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Reviews
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon (2001)
Lies and Cherry-Picking
This is considered the definitive documentary by Moon landing deniers, but with mere seconds on Google, one can find the answers to the "questions" raised by this sham of a film. It does bear stating that documentarians are not journalists, and are not bound by any ethical standards regarding fairness in presenting facts. Renowned Moon loon Bart Sibrel takes this to the extreme.
I won't discuss the points raised in the film, because you can look those up yourself, and I encourage you to, because you'll learn something along the way. However, some of these questions are valid. For example, I wondered myself how the Apollo missions dealt with the Van Allen belts. So, rather than concluding that the Moon landings didn't happen and that there must be a conspiracy, I Googled it and found the answer (they went around the worst of the belts, and the spacecraft's skin and electronics provided shielding). Asking questions is fine, as long as you're willing to accept the answers, even when they might not agree with your pre-conceived notions.
Christmas with a Capital C (2011)
A Straw-man Argument Made Into a Film
Why is it that Christians don't seem to get the long-settled Constitutional issue of not putting religious displays on public property? And that said issue doesn't affect private property, including privately-owned stores? The very premise of this movie is based on a lie. It doesn't matter if it's a "tradition" to put a nativity scene on the grounds of city hall; the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that it violated the First Amendment. Also, not even the most hardcore atheist is "offended" by Christmas; pointing out that it's unconstitutional is NOT the same as being offended.
In the film's defense, though, it does feature a drug-addled Daniel Baldwin attempting to act, Ted McGinley acting out every "regular Christian guy" trope and Brad Stine acting like a crazy homeless guy. I assume he's just aplying himself.
Rather than actually watching this movie, I suggest watching Hugo & Jake's review of it on You Tube. They explain the issues in a much more entertaining fashion than I.
The Devil and Father Amorth (2017)
Friedkin at his worst
A once great director, William Friedkin has really hit rock bottom. While this could have been an interesting portrait of a priest that performs exorcisms (though if he's had to perform nine exorcism on one person, then he must not be very good at it) it comes off as Friedkin trying desperately to prove that demonic possession is real. Adding the questionably-edited testimony of otherwise respectable doctors doesn't help. I say "questionably edited" because the answers the doctors give, particularly Dr. Martin, seem oddly phrased, as if they're answering different questions than appear in the film. Friedkin also asks leading questions in many cases: "Is it possible that Cristina is suffering from actual possession?" Of course it's possible, but is it likely? Not at all.
Friedkin always struck me as a fairly rational person. I don't know if he's getting koo-koo in his dotage or if he's trying to raise interest in a new project, but this was pretty sad. I gave it three stars because the portrait of Father Gabriele is fairly interesting, and it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, a film student could have done a better job.
Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe (2016)
Utter nonsense
Do yourself a favor, and only watch the first 1:40. The rest is utter nonsense. Bear in mind that documentary filmmakers are not journalists, and are under no obligation to present the truth, or even use a balanced approach in their films. This film was directed by Andrew Wakefield, the guy who first claimed their was a connection between vaccines and autism. The BMJ pulled his study once they found out he used fabricated data. In the film he claims someone in the pharmaceutical industry filed a complaint. This is simply not true. There are several other lies presented in this film, the biggest of which is that before 1930, autism didn't exist. This is because the term "autism" was first coined in 1910 in describing certain patients that had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. It wasn't until 1938 that "autism" was used in its modern context. That's like saying that people really didn't start flying until after 1903.
Another lie is that vaccines aren't classified as pharmaceutical drugs and as such aren't tested. That simply isn't true. From the FDA's web site: "Vaccines, as with all products regulated by FDA, undergo a rigorous review of laboratory and clinical data to ensure the safety, efficacy, purity and potency of these products. Vaccines approved for marketing may also be required to undergo additional studies to further evaluate the vaccine and often to address specific questions about the vaccine's safety, effectiveness or possible side effects."
So, if you choose to watch this doc, please do so with a large grain of salt, and Google handy to debunk the lies Wakefield and his cronies put forth. My autistic son thanks you.
Battlefield Recovery (2016)
What a Great Show!
As a WWII history buff, I was intrigued when I saw this on Netflix. I tried the first episode just out of curiosity, and ended up watching three episodes in a row. (Possibly four as I'm still watching) The series follows four historians as they track down and excavate WWII battle sites on the eastern front. It stars Craig Gottlieb, who has appeared on "Pawn Stars" and "American Restoration," and three Brits for whom this is their first TV show. Each brings their unique area of expertise into play as they investigate battle sites, talk to locals and eventually put shovel to dirt finding relics from World War II. They recover a lot "stuff," bits of uniforms, weapons, personal items, but they've also recovered a few bodies, which they turn over to military cemeteries for burial. I would like to have seen them match up the bodies they've found with living descendants, but so far they haven't.
