It was great. I thought it was pretty interesting to get a closer look into the mind of arguably the greatest skeptic of our times. Worth the time if you are into that sort of thing.
(I watched it at a prerelease showing at a local community college .)
I hadn’t heard about this; may it succeed greatly and increase recognition of a man who’s done a lot of good, over the years.
I saw it at TAM (The Amazing Meeting) last year and was very impressed by it… Although that’s not a surprise, since TAM was founded by Randi.
J.
So, can you give more of a review of the type of movie it is? What direction are they taking it? The description from the website seems a little confusing:
AN HONEST LIAR is a feature documentary about the world-famous magician, escape artist, and world-renowned enemy of deception, James ‘The Amazing’ Randi. The film brings to life Randi’s intricate investigations that publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists with quasi-religious fervor. A master deceiver who came out of the closet at the age of 81, Randi created fictional characters, fake psychics, and even turned his partner of 25 years, the artist Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru named Carlos. But when a shocking revelation in Randi’s personal life is discovered, it isn’t clear whether Randi is still the deceiver – or the deceived.
See, early on in the description he’s exposing frauds, but then he’s fraudulent himself, and is apparently deceiving everyone about his sexuality. Is he or is he not “An Honest Liar”?
As someone who saw it when the BBC aired it last year, that’s kind of a misleading description.
That Randi has used deception in the name of the greater good should hardly be here nor there. He’s a magician. It goes with the territory and that’s most of the implication in the title “An Honest Liar”.
Since it’s relevant to what follows, I offhand think “turned his partner of 25 years, the artist Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru named Carlos” is not well phrased. My impression from the documentary - though I could be wrong - is that the relationship started after the whole Carlos set-up.
That it took Randi so long to come out publically is perhaps a bit sad, but I’d suspect most of his supporters can accept that as a generational thing and respect this. The filmmakers, however, surely knew about this when they embarked on the project. That’s not the “shocking revelation”.
What the film leads up to is the revelation that Jose Alvarez was an illegal immigrant to the US and that this led to a legal process while the film was being made. I don’t think the filmmakers anticipated any of this. This part of the film is rather raw and Randi in particular comes over as very old and vulnerable. It’s however not even clear to me what Randi knew about Jose’s legal status, though I’d guess he did. If one wants to force the issue, then I suppose it comes down to whether the truth was hidden from him or whether he helped deceive the US authorities. Hence the rest of the implication in the title.
It does all end rather sweetly, I thought. Though I can still see his critics trying to use the film against him.