I dug up this prized old gem from the bottom of my movie collection, childhood memories perfectly preserved on digital versatile disc, like a prehistoric mosquito trapped in amber.

As a ten year old boy, the Spielbergian mystique of cinematic thunder lizards was more than enough to keep me enthralled with the fantasy of becoming paleobotanist when I grow up. It was at this time that I fell into a deep compulsion of obsessively memorizing facts about dinosaurs and casually but inappropriately interjecting them into conversations. Like the time I quietly educated my aunt about the average height and weight of a brachiosaurus at my great grandmothers funeral.

Seventeen years have passed, and unfortunately I’m neither grown up nor a paleobotanist.  As someone who has learned to feign the critical thinking skills of an adult strictly for social and conversational reasons, the first thing I noticed was the “grown up” subtext, like the sexual frustration of Laura Dern’s repressed character, a “clever girl” as beautiful and deadly as a Dilophosaurus (average height 5 feet 11 inches, average weight 980lb.), poised to spit hot acid in the face of the first man to cross her.

Compared to most of my childhood friends, Jurassic Park has aged extremely well, it’s hard to imagine that this movie was made almost two decades ago.  I find it alarming that there’s been barely a handful of movies of this calibre made since, but I find it more alarming that molecular cloning techniques have progressed to the point where the necessary equipment and instructions can be easily found online; Even an unassuming nutritionist such as myself can get a summer job cloning simple organisms in a biotech lab.  I can’t help but wonder if some disgruntled ex-lover has unlocked my genome from a rouge pubic hair, and is currently harboring a lysine contingent copy of me in his basement.

My favorite scene (which for legal reasons we cant show you a clip of; but please enjoy the embedded reenactment at the end of the review) always was, and remains to be, what I now consider to be a thinly veiled coming-of-age metaphor. When the Tyrannosaurus (representing a turbulent induction to puberty, or maybe your parents divorce) takes advantage of the compromised electric fence and tears the children from the comfort of their brightly colored hybrid SUV. As young Tim wriggles his way through the mud and out of that overturned Suzuki tracker, it’s as though he’s exiting the womb of childhood and forcing his way through the muddy birth canal of manhood. I only wish that Sam Neil (or some similar Indiana Jones-esqe male archetype) had been there for me, and taught me to stand my ground with a stiff upper lip. Don’t run away from life’s conflicts. Don’t move. they can’t see you if you don’t move.

“This is the one crappy weekend”

-Bitter Critic

Yep, a Terminator Salvation Jurassic Park mashup

What we read while hiding our golf clubs…

• Food is a big part of Thanksgiving. Which food that is, though, depends in part on what region of the country you’re from. Check out this “infographic” which shows where search queries for different Thanksgiving foods came from geographically.

• Excellent news on the horizon for Aziz Ansari fans: Judd Apatow’s production company has picked up three movies from him and Jason Woliner, including one based on the Randy character from Funny People.

• In honor of Tim and Pierre’s massive waste of a live blog of the Grey Cup, here’s some of Chuck Klosterman’s infamous hypotheticals. Don’t see the connection? Scroll down to No. 9. We’re pretty sure Tim’s crystal ball vision was reified on Sunday, November 29, 2009.

• John S offered his take on the most recent season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here are Alan Sepinwall’s thoughts on the season finale, as well as Jonathan Toomey’s of the TV Squad. But I don’t think you’ve heard the last from NPI on this….

• Ever wonder how those quote excerpts from reviews about movies are chosen and edited? Here’s a mildly satisfactory explanation.

• The Blind Side was just made into a movie and is getting pretty good reviews. Here is Michael Lewis’s original NYT Magazine article on Michael Oher.  Michael Lewis’s seminal sports book, Moneyball,  played a pretty big role in previous posts by Josh and John S.

• Speaking of baseball and sabermetrics, as free agency hits, here’s an older piece from Patrick Brown of The Millions about baseball and its relationship with the Internet, including an in-depth analysis of gamecasts and the polarizing nature of J.D. Drew.

• For people who like movies and graphs, it doesn’t get much better than xkcd’s breakdown of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park in graphical terms. Or does it? Vodkaster put together a subway map of the 250 best movies of all time, with different genres represented as different lines. Excellent stuff.

Otra película de vampiros? Bah! Pero con Ethan Hawke y Willem Dafoe en el cast la cosa no es tan detestable.

En 2019, un virus convierte la mayoría de la población en vampiros, quienes para alimentarse y sobrevivir crean una especie de granjas donde “ordeñan” la sangre de los pocos humanos vivos. Obviamente esto no va a ser Let the right one in o Blade 2, pero tampoco se ve tan mala como Crepúsculo no? Habrá que esperar como trata la taquilla a estos seres con orejas puntiagudas.

El guión y dirección está a cargo de los desconocidos hermanos Spierig, quienes hicieron la película de bajo presupuesto Undead, que aunque desconocida, tuvo buena aceptación en los festivales de Sitges, Fantasporto y Melbourne.

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I’m stuck in a piece of amber like those mosquitoes in Jurassic Park. I’m hoping that in several million years time that my DNA will be extracted and I’ll be able to terrorise some paleontologists on an island. You’ve got to have a dream.

It’s a bit boring in the amber, though. I’ve got a few copies of Heat magazine with me, but I’m only going to get 30 years of reading out of them.

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with ‘a’.

It’s amber.

Again.

Spielberg delivers the T-Rex money shot in "Jurassic Park".

(Steven Spielberg, 1993)

November 26, 2009

by Joel Crary

For my money, no modern director is as consistently reliable as Steven Spielberg, who approaches a wide variety of genres with a seemingly tireless eagerness to make exemplars for each. The first three-quarters of “Jurassic Park” is superb adventure filmmaking of the highest order. One scene, in which a Tyrannosaurus Rex breaks free of its enclosure and attacks a group of tourists, remains among one of the most harrowing ever filmed. Before the 21st century Spielberg, who elected to go all George Lucas on a re-released “E.T.” that toned down its scarier material, his younger self had no qualms with putting children in harm’s way.

As a child, I loved him for it. Sixteen years after I saw the film in theatres, there is still a palpable sense of terror to the T-Rex scene as it nearly crushes the children under a sunroof before flipping the car and grinding it into the muddied road like a finished cigarette. In that scene and others in which dinosaurs are majestically portrayed as having returned to roam the earth after 65 million years, the boy in Spielberg is apparent, using all of the tools at his disposal to recreate the wonder he must have felt at a young age when flipping through illustrations in a grade school science textbook.

