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A simple yet loving peasant farmer, his wife and his son are dragged into a struggle to save the peaceful kingdom from being ripped apart by treacherous human betrayal and the magical forces of Evil.
Before stepping into this review, let me preface by saying I want to be fair about this movie. I got it out of the bargain bin at WalMart; I hadn't had any sleep for over 24 hours; and my fiancee had just informed me that Jason Statham is a year younger than I, which depressed the crap out of me. As much as any of us I want to be objective ... dammit, we're human beings -- a steak from Ruth Chris Steakhouse is not going to taste as good as it should if it's served by an ugly waitress. That being said, there was gold leaf and leather binding to this book's cover: An impressive all-star cast; a medieval setting with armor and magic and monsters; and good God -- do I loooooove me some Jason Statham!
( If you're selling me a Toyota, don't call call it a Rolls. )Was it worth it? Ya know, from my perspective, it was. I bought this movie because it promised Jason Statham kicking the crap out of people, and it delivered. My boy Jason did indeed kick the living crap out of people, and I was entertained. However, it also promised an epic story of magic and medieval adventure, and I got buttered golf balls. But then again, what do you want for five bucks? For me, Jason Statham just saved WalMart the trouble of returning my money. If you aren't a Jason Statham fan, stick to Lord of the Rings.
I give it 2-1/2 out of 5.
The Breakfast Club, 1984: Five teenagers find themselves in high school detention, and end up finding themselves in each other. My God, I should write movie taglines. This was the ultimate brat-pack movie, and I grew up in the middle of this era. Hell, what '80's teen watched this film and didn't identify with at least one of the characters? Many milestones coincide with this film. My first time watching it, I was at my first cast party of my first high school play – drunk for the very first time. My best high school friend Barak and I watched the film religiously again and again. I wore out many, many copies of the soundtrack, which I still consider to be one of the best ever. I adapted and directed a stage production of this gem at Polk Community College in the mid-90's with some of my friends who graciously allowed me to pull time from their busy schedules. There were some classic lines that are still used today – “Eat … My … Shorts.”
Taboo II, 1982: Synopsis – It's a porn with an unsurprising number of naked people. This movie was shown at the same cast party right after Breakfast Club. My first porn film, and I'm drunk. Needless to say, this film plus the alcohol made me a very, very witty person.
A Clockwork Orange, 1971: A dystopian view of our already outdated correctional system from the view of one troubled teenager. My first true appreciation of serious film comes from this Kubrick gem. I had the best job a 16-year-old high school student could ask for – I worked at Spec's music and video. I had access to all the latest releases of movies on VHS and music on the hottest format to date, the Compact Disc. The CD's came in artfully printed long boxes fit to hang on your wall, which were designed to thwart would-be shoplifters. One of the assistant managers steered me to certain titles that shaped my movie tastes for years to come. The first time I rented it, I was transfixed by the story. As I watched it for the first time at about 2am on our family VCR, I had just gotten to the point where Alex is being showcased for a bunch of bureaucrats. In one of the demonstrations, Alex is put in front of a beautiful naked woman to show that he is unable to have thoughts about sexual violence without physical pain. I was 16 years old, and here was the most absolutely perfect set of tits on the screen (I have yet to see a better pair anywhere on film or otherwise). In this situation at 2am, I want you to picture the worst thing that could happen. My mother forbade me to watch the rest of the film, and I was unable to watch it for almost a year.
