Watch Happy Valley For Free

Thanks for the memories!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The crimes of Jerry Sandusky and the facts regarding the cover-up are well known. What this documentary, perhaps unwittingly, uncovers is how football enthusiasm at Penn State had long ago metastasized from from a sport to a full blown cult. The disturbing and unhealthy blind obedience to all that is "football" is on full display. The son of Joe Paterno, who covered for the pedophile, Joe Jr., says with no sense of irony whatsoever, "If I don't see it, it didn't happen. Some would call that denial, but it works for me". And then he laughs. He is not referring to Sandusky's crimes but rather to criticism of the cover-up. But it clearly speaks volumes to the mentality that created the safe haven for a serial child rapist and would do it all again given the same set of circumstances. A student fan compares Joe Paterno, again with no awareness of inappropriateness, to Jesus. Jesus would never have turned a blind eye to the suffering of a child. I thought that the conviction of Sandusky the reprimand of Penn State by the NCAA would confer a sense of justice and finality to what can only be described as complete moral failure by every individual at every stage of this more than 20 year crime spree and cover-up. After watching this documentary, however, I am disturbingly convinced that something about Penn State football is still rotten at the DNA level, and that ANYTHING could happen again and it would come as no surprise. The disturbing resolution is not the fault of this very good documentary. It is the fault of the morally bankrupt individuals who still run the town.UPDATE: 6/2/17, Ex-president Spanier, 68, sentenced to 4 to 12 months, with the first two to be spent in jail and the rest under house arrest, athletic director Curley, 63, received a sentence of 7 to 23 months, with three in jail, former vice president Gary Schultz, 67, sentenced to 6 to 23 months, with two months behind bars. None of them will spend more than a few months in actual jail. It was reported to these men by Joe Paterno that Mike McQueary saw Sandusky raping a boy in the showers in the Penn State locker room late at night. They did NOTHING!!! Another 10 years would go by before Sanudsky was finally stopped and brought to justice. Who knows how many more children were abused and raped because these good men allowed a monster to his undeserved freedom. Why has it taken 16 years to bring these enablers to justice?

I liked this documentary very much. Watching people involved in the unchecked crimes of Jerry Sandusky give their side of the story was much more revealing than reading quotes. Matt Sandusky, Jerry's adopted son, impressed me as thoughtful and sincere. He did his best to be fair to Sandusky, saying that ninety percent of the time he spent with the man was everything a kid would want--association with fame, access to football games, etc.--but the other ten percent "would destroy you." I was shocked when Matt, at the end of the film, said that not one single person from the Sandusky family contacted him after he went public about how Jerry molested him. What kind of people are Dottie and her relatives? If they didn't believe him, you would think someone might want to talk with him and ask him to take back his "lies." But no. That didn't happen.The one thing missing from "Happy Valley" was any mention of the well-known fact that Paterno decided that some of his players who broke into a residence and beat people should not be put into the legal system. Paterno clearly believed that he and his players were above the law. He decided the law-breaking players would clean up the stadium after some games. It's also known that then-President Spanier and other higher-ups in the Athletics Dept. all agreed that Paterno was in charge of things like this. This piece of history is a big deal. It should have been in the documentary.The behavior of some of the residents of Happy Valley was detestable. There's an extended scene in which these idiots don't hesitate to grab a sign from an older man making his negative view of Paterno known at the statue of the coach. A woman who wants a selfie with the statue pushes the man aside with her body. Others get in his face with red-neck-type logic. It's scary to see how conformist the community could be---all worshiping a football program. This film had to be made, and it was made well.

"St. Joe": What Penn State, College Station, and the world called Joe Paterno before the Jerry Sandusky indictment.No one ever called my town, Columbus, "Happy Valley," but when Ohio State defeats Michigan, it's a happy valley indeed. That euphoria over a football program as successful as Penn State under head coach Joe Paterno with its spell cast so widely is the engine that drives a community to miss the signs of crime such as assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's abuse of young boys.Amir Bar-Lev's documentary, Happy Valley, covers the historical bases of Sandusky's conviction on multiple counts and Paterno's eventual firing (and death a few months later) for not doing more to bring justice for the abused boys. Even Sandusky's adopted son, Matt, who is the most talking head in the doc, waits until boys have testified against Sandusky to confess he lied—he was abused.That confession is at the heart of this slowly competent documentary, for it encapsulates the ambivalence of a community so mesmerized by football and its cast of characters that it takes a while to acknowledge some of the actors have feet of clay. Sandusky is easy—he was seen in the showers with boys—but Paterno, the beatified coach (the statue on campus is now gone, as if he were Hussein or Stalin), challenges their understanding of a morality that extends beyond just legally telling a superior about an incident, as Paterno did.Bar-Lev's is as even-handed as could be: the media is held up to harsh light with its aggressive, predatory pursuit of the sensational; the NCAA is never fair enough; and the University, from president on down, can't get it just right.And so it goes—this well done doc, despite the sometimes vacant talking heads, shows few participants not caught up in the hoopla. It sure makes me think Ohio State's Jim Tressel dust up was just a skirmish in an enduring battle for the hearts and souls of students and the communities where they live.

The film does not consider the sources of info. A major player in the film is Matt Sandusky. He is portrayed as almost a hero in the film, without mention of his multiple convictions for assaulting his wife, her protection from abuse orders, his mentions of lying to police for years, as well as none of his brothers and sisters, who shared his room in Sandusky's house. The narrative of the film was decided before it was filmed, and that's not what a documentary should be. The Penn State fan was literally a fanatic, and didn't seem to represent the student population well. This is more of a conceived story than a factual documentary.