Film Review: You Can See Everything

 

Sexuality/Nudity Offensive

Violence No objection

Vulgarity Mature

Anti-Catholic Philosophy Mature

If there is one thing I would impress upon people who watch documentaries it would be that documentaries are not news reports.  Because these types of films are meant to capture moments of real life and not employ actors, we tend to talk about these movies as if they capture the truth free of narrative.

But the truth about many documentaries is that they tell stories in the same way that most movies do.  They have a story that they are trying to tell.  Instead of using a pre-planned script, the story is shaped in the editing.  The angles, the cuts and the music are there to tell you how to feel and shape your image of the subjects.

If you keep this in mind then I think You Can See Everything is and incredibly interesting movie.

Elizabeth Holmes is the tech entrepeneur who founded Theranos, a company that claimed it could diagnose diseases with a single drop of blood.  She was convicted of fraud and sentenced to prison.  In the weeks before she had to surrender herself, she and her husband Billy Evans invited documentarian Nathan Fielder to film them.  They opened up their lives to him to the point where Nathan moved into their rental home up until she went to prison.  In this part of the movie, Holmes comes off as incredibly odd.  Everything we see in her body language, tone of voice, and choice of words feels controlled and artificial.  Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim do an incredible job of dynamic angles and they make powerful use of extreme close-ups.  The latter saturate the movie so that you feel almost oppressed by how closely you are looking into the subject's eyes.  Throughout this section of the film, Holmes is presented like an enigma, a puzzle that Fielder is trying to solve.  They stare each other down like two poker players, with Fielder trying to find Holmes' tell.  And all the while it seems like these two are drawn closer and closer.

If this is all the movie was, then I would chalk it up to a slightly interesting curiosity.  But that is only the first half.

After Holmes goes to jail, Fielder brings the cut of his footage to actress Amanda Seyfried, who won awards for her portrayal of Holmes in the miniseries The Dropout.  After presenting the footage to her, Fielder asks Seyfried to reprise her role as Holmes for a series of re-enactments.  This is where the movie becomes truly fascinating.  Fielder writes scenes based on his recollections of interactions with Holmes and Evans.  He then directs these re-enactments with Seyfried and other actors in the same way he has been directing the documentary.  In these moments the line between the real and the fabricated begin to blur.  What makes this all the more interesting is that this blurring is part of the fascination with Holmes herself.  Fielder can't seem to figure out what is real and what is a performance.

And all of these portrayals put Evans in a terrible light.  The scenes with Evans himself do not flatter him, but the re-enactments try to cement him as a manipulative villain.  But the movie doesn't take the easy way out and cast the others as heroes.  Fielder is constantly shot in a way that makes him appear like an intrusive creep than a crusading hero.  Seyfried herself has moments where she comes off as incredibly unlikeable in her interactions with Evans.  Everyone on screen feels a little worse for the wear.

What I like about this are the questions that this raises about the medium of documentary film-making.  Should there be a narrative?  And once there is, is this the truth or just one point of view?  And because it is a documentary, is that fair?  Is it okay to use re-enactments or should they be left out because the audience did not get a chance to see the events for themselves?  Is anything we ever see on screen in a documentary "real?"  

Regardless of how manipulative or not you find Fielder, I could not deny his ability to draw you in.  I felt like Homer Simpson when Mr. Burns was staring at him and Homer thought, "Mmm... Look at his eyes. He's trying to hypnotize me."  As I kept feeling sucked in, I kept having to tell myself that Fielder is trying to hypnotize me into going with his narrative.  And his story is compelling.  I wanted to follow his theories until they resolved.

The sad thing is that rather than revealing more humanity, this movie feels like it is a commentary on the general dishonesty of people in society.  It feels like a dark, rather than an uplifting message.  This is not a criticism of the film's power, only a comment on how it will make you feel.  It is actually a much darker film than people think.  It tries to be shocking and raw.  There is one scene where without warning Fielder presents full-frontal male nudity.  There is no reason to do this other than to be a provocateur.

But this film is very effective at provoking.  As a Catholic, I'm not sure I agree with what is being implied about the human condition.  But Fielder so effectively presents his material that I could not stop talking about this movie days later.

Film Flash: Gozilla Minus Zero

 

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

A worthy follow-up to the best Godzilla movie.  Thoughtful, emotional, and powerful.

