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Reviews
The Garden: Commune or Cult (2023)
Want to watch middling actors harass a drum circle? Discovery+Max executives have a reality contest for you!!!
Coming off actual documentaries on harmful cults like Love Has Won, , this one was framed from the start as something shocking, teasing at violence and coercive control.
Instead we get a semi-scripted reality show where it appears that actors responding to the casting call were structured around whatever roles as "the Viking", "the outcast who hates hippie nonsense", "the out of water influencer", "the citizen detective investigator" etc etc, offered talking head moments and given childhood camp-like "survival training".
The production company doesn't appear make documentaries but reality shows about sexy Amish people or whatever Discovery exploitation du jour, replacing actual HBO documentary content with this will be the future of your subscription budget.
Back to the series!
There's a plot of land, a general misunderstanding of collective decisions, a disdain for people who live as they want to, and a wacky cast with roles that primarily involve disgust for the way some people choose to live.
The legacy of this show for me is how lazy it is in reinforcing xenophobia and small-mindedness through the usual reality TV lens. Was it a mistake for the commune to make any deal with Discovery? I hope it paid for some infrastructure so they can live freer.
But jeezy, I don't know how it'll be seen by people (it'll just be seen since it cost very little for Discovery) but I did look up the general response on Reddit and I had a hard time finding anyone who thought it didn't do the commune a disservice with this sloppy, boring fiction, people mugging for the camera and causing distress to their hosts who for any flaws of prepper skill didn't ask to be harassed and intimidated.
I don't usually leave reviews! I think this is really what the old HBO sub budget will become, slickly filmed (I'll give field sound / video workers props, BEGRUDGINGLY) but Discovery will sell us these trash true crime "series" with pretense of content and end up with cheap "freak show" exploitation and ironically perpetuating small minded paranoia a lot more than the actual outcasts that.
A Glitch in the Matrix (2021)
A peek into a subculture, not ideology
I see a number of persons who believe this is promoting "Simulation theory" and in 2021 I can understand why. But this seems a dry (as documentaries go) letting believers present their perspective and giving cheerfully rendered depictions of their beliefs with the... appropriate degree of respect.
In Fabric (2018)
Fun, smart, and thoroughly entertaining
I enjoyed Berberian Sound Studio as a technical tribute to Giallo, but felt this movie resonated with a joy for the genre. From the cinematography to the wittiness of some of the dialogue to the Lynchian creepers to the hypnotic potential of appliance repair, In Fabric was drenched in a loving weirdness. Definitely the top of SIFF 2019.
Hurricane Bianca: From Russia with Hate (2018)
We need to talk about Rex
Loved Katya, enjoyed Bianca and Rachel Dratch, but that Rex character made me feel severe... discomfort. He didn't come off so much stupid as he desperately needed a state-appointed guardian. I had a small respite when they were imprisoned, he dropped the baby talk and the writing improved... his jokes took the forefront for far too long of the movie.
I'll check out the next Bianca flick, but please no more of this chicanery.