Since Larry Charles and Bill Maher’s new “documentary” about religion is so shamelessly polemical, I think it’s fitting for my review to match its pitiless contempt.  Make no mistake, Religulous is an ill-conceived, poorly crafted film through and through.  There are scenes when the film lives up to its promise of satisfying humor, but these are overshadowed by its vain attempts at cheap laughs.  Still, if you’d like an hour and a half of Bill Maher’s “Would you get a load of this guy?!” routine you’ll probably find it funny. 

Unfortunately the premise kills the film before it even begins: who in their right mind would think they can provide a careful critique of the three largest monotheistic religions in 100 minutes?  The film is better described as a series of contrived conversations between Maher-as-smug-asshole and subject-as-crazy-hysteric; Religulous does accomplish this one ambitious goal.  Various scenes of stock footage, news feeds, and clips from religious films are cut together with said interviews, presumably for ADD 10 year olds after their morning Cocoa Puffs.  And when Charles can’t keep the narrative flowing with interviews, he resorts to Maher’s stilted monologues. 

Religulous is a very confused film on many different levels.  It can’t seem to decide whether the critical problem with religion is its sprawling, corrupt bureaucracy or its loony ideas and traditions.  The film ends up leaning towards the latter, but I bet this was at least partially a matter of access (Maher gets thrown out of the Vatican, for instance).  If this is the center of critique, the entire films seems pointless; the vast majority of theists are simply not that nutty.  Too bad they don’t make for very entertaining subjects, so on to the next straw man!  This gets at the more problematic identity crisis of the film: is it going for laughs or thoughtful reflection?  I’m not saying you can’t have both, but in this setting the one frequently undercuts the other.  Time after time in interviews Maher will pass on the chance to dig deeper into a subject’s motivation or overarching rationale and content himself with another joke.  Maher’s last monologue (complete with a backlit low angle shot and nonsense like “grow up or die”) is so bombastically dramatic that at first pass it seems impossible that he is serious, but interviews with Maher say otherwise. 

The whole film is coated with a thick layer of irony, but it becomes smothering in those final scenes when Maher is concluding his rant on “what the real problem is”.  This is of course those “irrational” stories that people take to be true, but I have a counter-thesis: could it be that the real problem is arrogant, stubborn, uncompromising individuals?  Does it matter what stories you buy if you still see the world in such black and white terms as the rational atheists versus the irrational theists?  Is it possible that Maher’s insane hubris has so expertly disarmed his capacity for self-reflection that he is blind to the idea that he is not so very different from those he lampoons?  “Grow up or die” does not sound too different in tone from “Repent before the one true God” and hollow claims of championing doubt don’t let you sidestep  the fact that disbelief can have the same ring of certitude characteristic of fervent faith.  In one of my favorite scenes, Maher is speaking with a Jewish Rabbi who uses some of his own interview techniques against him: cutting him off, pontificating for long periods of time, speaking over him, etc.  Maher can’t take it; “never again” he mutters before walking off the interview.   

Ultimately, this undermining irony reaches to cover every corner of the film, from intent to execution.  Sure, being a priest can be self-serving, but what do you call spending 2.5 million dollars so that Larry Charles can live vicariously through Bill Maher as he travels from New Jersey to Jerusalem trying to squash the meaning that animates so many people’s lives?  And for what?  So Lionsgate can release a film that, if anything, probably further polarizes its viewers on such an important subject?  Religion’s got plenty of problems, but Maher and Co. definitely aren’t helping to solve them. 

Every once in a while I subject myself to stuff that I know I’ll hate in the interest of seeing what other people find entertaining. Sometimes I’ll come across a YouTube video that bothers me and I’ll get lost sea of hate mongering videos with even more hateful comments attached to it. The most worst case of this lead me to a training video for people who want to hunt undocumented workers. What amazes me the most about this video is that a bunch of people put in work to make this product because they thought there was an audience for it.

The same thing came to mind when I subjected myself to a feature-length propaganda piece called “An American Carol.” Don’t worry, I didn’t buy a ticket. I snuck in after paying for another movie. I like jokes about Michael Moore as much as the next guy but my impression of this film is that Republicans are still holding a grudge toward a film that was released four years ago and ultimately failed in it’s main objective getting George W. Bush out of office even though it succeeded critically and financially.

I was especially disturbed by a scene that may have suggested that plastic surgery is a better investment than your children’s college education because the risk of them being brain-washed by a bunch of hippies is very real. As a student and, hopefully, future teacher, I found this hard to sit through but…this is where the masochism comes in, I love listening to the audience react to this stuff and I reached a point where I get a thrill from seeing which jokes made them laugh.

Diana, my fiance and a college professor, felt differently.

“I felt insulted at An American Carol’s implication of me manipulating my students or carrying out anyone’s agenda but theirs. I believe the most beautiful aspect of teaching is seeing the outcome of information and different skills processed through diverse minds. I believe an educated mind is an independent mind. We’re shaping human beings, not sheep. I think that scene -amongst many other scenes- in the movie is not only ignorant, but really reflects disrespect for the American audience. We’are smarter than that. It’s not funny, it is offensive.”