I had a first or second row seat for my first viewing of “Jurassic Park”. People crammed into theatres to see it , the result of a marketing campaign that spent a dollar for every year that dinosaurs had been extinct. It seemed less a film that a full-on cultural event, something completely unique in light of most of its competition in the summer of ‘93, which included “Super Mario Bros.” and “Last Action Hero”. Merchandise and ancillary products dominated store shelves. Toronto named their new basketball team after a dinosaur that no one had so much as heard of three years prior.

Most significantly, “Jurassic Park” was the film that changed the movie-making landscape with regard to CGI. Sequences such as the running of the gallimimus herd and the brachiosaurus encounter, animated by the effects creators at the still teenaged Industrial Light & Magic, opened up doors of possibility for animators still working within the limitations of stop motion on productions. After “Jurassic Park”, unreal creatures began to move more fluently, extending the possibilities of the corporeal onscreen.

The film’s strongest effects work, however, remains in the realm of animatronics, which have always trumped CGI. The T-Rex is actually there in the frame, screaming like something out of a nightmare as it tears an electric fence to pieces. The potency of “Jurassic Park’s” dinosaur scenes comes from the effort of the effects team to study the creatures’ behaviour and apply it to their movements. The filmmakers are aware that all most of us know about dinosaurs comes from what we have retained from lessons and theories learned in childhood – the T-Rex can’t see you if you don’t move; the brontosaurus eats leaves, not people – thereupon building our empathy for the hapless characters as they find themselves at the mercy of natural selection.

For the most part, Michael Crichton and David Koepp’s script is wisely fueled by the awe of their characters. These days, the movie starts to lose me around the time Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) has to restore electrical power to the park. Spielberg gets a little too energetic with his camera movements, which try in vain to pump life into the film after the T-Rex scene has shattered the nerves. There are plot holes and conveniences galore, such as the scene where Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) throws a stick at an electric fence to see if it’s still working, or the fact that 13-year-old Lex (Ariana Richards) knows how to navigate a UNIX interface to restore the compound’s locking mechanisms.

“Jurassic Park” was my introduction to the brilliance of Jeff Goldblum. Viewing Ian Malcolm in the post-Brundlefly context puts a whole new weird spin on his oddly delivered observations regarding chaos theory in the evolutionary process, but he’s wasted in the film’s second half, where he is positioned in fetishistic shots that linger on his bare chest and placement akin to some kind of fallen Greek deity. Samuel L. Jackson also plays an understated role as one of the park’s technicians with an Andy Capp smoke perpetually dangling from his lips, and in his portlier days, Wayne Knight tangles with an acid-spitting dilophosaurus and loses in mucky fashion.

The character I’ve come to enjoy most is Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), who lived in Crichton’s book but dies in the film. In spite of his fatal error in hunting velociraptors, he’s the one guy out of the lot I’d trust to escape the island with, as he’s the only one who seems to acknowledge exactly what the dinosaurs are capable of. Had he survived, I believe he could have single-handedly prevented the next two installments in the “Jurassic Park” series, or at least brought some much needed good sense to “The Lost World”.

John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), the showman, cares little for the science behind his attraction. I like his bit of dialogue about the flea circus, pregnant as it is with the idea of trading in things we can’t see for things that are too big to imagine, overwhelming ourselves with our own power simply to see if it can be done. “Jurassic Park” is about ambition and a desire for capital triumphing over good ideas, told with an excitement for the scientific method and what becomes possible for the adult who never fully grows out of his childhood fantasies. Spielberg clearly never has.

Note: All spelling and grammatical errors are there for a reason. And now…

Chapter 1: The Meeting

Chapter 1

“What are talking about Silas disapeering! That lazy bum is probaly just lying around at his house!” Max Wicks yelled. He was the leader of the company “Max Parks” ”Max Amusement Parks.” He was at a meeting with his associates. He was a greedy man who looked just like a used car salesman. The assistint manager Raymond Perry who was quite weak and skinny was across the table yelling back. “We found his body! How could you think he was lounging around at home?! And anyway from the looks of it he died about a week ago.” Now he was scared because he needs to pay his rent and if he gets fired he can’t pay.

“Guys, we still have to decide who’s going to test it out.” Kasey the sound engineer said. He was the strongest of the group. He had scraggaly black hair and and always wore tank tops and jeans.

“Any Ideas?” Jack Russell the youngest of the group said.

“Hey I have a brother who owns a chain of amusement parks. He could bring his kids and anyone else.” Michael Drake said. He had white hair and he was the cutest one.

“We’ll call ‘em and they’ll we’ll see what happens.” Raymond said quietly.

“Waitm what’t this about kids! Kids are a pain in the butt. Those whining little brats annoy me!” Max yelled.

“They’ll pay.” Mac, the nervous one, said.

“Okay, they can come.” Max said.

“Um, Mr. Wicks you have the park documents to fill out.” Cooper, the security guard said as he opened the door. He was a fat slob who hardley ever talked. He had a crew cut and wore a police uniform.

“Meeting ijurned. Go back to work.” Max said going back to his office. “Oh yeah Jackson. You finished the track right.”

“Right.” Jackson said. He was a resourceful person. Wearing a white shirt and a yellow sleeveless jacket. And a light brown shorts.

Everyone walked away. Drake stopped Mac in his tracks.

“Yeah. Um yes Drake.” Mac said nerveously.

“How do you think Silas died? Cause he had those scratches on him and he had that weird mark on his head. Drake said scratching his head.

“Um. I don’t really know. I mean I didn’t do it. I mean…I don’t know okay!” Mac yelled and he ran on the elevator and was gone.

“Kasey, hey Kasey c’mere. I need to ask you something.” Drake yelled. Kasey came up to him. “Do you know what happened to Silas?”

“Don’t ask me. Me and my family were at home eating dinner when that happened. I mean it happened at 8:00 and we had a late dinner.” He looks at his watch. “Look man I gotta go. Bug in the sound machine.” He threw some cable on his shoulder. “See Ya.”

“Yeah bye.” He watched Kasey walk in the elevator and go down.

In a minute the room was empty and he was alone in the room. He stared at the window fogdusted window. He wiped off the fog off the window and stared. Then he thought he saw something burst through the trees. “Just my imagination.” Drake said to himself. “Just my imagination.”

What I remember: Where these characters came from. If you read the previous post, you’ll know that each of these characters was based on an action figure from my collection.

Max Wicks, the owner of Max Parks Max Amusement Parks:

Pacino!

