I have this problem with the Chicks. I mixed them back when they weren't blond. I'm happy that they're apparently making huge bucks, but the Lynch-Macy-Robison-Maguire lineup was vastly better than the current Robison-Maguire-Maines lineup.

IMNSHO, of course. I need to buy their latest disc, just to thank them for pissing off BushCo that much.

As to Jesus Camp, I can't deal with the fundies right now.

It also disturbed the crap out of me.

Pray for peace.

I've heard disturbing things about Jesus Camp. I don't know if I can bring myself to watch it. Poor kids.

This week I have watched:

Night of the Hunter -scary and great. BP I think you recommended this movie.

Boys from Baraka - sad and good.

I rented City of God and Love in the Afternoon. I think I'll watch Love in the Afternoon now.

Night of the Hunter is my favorite movie! I did recommend that one! I'm glad you liked it.

Yeah, Jesus Camp is kind of heartbreaking, though. It's very much worth seeing, though.

Let me type "though" one more time, though.

Though, of course!

Night of the Hunter is my favorite movie!

A-fucking-men! Bob Mitchum was a God who walked among us. Today me and the mrs. rewatched Reservoir Dogs and The Big Red One (one of the best war films ever. Lee Marvin rules)

Bob Mitchum was a God who walked among us.

Indeed he was. Wasn't his cameo in Dead Man his last role? That's a great flick, too... one of those slow, "you need to be in the mood for it" movies, but I like it a lot.

Lori, now that you've seen Night of the Hunter, does that image of Shelley Winters in the car in the river haunt you like it does me? It's all the more disturbing for how beautiful it is.

I've been wanting to see Jesus Camp. I've heard it's very even-handed, but that'll upset me anyway. Kind of like Hell House (also very good, also even-handed, also completely disturbing).

This was the week of Fast Food Nation here. I had read the book and thought I could handle the movie all right. But I must say, it was a a Hard. Hitting. Film. Extremely well done. The way the director worked with Eric Schlosser to turn the books' basic, thorough reportage into illustrative human stories was incredibly effective. It was touching, horribly realistic, and very uncomfortable-making. I'd be interested to hear what other people have thought after seeing it.

If you like eating any beef at all, in any form, definitely do not see it.

"Jesus Camp" was on google video a couple of weeks ago, and I just tried to find it, but couldn't.

This documentary, "The Doomsday Code", is probably the neatest summation of end-times thinkers I've ever seen in my many years of reading about these people.

I just watched Fast Food Nation and I was a little disappointed. As a movie it was great, but it just didn't seem like it has as much of an impact as the book did. I really wish they'd spent more time showing how fast food flavours and smells are engineered in a New Jersey lab, for one thing.

It took me two or three runs to be able to get through Jesus Camp. It's just so sad.

Jesus Camp was amazing, and one of the most disturbing films I've seen. The part with the modified pledge of allegiance gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Although the part with Ted Haggard rated high on the Unintentional Comedy scale. : )

When I was in college I knew a guy (who I'd grown up with) whose family ran a slaughterhouse in my home town. I ended up taking on the task of delivering six cow eyeballs once a quarter, for the last three years I was in school, to one of the biology classes there at my college for dissection. They always gave me the eyeballs when they were still warm, and always in a clear plastic bag. (Nice touch.)

That said, I haven't seen Fast Food Nation mostly due to an aversion to Richard Linklater.

The two most disturbing parts of Jesus Camp to me (SPOILER ALERT, if you'd like to be surprised) were: 1) When the kids were invited to take a hammer and smash a coffee mug that had "GOVERNMENT" written on it, and 2) When the woman who ran the camp called into that radio show and said that democracy was "designed to destroy itself, because under democracy you have to give equal rights to everyone, and that will destroy us."

Those two scenes horrified me because they seemed both out of whack with the folksy demeanor of those people most of the time, and at the same time it was a logical extension of their beliefs. That's fascism right there.

(END SPOILERS)

The little girl Rachel was the one who broke my heart most. She's so cute, and so awkward, you could see how she took to this stuff because it gave her the feeling that everything makes sense. It even gave her the push to get out of her shell and approach total strangers and start talking to them about God. She NEEDS this, and yet it's all built on lies. It tore me up.

Although the part with Ted Haggard rated high on the Unintentional Comedy scale.

True dat! :)

Jesus Camp was amazing, and one of the most disturbing films I've seen.

I agree. I saw it last weekend. More than once I was tempted to turn my CD player off. In the end I stuck with it. Truly disturbing, but a 'must-see' in order to understand that this segment of our society exists.