Full Metal Jacket, 1987: Kubrick's Vietnam War epic follows a Marine from boot camp to his first kill. I saw this movie once on the big screen before going into the Marine Corps a few years later. The drill instructors showed us this movie on Thanksgiving Day. Having seen several Marine Corps movies depicting boot camp in all its glory, I am here to tell you: Full Metal Jacket captured the Parris Island experience perfectly. I have seen documentaries about Parris Island that don't evoke memories like this fiction does. Other Vietnam movies can't touch this film. For example:
Born On the Fourth Of July, 1989: Oliver Stone's vision of the Vietnam War. I didn't put this movie here just to compare it with Kubrick's film – it has a milestone memory of its own – but I'll go ahead and get the comparison out of the way: It doesn't, so there. The memorable moment was that this is the only time that I, before or since, paid to see a movie and walked out after the first half hour. It wasn't the gore, it wasn't bad acting, it was … well, I'm not sure what it was. The movie just didn't blow my skirt up. As I said, it wasn't that bad – just completely uninteresting to me. I have since seen it, and it fails to move me. I have sat through worse pieces of cinema, outraged that I was paying to see such tripe, but this movie wasn't even actively bad. It was a unique movie that left me completely unmoved, even to trash it. I liken the experience to a generic starburst mint you get from a restaurant – you pop it in your mouth, and don't even notice it's there until you want to say something to your date, and absentmindedly spit it out.
Young Frankenstein, 1974: Okay Sherman, set the Wayback for 1974. I was 4 years old and my father took us to see my first movie on the big screen. I marveled at the hugeness of this big TV set as well as the fact that there was no color. That's right, my first trip to the movies wasn't to see a Disney film; it was to see Madeline Kahn get raped by Peter Boyle … and she liked it! It remains as one of my favorite movies of all time for its classic humor blah blah blah. Another interesting personal tidbit is that I seem to have to buy another copy of this film every time I lose a girlfriend.
Citizen Kane, 1941: Orsen Wells' classic tale of the fall of a modern day feudal lord. What kind of milestone movie is complete without Citizen Kane? I include it not for its historic place in cinema, but for a late night in 1983 when I first watched (and enjoyed) an entire film on PBS that had no car chases, explosions, ninjas, spaceships, chainsaws or pie fights. It holds a place of honor in my DVD collection.
Kids In the Hall – Brain Candy, 1996: Say what you want about this unappreciated masterpiece. I contend that this is arguably tied with The Big Lebowski for first place as the smartest and funniest satire of the 1990's. I'm a huge KITH fan, and have every single season on DVD. For almost two years, I went to sleep every night with this movie playing in the background. This is also another movie that ex'es seem to get custody of.
Student Bodies, 1981: A comedy slasher film with Richard Belzer as the scary guy. As cheesy as it was, this was my first slasher film, and the first time I saw boobies on TV. The next door neighbor girl was a whole lot of firsts for me, and she had cable. Bless that girl, she opened up a lot of worlds to me … otherwise, this is a horrible movie. Bad effects and bad acting, it may be worth a look if you're a b-film fan. And did I mention boobies?
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, 1998: Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, this movie quickly made me an avid Hunter S. Thompson fan. I have since read Where the Buffalo Roam as well as Fear and Loathing and Hell's Angels. When I die, my ashes are going into fireworks. This is the movie that prompted me to switch to the DVD format. It is also the first movie I had ever seen that portrays a drug attitude similar to my own – drugs aren't evil or good. They're not something to be lorded or glamorized, but they shouldn't be condemned or vilified either. They are just there, and should be treated with respect … much like a warm and cuddly, vicious dog. Drugs have wrecked a lot of lives, but they also brought us the Beatles.
Bill Hicks Live - Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-Up Comedian, 2004: This man influenced George Carlin, Sam Kinison and many other "angry" comics of the 80's and 90's. His biting humor and bald faced social commentary gave a voice to many of my views in college. I discovered him at the same time I discovered that wonderful new medium of music exchange, Napster. I damn near filled my hard drive with his comedy and drove my conservative dorm mate batshit in the late '90's. I was crushed to find out he had died in '93 – I would have loved to see him live.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975: Having watched Flying Circus on late night PBS for years, I was finally privy to Holy Grail while working at Spec's in the mid '80's. Anyone who knew me in high school knew me as one of those annoying bastards who constantly quoted line after line to anyone who would listen, willingly or otherwise. This movie was another unifying bond to those of us into Dungeons and Dragons, Fawlty Towers, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It was a geek badge of honor to those of us who were into computers before computers (or geeks for that matter) were cool.
