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Authentics (2019)
Authentic Representation of the SMART 4-Point Recovery Prorgrsm
I love this short film! Very tastefully done and models the tools of SMART 4-Point Recovery program being put into practice with positive effect outside of the meetings of SMART Recovery. AUTHENTICS is a 25-minute film that was shot in 4½ days with professional actors in and around Atlanta. It centers around a young photographer struggling with addiction who books a job to shoot a wedding. She meets a man who is no stranger to addiction himself who gently introduces her to the principles of SMART Recovery. He inspires her to change and, in the process, he changes too.
The film was written and directed by DANIEL STINE of RISING ACT FILMS and made possible by the generous support of the CHRIS & DEBBIE SWAIN FOUNDATION. This film contains brief sequences of alcohol/drug use. Viewer discretion is advised.
Live the film by joining us every Sunday night at 7 pm CT (8 pm ET/5 pm PT) for the SMART 4-Point ZOOM Meeting that I facilitate... meeting #6873 out of Maple Grove, MN.
Babylon (2022)
"Babylon" Makes Me Nastalgic for "Heaven's Gate", "Inchon", "Gili", "Last Action Hero" and "Nothing But Trouble"
Let me start by saying that I dabble in screenwriting and I have written a spec script that I registered with the WGA. For as amateurish as my spec script may be, I am confident that the first ten pages of my spec script are more engaging than the first ten pages of the Damien Chazelle's shooting script for "Babylon". Why? Because in my spec script, the reader does not have to endure someone being defecated on (multiple times) by an elephant, followed up by a someone getting urinated on by an exotic dancer. Whoever green lighted this film should have instead sent Damien's script back to him with a gift card to Office Max in the exact amount of their cheapest paper shredder in order to aid in the immediate dismantling of this project.
So I go to see "Babylon" in my local movie theater during the busy holiday week when everyone is off from work and going to see movies on day 7 of its theatrical release. I sit down and realize that I am the only person in the movie theatre. Hmm. Then the film rolls and I am "treated" with a pretentious introduction segment from two of the main stars (Margot Robbie and Diego Calva) who proudly congratulate me for the once in a lifetime cinematic marvel that I am about to experience. That brought back a recent memory of Tom Cruise doing the same thing before the movie Top Gun: Maverick. There are no similarities. Tom's audience address was genuine and appropriate. Margot and Diego's segment felt like a desperate appeal for those of us in the audience to look the other way at the train wreck on celluoid that we are about to witness. I think that Margot and Diego instead should have offered us in the audience an apology and a refund while at the same time making an appeal to Tom Cross (the film editor) to remove their names from the acting credits.
In closing, "Babylon" is an awful movie. Avoid it at all costs so you don't have to re-claim the 189 minutes out of your life you will lose forever by watching this disaster. That is if you resist the urge to walk out during the film, which many have done according to the other user reviews.
The Menu (2022)
Unpredictable Fun
Great film. Contains full bodied twists and turns along with delicious, scrumptious performances. Taste. Savor. Relish. Consider. But do not eat... unless you really want to. If I were going to pitch this movie to a studio executive or an investor, my pitch would go like this: It's an adult version of "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", with the glass elevator being a boat (not a glass bottom boat). As a heads up and a spoiler: People are NOT on the menu in "The Menu". This is not "To Serve Mankind" or "It takes all kinds of critters to make Chef Slowik fritters"... capisci? What is on the menu in "The Menu" is a great big "screw you" to all things "Foo Foo" and a great big love fest to grassroots efforts in creativity, such as the dive restaurants that our cheap parents took us to in our youth. Bon Appetit!