Reviews

I thought this documentary had an intriguing start as the filmmaker began to delve into the history of a young Las Vegas man who unexpectedly committed suicide in 2022. Having experienced the loss of a friend to suicide, the director stated she hoped to uncover answers regarding why some people take their own lives. However, despite her subsequent interviews with the family and friends of the deceased young man, who portrayed shock and disbelief over the tragedy, the film didn't provide any further answers or insights into the possible motives behind his suicide. The documentary also highlighted that the city of Las Vegas has the highest suicide rate in the United States; yet after examining statistics and incidents of each death, authorities claim to be uncertain about the reasons.

The narrative then abruptly shifted to an entirely different topic, focusing instead on nuclear waste buried in a mountain near Las Vegas. After about twenty minutes of this unexpected transition, I was puzzled as to why the topic had changed. I kept wondering if the filmmaker would reveal a common thread between the two topics-perhaps she had found evidence linking suicides to nuclear exposure? However, no such connection materialized.

As the documentary concluded, I was left a little bewildered as to what the filmmaker's intended message was. I wondered if during the film's production or editing, she felt she lacked enough footage regarding Levi's Presley's suicide to fill a feature-length documentary and decided to add the information about Yucca Mountain as a way to give it a longer running time?

The title of this documentary, 'This Much We Know,' seems fitting to me, as the film presented only surface-level facts that the public is already aware of or has access to. Unfortunately, it failed to dig deeper into either of the two topics it explored and provide any of the answers the filmmaker initially said she wanted to uncover.

I don't understand some of the reviews here claiming this film was "boring, tedious or uneventful;" I found it to be fascinating, and to purposely move slowly at first but became more intriguing as it unfolded. This film delved into territory I've never seen before.

"May December" involves Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actor who is preparing to take on the role of Gracie (Julianne Moore), an older woman who in reality two decades earlier was found guilty of having sex with a 13 year-old male. The seduction and their subsequent affair became a famous case, especially in the tabloids, and after serving time in prison Gracie and the boy, Joe, eventually married and have been living together since. Gracie agrees to meet with Elizabeth in order for her to do research to play her, and not only do their identities gradually begin to merge but scenarios are replayed as Elizabeth steps more and more into character. Without giving away major plot points, the film ends up making a strong statement about the abuse of power as both characters turn out to have their own disturbing similarities.

Julianne Moore as Gracie once again amazed me in yet another role. Her character is determined to appear unaffected and casual about her past when she's in the presence of Elizabeth, but behind closed doors with Joe she's neurotic, needy and hysterical, in all probability the personality disorder the director of the film surmises she might be in a phone conversation with Elizabeth. Natalie Portman's portrayal of Elizabeth starts off as quiet and tactful but increasingly reveals herself to be narcissistic and opportunistic ("This is what grownups do," she callously tells Joe in what I thought was the film's most disquieting scene).

Charles Melton as Joe is also excellent as the boy who hasn't been able to grow up. His life seems to have been dominated by his job, his children and co-dependently caring for his wife and her neuroses with little time for reflection. There is an innocence about him that is almost heartbreaking (especially considering he is again easily taken advantage of), and like the chrysalis he cares for that finally becomes a butterfly, Elizabeth's intrusion in their lives causes him to ultimately begin to reevaluate the life choices he's made.

There are layers in this film that I thought made it even more absorbing. Although it's never detailed or discussed, Gracie and Joe's children have obviously been affected by their parents' history. There's often a strained tension between them in scenes, as well as a resentment at times toward Elizabeth for revisiting a segment of their parents' life they don't want to be a part of. It's particularly obvious during their graduation dinner when one of them casually makes a sarcastic comment toward Elizabeth about how she shouldn't have been invited to join them.

Finally, Gracie's final comment to Elizabeth turns the tables back again, and the last scene shows us Elizabeth acting out a tawdry, bastardized Hollywood version of Gracie and Joe's seduction, grimly insisting that a scene be reshot once again because she feels she's getting close to "the truth." Somehow the cheapness of it all felt like a purgatory, which seemed appropriate for her actions.