Bowling For Columbine, 2002: Whether you think he's the Limbaugh of the Looney Left or a Crusader for … well, for the Looney Left, Michael Moore certainly gained attention with this, his third feature documentary. I personally agree with most of his views, though I find his tactics darkly (for lack of a better or more appropriate term) Karl-Rove-ish. I have always liked documentaries, but this movie got me into a whole new realm of political activism and social documentaries. It was one of the only movies that I saw in the theatre and openly cried.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, 1989: Michael Gambon (the second, not-dead guy who plays Dumbledore) has a wife who seeks an affair with an ordinary man after becoming bored with the mob scene. Tim Roth also stars. This is one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, both for its overly rich cinematic presentation and for its thematic content. I saw this while working in a Lakeland movie theatre, and I was struck by how hard that Jamey (a high school friend and assistant manager) had successfully lobbied to get this foreign art film into such a mainstream-oriented venue in a rather conservative community. Though the movie didn't do very well, Jamey stuck by his guns and defended the movie to his rather stiff general manager as something he believed in. It also opened up a world of film where neat, cut-and-dry endings aren't necessary to make a great story.
They Live, 1988: During my stint at Spec's, my friend Barak and I had a weekend tradition. We would get a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew and rent the absolute worst B-grade film I could find on the video shelf – movies like Clan of the Cave Bear, The Stuff, Saturn 3, and the RHPC sequel Shock Treatment. Sometimes, we would dig up a gem that was surprisingly good. Former wrestling star “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in the starring role of a John Carpenter film? It sounded like the nails had been welded into the coffin, but we loved it! The story line was interesting, and the parts that Carpenter's budget couldn't support were wisely thickened with gooey cheese. The best fight scene in the movie (which lasts a good ten minutes) is between the two good guys over a pair of sunglasses. I recently found out that someone is remaking this movie in 2011. I'm a little leery of B-film remakes. The originals are almost always narrowly-avoided train wrecks – it should have been a disaster, but seeing the locomotive barely hang onto the rails of a shoestring budget is half the fun of a B-film. The audience not only roots for the good guy, but waits with bated breath to see the director's house of cards withstand the hurricane. Pushing money at them to shore up the risky production takes the fun out it. I'm looking at you, Blob. You too, Escape From LA. Okay, there are a few exceptions, like:
The Evil Dead trilogy, 1981 through 1992: Another great find from the B-film archive, this one was all Barak's idea. This plucky little engine-that-could showed me that a creative endeavor can step outside the boundaries of itself to make something else entirely – if the artist is flexible enough to laugh at himself. The first movie is meant to be a horror film, but was so bad it was funny. The second installment, Dead By Dawn, was a mulligan – Sam Raimi simply tried again with more money, making a truly scary film that kept the laughable manic flavor of the first. In Army Of Darkness, Raimi realized that these movies were just damned funny and focused on the camp value of the overwrought but headstrong Ash character. Raimi went on to direct some truly great films like Spiderman and A Perfect Plan.
The Last Temptation Of Christ, 1988: Not to be confused with the snuff film, Passion of … This movie came out during a spiritually rebellious phase of my life. Normally, I would have ignored it during this time, but since the church was protesting it I had to see it. Far from being a blasphemous finger at God, it shows the humanity of Jesus. Nowadays, I am by no means a devout follower, but I am not actively opposed to religion either. I think this movie helped to let me see that beliefs are just that – beliefs. Scorning them doesn't make them any less true, but fervent discipleship doesn't make them any more true. Some fundamentalists distort the simple truth that mankind is fallible into a pornographic travesty that all men are inherently evil and all imperfection is doomed to burn. I learned that imperfection does not warrant whole-cloth damnation, but a desire to improve. I think the reason this second approach doesn't sell as well is that there are far less explosions and car chases.
