Tony-Kiss-Castillo

Honestly. I did exactly that and "Breaking Bad" is exactly what I got! Which really goes to show you.... It just DOESN'T translate!

HOOP tries to put some fresh spin on the basic concept, I must admit, and, at times, the production offers up some interesting contrasts...But a Totatly FRESH CONCEPT, of course, would have been infinitely better!

Prison psychiatrist Fokke Agustinus (Marcel Hensema) seems to have his hands full with some rather disturbed patients. He apparently, more often than not, is at odds with the Prison Administration as to the best way to deal with many of his volatile and unpredictable wards.

Agustinus' world begins to implode on two fronts. His wife, Machteld (Kim van Kooten) has grown distant from her workaholic husband and has the hots, big time, for her Yoga instructor. Also, his long estranged father passes, leaving him a farm, which slowly begins to show indications of some rather bizarre activities taking place there!

In a seismic life shift, Agustinus is asked to take a vacation from his job and reacts by unceremoniously throwing in the towel and quitting!!!

He also decides the family should wipe the slate clean and get a fresh start by moving to the farm! This move sets in motion a slippery slope downward spiral chain of events that I feel too many viewers will find, in general, just a bit too predictable.

From a socio-cultural vantage point, the Dutch appear to be pretty much intent on following the rules and doing the right thing. Agustinus and his family seem to lack a default setting for when they encounter the "Dark Side" world constructed and left behind by the deceased father.

And here... Dear readers???? Well... HERE...I leave the REST to You!!! ENJOY!!!

It isn't much of a leap to venture that the vast majority of IMDb Users have never seen a Colombian Film. If there is a single word in the above Title that grabs you, rest assured, you must "EMBRACE" this Oscar-nominated gem by placing it at the top of your "Must See" List!

Colombian Director Ciro Guerra (Los Viajes del Viento / also Reviewed) has taken an Amazonian Shaman's reality-based Dream and crafted it into a visionary cinematic hallucination for the ages!

The operative term here is "Culture-Clash". Two delicately intertwined storylines, both inspired by travel journals authored three decades apart by two Amazonian explorers; German scientist Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet, "Borgman"), in 1909, and by American amateur botanist Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis, "Avenged"), thirty years later. EMBRACE opens a gritty and convincingly realistic window into the Colombian Amazon Region of the early 20th Century. Guerra gets up close and personal with some of the persistent cultural atrocities perpetrated on indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Colombia, without dwelling inordinately on them. As if the three plus centuries of Spanish Colonial Rule had not provided enough genocide and torture!

For those of you addicted to "Fast and Furious" pacing in movies, undoubtedly, will find EMBRACE a bit "Tedious and Slow", but I would say, "Deliberate and True to Life". One can, at best, barely imagine the laid-back life rhythms in remote regions of the Amazon a century ago! The intentional ever-so-slightly grainy Black & White cinemaphotography imbues EMBRACE with an authentic 1930's look and feel. Of course, there have been numerous critiques of thusly having deprived us of the myriad of Amazon shades of green...But EMBRACE is not a Travel Promo ....and I applaud Ciro Guerra's Black & White decision!

Here is a comment/comparison you probably might not see anywhere else: Although Director Ciro Guerra was born in 1981, I can't help but think that, as a kid, he saw and was influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 1968, "2001" (My Favorite Movie)! There were, in my opinion, a number of interesting parallels, confirmation of which I will leave up to you!

Shaman Karamakate, the last survivor of his tribe (Nibio Torres-young/Antonio Bolivar-old) who has been chewed up and spit out as a lifelong victim of culture clash, and, as a result, defines himself as "chullachaqui", a walking empty shell zombie of a man. EMBRACE is light years from being a feel-good movie, yet, there is a "spirituality and focus" which can help you transcend even a worst-case scenario of mistreatment and misfortune in life, that is transformational and which provides ground swelling inspiration!

In fourth grade, Sister Angela Marie asked us to try to imagine the deluge from which Noah, his Ark and all the animals were provided safe haven. So I imagined myself drowning next to the Ark...and a fish swam right up to me! "Sister Angela Marie!" I said while raising my hand. "All life on earth was wiped out by the flood, right?" "Of course, Anthony!" She droned..."Then how did the fish die?" I will never, EVER forget her reaction. She turned beet red and shrieked; hysterical, Madwoman of Chiallot screams, "YOU!

...WITH YOUR PUNY LITTLE MIND!... QUESTIONING THESE SACRED TRUTHS !?!?" Not really, I thought...I just wanted to know how the fish died! Simon Cole is on a quest to fill the spiritual void he yearns to rid himself of. He DESPERATELY wants to believe! Well, that's me, too. To be brutally honest, I would imagine it would take a very special combination of circumstances for you to rate this 4*, like I did! Simon Cole makes it a point to ask all the WRONG questions. He doesn't have to worry about getting expelled from 9th grade Catholic School for asking them! Neither does he seem very concerned with entertaining his audience nor making them laugh like Bill Maher was in RELIGILOUS! With only a couple exceptions, he treats the interviewees in his film with ample respect. He lets their own words serve as the quicksand that sinks the lot of them! If that is part of what he wanted to accomplish in making "SO HELP ME", I would say he has achieved his goal in this 52 minute documentary. He interviews clerics, ministers, rabbis, priests, preachers, ayatollahs, lay persons and holy men alike from at least 30 different religious persuasions. What stands out so vividly is how, almost without exception, each particular denomination claims so assiduously and self-righteously to have a total monopoly on the truth! As Cole points out..."Either they're ALL right...or ONLY ONE is right!... I believe they're ALL right!" In the end, Cole's quixotic journey does bring him a degree of inner peace. I strongly recommend "SO HELP ME GOD" to all members who consider themselves spiritual persons who revel in asking all kinds of questions! SOLID 8* -