Big Boy from Dick Tracy! (Could not find the action figure pic.)

Raymond Perry, the weak and skinny one:

Not making this up.

Worf from Star Trek! (NOT weak and skinny. An odd choice.)

Kasey the Strong Sound Engineer:

Like a nice Jason Voorhees.

Kasey Jones from the Ninja Turtles cartoon and films (played by Elias Koteas!)

Mac, the nervous one:

As played by Dustin Hoffman in the film!

Jack Russell, the young one:

This one makes the least sense.

Corporal Dwayne Hicks from Aliens.

Michael Drake, the cutest one:

I had such a crush on this dude.

 Corporal (something) Drake from Aliens.

Jackson, quite possibly be my favorite character of the novel:

This looks nothing like the actor in the film.

Robert Muldoon, a small character from Jurassic Park.

Cooper Michaels, the security guard who wears a police uniform:

I had an earlier, less stupid version of this action figure where his arm wasn't grafted into an eternal clothesline.

The Big Boss Man!

As you can see, my tastes were all over the place. My love of Dick Tracy facilitated an early interest in the mystery and variety of genre fare. Jurassic Park and Star Trek bred within me a love for adventure (not to mention my early leanings towards heavy themes). Aliens satisfied my bloodlust. TMNT offered the goofiness and humor (not to mention backflips). And WWF taught me there’s nothing wrong with a good ol-fashioned ass-whoopin.

What these disparate entertainments have in common is ensemble. They created worlds that focused on many journeys, not just one, offering a slew of interesting and diverse characters, all coalescing in the wake of one (or several) catastrophic event(s). 

This is what I wanted with Death in the Making, to bring these action figures, from such vastly different universes, together into one. To break down walls. To create dialogue. What would happen if they were all brought together? What would they become? Who would be good? Who would be bad? Who are these people in relation to one another? These are the silly questions I still ask myself because I love character. More than plot, more than theme, I love characters and I love ensembles. And Death in the Making is where that all began.

Of course, there is always one central figure at the center of these stories, whether it be Dick Tracy, Jean-Luc Picard,  or Sam Neill. You guys have yet to meet that central figure. That’s what Chapter 3 is for, and it’s something I’m excited to explore.

The idea of the “main character” is something that has oft-frustrated me as a writer. When Arthur Kopit saw my play, Lamp & Moth, in Kansas City, his complaint was that it had no central character. Further revisions have remedied that to a degree, but not without some grumbling. I often find myself disassociated from ”main” characters in most art. They’re often bland everymen, heroic in all the wrong places. Or raisonneurs from the author who can’t help but smash his grubby fingers all over a perfectly good story. Or genre robots so patched together from the canon that they trade blood and guts for empty cardboard witticisms.  They’re written with such blandness because we perpetuate the idea that audiences need to identify with someone  to enjoy something, which is, of course, bullshit. It is in this identification that we remove all the shit that makes us human, all the things that anyone could actually identify with on a more profound level.

Having said that (who caught Curb last night?), Sam Drake, my ostensible “main” character, is guilty of at least a few of those crimes. And Jimmy Drake, my childhood surrogate and likely main “main” character, is a lot worse. But these guys, this group, delineated (like the TMNT) by only the most base character traits, are at the heart of this story…at least as I remember it.

There will probably be a lot more talk about ensemble as we continue this journey. There’s certainly many more characters to meet in our immediate future since my 11-year old self was a kindred spirit to one David Milch, who never met a character on Deadwood he didn’t want to spin a yarn about.

And so it goes…   

 Beautiful: In a minute the room was empty and he was alone in the room. He stared at the window fogdusted window. He wiped off the fog off the window and stared.

“We found his body! How could you think he was lounging around at home?!“

Embarrassing: Now he was scared because he needs to pay his rent and if he gets fired he can’t pay.

He had white hair and he was the cutest one.

“Um, Mr. Wicks you have the park documents to fill out.”

“Don’t ask me. Me and my family were at home eating dinner when that happened. I mean it happened at 8:00 and we had a late dinner.”

Jaws, 1975 – Direção: Steven Spielberg – Elenco:Roy Scheider,Robert Shaw,Richard Dreyfuss.

Um dos melhores filmes de um dos diretores mais famosos e mais queridos de todos os tempos.

Tubarão, pra começar tudo é o filme mais “toma na cara e vira macho” de Spielberg, talvez o único. Mesmo com toda a questão da família e tudo mais, aqui o velhinho simpático não nos obriga a chorar ou ficar tristes ou receosos, ele apenas faz o filme pela gratificação de fazê-lo, nada mais.

A história é bem simples e brusca, se pegarmos que depois dos créditos iniciais vemos uma moça morrer puxada pra baixo da água por alguma “coisa” enquanto um bêbado na encosta, que não sabe nem se está na praia ou em Las Vegas, não a escuta. Depois descobrimos pelos restos destroçados da moça que ela foi atacada por um tubarão dos mais enormes. Daí começa toda a bagaça.

O chefe de policia tem que tomar uma providência quanto a isso certo? Então decide fechar a praia, nada mais lógico. Mas o interessante é ver que o capitalismo decorrente do nosso mundo esta presente ali criticado pelos realizadores da película. Eles jogam como Raimi jogou recentemente em Drag me to hell toda a culpa dos acontecimentos seguintes na ambição exagerada dos personagens em querer mais grana. O prefeito rejeita o pedido do chefe de policia e não deixe que este feche a praia. Até porque, a cidade é uma cidade turística de verão que ganha dinheiro com os turistas que vão pra lá no verão. E fechar a praia é uma loucura mesmo, é melhor algumas pessoas morrerem comidas por um animal enorme do que a cidade perder um ano de dinheiro.

Spilba (vou chamá-lo assim ta, porque só o chamo assim) cria um dos maiores climões de suspense do cinema aqui, e tudo com um grande “nada” aparecendo nas cenas e amedrontando qualquer um. Sim, um nada. O nosso tubarão só vai aparecer realmente lá pra parte final do filme (final mesmo). Fora isso, Spilba cria uma atmosfera de medo e pânico poucas vezes alcançada depois disso. Na época as pessoas ficaram com medo de ir a praias por causa do filme.

