The Lone Ranger [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (1 Star)  ChicagoSunTimes (1 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Chicago Sun-Times (R. Roeper) review 
Chicago Tribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

In our often rather ideologically polarized times, one's opinion of the certainly "reimagined" and perhaps at times "reinvented" The Lone Ranger [2013] (directed by Gore Verbinski, screenplay/story by Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio based on the beloved American icon The Lone Ranger of radio / golden era of television days) will probably depend one's answers to a few questions: (1) Do you know what Tonto means in Spanish? ;-), (2) Do you believe that rich, powerful white men are always good?

If one knows what "tonto" means in Spanish then, John Read/Lone Ranger's (played by Armie Hammer's) companion Tonto (played IMHO surprisingly well by Johnny Depp in his characteristic deadpan style) is hilarious.  (In this film, we get to find out what even the people of his own tribe thought of him ;-).  If one doesn't know what "tonto" means, well ... one would have missed a good part of the film ;-).  Now why would a Comanche Indian carry a Spanish nickname?  Well, why would an actual/historical Apache chief carry the Spanish name Geronimo (Spanish for Jerome)?

Then while this film wouldn't do particularly well at any Rush Limbaugh sponsored film festival, railroad barons like the film's chief villain Cole (played by Tom Wilkinson) were not particularly liked in their own time.  They didn't earn the title "Robber Barons" from both their Irish immigrant railroad workers (generally nobody even bothered to ask, or even knew how to ask..., the Chinese immigrant railroad workers of what they thought of them ...) and white plains settlers for nothing.  The railroad workers found that they were paid miserably for backbreaking/dangerous work and even the settlers found that it really didn't matter how much grain they planted/harvested, because the money that they made was going to be sucked-up by the railroads anyway.  (And again, nobody even cared what the Native Americans thought of the railroads that they built over what used to be their land and pretty much brought an end to their way of life).  So, yes, this film is largely about what many on the Right today would decry as "Class warfare..." resulting in rather predictable differences in opinion today.

Now the Left has added its own tendacious/ideological goofiness to the film.  In this film, we first meet John Read, the future Lone Ranger, sitting on a train heading West in the midst of a group of psalm/hymn-singing Presbyterians (Christians).  One of the ladies asks him if he'd like to join them.  He lifts up his black-bound volume of John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" and responds "this is my Bible."  Yeah, right ... Perhaps that'd be possible in Boston, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello or Philadelphia of the 1780s, but on the American Wild West frontier of the 1870s, I would find that response very, very doubtful.  To put it another way, John Read even before becoming "the Lone Ranger" would have been really, really "unique."

What then to say about the film?  Well, a lot of the background, I've already set above.  The story takes place in the late 1860s / early 1870s in the context of the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad.  So one has the Railroad / Railroad Workers, the Indians, the Settlers, Bandits, the (U.S.) Cavalry out there to provide the first/most basic presence of "civilizing" (or "colonizing" ...) Order and the embrionic presence of a future more regular policing force in the form of the (Texas) Rangers.  (Texas?  Yup, the geography of the film is rather fluid, though the boundaries of the time were somewhat fluid as well.  The Republic of Texas entered the United States in the 1840s larger than the state of Texas is today).

In the film, John Read's brother Dan (played by James Badge Dale) is a Texas Ranger, who upon John's arrival out West "deputizes" him.  (Hence we learn how John Read becomes a "Ranger" to begin with ... What's left is to find out how/why he becomes "The Lone Ranger..." and that of course becomes the rest of the story...)

Is the story realistic?  Well, were a lot of the stories from "The Old West" realistic?  The ingredients to making a good, captivating story are present.  And as in any Legend, bits of the story are based on historical truth, tweaked, often tweaked _a lot_, to make a good story.  In this regard, the film compares quite well to The Mask of Zorro [1998] (which starred Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones) which uses many of the same Old-Westish elements to put together a wonderfully entertaining "alternative" history to the origins of California.

Will you like it?  Well, even a survey of reviewers indicates that older/more established reviewers didn't like it.  Younger, less established ones did.  Go figure ... ;-)


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Despicable Me 2 [2013]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

I'd like to begin here by paying tribute to (arguably eulogize) the first Despicable Me [2010] movie.  I loved that film.  I saw it as part of a series of outstanding childrens' films including Finding Nemo [2003], The Incredibles [2004], Wall-E [2008], Up [2009], How to Train Your Dragon [2010] even Happy Feet [2006] (which I didn't particularly like but our teenage/Hispanic evening receptionist at the time just loved it along with her entire family).

