parks by a beach. They sit on the sand and Stanley tells his daughters what happened to their mother.

Score: 10/10

last night I watched the maze runner. if I can get by without giving it a number rating---the movie was utterly riveting. the mystery of "what/why/who/how" grabs you from the very beginning and takes you to the very end, where, since its a part of a series, gives you just a little insight, but then leaves you hanging and wanting to come back for more.

if you like dystopian type stuff (a group of youths living in a glade inside a gigantic maze), I cannot recommend this movie enough. I loved it!

Peter van Eyck, the one time archetypal villain of British films runs true to form in this story set in a sumptuous mansion on the Italian riviera. He is the husband of a wealthy woman who plans to murder his wife for her money and devises a clever scheme which will make it look like suicide.
Having drugged her, he seals and locks the door before turning on all the gas lamps in the room; protecting himself by wearing a snorkel before disappearing through a concealed trapdoor leading to a cellar.
The police are convinced that the woman took her own life but her daughter by her first marriage arrives from England for the school holidays and, due to the fact that she witnessed him kill her father in what was made to look like an accident, suspects that her stepfather has done the deed.
The rest of the story concerns how she works out how it was done and the eventual comeuppance of the killer.
Apart from the usual plot holes, it's an enjoyably unpretentious little film in b/w minus the swearing and unnecessary sex and violence that characterises present-day rubbish.

7/10

Clueless: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/clueless

This is a sweet fairy tale rom-com written and directed by Amy Heckerling. It was on display because it was selected as one of the 100 best comedies by some writers group. I keep trying to get cultured and so I am a sucker for such displays.

Anyway, I realized I saw this before, but the memories were positive. Apparently this is based on Austen's novel "Emma". It is the story of how Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a sixteen year old rich and popular girl, helps her classmates get better grades by getting the two toughest grading teachers to fall in love and how she plays matchmaker for a new girl in school. She mother-hens her lawyer father as well. Between shopping and taking care of people she barely has time for school. She needs a boyfriend, but high school boys are beneath her sense of social status until she met a new student who dressed as well as she did and she gave it her best shot unaware that he was gay. Fortunately, there is a college age male (Paul Rudd) who is the son of a woman her father divorced after her mother died whom she scorns as a brother, but since he isn't biologically her brother, well, this is a rom-com and someone is going to be her boyfriend.

I'm usually critical of what pops up in the 100 best of anything lists, but in this case, they got it right.

Score: 10/10

This BBC television adaptation of one of M.R.James's ghost stories is very atmospheric in the way that only the English can be. No in your face effects but truly eerie in their presentation.
I imagine that the author took Barchester from Trollope's novels and the ecclesiastical setting is perfectly captured.
Told in flashback by a scholarly librarian who is cataloguing the cathedral's library. He is reading about a former arch deacon who
came into the office having waited years from his predecessor to die and it's hinted that the new man was complicit in the older man's death : something that has very unnerving consequences for the younger man.

!0/10

https://youtu.be/dcZu1SzPwCE

Haha, was it well-acted, yesno? I read that in college, but as it was a number of years ago I have absolutely no memory of the plot. I remember Dagny's name, and I remember she had a coming out party at the beginning and she became very disillusioned with people and society by the end of it, if I remember correctly.

The play sounds really good, Helga. There's a movie based on "MacBeth" coming out soon that I'd love to see.

I went to see "Spotlight" which is the story of the journalists who shone the "spotlight" on the Catholic priests who were sexually abusing children. The name of the movie comes from the name of the group who worked at The Boston Globe doing deep research on various stories over a long period of time. The movie was excellent, told in a very understated way, focusing on the research and the determination of the journalists to tell the story well and to expose the systemic cover-up of the abuse, which stretched from local churches up to the Vatican itself. 9/10

Quote:

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Originally Posted by qimissung

Haha, was it well-acted, yesno? I read that in college, but as it was a number of years ago I have absolutely no memory of the plot. I remember Dagny's name, and I remember she had a coming out party at the beginning and she became very disillusioned with people and society by the end of it, if I remember correctly.

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I can't remember Emma either. The acting in Clueless was so realistically unreal that I knew it was a fantasy and at the same time I could identify with the characters.