A Thief In the Night, 1972: Speaking of fundamentalist apocalyptic gloom and doom, Patty ignores the warnings both from friends and the book of Revelations, and finds herself trapped in the Tribulation, left behind after the second coming of Jesus. If you've ever seen Left Behind, picture it with about a tenth of the budget and a lot more polyester clothing. Not to spoil the movie, but things end badly for our protagonist, but not before a vain struggle to resist both the Evil Forces of the antichrist and the last vestiges of the church. This movie scared the life out of me when I viewed it in my Pentecostal church with the entire congregation. This was shown at the end of a two-week seminar at our church with preachers who specialized in the apocalyptic teachings of Revelations. I had nightmares and panic attacks for years afterward. When I would arrive at home with nobody there, I was convinced that I had screwed up somehow, and that Jesus had come and gone. This is a heavy trip to lay on an 8-year-old. Showing this movie to a child is like carving a live dog up to show that knives are dangerous: “See how Missy yelps when we cut into her liver? We won't play with sharp objects anymore, will we?”
The Day After, 1983: Fundamentalist zealots haven't cornered the market on overly fearful movies with poor production values, heavens no! “See how Missy's insides rot from the middle from fallout? I guess we won't be playing with ICBM's anymore, will we?” My family and I actually skipped church to watch this two-part made-for-TV movie about life after they drop The Bomb. It definitely formed a solid anti-war sentiment inside me that sticks to this day. I'm not talking about just big nuke wars – I also formed an anti-war opinion against those pesky little wars where they only kill hundreds at a time instead of millions. Again, it gave me nightmares.
Goodfellas, 1990: Best. Mob. Film. Ever. This film got me into the mob film genre, having previously only seen Brian DePalma's lackluster The Untouchables. This movie prompted me to rent the Godfather trilogy as well as several other mob films that Kevin Costner might have otherwise soured for me. I saw this film while working in the movie theatre as a midnight employees-only preview the day before its public release. I remember seeing several great movies at these midnight parties like Silence Of the Lambs, Ghost, Hunt For The Red October, and that icon of cinema, House Party II. There was always an air of superiority at those parties with the knowledge that we were the first normal people to watch the whole movie. We would break all the theatre rules of bringing in outside food and smoking while we watched. When I got up to use the restroom, I was struck by an anachronistic image that sticks with me to this day: Facing the rear of the theatre from the front of the aisle, I saw the shaft of flickering light from the projection booth filtering through our cigarette smoke as it shown over the audience of tuxedo-shirted patrons while Joe Pesci gave his famous “Am I a clown to you?” speech. It was straight out of the 1940's.
The Dark Crystal, 1982: Creepy Muppet story of a Gelfling who quests to restore the balance of good and evil in a world of magic. This was the first movie I ever saw in a theater by myself, and the first I ever saw twice in a theater. The Grove Park Twin Cinemas in Lakeland was playing this movie next door to Kubrick's The Shining, and there was a teaser poster in the lobby for the next installment of the Star Wars trilogy, Revenge Of the Jedi. Yep, “revenge.” I am told this poster is worth a ton of money now. During my second viewing, I went to use the restroom during a slow part, and on the way I peeked into the theater next door. I was greeted with the disturbing sight of an elevator opening up, pouring an ocean of blood toward the audience. I was so scared, I forgot about the restroom and huddled in the safety of The Dark Crystal until it ended.
Raiders Of the Lost Ark, 1981: I had absolutely no desire to see this film. I didn't like westerns, and this guy had a cowboy hat on, so that made it a western. We were in a long line to see Superman II (again at the Grove Park Twin) when a groan filtered toward us: soooolllld oooouuuut … I was crushed. My father insisted that we stay and watch Raiders. A typical 10 year old, I sulked in the back of the theater and reluctantly watched stupid stinky Raiders of the Poopy Ark Thing. But wait a second, that's Han Solo being chased by a boulder. That's pretty okay! And Nazis are shooting at him? He's punching his way through everybody! Whoa, did Han Solo just shoot that guy who challenged him to a sword fight? That dude's face just freaking melted off his skull! This was the biggest cinematic surprise of my life. It surprised me so much that from that point on, I tried to see as few previews and reviews of movies as possible. To this day I will literally stick my fingers in my ears and hum when a preview for a new Star Trek movie comes on. Oh, and the Han Solo guy became the Indiana Jones guy in my mind.
