Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Manthast
Absolutely amazing
Stoutor
It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
imjustabill1975
As a quirky film promoting singers this movie is just fine. That's the only nice thing I can think to say about it. Otherwise it's portrayal of the South is about as accurate as The Beverly Hillbillies or The Dukes of Hazzard. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or scream at the ridiculousness of this flick. Having been born and raised in South Georgia, and having spent years in Florida and other parts of Georgia and the South, I can't help but wonder how long it took to find all these places. The movie goes from the armpit of Louisiana to one tiny town in the armpit of Florida over 600 miles away. Then, it sets off for the darkest speck in the Appalachians, another 800 miles away. All this is done in a beat-up old car, because apparently Southerners don't own anything made in the current millennium (with Jesus hanging out of the trunk). I'm not saying they should have set up a musician on an Atlanta skyscraper, or even in the middle of a college football field (although that's the real church of the South). I just don't think that the movie should position itself as a general look at the South, its music and its religion. Jim himself lives in Athens, GA. This is the land of REM and the University of Georgia. As a recent resident of a town only 30 minutes from Athens, I can assure you that snake-handling religious freaks and Jesus Saves Catfish Truck Stops are just as laughable here as they are in NYC or the UK. And no these are not the people electing our politicians (well, maybe that place in Florida). To say they are the margins of the South is putting it mildly. These places made for some great gritty backdrops to play some music in front of, but that's about it. This all might have been more believable if the stories told didn't sound so obviously scripted. I'm thinking the location scout for this film is the same guy that finds people to interview right after a tornado in the Mid-West. Quite a knack for finding the freaks. I've also lived in Cali and NYC. I find it hilarious that people from these places took this movie so seriously. Try getting out of your bubble. The South is actually a really nice place. You should see it sometime. We've learned to read and write and think for ourselves. We hardly even eat dirt or opossum anymore. Jackasses.
Sibella
I am a huge fan of Jim White the musician, and I didn't make it through more than 23 minutes of this film. Now maybe things changed later; I'll grant that. Right at the beginning of the film, White procures a concrete statue of Jesus. He and some others remove it from where it lies in state along the entire length of the inside of a car trunk. But when it goes into the trunk of his seemingly equally large car, it protrudes beyond the back of the car, as if it doesn't fit--so we can see White's burden. It seems a telling incident: the heavy-handed symbolism and artsy contrivance stick out from White's cinematic vehicle like...well, You Know Who.By the time I stopped, nearly all of the people I'd seen talking were No Depression- magazine-darling musicians and other people who might have used the film toward an MFA. Not that there's anything wrong with the highly qualified and sometimes actually Southern talent here. (I especially enjoyed Harry Crews' storytelling.) But the film purports to be a sort of documentary road trip, exploring Southern spiritual culture, and instead was on its way to becoming--I repeat, I quit a third of the way in--a sometimes evocatively pretty, sometimes maddeningly awkward music video.Why drive around the Louisiana bayous if the people you "find" playing banjos and singing spirituals are, like you, likely to have tour schedules on MySpace?I emphasize: Jim White is a musical genius, and this film should not dissuade anyone from checking out his work or that of artists like Crews, the Handsome Family, etc. It's just an unfortunate misstep as a movie.
Glen Gibson
I would highly recommend this film to those who can appreciate an "as is" representation of our Southern American culture. I found the stories and testimonies of the south to be accurate and insightful. The film keeps your interest like flipping through a readers digest... there's a lot of good stories and none take too long to tell. My favorite part is when he rents an old 1970 two tone Chevy for a $100 a day so he can fit in with the locals. I also found the people and their personal reflections on life refreshing. The film does a good job of representing a diverse group of people and shares everyones story from the shouting religious types to the folks who opted out of the church seen and are down at the local bar.
b-zondag
As a 'stranger' to the American culture, I was really impressed by this docu-movie. It gives me a look in the American South. Of course one can not give a complete portrait of something. There always a need for some subjectivity. I understand there a million other sides of the American South. For example, if you make a movie about Holland, surely you'll see mills and klompen. This is not representative for modern-day Holland, but it's a part of our culture, our history. I think the same applies to this movie. Apart from this, the movie is intertwining music, art and storytelling. This is fantastic!
