SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

InjunNose The best Peoples Temple documentary so far, but there remains considerable room for improvement. "The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" glosses over numerous bizarre events in the life of Jim Jones, such as his acquaintance with Dan Mitrione--an infamous undercover CIA operative who was assassinated in Uruguay in 1970--and Jones's extended stay in Brazil during the early 1960s. (Mitrione was there at the same time, working for the U.S. State Department, and the CIA has admitted that it opened a file on Jones when Mitrione was dispatched to Brazil in September 1960). These are established facts, not unverified rumors, so it seems simply lazy to exclude them from what purports to be an evenhanded account of Jones's quasi-religious Marxist cult. Also unexamined here is the medical evidence indicating that most of the 913 victims at Jonestown did not commit suicide, but were murdered. Survivor Stanley Clayton, who is interviewed in the film, saw adults being forcibly injected with cyanide before he escaped from the isolated jungle settlement (see Tim Reiterman's "Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People"), which appears to confirm the findings of Guyana's chief pathologist Dr. Leslie Mootoo, who was the first to examine the bodies. Those findings, however, are not discussed in the documentary. Were mind control experiments being conducted at Jonestown? (There were large amounts of drugs like sodium thiopental and chloral hydrate in the compound's medical facilities.) Was Jim Jones connected to the CIA, and did the agency seize the perfect opportunity to silence Congressman Leo Ryan, one of its most vocal critics? "The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" eschews these questions, predictably reducing the story--once again--to a real-life soap opera about a megalomaniac and his tragically misguided disciples. The interviews with those who knew Jones and worked alongside or followed him are fascinating, but significant and perhaps crucial chunks of the Peoples Temple saga are missing from this film.

e-bradley08 Jonestown, directed by Stanley Nelson, is a film covering the disastrous mass "suicide" of 900 members of The Peoples Temple, led by preacher, Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guana in 1978.The ideas that were presented in this film were numerous; however, I found the idea of the grand power of brainwashing to be particularly interesting. The idea that "you don't ever join a cult, you join a religious or political group with people you like and with whom you have similar views" struck me. Jim Jones made these people believe that his way of life was the only way of life, made them think they could not leave his program, and told them that "if you wanted me to be your God, I will be your God." Though the film focuses mainly on the major events that were involved in creating and being a part of The Peoples Temple and then finally the suicide, the film also talks about Jim Jones as a person. They mention that he was obsessed with death as a child, and was a very good speaker and preacher. It makes mention of false miracles, his abuse of alcohol, and other illicit actions he takes part in. This man influenced so many people and brainwashed them to believe that there was no reason to live any longer, they should just die in peace. It is a scary thing to think that a man like that can have that kind of power over so many people.Those interviewed ranged from members of The Peoples Temple who were unable to go to Guana, relatives of those who were involved in The Peoples Temple, and a women who was able to visit Guana the day before the suicide, to those who managed to escape into the jungle of Guana the day of the tragedy. Those who were able to escape are to be applauded for their bravery to be on film. Their stories are heart-wrenching, and the fact they shared that part of themselves with an audience is to be highly recognized. Two men who were interviewed, whose story you follow throughout the film, watch their children die and hold their wives in their arms as they slip out of consciousness. These two men were able to escape that day.Stanley Nelson directed "The American Experience", which was four documentaries, one of which was Jonestown. The other installments in this series were The Murder of Emmett Till (2003), Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind (2001) and We Shall Remain: Part V - Wounded Knee, which is to air in May of this year. He has also directed films like, "The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords" and "A Place of Our Own." Looking at the film from a purely technical standpoint I really appreciated the editing style in the film. I really loved the use of audio of Jones preaching over still images. I liked all of the images they used of Jonestown and the pictures they used of the dead members laying face down with Jones' voice over it. It was haunting. Also, the music in the film wasn't overbearing and therefore it was very effective. It was well used for tone and establishing a mood for the audience.I really enjoyed watching Jonestown, and I felt it was well filmed and though it must have been a difficult thing to shoot it was handled with great care and creativity. It was a chilling experience and certainly taught me something I didn't know about previously.

coudrietjf This documentary shows how the Peoples Temple, created by Jim Jones, started to be an integrated church and was thought to be a welcoming church, and it also showed how it ended with the suicide and killing of the members. The documentary also shows the early life of Jim Jones and how the Peoples Temple may have gone wrong due to events in Jim Jones' life. Jim Jones believed he created something special and its members believed in it too. The Peoples Temple began in Indiana and it was later moved to San Francisco. It was believed that the reason they moved there was due to the belief of a nuclear war and how they could be safe in the valley. In San Francisco, they grew and later began to be investigated. During this time, Jim Jones quickly began to move to a town that he would create called Jonestown in the country of Guyana in South America. While in Jonestown many would began to go there and live in peace. Some political members went down to investigate and were killed trying to leave. Soon after almost all of the Peoples Temple, members were forced to drink poisoned kool-aid or they were shot. Many were shot trying to escape into the Jungle. The Peoples Temple started as a good idea but later became a tragedy.The documentary does a great job of telling the story how it happened and how it began, and ended. The filmmakers were able to get some surviving members of Jonestown along with some people that belonged to the Peoples Temple to talk about Jim Jones and how he and the Peoples Temple became corrupt. This film does a great job in letting the viewer know what is going on. If you had no idea, what the Peoples Temple was and saw this you would become well informed. The film also goes in great depth to show Jim Jones in every way. It shows him as a sad child to someone trying to make something out of himself by creating this church to a man with too much power and too many people believing that he can do what he wants.

johno-21 I saw this recently at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival. It had a WHG Boston logo at the beginning credit roll so I would assume that this will aired on PBS television stations. Listening to comments from viewers leaving the theater I was surprised that many had never heard of Jim Jones and Jonestown or could barely remember it. As for me, this documentary fell short in that it never really told me anything about Jones and his doomed cult that I didn't already know. This is the story of the charismatic religious leader Jim Jones and his beginnings in Indiana to his moving to California and ultimately founding the Peoples Temple based in San Francisco where he built a large congregation of predominantly black parishioners and their families and former white hippies. He gained political clout but when an investigation into how is organization is run is launched he moves the temple to a remote South American jungle. It compiles news footage, grainy home movies from temple members and still photographs along with some interviews of people who lost family members and survivors. It's being submitted as a Best Documentary out of the USA to the Academy Awards but this is more of a television movie than a theatrical release. It leaves many unanswered questions as to where they got their weapons and cyanide? Who used the weapons to control the 900 into forcible suicide? What happened to those who oversaw the mass suicide? did they live and escape into the jungle? How did his hierarchy work? What happened to all the money that was being used to run Jonestown? This is a good documentary from director Stanley Nelson and writer Marcia Smith who have teamed together on several television documentaries. It's not great but it's worth a look. I would give this a 7.0 out of 10.