Some of the comedies I have seen lately are so unreal I don't know what to think. For example, there's "The Night Before" (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_night_before_2015/). My favorite character was the girl (Ilana Glazer) who called herself Rebecca Grinch. (Score 5/10)

Jurassic World
The son was home for the Thanksgiving break.
With nothing planned on a rainy Saturday night, the three of us watched JW, this is what compromise gets you.
It turned out the only version available was in 3-d leaving us with a dual or split screen format, so I found a piece of board to cover half the TV screen.
Anyhow, the acting was a predictable, 10 pound block of processed cheddar.
The action parts may have been worthwhile on a theater screen, but watching on half of a 33 inch TV screen...meh.

4/10 - I like the concept of trained velociraptors.

Suffragette -- superb film!
Brooklyn -- fine film.
t.v. Miss Fisher (private detective in Australia) on Netflix -- spunky.

The Transporter: Refueled

As a fan of the original, Jason Statham Transporter movies, I thought I'd give this latest version a try, suspecting though I did, from watching the trailer, that it would be sliced excrement. Well, the trailer turns out to have been well-made. Mind you, rectal though the film was, I did sit through it, which is more than I can say for most movies nowadays. I guess a little mindless action, combined with long-legged beautiful women and fast cars speeding down the roads of Morocco is balm for the soul. Or something.

Wrongfully Accused: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Wrongfully_Accused/

I've seen worse.

Score 6/10

Back in the 1950s, Hollywood discovered the teenager, hence: Teenagers from Outer Space.
Although somewhat older than teenagers, the alien visitors are bent on trouble with the intention of using the Earth as a breeding ground for monsters: a specimen of which they have brought with them.
Equipped with an appalling script, they also have a ray gun that reduces vertebrates to skeletons ....." You are not familiar with the focusing disintigrator ray?" and with equally risible performances it gets a 2/10 because the cast managed their lines without laughing.

Emil, I enjoyed that review and got a chortle out of it. Next time I see some risible movie involving teenagers and the paranormal listed in iTunes (this time tomorrow, very likely), I'll remember they were making such fecal matter as far back as 1959.

Re. The aliens being "somewhat older than teenagers": Traditionally, the actors were as well.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Back in the 1950s, Hollywood discovered the teenager, hence: Teenagers from Outer Space.
Although somewhat older than teenagers, the alien visitors are bent on trouble with the intention of using the Earth as a breeding ground for monsters: a specimen of which they have brought with them.
Equipped with an appalling script, they also have a ray gun that reduces vertebrates to skeletons ....." You are not familiar with the focusing disintigrator ray?" and with equally risible performances it gets a 2/10 because the cast managed their lines without laughing.

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Thank you Emil, you just made my weekend, this is right up my alley.
I'll mark it as one to watch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tyrion Cheddar

Emil, I enjoyed that review and got a chortle out of it. Next time I see some risible movie involving teenagers and the paranormal listed in iTunes (this time tomorrow, very likely), I'll remember they were making such fecal matter as far back as 1959.

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The first teenage exploitation film ( I was a Teenage Werewolf ) predates Teenagers from Outer Space by two years.
Not forgetting 'I was a Teenage Frankenstein' made in the same year as the werewolf epic and completely ignoring the fact that Frankenstein was the name of the mad scientist and not that of the monster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle

Thank you Emil, you just made my weekend, this is right up my alley.
I'll mark it as one to watch.

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Well Gilliatt, it's always gratifying to know that cinematic masterpieces are respected by members of the forum.

Last movie for me was Never Let Me Go. Beautiful film with excellent actors (I am a huge Keira Knightley fan). I will give it 7/10 only because it was extremely sad and depressing from beginning to end! My own fault, though, I knew what I was getting into!

Another Year: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/another_year_2010/

I realized I saw this some years ago. It was painful to watch again. Perhaps one needs pain every now and then.

This is the story of Mary (Leslie Manville) and her unhappiness due to her sense of inadequacy with her work, the few men around her and her car especially when she compares herself with her friend, Gerri (Ruth Sheen). Her unhappiness doesn't get resolved even though this has been shelved with the comedies in the library. You might as well shelve "Titus Andronicus" with the comedies.

It was written and directed by Mike Leigh and I mention that because I am trying to remember who these writers are. I'll see if I can find more of his work. Although it depressed me, it still deserved a high score.