After reading favorable reviews of this film I was anxious to see it but unfortunately I could barely make it to the end. Despite some amazing acting by both Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, I found the character of Diana Nyad to be extremely narcissistic, often rude in her responses to others, and just plain annoying. The film documents the five times she attempted to swim the distance between Florida and Cuba, but by the fifth try I had become so bored with both her and the film that at that point I really didn't care if she ended up succeeding or not. I think the film's messages of never giving up and not letting age hold you back are very admirable ones, but I personally feel that any athlete who puts their body through as much extreme torture and pain as Nyad repeatedly did in order to complete her goal would benefit from getting into psychotherapy. I was also curious about why the scene between John Bartlett and Jodie Foster's character was added in which he informs her he doesn't have much time left to live because "he's sick?" In real life John Bartlett unexpectedly died in his sleep at the age of 66, and he had no known diseases at the time.

I found this short film to be very engaging, particularly due to the fact that it's seemingly all shot in one take, as the two actors seamlessly moved through different rooms. The decision to shoot everything in real-time and keep everything present contributed significantly to the mounting tension and suspense in the film. I do have to agree with the opinion of another reviewer here regarding the conclusion. While I wasn't looking for a tidy, pat wrap-up, the suddenness of one character just dashing out the door just seemed too abrupt to me. I'm looking forward to seeing the 2019 feature film by director Sorogoyen that was inspired by this short, if I can find it. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend watching this short film as it expertly constructs a gradual, almost frantic, sense of suspense.

I managed to get through a little over half of this mess and finally gave up on it. This is yet another bloated mini-series with an excessive amount of unnecessary padding - mostly in the form of ridiculously endless dialogue - designed to stretch its running time out over eight episodes. Is this really supposed to be horror? For every one-hour episode, there's only about three minutes of actual horror content, and the rest is just a never-ending talkfest. There are so many needless scenes solely created to pad out the 450-minute runtime that it became incredibly dull and repetitive. I found it impossible to care about any of these mostly unbelievable characters. After reading some of these reviews, I couldn't care less if Mike Flanagan or Ingmar Bergman directed this snooze-fest... either way, it would still stink.

I'd read some promising reviews of this film when it was first released but after trying to get through it I'm seriously wondering how many of those reviews were planted. We've seen this film over and over again... it's yet another "demon out of control" opus, with the regular cliches and attempts at jump scares (the background audio effects actually become annoying after awhile), and a dull one at that. The beginning of the film seemed interesting and then lost its originality within fifteen minutes... after that it was just a repeat of the same old cookie-cutter horror film. I lasted a little less than hour before I gave up and finally turned it off.

I like Chris Messina and I'm surprised he consented to a part in this... is he not getting enough other work? My understanding is this film was originally going to be released only to Hulu, but someone decided they thought it was too good for that and gave a regular theater showing. Frankly, I think Hulu was too good for this film and I'm sure it will die a quiet death.

I have to agree with the other reviewer here... I have no idea what the production company was thinking when they made this very poorly made film.

The plot device once again revolves around a young man who is auditioning for a gay film because he needs money for rent and wants to be a famous actor. How many times have we seen this?

Unfortunately, the scene detailing the auditions of the young man and others who are looking for parts in the film seem to go on endlessly and with no particular purpose... it began to appear to me that the filmmakers didn't have enough material to fill up a feature film's running time so they decided to make this aspect of the plot use up over a third of the film's length. I assume they thought it was sexy to show them repeatedly asking the actors to take their shirts off, but it became incredibly monotonous listening to the producer (whose name is "Sir Bong") chat endlessly with the director about each actor. Clearly the film needed an editor who was able to recognize this.

The second part of the "Boy Toys" involves the actual shooting of the feature, which consists of the actors standing on a stage that has a background arch covered in tin foil while they simulate kissing... and none of them look like they have any interest or enjoyment whatsoever in what they're doing. And yes... they do look like they're wearing toilet paper!

The final part of "Boy Toys" was the only scene I found interesting. The film's director defends the film to the Philippines censor board, who want to rate the film as an "X." The scene provided a good job of showing the discrimination and hypocrisy directed at gay people in the country. The depictions of the members of the censor board as well as the director's responses to their objections are also very funny and biting. Mr. Altarejos, "Boy Toys'" director, could have made a great feature had he focused on this topic alone.

I normally enjoy low-budget films and prefer them over bloated, big-budget productions, but this film clearly suffers from having an almost non-existent one. "Boy Toys" tries hard to be titillating but it's mostly pointless conversations with just a few embarrassing attempts at trying to be sexy.