New Evangelizers Post: It's Okay to Mourn

                                              

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

Today is the Feast of All Souls.

On this day we remember those who have gone before us in death, especially the poor souls in Purgatory. This Feast follows the Feast of All Saints to remind us of the hope that we have in our Heavenly homeland.

But this day can be very complicated, especially if we remember those we love who have died. And the older I get, the longer that list becomes. Remembering them and remembering how much I miss them is not at all a pleasant experience. I miss my grandfather’s smile. I miss how my friend and I would argue about comic books. I miss my mother’s laugh. But now those things are absent from this world.

In many ways, it feels like I am still mourning.

Don’t get me wrong, time has brought its own measure of healing to all of these losses. But they are still losses and I feel them as such.

St. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” And indeed I have encountered those with amazing faith who greet the death of a loved one with complete trust in the Lord. These saintly people rejoice in their loved one’s entrance into Paradise and live in the hope of being reunited. This is an excellent witness and one that all of us should strive to emulate.

But for those of us who are not as saintly, it can be much more challenging. CS Lewis read this verse from St. Paul after the death of his beloved wife Joy and wrote “It astonishes me, the way we are invited to apply to ourselves words so obviously addressed to our betters. What St. Paul says can comfort only those who love God better than the dead, and the dead better than themselves. If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to 'glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' “

What Lewis is getting at is that the saintly ones are focused on the loved one. But for the rest of us, we are also grieving for our own loss. St. Augustine found himself in this dilemma when a friend of his died and he was heartbroken. He wrote “Miserable I was, and miserable is every soul fettered by the friendship of perishable things — he is torn to pieces when he loses them, and then is sensible of the misery which he had before ever he lost them.” (Confessions IV.6)

Lewis commented on this section in The Four Loves when he wrote “Of course this is excellent sense. Don’t put your goods in a leaky vessel…I think that this passage in the Confessions is less a part of St. Augustine’s Christendom than a hangover from the high-minded Pagan philosophies in which he grew up. It is closer to Stoic ‘apathy’ or neo-Platonic mysticism than to charity. We follow One who wept over Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus, and, loving all, yet had one disciple whom, in a special sense, he ‘loved’…There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.”


In other words, loving others means that we are vulnerable to pain and loss. It is true that we should strive to live the words of St. Paul and focus on the happiness of those who have gone before us. That is why today especially it is a wonderful act of charity to pray for the souls in Purgatory, so that their purgation may come to a swift end and they may finally know eternal rest.


But the pain we feel now, the pain we still feel after many years is a sign of the love that we still have. The loss that we’ve experienced leaves scars on our hearts. A priest once said to me that people think scars are ugly, but they are not. Scars are beautiful. They are beautiful because they show us where we were wounded and have been healed. The grief we still feel is not a sign that we have not healed, but that we are healed or healing.

You can read the whole article here.

All Saints Day 2026

 

  The saints have been great friends to me throughout my life.  Today, we are reminded that our destiny is not of this world but of the next.  Failure, humiliation, loss, and suffering in this life are nothing compared to the glories that await the blessed.

It is so much easier to say it than to believe.

That is why we need the saints.  We need the concrete examples of holiness in this fallen world to help us remember that this world is not our home.

So today, I would like to share with you the litany of saints that my wife and I pray every day.  I am leaving out those who are not canonized or in the process.  There are many whose intercession I seek, like my mom and my grandparents, trusting that the love we still share will be strengthened through prayer.  But here are the saints that we turn to each day.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

St. Gerard Majella, pray for us.

St. Padre Pio, pray for us.

Servant of God Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, pray for us.

Sts. Jacinta and Francesco Marto, pray for us.

Sts. Anne and Joachim, pray for us.

Sts. Elizabeth, Zechariah, and John the Baptist, pray for us.

Abraham, Sarah, Hannah and Rachel of the Old Testament, pray for us.

St. Gianna, pray for us.

Pope St. John Paul the Great, pray for us.

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

St. Teresa of the Little Flower, pray for us.

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

St. Catherine of Sienna, pray for us.

Bl. Miguel Pro, pray for us.

St. Carlo Acuits, pray for us.

St. Pierre Giorgio Frassati, pray for us.

