Change Your Image
terri-133
Reviews
Death Zone: Cleaning Mount Everest (2018)
Is recovering bodies a first world issue?
The Sherpas are amazing... they are holy and beautiful. It's heartbreaking that they have to sell out their sacred mountain to make a living, and the rich Westerners who pay up to $100,000 for a climb are deplorable for leaving their garbage behind.
However, dead bodies are NOT garbage. They are holy too, and it's an honor for them to be "buried" on the mountain. The sherpas understand this, because they are Buddhists and are able to let go of the physical form. But some rich white folks paid these sherpas to recover the bodies of their dead because they are so attached to the body. It must have been so weird for these beautiful Buddhist sherpas to reconicle this with their own spiritual perspectives.
Timbertown (2019)
Are you kidding with this?
I don't usually write reviews, but I had to make an exception for this piece of crap. It looked really promising in the beginning; I like movies about the outdoors, nature, farming, wilderness exploration, etc.,and the photography was good. But it turned out to be an evangelical Christian movie that looked like it was produced by an undergraduate film school class.
The classical (public domain) music was a testament to how low budget it was. And I laughed out loud at the scene where a non-drinking woman downs a whole bottle of vodka, and is perfectly fine then next day (clinically, she would be be dead, or close to it).
And she is only Black person in town, of course.
In the end, everybody finds Jesus. WTF????
Messiah (2020)
One of the best things I've seen on Netflix
What a shame that it was cancelled due to pressure from religious groups that can't handle looking into a mirror.
The story was brilliant, and, speaking as a trained theologian, I loved the subtle ways in which it brought in bits and pieces from several different religious traditions. Most people wouldn't have noticed this, but in addition to the obvious (Christians needing to follow a messiah, a Mormon U.S. president, etc.) there were other subtle references. For example, the young Palestinian prophet-in-training couldn't read (Mohammed couldn't read or write; he dictated the Quaran). There were Buddhist references to oneness and interconnectedness, as well as many other inter-religious references that I can't recall at the moment.
This story spoke to ideals of religious pluralism, critical thinking and self-determinism. I'm not surprised that it was shut down by religious conservatives.
American Commune (2013)
The did what America never could
I had friends who lived at The Farm, and I wanted to go there myself back in the 70s, but never could, for various reasons. This documentary confirmed what I already knew; TheFarm created a highly functional community. They had infrastructure (they were totally self-sufficient at one point). They had moral codes. They had a functional economy. They had a spiritual life. It was true social utopia, and I suspect the reason it fell into a capitalist model is because the young people left. Beautiful film. I've always wondered what happened to the kids who were born there.
Wine Country (2019)
Women approaching 50 don't behave like this
I actually LIVE in wine country, and I have lots of intelligent, creative, professional women friends who would very likely take a vacation like this, but NONE of them would act like 14 year-olds. The characters in this film embarrassed me. Some of the lines were good ("things we say now"), but the antics of the characters bordered on slapstick. I would have like this concept if it had any real depth, but it turned out to be nothing but another drunk bridesmaids movie.