For those of us who have read about Rock Hudson's life after his passing, there's really nothing new in this documentary, other than random interviews with people who knew him and who share their memories. The film also doesn't feel complete; strangely, there's the glaring omission of the lawsuit that Hudson's partner, Marc Christian, filed after his death (in fact, there's no mention of Christian at all in the documentary, possibly for legal reasons). They were partners for the six years preceding his death and Christian passed away in 2009... so the fact that the details of their relationship as well as the famous lawsuit were omitted seems particularly striking.

I also found the constant interspersing of clips from Hudson's films to become distracting after awhile. The filmmakers seemed to think it was clever to find similarities in Hudson's life with many of the scenes from his films, but after about an hour I felt the constant interruptions in the narrative with these asides eventually became so overused that it intruded on the tone of the documentary itself. This became particularly obvious at the end when the documentary details Hudson's passing. Probably 30 minutes of the film's 104 minute running time seem to be made up of clips that are used in this manner. Some of them have been edited by the filmmakers to be humorous in order to unnecessarily drive home a point.

Overall, I've been looking forward to seeing this film since I've heard about it but ultimately found it to be pretty disappointing. If you know nothing about Rock Hudson or his life, this might be interesting... but for many of us there isn't much territory that hasn't already been explored here.

Two good performances by Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott weren't enough to save me from this bloated talkfest that I felt just became more repetitive and unbelievable as it progressed.

The film's premise continually revolves around the struggle for power between a dominatrix and her client when their relationship becomes threatened (along with some dime-store daddy issues thrown into the mix), but the scenario and dialogue became so increasingly tedious that after awhile each consecutive scene began to feel like just another adaptation of what I had already witnessed. Micah Bloomberg's screenplay is set entirely in an apartment, and each time either of the characters attempts to leave and goes to wait for the elevator, the writing predictably and mechanically finds some improbable reason to pull them back into the suite so the drama can continue all over again. Besides eventually becoming ho-hum, the setup just became too far-fetched for me to believe. There's also a scene where Ms. Qualley abruptly turns on Abbott's stereo in mid-discussion and for some reason begins dancing in a wildly bizarre manner to loud music while the characters continue their repartee; it seemed at that point like Zachary Wigon, the director, was trying desperately to do something different to finally break the film's monotonous conversation, but instead the result felt cringey and embarrassing.

It's hard for me to surmise that all this photographed dialogue would be any more effective had the film have been shaped as a play; instead, I think "Sanctuary" would have had more impact as a twenty-minute short rather than increasingly struggling to stay on its feet for a full 96 minutes.

Lastly, I wholly expected a plot twist at the end that didn't end up happening... instead, I was a little disoriented by the film's very last scene, which reminded me a 60's romantic comedy trying to suddenly wrap everything up in a perfect, although completely unfeasible, bow.

For the past few years horror films have become incredibly stagnant as a result of the continual rehashing of the same old tired genres: we constantly see endless zombie films, as well as countless vampire and "demonic possession" plotlines that have become increasingly derivative. Last night I saw "Swallowed," and it was refreshing to see director and writer Carter Stevens actually make an attempt to step out of the box and create something different for a change. In 2006 I saw an earlier short by Stevens called "Bugcrush" that dealt with a similar idea, but "Swallowed" has obviously expanded and reworked it.

"Swallowed's" storyline begins with two best friends, Benjamin (Cooper Koch) and Dom (Jose Colon) who reside in a small Maine town and are celebrating in a local bar. A clearly naive Benjamin has plans to move to Los Angeles, where he's convinced he'll become a successful porn star. Unbeknownst to him, Dom has arranged to supply his buddy with extra cash before he leaves by agreeing to become a drug runner as they drive across the border that night.

The film progresses and its mood becomes more intense and claustrophobic as the two young men are forced at gunpoint into swallowing the unknown, condom-encased drugs Dom agreed to smuggle by a demanding young woman (Jena Malone) who wants them delivered to her dealer by any means possible. Eventually things become more nightmarish when they realize not only the results of what they've actually swallowed, but that the drug dealer they finally encounter (Mark Patton) turns out to be an emotionally disturbed, perverse old queen intent on preying on Benjamin. I've left quite a few details out here, but that's as far as I'll go in revealing any more of the film's plot in order to avoid spoilers.