While it's produced in the familiar "reality TV" style, the show eschews the interpersonal drama to focus on the recovery not just of old stuff from the ground, but a part of history that is often overlooked: the personal slice of life for the average soldier in history's largest conflict. I love this show and really hope it continues.
Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001)
Don't Waste Your Time
Rather than refuting the "evidence" that they claim prove that the Moon landings were hoaxes, I would just ask you: if this "evidence" is so obvious, don't you think NASA would have figured these issues out? This "documentary" doesn't even allow NASA to rebut all these arguments; they have one spokesperson, who seems like he was blindsided by these questions. They have the dude who designed the cameras for Hasselblad that were used on the Moon missions, but they ask him space questions, not photography questions. So much for actual experts.
My biggest single beef, though, is the Bill Kaysing. They present him as "an engineer who worked on the space program," yet by his own admission (in his book) he is neither an engineer nor a scientist. He's hardly one to say NASA "couldn't" have gotten to the Moon.
In short, this is a deceptive, dishonest piece of garbage that, rather than examining legitimate questions (such as surviving the Van Allen belts) and getting actual answers from actual scientists, they present conspiracy kooks. Please don't waste your time watching this. I regret watching even a minute of this.
With God on our Side (2010)
Good historical background, but misses the point
The formation of the state of Israel dates back to the founding of Zionism in the late 1800s, and the fervor for a Jewish homeland grew in the inter-war period until 1948. This documentary does a great job of examining this issue, and raises some serious questions about the legality of Israel's formation, and the legality of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. It also interviews John Hagee, the evangelical pastor who preaches that the restoration of Israel is necessary for Jesus' return. Unfortunately, once those issues are discussed, this doc veers into feel-good territory where it says that if only Christians in Israel and the occupied territories could come together, everything would be peachy. They miss the elephant in the room: religion, and especially fanatic religious belief, is what created the mess in the first place, and religion is what continues to be a barrier to a peaceful solution. Do yourself a favor and don't bother watching the last 20 minutes.
The Life After Death Project (2013)
Dreadful Drivel
It's hard to go through life without something weird happening to you. We've all had strange coincidences or things that seem meaningful. We were thinking about someone at the moment they call, or we had a dream that came true the next day. Yet we forget all the things in life that aren't coincidences. Pattern-making like that is part of what makes us human. It's part of the survival instinct bred into us by evolution.
However, it takes on a different tone when we hunt for those coincidences and correlations. Then it is known as "clutching at straws." This film is 90 minutes of straw-clutching. For example, the filmmaker has a sheet of paper on which a mysterious ink smear appears. He has it analyzed, but glosses over the part where the analyzer tells him it's essentially printer ink, and focuses on how the analyzer can't quite explain how it happened. I'm in IT and I can't explain why printers and computers do some of the weird stuff they do, too.
It's one thing to have a weird, unexplainable thing happen to you. It's quite another to take that leap and call it supernatural. Instead of watching this doc where they play tiny bits of an interview with Michael Shermer, you'd be far better off reading his book "Why People Believe Weird Things."
Children of the Grave (2007)
What a Load of Rubbish
The Booth brothers have had a long career in soft-core porn, but in this stinker, they've branched out into "documentaries" about the paranormal. I put "documentaries" in quotes because usually documentarians at least make some effort to depict real events. I guess stars Keith Age, John Zaffis and Steven LaChance (billed as an "extreme haunting specialist" whatever that is) did actually visit the locations depicted in the film, but that seems to be where the connection to reality ends.
There is so much wrong with this film, I'm tempted just to put it in a list. I did, in fact, make a list as I was watching it, and Googled some of the claims made, just to see if it added up. Some of what they said actually was factual, but a large portion of the information presented was simply fabricated. It doesn't start well when the star, paranormal grandstander Keith Age, interviews a woman in a cemetery who seems to be some sort of expert. You'd think she'd dress a little nicer, but hey. Age asks her leading questions about the local orphanage, rather than getting actual information from her. Later, footage from old silent films is shown in such a way that the viewer is led to believe that this is actual footage from these old orphanage. The filmmakers also present the fact that many children died in this orphanage as evidence of some sort of wrongdoing, ignoring the fact that many children died even in loving homes before antibiotics were available. Also, the "unmarked mass graves" Age talks about date to 1918, a year the filmmakers and Age didn't bother to research. It was the year of the flu epidemic that killed millions.