Indeed, part of the reason why I started this blog in the fall of 2010 (in the months following the summer-time releases of the first Despicable Me [2010] and How to Train Your Dragon [2010]) was that I was expecting to be writing some very positive reviews about the children's movies that are coming out.  Let's face it, Catholics/religious folks are generally skeptical of Hollywood and so I was expecting to be writing: "Don't put Hollywood unnecessarily down, there's some very nice stuff and especially for kids being produced these days by our movie people."

Instead, I've found myself having created my blog AFTER THE END of that lovely and perhaps innocent era of recent children's animated films.  For today it's more or less obviously become another battleground of our "culture wars."  AND FOLKS, IT'S NOT PRETTY.  There has been an obvious, hammer-over-the-head NATIVISM / RACISM pervading MANY / MOST "children's films" made since 2010:

(1) "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series might as well be called "Diary of a WASPY Kid" because THE ONLY NON-WHITE kid in the entire series is a RICH INDIAN KID who all the other (WHITE) kids make fun of. (No Blacks, no Hispanics, no East Asians, just one Indian kid who it's "okay" to pick on ... I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...)

(2) The film Hop [2011], screenplay by "Cinco" Paul (though there is absolutely NOTHING Hispanic about him) has a Anglo-American "slacker" teenager from L.A. joining forces with English-accented "Easter Bunnies" to keep "uppity" HISPANIC accented "peeps"/"Easter chicks" led by HECTOR the "ringleader/foreman" of the "Easter chick proletariat" in their place.  Seriously again, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...

(3) Hoodwinked Too [2011] - has an ALL Anglo/English Accented "Happy Ending Agency" (a fairy tale C.I.A. ...) keeping the fairy-tale world safe from A VERITABLE MOB of VARIOUSLY ACCENTED VILLANS (a Russian accented witch named Verushka, three Hispanic accented pigs bent on wreaking vengeance against an English accented "Big Bad Wolf" (since turned "good guy") for having "blown their house down."  Each time the three stage guerrilla style attacks on said "former-Big Bad Wolf" they cry out "Viva los Puercos!" (AGAIN, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...) and even German accented "Hansel and Grettel" who turn out to be the true super-villains of the story ...

(4) In Cars 2 [2011], Larry the Cable Guy's pickup and Owen Wilson's American sports car (Lighting McQueen) join forces with Michael Caine's BRITISH SPORTS CAR (Finn McMissile) to fight a CRIME SINDICATE of ugly "loser" non-Anglo-American cars (Italian Fiats, Former East German Trabants and Former Yugoslav Yugos) that want to somehow undermine the proper status of things (AGAIN, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...)

And now this film Despicable Me 2 [2013] (directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, screenplay by Ken Daurio and NON-HISPANIC with a Hispanic sounding name Cinco Paul) sequel to the beloved first movie only here in the NEW MOVIE the formerly-evil and still RUSSIAN ACCENTED Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell) fights the STILL EVIL, STILL HISPANIC ACCENTED "El Macho" with "personal hygeine issues" (voiced by Benjamin Bratt.  Apparently Al Pacino who was originally slated to play Eduardo/El Macho's role walked away from the role ... Good for you Al Pacino!).

And who are the "good folks" in the current story?  YOU GUESSED IT, an ALL Anglo/American "Anti Villain League" with Anglo-American accented agent Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) and its Kings-English accented head, Sir Ramsbottom (voiced by ).  To be fair, both the Minions and even Gru have fun with Sir Ramsbottom's name ... but the point is that ONCE AGAIN the all "Good Folks" are Anglo and all the "non-Good Folks" (even Russian Accented Gru himself) are non-Anglo ...

Then add that "El Macho's" very suave/debonair son Antonio (voiced by Moises Arias) first "woos" and then DUMPS Margo (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove) oldest of the cute-as-a-button three little girls that Gru's taken care of since the first movie.  But then aren't ALL HISPANIC BOYS love 'em and leave 'em "Latin Lovers..."???