Os atores estão arregaçando tudo e é legal comentar um momento de qual não me lembrava (ou talvez a sessão da tarde tenha cortado) no qual, o nosso chefe de policia querido está acabado diante da mesa do jantar e o clima é pesado de mais e nós sentimos toda a culpa que ele sente (afinal, foi esbofeteado na frente de quase toda a cidade por uma mãe que perdeu o filho mesmo com o chefe sabendo). E mesmo assim, mesmo nesse momento cru e triste, o filho mais novo do chefe o imita, sim cada gesto, o que torna a cena ainda mais clássica e honesta. O jovenzinho é todo o símbolo de que Spilba sempre buscou em seu cinema: família. Sim, e apenas com gestos imitando seu pai o jovenzinho consegue transmitir tanto que nem eu aguentei ver a cena toda sem parar um pouco. Carga dramática e humorada ao mesmo tempo transcendendo o normal em um dos primeiros filmes do cara foi foda.

A cenas eternas de mais, desde a primeira morte, passando pelos ataques do tubarão, pela apresentação do Quint, vindo pelas cenas de aventura no barco até chegar na morte clássica e eterna do tubarão com um tremendo “smile, you sun of…”(“sorria, seu filho da…”), seguido da explosão do protagonista.

É folks, o protagonista é o tubarão, querendo ou não.

Mas o filme é tudo o que todos os fãs dizem mesmo, e eu sou um deles, portanto, vão e vejam se é que ainda há alguém vivo que nõ tenha visto. A única coisa ruim foi não ver com a dublagem clássica da sessão da tarde. Se tivesse ela no dvd eu nem fazia questão de ver legendado, sério, traria uma nostalgia da porra. Mas como foi redublado para quem não curte ver legendado e é besta por isso, no dvd não tem mais a versão da sessão da tarde.

Filme foda, um dos melhores do Spilba junto com Jurassic Park e Indiana Jones, e que tem um dos enredos mais fantásticos que já vi. Comentar também sobre a trilha sacana de John Wlliams que com apenas duas notas crescentes faz meu coração vibrar de tensão até hoje. Pois é, da fotografia aos enquadramentos inteligentes e surpreendentes (me espanto com algumas angulações que Spilba filmou no barco) à trilha sonora o filme se dá bem em tudo, inclusive no fazer divertir e ter medo, que é seu maior objetivo, ainda mais sendo o primeiro grande blockbuster que os EUA já viram em seu verão.

5/5

Nessa última quarta a tarde fui assistir 2012.

Local: Norte Shopping. Eu sei, péssima escolha geográfica. Mas entendam, quando estamos acompanhados, qualquer lugar pode ficar interessante… #ficadica =p

Pois bem, tirando o fato de que eu comecei a cultivar um pequeno rancor pelo Banco Real e que eu não tinha dinheiro nem pra pegar o metrô, entramos no cinema com aquela coisa horrível que o Mc Donald’s continua vendendo com o nome de “comida” e esperamos por aquele que deveria ser o filmão do momento (afinal de contas todo dia eu encontro um idiota que diz “ué, de que adianta isso se o mundo vai acabar em 2012?”). Decepção TOTAL. Listo os motivos.

1 – Se você for ao cinema querendo ver mistérios arqueológicos no estilo Indiana Jones de fazer filmes, melhor nem sair de casa pra não matar um na saída do cinema. Eles falam dos Maias UMA VEZ durante as 3 HORAS de filme. Pois é, a coisa toda é baseada na profecia maia e eles cagaram solenimente pra esse fato. Imagina COMO EU FIQUEI quando percebi isso…

2 – Os efeitos são divertidos. Tem que se dar algum crédito, já que aparentemente todos os recursos foram investidos nisso. Mas não se engane, não é nada que bons estudantes de computação gráfica com bom financiamento e uma boa equipe não consigam fazer. Hollywood não é mais a mesma… Aliás, o elenco é PÉSSIMO! Pra vocês terem uma idéia, o ator mais bonito do filme aparece em umas 3 cenas e morre. Um filme desses está fadado ao fracasso.

3 – O filme é… longo. Muito longo. 3 horas e alguns quebrados se não me engano, e não passa rápido não. Referências à tudo: desde a Biblia até Titanic, passando por Independence Day e um toque das piadas fora de contexto de Jurassic Park. Em um dado momento eu achei que estava vendo “O dia depois de amanhã” só que com atores diferentes, pra vocês verem o nível da cópia. Sem contar que, apesar de ser um filme, eu como bom geógrafo que pretendo ser não consegui engolir essa história de que “a crosta terrestre derreteu por emissões estranhas do sol ocasionadas pelo alinhamento de uns planetas”! Ah, me poupe, arrumem uma desculpa melhor… Até alienigenas ficaram mais interessantes no Indiana Jones, peçam ajuda ao George Lucas que ele sabe como fazer.

4 – Algo que nos interessa muito: a cena do Rio de Janeiro. Em tempos de escolha do Rio tanto pra sede das olimpíadas quanto a melhor cidade gay do mundo, o mínimo que poderiam ter feito eram cenas de verdade com a cidade. Nem isso. O que aparece mesmo é o Cristo se despedaçando e só. E digo mais: a personagem vê isso PELA TELEVISÂO! O filme todo se passa nos EUA (pra variar) e o final é na China (sério, deu uma vontade absurda de escrever um artigo sobre geopolítica e cinema só por essa escrotice). Eu lá, todo esperançoso de ver a minha cidade ser destruída pelo mar e o que aparece é o aquele monte de concreto se desmoronando pela televisão, aí não dá, tive que rir.

5 – Por fim, se você está pensando que o filme pelo menos tem uma história, pensou errado. NADA de história. Nada mesmo, é uma família que tem que sobreviver no meio desse samba do criolo doido que eles inventaram de eventos cósmicos e cismicos e oceânicos e blá. Pra não dizer que a coisa não tem diretriz NENHUMA, eu digo que eles seguiram a bíblia, a parte que fala da Arca de Noé. É isso mesmo, eu não estou brincando.

O ponto positivo disso tudo? Bom, tirando o fato de ver o filme com uma pessoa agradável ao meu lado, teve um único ponto realmente interessante que o filme conseguiu abordar assim, de leve: Como seria o arranjo político entre os países caso o mundo realmente estivesse acabando? Será que eles esqueceriam as guerras, o dinheiro, o poder, e se concentrariam em salvar o maior número de pessoas possível? A humanidade realmente merece viver caso não consiga pensar no próximo mesmo nesses momentos? É algo que fica pra pensar… e também é a ÚNICA COISA que fica pra pensar, já que nem dos Maias eles falaram né…

Vejam o filme e comentem, porque eu ODIEI. Coisa realmente pipoca, desnecessária e longa. Muito longa.

