8: The Mormon Proposition

This movie was controversial for some for various reasons. Documentaries are interesting. When you watch a doc, you take at face value that what you're being told is the truth. You want to believe that the filmmakers did their homework and are giving you the facts. I've watched enough of them to know (and actually exist in the world), that that's definitely not always the case. There can be manipulative editing, manipulative narration, and just over all skewing of the facts. I'm going to ignore that where this movie is concerned and just take it for what I saw.

Unfortunately, the way the Mormons went about it was great planning and great organization. It was really pretty impecable, the ways they went about campaigning against gay marriage with commercials, with door to door, with word of mouth. It was exactly like the said, they were a little army.

It did get a bit hard to watch once we got into the sad stories about all the young Mormon people who were thrown out of their houses simply for being gay. It's hard to imagine any parent reacting to their child in such a way. Their flesh and blood. I can't wrap my head around that.

The good thing about tis movie is that we know now it was mostly over turned...sort of. It's getting there.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

This gave me what I want from docs. I learned something. I love that. People are attempting to shit on this because they think of it as a pro-steroids doc, but I didn't see it that way, really. This was pretty fair in trying to examine and trying to present both sides. It was also, in some way, probably trying to excuse Chris Bell's brother's behavior in some way n the same way anyone else would want to explain away a siblings bad behavior. Very similar to something I can see myself making and HAVE attempted to make in the past. In fact, this opening reminded me so much of some of the stuff we used to make when I worked at 360. The pop music. The montage of pop culture movies and tv shows with a voice over that I did myself because there was really not anyone else who would do it the way I had it in my head. Unfortunately, this dudes voice was kind of grating.

This made me feel bad again for Marion Jones all over again, who didn't even go to jail for doping, but for lying about doping. Also, makes me think about the Olympics and the fact that so many of those athletes take performance enhancing drugs. It's a slippery slope. You don't want to se drugs because their illegal and you'll feel like you're cheating, but you have to use steroids because if you don't, everyone else who's using them (which is literally almost EVERYONE else) will outplay you in every way.

It's funny, I assumed this guy wasn't into filmmaking, just because he didn't seem all that into and it seemed kind of green with the whole thing. Like he doesn't know shit about filmmaking and he'd have to get a lot of help with the editing. he'd be over your shoulder like, "can we, like, do this one effect were the screen zooms in? oh yeah, that looks pretty good." Then I come to find out he went to USC and graduated from the film program. Whoops. One thing I appreciated was that he attempted to ask the tough questions but in a sensitive way. Tiptoing up to Carl Lewis to question him about his positive test for steroids BEFORE the controversial 1988 Olympics. Talking to the Hooton dad (who I'm guessing was probably not very happy with how the doc turned out) about his son's suicide having to possibly do with the anti-dpressants he was on. He did a good job in attempting to get those controversial answers.

That does make me wonder though. Do people forget that they're on film and this little video he's making is going to be turned into a movie or something? They question his brother's students about whether or not their coach (his brother) takes steroids and those kids say that he himself told them no. He said to their faces that he did not do steroids. He lied to them and yet, now, when the movie comes out, everyone's going to know. They sit at the dinner table and try not to say anything to their parents, but the when the movie comes out, everyone' s going to know. It's hard not to take that into account when watching. It's in the back of your mind the whole time. Like when two costars are dating in a feature and it's in your mind during the whole movie.

I like that this didn't solve any problems or give any answers. It wasn't really like Super Size Me in that way. It just was what it was. There really IS no right answer in all of this. It's a complicated matter. I'll leave you with this, though: "Peanuts are dangerous. There are people who eat a Peanut and they go into anaphylactic shock. Does that mean we ban peanuts and sue God for making them?"

