Has anyone seen this new HBO documentary?

[onager]

No One Dies in Lily Dale

HBO documentary examines a small town in upstate New York that remains a haven for spiritualism.

Started showing on HBO about a weeek ago. Been meaning to catch it, but my TV time has been pre-empted by more thoughtful intellectual fare. (Yeah, like "The Devil Wears Nada...")

No iMdb reviews yet, which seems strange. Usually the woos jump in early and jack up the rating.

I think we can tell where the LA TIMES reviewer stands...

July 05, 2010|By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times Television Critic

Nestled among the glens and groves of western New York, about 60 miles south of Buffalo, sits the 130-year-old community of Lily Dale, the self-described World's Largest Center for the Religion of Spiritualism.

It is a town peopled by mediums and healers, folks who will draw the toxins from your body by waving a green pepper at your back, analyze your aura or — and this is what attracts most of the thousands of seekers and sightseers who pass through each year — get in touch with your late loved ones, gone to that undiscovered country from which no traveler returns but where operators are standing by.

The 40 mediums who live and work there have been "registered" (a title card informs us) after "rigorous testing by its board of directors" — which is to say, they are medium-approved mediums...

Cantor ("loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies") adopts a tone of fond skepticism; he does not decline the comedy his subject offers up on a plate, but, if only in that he does not judge them outright, he's basically sympathetic to the people and the process.

The only really negative view comes from the Bible-toting protesters at the gates.


http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/05/entertainment/la-et-lily-dale05-20100705

[salvorhardin]

1. That sounds like an interesting documentary

I was hoping to find a copy via the usual channels but so far no luck. Western New York has a fascinating history infused with a supernatural dose of woo. It's where the spiritualist movement took root in the U.S. (the Fox sisters), and was called the Burned Over District. That name came about because the area was so heavily evangelized that there wasn't a soul left to fuel the fires of god in the wake of the 2nd Great Awakening. And that's not even getting into all the various cults and Utopian settlements that have graced the upstate farmlands from Hartwick (New Jerusalem) to the Oneida Community to Lily Dale.

At times while driving through that area of New York I've often thought about that period in history and how so many people so fervently believed in so many weird and competing things. I'm not sure I could have lived there in that time. For any secular skeptic it must have felt like living in an alien, and quite deranged, culture.

[Silent3]

2. I found a showing on 7/23

Unfortunately it's only on HBO Signature (not high-def, damn it, and I don't know how common that particular HBO channel is going to be in other people's cable channel line-ups) at 2:30 AM EDT. At least as far ahead as my TiVo guide goes, there aren't any other showings coming up.

[onager]

3. "How can I turn off my GIFT?"

:rofl:

OK, I caught the show tonight, thanks to On Demand.

The Subject line - from a Visiting Medium (VIM?) whose Spirit Guides should have told her not to go walking thru the woods in purple FMP's with 4-inch heels.

Definitely worth an hour and a half of a skeptic's time.

I don't want to SPOIL(ER) it for you, so a couple of things to watch for:

--The two women, one a devout Xian Fundamentlist, who have suffered horrible tragedies...and seem to leave Lily Dale as stone skeptics, at least where mediumship is concerned. Both encounter half-baked mediums who get cocky and push just a little too far with their John-Edwardian mumbo-jumbo. You'll know when it happens by the women's expressions.

The Fundie woman is from Southern California, and makes some apt comparisons between Lily Dale and Disneyland.

--Brief mention of Harry Houdini visiting Lily Dale and knocking on doors. No one would let him in, since he was on a very public campaign against psychic flummery at the time.

--And because of that, Lily Dale banned "physical mediums" (ectoplasm, table-knocking, etc.). Only decent, hard-working mental mediums allowed nowadays! Uh...except that all the guests get invited to do a little table-tipping. Insert eye-rolling.

--You'll notice that nearly all the wowsers in Lily Dale use the title "Reverend." Even the creepy little bald asshole whose opening pitch to the customers, and even his by-rote prayer, have all the personal warmth and comfort of the cockpit announcements before a flight.

BTW, he's come back from the dead 3 times. The first time, he (yawn) went thru a Tunnel Of Light and saw Jesus on the other side. Personally, I suspect he was just sucking up to the Fundamentalist. Which didn't work.

[frogmarch]

4. Thanks for the info. It

sounds like fun. I'm going to watch it.

(As for The Devil Wears Nada, I started watching it one night, thinking it was The Devil Wears Prada, which I'd never seen. I kept waiting for Meryl Streep to materialize in the hellfire. It took me a few minutes to realize I was watching the wrong movie.)