See the Iris Apfel movie this weekend!

I just saw the Iris Apfel movie and I loved it!  She is an eccentric woman who loves fashion and has mostly become famous in her later years for her sense of style and the energy she brings when she walks into a room.  Her trademark large round glasses are such a statement piece and her vintage costume jewelry collection are legendary.  Some of the scenes of her apartment look like an episode of hoarder at first glance, but although it’s crowded she and her husband love every piece and each has a story to go along with it.  I wanna be her when I grow up…what am I saying…I wanna be her now!  I have some round black glasses…I need to go bigger!

Here are a couple of other movie reviews that I saw this past week….

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Wow, is all I can say!  I totally get how people are sometimes looking for meaning in their lives and how believing in something can help steer you in the right direction.  Organized religion does that for many people.  What I don’t get is saluting someone (L. Ron Hubbard, known as LRH) and practically making him a God…which is one of the scenes in this documentary.  That man had quite the ego!! Former members are interviewed and some of the information is quite shocking.  …and coincidentally I’ve scene numerous commercials lately promoting L. Ron Hubbard and his website www.lronhubbard.org…coincidence?…I don’t think so!  I’d recommend it…you can watch it on HBO GO.  More reviews here…and here

The Business of Recovery
I went with a friend to see this movie premier at the Newport Beach Film Festival.  The basic gist of the movie is that there is an exorbitant amount of money being made in recovery treatment centers across the nation.  It quotes and interviews many directors of these treatment centers and at the end of the movie gives you their salaries, which are astronomical….most of them over $400,000/yr.  ….and these are non-profits?!  I thought all of this information was very interesting….and sad at the same time.  What I didn’t like was their bashing of the 12 step program… and specifically Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.)  I know many people who have been helped by it…without the high price of these expensive treatment centers.  The producers of this movie didn’t give a salary quote for the head of A.A…because it’s probably not that big.  A.A. makes most of it’s money on donations and sale of their books. They didn’t interview AA members, just those who had been in those expensive treatment centers and didn’t agree with the 12 step program in general….why??…because it’s Alcoholics Anonymous.  A thought on the movie from an AA member I know…”Some strongly object to the AA position that alcoholism is an illness.  This concept, they feel, removes moral responsibility from alcoholics.  As any A.A. knows, this is far from true.  We do not use the concept of sickness to absolve our members from responsibility.  On the contrary, we use the fact of fatal illness to clamp the heaviest kind of moral obligation onto the sufferer, the obligation to use A.A.’s Twelve Steps to get well….Bill W”  So, go ahead and bash those big expensive treatment centers for preying on those in need (…and I’m sure they’ve helped some people too), but don’t drag A.A. and their policies into it, they’re just trying to help people.  Hell, I go to Weight Watchers and pay to lose weight…groups getting together working toward a common goal seems to work.  Hopefully it’s coming to a screen near you…or you can rent it sometime in the future.  Here’s their FB page for more info.

 You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!