Movie Catchup - Donald Rumsfeld: A Man Who Wasn't There

I've been a little busy of late doing an online course in Scala, so I'm doing a bit of catching up.

First up, The Unknown Known, a strange documentary from Errol Morris about the former U.S. Secretary of Defence and Neo-Conservative Donald Rumsfeld.

This can be contrasted, explicitly, with the documentary that Morris did previously about another Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara. Whereas McNamara seemed to be an active participant in the decisions made by himself and the presidents he served, and suffered accordingly, Rumsfeld seems to have merely been an observer, unengaged, just a place-holder until a real decision maker turned up. Intriguingly, Nixon thought of him as unreliable and so he escaped the Watergate scandal.

Next, Dracula Untold, the story of Prince Vlad Tepes (Luke Evans) and his struggles to save his people from the Ottoman Emperor Mehemed II (Dominic Cooper).

A ripping yarn, and an attempt at blending real history (Prince Vlad did defeat the forces of Mehemed in night battle and impaled 20,000 prisoners) with the Dracula story of Bram Stoker, this is a really good pizza movie and worth the watch.

Lastly, Officer Down, a cop movie starring Steven Dorff.

Based on a true story, it's not a bad little film, hampered only by the initial flash-backs, which just confuse rather than add style. The acting isn't bad, with good support by Walton Coggins and James Woods. Better than you would think.

Oooooo, on TV over in the 'States is a new series about us IT people. Called Mr. Robot, it's about a dysfuctional hacker (so no cliches there then) who finds himself embroiled in a shadowy world corporate intrigue.

Yeah, it sounds like clap-trap, but, in the absense of anything better, it might be worth a watch (assuming you can find it amongst all the dross on our networks).