Unlike another reviewer here, I'm not sure I agree that this film necessarily falls into anything that resembles Cronenberg's "body horror" category, but I'll agree it comes close. For a low-budget production, both Carter Stevens' script and direction are tight, suspenseful, and never become predictable. The film is also beautifully photographed. What did stand out the most for me were the calibre of the performances, which I felt were unusually powerful for an independent horror film. Both Koch and Colon (the latter who has apparently never been in a film before, at least according to IMDB) are excellent. Mark Patton is grotesquely effective and believable and as the mannered, psychopathic drug dealer. Jena Malone is also very strong, although I thought at times her character was drawn a little too one-dimensionally.

Like just about any horror film, I did think there were some weaknesses in "Swallowed." Despite a considerable buildup emphasizing how important it was for the characters to hide the drugs in order to travel past the border, the resulting border scene itself only consisted of a very brief conversation with a patrol officer and then it was over. The quick, painless conversation provided no suspense or explanation as to why the character needed to swallow the drugs in the first place, other than to advance the film's plot. Secondly, "Swallowed" (certainly emphasized by Mark Patton's very strong performance) once again portrays the tired stereotype of the older gay man preying on the younger. Lastly, there is a cheery and strangely pat "epilogue" that felt tacked on to the end credits. Not only did it seem somewhat jarring to the film's earlier tone, but it also seemed totally unfeasible. Again, giving more details would only reveal more of "Swallowed's plot.

These are small elements. "Swallowed" is worth seeing, especially compared to the anemic offerings we're being offered from the current horror genre. There's enough tension and suspense in this feature to make it worthwhile viewing.

I lasted a little less than an hour before I couldn't take any more of this complete travesty of a cow pie and turned it off. There are ads currently hyping this film to prepare it for a theatrical release (and if this can find a distributor, anything can), and once audiences realize they've been totally had, it will die the quiet death it deserves. Basically the "plot" consists of watching two kids monotonously crawl around an empty house in the dark, with the same group of point-of-view shots endlessly repeated over and over again. There is nothing "creepy" or "horrifying" about it whatsoever... it's just appallingly empty and pretentious. The film has a running time of 100 minutes, but it appears the filmmaker shot only about 15 or 20 of actual footage and just repeated most of the same shots over and over again during the editing process, ad nauseum. I'm a huge fan of independent and experimental horror films, but this load of excrement doesn't even come close to even fitting that genre, it just insults the intelligence. The reviews here claiming it's frightening have got to be either planted, or if they're not, written by people who must have a scare quotient of -10. The film has been making the rounds on the internet for some time now, and all I can say is I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it - it's seriously not worth the admission price of a dollar. The budget was reportedly $15,000.00... it seriously looks like it was made for less than $25.00. You've been warned.

I've seen literally thousands of films and I have to say that "Close" ranks as one of the finest I've seen. As someone who had a very close friend who rejected me simply for who I am when I was younger, this film brought that experience so much more into focus for me that I openly wept throughout most of the last half of its running time. As a result, I found myself having a hard time forgiving the character of Leo as the film progressed, but eventually I felt I had no choice.

The performances and the chemistry between the two leads who play the main characters are so real and natural that at times I forgot I was watching a scripted and directed film rather than a documentary. I found the same true-to-life characterizations in Lukas Dhont's earlier film "Girl." He's clearly a very gifted director, and I would love to watch this man direct actors to understand how he's able to pull such amazing performances from them.

The film is also beautifully photographed, much of it taking place in the French countryside.

"Close" is reportedly going to be nominated for an Oscar here in the U. S., and I hope that helps it get the wide exposure to audiences it so richly deserves. The message in this superb, heartbreaking film is that friendships are so much more important than we actually realize and that as males, the toxic masculinity we encourage among ourselves can ruin lives.

This is a beautifully made and acted film that most likely couldn't be made today. The story deals with the love between two boys in a Jesuit school, one being considerably older than the other, and the priests who become aware of the relationship and insist they put an end to it. Thirteen year-old Didier Haudepin's performance as Alexandre, the younger of the two boys is outstanding. His eyes alone convey a multitude of emotions throughout the film and his final few minutes in the film are nothing short of heartbreaking. If anything, the film shows just why older/younger relationships are dangerous... Alexandre is not emotionally equipped to handle the denouement of the relationship and as a result things end tragically. Despite the film's subject matter being handled very subtly, I can't help but wonder what audience and critical reactions were when it was released in 1964. I have to add that I find a couple of the reviewers here who insist that the film is not about homosexuality to be in some serious denial... the two boys are obviously in love, they write and talk openly about it, and at one point are clearly about to take things farther right before they're caught in the greenhouse by a priest. The film is also based on the novel by Roger Peyrefitte, an openly gay writer who according to IMDB's trivia,"lived older/younger male love with a fan of his book." The film is available on YouTube in what looks like a vhs transfer. It deserves to be seen, I'd enjoy seeing it again after a digital remaster.