Then there's all the footage of various video and audio tricks and effects, done like a goth-metal music video. My particular favorite is that of a Yamaha audio mixer with all the sliders mysteriously zipping down to zero. (the sliders on Yamaha digital mixers do that when you reset them). The bros Booth also need to hire a better script supervisor, because their titles and other text are rife with misspellings ("he 'through' her doll into the fireplace"), odd capitalization and misuse of its/it's ("The US Military occupied the building, where it interrogated 'it's' Nazi POWs."). Which brings me to another point. The Booths play fast and loose with the facts. At the Pythian Castle in St. Louis, a title says POWs were kept there, but Wikipedia and the castle's own web site tell a different story. The army used the castle as an officers' club, and prisoners were kept at a hospital behind the building.
Speaking playing fast and loose with facts, one Rosemary Ellen Guiley is interviewed in the film, and introduced as a Ph.D. That's a pretty straightforward piece of information, so I went to her web site. There is no mention of her earning a Ph.D. Seems like a pretty good credential to leave off your bio. To confirm, I went to Dissertation Abstracts, a database that lists pretty much every Ph.D dissertation published in US. No Rosemary Guiley. I found Carl Sagan and Newt Gingrich's dissertations, though! I could go on, but it's really tiring going over all the "evidence" they fabricated. I realize that they may have dramatized some of it for effect, but there really is a lot that's faked, and to me that's fraud. If you don't have adequate evidence, don't make a documentary. Reality is interesting enough without fakery. So, unless you like cheese ball effects, portly paranormal investigators dressed in paramilitary fashion and a lot of misinterpreted BS masquerading as "evidence" steer clear of this turd. It might be worth watching for sheer ridiculous entertainment, though; a "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of paranormal documentaries.
In Search of Lovecraft (2008)
Pathetically bad
Having friend in the movie business, I understand student films, and I've seen quite a few. Most of them make an honest effort to be good. They try hard, and sometimes they fail, sometimes they succeed. This fails. Miserably. I'm sick of low-budget filmmakers who think that not using a tripod makes their film "verite'." It doesn't. It makes it nauseating to watch. Add to that all the little details that make it irritatingly bad, such as: TV reporters wear makeup. Lots of it. Ms. Marsh appears to be wearing none. Editors have the messiest offices in the known universe. They don't look like a vacant office with a stack of newspapers on the desk. And who uses white out? (It was on the desk) If someone is so insane as to need a straight jacket, she is NOT going to be in a regular hospital bed. Why not just put her in a chair staring out the window? TV cameramen use tripods for on-the-street interviews. Always. And wireless mics, too.
All this is just from the first 25 minutes. I couldn't stand to watch any more. The writing was abysmal (it would have been better to let the actors improvise), the camera work looked like a 5-year-old who stole daddy's camcorder, and the acting was... well, it was lousy too. A lot of bad actors, if they're well-directed (like Heather Graham), can still manage to not ruin a production, but the directing is so vacant that the acting really drags it down. Not that it had far to go.
Don't waste your time on this. To see how to do a low-budget horror flick right, see the first Evil Dead.
The Privileged Planet (2004)
Misleading, pseudo-scientific rubbish
Pretty cinematography and impressive-looking interviews mask what is, at its heart, typical intelligent design propaganda. The main premise, that the fact that conditions on Earth allowed life to form is too unlikely to have occurred by chance, is simply wrong. Life evolved on Earth BECAUSE the conditions were good. Organic molecule abound in the universe, but its only here that they were able to gain a foothold and eventually evolve into humans. Specious reasoning is not a good basis for a documentary that purports to be scientific. Next, let's examine the two men primarily responsible for the film's content. Jay Richards does indeed hold a PhD, but it's in theology. He has no science degree. It's in Wikipedia. Look him up. Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State for his support of intelligent design. Not exactly neutral scientific opinions, are they? Other comments are cherry-picked to support the ID hypothesis, and some scientific information is presented in a misleading fashion. For example, the film states that the portion of the electro magnetic spectrum we call "visible light" is only a tiny portion of the overall spectrum, and its miraculously situated where we can see it! No mention is made of animals that can see outside the human visible light spectrum, nor is it said that if humans were able to see, say, in the ultraviolet, that we would call THAT "visible light" and the current visible spectrum something else. And again, visible light is useful to life on Earth BECAUSE we evolved to use it. Organisms that use other types of waves wouldn't last long on Earth. I could go on, but there's only so much room to refute all the deliberate misinformation in this film.
Pleas, do yourself a favor and watch a REAL documentary on the origins of life. Real scientists don't need to make excuses or misinform. The truth is out there.