Documentary Review Hallelujah Leonard Cohen A Journey A Song

Hallelujah Leonard Cohen A Journey, A Song (2022) 

Directed by Dayna Goldfine, Dan Geller

Produced by Sony Pictures Classics

Starring Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, Brandi Carlisle, Eric Church

Release Date July 1st, 2022 

My first exposure to the work of Leonard Cohen came from the 1990 movie Pump Up the Volume. That film starred Christian Slater as a teenage pirate radio host. Slater’s character used Cohen’s song, Everybody Knows, as an emblem of the character's own cynical worldview. It was a potent and memorable inclusion. Cohen’s voice and his reputation provided a gravitas to the movie with Cohen having a reputation as a thinking man’s pop star. 

I heard, and became infatuated with, Everybody Knows even before I had heard and loved the song that became Cohen’s most beloved and memorable work, Hallelujah. For me, it was not until Jeff Buckley had died tragically and his version of Hallelujah had become the most well known and talked about version of the song that I had heard the song. Eventually, I heard Cohen’s version and found it inferior to both Buckley and John Cale’s more mainstream takes on the song.

Find my full length review at Beat.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review This Land

This Land (2022)

Directed by Matthew Palmer 

Produced by Jim Cummings 

Starring America 

Release Date September 6th, 2022

This Land is an interesting and ultimately failing documentary that follows several different stories all set on election day of November 2020, the day that Joe Biden won election as the President of the United States. Biden’s victory over now former President Donald Trump was chaotic and divisive and remains a flashpoint in American history with warring factions still making claims and accusations to this day. 

In many ways, America was never more divided than on that election day in 2020 when Americans went to the polls with a fiery passion, creating one of the biggest election day turnouts in history. This Land is an attempt by director Matthew Palmer and executive producer Jim Cummings to bridge the gap between right and left, Republican and Democrat, and get to the heart of why America has become seemingly so deeply divided.

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder (2000) 

Directed by Stephen Elliott

Written by Stephen Elliott 

Starring Ewan McGregor, Ashley Judd, K.D Lang 

Release Date January 28th, 2000 

Eye of the Beholder is so much crazier than I ever imagined. This seemingly straightforward turn of the 21st century thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd is utterly bats***. That’s really the only way to describe it. A vaguely defined secret agent turned creepy stalker falls in love with an insane woman after witnessing her murder two people. As an expression of his love he begins murdering people to protect her and that’s only half of the creeptastic narrative of Eye of the Beholder. 

Ewan McGregor stars in Eye of the Beholder as Steven Wilson aka The Eye, aka The Angel. He’s also known as the single worst secret agent in history. Wilson works for some unnamed spy agency where he uses a gun he modified into a camera, and still a gun, to take pictures of creeps screwing their secretaries. I imagine there is more to his job than this but this is what we first see. The first mission of Wilson’s we see we think he’s going to assassinate some guy in the midst of having sex.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.