Reviews

This movie is an awesome example of the Ritchie British gangster oeuvre. It just clicks along, with a tension-inducing plot, AMAZING acting, and enough humor to keep me giggling in between bouts of crushing action.

I have yet to read a (professional) critic's review that's not all about the supposedly overwhelming racism. To them, I must say, "please, fellows, LIGHTEN UP!" I'll get this out of the way: I'm a woman of color. I'm a bleeding heart liberal. There. Everybody feel good? Normally, I get pretty prickly whilst reading a certain kind of IMDB review that's a thinly disguised alt-right whine-fest at having to watch (gasp) women, people of color and "teh gays" play roles that used to be exclusively for straight white dudes.

In "The Gentlemen", there are racial slurs, and one of the Jewish characters and the gay character aren't "good guys". But the "racism" is presented as tongue-in-cheek, and a reflection of the stupidity and unlikeability of the characters voicing it. I think you have to be pretty humorless, pedantic, and incredibly eager to be offended to snippily mount your high horse and complain about "The Gentlemen" being "horribly" racist.

As far as the performances, my gawd is this a great cast!!! Hunnam and Grant are standouts, but everyone is firing on all cylinders. And per usual in a Ritchie film, the soundtrack is just CRACKING, filled with some 70s deep cuts from Roxy Music and Can, as well as some impeccably chosen obscurist tracks from artists like El Michels Affair's horn-filled cover of Wu Tang's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya". The haunting, folksy opening credits song, "Cumberland Gap" will be echoing in your head for weeks.

If you're capable of getting over yourself, "The Gentleman" is a solid choice that stands up to MANY MANY re-watchings. A solid YES!!!

Oh come on, people. This movie was hella fun. I've noticed that the primary beef that a certain type of negative review seems to have is that this is supposedly "feminist" and anti-man. And apparently, a lot of sad boys get their fee-fees hurt anytime when a movie is obviously paying tribute to anything that's non-white male establishment.

Don't get me wrong-I'm a longtime fan of decades of awesome "white guy" actioners. But certainly we can have a world that's big enough to accommodate other points of view without it automatically being "politically correct". Breaking out of the mold does not destroy a film's merit just because women, POC, non-binary gendered folk etc are featured in roles that have traditionally been for white dudes.

That being said, I enjoyed this movie. Margot is awesome, and there's something I really like about Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The set dressing was phenomenal, as was the soundtrack and music supervision. All and all, a lot of fun. Lighten up, all of you b-hurt sad boys--widen your horizons, and stop assuming that the PC police are out to get you, you poor widdle victims!

I loved, and still love this movie. When it came out, I was 12, and living a rather sheltered existence in Sacramento, which was very much like a Northern Californian version of the SoCal's "The Valley".

This movie does a very realistic job of portraying how different things were for teenagers back in that era. Today's teens have been raised by parents who've bought into the idea that they need to be around their kids 24/7--the whole attachment parenting thing. Young kids spend most of their time around their adult parents, and if they do hang out with other kids, they are highly supervised "play dates". They grow into teens who may have some online freedom, but most likely are regimented into structured "programs"--lessons, classes, teams or clubs with high degrees of adult supervision. Parents often try their hardest to be seen as "friends", with the hope that their teen will share every little last thing about their lives, so different from the generation gap I recall in the late 70s/early 80s when I was that age.

And these parents have very little of an adult life outside of their precious darlings-- so unlike what I recall of my parents and their large circle of friends with their frequent dinner parties and kid-free vacations and camping trips. Today's parent would have a guilt trip of epic proportions if it was even suggested that they spend adult time away from the kiddies.

They might just be turned in to CPS if they allowed their teenagers to have even the tiniest amount of freedom as the 4 "Foxes" did in this thoughtful and revealing movie. Teenage girls aimlessly driving around, taking buses by themselves down to Hollywood, and having a much older boyfriend with a cool adults-not-welcome party pad would simply never happen in today's helicopter-parented middle classes.

