Movie Review: Hail Satan?

Hail Satan? *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Penny Lane.

 

It’s pretty hard to argue with the Satanists – at least on logical grounds. Because, after all, if America is a secular nation – as it’s supposed to be, then they either shouldn’t allow any religious symbols on public grounds, or prayer before government meetings, etc. – or else, accept all of them. So, if you want to put a monument to the 10 Commandments on the grounds of your State Capital for instance, then you should have to put up a statue of Baphomet – a demon goat - on the grounds as well. If not, you’re not really secular, are you?

 

The film focuses on The Satanic Temple – an organization started in 2013 by Lucien Greaves, among others, and but really does seem to be more of an atheist group than a Satanic worship group – like the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey in the 1960s. More than anything, they seem like they have adopted their mantra of Hail Satan for shock value more than anything else, and to make a point of course. Can you really have a monument to atheists? What would it be? Here, you get attention from the media, and protestors, which is – of course – the point.

 

Greaves is an interesting person – and is as much of the focus of the movie as The Satanic Temple itself. When they started, he wanted to be the brains of the operation, but not the face – but it became apparent that no one else would say what he wanted to say, the way he wanted it said, so he gradually became the face anyway. He is adept at playing the media game, mainly because he plays it straight. Whether he’s throwing his support behind Governor Rick Scott in Florida – who passed prayer in school bills, saying that it confirms Satanic Children’s rights to pray in public school, or else all those fights to try and find a place for their Baphomet statue, it’s hard to tell when he’s joking, and when he’s not. That is his purpose after all – his job is basically to troll everyone, and that’s what he’s doing. He delights in giving interviews to media people – who have to know he isn’t entirely serious, but act as if he is anyway, or the Evangelical Protestors he despises, who seem to think he wants to turn everyone into Satan worshippers, he is having fun.

 

At least at first. As the film moves along, it documents what happens to The Satanic Temple as it grows larger and larger. It basically operates on a franchise model – with people starting different chapters across America, and then the world. One of the first is in Detroit – run by Jex Blackmore, who was always more extreme than Graves to begin with. At first, that’s fine – it brings them attention, and Blackmore is nothing if not committed. But as the organization grows, power becomes centralized, and they have to be more concerned with appearances than ever before. Their whole strategy is basically to do everything precisely by the book – to give the government and the courts no reason whatsoever to reject them other than on the basis of religious belief, which of course would be unconstitutional. But when Blackmore goes further and further – even advocating (not seriously, but still) murdering President Trump – they have to cut ties.

 

It also becomes expensive to be this group. It’s one thing to be right – and have the law on your side – but if the government refuses to do so anyway, you have to sue to get your way. You may eventually win – but it will cost you a lot of money to win. Are you really going to spend it all on getting a Baphomet stature erected in Kentucky?

 

The film was directed by Penny Lane – whose last film, Nuts! – was a fascinating portrait of an early 20^th Century conman, who said he could cure impotence by implanting goat testicles into men. The Satanic Temple are conmen in the same way – but she does have a skill in diving into the weird side of American life – which she does here as well. I do think there is a better – deeper – documentary here to be made. This one skims the surface – but perhaps that’s the right choice here. Its hard enough to get people on the side of the Satanists – but at the end of this movie, you’d be hard pressed to say they’re wrong – even if you don’t like them.

Movie Review: Nuts!

Nuts!

Directed by: Penny Lane.

Nuts! is a wonderfully strange documentary about a man who, in the 1920s, thought it was a good idea to insert goat testicles into impotent men to cure them of the affliction? The man’s name was John R. Brinkley, who opened up a shop/surgeon’s office (there were less regulations then) in in the small town of Milford, Kansas, and to hear him tell it, a man came in one day complaining of impotence. When Brinkley said that he couldn’t do anything for him, the man glanced out the window to see a goat who had, uh, no problem performing sexually (for an audience no less!) and wondered if Brinkley could give him the goats nuts to help him. Brinkley sees no reason why not – and miracle of miracles, the man is cured – able to perform sexually, and even impregnate his wife (who apparently, does not have a hideous half man/half goat baby). Thus starts a very successful business for Brinkley – who helped put Milford on the map, turning it into a boom town. The goat’s nuts thing isn’t the only innovation that Brinkley comes up with – he becomes a pioneer in so many other ways – most notably in advertising, using the radio in ways others would not have thought of.

