Hunting the Lost Symbol DVD Review
March 15, 2010 by Christina
Filed under 2010 DVD Reviews
Hunting The Lost Symbol, a TV documentary series released on DVD by GAIAM/Discovery Channel on March 2nd, is basically an analysis of Dan Brown’s fiction-thriller (book) The Lost Symbol, telling us what’s true in it and what isn’t. Centering primarily on the Free Masons, their symbolism and the many conspiratorial theories against them (depicting them as money-grubbers, power-mongers and even Satanists), we are led into a world of secrets, both in modern-day USA with the CIA and about our early Founding Fathers. A Bonus Feature, Secret America, is equally intriguing, explaining to us various American symbols and their origins, among them the American Flag, the Statue of Liberty, the American dollar bill, the White House and the Washington Monument.
Many may not know that George Washington was a Free Mason who transformed a group of tobacco fields into what we know now as the Capitol Building, The White House and Washington, D.C. On September 18, 1793, Washington laid a cornerstone in a traditional Masonic ceremony using corn (for prosperity), oil (to symbolize peace), and wine (for happiness) in the U.S. Capitol Building. This cornerstone has since mysteriously disappeared, no one knowing how or why (although it’s conjectured that this disappearance occurred during fires there, or renovations). Dan Brown, who also wrote The Da Vince Code, presents the Free Masons as a rich and secretive group who engaged in strange rituals (and he’s garnered millions of sales and readers by doing so), but not all of his ideas are true. The Free Masons were trying to lift our country out of ignorance and superstition and into science, logic, and mathematics, that is to say, thinking. A statue of Washington, nude to the waist and holding up a Greek-like cloth, brings to us the concept of apotheosis (making a leader appear to be a God, especially post-death), and was originally installed at the Capitol Building and later moved to the Smithsonian Institute when many disliked it. George Washington himself was planned to be buried in Washington, D.C. but was actually buried on his own estate in Mount Vernon during a Masonic ceremony that his wife Martha did not attend (although many claim that her absence was due to severe grief).
It is true, for instance, that Free Masons have Chambers of Reflection containing time and death symbols like the skull and the hour-glass, but there isn’t one in the sub-basement of the Capitol! It is also true that the Washington Monument has a Latin inscription at its top that means “Praise God”, but the Free Masons did not believe in any one particular God, just in a Higher Power. Throughout Hunting The Lost Symbol ideas are raised and debunked at a rapid pace using clear and intricate visuals and interviews with authors, historians, and Washington, D.C. workers.
As an aside (from which perhaps came some of the conspiracy theories), Hunting The Lost Symbol informs us of various governmental and CIA projects of encryption, encoding, and the use of psychics to foil foreign governments. “Intention” was studied – staring at a photo of someone who’s physically very far away, even on another continent, to affect that person in either a healing or a menacing manner, as was “remote viewing,” where psychics very capably drew detailed pictures of Russian submarines or Desert Storm bomb sites that they’d never seen or heard about before. Since some taxpayers protested using public funds to study clairvoyance, telepathy, and mind over matter, the twenty-million dollar programs were ended, but institutes that the government could tap, like the Institute of Noetics, still exist today and are thriving.
In a final dissection of many famous personages involved in their group over the course of a few centuries, the Free Masons are perceived as a much-maligned society more oriented towards futuristic thinking and the stability of our nation than towards acquiring masses of money via evil means. Hunting The Lost Symbol and the Bonus Feature Secret America are rich in information and curiosities, answering questions many of us would not even think to ask! This documentary would withstand not only one repeat viewing but many more, shared with others. Highly recommended, especially to the historically-minded!
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 173 minutes
DVD Release Date: March 2, 2010
Grade: A
Directed by John Tindall
Narrated by Jason Hildebrandt
With Bonus Features Secret America and Deleted Scenes
Hunting the Lost Symbol DVD Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews
Gigante DVD Review
March 12, 2010 by Christina
Filed under 2010 DVD Reviews
A supermarket on the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay is the setting for Gigante, released on DVD by Film Movement/CornerZ on March 9th. Jara, a security guard who works the night shift, spends all of his time there watching employees via video cameras, in the produce section, the meat market, having food fights in the back room or stocking shelves (a woman is told by management that if a hand towel display falls down again while she’s working, she’s fired, so it’s work in a strict environment). Jara takes the bus to work, changes into his security guard clothing, and then combs his hair at a mirror above which is written “This Is The Image Customers Have Of You”, even though he himself is almost never seen. It’s a boring and thankless job, and we see him noticing a worker taking a pastry off the shelf for herself, but he doesn’t report her.
Then Jara comes home and sleeps on the couch and later works again as a security guard at the Molotov Disco One, a dance club. There he deals with drunken and violent patrons directly and is often hit and kicked during the course of his evening.
Back at the supermarket Jara keeps watching Julia (Leonor Svarcas), the worker, as she continues to steal – this time lip balm, looking down and applying it to her lips stealthily. One morning, after she leaves the supermarket just a bit before Jara does, he follows her around the city as she shops and runs errands, staying far behind so that she won’t see him.
Jara’s obsession with the female worker is both sweet and disturbing. We sense that he’s not a stalker or a serial killer, but we wonder why he doesn’t just walk up and introduce himself to her (since she’s never seen him viewing the cameras in his small room). He seems like a hard worker and an all-around average guy (except for his “largeness” – perhaps he feels too large for her, as security guards often are!). We also realize that he’s showing Julia favoritism, because he tells another woman worker to put back something she’s taken (“Pasta or rice, but not this”), yet we know he has a kind heart, because he doesn’t report her.