Nature obviously subscribes to chaos theory, not one of these trees was growing straight or keeping to its own space. Incidentally heres a good article on chaos theory using Jurassic Park to help explain it!

Wann musstet ihr das letzte Mal von einem Lied auf die Toilette? Tja, es gibt immer ein erstes Mal. Erlebe mit Spica Musik auf völlig neue Art. Nur euere Blase könnte überfordert sein.

Spica, eine Art «Audio-Version der Lava-Lampe» – So ist es am einfachsten beschrieben.

Der Wasserlautsprecher nutzt besondere Effekte von Licht und Wasser, um Sound zu visualisieren. Bisher ist der Spica noch ein Konzept, aber ihr könnt euch im Videoclip schon ein Bild davon machen.

Jurassic Park was my favorite movie growing up. The idea of bringing an extinct species back to life millions of years later was fascinating to me, absolutely phenomenal. As I grew older and continued to watch the movie every now and again, I started to become more familiar with the themes that are so profoundly disputed throughout. The most pressing I believe, is that of Chaos Theory. There are hundreds of interpretations of chaos theory by numerous mathematicians and physicists, but my favorite of these will always be what was stated by the character of Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park.

In the movie, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) concludes that the park is destined to fail because of the mere fact that “life cannot be contained”. He then goes on to describe what he calls Chaos Theory, which is more eminently interpreted in the book. Chaos Theory to Dr. Malcolm is the formula for predicting the consequences of an event or series of events. I say consequence because of the fact that the park turned out to be disastrous in the end.

When applied to everyday life I believe Chaos Theory exists in a larger scale. What we think we can control and have a handle on we cannot. We can make educated guesses to make ourselves feel more at ease, but in actuality we do not really know anything.

The best way for this to be described goes along with the Malcolm Effect. I found a fictional livejournal dedicated to Dr. Malcolm that really hits this whole Chaos Theory on the head.

“A theory discovered/published by Ian stating that no system moves toward equilibrium. All systems are inherently moving toward collapse. The more variables involved the more catastrophic the collapse.”

How perfectly described. Chaos may not seem like a form of art, but it most definitely is. Throughout the book they show specific formulas of Chaos Theory becoming more complex in its nature, although they are just representations since Chaos is not a tangible object it still shows us the complexity of the theory. Sometimes I wonder about how the world works, but when you think about it, we never can be too sure.

What are your thoughts?

We already know about eco-disaster movies, eco-friendly movies for children or simply documentaries about the environment and ecology.

However has anyone ever heard of green horror movies?

In the following extract taken from Mother Nature Network website, eco-blogger, Matt Hickman, Talks about “eco-horror films out there that hopefully won’t make your stomach churn or leave you too scared to take out the recycling after 10 p.m.” :

A warning: You won’t find any deep environmental messages aside from “be nice to Mother Nature or else …” in these movies although some are more serious than others. I’m a bit of a scary movie nut myself so I’m glad to make a few recommendations.

“Animals gone bad” films may be a good place to start if you’re weary of anything involving the supernatural or serial killers. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is a staple in the genre and still flat-out terrifying. I saw it at a young age and it stayed with me. So long in fact, that last year when I was on a road trip along the California coast with friends, we stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break in Bodega Bay and I refused to get out of the car in fear of an avian attack.Arachnophobia is also a classic sure to make your skin crawl and we mustn’t forget Jaws although a more recent scary shark flick, Open Water, gave me an in-theater panic attack. One of the better murderous animal films I’ve seen recently was Rogue about a bloodthirsty Aussie croc, but if you’re looking for old-school camp, try Day of the Animals. And if you’re curious about the dangers of genetic engineering, watch Jurassic Park.

Moving on from fauna to flora, murderous, possessed trees always give me the chills because, well, I don’t really expect it. Watch The Evil Dead or Poltergeist if you want to have nightmares about Douglas firs. And while we’re on the homicidal plant tip, two films, The Ruins and The Happening, will have you keeping a distance from your houseplants for at least a week.

On the more-creepy-than-scary list is one of my favorite cult flicks, The Wicker Man (the original, not the so-bad-it’s-funny Nic Cage remake). In short, it’s about what happens when a group of sexed-up Scottish pagans are let down by Mother Nature. What happens? Well, I’ll let you find out.

To continue reading the article follow this link

A prologue to the Prologue (wherein the author laments the loss of his previous concept and explains the new one):

This blog began as a way for me to chronicle my interest and analysis of shitty entertainment. I love shitty entertainment. It makes me smile. But alas, it proved too hearty an endeavor in a stretch I best describe as “doldrumtastic”, a stretch where getting laid just wasn’t enough, a stretch when I didn’t much feel like analysis of any medium. It was a dark time for your humble narrator, but I’ve bounced back and retooled. I miss having a place to upchuck and since I find blogging for the sake of blogging boring (and since I’ve been revisiting Sufjan), I’d prefer to couch my thought-vomit in a concept of sorts.

The cover.

My decision to post my childhood works, chapter by ridiculous chapter (with commentary), is two-fold:

1) I’d like to chronicle this shit. My hard copies are fading a slow fade.

2) I’m in the mood for self-analysis. And where better to begin than my first major work?

"The text on some pages are bad. So please don't kill me. He-he. Now this copy won't be perfect but when I review it top to bottom it will be better."

The first major work in question is DEATH IN THE MAKING.

Title page.

Lightning!

The following is a piece I wrote two years ago about it. Seems like a good place to begin:

I was 10 or 11,

whatever sixth grade is,

and this was my life.

My novel

I wrote this novel then, in sloppy pencil.

My first real major work: Death in the Making.

I know, horrible title.

My process began with my action figures.

I rounded up every one I had:

a plastic party of WWF wrestlers,

movie figures from Aliens, Jurassic Park, and Star Trek,

humans from the Ninja Turtles cartoons.

My characters came from grabbing one I liked and building a personality out of it.

Kasey Jones, the hockey mask wearing martial artist from the Ninja Turtles became Kasey the sound engineer with his scraggly black hair, jeans, and tank tops.

WWF’s Big Boss Man became my secret villain, Cooper Michaels,

a security officer with a crew cut and police uniform.

The big, blue, slimy alien from the Alien movies even took the role of the main monster.

I spent hours after school, creating scenes,

developing relationships,

and staging deaths over and over and over.

It brought me such joy then,

and I’d sometimes ask my weary mother to watch while I acted out scene after scene,

taking on 10 different voices, 10 different characters with personalities I’d so painstakingly developed. 

Once I could no longer play, I wrote.

