Month: April 2015

The catch up weekend: It Follows

I am finally able to say I feel more on top of the horror genre. Friday night I saw BABADOOK. Last night at 945 in a movie theater, I saw IT FOLLOWS.

And it did follow indeed.

By now you surely know the concept. Kids have sex to transmit not an STD but a demonic other worldy force. Then it follows them. And wants to kill them..

Let me first stop before anything else and reflect on what I was told IT FOLLOWS was, and then give me thoughts. IT FOLLOWS was the horror movie of the decade, some said. Other painted a haunting picture of a movie that hits deep, that means something, speaks volumes about poverty and modern day economic problems, youthful angst and casual sex without thought. The horror flick has scored well on a number of different websites. Movie reviewers found little about it to be critical ..

So in the constant spirit of daring to be different, I had to find something, right?
Well it was tough.

There really wasn’t anything done wrong in IT FOLLOWS, just a lot of things done much better than other films..

The best, overall, the utmost best part of IT FOLLOWS was the score. I am considering purchasing the soundtrack but figure I may not listen to it because it would scare me too much. The music was foreboding. It was somewhat similar to HALLOWEEN at times.. It caused your heart to race and quite often sort of forced you to glance around in the dark movie theater to ensure you weren’t going to see someone follow you. The music set the tone. It was amazing.

The other tone setting aspect: The setting. Detroit, 8 mile, and the clash between the suburbs and the inner city. There were so much political, sociological, and economic commentary in the film, you lost track.

The cast of the movie further complimented the storyline. Maika Monroe deserves all of the credit she has been getting. She became a scream queen without screaming.. She is faced with a force that, if you follow it through, will never stop following her and eventually will catch up. Keir Gilchrist played a believable role as Paul. Jake Weary was the ‘bad guy’ but not really bad as Hugh. It’s a tough movie to pin the blame on anyone in.. The rest of the cast compliment the best players in it. . . and they are all likeable and believable as people. In horror sometimes, we get the less interesting characters thrown to the wolves first. In IT FOLLOWS, we were given a cast of people we wanted to see live. We liked them.. Though a bit more background could have been done as to why they all seemed jobless and sad, I think that was the point. Detroit. Economy. Manufacturing base crushed and kids just having too much time on their hands in the fraying safety net of the BURBS.

There were a few other things I thought were amazing..In IT FOLLOWS, we don’t really know what the force looks like. It takes on the appearance of many different people.. so what is really behind those human faces? That is the creepy mystery that persists even after the movie is over.

And speaking of over.. the ending 15 minutes were intense. The movie is a little slow in building up a story, but the last few scenes are heavy in action and emotion, raw in horror, and epic in production. The final final final scene gives rise to the possibility that the viewer of the movie is either paranoid or the makers have perfectly set the scene for IT STILL FOLLOWS, a potential sequel..

But I hope there is no sequel.
I think this movie will stand on it own and be a place marker in the history of horror–and perhaps a game changer more than anything. It may sweep away the pointless and give us something we can cherish… a horror film that scares but doesn’t do it in a cheap and pointless way. A movie about sex and with nudity, but somehow done in a way that doesn’t cheapen the story.

But the music..
The foreboding music.

I think the scenery and the score of the film are dramatic and done the best of all.. I am not going to conclude, as some others have, that this is the best horror movie of the past ten years. But I will certainly say it has the best elements of horror that could make me eventually feel it was the best movie in a decade… that may have started last night driving home in the darkness… when even in a safe car, I found myself glancing at the night time air and pitch black forest around me to ensure that no one was following me.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JgeucI4oLs]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dwvCkaTBz0]

April 19, 2015
Carrie Fisher unloads: Drunken scenes, Lando’s dirty talk, and hangovers from hell

The UK TELEGRAPH is among the sources to compile from of the best quotes from a recent ‘Date with a Princess’ STAR WARS celebration.. Carrie Fisher became, as usual, the honest Leia.. Those in attendance were most likely either shocked or thoroughly happy at the juicy gossip on the display with Fisher and her French Bulldog, Gary, on stage..

As the TELEGRAPH reports, some of Fisher’s own words.

She got drunk with the ROLLING STONES before the Cloudy City scene filming..

“And they’re a partying bunch of guys, and though I didn’t drink at the time, to be kind of amenable, or whatever, I drank. I used to say I’m allergic to drinking, and this would have been a demonstration of that. And we stayed up pretty late. Charlie [Watts], that one, he didn’t have a lot of facial expressions. He’s like the Darth Vader of the Stones.

