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haskellbob
Reviews
How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2000)
There may be a semi-spoiler but mostly just my enthusiastic praise
I'm a huge fan of this movie, which I just recently discovered (you know, "fan" is short for "fanatic"). This film is intelligent and heartfelt at the same time, on a level that almost no other film I have ever seen manages to reach.
It's disconcerting to see how many critics (the ones whose reviews are on R----- T-------) just missed it completely, how this movie went over their heads.
The interactions between virtually all the characters are masterfully rendered, but the relationship between Peter and the neighbor's handicapped girl is outstanding and beautiful. The scene when he sits with her at her toy tea table, ostensibly to do research for his play, and lets her teach him how to play, is unbelievably touching and funny.
I had to watch it again, after reading lukewarm reviews by certain critics I usually respect, to convince myself that they had a blind spot and in the last analysis, I am the critic I need to rely on.
But if my words encourage anyone else to see this, anyone who might also discover a real gem in this movie, then by all means, let them have their effect! Sincerely, Bob Haskell
Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979)
A pathetic piece of unquestioning and gullible cinematic adulation of a very questionable figure in the history of pseudo-religious groups
I find it disconcerting that in an era when satisfying and fulfilling spirituality is unknown and we are all scattered across the whole spectrum of possible beliefs, that a charlatan and fraud of Gurdjieff's caliber (as a charlatan, he is exceptional; there is no denying he had a special gift. It's a pity he misused it, though, for the aggrandizement of his wounded ego, feeding on the adulation of unwary sheep who were at his beck and call and in awe of him) can inspire such extreme adherence and credulity. This movie presents an idealized version of Gurdjieff's own largely fictional and fantastic account of his formation and "awakening" (which I would rather describe as his discovery of how much he could sway the minds and wills of certain types of sadly disoriented people). See it, if you dare to have a disagreeable eye-opening about how sadly deprived we are of true religious leaders, to the extent that a clown like Gurdjieff could inspire such devotion - and be careful to have your blood pressure medicine at hand if you are one of those who still hope for a healthy religion to emerge from the ruins of Christianity, as a supreme example of cinematography at the entire service of the premises and pretenses of a dysfunctional cult.