And for three solid months, I wrote every day after school,

kneeling on the blue carpet,

writing on the coffee table in front of the TV.

Every time I grabbed a new sheet of notebook paper

and wrote a new, higher, page number in the top right corner,

I felt like I had climbed another mountain.

I even drew little flashy lines around page 100,

which was, at that time, the greatest accomplishment of my life.

There was no revision.

I found a way to make everything I’d written work in the grand narrative.

And a grand endeavor it certainly was.

The book boasts about 20 main characters, and probably 20 more minor ones.

There’s backstabbing, murder, love, longing, memory, loss, grief, treachery, you name it.

And I was 11.

In complete and total love.

 Now I remember, so many years later,

coming home drunk and high,

alone

blurry-eyed.

And I grabbed this book.

I began to read.

And I cried.

Because at that moment I realized it was the greatest thing I’d ever written.

A boy who knew nothing about craft,

who knew nothing about pain,

about disappointment, or depression.

A work not written to be published, or produced,

but it was fun.

I was playing. 

And I was in love.

“Jackson dove off the ledge of the huge mountain into the crashing waterfall feeling pretty nauseous. He has never been that nervous in his entire life. Will I live or die? Will I live or die? The question kept going through his mind. Suddenly he felt a burst of cold cover his body. I’m in the waterfall. Falling. Cutting through water like a bullet. As he damped in water he opened his eyes. It was a blur of wondrous colors. From light blue to fluorescent green. It was beautiful! Suddenly Jackson started to feel loose and happy. He spread his arms out far and put his legs together. Then he twirled and twirled in a circle while falling. He didn’t know why he was doing that. He just felt it.” 

In retrospect, I realize this 11-year old was describing his craft. 

Now I’ve always believed that change is a cosmetic illusion.

At our cores, we never change.

We are who we are who we are who we are. 

And so the same desire exists between this boy and myself.

But what he seemed to grasp is what I now strive for. 

“Suddenly Jackson started to feel loose and happy. He spread his arms out far and put his legs together. Then he twirled and twirled in a circle while falling. He didn’t know why he was doing that. He just felt it.”

 Abandon.

Writing was abandon.

And the elation I find now as I create,

An elation which shoots sparks, saves my soul,

It seems to pale in comparison to that 11-year old boy

and his piddly handwritten novel.

Prologue. Probably too faded to make out.

 

So we begin:

Silas Burton wandered helplessly through the huge forest of the unfinished amusement park. It was nighttime and everyone was gone. Something scurried across his feet. He screamed and fell. He wiped off the dirt on his khaki shirt he noticed a footprint. “Oh great! Someone’s around. I gotta follow the…Oh my god. Oh man.” He stared at the footprint. Only it wasn’t a footprint. It had three toes and a strange marking by the hoof. Then he realized the marking was the marking of the company he’s in. And the markings are on the bottom hoof  of each main attraction monster. But those were locked in the storage area. And no one was in the control room. “Oh my god I gotta get outta here!” He started running until he came to the mountain. He stared at the beatiful scenery. A 500 km drop. Deadly. Well there’s the ladder better go down it,” he said. He heard a rustling sound in the bushes. “Aaah!” he screamed. He felt something stab him in the shoulder. He grabbed his shoulder and pulled out a claw. He pulled out a packet of band-aids. He took one out and put it over the bloody wound. He put the band-aids back in his pocket and headed for the ladder. Suddenly something wacked him in the back and he fell and grabbed the side of the mountain and hung. He saw a figure of some sort but was too dark to see. He felt a sharp pain in his hand he went to grab for it and suddenly remembered he was hanging. He let out a bloodcurdling scene and toppled into darkness.

What I remember: Jurassic Park. I saw the movie some rainy afternoon. I bought the book at a SEARS. I read the book in Science class. I didn’t get half of it. I liked the bloody parts. I don’t remember beginning, although I vaguely recall writing this section long before I wrote the rest. The off-color appearance of the pages, coupled with the especially faded script, contribute to this theory.

I recall reading it to Mike Ethier’s mother. I recall her being struck by my use of “khaki”. Rightly so. I barely knew what khaki was. All I knew was that Michael Critchton’s characters wore it. Which is really where much of this began. When I met Vernell Lillie she told me how August Wilson’s earliest writings were simply imitations of writers he admired. John Guare wrote about how he’d type out the first three acts of Chekhov plays and then write the fourth act himself.

Art often begins with mimicry. Many writers never grow past that stage. 

Critchton was my Chekhov. Death in the Making is Jurassic Park. There’s even a Velociraptor.  Anne Rice took over eventually. But we’ll get there later.

Beautiful:  Silas Burton wandered helplessly through the huge forest of the unfinished amusement park.

Embarrassing: Then he realized the marking was the marking of the company he’s in.

And so, some brief thoughts on a brief intro. Chapter 2: The Meeting coming soon. Prepare for shit to get intense.

Yabancı bir kaynakta yukarıdaki üçleme beğenisini yansıtan bir grafiğe rastladım ancak tek bir kişinin yorumumu ya da bir istatistiğin sonucu mu olduğu bilgisi yoktu. Spiderman 3′e biraz haksızlık edildiğini düşünüyorum ayrıca X-Men’lerin de yüksek olduğu kanaatindeyim. Onun ötesinde basit ama güzel bir çalışma olmuş, insanın bu üçlemeleri oturup yeniden izleyesi geliyor…

Last week, I received my first t-shirt from SHRED Clothing. I had been a fan of the intricate artwork of the past designs, but I didn’t come across a piece that I actually wanted to wear until SHRED released its “T-Rex” shirt. This shirt designed by Alex Norman is influenced by Jurassic Park and shows a ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex chasing a jeep. I have too many black tees as it is, but I don’t think that I would have wanted this design to be printed on any other color. The black backdrop gives the design an extra sense of depth and makes it seem like you’re seeing the chase first-hand. Images simply don’t do this t-shirt justice!

The artwork on this tee is absolutely incredible, and the colors are perfect. Everything from the T. rex down to the splatters in the background is insanely detailed. Halftones are only sparingly used in this piece, and they add a nice effect throughout the design without being too much. The halftones help instead of hurt the design. Another thing that I love about this design is that there is no big logo to be seen anywhere in the print area. Unlike SHRED’s other tees, it’s great to see a well-designed piece without the blatant branding.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a highly detailed piece and you can see all of the time and hard work that was put into creating something this complex. I especially love how the there is a rock flying out of the jeep’s windshield and how the T. rex’s tongue has an intricate texture, making it appear just as powerful as the rest of its body. The splatters originating from the back tires and the tilted position of the jeep are highly effective in conveying the difficulties of escaping, and the facial expressions of the driver are exactly how they should be for someone who’s getting chased by a huge carnivorous dinosaur!