The plot of this 15-minute short follows a young schoolteacher who is drawn to bareback sex parties, but the film gives absolutely no insight whatsoever into why. Basically we simply observe the main character's life in one scene after another and then the film ends. There is a brief classroom segment where he discusses self-mutilating behavior with a young student that appears to possibly have a connection to his own behavior but it ends up going nowhere, which made me wonder why the scene was included in the film in the first place. The film's production values are quite good with some effective performances and impressive cinematography, but they're not enough to carry the film's complete lack of any kind of introspection or characterization of the main actor. Without much of a script, it seemed to me to to be mostly purposeless.

I was really looking forward to seeing this three-part documentary but unfortunately I found it to be kind of a waste of time.

The third part of the series does an effective job of illustrating how Trump's inability to recognize he lost the 2020 election led him to instigate the January 6 insurrection, but the first two parts seemed to be largely unfocused and basically a waste of time. I got the feeling the filmmakers had a lot of footage they knew no one had seen before, so they strung together a lot of humdrum interviews and b-roll shots that aren't particularly interesting (or make much of a point) just for the sake of showing them. There's virtually no focus at all in the first 90 minutes. We watch Trump family members endlessly being interviewed and speaking in public, but there are surprisingly no details of how incompetent and narcissistic Trump was as a President. Had they put more of an emphasis on that, the footage of the riots in the last part would have been much more powerful. If you've followed the recent January 6 hearings then you've already seen much of the footage shown here of what happened in the Capital.

"Unprecedented" would have packed more of a punch at about an hour's length. As it is now, at almost three hours it seemed to me as a whole like it wasn't sure what it was aiming for or what it was actually trying to say.

I can certainly appreciate "Fire Island's" message about how gay Asian men are stereotyped and discriminated against in our community, but the director and writer of this film have managed to pigeonhole all the rest of us in the process. This is yet another film produced by gay men that portrays a group of mostly superficial, vapid 20-something-year-olds whose main interest in life is sex, getting high and finding the next party (oh, and getting a boyfriend, lol!). It's a tired depiction that's becoming more and more offensive, and it's refreshing to see others posting reviews here who feel the same way I do.

There isn't one character in this film who is over the age of 35 (or maybe even 30?), unless you count Margaret Cho's customary reprisal of a fag-hag, another stereotype we've seen over and over again. No one in the film seems to have any political interests or awareness whatsoever, considering the day and age we're currently living in.

The same week this film was televised the Peacock channel also released a "new" version of "Queer as Folk," and it's almost a duplicate of this film in the way it portrays gay life. The only television show I've seen that made a serious effort to represent us as real human beings was HBO's "Looking," produced over eight years ago. That's really dismal, considering more gay people than ever have been given a voice in television the last few years. It may come as a surprise to gay scriptwriters in Los Angeles, but the vast majority of us just don't lead our lives in the way these shows are portraying us, nor do we want to.

The concerning thing is that there are straight people in small communities (who vote) who don't have exposure to gay people other than what they see in films like "Fire Island." These characters only perpetuate their narrow belief that we're a narcissistic community only interested in constant self-gratification and nothing else. It's seriously time for gay filmmakers to start portraying our community a little more responsibly as real human beings and not the same old cartoon characters the public has unfortunately become more than accustomed to.

I was fortunate to be able to see this remarkable documentary through Sundance's virtual 2021 Film Festival tonight and I can't praise it enough. The film details Russian opposition leader Aleksai Navalny's poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020, as well as the discoveries he and his colleagues made after his recovery that revealed that the murder attempt had been planned and executed by the Russian government. It very unfortunately ends with his return to Russia and his immediate arrest, where he's currently being held in jail awaiting sentencing.