Score: 10/10

Aloha: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/aloha_2015/

A private businessman is planning to sneak weapons on a satellite, but he has to get by the conscience of a contractor and a female fighter pilot. There is also an old girlfriend who now has two children the contractor needs to deal with and he does that as well as he handled that businessman. Written and directed by Cameron Crowe.

Rotten tomatoes, both the critics and the regular people, didn't like it, but I had a good time. The plot didn't make a lot of sense, like why is a businessman trying to put nukes on a satellite, but those are irrelevant details.

Score: 10/10

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

It was written and directed by Mike Leigh and I mention that because I am trying to remember who these writers are. I'll see if I can find more of his work.

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I can highly recommend Life Is Sweet.

Thanks, Calidore. I have Leigh's "All or Nothing" that I plan to watch tonight. I'll see if I can find "Life is Sweet" in the library.

I got sidetracked from the Mike Leigh movies perhaps because of the holidays and watched three animation films:

Betty Boop The Essential Collection volume 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Boop

I didn't know that Max Fleischer did both Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye) although Popeye originated with Elzie Crisier Segar. Betty Boop and Olive Oyl are two entertaining female characters. These 1930 decade cartoons are somewhat tedious to watch especially the transformations that added the surprise.

Score: 3/10, but worth watching to get a feeling for how far we have come since the 1930s.

Minions: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/minions/

Now this is how cartoons should be made. The basic plot is how the minions found a bad buy bad enough for them to serve and not accidentally kill in the process.

Score: 10/10

Inside Out: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inside_out_2015/

The theme is that Joy and Sadness have to work together and sometimes Joy being too bubbly and optimistic takes control and has to learn to share.

Score: 10/10

From one of the most striking openings in cinematic history, Fellini leads on to a critique of Rome's café society of the 1950s via the restless search for a gossip writer's escape to a life of genuine literary endeavour.
Escaping from his glitzy fast-moving existence proves too much for the leading character who eventually gets swallowed up by the superficial world from which he earns his living as he disintegrates into a drunken lout who embodies the irony of the film's title.
At three hours, this morality tale is perhaps a little too long but such is Fellini's innovative direction and shot with brilliant black and white camerawork , it commands attention to the end.

https://youtu.be/uo84caBoToQ


10/10

Well I am a fantasy and sci-fi nerd in more ways than you know so, the last movie I saw was Star Wars the Force Awakens. I loved it. really did, no spoilers, apparently you get death threats if you spoil. I think they used a bit too much of New Hope references but it was ok. Probably one of the best women in the galaxy was finally found, Leia was awesome in the old trilogy but Rey is a better fighter and I liked her. Kylo Ren, brilliant as Adam Driver is.

Liked it a lot, I was a bit nervous because I don't like what JJ did to Star Trek but SW is field apparently.

It's 1913 and Robert Donat is sent to Russia by the government to infiltrate the burgeoning revolutionary movement and to gain information on it's potential threat to British interests. Implicated in a plot to assassinate a high ranking officer, he is arrested by the Czarist police and sent to Siberia where he languishes until freed by revolutionary forces when the revolution breaks out some years later.
On his return to Moscow, he falls for a Countess, played by Marlene Dietrich, who is going to be tried as an aristocrat and probably executed but, using his position as a trusted revolutionary, he manages to smuggle her out of the country to the safety of Romania after a series of hair raising escapades.
Produced by the great Alexander Korda, the production values are remarkable and give a real feel to what it must have been like in Russia at that time but it's a pity that throughout the vicissitudes of revolution and flight,Marlene Dietrich's make-up remains firmly in place: did they have false eyelashes in Russia in 1917?

9/10

James Hadley Chase's pulp fiction novel becomes a pulp fiction film in this British 1940's shocker supposedly set in New York but actually filmed at Twickenham studios London with an entire English cast; except for Jack LaRue who specialised in American small time gangster parts.
The story involves a kidnapped heiress to a great fortune who falls in love with her gang boss kidnapper.
The gratuitous violence led to the film being denounced from pulpits and watch committees throughout the land and established the film as a cult classic that has now been reissued among 'The Best of British Collection'.
Despite such criticisms as, 'A most most vicious display of sadism, brutality and suggestiveness', it is pretty tame by today's OTT blood letting and isn't as penny-pinched as one might imagine. The villain's nightclub is quite a lavish affair with a couple of good numbers from the resident girl singer who is spurned by the broodingly charismatic Jack LaRue in favour of the classy Miss Blandish.