This tee comes with a tagless label, so you don’t have to worry about the irritation that comes with shirt tags. I didn’t notice it at first, but it says “200% badass” right underneath the “100% cotton.” I think that this is extremely unique, and I wholeheartedly agree with the short statement! “T-Rex” is printed on a black American Apparel shirt, and you can expect a slim-fitting tee when you order from SHRED.

All of these pictures were taken after wash, and you can see that the image is still crisp and clear. The colors did not fade, based on what I noticed before and after washing, and I can assure you that the print job is top-notch. The colors look well-aligned and I do not notice anything “off” with the print. Although the print area is quite large, the print is exceptionally soft. You can kind of feel the ink if you rub your hand over the design, but you definitely won’t feel like you’re wearing a rectangular sheet of ink on your torso.

I highly recommend SHRED tees, especially “T-Rex.” The shirt is incredibly comfortable, and the design will surely get you noticed! You can pick up “T-Rex” at the SHRED store for $19.99, and use the code “LTT” to take 10% off!

(Sermon for November 15, 2009 ||Proper 28, Year B, RCL || 1 Samuel 1:4-20; Hebrews 10:11-25)

Inigo Montoya, the Spanish hired sword who helped kidnap Princess Buttercup, is losing his duel with the Man in Black. The fight has ranged all over the rocky terrain at the precipice of the Cliffs of Insanity. The two swordsmen had both begun left-handed, but have switched to their dominant hands when they recognized the masterful fencing of the other. Thrust. Parry. Riposte. The Man in Black acrobatically flips off the ruins. Inigo stares at him, clearly amazed: “Who are you?” he asks.

“No one of consequence,” replies the Man in Black.

“I must know,” pleads the Spaniard.

“Get used to disappointment.”

The fight continues, only to end a minute later with an increasingly flustered Inigo receiving a knock to the back of the head. And the Man in Black sprints off to track down the title character of The Princess Bride.

Get used to disappointment. Sounds like quite sensible advice. Sounds like the Man in Black has been around the block a few times. Sounds like he knows something about the ways of the world. However, this worldly wisdom is often counterproductive to a life of faith. The Letter to the Hebrews urges us this morning to “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” In a world that teaches us to “get used to disappointment,” holding fast to our hope can be so very difficult.

Our inoculation begins at an early age. Children enter life with bright, wide eyes and unbounded, unfettered imaginations. Every couch cushion is a stone in a castle under siege by the invading hordes who desire nothing more than to pillage your kingdom. Every bath is a deep-sea expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis. Every day is another chance to see a unicorn. But before long, we start getting used to disappointment. We are told that couch cushions are for sitting, baths are for bathing, and there’s no such thing as unicorns.

I remember my mother shouting: “Young man, there are no dinosaur bones in the backyard. Stop digging up my flowerbeds.” But what she didn’t know was that my imagination was equipped with ground-penetrating sonar and that there was an intact velociraptor skeleton just underneath the gardenias. It was the find of the century. Any moment, Richard Attenborough was going to land in a helicopter and whisk me off to Jurassic Park. (I don’t mean to rag on my mother – she always cultivated her children’s imaginations as long as we left her flowers alone.)

But in the grand scheme of things, from the moment we are born, our imaginations do nothing but shrink as our understanding of so-called reality grows. Only a few people make it to the major leagues or become astronauts or famous singers. But children always start out dreaming about these things. Do you know anyone at age six who wanted to be a CPA?

As we get used to disappointment, our ability to imagine new worlds wanes. The trouble is that hope exists in the imagination’s ability to frustrate the enclosing nature of the so-called “real” world. We are made in the image of God; therefore, our imagination connects us to the creative spark of our Creator within each of us. And hope resides in this spark. As mounting disappointment attempts to snuff out our imaginations, we encounter great difficulty in accessing the hope, which our Creator installed in us.

In this morning’s lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, Hannah has gotten used to disappointment. She has no children, and her husband’s other, very fertile wife, provokes her on this account. Every year, when the family goes up to the house of the Lord to sacrifice, Hannah weeps and does not eat because of her situation, which is made all the more humiliating by Penninah’s taunting.

But Hannah does not let her disappointment snuff out the hope she has in the Lord. Hannah goes to the temple and asks God to remember her. She pours out her soul before the Lord. She prays so fervently that Eli, the priest, supposes she’s drunk. But no: Hannah is only anxious and vexed. She still believes that God continues to be present in her life, despite the worthlessness, which the world tells her she should be feeling. Hannah combats her own disappointment with the hope that she still has in God to act in her life. Soon God remembers Hannah. She bears a son named Samuel, and he grows up to be the prophet of the Lord.

Hannah’s devotion and perseverance serve as a model for the words of the Letter to the Hebrews. Hannah approaches God “with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” And she “hold[s] fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” for she knows that “he who has promised is faithful.”

We, too, hold fast to the confession of our hope because he who has promised is faithful. Too often, we think that our faith in God needs to sustain us. We think that if we had been just a bit more faith, everything would turn out the way we want and there’d be no more disappointment. But our faith is a wavering, sporadic thing. If we had to feed on our faith alone, we would have starved long ago.

But Hebrews urges us to reorient our understanding of faith. Our wavering, sporadic faith in God pales in comparison with the ultimate reality that God is the faithful One. God keeps God’s promises. God is the rock upon which our disappointments shatter. We do not manufacture our faith. Faith is not self-centered. Faith is God-centered, and God invites us to step into the reality where our faith is as constant as God’s. The confession of our hope proclaims that this reality exists and that we will encounter its utter joy when we finally and fully enter God’s eternal presence.

We believe that this happens in the power of the resurrection when we pass from life through death to new life. But the confession of our hope does not merely cast our thoughts to the life beyond death. Remember, hope exists in the imagination’s ability to frustrate the enclosing nature of the so-called “real” world. This real world is full of disappointments, but it doesn’t have to be. While we may never find the lost city of Atlantis or see a unicorn, concrete disappointments, which may be better termed “crises,” abound in our world.

But God has blessed us with hope-fueled imaginations. God has blessed us with the mission, as Hebrews says, “to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” God has blessed us with the resources to feed and clothe everyone in this world. We must only provide the will. We must only get over our own disappointments and harness the hope that God’s own faith makes real in our lives.