My teenage years in the early 80s weren't quite as free as these girls had it, but I remember endless nights spent driving around in a car full of friends with a "suitcase" of cheap Shafer beer, often ending up at the party house belonging to a bunch of 20- something guys--with nary a parent in sight, and no constant texting or calling ones' parents every hour. There was plenty of beer and pot, and lots of kids were having sexual relationships. And yet somehow we all made it--my group of pals all went to university; no one got arrested, addicted or pregnant.

Kids like Annie who overdid it were around--though not many suffered the same extreme fate as Cheri Currie's character did. Ironically, Annie was the one with the MOST parental involvement, albeit an abusive authoritarian jerk of a father, and yet she has the toughest road to follow.

Jodie Foster is, unsurprisingly, excellent, playing yet another smart, capable and sophisticated-beyond-her-years teen, unflinchingly blasé about sex, booze, and 'ludes until she needs to be emotional about Annie's behavior that is getting her closer and closer to being involuntarily committed to a mental ward. Foster's sheer intelligence is so evident even in those early years; it's no surprise to me that she became such a huge success, and so well-respected for the depth and excellence of both her acting and directing.

I really do love this movie, but boy howdy does it highlight how much society has changed in regards to its views of childhood, teenagerdom, and adults' roles. I must admit that I'm rather nostalgic for those freer times when there was more of a healthy boundary between teenagers and their parents position in their lives. "Foxes" is a stylish yet very realistic look at Valley girls before they were "Valley Girls".

This was an excellent documentary that largely dispensed with any biased narration, instead opting to stand out of the way to let the unbelievably shocking behavior of these most abusive of parents tell the story. The mother of the tennis twins is more simply obsessed with success, and is not nearly as horrible as the 3 fathers, who share the scary combination of two toxic personality disorders, authoritarianism and narcissism. In the ultra-competitive venue of today's childhood sports, they have found the ideal forum for asserting their need for absolute dominance and power.

The 3 fathers are first and foremost childish, truculent bullies. They all share a middling to low level of intelligence as they parrot self- help sports books that they only partially understand, but they all have an exaggerated high opinion of their own intelligence and importance, thus permitting the abusive behavior and their complete isolation from other adults who can call them on their pretenses.

Most frightening was watching Golf Dad and Football Dad berate their children with such singular anger, wildly inappropriate bad language and truly painful name-calling. I realized that some parents really are capable of not loving their children. Rather they see them as objects to bully and completely dominate, with endless sets of the authoritarian's rules that are set up so that no one can successfully follow them all.

I truly fear for Justus, the football son. He's not an above-average football player, which sets him up for ever-escalating tirades of abuse, and his more sensitive personality leaves him constantly wounded and suffering, with no defenses. This kind of misery leads to addictions or suicide in an effort to escape, and this film was chilling in the way it unflinchingly showed the bleak road ahead for this sad young man. This kind of mental abuse should earn this selfish bully of a father prison time.

I was kind of shocked into submission by "Dark Blue". The movie doesn't slow down from minute 1 and it's not a short film, so that edge of your seat adrenaline might seem to fade, but it didn't for me--all the way to the awesome Kurrupt remix of a Porno for Pyros track during the credits. That song was so right on for the overall theme of the film that it got me off the couch to write this review.

This was the rare cop movie with very few scenes, if any, of gratuitous violence, though the film is very violent and angry. The filming of the LA riot scenes were chilling--because I was actually in LA during them and saw some crazy stuff. Whomever set up the sets for those shots had to have been there--the sheer chaos and random, explosive aggression out of nowhere was intimately captured. Scary stuff.

Kurt Russell has played so many cops that you almost think that he'd be uncastable at this point. This is not the case. This is the darkest, and most tortured I've ever seen him, and it's because his character is truly complex, and not all a bad guy. You are appalled at what he does, and yet root for him because he has an essential goodness in him that he painfully and tragically redeems at the film's end.

Another masterful LA movie in the same pantheon, though perhaps maybe one or two steps down from "LA Confidential" and the king of them all, "Chinatown".

