Call Me Miss Cleo

This documentary is just awful. Incredibly biased on Ms. Cleo's behalf. The woman was a scam artist but this film tries to make you feel sorry for her, while offering up no proof at all. Just drones on and on about meaningless things that have no real connection to the subject matter. Just another blatantly biased documentary that was cobbled together to revise history and push an agenda. Most of the people interviewed have little to no actual connection to Ms. Cleo. The ones who do are biased and there are no conflicting or contrasting views presented. Also, Raven-Symoné is absolutely intolerable in this. Why is she in it in the first place?

Engaging documentary regarding an iconic Black woman that was skewered in the public arena. Heartbreaking to hear of her humble, tumultuous beginning that inconclusively led to her poor handling of affairs later in Seattle and beyond. The Miss Cleo commercials couldn't be avoided in the 1990s and early aughts, as she was an engaging being. Fallout from the scheming duo that devised the Miss Cleo brand seem to have buried the person, while leaving the business moguls unscathed. Miss Cleo, her patrons and the company employees were all used and mistreated. Glad to see that this documentary illuminates this cautionary tale for anyone with a tremendous, personal talent that can be abused.

Parroting the other low reviews, really missed the mark. Almost no direction or attempt at trying to build any kind of interest. Just snagged the low hanging fruit.

Hard focused on some weird tangents and glazed over the interesting parts. Just hopped over the actual crime and lawsuit bits in little spurts as fast as possible.

The biggest thing is they really skipped over the people that got taken advantage of for the sake of trying to make you feel bad for her. If it was really that bad of a scam, they probably could have dug about and found at least a few victims to interview right?

We get zero of the victims perspective (besides a few tiny secondhand stories) or how they felt. If there were so many documented complaints and you spoke with prosecution post trial and settlement, you probably could have gotten at least 1 or 2 to speak. Having someone who spent a lot of money/time on the hotline and how they view it today would have been an interesting counter view.

This doc just has a very clear target audience. I'm just being honest. You might like this if your black, lgbtq, or both, but you also might feel like they hard pandered to that demographic as a way to make a lazy documentary off of a nostalgic figure.

There's for sure a super interesting story here about that industry and Cleo's personal story intermingled. It's a really interesting cultural phenomenon. Unfortunately, all this doc amounts to is a "We love Miss Cleo" party.

Plus, the editing is poo.

This is not a very well made documentary. A good number of the people being interviewed have no personal connection with miss cleo. Nobody in the documentary knows anything about her background/childhood, everyone is just speculating. This film then takes a turn towards the end when it just beings to pander to certain audiences and prolongs useless scenes. This movie is filled with a bunch of useless filler scenes and celebrity commentary that brought absolutely nothing to the documentary. Terrible documentary, no one interviewed knows anything about Cleo. Just random white people saying their her family, but yet they have no idea where she's from.

I had no intention of being actually engaged with this but was sobbing by the end. Miss Cleo was just some hack from 90s infomercials right? Who knows, but she was also a human with a life and a soul and trauma with people who loved and cared about her. I can just hope that people in my life look back on my mistake sworn as much grace and forgiveness as the people that love her looked back on her.

It also just gives me some mad nostalgia for waking up in the middle of the night on the couch seeing her and being so curious and having idea what is happening and it feels like some weird closure to at least a part of my childhood.

Whatevs, watch it if you have a soul.