The Paper Chase, 1973: I don't remember much about this film except that I was watching it alone one night on PBS when I was 7 or 8 years old. All I remember is the dream sequence where John Houseman's character reaches toward Timothy Bottoms and violently throttles him in fast motion. It scared me so bad that I didn't turn on my bedroom TV for a few days. When I finally got the courage to turn it back on, I would flip past the PBS station very quickly. I still have yet to see this film in its entirety. As a matter of fact, I'm going to check for it on Netflix right now … okay, it's at the top of the queue now. Face your fears and all that.
Star Trek – The Motion Picture, 1979: As a child, I was raised on Kirk and Spock. My mother kept a journal that I once found at my grandmother's house in which she wrote of me “... playing Star Trak [sic] (Spock and Bones) ...” parenthetically referencing the characters as if they would be forgotten in a year or two. While this wasn't the best Star Trek film, it was the one I most eagerly looked forward to. I was born after the series prematurely ended, but syndication was still going strong.My loyal love for the characters in the original series prevented me from watching the blasphemous “Next Generation” for a couple of years until Barak forced me, in his words, to “sit down and fucking watch this.” The Director's Cut of this film sucks. It sucks real bad. The extra footage is the masturbation of the visual effects department, and it amounts to watching the crew stare at the viewscreen at this marvelous new world of the best visual computer graphics that 1979 had to offer. For 10 minutes. For 10 life-sapping minutes.
Pink Floyd – The Wall, 1982: There are musical rock operas out there that we all love. The Who's Tommy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rocky Horror Picture Show … but these films all lack one vital element: Animated flowers that turn into man-eating vaginas. Until this film, labia-tipped floral symbolism was left to the viewer's mind; it took Pink Floyd to bring us the full impact of hot bloom-on-bloom action. I love this movie, but looking back on this particular scene, it's hard to believe that I needed this much bald-faced, elementary visual aid to realize, “Hey, maybe this guy has been hurt by a couple of women in his life.” Roger Waters might as well have appeared on-camera with a sad clown face, made an okay sign with his right hand and stuck his left index finger in the hole with an in-and-out motion. Wait a second – why am I trashing this movie?!? I love this movie! I just got a little carried away, but what I wrote is so entertaining to me, I'll let it stick. Pink Floyd rocks.
Jabberwocky, 1977: This was my first foray into Terry Gilliam films. After getting past the confusing fact that this was, in the director's words, “definitely NOT a Python film,” I enjoyed its dark tone. The only time I ever saw it in stores was in the $5 bin in Wal-Mart, and it disappeared along with a girlfriend. Even though it's not his best, I was able to appreciate Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing, and his (in my opinion) best film, Brazil.
The Way Of the Gun, 2000: I am so glad that stylization has made a comeback in cinema. Unashamed make-believe and over-the-top scripting is why the big screen was built. I don't have any particular single memory that sticks in my head about seeing this film; rather, whenever I see this film, it's almost always with a group of friends or with a loved one who appreciate this movie for what it is, tossing reality aside for a couple of hours. Isn't that what the movies are all about?
So there you have it. 25 or so movies that have touched my life. Like I said, I don't recommend all of them. I just needed a little nostalgic venting.
Let me open this review with a little role-play for filmmakers everywhere: Let's close our eyes for a moment. Let's say you've got a great movie that comes out -- so good that it warrents a sequel. The second one does really well so you immediately jump on that Part III while Part II isn't even out of the theatres yet. Part III does really well on opening night and then bombs for the rest of the run. Upon further (or even initial) inspection, you see that the third movie you made was indeed a total pooch-screw that never should have been written in the first place and belongs in an unmarked grave rather than in a public movie theater. Do we have that in our minds? Good.
