Purely Joyful Movie!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

You may call it whatever you like, but people who follow such cultist are to me just dumb. They are often exceptionally greedy as Ray is and as others have mentioned he is a positive narcissistic sociopath. Indeed, such risks with the lives of his hapless charges. I am often thinking these folks are well dressed, can pay Ray thousands of dollars to watch his act. That's a steep price to visit Oz, where there is a Wizard and the streets are paved with gold. He now is certainly a sociopath because he shows really no remorse or accepts responsibility for what he did. Indeed I consider Oprah a cult leader as well. The fragile and the greedy always think an easy way to wealth, love and success. But in the end, it really happens the old fashioned way, you have to earn it.

This subject matter and access to insider sources of this documentary is outstanding. This is a fascinating story and this movie gets at much of this. I found a few problems severely limited this film. For one they wait too long in the film to explain the foundational event - which makes much of the film too disorienting. Another problem is that much of the screen time is taking with long pointless shots of people walking to their cars or other non-eventful activities. This comes at the expense of establishing fundamental details about the central event that remain unanswered (and could be answered by the people interviewed if they only decided to focus on that instead of filming people walking to the car again).The documentarians got amazing access to the central figure of this story. Perhaps to keep this access they never ask him the crucial questions or don't press him hard enough. Even if they couldn't get him to answer the questions, they could have talked to other people to get the necessary details of this issue addressed. Instead, this film left me thinking that it is a deliberately biased account and overall a missed opportunity.

You might not remember the name James Arthur Ray, but you certainly remember the story: three people died in Sedona, Arizona during a "sweat lodge ceremony", which was part of some sort of very expensive "self help" workshop. James Ray was the self help guru who organized the workshop and was sentenced to two years in prison for negligent homicide as a result of the deaths.The documentary follows Ray's attempt at a "comeback" after being released from prison, with flashes back to the story of his life and career, culminating in the deaths at Sedona and his trial and sentencing.The story is presented completely without narration or commentary, but as another reviewer said, the makers are very good at "giving Ray enough rope to hang himself" - which he is only too happy to do.I've always felt there's a blurry line between self-help gurus and religious cult leaders, an Ray unquestionably left that line in the rear view mirror. I tend to be very cynical about these things, but even I was shocked at what an unapologetic, narcissistic sociopath Ray is. He can whip up crocodile tears over the deaths when it serves his purpose: as part of his show, in front of the judge, etc, but in the one-on-one interviews, he doesn't even pretend to have the least remorse. I'm not even talking about taking responsibility (which he never does); I'm talking about simply feeling bad that three people died in an activity that he organized. Other people involved in the event, even peripherally, were genuinely distraught over what happened, but Ray only sees things in the context of the effect it had on his career. He seems to honestly believe that he was the ultimate victim of what happened, and after his release from prison, the whole incident has simply become a prop for his comeback tour - which, amazingly, is still finding a paying audience! I'm not someone who could ever fall for this sort of thing, but if you or a loved one are at all susceptible to this type of manipulation and control, I really recommend you watch this, and pay close attention to the audio tapes from the "Spiritual Warrior" workshop that led to the deaths. By then Ray was clearly drunk with his own power over people. He even made them shave their heads just to demonstrate his dominance. Maybe this documentary will help people recognize the warning signs, and look for the exits, before they do something stupid.

Caught this on Netflix, and I was surprised to see that this film had zero reviews. Ostensibly this is the story of the rise and fall of James Arthur Ray, the self-help guru who saw his star crash to the ground when 3 people were killed in a sweat-lodge at his costly motivation retreat. He served time in prison and is aching for his "comeback" (as he says at one point in the film), so he can land his book deal, and move on with his life. The documentary follows him around as he goes to middling speaking tours, pushing people to sign on for further talks and wonders what happened to all the people he helped, where they disappeared after his fall. But the film is also incredibly sly about what it is doing, which is let this unbelievably self-delusional man talk as he justifies his actions, his life and molds the incident into an "experience" that made him stronger while taking no responsibility for it. The more he talks, the tighter the noose gets. The film literally ends with him making the figure three with hand while saying "I'm responsible", and then in the next sentence blame someone else for the deaths. The film is also fascinating when it locates James Arthur Ray in the self- help/motivation landscape that is almost unique to America, the nitty gritty look of the self-help industry-the book deals, the Oprah recommendation, the economics of it all is actually quiet fascinating. It also spends time on how someone like him to could rise and take advantage of deep-seated insecurities and difficult times of the people who may or may not be getting help. This was a really great story told really well.