So how can I, who in my "day job" have worked since my Ordination in largely/predominantly HISPANIC parishes, possibly LET THIS KIND OF EVIL MESSAGING GO?

In my current parish, 75% of the kids attending our school are _cute as a button_ Hispanic kids.  In the CCD program, this rises to nearly 90% (AGAIN ALL GOOD KIDS!).  The Anglo kids are _also_ cute/good.  But look at the numbers.  How can I recommend a film like this that makes fun of the families of 75-90% of the kids in my parish?  How?

Then consider Hollywood's stupidity in all of this:  The majority of Americans under 17 years of age AREN'T EVEN WHITE ANYMORE.  By its OWN STUPID RACISM it's disqualifying itself from its own future audience!  And is a message of Anglo-American supremacy exactly helping it in markets outside of the U.S.?  It's all really, really dumb.

And it's sad, because OTHERWISE the film would be very, very cute.  The Minions are absolutely adorable and the addition of the Kristen Wiig character was great as well.

But why then throw all that CUTENESS away to deliver a STUPIDLY NATIVIST/RACIST MESSAGE.  Why? 


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White House Down [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Chi SunTimes (0 Stars)  Chi Tribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
Chicago SunTimes (R. Roeper) review
Chicago Tribune (R. Moore) review 
RogerEbert.com (M. McCreadle) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

We have got to stop blowing-up the White House in our films... honestly, we have to.

I had not planned to see White House Down [2013] (directed by Roland Emmerich, screenplay by James Vanderbilt) as I'm tired of these films and thought I had written about as much as one can write about them reviewing the quite recent Olympus Has Fallen [2013].  I found myself talked into it, having read some of the surprising and at times surprisingly positive reviews of the film (see above) and then listening to Facet Multimedia's Milos Stihlik's talking about the film on WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio's) WorldView program as I was coming home from a Communion call.

Having seen the film, I still think it is generally a waste of time though I do agree that part of what makes the film interesting is that the dasterdly Enemy this time DOESN'T come from the Outside: space aliens as in Emmerich's signature movie Independence Day [1995], weird euro-terrorists as in Die Hard [1988], more conventional but no less uncompromisingly Evil left-wing Cuban/PLO-style terrorists as in Under Siege [1992], or even North Koreans (arriving disguised as South Koreans, "how could one tell...?") as in Olympus Has Fallen [2013]. Instead, the Enemy in White House Down [2013] is essentially a "right wing conspiracy" (a la "militia" man Timothy McVeigh but more organized) a conspiracy more resembling the one postulated in Oliver Stone's film JFK [1991] involving the "military industrial complex" opposing a JFK-like, now Obama-like President (played in this film by Jamie Foxx).

That we would be just as capable (or even more capable) of  "blowing things up" by ourselves as having them blown-up by outside bad guys has actually been a long-held view by my own dad, born no doubt of 81 years of life-experience and watching some really stupid/self-destructive things done by people (and peoples) themselves.

One of my dad's favorite examples of this self-destructive phenomenon (remember my family is of Czech descent, thus Slavic and originating in Centeral Europe) was what the Serbs and Croats did to the lovely Serbo-Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik (before the 1990s listed as a UNESCO world heritage site): "Even the Nazis didn't touch that town because it was so beautiful and it would have been a crime to destroy it.  Yet, two weeks into the Serbo-Croatian wars of the 1990s, the town was reduced to rubble looking like Stalingrad."  Then remember former Russian President Boris Yeltsin (the first democratically elected leader of Russia ever) ended-up bombing his own Russian Parliament Building (and arguably legitimately to thwart a back-sliding neo-Communist coup).

So there may be value in seeing a film where one domestic faction or another tries to seize power in this country by a de facto coup d'etat.  And that is what this film is about.  Apparently upset that Obama-like African-American President Sawyer (played by Jamie Foxx) had made a deal with Iran to pull all U.S. troops out of the Middle East in exchange for peace (and a pledge by the sitting Iranian president to make public decades-long documentation showing how U.S. military contractors had manipulated Middle Eastern governments and exacerbated tensions between them to justify a large open-ended U.S. military presence in the region and arms sales to everybody), those allied with said U.S. military contractors try to stage a coup in the U.S. to prevent this.  Much ensues ...