"Loosies" is an unexpectedly excellent movie that received zero hype, but made it onto Showtime's movie rotation, which has allowed me to view it multiple times. I've found that only truly great movies can survive multiple viewings, as you get the opportunity to really dissect the screen writing, editing and acting, and only the strong survive such close scrutiny. The casting is one of "Loosies" strongest points, starting with Peter Facinelli as the lead, and whom is apparently the main driving and creative force behind the picture, as he is listed with Production and Screen writing/Story credits.

Facinelli would be difficult to cast as a truly malevolent villain, as his handsome face is so naturally open and friendly and he is possessed of an enviable comic timing that he uses with restrained subtlety in the role of Bobby, the Pickpocket-With-a-Heart-of-Gold. He surrounds himself with a tight group of the industry's greatest character actors.

Facinelli's hero is bookended by two well-written and played villains: the lizard-like Vincent Gallo as the amoral, fatally greedy psychopath and criminal Jax, with Gallo pulling out all the "Gallo stops" and playing the dirty bathrobe-wearing Jax with a greasy glory; and Jax's opposite, Lt. Nick Sullivan, a bent cop with as much villainous ill temper as Jax, played by the always-great Michael Madsen, with a seething, explosive anger just barely below the surface. These twin poles of evil bedevil Bobby throughout the movie, and make for the high amount of tension between the main characters that drives the tightly written plot forward.

Lastly, is Joe Pantoliano, cast against type as the deceptively nebbish Carl, whom ends up being the hero's loyal sidekick after a number of amusing trials. Gone is the typical Pantoliano Italian-American swagger, instead replaced with a touching sweetness backed up with a well camouflaged, non-macho toughness. At the end of the film, bobby and Carl, at first at odds with each other, have become fast friends, and I felt truly happy about Bobby's future without it being spelled out for me.

I was particularly impressed by the Gallo's character, Jax. This is a meaty role, and Gallo, kind of nutso in his own right, really digs in. He thrives on being a boorish bully and wildly overestimates his own intelligence and sophistication as he surrounds himself with a pathetic crew of sycophants who are even more stupid than Jax,but just barely.

Bobby uses Jax's stupidity and greed against him, as he carries out a very clever plan that relies entirely on smarts as opposed to physical might. Watching this plan unfold is among the most entertaining scenes in the film. Jax is drawn in by Carl's mention of $500K of diamonds, and his greed blinds him to many obvious signs of warning. After Carl skillfully grabs ahold of the wad of cash in Jax's hand that was intended to be just for show, Jax is forced to realize that his supposedly carefully laid trap for Carl might not be so invincible. The bitter and annoyed sideways glances Jax gives to Carl in the taxi are priceless.

Even at the point when he should be happy about getting away with a huge score, Jax manages to still be cruel and selfish as he cuts Bobby out and doles out a pathetically small portion to his comrade, being mean and nasty as he always is. Jax only shows happiness when he is either exercising his bully power over someone or when he thinks he's getting away with something; he showed such greasy satisfaction when he turned Bobby in to the cops, with no embarrassment at all at being a snitch, something that in his world would be a huge crime.

The final Jax scene, when his door is bust open by Lt. Sullivan and his group of thug cops, is doubly satisfying as Jax gets what's been coming to him for years from such an unsavory character as the Lieutenant. And Lt. Sullivan, who was so obsessed with catching the cocky criminal who stole his badge and paraded it around town, is catching the wrong guy, which is also satisfying as you don't want such a nasty, bent cop to succeed.

The combination of very well-drawn characters perfectly cast with an airtight, fun plot makes this movie as good as it is. I've now seen it about 8 times, and have not yet grown tired of it. I highly recommend seeing "Loosies", with it's excellent cast, dark and sweet humor, and thrilling cops and robbers-with-a-twist plot. A true dark horse.

I really enjoyed watching this film the first time, and even more the next 3 or 4 times it came on Showtime. Repeated viewings gave me deeper feelings for the characters, and more insight into their motivations.

Joanna continues to resonate as the deepest, most sympathetic character, and this may be in part because of Keira Knightly's always excellent acting, plus the fact that Knightly is fundamentally so appealing. One feels that Joanna may have chosen to return to marry Michael after her dalliance with Alex in earlier years, for the wrong reasons: stability, comfort, the insecurity of having been a younger, less mature woman at that time.

Joanna is capable of feeling great passion, evidenced both by her lasting chemistry with Alex and her righteous, instinctive jealousy issues with Michael before he leaves on his trip. She is also quite intellectually complex, and has the self-recognition that she's changed, matured in past years, while her husband may not have, or at least has not caught up with her yet.

Alex is an excellent foil for Joanna, and I immediately was kind of rooting for him rather than Michael, as the filmmaker sets you up to be down on Joanna/Michael's marriage from the get-go with the revelation of Laura at the party, about whom Michael was less than forthright. You can see Alex and Joanna eventually seriously getting together, and that each one is the possibly ideal mate for the other. When they do flirt and emotionally bond that night, there is really more at stake than the physical intimacy that occurred with the relatively cheap Laura and her manipulations and mindgames with Michael. In this sense, Joanna's intense emotional bonding is perhaps the greater "cheat". But one also feels the weight of inevitability between Joanna and Alex.

With each viewing, Laura becomes more and more manipulative and dark, possibly even malevolent, and certainly damaged. Everything out of her mouth seems intensely calculated to draw Michael in closer, and seems to have been planned; practiced. When "the usual" massively armed battery of her seductive moves: cocktails exclusively away from the colleagues, shyly bringing up the minutiae behind the supposedly loaded meaning of where a hand was placed in weeks past, more cocktails and flirting, and finally the swimming pool don't seal the deal, she resorts to heavy artillery with the very emotional story about her dead husband and how he had cheated on her. She senses that Michael will try to rescue the damsel-in-distress, and so she very effectively becomes one.

I find myself wondering if ANYTHING Laura said or did was true. While one can verify events and histories that took place between Joanna, Michael and Alex, Laura, recently hired at Michael's firm, seems to have appeared out of nowhere, to be everywhere that Michael is. I can see a past for her that includes many occurrences of these types of seductive and emotionally manipulative episodes. If this is the case, then she is a malevolent character, and I suspect it is. Eva Mendes plays her this way, with just enough skittishness/damage and narrowing of her eyes into a knowing cat-like grin to embody a femme fatale, not an innocent young widow. Michael feels not just uncomfortable, but dirty after being with her, perhaps sensing that he's been had by someone who truly wasn't worth it, as he hurries back to the one who IS worth it.

This film does suffer a bit from "rich person porn": the insanely spacious-for-Manhattan condo that screams money just from its size and location, to say nothing about the architecturally pristine interiors featuring artful and luxurious surfaces and living spaces, and closets full of the kind of subtly cut, richly-made clothes that are really really cool and expensive. With the exception of Laura, they also all live in a high-powered, elite community of intellectual upper-class ex-pats whom practically scream their cool quotient. Laura, by picturesque contrast, comes across as somewhat crass, uneducated and unsophisticated/classless: she doesn't and will never fit in. Thank goodness for the excellent character drawing, screen writing and acting, because these things can be distancing for the audience who isn't in (or isn't even aware of) that upper-echelon of wealthy and sophisticated Manhattanites, and Parisians in Alex's case.

All in all, a subtle, complex film that is one of those rare movies that bears repeated viewings: I highly recommend it!

My dad is a huge blues fan, and when I was a very affected mod/new wave teenager in the 1980s, he would sneak me into his favorite haunts to see what I now know was some pretty legendary stuff. So when I ran across the opening credits whilst cruising Showtime, I was immediately hooked by the first of many searingly authentic blues club scenes. Obviously, the key people attached to this movie really gave a shite about this hard-to-pin-down genre of music.

All throughout the film, it was the excellence of those key people that really made the movie so great. Morgan Simpson, co-writer, producer, and central actor brings a lot to this movie, and he managed to attract some heavy hitters like just about every other actor, especially Tom Skerritt and Michael Clark Duncan, and the criminally undersung Mario Van Peebles as director. There must have been a huge amount of synergy between Van Peebles and Simpson, because their movie is very fully realized, artfully shot, and brings alive the characters with amazing depth of emotion. Yes, I too cried.

My favorite movies are made by guys like Polanski, Scorcese and P.T. Anderson, who totally commit to every aspect of their project, and this movie has that passion. I can see where some might find the storyline and ending, and some of the "fortune cookie" platitudes a bit trite, but I understand: this is an unabashedly sentimental film refreshingly absent of the jadedness/irony/ennui in which many indie directors overindulge.

I read a review in an Austin paper in which the reviewer really savages Morgan Simpson's acting performance. She could not be more wrong. I had never seen this actor before, but after being very affected by the depth of his performance, I looked up the movie on IMDb, and saw that he was very key to the overall production of the film, which impressed me even more. And after looking at his fresh-faced photo on his bio page, I got the sense that he really inhabited his character, because he was quite physically transformed into a rather crusty, shady guy whom you really don't want to like, but end up shedding tears for.

All in all, a surprising big film that also feels very dark horse. Love it.

That "It's Pat" gets such low ratings is a classic example of humour-challenged viewers misunderstanding classic broad farce and absurdity. This movie is in no way meant to be sophisticated, and the fact that it appears cheaply made simply adds to the fun.

Another message on the IMDb message board noted that Pat's personality on SNL was much sweeter, whereas she's really quite a self-absorbed, obnoxious oaf in "It's Pat". I think that the loutish Pat is far the funnier--she takes herself so seriously, and even if she wasn't a mysterious he/she, her outlandish and unearned self-confidence would be great comedy in and of itself. There were times when her pure selfishness and disdain for other's comfort and happiness made me LOL to the point where I was crying--Julia Sweeney really went "balls-out" (sorry) with her over-the-top comedy chops.

Two of my favorite motifs were Pat's instrument that she played on-stage with Ween: A FREAKING TUBA!!! How freaking perfect is that??? And having Camille Paglia as on-air commentary is meta hilarious. Paglia adds a faux-serious über-intellectual touch as the most perfect choice for "intellectual" commentary on unusual/abnormal sexuality in film to the most lowbrow of lowbrow flicks.

Folks, this is broad, ridiculous comedy that we're not supposed to take seriously--at all. It's almost childish/cartoonish in its style except there actually is a level of sophistication to many of the sexual orientation jokes. I just cannot figure out the mindset of those who were giving "It's Pat" zero and one-star ratings--were they sitting in front of their TV and saying, "that's not an accurate depiction of human behavior; I'm holding out for some GD François Truffaut!!!" Grab some orange juice, a banana, and some walnuts, and sit back and enjoy the inanity!

I love love love this film. Susan Seidelman showing massive potential. Perhaps because this was her first film, we get to meditate within the extremely stark minimalism that so completely captures The Scene. Lots of reviewers have incorrectly alluded to the "punk rock" scene--this is NYC well past the heyday of '77. This is not the noisy brash Ramones-fueled mania of NYC punk rock; rather this is the entirely anodyne No Wave scene. And anodyne is what we get in Wren, the well-cast heroine.

Rather than dwell on the plot/theme, I find myself picking apart the amazing costume, set dressing, locations and music/score because Seidelman absolutely gets it right. And getting something as preciously cool as an underground fashion/art/music scene right is really difficult, yet Seidelman, with refreshing restraint, really lives within this world.

Wren's whole look is so spot on--her skinnyness, choppy red hair, statement shades and those clothes...that iconic first look with the vinyl herringbone mini with colorblocked shell and belt, ripped fishnets and Capezio "character" dance shoes is exactly what a downtown army of cool chicks was wearing back then. Her other outfits let you know how important style is to the superficial Wren, and to that whole world of No Wave hipsters who haunt the Peppermint Lounge.

Lee Quinones is credited with graffiti, and the van as well as the wall behind it serve as super minimal set dressing that perfectly ties in with the mood. I also love it when Wren does her own graffiti, spraypainting her name with a long tail leading to a paint-circled flyer with her image--very cool.

The music is memorable as well--I'd love to get my hands on a soundtrack. Besides the Feelies' score, there are so many great tracks, especially the Richard Hell/Voidoids track, and one of my all-time favorite NYC No Wave bands, ESG with "Moody". That hypnotic song practically defines that era.

Reading the credits is great fun, as Seidelman gathered a cast of thousands of downtown/Village denizens for both acting and production roles. It is this skill for gathering together this kind of hard-to-find talent from outside the film industry to create something 100% authentic that makes Seidelman such a good director; her instincts in this first outing are solid.

Rather than look at the merits of the film as a whole, I'll focus on Justin Long's strange and disturbing performance of a character who really gets under your skin. There is a definite distinction between how annoying and irritating the *character* of Hal Nestor is and Long's portrayal of him; Long does such a good job that I found myself not liking Long on a personal level. It took some remembering of roles I did enjoy, like his Apple commercials, to realize that it was Long's talent that was producing this effect.

The character of Hal Nestor is written really well, and defies a whole slew of stereotypes. The arch-typical nerdy math savant who doesn't fit in and longs for the popular girl ALWAYS turns the tables on establishment (his mom and his high school class in this case), gets the girl, and triumphs in the end. This type is usually portrayed as a misunderstood genius/saint. But Hal/Long doesn't achieve *any* of these typical goals.

Instead of the sweet saintly outsider, Hal/Long is a nasty piece of work. He's highly manipulative, pathologically narcissistic and just plain mean. Because of his distorting narcissism, he thinks so highly of himself that I have to wonder if indeed he was any kind of math prodigy. He never challenges his solutions against any known establishment like a teacher or professor; he just keeps scribbling away and locking the outside world out. The writing is so good, and Long so disturbing that I frequently found myself cringing when he enacted one of his childish manipulations to get what he wanted. Long also does a great job of looking the part, with his pale, skinny and wasted frame, and a head of the greasiest stringiest hair I've ever seen. And Long in his private life is a handsome guy who is known for his fashionable mop of trendy hipster hair.

The rest of the film has its flaws, to be sure. But Long's and the writers' character study of Hal Nestor is masterful, and makes the movie memorable, and something I'd recommend.

Many other reviews have covered the excellence of the stoned/junked-out humour and the overall kind of lackadaisical mood of entropy: everything going to a chaotic, baroque hell.

What I really loved in this little movie was the attention to detail. The costumes and hair/makeup for instance are brilliant. Steven Eric McIntyre couldn't look greasier, and his cold gray eyes burn holes out of his pale grizzled face. He struts into his first scene wearing clapped out flares and some seriously flash rattlesnake cowboy boots, reminding me of legendary close-up shots of gunfighters' boots as they stride into the road for a battle. Bug Is Here and things are going to proceed downhill at a steady clip. Later, you see big black and silver rings and a huge silver belt buckle of galloping horses, that fit right in with Bug's self-image of a bad-arse cowboy pining for his horse, Jezebel. It's fitting that he dies in the saddle, no? Pretty boy Billy has the perfect Euro-boy new wave-ish uniform of stripy tight t-shirts and pegged black jeans, along with big 60-ish sideburns and a flop of wedge-cut hair that was the hipster haircut of the early 80s.