Harlan County USA

Watched Harlan County USA, which I'd say was very apropos since the Chilean miners where just rescued. I watched this, it was hard to see how people can be okay with making their living with this kind of work. Hunched over, dirty faced, dark, sweaty work. Someone has to do it, of course, but it just seems like human doing work like this shouldn't be legal. You're wet and you come out into cold air. You breathe that terrible air down there all day. You're bent over so you mess up your back. What a way to make a living. I had to keep reminding myself that this was made 25 years ago, but, still, the world still isn't perfect. I saw Last Train Home.

What I took away from this is...lets get this going with Wal-mart. After watching A State Of Mind, which brought to mind 1984 and the proles refusing to rise up because they just didn't know that they should, this too recalled 1984. But here the metaphorical proles are, rising up. So lets get this going for Wal-mart.

It's interesting though. This has the same organization, really, that Red with Blue had. But this is excusable because it was in their early days of documentaries. Look at Grey Gardens. Hardly any organization with that. It's like a stream of consciousness doc. So we've evolved from there to the filmmaking we have now. But...who's to say we can't have the same kind of filmmaking now? Well, to make a 70s movie now, it wouldn't be good.

It's insane to think that some of these old men coal miners have been through two different strikes. The Bloody Harlan strike in the 30s and now, this one 50 years later. That's a depressing though. Also because that means that some of them were very very young men working in those coal mines.

It's too bad, it really is just too bad that people had to die to make this contract happen. Of course everyone's always hoping it wouldn't come to that. Who even does that? Uses weapons against picketers. Someone killed a man. What kind of person does it take to do that? The contract wasn't exactly what they wanted, but it took a person to die to get what they wanted. Sort of. What a shame. Makes it sort of anti-climactic.

This is movie was also yet another example of if they tried to do this now, they'd sensationalize it too much. Even as a doc. There's a great description of this in a viewer review on IMDb. It says, "Exemplary on how a filmmaker can involve herself, be in everybody's face, get every little thing on camera, but be testifying instead of exploiting." And that's very true. She's joining in and fighting for the cause. It was like watching a fellow picketer capture the action while in the middle of the action. I don't know how the camera was allowed such access. They were able to take their camera into the jail cells. They were able to take their camera to the picket line. They were able to take their camera into the court room. That's a lot of access. Shasky would love this doc. And I bet he does. It's about the characters. It stays with the characters, leaves the camera on the characters, and lets them make the story.

My Flesh And Blood

That was a drag to get through. I seriously just sorta felt like shit after watching it.. There were 13 special needs/mentally handicapped/physically handicapped kids in this movie. A family of them. That was like an hour long super depressing documentary times 13. It was difficult for me to conceptualize what it takes in a person to even take to take all of these kids. It was interesting that her mother implied that she adopted all the kids she did to fill the loneliness. That's very sad.

Adoption is so tricky. It was really interesting how they cut from one of the kids calling his birth mother "mom" and then calling the woman who adopted him "mom." And when his birth mother got married and he sat in the second row because they're "second row people"...so sad. And how does Susan feel about this. It has to feel a little crappy.

As for the overall documentary, at times, this seemed very much like a reality special. The little girl said "leave me alone" to the camera crew when she was crying in her bed. The angry kid, Joe (who I learned on IMDb was bipolar, and had ADHA, and hyperactivity, on top of his cystic fibrosis) yelled "Stop fucking filming me right now" and "I'm gonna break your camera." And they didn't leave right away. That didn't seem right. But that's how you get the good stuff I guess?

Hell House

Really interesting stuff. I tried to watch this with no judgement, but that was basically impossible. Especially with the embarrassing 90s haircuts and fashion rolling around. I read an interview with a director and he commented that in Texas, the movie plays very serious. In New York, it plays like a comedy. I can definitely see that.

From the audition scene I really felt like I was watching a Christopher Guest spoof. Like...you guys have got to be kidding. The script writing scene sounded ridiculous. He was trying to explain what Magic: The Gathering was (ultimately they decided to just go with calling it Magic). She pronounced it o-EE-ja board with no idea how to spell that one. When they read back the entire scene, it just sounded absurd. And the Harry Potter book reference? Yikes. How very 90s. The dude actually used the phrase, "power of the dark side." At times, their obliviousness of their own ridiculousness made them seem kind of precious. Then you realized they were brainwashing young minds with their sick imagery.