Yet what ensues on screen, I'm not sure is helpful ... to anybody.

Even as these Titanic forces are stomping in Godzilla-like fashion over the centers of power in Washington, the real "heroes" of the story are simply a divorced dad named Cale (played by Channing Tatum) who had served three tours in Afghanistan (in good part because "being at war" seemed easier than "being at home" with his family) and his somewhat estranged 6th-7th grade daughter Emily (played by Joey King).  At the beginning of the film Cale's trying to re-connect with his daughter who living in the D.C. area seems very civically minded.  So Afghan war vet that he is, he pulls a few strings and is able to get them a White House tour.  It's during this tour that the coup attempt takes place.  Now remember Cale is a 3-time Afghan War vet ... and 12 year old, ever on her smart-phone, Emily has her own talents: She runs a little 'current affairs blog' ("No dad", eyes-rolling "a YouTube channel") on the internet using said smart-phone as a computer/camera.  Well ... do those Titanic forces of Evil stand a chance against this little father - daughter team? ;-) 

There's certainly a cuteness to the movie ... even as revered national symbols get blown-up all around.

But I can honestly say to folks that even though "it all ends well," I FELT SORRY FOR THE 12-YEAR OLD EMILY.  And it's not just because she was a hostage by the bad guys holding the White House for a while, and that near the end of the film she does what amounts to a heart-rending flag-waving tribute to the similarly little flag-waving kid on the barricades in Les Miserables [2012], but because I do think we've failed young people like her. 

Honestly, let's stop blowing up the White House, or Big Ben, or the Eiffel Tower or the Kremlin, or what have you (even simply "on screen").  Why can't we just give our young people a world (or at least a youth) where they can live and grow-up in peace?


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The Heat [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (B. Kenigsberg) review

The Heat [2013] (directed by Paul Feig, screenplay by Katie Dippold) is the Bridesmaids [2011] of  "odd couple" / "cop buddy" movies: Think here of the Eddie Murphy / Judge Reinhold Beverly Hills Cop [1984+] series or the Dan Aykroyd / Tom Hanks vehicle Dragnet [1987] only here both the "stuffy, by the books" character, FBI Agent Ashburn (played by Sandra Bullock), and the "gritty, streetwise" character, Boston P.D. Det, Mullins (played by Melissa McCarthy), are women.

Ever by-the-books (indeed, she probably knows them from Yale by heart...), the moderately successful but not particularly liked by most of her coworkers (and thus never promoted...) New York based FBI agent Ashburn is sent by her boss (played by Damian Bichir) to Boston (perhaps in part to just get rid of her ...) to investigate / take-down a new and particularly vicious if still somewhat shadowy drug lord who had recently arrived there.  Soon after arriving, she crosses paths with a local force of nature in the form of BPD Det. Mullins, also super-competent, also disliked by her coworkers but at least also feared by them.

After giving-up on trying to get Mullins to stand-down and get out of her way, Ashburn (on advice of her far more pragmatic boss back in NY who simply doesn't understand why Ashburn would not want to work with local law enforcement "One would think that you'd want to learn from her...") accepts the inevitable and brings the streetwise Det. Mullins into the case.  Many, often extended laugh-out-loud (way into the next scene or two) situations ensue... ;-)

Particularly amusing in the film is Mullins' family -- basically the same family from The Fighter [2010] though taken to comedic extremes.  With her hair ever frazzled, chain smokin' Ma (played by Jane Curtin) always greets her hard-boiled (but actually moderately successful...) police detective daughter by flipping her off.  Why?  Well Det. Mullins had sent her own brother to jail.  "What kindah pehson would rat-out her own brahther?" Ma asks.  Well we find out why and while none of us would particularly enjoy doing that to our loved ones either, most of us would probably understand ...

The rest of Det. Mullins' family is a similarly sincere if often hopelessly disordered mess.  Dad (played by Michael Tucci) had a thing for hopelessly corny "athletic/religious art:"  Ever on velvet, Jesus in a Red Sox uniform with a giant bat hitting a baseball outta Fenway Pahk, Jesus in a Bruins uniform bodychecking some other hockey player into the bahds at Bahston Gahden.  At one point in the film, the family has to be quickly evacuated from their home to a hotel for their protection -- ma, pa, three or four brothers, plus two rather high-maintenance girl-friends of theirs -- and one wonders: "Oh my, if these people really had to go into a "witness protection program" how could one possibly "hide" them? ;-)

Then as Agent Ashburn / Det. Mullins work on their case, they encounter a veritable parade of villains and potential villains of every conceivable look or ethnicity.  It's one really messed up Bahston.  But it is all done with a smile. 

