Enlighten Up! A Yoga Documentary

Enlighten Up! A Skeptic's Journey into the World of Yoga

Kate Churchill decided that she wanted to do a documentary about someone exploring yoga. She choose Nick, a former journalist as the subject of her film. The film includes interviews with yoga teachers and students including B.K.S Iyengar.
Although I found reviews that didn't give this film very high ratings, I rather enjoyed it.

Here's the trailer for it:

I must say that my absolute most favorite interview was with Gurusharananda.

Here are a few quotes from him:

If you don’t like it, don’t do it.

Be your true self.

As much as possible, try to get rid what you are not and you are unnecessarily wearing on yourself. Try to get rid of this. Happiness not outside…it is within us.

Here's a video clip with Gurusharananda from the film:





BTW, you can see this documentary for free online:
Documentary Wire

But the DVD if you can rent or buy it has some wonderful extra bonuses on it including an extended interview with  Gurusharananda in which he shares some wonderful insights.

Mana, Beyond Belief

This documentary by  directors/writers Peter Friedman and Roger Manley is a visual and musical journey that reminds me a bit of Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi. If you enjoyed these two films, you'll probably enjoy this one too. One important difference is that Mana has narration.

The views of this film will find themselves travelling all over the world from the Maori culture and farther on to many other places, witnessing places, objects and rituals of significance to people of many different cultures.

I borrowed this film and shared it with some friends of mine who were grateful to share this visual journey with me.

A quote from this film: "Every culture on earth carries its own mana."

Here are a few scenes from Mana, Beyond Belief:

Film Review: Glass

Glass: a portrait of Philip in twelve parts is a fascinating documentary about composer Philip Glass. Whether you love or hate his music, I think that you'll find this award-winning documentary very interesting.

This composer is quite the Renaissance man because he has such a wide variety of interests. He's a vegetarian and he practices Qi Gong He worked with Ravi Shankar before the Beatles did! He's also very good friends with artist Chuck Close who did a portrait of Philip Glass.

If you watch the DVD, there are  lots of extra features included that director Scott Hicks didn't include in his film. This director also made the award-winning film Shine which was based on the real life of concert pianist
David Helfgott.

In my opinion, Philip Glass has found himself a good niche as a composer by creating the music for many films, some of which have been nominated for and even won awards. To get a better idea of what kind of music Glass composes, it would be a good idea to watch some of these films.
Here are a few films he's composed music for:

• The Hours 
• Kundun
• Notes on a Scandal
• The Truman Show
• The Illusionist 
• The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara 
• The Thin Blue Line 
• Koyaanisqatsi

Music is a very important part of most films.  I believe that the wrong music can ruin a potentially good film and the right music can make a good film even better!

Until next post, enjoy viewing films! I'd love to hear comments or suggestions from any readers out there!

First thought, best thought. --attributed to Allen Ginsberg by Philip Glass