SPIRITUAL CINEMA A Note from Stephen Simon
Gravity is not only the most thrilling, awe-inspiring visual film experience since Avatar, it is also a deeply spiritual journey… and an absolute must-see for all film fans. Unlike a score of recent films that seemed to have 3D tacked on as a marketing device (or ploy to boost more ticket revenue), Gravity simply has to be seen in 3D and, preferably, IMAX, or the largest other 3D screen you can find near you. This is a film that simply has to be seen in a theater. If you wait for it to come on DVD or on-demand, you will have missed one of the great screen experiences in the history of cinema. For 90 thrilling minutes you will actually feel like you
are orbiting the earth as astronauts Ryan (Sandra Bullock) and Matt (George Clooney) are in the breathtaking opening sequence of the film. Soon, something goes terribly wrong as their shuttle and space station are torn apart by space debris. The rest of the film revolves around their attempts to survive. Simple plot, yes. But, oh, the execution. Director Alfonso Cuaron and his brilliant team spent four years designing, shooting, and editing Gravity and does it ever pay off! Sandra Bullock gives the performance of her life and will, without doubt,
This issue we explore documentaries about food focusing on the effort to educate people about what they eat and understanding the challenges to change an industry dominated by big businesses. At the end of each review in parentheses is the date of the film, the Internet Movie Data Base rating, and the website.
FARMAGEDDON Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack. Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent action, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why. Evoking both sympathy and anger for those farmers violently shut down by overzealous government policy and regulators, Farmageddon stresses the urgency of food freedom. Though the film deals with intense scenes and dramatic situations, the overall tone is optimistic, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods. (2011, 6.6,
FarmageddonMovie.com)
30 The Door Opener
VEGUCATED Vegucated
be rewarded with another Academy Award nomination, as will Mr. Cuaron, his genius technical staff, and the film itself. In addition, Gravity is by far the most deeply spiritual “off- the-earth” film that I have seen since 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. To detail those spiritual moments here would ruin the surprise of the scenes in which they occur (so I won’t!), but please be assured the film is deeply rooted in a universal spirituality that will make you feel very proud to be human. Yes, it’s that powerful. Gravity is, by far, my favorite film so far in 2013. I urge
you to see it as quickly as possible…before others tell you too much about it and ruin the joy of discovery that awaits you in the nearest 3D Imax theater you can find!
Stephen Simon is the author of the new book Bringing Back The Old Hollywood. More info at
www.TheOldHollywood.com. He also cofounded
www.spiritualcinemacircle.com, produced such films as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come, and both produced and directed Indigo and Conversations with God.
is a guerrilla-style
documentary that follows three meat- and cheese-loving New Yorkers who agree to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks and learn what it’s all about. They have no idea that so much more than steak is at stake and that the planet’s fate may fall on their plates. Lured by tales of weight lost and health regained, they begin to uncover hidden sides of animal agriculture that make them wonder whether solutions offered in films like Food, Inc. go far enough. Before long, they find themselves risking everything to expose an industry they supported just weeks before. Part sociological experiment and part adventure comedy, Vegucated showcases the rapid and at times comedic evolution of three people who are trying their darnedest to change in a culture that seems dead set against it. (2010, 6.9,
GetVegucated.com)
KING CORN King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast- food nation. In King Corn, best friends from college on the east coast move to
the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most- productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat and how we farm. (2007, 6.9,
KingCorn.net)
FOOD FIGHT When we walk into a supermarket, we assume that we have the widest possible choice of healthy foods. But in fact, over the course of the 20th century, our food system was co-opted by corporate forces whose interests do not lie in providing the public with fresh, healthy, sustainably-produced food. Fortunately for America, an alternative emerged from the counter-culture of California in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where a group of political anti- corporate protesters voiced their dissent by creating a food chain outside of the conventional system. The unintended result was the birth of a vital local- sustainable-organic food movement
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