Zeitgeist: The Movie
Internet polemic by independent filmmaker Peter Joseph, this has been periodically revised over the years and is kind of a YouTube favorite in the conspiracy theory department. Though it has spawned several sequels this film remains the flagship of the Zeitgeist Movement, whose central concerns are the establishment of a more equitable society and ecologically sustainable way of life, as well as informing people of the 'lies' on which our world is based. The film is divided into three acts, each seeking to expose ways in which the collective 'we' are manipulated by a power elite. The first act concerns astrotheology and the way in which Christianity is really just the latest in a series of Sun worshiping religions that has been appropriated by the elite as a tool for controlling society at large.The second act is about 9/11 conspiracy's, very well presented in a disturbingly plausible sounding way, though the consensus of experts in the fields here discussed do not agree with the thesis of the film makers. The last act concerns the global conspiracy of the power elite to return the world to a form of feudal state.
The film is really a mixture of many of the 'conspiracy greats', the false flag attack, the moneyed class and the fed, the Bush dynasty and the new world order. The thing that sets it apart the most would have to be the critique of religion, other wise most of whats in this film corresponds to the apocalyptic precepts that Pat Robertson has been expounding for years. This is kind of one of the musts for Internet film literacy, agree or disagree its certainly interesting.
Fair
Hot Tub Time Machine
It is the marked consensus of theoretical physicists that if a hot tube where a time machine, it would inevitably take you back to the mid-1980's. Director Steven Pink examines the implications of this theory on a trio of friends and one of their nephews, each of whom have experienced largely disappointing lives. After Rob Corddry is hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt, his long time friends decide to take him upon his release to The Kodiak Valley Ski Resort, scene of there youthful glory days. Kodiak too has seen better days, and is now largely run down. Disappointed, the group gets sloshed and takes a dip in their hotel hot tube, only to spill a Russian energy drink on the controls and get sent back in time.
It of course takes them all a little bit to realize what has happened, ("are they having some kind of retro thing this weekend?"), but after a while they figure out that they have somehow travailed back to 1986, and while they look the same to each other, every one else see's them as the image of their period selves (with nephew Clark Duke looking as he did in 2010 given that he hasn't been born yet). A mysterious mystical hot tube repair man (Chevy Chase) implies that they must not significantly change the past so as to avoid the 'butterfly effect' that may significantly change their futures, and could result in Clark not being born at all (they arrive on the weekend of his conception).
This film owes a lot to Back to the Future, not least the presence of Crispin Glover as a hotel doorman destined to have his arm chopped off. Lead John Cusack, veteran of 80's teen comedies, is a fine disappointed sad sack, as indeed are all of the characters, their lives hadn't turned out as they'd hopped when they were younger, and the temptation to change the past to better themselves grips them all, with Clark doing his best to keep them on track and insure that he gets born. Craig Robinson drunkingly calling his then nine year old wife to chew her out for cheating on him is an awkwardly funny moment of which this film has many. But in near Apatowian style the crudity has pathos to it, and the midlife crises trope has one of its better film outings.
Good
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