I find it hard to understand how they think it's a good idea to scare people into embracing and believing in God. I wonder if that works for them. I feel like the people who would be interested in going through this Hell House this would already be believers, or not be and go to make fun of the whole thing. I would think that the people this would work on would be young impressionable minds, and that seems like a very sticky issue. This would make a fabulous companion to the doc Jesus Camp.

And overall, this seems like a really messed up thing for Christians to be doing. They have to write 666, draw a pentagram (even if hey accidentally drew a star if David, but whatever), they have to pretend to shoot people, kill people, slap women, stab people. All of this, no matter if it's fake or not, seem pretty un-Christian. They make a reference to role-playing being bad but...that's sort of what they're doing here.

They have a lot of money for this production. Building new sets every year. Getting new props every year. Recording news audio every year. It makes sense because they did say that there were 12,000 people who came through the Hell House and tickets are $7. That means they probably bring in at least 70grand a year for this.

I really like how they cut together the scenes of going through the Hell House. They showed different tours cut it up with footage of the tour guides, the volunteers going through the tour themselves and other goings on of opening night.

At least the tour ends on a good note. They try to get some people saved (is that how you say that?). This tour of Hell House makes me think of going to the Church Of Scientology in New York and after we watched the video, being hounded by the nice smiling Scientologist lady about it.

Funnily enough, literally, just now, in the middle of watching the scene where the Slipknot loving alternatives youths argue with one of the Christian dudes about Christianity, God, religion in general, and the fucked upness of their Hell House, I learned that The Insane Clown Posse are Evangelical Christians! That was a coincidental turn of events. I bet those 90s youths would be disappointed to hear that.

Gates Of Heaven

There's no trailer for this on youtube, so I'll just use an excerpt from the film. The movie is about pet cemeteries but it also discusses morality, religion, and the afterlife.

I found this list of the 25 best documentaries of the last 50 years and since I've seen a fourth of them already I decided it could be a good idea to make my way through them. This one was on that list.

Honestly, I don't think this was that great. It's not that it needed it to be super exciting or have a bunch of sex crimes, mysteries, or suspense, but the things that make a documentary, to me, are the premise, how they execute that premise, the characters they choose to follow, the storylines they create, and how it's all cut together to evoke an emotional response. Now, I was paying attention to this almost the whole way through, and I was a bit confused in some parts. It was a quiet kind of thing, kind of slow at times, with no music at all and just sort of short interviews with various people involved with the story. It was fine, but I don't think I would ever put it in a list with best docs ever. Ebert disagrees, but he liked I Paul Blart. I guess I'm supposed to take everything into consideration with this one? How hard it was for Errol Morris to get it made, the fact that he went into this small town and profiled these random people, the whole Werner Herzog eating his show situation? I don't know. Maybe since I'm not a pet owner and religious, I just don't get it.

The thing with this is that to me, getting a pet is like forcing a child upon yourself that you know is going to die before you do. I don't want to go through that pain. Besides not being a pet person, that's one reason why I don't think pets are for me. It's like I'm setting myself up for terrible sadness. Millions and millions of people disagree with me, of course. And my view is probably a super cynical one. But I'm a cynic, so that makes sense. As one of the old ladies said "you miss your pets just like you miss your family." That doesn't appeal to me...except for my grandmother's dog Caesar. The best dog ever. And then they went and buried a little white dog named Caesar in the movie!

I still haven't decided if I believe in Heaven, but if there is one, the kind they show in the movies, are there pets and animals in Heaven? I find it would be quite complicated to have dead elephants, lions, and pet dogs mingling with humans inside the pearly gates. And if not, then what do they do? Separate it by class of animal. If so, what about those situations where different animals are friends. Or something like Catdog.