You would think this movie would be dull, but it isn’t! We become personally involved as supervisors walk the aisles, getting ready to fire any errant employees, and we watch Jara following Julia to parks and beaches (is he shy?), never being caught because she hasn’t seen him before! There are lovely touches, as when Jara finds half of an action figure, a child’s toy, in the sand, and as he’s perusing it a child’s soccer ball hits him in the face and makes his nose bleed (symbolizing his retained “childhood” innocence in a world of violence).
Gigante is the winner of fifteen international awards, well-deserved because of its very human qualities. Whoever we are, we identify with Jara on his quest for love and a lifestyle encompassing more than he already has (which is mostly work, work, work at low-paying jobs usually given to the uneducated). Don’t we all pine for more, no matter where we are in life? Haven’t we all, at one point or another in our lives, had idealized images of someone we’d seen but not yet met who could become a very important addition to our lives? And Julia is very mysterious, going everywhere alone and usually speaking only to shopkeepers and teachers. Will Jara ever meet Julia, and will they even like each other? At work Jara leaves Julia a little present with her name on it and watches as she’s bewildered at its possible origin.
Gigante is an excellent film, written, shot and acted with a high level of sensitivity and sensibility not often seen in post-modern movies, and making use of silence very eloquently! I highly recommend it (as I do most of the Film Movement movies) for serious viewers of foreign cinema.
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: March 9th
Grade: A
Writer/Director: Adrien Biniez
Starring: Horacio Camandulle, Leonor Svarcas, Fernando Alonov, and Diego Artucio
This Film Movement disc also includes an 18-minute short, Dennis, directed by Mads Matthiesen
Gigante DVD Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews
Old Dogs Blu-ray Review
March 11, 2010 by Christina
Filed under 2010 Blu-ray Reviews
Old Dogs, released on Blu-ray by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on March 9th, should be funny, but to me, it often isn’t, which is bad for a comedy! The first part of the movie is filled with “embarrassment” jokes – the embarrassment of being a senior citizen, say, or the embarrassment of slamming the car trunk down on the fingers of a model who does hand commercials (which Dan, played by Robin Williams, does to Jenna, played by Rita Wilson, in Old Dogs – but in reality, smashing all of the hand model’s fingers and landing her in the hospital in a neck brace and finger casts would be a dire tragedy that wouldn’t be forgiven easily!). John Travolta plays Charlie, Dan’s bachelor friend, and they both work as marketers together (Travolta notes, in the Bonus Features, that he’s known Robin Williams since childhood and was finally able do a film with him, while Williams says that it was a blast and calls Travolta a kindred spirit!).
Vicki (played by Kelly Preston, Dan’s ex-wife of only one night when he married her on a drunken spree while trying to recover from the divorce of a marriage that had lasted fourteen years), leaves her kids (boy-and-girl twins who are seven years old – Zach is played by Conner Rayburn and Emily is played by Ella Bleu Travolta) with Dan while she’s (secretly) off to a two-week stint in jail for activist activities. Vicki and Dan haven’t seen each other for all of these seven long years, and Dan and Charlie take on the task of babysitting them for two weeks in a series of slapstick and embarrassment kinesthetics. The location sets in Old Dogs change constantly, bedazzling us, and there is lots of “getting hurt” physically (we assume everyone recovers almost instantly – well we know that Dan and Charlie always do, and if the others don’t recover, we just forget about them as we’re off to another activity in another location!).
There are families who will find these antics hilarious, just for the reasons stated above! Then suddenly, a little more than half-way through the film, the characters become heartfelt – Vicki carves Charlie a soap bunny while she’s in jail, Dan finds a list that Zach has made of things he wants to do with him (like seeing his first ball game and learning how to ride a two-wheeler) that touches him deeply, and Charlie tells Dan that his daughter Emily wants him to be her hero because she needs a protector. Everyone stops hurting everyone else and starts to feel a lot in a supreme lovefest of family values, and when a botched deal (because of a young marketing employee, Craig, played by Seth Green), proposes the possibility of Dan and Charlie having to move to Tokyo permanently, everyone worries about missing everyone else!
Although I personally didn’t enjoy Old Dogs (which is odd because generally I really like the work of both Travolta and Williams), I feel that many others (especially kids raised on video games) will love it, since “being hurt” seems unreal in films to them and it’s a Three Stooges, to the max, mentality! Safe from overtones of sexuality or, say, true gang violence, most families will laugh and laugh at how this strange comglomerate “family” interacts as they get to know each other at campgrounds and fairs and during varied physical activities (despite the fact that Travolta and Williams are “old dogs” like Charlie’s dog Lucky – played by Sebastian! – who dies and at the funeral Charlie says, “I knew him (Lucky) for fourteen years and I forget that I was fortunate to know him for even one day”). Old Dogs is dedicated to recently departed comedian Bernie Mac (who plays Jimmy Lunchbox in the film) and John Travolta’s son Jett, who also died. Emily is played by Ella Bleu Travolta, John Travolta’s “real life” daughter.
At least in the second half of Old Dogs everyone bonds and loves each other! I particularly like this quote from Dan to Charlie, “You’ve always had faith in me, even when I didn’t have faith in myself. You’re not only a friend, you’re the best kind of friend, a loyal and honorable friend.”
Old Dogs Blu-ray Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews
