easy like sunday morning

MEEK'S CUTOFF is just as good the second time around. I got the DVD on Friday and watched it yesterday afternoon. It's such a stunning film. I'll let you all know if the extra features are any good once I get around to watching them.

FORKS OVER KNIVES does a great job of explaining the health benefits of eating a plant-based, whole foods diet. I don't think there is anything new or shocking in the documentary but it's still worth watching.

Other than those two films, I have watched a few BBC shows on youtube. I spent the other night catching up on some Derren Brown. He is pretty popular in the UK but relatively unknown here in the States. Brown is a performer, mentalist, skeptic (and probably some other things too) who has been on a mission to expose psychics, faith healers, new age believers, mediums and anyone else who claims to have some sort of special power or ability. He has been using his recent TV shows to prove these people as frauds relying on the very same tricks that performers like himself have been using for years. Since I know that there are some readers here in FC, I also want to plug his book too. It's an excellent and fun read that BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow calls a "charming and fascinating book...which is one of those impossible- to- pigeonhole, eclectic nonfiction books that pulls together its subject matter in a genuinely novel way and ends up influencing how you see the world around you."

Here is Brown's latest show where he takes an ordinary person and trains him to become a (fake) faith healer. They then travel to Texas in order prove just how easy it is to take advantage of people. The group goes through some ethical dilemmas about their deception but do carry the project out to it's conclusion. I'm not posting this here as a reason to start a religion debate again. However, though Brown is an atheist, he makes a point of focusing only on the fraud and danger of faith healers and not on disproving or mocking Christianity. Indeed, the guy he trains is a believer. That said, I'd be interested to hear what others think of Brown. Have any of you seen/read his stuff? I have been following him since around 2007 but find that a lot of people in the US have never heard of him.

 

I also watched The Chinese Are Coming. It's a good look at the Chinese and their growing influence around the world - an important topic in the years to come.

 

Okay, looking forward to BOARDWALK EMPIRE tonight.