Dallas, Texas.

It wouldn’t know art if it walked up, won an election, and grabbed its cat.

(Actually, there’s more truth to this than meets the eye. Dallas if full of art-collecting billionaires who hide worth in art, keep it in a continuous state of storage and transit, and dodge that portion of their wealth on their taxes. I retired from that field after a decade. Don’t worry, the book is being written.)

Just because you own art doesn’t mean you know art, and Dallas falls into that trap. Especially when it comes to art-house cinema. Documentaries and such. Credit where it’s due, the Alamo Drafthouse and legendary Texas Theater in Oak Cliff do what they can with what they’ve got, but we need more smaller, special interest theaters. If we already have them, then they need to start blowing up social media so we’ll know they exist. It’s free and in your pocket. I swear, I just needed one more year in New York. One more year!

I really wanted to see this in a larger format, pouty-face.

That said…

Let’s see what the fine folks at Wikipedia have to say about this film:

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The Rev-iew

Allow me to try and explain how badly I wanted to see this film. It was ten in the PM when I took notice of its released on Amazon Prime. Unfortunately, it was not available on Fandango/Vudu, which is my preferred VOD licenser. I actually gave Bezos $25 to own a digital copy of this film. That’s bad, folks. I feel icky. Violated, even.

To boot, I’d had just spent the afternoon/evening at a family gathering with a two-and-a-half hour round-trip drive. I was spent. Also, my wife had just made it home from a week-long museum conference. It was the worst possible time for me to truly ingest something I’d been dying to experience. I spoke aloud into the cosmos for all to hear, proclaiming:

“This film better be so damned good that it turns me into an avid sky watcher.”

I mean, I spent a decade of my life doing the paranormal investigator thing and appeared in newspaper articles, magazines, books, and a documentary film that was never released. Aliens were cool – I was an X Files fan, same as every Gen X nerd – but aliens were rumored to do things to your butt. Why would I invite that into my life? In my decade of research, no ghost ever diddled in my boo-hole. I’d like to keep it that way.

This film is riveting if it’s real, but it tells me nothing. I’m not one who’s been bold enough to believe we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. I’m a professional writer who uses the television as background noise sometimes, and it’s mostly political rhetoric. I’d already seen a major portion of this film, because I soaked-up every second of the congressional hearings as they happened. I’ve also done some research of my own since then. Needless to say, informed.

For me, the view is only fascinating the first time around the mountain. After that, it’s just a pretty background for selfies.

More questions form, no one will answer them, and it’s frustration all over again. The two most high-ranking government officials I saw or were mentioned in this film have proven themselves to be blithering idiots over the past year, and doesn’t add anything to the film’s credibility – like it should. Perhaps if this all took place during the Obama administration, I’d care more about official government disclosure. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t believe a single word on the subject from the current administration without an actual, living alien standing right next to them. This is not a partisan complaint. Trust me, there are stupid people on both sides. Some of them just had better luck when they were handing out jobs.

(Actually, there’s usually an alien already standing next to all of them. I won’t say who that person is, but you can see it in her eyes. She’s not from this planet. There’s no way.)

I expected more from this film, but it’s my fault for spoiling it with life-altering information as it was being released. Most people don’t do that; they have day jobs and babies to take care of etc.

To those busy people, if you can shut off centuries of generational ignorance, this should be the film to tell you we are not alone in the universe and never have been. Just like in the M. Night Shyamalan film “Signs”, to quote loosely, “everything they’ve ever written about in text books is about to change.”

It’s about time. 4/5 stars, as films go. Mind-blowing information that will make you question your own convictions. The director worked with Spielberg before. Of course it was a good film.

But…

If you’re a Fox Mulder wannabe and have been since the mid-nineties…

I’m upset that I spent twenty-five dollars on this film without a physical copy to show for it. Get together with friends, everyone throw in a five-spot, hit the bong, and revel in what we’ve all been cool enough to know the entire time.

There’s a State Park twenty miles outside of Dallas where sky watcher groups meet, and I have an inflatable mattress custom-made for the bed of my truck. Yeah, this is happening.

Stoned “I told you so’s” still hold water at Sunday morning service. I triple-dog dare you…

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