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An Honest Liar
An Honest Liar tells the incredible story of 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, Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru names Carlos.
Release : | 2014 |
Rating : | 7.5 |
Studio : | Left Turn Films, Pure Mutt Productions, |
Crew : | Director of Photography, Director of Photography, |
Cast : | James Randi Adam Savage Bill Nye Uri Geller Penn Jillette |
Genre : | Comedy History Documentary |
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Why so much hype?
Awesome Movie
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
The acting in this movie is really good.
Brilliant , mind blowing ,BIOGRAPHY DRAMA..........................................................................................................dont miss this one
I found this to be an interesting move/documentary into the life and work of James Randi - I had no idea before this that he had quite an accomplished past as a performer himself.Having watched several presentations in which he debunks countless (fake) psychic/mystic charlatans; I was interested to see a little deeper into his life.Yes, a considerable portion of the movie is given to his personal relationship, but it's also revealed where his passion for exposing 'frauds' comes from. Yes... it's a little wishy/washy here and there - but so is the world of deception.Knowing and seeing how far people are willing to go for 'cures' and a better quality of life has always intrigued me; and I feel it's only right that the people who can 'claim' to grant and provide such wishes are exposed. You can only admire that the man claiming such things to be 'fake', seems to back up his claims by explaining how they're done to the people who matter. Whilst not all of this was shown here, he obviously ruffled enough feathers to hopefully allow people to see what really may be going on behind the scenes.All-in-all... a good watch.8/10
This is a story on the tension between reality and illusion.Randi early in life: " I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery."Randi, the great illusionist and escape artist, becomes a fighter for truth later in life. Living a mission to uncover illusionists who are saying they are in contact with the gods like, Uri Geller and Popov, who were claiming psychic powers.Randi proves they are just illusionists, debunking their self-claimed divine powers. Randi believes this is extremely important as people place far to much trust in these fraudulent con-men.I find it interesting to see the human will to believe, people ignoring the proof offered by Randi, wanting to believe in divine powers on the earth thereby feeding the mouth and pleasures of the con men in the world.I wonder is the influence of con men a bad thing?A person in the documentary said it quite well, the energy in the room with Popov was amazing. With his self claimed godly connection he created a belief, a huge energy filling the room, giving people faith, a rush. An energy people lack in normal life. The conclusion is that Randi's skeptic words are an inconvenient truth. Because what is an earth without divine powers? This energy in room with Popov is real. If Randi is right, are we just Muppet's running around being born, feeding ourselves and dying?Randi is a front-man of the skeptics, believing, that we will have a better world without this "god on earth" illusion.With this believe and his well placed actions against the frauds he became a god in itself for the skeptics.It is extremely beautiful to see Randi was living a large part of his life with a huge lie and illusions as well. Thereby proving his no god as well. No god for the skeptics. Just a normal man; an honest man, a liar, all in one. There is divinity in that.
There truly is something mystical about "An Honest Liar", that allows it to transcend its flawed structure and be relevant in spite of it. At its core, the ambition of the film is to establish and walk the line between what constitutes an illusion and what rises to the rank of deception. To achieve this, it takes a good, long look at the life of James Randi, renowned magician and skeptic of things in the paranormal. Going beyond its overarching ambition, An Honest Liar builds on three parts - Randi's life as an artist, his challenges as a skeptic and his (intertwined) personal travail. The first is as interesting as magic can be, without ever revealing the secret behind tricks - I'm sorry, illusions. But the pace really picks up as the case for skepsis takes shape, trying to untie the blatant lies and manipulation from the willing suspension of critical thought and disbelief. The question of what really constitutes the truth, as expressed through the power of belief, both religious and - ironically - scientific, gets a fair, balanced and creative tackle. Ultimately, Randi's personal life and some surprising insights into the act of deception lying close to its core, becomes a bit of a meta-analysis of the previous two parts.The problem is that this last segment mostly fails, because it appears very tangential to Randi's quest and shifts the focus on fairly mundane personal matters that are contorted somewhat to fit the wider arch. Yet, it came easy to me to go beyond it.Just because the directors' reach exceeded their grasp does not mean that the film doesn't work artistically, as an expression and an experience of boundary blurring between truth and lies. It achieves this by dragging you into taking a stand by the end, in a narratively artificial yet intellectually testing personal battle for Randi, after seventy minutes of case building and creating an emotional connection with the subject. In that, it is fun and relevant, stressing the strength of belief over fact, over truth and the challenges that lie in dealing with it.