splumer

This is considered the definitive documentary by Moon landing deniers, but with mere seconds on Google, one can find the answers to the "questions" raised by this sham of a film. It does bear stating that documentarians are not journalists, and are not bound by any ethical standards regarding fairness in presenting facts. Renowned Moon loon Bart Sibrel takes this to the extreme.

I won't discuss the points raised in the film, because you can look those up yourself, and I encourage you to, because you'll learn something along the way. However, some of these questions are valid. For example, I wondered myself how the Apollo missions dealt with the Van Allen belts. So, rather than concluding that the Moon landings didn't happen and that there must be a conspiracy, I Googled it and found the answer (they went around the worst of the belts, and the spacecraft's skin and electronics provided shielding). Asking questions is fine, as long as you're willing to accept the answers, even when they might not agree with your pre-conceived notions.

Why is it that Christians don't seem to get the long-settled Constitutional issue of not putting religious displays on public property? And that said issue doesn't affect private property, including privately-owned stores? The very premise of this movie is based on a lie. It doesn't matter if it's a "tradition" to put a nativity scene on the grounds of city hall; the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that it violated the First Amendment. Also, not even the most hardcore atheist is "offended" by Christmas; pointing out that it's unconstitutional is NOT the same as being offended.

In the film's defense, though, it does feature a drug-addled Daniel Baldwin attempting to act, Ted McGinley acting out every "regular Christian guy" trope and Brad Stine acting like a crazy homeless guy. I assume he's just aplying himself.

Rather than actually watching this movie, I suggest watching Hugo & Jake's review of it on You Tube. They explain the issues in a much more entertaining fashion than I.

A once great director, William Friedkin has really hit rock bottom. While this could have been an interesting portrait of a priest that performs exorcisms (though if he's had to perform nine exorcism on one person, then he must not be very good at it) it comes off as Friedkin trying desperately to prove that demonic possession is real. Adding the questionably-edited testimony of otherwise respectable doctors doesn't help. I say "questionably edited" because the answers the doctors give, particularly Dr. Martin, seem oddly phrased, as if they're answering different questions than appear in the film. Friedkin also asks leading questions in many cases: "Is it possible that Cristina is suffering from actual possession?" Of course it's possible, but is it likely? Not at all.

Friedkin always struck me as a fairly rational person. I don't know if he's getting koo-koo in his dotage or if he's trying to raise interest in a new project, but this was pretty sad. I gave it three stars because the portrait of Father Gabriele is fairly interesting, and it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, a film student could have done a better job.