Doc Allen

Highly recommended. The movie is though provoking but never preachy. It is, I think, no spoiler to say the movie is about a man attempting to meet the five basic requirements for true repentance aftr a murder (taken I believe from Thomas Aquinas). The title comes from an incident in which the main character is throwing bits of snow off a bridge, watching them fall and smash. Miraculously one piece instead of falling, rises. The implication, worked out at length in the movie, is that a reversal of fate, of the Fall if you will, is possible. See the movie to decide for yourself if the main character also rises.

I liked "The Blair Witch Project"--didn't scare me, but the young woman who was the star did a fine acting job.

"Curse of the Blair Witch" however was, I thought, rather poorly done. It didn't work for me as a even briefly convincing "documentary." The "70s Hippy witch" was unintentionally funny and contradicted himself, the Murderer was not much of an actor and there were so many discrepancies that it just wasn't convincing at all. For example: early on in the film there is a short interview with a middle-age guy in Burkettsville, supposedly done by the Lost Teens, in black and white then an interview with the same guy, supposed done a year later--he was wearing the same shirt and his hair had not changed a bit. One of the faked letters, supposedly written in the 1830s by a not-very-literate person of Burkettsvile contained the word "fetish." The word was not generally known in the English language at the time.

To me Richard Gere carried the movie--he managed to make Jesse LuJak a character both repulsive and likeable. LuJak is a petty criminal, car-thief and then a murderer, not very bright (he reads comic books and seems to model himself on The Silver Surfer). LuJak moves in a world of cheap motels and seedy bars, and has a torrid and obviously doomed affair with an art student. But in the end he comes off as somehow admirable--we believe that he loves the Kapinsky character, that he might even be a good father to her child, given the chance. LuJak comes mighty near what I would call a tragic hero--flaws and all.

As for the look of the movie, I find that equally well done--just for example, at one point the hero and heroine make love in torrid red lights, with a black-and white 30s movie in the background, also dealing with doomed lovers. The juxtaposed images were very nicely handled.

Both thumbs up!