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Hanleymac"s comment john-brouhard7 June 2008 There is not much I can add to Hanleymac"s comments except I hope Richard Carpenter can find a way to completely stop this mess from ever being seen ANYWHERE!!! GET, IF YOU CAN, "THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY, 1989. I think you'll find it much more informative, and that it deals with Karen's suffering more than "Superstar". It, as I recall, helped make all of us aware of the problems associated with Anorexia and other eating disorders. "The Karen Carpenter Story" doesn't free the Carpenter family from some responsibility for what happened to Karen, but it doesn't bash them either. The attempt on the part of Harold and Agnes was simply to try and protect them (Karen and Richard) from the problems of the entertainment world. If my wife, Terrie and I had been their parents, we might possibly have done things the same way. As for "Superstar, The Karen Carpenter Story", it should be sent as far away as the East is from the West.

MY COMMENT ON THE ABOVE, TO ITS AUTHOR: Just 3 things, really. Because I can't restrain myself. 1) It was obvious by 2008 that SUPERSTAR would never be fully suppressed in our lifetime. Despite his obvious genetic & creative superiority to almost anyone I can think of, not even Richard Carpenter can subjugate the internet. We all know he's tried. and clearly failed, since the illicit outlaw Mattel-mockery SUPERSTAR continues to survive.

2) If the commentator above had fathered Richard & Karen Carpenter (I'm leaving his wife Terrie out of this, in fairness to the woman) the siblings' DNA would have contained no talent of any kind, and so The Carpenters as we know them would never have existed. So the reviewer could never have "possibly done things the same way as" Harold and Agnes Carpenter, with regard to Richard & Karen, who would have been entirely different children and adults than the celebrities we're all so familiar with today. Specifically, the way one manipulates, emotionally and psychosexually poisons, and takes financial advantage of gifted platinum-selling international recording superstars would be worlds away from parenting long-term minimum-wage retail, food service and/or janitorial "cast members" at Downey-adjacent Disneyland. However, elementary deductive reasoning establishes beyond a statistical doubt that in the hypothetical parallel world in which the initial comment-poster is father to Richard & Karen, ironically both siblings would have perished many years ago, either through severely compromised congenital physical and/or mental disabilities, or suicide, either separately or in some type of macabre brother/sister pact.

3). As anyone who's ever owned, used or seen a globe should realize, the East and West actually border each other, so the commentor's wish for where copies of Todd Haynes's SUPERSTAR should be "sent" actually expresses a desire for the film's position (be it in Haynes' manager's safety deposit-box, a website for downloading bootleg content, or in the blackest, most brainless chamber of loathing in. the reviewer's heart) to remain completely unchanged.

Thank you.

In a perfect world, Sally Sussman and Anthony Morina, the creative team behind this often-astonishing non-fiction festival hit, would be under contract to HBO, Netflix, Amazon Video, or another cool cable channel or streaming movie service, and allowed to choose any well-known film based on real people and events in modern history as their launchpad for a series of documentaries like this one. I'd eagerly gobble up every single one.

As a huge fan of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, the 1978 Alan Parker blockbuster about a young American, Billy Hayes, notoriously tossed into a hellish Turkish prison when he's caught with hashish while trying to board a flight home, I've seen the movie many times since its initial release -- when my dad rocked my 11-year-old world by driving us to Waterville, Maine, on a school-night, to see it on the big screen. Yet until a few days ago, when a friend's lucky invitation to MIDNIGHT RETURN's premiere theatrical run at Beverly Hills' Music Hall (it's next playing on the big screen in Palm Springs, which is obviously the better way to catch it), I had no clue that Parker's brutal, electrifying, nerve-shredding suspense classic was just the opening act of an outrageous and controversial saga that stretched over 40 years.

I don't want to give away any of the surprises Sussman and Morina weave into the doc, and the tale of what happened to Hayes before, during and after Parker's adaptation of his memoir is so fascinating and expertly structured, it's not until after viewing MIDNIGHT RETURN does one realize what a feat of storytelling Sussman and Morina have pulled off, juxtaposing vintage news clips, scenes from MIDNIGHT EXPRESS and a slew of jaw-droppingly candid original new interviews with Hayes, Parker, producer David Puttnam, Oliver Stone (who won an Oscar for his EXPRESS screenplay and is a priceless part of the story) -- and a well-chosen sample representing the apparent millions of Turks (and Turkish-Americans) for whom Hayes has been a living Satan and MIDNIGHT EXPRESS is apparently the greatest scourge ever committed against Turkey! This bizarrely fervent controversy began with Parker and Hayes bringing the film to Cannes for a sneak-premiere in 1978 and continues to this day because of its "overwhelmingly negative" portrait of Turkey and Turks, in other words the country which sentenced Hayes to an appallingly severe incarceration, and the people at the prisons who abused him to the brink of madness and death. Did anyone expect a different portrayal? Oh, just you wait...

Without relying on the tempting crutch of spoken narration, Sussman and Morina spin out this epic story, spanning five decades and many personal and sociopolitical viewpoints, with total clarity, sophisticated wit and a driving pace that manages to match the legendary nail-biter that inspired it. It's one of the most compelling movies of any genre that I've seen in the last ten years.