Guest Netflix Friend: "Don"

Young Karl Marx (Raoul Peck, 2017)

Despite a title that pays tribute to Mel Brooks and the Marx Brothers, this is surprisingly short on laughs.  Only funny line is "Property is theft," which is so absurd I nearly choked on a truffle.  Strains believability by making the main character fluent in German, French, and English (impossible!) yet this overeducated loser can’t even get a job at the post office.  Then he has the gall to attack children who choose honest factory work over book learning!  Last laugh on this pathetic commie: nobody reads books anymore!

The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismaki, 2017)

Another head scratcher:  a coward turns his back on his dead family in war-torn Syria and criminally enters Finland to feed at the trough of EU socialism.  Finland?  Without even considering the great USA?  Of course, we would have caught him and sent him straight back to his shithole country--but still.

The Staircase (Jean Xavier de Lestrade, 2004-2017)

A stunner.  If the best legal defense money can buy fails to keep a wealthy murderer out of prison, then the whole concept of getting rich and killing people will need to be re-examined.

The Vietnam War (Ken Burns, 2017)

All that hand-wringing over such a small country... most of our states are bigger than this, am I right?  Seems like the French were doing an OK job civilizing the place, but then I found out there were 9 more episodes--and this snoozefest was paid for with taxpayer dollars!  If the History Channel has taught us anything, it takes a lot of commercials to make the past bearable.  Like in "Ice Road Truckers," for example--great show!

A Story of Opportunity (Destiny Pictures, 2018)

Now this is more like it!  Simple, direct, inspiring.  The future remains to be written--in 140 characters or less.