Call Me Miss Cleo

Before the widespread use of the internet, there was something called 1-900 or 1-800 connections on the telephone for "services". In the 1990's, in the multitude of late-night infomercials was the Psychic Readers Network, a group of people hired to read Tarot cards in a system that charged in the neighborhood of $5/minute. The biggest name of this group of people was Miss Cleo. I really don't know if you are not aware of who this person was that you would be interested in this documentary, but it is interesting anyway for a handful of reasons. People from Seattle were perplexed to see this woman who claimed to be a Jamaican voodoo priestess since she seemed so familiar to them. Her life in Seattle is a good basis as to how to take this person as you see this story unfold. The irony of this is that she was used by the PRN to make millions for them while some poor souls poured their hearts out to her and others in a desperate need to find answers to their problems. The Florida people who owned PRN used her identity (?) to make their money while paying her and others very little. The ending of this movie really confused me as she bravely fought her own confusions and angst to find a happy resolution to the rest of her life. The problem was for me. . .what self image was being addressed? I found the whole thing to be ironically confusing, yet I could not stop watching this.

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.

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?

I FINALLY GOT MY HANDS ON THIS DOCUMENTARY.

I'M NOT GONNA RATE IT (BECAUSE IT'S BASICALLY FRAGMENTS OF INTERVIEWS FROM PPL WHO KNEW HER) BUT I WANNA HIGHLIGHT IT.

IT'S BASICALLY ABOUT THE LIFE OF MISS CLEO AND HER INFLUENCE.

PSYCHIC HOTLINE "GAME" WAS CHANGED FOREVER SINCE HER STEPPING INTO THIS INDUSTRY. ALTHOUGH SHE MADE SO MUCH MONEY FOR THE COMPANY SHE WORKED FOR, MISS CLEO WAS EXTREMELY MISTREATED WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HER AS THE BRIGHT SOUL, HUGE PERSONALITY AND BEAUTIFUL PERSON INSIDE AND OUT.

While not completely awful, this documentary isn't particularly engaging and drags for most of its 90 minutes. Most of the interview subjects add nothing, and even the people who knew Miss Cleo don't offer anything particularly insightful. But perhaps the main problem is that she wasn't a very interesting person. And it seems a bit odd that this doc lets her off so easy for scamming both a theater company before she took on the phony Jamaican identity (she was born in Los Angeles) and of course, all of the people who called into the psychic hotline. At best, she's a footnote -- and worse, she doesn't seem to have any bit of self-reflection or remorse for all of the desperate people who lost money calling into that silly hotline.