Bl. Nicholas Steno, pray for us.

Bl. Michael McGivney, pray for us.

St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us.

St. Maxamillian Kolbe, pray for us.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

St. Augustine, pray for us.

St. Maria Goretti, pray for us.

St. Joan of Arc, pray for us.

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

St. Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

St. Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.

St. Dominic, pray for us.

St. Benedict, pray for us.

St. Philip Neri, pray for us.

St. Bartholomew, pray for us.

St. Andrew, pray for us.

St. Philip, pray for us.

St. Peter, pray for us.

St. John, pray for us.

St. James the Greater, pray for us.

St. James the Lesser, pray for us.

St. Jude Thaddeus, pray for us.

St. Simon, pray for us.

St. Matthew, pray for us.

St. Matthias, pray for us.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

St. Patrick, pray for us.

St. Peregrine, pray for us.

St. Paul, pray for us.

St. Stephen, pray for us.

Sts. Cosmos and Damian, pray for us.

St. William of Rochester, pray for us.

St. Faustina Kowalska, pray for us.

St. Raphael, pray for us.

St. Gabriel, pray for us.

St. Michael, pray for us.

All holy saints and angels, pray for us.

Film Review: Street Fighter (2026)

 

Sexuality/Nudity Mature

Violence Mature

Vulgarity Acceptable

Anti-Catholic Philosophy Mature

Why are video games so difficult to adapt into movies?  

It seems like it should be an easy thing to do.  Granted, some movies and shows lend themselves

to a clear narrative like The Last of Us.

But so many of these games have such clear, distinct, and vivid characters with strong motivations and arcs.  

And yet, I would imagine most of us could name more  bad video game adaptations than good ones.  

I was thinking of this when I was watching the most recent adaptation of Street Fighter.

The movie centers around Ken (Noah Centineo) who has a love/hate relationship with his best friend Ryu (

Andrew Koji).  Ryu wins a great tournament by unleashing some evil energy, but then leaves the fighting scene. 

Ken devolves into an MTV party celebrity.  The dictator M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) arranges a tournament

to lure Ryu out of hiding.  Ken takes up the invitation to come out of Ryu’s shadow.  Meanwhile Chun-Li

(Callina Liang) is undercover trying to take Bison down from the inside.  

When I was directing theater, one of the best insights into the process I read was that casting is 90% of the job. 

I found that part of the process the most stressful, because it turns out that this principle is true.  I knew if I cast

the right people, the production would be great.  But if I miscast anyone, it would drag down the entire show. 

And Street Fighter s a mixed bag in this area.  Koji is excellent as Ryu, the brooding, pessimistic hero who is

trying to turn from his violent ways.  Liang is also excellent as Chun-Li, projecting strength and femininity. 

Vidyut Jammwal embodied the character of Dhalsim in the little screen time that he had, showing off his amazing

physicality.  And Hirooki Goto had one of the best turns in the movie as E. Honda where he portrayed him with

humor and honor.  

But the rest of the casting brings down the movie.  Dastmalchian is horribly miscast as M. Bison.  In the original

live-action film, Raoul Julia was literally dying and frail, but he projected supreme power.  Dastmalchian is a fine

actor, but he never projects the menace necessary for the character.  Centineo also cannot carry the movie on his

shoulders.  Something about his Ken felt very artificial.  Perhaps that was part of the character choice, but it then

doesn’t translate to the sincerity necessary for the character.  

The movie doesn’t know what it wants to be.  It is ostensibly a fighting tournament movie, but most of the most

important fights are outside of the tournament.  And even the important tournament fights are overlooked.  Vega

(Orville Peck) and Guille (Cody Rhodes) have a fight that we NEVER see, but it is only mentioned in the aftermath. 

I have no idea why you would skip something like this, except for budget reasons.

And they must have had budget problems.  The prologue to the movie is animated and it is not short.  And the

flashbacks are also all animated.  It’s like they ran out of money to film these scenes but realized they were needed

for character background.