Other than being aware of the 2020 poisoning incident, I knew very little about Mr. Navalny before seeing this film. Using early Russian rally footage, he's shown as a very popular leader who quite boldly and almost matter-of-factly calls out the lies and corruption he sees within the Kremlin. Despite the seriousness of the film's content, Navalny consistently displays a positive and disarmingly humorous side to his personality throughout the documentary; as an example, there's an almost whimsical scene of him making a Tik Tok video with his mobile phone using OMC's "How Bizarre" to reveal to his followers that he's discovered his murder attempt, which clearly illustrates just how charismatic he can be.

Besides some brief mobile phone and news clips, very little video of the novichok poisoning or his subsequent recovery in Russian and German hospitals reportedly exists (his wife explains that she refused to allow him to be photographed during that period). As a result, we learn most of the information from these periods from interviews with others who interacted with him. Despite that, the film moves at an extremely steady pace and is never boring. There are also clips from Russian television personalities insisting he made up the poisoning and concocting ridiculous lies and exaggerations about him, which I found disturbingly similar to some of the fabrications created by right-wing personalities here in the US today.

There's also a detailed process shown of how locating the murder suspects through the Russian black market was accomplished, which I found absolutely fascinating; but finally, the phone call that takes place between Navalny and an unwitting agent that confirms he was poisoned is an appalling, edge-of-your-seat moment that really turns the film into a powerhouse. It's a scene that's totally unexpected and is not only extremely gripping, but astonishing that it was actually captured in real-time.

I can only hope that the Russian people, many of whom have supported Mr. Navalny's attempts to overthrow a corrupt government, will somehow be given the opportunity to see this film and will work to unite and release Navalny from his incarceration. This is a very moving, important documentary about how vital transparency and democracy are in our society, as well as the high price that some people have to pay for it. Don't miss it.

I'll start out by writing that "Mothering Sunday" has to have the most gratutious sex and nude scenes I've seen in any major motion picture in the last five years; it seemed like I watched a naked girl wander around an empty house for a third of the film's running time, and it became quite tedious to watch. There's very little plot, and what little there is felt flat and distant... I kept finding myself getting impatient for the film to end after the first half hour. Sadly, Olivia Colman is totally wasted here... she was one of the main reasons I looked forward to seeing it.

Saw this virtually on the Film Maudit 2.0 festival website tonight and loved it! Frenetic, incredibly sexual, and funny as hell... Ivan Li, keep making your own films!

I was sorry to read today that Carol Speed has passed away. I saw "Abby" at a retrospective theater in the late 70's and thought it was one of the most creatively-made low-budget horror films I'd ever seen from American International. It was Ms. Speed's performance that made the film so entertaining. It's amazing to me that considering the vast amount of films that ripped off "The Exorcist" for years after it was made, Warner Brothers chose to sue AIP for this one; apparently they must have thought they had a corner on "devil possession" films, and the lawsuit seems like a pretty ridiculous effort now. A DVD release of "Abby" has been sought after by many of us for the last two or three of decades, and it would be a great tribute to Ms. Speed's passing if it could finally happen now.

As another reviewer here states, I also found this very powerful documentary to be heartbreaking and incredibly moving. I knew Ms. Blair had been diagnosed with MS in 2018 but was unaware she had gone through the process of undergoing a stem cell transplant, and the film chronicles a lot of what that hellish experience is like. Throughout the documentary she very bravely shows us both the physical as well as the mental pain she experiences coping with her illness, and although her courage is certainly commendable, sometimes it's difficult to watch.

What I found most heart-wrenching was Ms. Blair's continual search throughout the film's running time to try to find love from her memories of a mother who apparently wasn't a very loving one; at first I found her sarcastic, self-deprecating sense of humor endearing, but it became more and more painful to watch as the film progressed and I gained a better understanding of what her childhood may have been like. Strangely, the film keeps her mother at a distance, mostly just showing us photographs and brief recollections from Ms. Blair. At one point during the documentary there's a very brief phone conversation shown between the two, and her mother doesn't seem to be completely coherent. No further explanation of it is given, and I wish the filmmaker had given us a more detailed picture of what the woman had been like. She's depiected as quite narcissistic. What is made very clear and is equally poignant is that the love Ms. Blair often implies she didn't receive as a child she gives whole-heartedly to her young son. She's an amazing mother who shows him nothing but completely accepting, unconditional love.

This is a documentary that shows us how life often doesn't make any sense and how cruel it can be sometimes. Ms. Blair is a courageous, very admirable woman and I wish her the very best in her continued recovery. Maybe someday we'll even see her in a role again, something I very much look forward to.