Day: May 30, 2013

Sleeping during trailers? Should Hollywood trailers only be two minutes long?

It’s commonplace that, even  if a movie starts at 9pm, you’re not late until your get there by 9:30. That’s because trailers take up so much time of the first portion of your theater time.. And that fact has now caused theater owners to try to seek new rules to shorten movie trailers.. 
The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER has the story about how the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THEATER OWNERS (NATO, not to be confused with the other organization) wants to give movie exhibitors more control over how Hollywood movies are marketed inside theaters. Theater owners feel that trailers are already too long and don’t want NATO telling Hollywood they have more power to make them even longer..
Currently trailers are 2.5 minutes long.. But the MAN OF STEEL ran three minutes..
I personally don’t think a trailer lasting more than 2 minutes is effective.. Most of the time, in modern cinemas, all trailers sort of flow with the same format. The horror movie has scary music and the big jump scene.. the action movies have the explosions and the joke at the end.. the dramas have the sad music and the romance kiss.. the comedies have the silly music along with the funniest parts of the movies placed in the trailer. We know the game, Hollywood. We know the game NATO.. and we also know that, in the end, anything lasting longer than 2 minutes, and 2.5 to be sure, is meaningless. The attention span of popcorn eating soda hogs (me being one of them when  I actually get to a theater) isn’t very long.. We are waiting for the main reason we go to the theater. Do I appreciate trailers? Sometimes. But certainly not all of them…
NATO can do what they want.. Theaters can protest. I have no dog in this fight. I’m fine knowing that even if I’m late I can catch a film. 
And if I really want to watch the trailer, I’ll watch it online..

A simple one-sentence AP news alert may signal the beginning of a war

The AP sent a one-sentence news alert across its wire services around this afternoon.. This is it:

BEIRUT — Syrian President Assad says his forces will respond to any future Israeli strike on Syria.

The ever-brewing tension in the Middle East may be coming to a head..
This past weekend John McCain visiting ‘rebels’..
Russia sending arms to Assad..
Israel has vowed to target the missiles from Russia to Syria.
And now this threat from Assad that he’d strike back on Israel if they chose to hit first..

It just seems more and more that we are heading towards troubled times.. Indeed…

Even the simplest and smallest news alerts should cause us pause and give us concern..

Thursday May 30, 2013: News from around the world and beyond

Like always, we will read and weep together…

The Russian earthquake that occurred days ago (the one felt in Moscow) may have been the deepest ever recorded by man.. Does this mean anything to you?? Is something happening to the core of this planet?



The New York TIMES will not be attending a Department of Justice meeting because it opposes an ‘off the record’ session with Eric Holder to discuss the DOJ monitoring of reporters.. Off the record!? AP will not be there either.. The latest report from CNN shows that the media is revolting over this meeting.. All due to this ‘off the record’ session with Holder.. Even if there’s no ‘there there’ it certainly looks strange. Don’t you think? 
Pedophile who ‘killed elderly couple and raped two-year-old’ had been released from prison for almost identical attack just HOURS earlier … This story is disgusting and should not be read by the faint of heart.. it’s horrendous just how sick people in our ‘society’ can so often be.. This story of Jerry Active only amplifies how sick it can be..
Not Sam Wheat.. but GMO wheat.. the USDA has found unnaproved Monsanto GMO wheat in a field in Oregon.. But now that the Monsanto Protection Act was signed… what could really even happen? Either way, lots of people are suddenly angry all over again at Monsanto due to the wheat..
Ready, set, fly by! That big asteroid is about to fly by this planet tomorrow.. And it brings to light the ever important question of what we should do if a big asteroid is set to destroy the earth.. one expert at least suggests that we nuke those dangerous space rocks..
We all know that JC Penny is going broke. So was it really smart for them to make a tea pot look like Adolph Hitler. Really, they did..
The Associated Press profiled Rob Zombie in new article.. According to the AP, the new horror movie reveals he is a ‘renaissance man’.. The AP interviewed Zombie to accompany the article.. Author Jack Vance dies…



Twin sisters from Canada are being called the ‘next best thing’ of horror for their horror hit AMERICAN MARY.. Even Eli Roth gave them advice on how to pitch their film.. Todd Masters did special effects for the film.. The movie has been called ‘feminist’ and ‘SAW-like’ in its sadistic nature.. 
And speaking of sadistic nature of horror films, I’m just about done with them. Seriously.. The torture porn category should be separated from horror..

