Maya Angelou: Rainbow In The Clouds

About 15 minutes into Maya Angelou: Rainbow in the Clouds you realize that what you're watching is more preaching than story, more of a sermon than a documentary. While I have nothing against religious programming, I do feel a little ripped-off when it is not clearly labeled as such. Purportedly, this "documentary" is about the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco's "tenderloin" district, which is under the guidance of Reverend Cecil Williams. Writer Maya Angelou, who appears throughout the program reciting her poems to the congregation and sharing feminist jokes, is very high on Williams who apparently performed both her marriage and her divorce ceremonies and, when she's not busy praising God to the skies, she rains her accolades on Williams. Unfortunately, we don't see enough of the man to really get a grip on him. We do see that he's got the weighty pauses of a Billy Graham, the moves of a Michael Jackson, and a video screen in his church that would make a technophile drool, but that doesn't tell us much. The rest of the program, which is more interesting, is comprised of interviews with converts to the faith. On the plus side, it's clear from these "saved" souls that the Glide Memorial Church is as interested in recovering worldly health as it is in planting the spiritual seed. Still, since Maya Angelou: Rainbow in the Clouds is more of a tent revival than a film, it's really hard to tell what's going on here. Not a necessary purchase. (See LISTENING TO AMERICA WITH BILL MOYERS for availability.)