What I watched might be considered "child abuse." Not physical, but emotional, mental abuse. But, hey, it's protected under our Constituional separation of "church and state.".

Watched 49 Up the other night -- great addition to the series (I found it a little more engaging than 42 Up, actually), with a few nice surprises. The Prestige arrived today, but I'm planning on watching it with the bf, so it'll have to wait a few days.

I'll likely watch Shut Up and Sing one of these days, but I can't stomach the thought of enduring the fundie fest of Jesus Camp. (I guess this makes me an intolerant godless liberal humanist; to quote the late, lamented Bill Hicks: "so forgive me.")

Oh, and Night of the Hunter indeed kicks serious ass. Bob Mitchum was the motherfuckin' MAN.

interrobang, I'd never heard of The Doomsday Code... this looks very cool. Thank you!

scody, I just picked up The Prestige today... I hadn't even HEARD of it, but I saw it was a new Chris Nolan flick, and was like, "How did I miss THIS??"

I feel like a pleb.

I watched "American Idol", "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Catwalk" (our version of Project Runway) this week. I can't wait for the new UK series of The Apprentice to start.

does that image of Shelley Winters in the car in the river haunt you like it does me? It's all the more disturbing for how beautiful it is.

Yes, that scene was plain scary and surreal. I was surprised with this movie. My husband and I watched it together, and for the first five minutes or so we were wondering what we were getting ourselves into. It was very compelling.

After I saw Jesus Camp I bought a copy for a friend as a gift, and after telling another friend about it he went out and bought it himself and has already watched it twice.

Yes, we as good leftists find it disturbing, but it's pretty unbiased for what it is (save some editing tricks and the occasional piece of music that would be better off in a horror movie). I can easily see certain Pentecostals watching that movie and thinking it was a positive affirmation of their beliefs.

And it's so beautifully photographed and edited. There are parts of that movie I've watched multiple times just to appreciate the image composition.

I may have said this before, but my only problem with the movie is that it doesn't successfully differentiate between Evangelicals and Pentecostals--as a result, the uninformed might think that Evangelicals hold more radical beliefs than they generally do.

as a result, the uninformed might think that Evangelicals hold more radical beliefs than they generally do.

"Most Evangelical Christians believe that the Rapture, as described in the three biblical verses listed above, will happen precisely as described, sometime in the near future. All previously saved Christians, totaling perhaps 5 to 10% of the world's population, will suddenly have their bodies converted into a different form that they will wear for all eternity in Heaven. They will rise vertically into the air. Many believe that they will pass right through ceilings, roofs of cars, etc. to meet Jesus Christ in the sky."
(-religioustolerance.org)

Maybe I'm uninformed, but a belief like that, and the nihilism that accompanies it, seems at least as radical as anything the Pentecostals believe.

delurking at last!

I can easily see certain Pentecostals watching that movie and thinking it was a positive affirmation of their beliefs.

This is why I liked it. I attended a church with a culture much like the one in Jesus Camp when I was in high school, and the kids in the movie seemed very familiar to me. It's been a few years since I left Christianity, so I've been away from that culture for a while. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about it was that nothing in it surprised me. None of the characters were bogeymen—I know those people, and I've participated in the meetings with the yelling and tongues and shaking and wailing and smashing of symbols. And yes, they would watch this movie and say "Praise the Lord!" when we're saying "Holy fuck, child abuse!"

I also liked the fact that instead of pitting secular liberals against hardcore Pentecostals, they contrasted liberal Christians with Pentecostals. American Christianity has so many variants, we can't paint them all as fundies.

I read this letter yesterday from the website. The filmmakers also surmise that Evangelical Christians would be proud of the movie.

Maybe I'm uninformed, but a belief like that, and the nihilism that accompanies it, seems at least as radical as anything the Pentecostals believe.

Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. But not all Evangelical churches (really, not that many) have speaking in tongues during services, or children writhing on the floor who are supposedly possessed by the Holy Spirit, or other similar things. So when the documentary presents us with footage of Pentecostals engaging in this behavior, and immediately follows it up by presenting the statistic that 25% of Americans are Evangelical, it comes off to me as potentially misleading. I don't think it's a deliberate act of misrepresentation on the part of the filmmakers, though.

Evangelicals (both charismatic and non) sort of freaked me out when I was church-goin'; even non-charismatic evangelicals tend to use a really agressive worship/prayer style. Just reading about this movie is freaking me out a little bit, actually. As a teen, I attended a few evangelical youth group meetings, and a bunch of my friends attended charismatic evangelical churches; it sounds to me like this camp is not much more radical than some of the revivals I've attended. I don't think I could watch without broiling up a lot of conflicting emotions.