Then there's some of the best use of soundtrack music I've heard in a while. The director has a similar gift for setting moods with music as does Scorcese and his legendary oeuvre that uses the Rolling Stones in pitch-perfect moments. This being a Canadian movie, it makes perfect sense to string the music of April Wine, along with screen shots of their vinyl albums and cassettes, throughout the movie. This band, along with CCR, 3 Dog Night and the kind of obscure (if you're not a Canadian who was in his 20s during the late 70s) Montreal recording artist, Pagliaro--set a very specific mood: that of balls to the wall lose your head stoner rock. I was a total new wave/mod/ska/punk snob in my early 1980s jr high and high school years, but I still have fond memories of secretly blasting stoner rock out of my headphones or car stereo and leaning back and just time traveling. This kind of epic release is what all of the characters in this film are searching for.

Lastly, there are the strange and wondrous uses of visual motifs: specifically, pink and horses. The morphine pills are bright pink as they are crushed in the ice cream scooper, then dissolved into a brilliant pink solution that courses through the veins of Bug, Billy and Dick. Billy eats a pink fluff of cotton candy, and the ice cream Bug pulls out of the freezer as they are cooking pink morphine in Dick's apartment, is pink strawberry ice cream. Junkies crave sugar, and in this movie, it's pink sugar that is their cracked ambrosia. When we first see Bug and Dick cooking up and getting high, there's a junky dream of thick pink slop reminiscent of the "cook" dripping over the edge of a cardboard box. (Incidentally, that box has an image of a big red barn that perfectly syncs with the big red barn that contains the horses that Bug finds at the end of the movie.) Then there's the mother of all pink paint bombs that so hilariously covers Bug and Dick, making Bug look like, in Dick's words, "a f*#king pink Chuck Norris".

And then there's the horses. First, we see them on Bug's belt buckle, and then he has a junky vision of a horse standing over him that he calls "Jezebel". (A childhood memory of a long lost pet? A sly reference to the junky slang word for heroin--"horse"?) Bug fancies himself to be a kind of twisted cowboy, and he meets his storied end covered with pink paint on the back of a beloved horse, on his way to South America. I just love that kind of attention to detail--it's what makes me want to watch this film over and over. And since "High Life" is on heavy rotation on Showtime, that's exactly what I've been doing, with the speakers turned up to 11.

I once dated a guy who fell into the habit of watching too much internet porn for awhile. He became disinterested in intimacy with me, and began to show signs of depression, though he didn't recognize it. He had lost his job, and wasn't doing much to look for a new one, and had too much time on his hands.

That's why I identified so much with this episode of True Life. In general, I've found these to be refreshingly down-to-earth and intellectually honest--though the themes may be controversial, the films don't come off as sleazy, and show real respect for the subjects. Two of the guys in this episode initially showed little self-motivation to get off their behinds and actually want to quit their addiction.

The younger guy who lived with his grandmother and was unemployed came off as almost proud of his lifestyle, though he did express remorse when he talked to his family. In direct contrast, the family man with 4 (!) kids whose wife kicked him out of the house seemed adrift in useless Christian guilt. I don't think that endlessly viewing porn to the expense of harming real-life relationships is at all something to be proud of. But I also think that the family guy, who was repeatedly shown devoutly praying at his bedside, had the fewest psychological tools to deal with his addiction.

He did what I see so many Christian types do--he sat back and waited for a sign from God. Praying for a cure in a situation like this seems kind of useless, especially since the religious structure in which he believed labeled him as a lost sinner deserving of self-hatred. Conservative Christians do the same thing with homosexuality--with similar non-useful results.

We watch the younger guy have a profound revelation when his sister shows real disappointment with him--in both his porn addiction and his lack of motivation to get a job and move his life forward. Rather than wallow in self-hatred and guilt, he gets off his a** and gets a job. And that's really the turning point for him, and it was for my ex-BF as well: ACTIVELY doing something to fill up one's life and leave no time or boredom for porn to fill.

Meanwhile, the Christian guy keeps praying and wallowing in self-hatred, and decides that more of the same, in the form of a Christian porn rehab will be his last and only chance. Sigh. You can tell his wife has pretty much given up, and her body language screams of her disgust with him. He's so passive in his own healing--again, just praying and feeling guilt. I think it's worthwhile to take a close look at how so much conservative Christian "therapy" operates on this model, and is ultimately useless.