The film was directed by Penny Lane, whose previous documentary, Our Nixon, took the home movies about some of Nixon’s aides to give a different view of the man. I didn’t much care for that one – the footage itself, apparently the films big get, wasn’t particularly interesting – and Lane had to string together a narrative out of it anyway. With this one, there is nowhere near as much existing footage – although considering the time period, the amount of material Lane gets is still remarkable. She fills in the gap in an ingenious way – with animation. The film is largely based on Brinkley’s firsthand account of himself, which Lane and her team of animators bring to life. The animation gets more complex as the film moves along – stick figures, giving way to more detailed drawings (and color) as we moved from the 1920s to the 1930s.

The movie runs only 79 minutes – but it makes the most of them. We know that Brinkley is a quack from the beginning – not because the movie tells us, but because, come on – who the hell would implant goat’s nuts into people. It’s still fun to watch as the story unfolds – as various doctors associations start to form, who rally against people like Brinkley – who simply stops doing operations (he has a potion instead, that he assures his patients works just as well). He’s clearly a con man – but people love him – he most likely would have won the Governorship of Kansas in 1930s, except for some fancy maneuvering by the state’s Attorney General, who threw out every vote that didn’t spell Brinkley’s name correctly (that was 56,000 votes – he lost by 30,000). They keep shutting him down, and he keeps finding a new way to continue on going – becoming a radio sex therapist, who operated outside the jurisdiction of those who wanted to stop him (but beaming inside). Of course, it all has to come crashing down eventually – and final act of the movie is a courtroom sequence that is surprisingly moving as everything Brinkley has done comes out in sad little moments.

The film is inventive in many ways for a documentary. The story structure works well, as we discover it as it goes along, first in his words, and then through everyone else’s. The animation works, evoking an earlier time, and evolving. The archival material that Lane does get is wonderful and strange. The talking heads that normally makeup most docs are kept to a minimum – but are clearly well informed when they are there. All of this makes Nuts a fun doc from beginning to end – and one well worth seeing.

Movie Review: Our Nixon

Our Nixon
Directed by: Penny Lane.

Has there been a President who has had more movies made about them than Richard Nixon? Over 40 years since Watergate have gone by, and we will cannot get enough of Nixon. The dramatic features about the man range from Robert Altman’s wonderfully profane one man show, with Philip Baker Hall as the President on the eve of his resignation, Secret Honor, to the absurd comedy Dick, with Dan Hedaya being undone by two blonde bimbos, to the two-hander of Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, with Frank Langella at his paranoid best, and best of all, Oliver Stone’s Nixon, which elevated the story into an almost Shakespeare like tragedy. I’m not sure how many docs have been made about the man, or how many books, but I think it’s safe to say that pretty much everything that could be said or written about him, has probably already been done. Which is why I was drawn to Our Nixon – which shows Super 8 footage shot by three top Nixon aids – H.R. Haldeman, John Ehlrichmand and Dwight Chapin – all of whom served time as part of the Watergate scandal. What the filmmakers promised was a more intimate look at the man than had been seen before. Unfortunately, that’s not really what we get here.

It’s true that the Super 8 footage seen in Our Nixon has never been seen before – it was confiscated as part of the Watergate investigation, and been kept under lock and key ever since. Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Chapin seem to have been three of those people who document everything they do – and so we do see footage of Nixon that the media would never have gotten. The problem with the movie is simple – the footage isn’t all that enlightening. By itself, it doesn’t really show you much of anything about Nixon that you didn’t already know. And the movie relies heavily on previously recorded interviews with the participants, and old news reports, and portions of Nixon’s “secret” White House tapes to tell the story. And the story is the same one that has been told about Nixon for years now – how his pettiness and ego got in his way – it was his ego and drive that got him to the highest office in the land – and also forced him to resign from it.

I’m not sure who the target audience for Our Nixon really is. I’m hardly a Nixon expert, but still, I didn’t find anything in the movie to be all that enlightening or new that I didn’t already know about Nixon. If you’re surprised how he talks about Daniel Ellsburg, the Washington Post or “fags”, than you probably don’t know much about Nixon in the first place. And if that’s the case, I’m not sure Our Nixon would be the place to start. The film seems to rely on at least some prior knowledge of Nixon and Watergate in order to function.

In short, I think the problem with the film is that director Penny Lane found there wasn’t much of interest in the released footage, and tried to string a narrative out of it anyway. Our Nixon isn’t a bad film – it held my interest – it’s just that some old home movies from some of Nixon’s advisers doesn’t seem like enough of a reason to be to make a documentary.

Note: I saw the film during one of it’s Broadcasts on CNN in early August ahead of its theatrical release at the end of the month. This wasn’t the best way to see the film – which is only 84 minutes, but was slotted in a 2 hour time slot – meaning that CNN seemed to take extended commercial breaks every 10 minutes or so, which undeniably altered the flow of the film. I stand by my review, which I didn’t find all that enlightening, but fully admit that I may have liked it more had it been allowed to play at a more natural pace.