But the real problem is that the movie cannot fully commit to itself.  When I saw the trailer, I was interested because

it reminded me of Netflix’s adaptation of One Piece.  On that show, the production design is insanely over-the-top and cartoonish, where you will have characters who

hide machine guns in their powdered wigs and they fight with swords in their mouths.  But on that show, the

characters fully commit to the reality of this world so that no matter how flamboyant they are, I believe their

motivations and the stakes involved.  Street Fighter wants to have the look of One Piece but feels embarrassed by it.  Comedians Andrew Schulz and Eric Andre feature prominently, always pointing out the silliness of the events of the film.  Comic relief can help with a strange premise the way Wolverine did in the

first X-Men movie, but the humor seemed to be more at the expense of the film.  The humor also boarders on perverse

sometimes, portraying most of the side characters are creepy weirdos. But the real problem is that the humor

destroys any drama.

You can see this particularly in the final scene of the movie, which I found utterly baffling.  The penultimate scene

sets up a chase where our heroes have to chase after the villains and our disaster will occur.  The final scene finds

them sitting by a country road hitch-hiking.  The entire scene felt like something out of a sketch comedy show with

no sense of immediacy, danger, or importance.  

The entire movie feels like a big bright balloon that slowly deflates so that all you’re left with is the empty husk

of something that once bounced with life.

Film Flash: You Can See Everything

 

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

The most interesting film this year that is sure to inspire debate in the viewers

New Evangelizers Post: The Sacrifice of the Mass

                                             

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

Some people express confusion about the Mass when we say that it is a sacrifice. They ask “If this was the case, then wouldn’t we be sacrificing Jesus over and over?” It is a good question, and I am glad to address it here.

To be clear, the Council of Trent in Chapter VIII on its decrees on the Eucharist stated that the Eucharist is a true and real sacrifice (Canon 1) and that it is a “propitiatory” sacrifice, meaning that it brings reconciliation to God (Canon 2).

I am a philosopher by training. I like to always refer to the Father of Philosophy: Socrates. And whenever Socrates struggled with a problem, he would always go back to defining our terms. What is it we are actually talking about? In this case, I think we need to define the word “sacrifice.”

Pope Benedict XVI wrote a book before he was pope called The Spirit of the Liturgy. He addresses our common understanding of sacrifice as “something to do with destruction.” (pg. 41) We often think of sacrifice as giving something up, like our Lenten sacrifices of candy or social media. These are indulgences that hurt to lay aside. Sometimes we think of sacrifice in terms of life. Many ancient religions would kill an animal or even a human being as an act of sacrifice to their gods. But that is not the real meaning of “sacrifice.” Pope Benedict XVI understands the heart of sacrifice is union with God. What God wants is not some external gift: He wants me.

Even thinking about our Lenten sacrifices, what good does it do to give up candy or social media, if it does not draw us closer to God? Because that is the entire point of those sacrifices: to be brought more and more into union with God by letting go of the things that keep us away. It is the same with the sacrifice of the Mass. The sacrifice of Jesus is meant to bring us into union with Him. Pope Benedict writes, “Belonging to God has nothing to do with destruction… [i]t means emerging from the state of separation… of existing only for oneself in oneself.” (pg 42) In other words, the sacrifice of Jesus draws us out of our selfish separation from God and into union with Him through Jesus.

Christ on the Cross is an act of true sacrifice because it is an act of true love. Love is a gift of the self that God wants. Pope Benedict writes, “Such sacrifice has nothing to do with destruction. It is an act of new creation, the restoration of creation to its true identity.” (pg 48) In other words, this view of sacrifice is not about death or killing. Therefore we are not “re-killing” Jesus at the Mass. This view of sacrifice is about transforming us, which is something that should happen at the Mass.

Pope Benedict makes the distinction between two types of sacrifices: representation and replacement. In representation, there is something of the one who sacrifices in the gift. Pope Benedict points to Abraham sacrificing the ram or the Passover sacrifice of Exodus (pg. 52-53). There is something of the one who sacrifices in the offering. But with the replacement image, the sacrifice is done in place of the giver, literally a scapegoat. Someone else pays so that I do not have to. This is why God, in the Old Testament, kept rejecting Israel’s sacrifices: because they were more like economic transactions than tokens of love. If you take out the trash at home so you can guilt your wife into doing the dishes, your sacrifice is not done out of love, but rather it is a transaction. But if you take the trash out seeking nothing in return, and only do it because you love your wife and want to be closer to her. This is the representational sacrifice. This is the sacrifice of Christ at the Mass. 

You can read the whole article here.