Thursday, July 10, 2014

Jason goes to Docfest--Day...The End minus 2

Still catching up. This is from June 17th, as I took a little break from the festival to attend to family matters in Los Angeles.

First up was AN HONEST LIAR: THE AMAZING RANDI STORY. James “The Amazing” Randi is a stage magician, and he opens his act by admitting to the audience that he is a liar. He will tell you he can do magic and then he will trick you. But by telling you upfront, and by doing this solely for entertainment, he is an honest liar. What he has no tolerance for--and what he has spent his life debunking--is those who would use the tricks of stage magic to cheat and defraud people. He thoroughly debunks Uri Geller, he goes after faith healing evangelists, etc. And he does it with wit, style, and sometimes reckless abandon that's always fun to watch. And then, near the end, the movie takes a really bizarre turn as some of the lies of his personal life get exposed on camera (about his lover, but I won't go into detail. It's a bizarre story that you should have the pleasure of discovering for yourself.)

And then, something that was just good ol' fun, DOC OF THE DEAD. A fun and funny look at zombies in pop culture. It's got the titans, from George Romero to Simon Pegg to Max Brooks to Bruce Campbell. And it's got tons and tons of cosplaying fans. I'm not sure you can say there's some great social insight in the genre, but...wait, what the heck am I saying? I'm the guy who complains that I still don't understand the 90s because Romero didn't make a ________ OF THE DEAD movie during that time! These movies are chock full of social importance! And brains! BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!

Total Running Time: 186 minutes
My Total Minutes: 366,476

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