In the 1980s, Joe Newman—autodidact inventor and backwoods eccentric—began to gain notoriety for a “perpetual motion” machine that seemed to produce more energy than it expended. By exploiting certain magnetic field principles, Newman came up with a homemade generator that essentially defied the laws of thermodynamics. This was supposedly such a revolutionary concept that if mass-produced it could have literally changed the world. Director Jon Fox tells Newman's story with a riveting rise and fall arc: such a potentially game-changing invention should have made getting a patent a cinch, but what at first seems like a simple case of a patent officer's ignorance in rejecting Newman's idea eventually leads to all-out war against the U.S. government that takes on the dramatic magnitude of a 1970s paranoid thriller. Newman becomes embroiled in a David vs. Goliath struggle that eventually threatens to break him both financially and mentally. And viewers are left asking whether it was Newman's crackpot eccentricities or a governmental conspiracy that led to the final outcome. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Sandlin)
Newman
(2017) 88 min. DVD: $19.95, Blu-ray: $24.95. FilmRise (avail. from most distributors). Volume 33, Issue 1
Newman
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