“And we stayed up really late and got to the set about two hours later. And we weren’t hung over, we were still in our cups. And if you watch the movie you can see that: Harrison and I are smiling as we arrived in Cloud City. Doesn’t that sound like a euphemism?”

Lando Calrissian had a dirty mouth..

“Billy Dee Williams was funny. Right before he was going to kiss my hand, he’d say something incredibly filthy, and I would laugh. Something about the Force and it being with me… He was a lot of fun to work with.”

Fisher thought her kissing scene in STAR WARS was ‘hot.’… She dubbed herself the ‘space slut’..

On her favorite STAR WARS scene:

“Probably one of the scenes where I said something awful to Harrison. ‘Scruffy looking nerf-herder’, something like that. What a moron.”

Should you want more, here is the stream. Skip back in time if you want the juice.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNTpnUR61g]

April 18, 2015
The Plumbing of Walmart story in perspective

Walmart suddenly closed stores in a number of states last week.. All for what the corporation called plumbing problems. Every news account however details that no plumbing permits are being sought..workers in Walmart were suddenly without work.

Conspiracy theorists went hog wild.

JADE HELM!!
FEMA CAMPS!!
ASTEROID STRIKE!!!

If you want to hear an alternate, sensible, and true podcast about, I have an idea.

Last night Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis tackled the WALMART closing issue in a refreshing way, Clyde Lewis correctly said that this has nothing to do with FEMA camps or Jade Helm.. instead, if you look at the stores WALMART suddenly closed for the ‘plumbing’ issues, it was all locations where workers had previously protested low wages. Yes, there is more to the story. But conspiracy theorists have gone overboard. Sometimes the answer is much simpler than a vast conspiracy.
But we also know that the official plumbing story doesn’t hold an ounce of water..

The full show here:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/201364845″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=’450′ iframe=”true” /]

April 18, 2015
I Finally saw BABADOOK. And it made me quite sad

By now you most likely have too. And even more, if you didn’t, you read enough to decide if would even appreciate the film.

I won’t write a long winded review at this point, simply because I’m late to the game. But I will say that it was a little painful to watch. The horror element is interesting. We are deflected at first, in a sense, and told to fear the BABADOOK. The mother continues to try to burn the book containing the BABADOOK’s words. The child, in this case a remarkable Australian actor Noah Wiseman who I think carried the film much better than even the main star Essie Davis, is also battling demons. His demons aren’t typical, though. He has fears like other children.. he has sadness and grief. And in this film, he has a clearly mentally ill mother.

I am going to perhaps spoil it a bit, but not intentionally. Read on if you want..

I think the BABADOOK is a farce. I don’t believe it to be real.. even more, Essie Davis’s character Amelia is a former children’s author. I think she understands the profound ways to either comfort to frighten children. In BABADOOK, she does both, sometimes simultaneously. Her demons are in the basement in this film–the death of her husband defined her existence. She never fully mentally recovered from it, and as a matter of fact, descended into mental illness. The BABADOOK wasn’t real, but she made it real. She created it in her own mind and convinced her son that it was real, too. The ‘monster’ that Samuel was forced to battle in the end was his own mother–a mother who slipped by police and circles of friends with her mental illness. Instead of anyone helping her, they shoved her away. As we often do in society.

Samuel and Amelia had no family or friends in the end. They were abandoned.. they were alone. Amelia to somehow deal with her mental problems alone and her son, Samuel, forced to grow up without a father and under the gun of a mother who either may hug him or try to stab him.

The movie is heavy handed with metaphors. It’s scary at first.. but when I started to consider what I thought it was really about, I was left was the final impression at the end of how sad it was. How hopeless..

Even though the final scene provided comfort after a movie of some rough stuff–and a dog strangling–I wasn’t at ease at all. I think the mental illness–the BABADOOK–will rise again. You can never get rid of the BABADOOK. And in this case, as long as Amelia tries keeping her personal demons locked away, the BABADOOK indeed will return again.

April 18, 2015
Life and death viewed by the angry young man

Cancer is a horrid circumstance.. a outright awful ailment, and a continuous plague that hits without forgiveness or mercy.

I trust that you, the reader, most likely have been faced with a family member of friend succumbing to this affliction.. There are endless tales of horror from children’s hospitals and nursing homes. No one can escape this scourge, so often..

I am writing this brief post tonight to get some emotion off my chest.

