Audience Member
I saw this film on TV - it was a tear-jerker - best film I've seen in 20 years....
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
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Audience Member
I liked Tom Sizemore's comment at the end of the film that most people have no clue what they're doing on this earth...
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
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Audience Member
Tim Chey hits a home-run with this intelligent gem. This is not a movie for everyone because it has a real message and most people can`t be bothered with something like that. It`s a dialogue driven movie that delivers. Really good points and issues are addressed. We live in an mindless entertainment obsessed culture so it`s refreshing to see a film that stands above the rest. This movie has entertainment and is of serious value.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
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Audience Member
'The Genius Club' is a true wonder in filmmaking. The film critics who have applauded this film understand the true implications of a world that hates intelligence.
The ones who have attacked the film never get to the issues of what the movie talks about.
Why is that?
Maybe the issues are too deep for these mindless critics so the next best thing is to attack the entire movie's idea - which again shows you the movie critics love being thought of as intellectual, but really can't prove they're intelligent.
The issues of why we don't have a cure for cancer, for instance. Read the review. Nada.
Issues on why we spent 1.3 trillion on the Iraq War covered in the movie. Again, nada.
The hateful critics just steam at the Christianity that's presented in the film. By the way, don't listen to my fellow Christian critic - he's been bashing films for over 10 years and one day someone will slap him with an overdue lawsuit - God-willing.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The only reason this film was not nominated for an Oscar was because of its essential Christianity. Forget the one review on this board - it's from a guy named Joel who's been attacking Christian movies for the past 10 years. The best verse I have for him: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight." - Isaiah 5:20-21
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
Full Review
Audience Member
According to this excellent A.V. Club piece from late last year on <i>The Genius Club</i> (http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-genius-club,32685/), the movie was debuted at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. That's an incredible thought, since the movie pretty blatantly exudes the direct-to-video spirit. It's a low-budget thriller which refuses to believe it has a low budget, complete with bad actors and a script to serve as nails in the coffin.
The story is simple enough. Seven people, all of whom have IQs over 208, are summoned to a secret basement to meet with the President of the United States. It seems that there is a madman who has planted a bomb eleven blocks away from the White House and is threatening to blow up half a million people in D.C. unless this group of super-geniuses can solve "all of the world's problems" in one night. Of course, the world's problems will be graded on a point-scale - if the seven geniuses reach 1000 points before morning, they will live.
The thing that the A.V. Club review of the movie points out constantly is that these alleged geniuses act like complete idiots. They're handed elementary-school riddles, but scratch their heads trying to come up with an answer. "A man rides into town on Friday, stays three days, and leaves again on Friday. How come?" But it's not just that. The movie takes the form of a philosophical discussion. Instead of questions asking how to, say, prevent wars from breaking out, the questions are set up more like this: "All wars have been a reprehensible waste of human life. Discuss." That wouldn't be so bad if there were any genuine thought behind the answers given. Instead, there's a string of weird conspiracy theories about how cancer hasn't been eradicated yet because the medical community benefits from the disease. In a flashback, a man whose wife is dying of cancer rails at a doctor: "The riding mediocrity in this country is profound... go back to your magazines and your television shows!" Why don't we have an electric car yet? Because the oil companies shut the development down, which proves that we are not living in a democratic republic here in the U.S., but instead in a "quasi-Communist state." What?
This is all pretty stupid. When government agents approach the genius pizza delivery guy (played by Stephen Baldwin), he quips: "You guys are way outside my delivery area." A character who is defined by little else besides his occupation! Amazing. Later on, a baseball player is shown tossing a baseball in the air. Does he really travel with a baseball on him at all times? One of the government agents seems to have a past relationship with the bomb-wielding madman, but nobody presses him on it. Some geniuses. Their relationship is alluded to countless times, but if anybody ever asks what the hell is going on, it's just shrugged off. Oh, and the President - an obvious Bush proxy who at one point claims that he is trying to take the country back to an age of ethics and morals and marvels that "some people believe I <i>wanted</i> to go to war" - continually gets derisive glances from the geniuses who believe that he intentionally cut cancer research because, I dunno, he hates cancer patients. They are pointedly ignorant of the way that the political process works, ignoring the valid point that there may have been additional politically-charged riders on the bill which made it unsuitable.
Okay, yes, yes, the movie is bad. But the reason I sought this film out is not because of the taut plot or the chilling thrills. No, no, I sought it out because I was looking for the high that comes from watching a terrible Christian movie. Unfortunately, <i>The Genius Club</i> doesn't whip out the Christianity until near the end, and once it does it only trots out the weakest and tritest of arguments - stuff that is only convincing if you have never ever <i>ever</i> heard a counter-argument before. "Atheism is a religion," the genius seminary student claims, "because it takes as much faith to believe that there isn't a god as to believe that there is." The madman awards 100 points to Gryffindor for that thought, as though it were original or convincing. The seminary student goes on to conclude that everybody has faith because they remain inside of buildings, exhibiting their faith that the building won't spontaneously crumble and crash down on top of them, killing them instantly. Do I really need to tell you that there is a <b>huge</b> difference between believing that a building won't disintegrate around you and believing in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator deity?
The madman presses the geniuses: can you prove that there is a god? A cancer researcher takes a stab at it, asserting that the earth is set in space at precisely the right angle to support life. If it was tilted just a few degrees to the either side, we would all burn up or freeze to death. It pains me that I feel obliged to address these idiot arguments. Obviously the world has the perfect conditions for life - we exist! That does not prove God's existence. What would better point to the existence of a god is if we existed even though conditions were completely unsuitable for life. Whatever. Back to the seminary student, whose argument is even more dumb. He points to a passage in Romans, which essentially boils down to, "Look at the sky! Look at the trees! That means God exists!"
The most interesting moment in the film comes when our resident atheist, pizza-delivery boy Baldwin, wonders how a good and loving god could exist in a world filled with so much despair. The typical answer for this is quickly provided: bad things happen because we are sinful. Sorry lady, your kids got run over by a drunk driver because they deserved it.. or God was trying to bring you closer to him.. or we can't understand God's plan. The majority of the geniuses in the room seem content to nod along with this, but Baldwin suggests something radical: <b>"Maybe God is evil."</b>
"NO! GOD IS GOOD, MAN IS EVIL!" the seminary student fumes. It's the closest thing to true emotion that the movie has the ability to convey. He doesn't even bother trying to back up this statement in any way, expecting everybody to take it as a given. And they do. Nobody brings it up again. Even Baldwin's character refuses to press the subject. But then again, what were you expecting? This is a movie that hinges on philosophical discussion, but is unwilling to actually have any sort of meaningful discussion. The characters' lines are stupidly scripted; there is no sense that anything said is organic at all. This isn't a meeting of the minds, it's a mess.
All of which is to say that <i>The Genius Club</i> is pretty terrible. It's a lazy Christian film and a worthless thriller, boring and brain-dead. There's really not anything positive that can be said about the movie, honestly.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/15/23
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