Oh, God! You Devil (1984)

With a kid working on an ad campaign for God, the sequel in 1980, Book II, was as charming as a Charlie Brown cartoon and probably as good as these Oh God! movies were ever going to get, but the makers force things onwards with this threequel, making demands on an even older George Burns who has to play not just his cigar-chomping, wisecracking God but also a cigar-chomping, wisecracking, tap-dancing (!) Devil, both of them involved in the life of a rockstar wannabe who, thanks to not very good plotting, never really deserves the trouble he lands in and never seems to realise how much worse his poor "fill in" has it.

★★☆☆☆

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Oh, God! Book II (1980)

As in the 1977 original, George Burns' God's strategy for spreading the word of his existence is to appear before doubters and wow them with some 80s-cinema SFX...but not until after he has first driven one unfortunate soul to an asylum with a diagnosis of delusional psychosis, and in this sequel the poor individual isn't John Denver but Tracy Richards, an 11 year old who really should be practising spelling and coming to terms with her parents' divorce, not god-bothered, but she is such a delight, her friend Shingo is so relaxed and natural, their interactions are so well acted, and the movie is so gently amusing and unsanctimonious that the ridiculousness of God's methods doesn't matter: this is a pleasure.

★★★☆☆

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Oh, God! (1977)

Given in the end it takes God turning up in person in an American courtroom to convince those gathered of his existence, his plan occupying the rest of this comedy - communing exclusively with supermarket manager Jerry Landers and having him spread the Word to people who without exception believe him to be a delusional whack-job - seems a harebrained undertaking longwindedly achieving nothing, but John Denver stars as Landers - so that's interesting for a start - and the movie avoids tiresome God-bothering and the trap of sanctimoniousness or saccharinity and instead, with George Burns as a bespectacled waddling old man of a God, is dryly funny and effortless to watch, even given the idiocy of God's plan.

★★★☆☆

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Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

I'm not alarmed by stories of intergalactic wars, nor do I 100% accept that this is in fact the genesis story of the Scientology faith - could it possibly be? - and the abuses of power alleged here and in every other Scientology documentary ever made are concerning and warrant investigation but until proven do not induce in me the level of outrage and dismay that, say, the abuses of another secretive, closed church regularly in the media have caused me - no, the thing that most shocks me about this documentary, one a lot more illuminating, a lot more interesting than many especially given the gormless Louis Theroux hasn't thrust himself smack in the middle of it, is so many people's readiness to believe and their willingness to commit wholeheartedly and whole-financially to the thinnest, flimsiest of premises or promises - I must be too stingy with my time and money.

★★★☆☆

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The Ornithologist (2016)

It is interesting right the way through, but exactly how this "homoerotic Catholic parable" relates to Saint Anthony of Padua and what exactly the movie is about - with him watching birds and birds watching him, and goats watching him cavort with a goatherd named Jesus, and with erections and Tengu noses both stretching this way and that - is a mystery, just believe me.

★★★☆☆

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