Question: What do you do now? Do you: a) Apologize to the movie-going public, promising never to do it again on pain of torture; b) Blame the assistant director or producer, distancing yourself from this abortion; or c) Take a look at the turd floating in the soup of your successful movie franchise and then realize that all it needs is for more people to squat over over the pot and take another dump in it to make Part 4?
I'm looking at you, Jaws. You too, Batman. C'mon out, Rocky. Meet your new friend Superman.
Superman IV has got to be the worst -- abso-fucking-lutely worst sequel I have ever seen. The script came from a 3rd grade creative writing assignment, the directing was atrocious, the effects were worse than any of its predecesors, the editing was crap, the camerawork was juvenile at best ... this is not a bad movie -- this is a crime against God. Even the opening credits were horribly done. How can you screw up the opening credits of a Superman movie? I am trying -- really trying -- to find something good to say about this movie. Okay, the continuity supervisor was on top of his game. Way to keep that shirt unbuttoned from scene to scene.
Okay, let's slog through this shit swamp real quick and get it over with. Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) is sprung from jail by a bumbling and long lost nephew (jon Cryer), a ne'er-do-well surfer dude whose role is to comically contrast with Luthor's evil genius. Spurred by the request of a small boy, Superman takes it upon himself to rid the world of nukes, gathering them in a net and hurling the whole collection of them cartoon fashion into the sun. Meanwhile, the Daily Planet has been taken over by an uncaring conglomerate and Perry White is replaced with Lacey Warfield (Mariel Hemmingway), the CEO's sexy sassy daughter who looks like she has a caterpillar living on her forehead. Luthor gets a strand of Superman's hair and puts it into some goo, and attaches the goo to a nuke.
Nono, wait! It gets soooo much better. Superman hurls the nuke into the sun, inadvertantly creating an evil clone of himself -- "Nuclear Man" -- who is of course completely loyal to Lex Luthor. Superman and Nuclear Man duke it out with Nuclear Man destroying (and Superman instantly rebuilding) the world's greatest monuments like the Great Wall of China and ... oh no! Not Lady Liberty herself? The horror! The fight goes to the moon and they kick the dogshit out of each other there for awhile. Blah blah blah blah Nuke Man destroyed blah blah Lex back in prison blah blah Superman flies into sunset and mercifully, the credits roll. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah. Perry White gets his job back and Lois Lane continues to wish in vain for Super Spooge on her aging chest.
Gene Hackman, what were you thinking?!? John Cryer gets a little bit of a pass because he's a young hungry actor, but you are a respected, well-established actor! There comes a time in your career when you allowed to look at a project and say "No." Hackman was poorly directed. It sounds like I'm defending him, but I'm not. It was poor direction. In one scene, it was apparent that the director told him to re-read the line with a specific hand gesture, which Hackman did while throwing away the rest of the line. The look on his face during his time on camera was annoyed indifference.
Christopher Reeve, my God ... no ... please tell me you were only acting in this piece of sOH FUCK NO, YOU WROTE THIS?!?!?!? Your hand held one of the pens that scribbled this abomination? If you weren't already crippled and dead, you would be at least one of them after I got through with you. This was awful awful awful.
I will give it one bonus star for not making me physically ill. You people owe me one for sitting through this. 1 out of 5.
I saw this and had to grab it. It screamed cheese. A John Carpenter movie with a horrible title ... AAAAaaaaand it has a wrestler in the leading role?!? This was too easy! This movie was a twelve-year-old walking through a Brooklyn alley at 3am wearing a catholic schoolgirl uniform. It didn't want to be beaten up -- this movie wants to be raped.
