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Reviews
The Synanon Fix: Here Come the Dopefiends (2024)
How cults get started
I first heard of Synanon on a late night talk show in NYC in the early 60s, when I was a teenager. It was the only program treating mostly heroin addicts with apparent success. This documentary gives a good sense of the cultural milieu in which Synanon was born and thrived -- SoCal in the mid 1960s. The issue of child abuse was not on the cultural radar then. Not at all. (I say this as one who suffered as a child and became a clinical social worker in the 1990s. The testimony of some who were children there is utterly horrifying and heartbreaking.) It makes sense that desperate people clung for their lives to a powerful person like Chuck Diedrich. The willingness to follow and obey his directives arose the deep human need to feel a part of community which addressed their loneliness and shame.
The Florida Project (2017)
Garbage
This movie failed to ignite a shred of empathy in me for any of the characters, with the exception of Willem Defoe. I guess this is a story about the never ending cycle of poverty and addiction. But if it wants me to care, it needs to give me one tiny bit of honest vulnerability or a glimmer of hope. The kids are like wild animals. All I could think of was "Lord of the Flies," which works on a metaphorical level. Is that the intention of this director? We're all wild animals, under the glossy Disney veneer. Too dark for my taste. See "Fish Tank" for superior and believable dialogue and acting in a story about the underclass in England, with a slim but meaningful ray of human aspiration.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Brilliant acting, gorgeous scenery, gothic horror
Someday someone will make a movie with fantastic actors speaking believable dialogue against a backdrop of scenic beauty and historical relevance, addressing the issues of loneliness and severe depression. This is not that movie. Is it a dark comedy? To a point. Then it takes a quick turn into horror, which I realize is all the rage. There are moments of insight, especially with the priest in the confessional, which reinforces the notion that the Church is clueless as to how to help its mentally unstable parishioners. The theme I took: a seriously suicidal older man wreaks havoc on a younger man's live, resulting in both of them being deranged. And the sister would abandon her brother without inviting him along? Impossible. That's when the script failed for me. Granted, the actors are fantastic. The setting gorgeous, but we don't get glimpses of the grinding poverty which was no doubt evident. It's not realistic that the villagers would let an old man walk around with a bloody stump without attempting to bandage it.
Elvis (2022)
Too young for Elvis, but
So glad I didn't pass this by. I was 4 y o when Elvis first appeared in Ed Sullivan and vaguely remember him on TV before being drafted. I was perfect age for the Beatles and the British Invasion, and Elvis always seemed passé to me. Never saw his movies and thought his Vegas act was over the top. However, I know how key Elvis and Sam Phillips (and DJ Dewey Phillips) were in bringing the blues/black music to young white audiences. And helping to open doors for Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc. John Lennon has said, without Elvis, there would be no Beatles. I get it. But what's great about this movie is how it captures Elvis' ambition, creativity, and innocence. He was a perfect target for a blood-sucking manipulator like Colonel Tom Parker. This is a story of how the lust for power and control destroys real art. In America, it happens all the time.
Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)
Meandering, with several inaccuracies, but emotionally powerful
I haven't reviewed a film since "The White Ribbon," but I need to say how this film affected me. Firstly, I was annoyed that MM blamed Gwen Stefani for Trump's decision to run for POTUS. NOT TRUE. Read Craig Unger's "House of Trump, House of Putin" to learn that Trump ran briefly in 2000 as the Reformed Party candidate, and dropped out after realizing he couldn't win as a 3rd party candidate. So, BOO on Michael for that glaring piece of misinformation, though it was entertaining. Trump has been talking to the media for years about running for POTUS. Also, it's NOT TRUE (a la Michael Wolf's book, "Fire and Fury," that Trump didn't want to win. He absolutely did! Perhaps his family didn't want it, but he was bound and determined and risked everything to cross the finish line first. Jared was heard saying, on the night before the election, "We've got this." See Cambridge Analytica, etc. Why in the world would Trump have traveled to Grand Rapids, MI the night before election? He won the state by less than 78K votes, which MM discusses in the film. So here's where this movie grabbed me by the throat: when MM interviews Bernie and shows how his supporters were crushed at the Dem Convention. That really did happen and is a big reason why HRC lost. She lost a lot of Bernie supporters who felt cheated. I, for one, went on to work for Hilary, because I'm smart enough to realize that she was the choice and we had to beat Trump. But many people had hurt feelings. The HRC/establishment people are in for more losses if they don't respect that there is an enormous wave of young voters who don't want business as usual, which means corporate control of elected officials. See AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and many others (including our local candidate Matt Morgan, who lost to the incumbent gun-freak Jack Bergman, who will wish he was never in office after Mueller's report comes out.) NO MORE CORPORATIONS RUNNING OUR GOVERNMENT, is the very strong message of this film. MM interviews a really awesome Dem candidate in WV and follows the teachers' strike there, which is very inspiring. He documents how Flint was poisoned by the criminal capitalist Rick Snyder and his gang of thugs, and interviews a woman who was ordered to falsify lead levels in children, and quit in protest. Prot. Timothy Snyder ("Bloodlands", "On Tyranny") is also interviewed, which could be expanded into an entire film. Despite the horrors of what has and is happening in our gov't and WH, MM ends on an inspiring note with Emma Gonzalez's speech at the March for our Lives. So there's hope. I hope I live long enough to vote for her for POTUS, which I guess would be about 20 more years. (I'm 67)
The Art of the Steal (2009)
The Art of the Steal
It's about time this story was told for the entire world to hear the facts.
I am unnerved by two problems with previous reviewers here:
1) The Barnes Foundation is NOT a "museum"! It is an educational art foundation! Please do not keep referring to it as a "museum"!
2) Every, I repeat, every film has a point of view, and every documentary has its own "slant" or perspective. Why do reviewers think that a documentary must show all points of view. Did Fahrenheit 9-11? What about Food, Inc. or Supersize Me? Or The Smartest Men in the Room? Or Millhouse? (Do you want me to go on?) Please give one example of a documentary that gives all points of view!
One very salient point in this film is that Dr. Barnes' (and he did have a medical degree, so it is not dishonest to give him that label) will was thrown out by the court. A legal precedent which will have very serious ramifications.....