Parents, this film is very crude.  So I'm not sure you'd want to take a pre-teen to the film (though I'm not sure that they'd get many of the jokes anyway).  However, like most of Melissa McCarthy's other films, if one can get past the occasional crudity, this is often a very funny movie especially if one's ever been faced with "a glass ceiling." 


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Dirty Wars [2013]

MPAA (R)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (S. Boone) review
AVClub (B. Kenigsberg) review

Dirty Wars [2013] (directed by Rick Rowley, writer David Riker and Jeremy Scahill) is a documentary in which Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondant for The Nation magazine seeks to shed light on the largely secret war that's being fought in our name against Al Queda and other terrorist groups.

Why would one care?  Well, when something is secret, not just "the good" and "the necessary" are hidden but also "the problematic," "the corrupt" and "the screw-ups."   And if this underside of our secret war is not periodically exposed, then this can eventually cause some real problems.

The documentary follows the story of three problematic screw-ups:

The first occurred in Afghanistan where a journalist Scahill came learned of a previously nondescript Afghan family in the hinterlands screaming for justice after four of their family members were killed for no reason in a night raid that even local NATO commanders did not know about.  The family had been celebrating the birth of a son (home video shows the family dancing).  Then the father of the newborn went outside (either because he heard something or because, well, he just needed to go outside) and ... got shot dead an American sniper.  Before the killing stopped, 3 other members of the family were dead.  And for what?  Nothing.  The family was screaming to the journalist that they had been pro-American and that the father who had been shot had been actually an American trained Afghan police officer.  And yes, it would seem that this really was a screw-up because a some days after the incident, an American general showed-up at their family's compound with a ceremonial sheep given to them to sacrifice in compensation.  (The Afghan family had photos of the conciliatory visit of the American general as well...)  But who was he?  Well he was the head of JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command), the command that later killed Bin Laden.

What else does JSOC do?  Well it did kill Bin Laden.  It has also been responsible for the majority of the drone and otherwise remote strikes across that part of the world, including apparently a cruise missile strike in Yemen that, rather than wiping out a terrorist training camp, all but wiped-out a harmless Bedouin clan in the hinterlands of said Yemen that has been herding sheep in those mountains since the basically the time of Abraham.  And a Yemeni journalist who first exposed this tragic remote massacre is languishing in a Yemeni jail as a result of an expressly requested personal favor asked for by President Obama of the President of Yemen.  Basically, a Yememi journalist is languishing in a Yemeni jail so as to not embarrass an American President.  (We don't jail journalists.  We have others jail journalists for us ...).   

Finally, JSOC was apparently responsible for the drone strikes that killed the American Muslim preacher al-Awalki (who had, in fact, radicalized and had joined AlQueda out there in Yemen).  Yet some days later in a separate strike JSOC also killed al-Awalki's 16 year old son.  What did _he_ do?  Nothing ... yet.  But Scahill does ask the question of where have we come to when we've started to kill people simply because they _may_ grow-up to want to kill us?  (Think of The Godfather Part II [1974], that was basically the plot-trajectory the young Vito "Corleone" growing-up to come back to Sicily to avenge the death of his father).  Have we really come to this?

So what's the value of a documentary like this?  Well, even if one doesn't particularly like facing its content (nobody likes to be embarrassed, nobody likes to hear bad things about people who we love, trust and hope are doing their best), documentaries like this are informative and therefore help us to make informed decisions.  Without said information, it is (by definition) impossible to do that.

So as uncomfortable as this documentary must make the viewer feel, it will help make future mistakes like these less likely (other mistakes though hopefully less of them will still probably occur).  And our interest in documentaries like this will also help us to appreciate what others, non-Americans, are going through in the War on Terror, hopefully helping us to empathize with their suffering as well.

So all in all a very good film.  It's painful to watch, but necessary if we are to remain the country that we are hoping to be defending.


