The People Vs The State Of Illusion, by Austin Vickers, is a documentary, much in the same style as films such as The Secret, What the Bleep Do We Know, and Down The Rabbit Hole.  These films use heavy scientific evidence expounded by experts in various fields to prove the existence of spiritual experience.

When I saw the trailer to The People VS The State of Illusion with all the professional graphics and stock footage, I thought, “Oh no, not anothe...

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The Interrupters, the story of interrupting the cycle of anger and vengeance. 

There are so many wonderful reviews of this film, so there is not much left to say about it.   This is my favorite review so far.  It's a very powerful, insightful and personal review called Extinguishing the Ecstasy of Anger. 

During the film, I saw how rampant vengeance killings are in Chicago inner city neighborhoods. The killings are not exclusive to gang drive-by shootings, but surprisingly between school child...
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"You are all great beings and you must stop pretending that you are not." - Kumare

I found Kumare to be a surprisingly sweet and gentle, albeit extremely controversial, documentary; which was conceived and directed by, Vikram Gandhi, a New Jersey-born American of East Indian decent.  It was beautifully filmed with excellent audio.  The documentary follows Gandhi as he playfully dresses up as an Indian Guru and watches the response he gets in India and in the U.S.  Then he decided to see if hi...
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The Economics of Happiness is an eye-opening documentary which explores the impact of globalization on local self-sufficient communities and how people in general are effected negatively on all levels of life.  Globalization is tremendously wasteful and the film describes this in some detail.  People whose self-sufficient communities are suddenly overrun by globalization or westernization are finding themselves feeling poor from the new economic pressures.  Self-esteem erodes and leads to a d...
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“Money distracts us from what’s important.”- Heidemarie Schwermer, Living Without Money

Living Without Money is a documentary by Line Halvorsen about Heidemarie Schwermer, a retired psychotherapist, who decided over 14 years ago to start living without using money.  And what I mean by money is any currency (electronic, coin or bills), any credit, and any alternative currency.  It first started out as an experiment and now it's a way of life for her.  She gave everything away, let g...

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"The professor said to me, you could never measure happiness. Now why they thought you could measure depression which they were all doing, but you couldn't measure happiness, I'm not sure." - A psychologist, Happy the Movie.

I loved Happy: the Movie.  Happy is directed by Roko Belic, the director of the documentary Ghengis Blues and the director of photography of I Am: The Documentary.  Originally, Happy started out by Belic making a documentary for Tom Shadyak on happiness.  Shadyak gave him ...
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"We started by asking what's wrong with the world and we ended up discovering what's right with it." - Tom Shadyak, director of I Am.

I AM is a documentary about Tom Shadyak's quest for the answers to his questions about life.  The film, which is totally narrated by Shadyak, starts out showing a generic mental hospital to introduce the subject of mental illness.  It immediately changes to the story of Shadyak's mountain bike accident where he suffered a broken wrist and concussion.  The concus...
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Better Living Through Circuitry is a documentary about the ecstatic qualities of raves. (Sensitive viewer alert: Some bad language and discussion of drug usage.)

Raves are huge parties, not night club events.  Raves transcend the whole rock-n-roll scene.  Thousands of people young, old, black, white, yellow, red, male, female all dance together and experience oneness and timelessness where all the confinements of the rat race fall away.  It's not about how cool you look or who you are; it's al...
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STRONGMAN, AN UNEXPECTED TALE OF SELF-EMPOWERMENT.

I had expectations of seeing the spiritual development of the subject of the documentary, Stan, who markets himself as "Stanless Steel" the strongest man in the world at bending steel and metal.  And at first those expectations were met.  Stan is very concerned with eating and living well.  He is extremely self-reflective and strive...

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Orgasm, Inc.,: Exploring the myth of female sexual dysfunction.

Warning: Explicit scientific terms used to describe female sexuality.

This documentary explores the myth of female sexual dysfunction and follows pharmaceutical companies that are trying to cash in on it.  Since most women do not achieve vaginal orgasm during intercourse, and most men do, the medical and pharmaceutical industries have taken the opportunity to declare that the majority of women suffer from sexual dysfunction. 

The m...
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"Though human beings are innumerable, I vow to free all of them from suffering." - A monk's vow from Journey from Zanskar

The latest documentary from Frederick Marx, the director of Hoop Dreams, bears witness to a 180- mile journey that 15 Tibetan children made to go to a decent school that support their language and culture. Zanskar in Tibet has become so extremely isolated from wars over the territory from China and Pakistan, and from religious extremist groups on the west side ...
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An expose on the game the media plays.

I had another great opportunity to attend a first screening of a documentary on a cross-country tour.  It looks like the University of Arizona in Tucson is a great place for first screenings.  I had no idea the place would be packed for this documentary about a 14-year-old boy, Austin Visschedyk, who became a successful paparazzo.  But it turned out that the director of this film is Adrien Grenier, the star of the HBO TV series, Entourage.  And he was att...
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An important movie for those suddenly finding themselves opening to the spiritual realm.

I attended a world premiere showing of Wake Up at the University of Arizona in Tucson.  No, this is not a conspiracy theory movie.  It's a documentary about a guy, Jonas Elrod, who wakes up one morning and sees all kinds of spirits and entities and can hear people's thoughts.  He's not the kind of guy who was into spirituality before, so he was very freaked out about suddenly experiencing the "unseen" worl...
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