I popped it in and relished the upcoming critical carnage I was about to unleash. Here it comes -- Yup, John Carpenter is taking another stab at writing the music for his own movies. Roddy Piper walking down the train tracks during the opening credits ... this can't miss! I'm salivating. Roddy Piper is a drifter in this not-too-distant future America with its collapsing economy and shanty-towns. He finds a little work and reluctantly befriends Keith David. Piper stumbles onto a covert group who have discovered a terrible secret -- we are all actually slaves of aliens who live among us!
I'll be damned if I didn't like this movie! It was a gripping plot, with a fair amount of believability. Piper and David weren't too bad in their performances as roughnecks-with-a-heart-of-gold. And the cheese was just melty enough to be fun. The movie was just long enough to tell the story thoroughly and had a couple of really great scenes. You've got Roddy Piper and Keith David, so you know there has to be a couple of fight scenes. The big fight comes about halfway through the movie under the pretense that David is too stubborn to see the truth, and Piper is going to make him see it whether he likes it or not. The fight goes for 6 or 7 minutes and it's absolutely hilarious, making no bones about exploiting the Pipe-ster's wrestling charisma. It also delivers some of the worst-written tough-guy lines ever put on paper: "I have come here to kick ass and chew bubblegum ... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
John Carpenter hit the nail on the head this time. He had a loaf of Wonder Bread and some american cheese. Instead of trying to call it surf and turf, he decided to make a nice grilled cheese sandwich and even cut the crusts off for us. The plot was interesting enough to overlook the sub-standard special effects, and it was just plain fun. I'm giving it an extra star for John Carpenter's plucky make-do attitude toward the film. 4 out of 5.
Being a veteran of evangelical summer camp and fundamentalist Christian upbringing, I found this movie to be a hauntingly familiar and fairly accurate representation of Bible Camp. Without overt narration, the movie follows a particular ministry through the month before, during and after the actual camp with particular emphasis on a few kids in the camp, the head of the children's camp ministry, and a radio talk show host in his studio. It focuses mainly on indoctrination methods of children and its possible effect on the overall political landscape of the USA. Though it tried to appear objective, there was an undertone of malice toward the church in general. Nothing was shown in the storyline except for the negative aspects.
But what negative aspects! The head of this children's ministry spoke to the camera concerning Islamic methods of indoctrination of children and how the Christian church needs to be as fervent in their quest for the minds of the young. Many of the kids spoke in tongues (the practice of which creeped the shit out of me when I was in Pentecostal church), were told about the fiery pit of hell, and were literally and monetarily bribed. Many of the kids were praying to be able to die for Jesus.
One of the children never spoke on camera, but the documentary followed him around quite a bit during the film. He was a toe-headed little blond kid whose eyes sparkled with intelligence. You know the type -- probably the first to raise his hand in class, shy and bright-eyed, trying to do the right thing. He joined the call to the alter and was crying uncontrollably with guilt and fear. Later on in the movie, it showed him in a heart-rending snip of him looking through the Bible. He was obviously searching for something and he happened on a dollar bill in the pages. He barely noticed it, placing it to the side of the bible as if it were a gum wrapper and kept searching. Many telling scenes like this brought back flash-backs of my own experiences with the evangelical faith during my childhood. Spooky.
I have found there are different grades of documentary films as far as objectivity is concerned. Michael Moore has an agenda. He is not objective, and pours tons of opinion into his films through selective editing, musical selection and inflammatory narration. That said, I think he makes no bones about it and is rightfully proud of his work -- it is expository documentary at its finest, and is not only accurate, informative and important work, but wildly funny and gripping entertainment as well. But Michael Moore does not try and hide behind the guise of objectivity. He openly discusses his agenda inside his work and in public speaking engagements.
My only problem with Jesus Camp (not a Michael Moore film) was the surreptitious nature by which the film maker made the opinion seep through by way of biased editing, ominous music in scenes which weren't ominous enough on their own, and sneaking in narration by way of using the talk radio host. I did agree with the movie's content almost 100%, but it just seemed like the movie didn't "play fair" as a documentary. I took a point away for that reason. 4 out of 5.