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The Source Family [2013]

MPAA (Unrated, would be R)  Roger Moore (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars w. Expl.)

IMDb listing
Chicago Tribune (R. Moore) review

The Source Family [2013] (directed by Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille) is a documentary that I recently saw at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.  The film is now available at Amazon Instant Video.  I went to see the film after reading the review by Roger Moore in the Chicago Tribune the week that it played here.

I found the film intriguing because it is about a 1960s era Los Angeles based cult, now defunct, originating around a health food restaurant named The Source and its charismatic founder/owner, born James Edward Baker in Cincinnati in the 1920s but who after fighting in WW II settled in L.A., became interested in "healthy food/healthy living," founded said health food restaurant and came to go by the name of Father Yod and later YaHoWha (yes, that's pretty close to the Divine Name of the Biblical Old Testament, and yes he came, for a time, to believe that he was God ...).  Most interestingly for me was that the film was made by some of his former followers who, even 40+ years after the experience of living with him at his "commune" first in a Hollywood Hills mansion in L.A. and later on a farm in rural Hawaii (both clearly costing a pretty penny... all ostensibly paid for by said health food restaurant The Source...), did not find the experience to have been a particularly negative one.  To be sure, the former followers are pretty honest in the film about "Father Yod's" behavioral oddities and some of the problematic (at times frankly, illegal) doctrines of his teachings.  Still I do believe that the film does serve as a window into the world of a charismatic cult FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CULT'S OWN MEMBERS and can provide clues as to why someone would join such a group.  (Parents, obviously this film is for adults and not for your kids ...)

It's pretty clear that post-WW II Los Angeles / California became something of a hot bed for the formation of some rather strange (and, often enough, quite dangerous) cults.  The list is not a particularly pretty one:  Charles Manson and the Manson Family, Jim Jones and his Peoples' Temple (which ended-up committing Mass suicide in Guyana, even L.Ron Hubbard and his Church of Scientology.  Fr. Yod's Source Family would certainly fall within this milieu.  Note also that I've reviewed a number of films here -- Martha Marcy May Marlene [2011], Higher Ground [2011], The Master [2012] and even The First Rasta [2010]  -- which deal with cults or otherwise "new(er) religions" / communities.  Together the films can help one better understand both the origins of "cults" and also the origins/dynamics of their excesses. 

And indeed, the current film, The Source Family [2013], follows the trajectory of this group from the arrival of the one who became its founder James Edward Baker to L.A. as a veteran following WW II all the way to his death following an (odd) hang-gliding accident in Hawaii in 1975 as Father Yod / YaHoWha with a cult of followers who thought of him as (a) God.  That's one heck of a trip ... So how did he / his group get to that point?

Well it would seem that James Edward Baker returned from WW II (presumably in the Pacific) interested in martial arts, Eastern philosophy and Eastern (largely vegetarian) diet.  So he studied those subjects in Los Angeles (on the Pacific coast, with as much contact with East Asia as any in the United States).  At some point, he founded said health food restaurant called "The Source" on the Sunset Strip.  The restaurant became popular because it was one of the first of its kind and also perhaps (my conjecture) because it served Eastern (largely vegetarian) food but was run by an (American) Westerner.  So if any patrons had any questions, he was able to quite easily explain (in language that they could readily understand) the various ins-and-outs of Eastern cooking, Martial arts and, as time went on, of Eastern philosophy.  A group started to form around him.  And since he did apparently see himself as a "bridge figure," as he read up on Eastern philosophy, he also tried to read up on Western religious traditions/mysticism, the result being that he became a rather interesting "guru"/"go-to guy" in late-50s / early-60s  Los Angeles.  Then came the mid and late 1960s and "all h.. broke loose.  His restaurant became a "go-to place" of ALL THE HIP AND HAPPENING PEOPLE who both LIVED and simply PASSED THROUGH LOS ANGELES.

Well, he was BOTH generous (both the Hollywood Hills Mansion and later the farm in Hawaii where he and his cult followers lived were bought/supported with his money...) and THE ABOVE KIND OF ADULATION (rock stars, movie producers, all kinds of people were _coming to him_ with questions looking for answers) HAD TO GO TO HIS HEAD.  Hence he started dressing like a guru, took to going by the name Father Yod (and eventually the even more proglematic YaHoWha) and began to systematize "his previous teachings" into increasingly rigid/strange "doctrines."

