Movie Reviews

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book, has the potential to rock your world. Although South Park’s brilliant Trapped in the Closet already covered the same ground, Going Clear features stellar interviews with a handful of ex-Scientologists. If a 21-minute cartoon parody doesn’t convince you that Scientology is batshit crazy, see this film. Beware: by the end, you’ll question a lot more than just Scientology.

Throwback Review: The Godfather

Eighth in a series of “throwback” posts. The Godfather is the movie that sparked my interest in criticism. When I saw it, I went to the library and started reading volumes from the Contemporary Literary Criticism series. This might be my first written review – in any case, it’s the earliest one I still have.

Throwback Review: The Untouchables

In Hindsight: As I transcribe these throwback reviews from yellowing dot matrix printouts, I get a clearer picture of my young adult mind…The Untouchables is NOT “the first time [De Palma had] everything working just right” – that would be Blow Out (1981).

Throwback Review: The Deer Hunter

In Hindsight: This is the first “throwback” movie I haven’t seen since I originally wrote about it. I purchased the DVD years ago and haven’t watched it. The Deer Hunter is known for its Russian roulette sequences. I became aware of the movie when an older boy in our town died, specifically imitating scenes in the film. I find it curious that I didn’t address the tragedy when I wrote this, because it’s the reason I watched. I don’t remember being upset by the news (I didn’t know him) but my ambivalence suggests otherwise.

My New Blog!

Another movie you should see except it’s pretty boring is Still Alice, which is very realistic and exactly what happened when my uncle had alzeimers disease, which makes you forget things and people except things that happened to you a long time ago. Sometimes we need to see movies like this to understand things that other people go through in their lives. If you don’t want to see it which I totally understand maybe you can see a different movie but just go a little early and sneak in to see part of Still Alice, which is what I did. I think that is still o.k. because it’s not like the movie is selling out or anything.