I would be remiss if I didn’t do this.. a few weeks ago I received an email from my friend over at the CINEMA PSYCHO.. he wrote an excellent article about horror, and about why we watch movies in the genre.. I forgot to link it up at that time, and I am doing so now.. It’s a great perspective on the topic, though.. He concludes that we watch it not to see people tortured and killed, but instead to see a survivor win at the end. I agree.. If you look in the past history, there is always a character that we relate to and hope becomes the hero. That is why I am so opposed to the way movies like SAW and others treat victims.. they dehumanize them in order to kill them all in raw and horrific ways.. But zoom back to the classic HALLOWEEN (not the Rob Zombie version) and we all cheered on Laurie Strode.. The CINEMA PSYCHO post addresses that, as well.. It’s a great read when you have the chance..

Paul Davids tells Clyde Lewis that Forest Ackerman is trying to contact people from ‘the other side’

An amazing Ground Zero Radio program aired last night. Clyde Lewis interviewed writer and filmmaker Paul Davids. The topic: The potential contacts from the other side that Davids is receiving from deceased sci-fi and horror icon Forest Ackerman.
Ackerman was most famous for collecting science fiction books and memorabilia.. He was a staunch defender of the genre long before it was accepted by the rest of Hollywood and society.. He died on December 4, 2008. 
A few weeks ago, a program aired on Sci Fi called the LIFE AFTER DEATH PROJECT. It was created by Paul Davids as a means to explain what he said it contact from beyond the grave from Forest Ackerman..
According to Davids, he printed documents, left his home, and came back.. picking up the document, he saw nothing unusual. Davids went on to explain to Clyde Lewis last night that he came back to the document suddenly was changed while he was using the bathroom.. he said he saw black ink blocking our four specific words .. he claims the ink was still moist.. What words were crossed out? The words ‘Spoke to Joe Amodei’.. Joe Amodei distributes films. Davids said he never really spoke to Amodei.. Davids concludes that Ackerman loved puns and wordplay.. the Huffington POST article writes about what the Amodei word play may have meant:

“I had no idea why these particular words were blacked out,” Davids told The Huffington Post. “It made no sense to me until later, when I was researching Forry’s editorial style and I found lots of examples of where he blacked out words so completely. I have found 15 examples of where Forry found a name within a name or a word within a word as being a hidden word to make a pun or a point out of it.”

Lewis and Davids last night both agreed that Forest Ackerman had no true belief in an afterlife. Their recollection dictates that he doubted science fiction though he was an avid fan of it.. 
The ‘evidence’ that Davids explained to Clyde Lewis last night is being doubted by some, and heralded by others. 
It is about the greatest mystery that we all hold in common: What happens to us when we die? Anything goes or nothing shows? We don’t know.. But maybe, just maybe, if Paul Davids is correct, that we do go somewhere and perhaps have an ability to make contact from beyond this realm.. 

The exorcism of Angel V?

If you read the HORROR REPORT other sources a few days back, you’ll remember the story and controversy of whether the Pope exorcised a demon from a man from Mexico.. 

The video showed Pope Francis forcefully ‘blessing’ the then unnamed man, even holding his head down as the man exhaled loudly while the camera looked on. 

Immediately priests with expertise in the ancient craft of exorcising demons said that Pope Francis had performed the ritual.. The Vatican said no. 


The interview with ‘Angel V’ appeared in El MUNDO.. Here is a snapshot as reported by the VATICAN INSIDER:
Angel told El Mundo, “I still have the demons inside me, they have not gone away!” He recalled the very first time the demons entered into him, it was in 1999 when “I was returning home by bus from Mexico D. F. to my birthplace in Michoacán state”. He felt that “an energy had entered the bus. I did not see it with my eyes, but I perceived it. I noted that it came close to me, and then stopped in front of me. Then, suddenly, I noted that something like a stake pierced my chest and, little by little, I had the sensation that it was opening my ribs” It felt like a heart attack, he thought he would die. From that moment on, he said, his health started deteriorating: he vomited whatever he ate; he felt t pains in his whole body, as if he was full of needles; he began to have difficulty in walking, and breathed “I could not sleep, and when I managed to sleep I had terrible nightmares connected with the evil one”, he added.  He began to fall into trances in which he blasphemed, and spoke in unknown languages.   

Medical doctors examined him and carried out tests but “could not get to the cause of my problems”, Angel said.  Priests gave him Extreme Unction four times, but this only ‘relieved’ but did not remove his problem.

It’s coming to get your Barbara.. oh, you are Barbara..


This story is named Hurricane Barbara. It made landfall today in Mexico. It formed in the Pacific and has now opened the door to an early and potentially strong hurricane season..

It will move into the Gulf of Mexico. If it dissipates and then re-strengthens again and reforms into an organized storm it would be renamed with a name from the Atlantic hurricane list.. Here’s the confusing process..