All that said, the aspect of this film that I found most offensive was the suggestion that all documentary filmmakers are just hustling, trying to take a shortcut into the Hollywood system. It was funny a few times when they mentioned that Michael Moore makes movies for people who don’t go to movies and when all of Uncle Michael’s nieces and nephews needed help for there various ailments and he couldn’t save them because documentaries don’t make money. Good jokes. Nice, solid jabs but I think they pushed too hard in trying to discredit all documentaries by trotting out a Rosie O’Donnell look alike who wants to package a bunch of outrageous lies and label them as documentary to turn it into truth. That’s not what documentary is. We stretch the truth to fit a dramatic arch and we’ll cut a story short to get a happy ending but ethics and integrity are a huge part of that process.

There’s more to rant about, like Bill O’Reilly replacing George Washington as one of the Holy Trinity that delivers the ultimate truth about U.S. history, but I’m trying to keep this discourse civil and removed from partisan bickering. As I said, I’m writing about this movie as a documentary filmmaker and a student and future college professor. I hope that anyone who watched this movie will respond with their thoughts on the film and the overall experience of the screening.

In Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers a horrifying family secret. Her family, the DeWolf’s of Rhode Island, was the largest slave trading family in U.S. history. In an attempt to discover more about the family’s legacy, Katrina and nine of her cousins embark on a voyage retracing the Triangle Trade —a slave trading route from Bristol, Rhode Island to Ghana, West Africa and on to Cuba.

Upon hearing the premise of the film I had two reactions. Firstly, how refreshing it was that a story like this was being told. We are taught, and for the most part accept, that the South played the largest role in the history of American slavery. We are taught that the North was a place that slaves could be free from bondage and treated as human beings. What we are not taught is that all of America, North and South alike, had much to gain from the enterprise of slavery. The slave trade was big business that fueled the American economy and produced some of the wealthiest white citizens of the time.  My next reaction was that the DeWolf’s would complete this journey, go back to their everyday routine, and not deal with the lingering effects of race today.  Maybe they would feel absolved of their guilt about the family’s past and whatever guilt they held at being white and having all the privileges that go along with that. My gut told me that this would play out as a nice travel documentary of a family that had a peculiar history and once the cameras stopped rolling the story would end there.

As the family visits the three ports of the Triangle Trade, they begin to make transformations and discoveries that not even I could have expected. Eyes are opened, and people begin to see the world, their own lives, and upbringing in very new and surprising ways. In one scene, the DeWolf descendants have a discussion with a group of black Americans in Ghana. One of the DeWolf’s talks about his upbringing and how he could have at one time been considered a racist, but does not see himself that way anymore. He was challenged by some in the group to examine if that was really the truth, if it had really been that easy for him to change all of the racist thoughts he once held about blacks. The blacks challenged him and the other DeWolf’s to step outside of their comfort zone from time to time and see an all black film or go out with a group of black friends. These were the things they could do to begin to make changes.

Once the group returned to Rhode Island and reflected on the discoveries and transformations that had occurred  the question of what to do next was in the air. Ultimately, what the family chooses to do becomes an individual and very personal decision for each DeWolf. What I learned was that my gut was wrong, the family did not retreat to their safe, privileged world. The experience brought the family closer to understanding what must be done in order to heal from America’s racist past. In the end, they discover the issue of race will not go away in this country, especially if it is ignored. They discover that we must all confront the horrible history and legacy of slavery in America. They are doing what they can and hopefully the film will inspire others to speak out and not ignore the issue any longer.

Editor’s note: You can visit the official Traces of the Trade website to view a trailer here. One of the filmmakers and one of the subjects in the film came to Columbia College Chicago’s Doc III class recently and discussed the film. You can watch video from their Q&A here.

So, you’ve got all those MiniDV tapes lying around from your various documentary projects and the obvious question presents itself: where the heck am I going to store all of these? That’s the question I recently found myself asking after buying a large quantity of bulk tape-stock and finding I had no place to store my masters.

After foraging around the internet for a good long term tape storage options, I found what has now become my favorite MiniDV tape storage solution. The MDV-50 by Bryco is a molded plastic rack which will hold up to 50 tapes in either a vertical or horizontal manner (Bryco also makes smaller versions for 8 and 24 tapes respectively).

The MDV-50 is solidly built but light enough that you can hang it on the wall, which its manufacturers seem to be suggesting, since the back has three mounting holes in it that allow for either vertical or a horizontal placement. Although it would seem that hanging them on a wall would be optimal for space saving, the MDV-50 is wide enough that it can also free stand upon a tabletop.

Besides size and sturdyness, the main factor motivating my purchase was the price per unit. The MSRP for the MDV-50 is a reasonable $18, though I was able to get two for $30 total from tapeandmedia.com (the 8 and 24 tape versions are signifigantly less expensive).

Bryco also makes a similar version of its MiniDV tape racks designed specially for both large and small format Sony DV Cam tapes, for those lucky ones of us who can afford to use them.