It always fascinates me how both FOOD and SEX become such big doctrinal issues in religion.  (One would suppose that this is because the two comprise our two most basic instincts -- the drive to eat/survive and the drive to create/reproduce).  Almost every religion has rather complicated yet set rules regarding both diet and sexual relations and Father Yod's group certainly came to have both.  The group was strictly vegetarian and (at first) experimented quite freely with sex.  Later as James Edward Baker / Father Yod became more and more megalomaniacal (in his soon to be YaHoWha stage) HE simply took a fair amount of the women (a fair amount of them MINORS, this when he was in his 50s-60s ... and apparently parents BOTH inside and OUTSIDE the cult LET HIM).

His story is honestly a great testament to why adulation of anybody is NOT GOOD.  We need people not to simply "enable us" but to keep us grounded.

Perhaps the saving grace for James Edward Baker / Father Yod (even though he was a STATUTORY RAPIST having by the end of his life several under-aged wives) before he died in his rather strange hang-gliding accident (he had never hang-glided before but decided to jump off an 1100 foot cliff in a hang-glider for the first time anyway...) was that in those weeks before he died, he apparently came to the conclusion (on his own) that he wasn't God and BY LUCK (or perhaps providence) he died soon afterwards ... leaving his followers with good memories of him, RATHER THEN them ending up in Jail (like many of the followers of Charles Manson) or Dead (like the followers of Jim Jones and later David Karesh). 

In any case, NO ONE except perhaps GOD (God ABOVE/BEYOND US not "here") deserves unreserved adulation ... but what a fascinating / informative story. 
 

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Much Ado About Nothing [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  RE.com (4 stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Much Ado About Nothing [2012] (directed and screenplay by Joss Whedon, based, of course, on William Shakespeare's celebrated play by the same name) is arguably the happiest (err... "merriest" ;-) surprise of this summer.  THIS FILM IS A JOY TO WATCH ;-)

Filmed over two weeks at the Santa Monica, CA home of director/screenwriter Joss Whedon and his wife, using actors/actresses from his various film and TV productions of the past, it is obvious from the get-go that the actors and actresses (and probably the film maker and crew) were having a ball making this film.  Though set in the current day (the male characters being "corporate warriors" relaxing at the home of their Boss rather than Knights relaxing at the home of their Lord) as far as I can tell, the dialogue is taken directly from Shakespeare's play.  Part of the joy of watching this film is seeing the actors/actresses so beautifully "sell the lines."  Yes, they are speaking in Shakespearean English, but "sold their lines" so well that they could have been simply speaking in a somewhat more obscure modern-day dialect.

So what then is the story about?  Well it is about Benedick (played by Alexis Denisof) and Beatrice (played by Amy Acker) both handsome/pretty, popular and witty but both tired/bored with MOTOS and at least at the beginning of the story a "merry war" of words against each other ;-).  Well in this, arguably one of the truly first "romantic comedies," could not stand.  So Benedick's boss Don Pedro (played by Reed Diamond) and friends Leonato (played by Clark Gregg) and Claudio (played by Fran Kranz) along with Beatrice's cousin Hero (played by Jillian Morgese) conspire together to "bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection with each other."  Much, of course, ensues ... ;-)

Among that which ensues is a subplot, which is potentially far less "merry" than the rest of the story, and one which derives from a second understanding of the meaning of the title of Shakespeare's play:  For in Shakespeare's time Much Ado About Nothing could be understood as it is commonly understood today as being necessarily a story that is "light" and "happy" (about "nothing").  However back in his day, title could also be understood as a play on the phrase Much Ado About Noting (that is, about gossip).  In the story, a rather vicious rumor about Beatrice's cousin Hero threatens to turn this otherwise very merry story into something else ... BUT since "All's well that ends well" (another title of one of Shakespeare's comedies) this story too ends well, with a reminder to the audience that "noting" (gossip) often amounts to "nothing" (nonsense...).

Anyway, I found this film to be an absolute delight to watch and would recommend it to anyone from High School age to Seniors (who still hear well enough to be able to enjoy the dialogue).  And at minimum, this film will deserve a "best adapted Screenplay" nomination come Oscar time ;-)


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