a one-off kinda film that is worth seeing for its sheer jaw-drop factor
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01/18/08
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2007)
95 %
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Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 41
Rotten:2
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Consensus: Plagues And Pleasures is a thoroughly engrossing account, both humorous and disheartening, of a once bustling community ravaged by ecological change and human greed.
Theatrical Release:2006
Synopsis: Fabulously offbeat and refreshingly upbeat, this lovable film gets friendly with the natives of the Salton Sea, an inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located... [More]
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Reviews for Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
It makes for a strange, but somewhat endearing, melange of the grim and comic.
12/06/07
Top Critic[A] thoroughly engrossing documentary.
11/30/07
The movie is engaging for the way it documents the rise and fall of a semi-natural landmark, and especially for the way it shows how people still come to California to remake themselves.
11/29/07
Funny, tragic, and informative Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea is an unforgettable portrait of a desert town turned into a sewer.
11/28/07
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is an engaging, entertaining snapshot of a long, tragicomic moment in American history.
11/28/07
Plagues and Pleasures is the best kind of short vacation; you get to lounge with some interesting people, plus you get to learn a little something about the local environment and what can be done to keep it going.
11/14/07
Because of Metzler and Springer's appetite for raw experience, what could have been a depressing horror movie is wildly funny and enraging. It's the rare documentary with something for everyone.
11/05/07
The documentary is informative and entertaining and gives you both sides of the great debate. You may not want to take a vacation to the Salton Sea, but you'll enjoy the visit there.
11/04/07
Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer's 'sea-umentary' is a compelling tale of human foible, greed and inertia.
10/29/07
Plagues and Pleasures is simultaneously fun and creepy, best appreciated by those who enjoy similar profiles of Detroit's crumbling grandeur.
10/26/07
Top CriticPlagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea can best be described as An Inconvenient Truth with a stronger sense of humor, a keen sense of the cost of neglect and with a cast of characters who'd make the residents of Twin Peaks seem mundane.
10/08/07
If Divine were still alive today, he-she might well be wintering on the edge of The Salton Sea.
10/03/07
The ridiculous and the sublime collide, with tragicomic results, in Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer's lively, fascinating chronicle of "Paradise Lost" in the Southern California desert.
10/03/07
Ecological disaster meets greed and a desperate bid for human salvation, in this metaphorical meditation on the forecast apocalyptic doom of America.
09/30/07
Kudos to the directors for painting such a lavish, involving portrait of a fascinating town.
09/25/07
we've seen movies about eccentrics before, but few of them have much to do with anything actually important.
09/22/07
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea is a sort of ecological morality tale. This film is fascinating like a slow motion road accident.
09/17/07
A sad but interesting sociological study of a not completely abandoned desert outpost that seems to be saying, "where there's water there will be humanity."
09/16/07
Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea is funny, enlightening, informative, and most importantly of all - admiring.
09/10/07
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