Recently, my uncle and godfather passed away after too long of a fight with cancer. He fought to stay alive. Fate would have it another way. When he lost his battle, he left behind a family of people who have yet to stop completely grieving his death.

And now, this night, a close friend of mine finds himself in an unsettling place: A hospital bed with tubes and monitors attached to him.. he beat one form of cancer only to find out it spread to another place. Suddenly, he has taken a major turn for the worse..

I hate cancer.
I hate all disease actually.

I’m 34. Half my audience may think I’m ancient. The other half probably thinks I still have a world of life ahead of me. But as I age, I find myself becoming more serious in my studies of many things.. contemplating morals and justice becomes difficult with time, however. Billy Joel’s ANGRY YOUNG MAN described a person who once believed in causes and had a pointless point of view but life went on no matter who was wrong or right. Those lyrics become truer by the day. By the moment..

As you age, you also say goodbye to many people you loved or befriended.

And often they leave with the help of a disease…
With cancer..
With the ultimate boogeyman of the medical system.

I bet any money that you–the reader–is also dealing with loss, or recently has dealt with it. You have probably even read a self-help book or website explaining how to deal with loss.. maybe you have tried to vacation. Get away from things.. But it never goes away. There is no alternative to the life we have now besides not living it. While we inhabit our temples of the soul, we will be hit with crises and upheaval.. Sometimes smiles. Sometimes frowns. And sometimes, just like those we see dying before our eyes, the same sickness that took them..

I am angry tonight.
Sad..
Accepting of it all, too.
A mixture of emotions.

But that is what life has become.
Either it’s a mixture of emotions or it turns into the final scene of THE MEANING OF LIFE..

So many highs.. so often lows. So many twists and turns and ironic shifts of fate..

x x x

People sometimes become mentally disenfranchised after being drained by loss. The human ruin–one we hardly see..

Everyone has a story. Each and every person who walks too slow in front of you, or who is trying to pass you on the interstate.. the man who glances at you as you walk on a street.. or that elderly woman who vacantly stares out of a window of a dark and dingy nursing home.

Our stories are filled with joy and raw horror.
But we all have a story.

Maybe it’s time we stop just judging everyone else and start accepting our differences, move on and stop caring about those causes that the ANGRY YOUNG MAN couldn’t realize didn’t matter before it was too late.

And find a cure for cancer..
Because that has to go away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYV6XTA4b0M

April 17, 2015
FORD IN HIS FLIVVER: THE MODEL T ALIEN NEAR THE SUN?

I found a few interesting links in my night owl reading last night about UFOs .. The UFO SIGHTINGS BLOGSPOT peaked my interest with a post about NASA’s sun observation satellite SOHO (the Solar and Heliosperic Observatory) on April 12, 2015 capturing some sort of a “T” shaped object or thing near the sun. The story was picked up by BEFORE IT’S NEWS..

Also, a few years back, some speculated that there were photos of a UFO ‘powering up’ from the sun. With images, they said then, to prove it.

There have been some other recent oddities near the sun. Such as this from January, when a speed of light ‘UFO’ was captured and shown in a YouTube video.. In March, there was a report that NASA may have been attempting to smudge away evidence of a UFO near the sun.. STREETCAP1 was the source on that.

But this T shape is interesting. Because to some it could be the proof they need of a UFO. To others, it could be a hoax, scam, or simply camera error..

Since the UFO blog posted this and it was picked up by one of the biggest conspiracy sites online, there has been a deluge of other websites–I guess you can now include the HORROR REPORT in this–reporting and re-reporting the T shape.

But I am attempting to find credible information about this T Shape on Lasco Satcam and simply am unable to. Perhaps because ‘they’ don’t want me to.. or maybe because there is smoke but no fire, just a small cigarette that someone forgot to out..

While UFO blogs and other sites are reporting about this, the information of the T shape appears to have come from the YOUTUBE user STREETCAP. There is a collection of cool UFO videos on the Streetcap Twitter feed, as well. Including the T shaped oddity spotted by Lasco Satcam..

So I figured out the answer to this mystery: Let it be a mystery. Let people speculate.. SreetCap’s video raises eyebrows. People will debate whether it’s a lens mess up or an alien race in the shape of a T..

Or something else.

After watching this clip from AUSTIN POWERS, we may have our answer:

April 17, 2015
JARED LETO shares his JOKER face from SUICIDE SQUAD

….no white paint yet.
Just green hair.
Lipstick..
And lots of fans becoming quickly amazed at his teaser. Detractors, though, are dismayed by the appearance.