7/10

https://youtu.be/MeducJKJNbM

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Helga

Well I am a fantasy and sci-fi nerd in more ways than you know so, the last movie I saw was Star Wars the Force Awakens. I loved it. really did, no spoilers, apparently you get death threats if you spoil. I think they used a bit too much of New Hope references but it was ok. Probably one of the best women in the galaxy was finally found, Leia was awesome in the old trilogy but Rey is a better fighter and I liked her. Kylo Ren, brilliant as Adam Driver is.

Liked it a lot, I was a bit nervous because I don't like what JJ did to Star Trek but SW is field apparently.

---

We saw this recently. It reminded me of the original Star Wars movie. Is Rey the daughter of someone important in the story?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

We saw this recently. It reminded me of the original Star Wars movie. Is Rey the daughter of someone important in the story?

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Well, yes, it reminded me of the original Star Wars movie, too. That's because the plot was an exact copy of the original Star Wars. The Force Awakens wasn't horrible, but it was dull, derivative and lacking in originality. The dramatic entrances of Han, Leia and Luke were good for a bit of nostalgia, but that was about it.

The new Darth Vader character (I forget his name) was pathetic. Darth Vader was one of the great movie villains. His descendant isn't scary, isn't tough, and isn't worth watching. He doesn't even have his own theme music (the Darth Vader theme being a classic).

I assume Rey is the daughter of either Han and Leia or Luke -- but we don't know yet. All will be revealed in time, if we shell out the money to sit through another sequel. I'll grant that she's a decent enough character, as is the new droid, but the hero pilot, the reformed storm trooper (Fin?) and the new Darth Vader are worthless.

The new Darth Vader didn't seem bad enough even when he went on his rampages with the light saber. I think Rey is Luke's daughter. Leia or Han would have recognized her.

What happened to Yoda? He reminded me of Dobby in Harry Potter or Dobby reminded me of him.

This YouTube documentary bills itself a 'conspiracy shocker'; if you believe it's a conspiracy you are unlikely to be shocked: otherwise you certainly will be. According to the video's assembled witnesses, Bill Clinton was a cocaine addict who, while governor of Arkansas, was involved in smuggling large amounts of cocaine into the USA: his brother Roger was charged with possession of the drug.
Moreover, two young boys who witnessed the unloading of the drug at a secluded airstrip, were found dead on a railway line on which Governor Clinton's medical examiner said they had fallen asleep.
A number of people investigating his administration were said to have committed suicide and at least one woman claims that he had sexually assaulted her.
Now whether it is true or simply a scurrilous attempt to blunt Hilary Clinton's shot at the White House, is something the audience will have to decide individually but, interestingly, nothing is mentioned about President Clinton ignoring flagrant breaches of the Glass-Steagall Act and finally annulling it at the behest of the banking lobby; all of which led to the near collapse of the banking system in 2007/8.

Perhaps somebody should have told him........'It's the economy, stupid'.


8/10

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

...at least one woman claims that he had sexually assaulted her.....

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Anything with Bill Clinton and sex in it seems plausible to me after recalling his denial of involvement with Monica Lewinski. It is even more embarrassing since I voted for him. Were I more politically motivated, I would watch this. You did pick out a good documentary earlier on the Apollo missions. I'll never be the same after watching that one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Anything with Bill Clinton and sex in it seems plausible to me after recalling his denial of involvement with Monica Lewinski. It is even more embarrassing since I voted for him. Were I more politically motivated, I would watch this. You did pick out a good documentary earlier on the Apollo missions. I'll never be the same after watching that one.

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The problem with YouTube videos is that one needs to be circumspect in choosing what to watch. Many of them are obviously silly and posted by cranks but some are quite professionally done and worth watching. I imagine some are posted as disinformation by those who want to discredit all YouTube videos as the work of conspiracy theorists and thus discourage others from investigating cases of abuse by those agencies called into question.

I would think that quite a lot of people were disconcerted by the Apollo documentary. That take-off from the Moon's surface was pure Legoland regardless of whether men had walked on the Moon or not.