You can only judge for yourself..
So do so accordingly.

April 16, 2015
The end of the 20th Century STAR WARS in a trailer for the new one

DARTH VADER’s mask and Luke Skywalker’s voice appear in new STAR WARS trailer..

As does a symbolic few moments of mentions of STAR WARS of yesteryear..

Harrison Ford and Chewbacca appear, too.

The only thought I have: If the best they have is celebrating a movie from the 1970s, this is not a movie this generation needs..

Unless of course this film simply is transitioning to the next realm of star wars entertainment.. One review of the STAR WARS trailer: “Literally sobbing at my computer”

I think they will have a transitional movie.. It will have people say goodbye to the STARS WARS they loved (not the newer ones with JAR JAR but the real ones) and then present a new age of STAR WARS for this generation. But first the old folks need to be completely ok with saying bye to HANS and Luke And Leia..

The question to me is this: Will this be good without Lucas? And I say yes. Because Lucas gave us the not so good modern STAR WARS movies. I think the notion was fine, but in creation flopped. At least to me.

This new trailer is getting lots of fair attention today.
And most likely more will as they are released…

April 16, 2015
THE END OF CASH?

We all knew this was coming.. the moment when that greenback in your wallet could become a relic of yesterday.. when cash, once king, becomes a diminished peasant that provides nothing more but a punchline in a grocery store line.
Cash ..
King..
Move over, the new king is in town.

Dateline BLOOMBERG BUSINESS.. . reporter Lorcan Roche Kelly authored a story getting huge play tonight about a CITI economist wondering aloud if it’s time to end cash. To end the green.. to get rid of the paper notes–remember, they are simply ‘notes’ alleging worth of a certain degree..

Kelly writes this:

In a new piece, Citi’s Willem Buiter looks at this problem, which is known as the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates.

Fundamentally, the ELB problem comes down to cash. According to Buiter, the ELB only exists at all due to the existence of cash, which is a bearer instrument that pays zero nominal rates. Why have your money on deposit at a negative rate that reduces your wealth when you can have it in cash and suffer no reduction?

Buiter goes on to say the best way to address the problem would be to 1) abolish currency, 2) tax currency, and 3) remove the fixed exchange rate between currency and central bank reserves and deposits…

You heard that first thing right. Abolish cash altogether..

Buiter acknowledges problems. Especially the pesky elderly who are trained to use cash instead of plastic.. But he also said one way to solve this ‘problem’ is to stop printing notes worth less than $5..

Bloomberg correctly finishes its article with jab that this Administration will not abolish cash.. And that is true. Perhaps the next one won’t, either. One day, though, one may. One day sooner than a political position making the decision could be a bank doing it for them.

Or…..people doing it for themselves. Technology will advance.. so will the chances of people figuring out that cash can stay at home. Swipe the chip safely implanted in your arm. Bar code your brain..

Ditch the paper.

Cash was king.

April 16, 2015
The paranormal getting normal: Class of 170 joins up in Rome to fight the Devil

Since Cardinal Bergoglio assumed the title of Pope Francis, a global exorcism frenzy has seemingly resulted. Some even claimed that Pope Francis himself, when greeting people in Rome, performed an exorcism himself…

Francis is being credited (or blamed) with bringing the ancient Rite back to the modern church and making it pop cultural popular..

New reports from Italy have gone further.. 170 people, students of the paranormal in a sense, have joined up to learn all things satanic.. The Vatican Congregation of Clergy organized by the Sacredos Institute are offering a week long class on exorcism and liberation. Demon fighting..

Father Pedro Barrajon, the organizer of the program, said that the awareness and popularity of the course is evidence of the evil in the world..

Recently another high profile Vatican exorcist, Fatger Gabriele Amorth, said that ISIS itself is proof of satan and that ISIS is, well, SATAN..

With all of the news articles recently propelling exorcisms to the forefront of media, some are poo pooing the idea of a paranormal evil entity active in our world. Some, as atheism and non dogmatic belief systems rise, are against the notion of satan. Even some non denominational religious believers would argue against Pope Francis’ attitude towards ‘evil’ in the world..

Today the exorcism article is making the rounds online. Drudge picked it up and put above the proverbial fold..

When the paranormal makes top news story status, then you know you’re living in an amazing and scary place.

April 16, 2015