When we were children, the magical words “Once upon a time” lost their luster when we heard their counterparts: “Sweetheart, it’s only make-believe.” But I say to you that we have the opportunity, we have the imagination, we have the will to change this world for the better. Because God keeps God’s promises, we are able to keep our promises. We are able to make a difference in people’s lives. We are able because God’s own faithfulness makes us believe.

By Andrew Donaldson

Margaret Thatcher - still very much alive

When Canadian Transport Minister Mike Baird sent a text message this week declaring “Thatcher is dead”, it didn’t take long for the news to spread like wildfire throughout Canadian politics.

Even the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, was led to believe that Baroness Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, had died aged 84.

What most were unaware of, however, was that Mr Baird was referring to his recently departed pet cat, rather than the Iron Lady herself.

Only a series of telephone calls to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace put the speculation to rest.

Of course, it’s not the first time that a rumour has spread concerning the death of a high profile celebrity.

Just ask Jeff Goldblum, star of such hit films as Independence Day and Jurassic Park.

Earlier this year, the 57-year-old actor was reported to have fallen to his death while filming a new movie in New Zealand.

The rumour turned out to be nothing but a case of inaccurate reporting, with Mr Goldblum’s publicist insisting that reports were “completely untrue” and that the performer was “fine and in Los Angeles”.

Jeff Goldblum, victim of internet hoax

Scrubs star Zach Braff is another victim of a hoax claiming he was dead.

Only last month, rumours spread online that the 34-year-old had been found dead in his Beverly Hills home after consuming a bottle of pills.

Reports of the apparent suicide were eventually silenced by Braff himself via his personal Facebook page when he declared:

“I’m very much alive.

“Total internet rumor [sic].

“Amazing how fast one douche can spread a lie.

“Be careful out there on the internets [sic].”

Braff raises an interesting point.

The internet seems to completely surpass all other forms of media in terms of its ability to circulate baseless information incredibly quickly and on a massive scale.

In the last year alone, rumours about the deaths of Rick Astley, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Harrison Ford and Ellen DeGeneres were all widely circulated on the internet.

But why is this? What about the internet makes it so good for spreading rumours?

Ex-Sociology lecturer, Dr Alison Harold said: “The nature of the internet and how it is structured, with anyone and everyone being able to have an input, means that any information can be passed around.

“The interconnectivity of the internet means that any information can be passed around at an incredible rate.”

Another explanation for the ever-increasing frequency of hoax celebrity-death reports is just how easy the internet has made it for would-be hoaxers to perpetrate their mischief.

It’s all too easy for pranksters to produce emails or webpages that, at first glance, look like authentic news sources, but contain completely inaccurate information.

Inevitably, the more gullible members of society will be taken in, forward the story on, and thus the rumour spreads.

Barry McPherson, spokesperson for the Scottish PR consultancy The Big Partnership, offerred another explanation as to why fake tales of celebrity demise are so prevalent online.

Mr McPherson said: “Bad, depressing or negative stories always have strong news value, particularly where they concern public figures.

“Add to this the increasing fixation with celebrity culture and the explosion in modern, social media, and it’s little surprise that such (false) rumours circulate so fast.

He went on to explain the effect that it can have on the subject of the rumour, adding: “It’s hard to credibly quantify the impact such hoaxes have on the individuals in question, though I’d  assume no-one’s particularly chuffed to  hear about their  own (falsely) rumored demise.

“It would also be particularly upsetting for their friends and family.”

Whether it’s mistaken identity or a simple prank, rumours heard on the internet often aren’t what they first seem.

By Andrew Donaldson

When Canadian Transport Minister Mike Baird sent a text message this week declaring “Thatcher is dead”, it didn’t take long for the news to spread like wildfire throughout Canadian politics.

Even the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, was led to believe that Baroness Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, had died aged 84.

What most were unaware of, however, was that Mr Baird was referring to his recently departed pet cat, rather than the Iron Lady herself.

Only a series of telephone calls to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace put the speculation to rest.

Of course, it’s not the first time that a rumour has spread concerning the death of a high profile celebrity.

Just ask Jeff Goldblum, star of such hit films as Independence Day and Jurassic Park.

Earlier this year, the 57-year-old actor was reported to have fallen to his death while filming a new movie in New Zealand.

The rumour turned out to be nothing but a case of inaccurate reporting, with Mr Goldblum’s publicist insisting that reports were “completely untrue” and that the performer was “fine and in Los Angeles”.

Jeff Goldblum, victim of internet hoax

Scrubs star Zach Braff is another victim of a hoax claiming he was dead.

Only last month, rumours spread online that the 34-year-old had been found dead in his Beverly Hills home after consuming a bottle of pills.

Reports of the apparent suicide were eventually silenced by Braff himself via his personal Facebook page when he declared:

“I’m very much alive.

“Total internet rumor [sic].

“Amazing how fast one douche can spread a lie.

“Be careful out there on the internets [sic].”

Braff raises an interesting point.

The internet seems to completely surpass all other forms of media in terms of its ability to circulate baseless information incredibly quickly and on a massive scale.

In the last year alone, rumours about the deaths of Rick Astley, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Harrison Ford and Ellen DeGeneres were all widely circulated on the internet.

But why is this? What about the internet makes it so good for spreading rumours?

Ex-Sociology lecturer, Dr Alison Harold said: “The nature of the internet and how it is structured, with anyone and everyone being able to have an input, means that any information can be passed around.

“The interconnectivity of the internet means that any information can be passed around at an incredible rate.”

Another explanation for the ever-increasing frequency of hoax celebrity-death reports is just how easy the internet has made it for would-be hoaxers to perpetrate their mischief.

It’s all too easy for pranksters to produce emails or webpages that, at first glance, look like authentic news sources, but contain completely inaccurate information.

Inevitably, the more gullible members of society will be taken in, forward the story on, and thus the rumour spreads.
Barry McPherson, spokesperson for the Scottish PR consultancy <em>The Big Partnership</em>, offerred another explanation as to why fake tales of celebrity demise are so prevalent online.

Mr McPherson said: “Bad, depressing or negative stories always have strong news value, particularly where they concern public figures.

“Add to this the increasing fixation with celebrity culture and the explosion in modern, social media, and it’s little surprise that such (false) rumours circulate so fast.

He, added: “It’s hard to credibly quantify the impact such hoaxes have on the individuals in question, though I’d  assume no-one’s particularly chuffed to  hear about their  own (falsely) rumored demise.

“It would also be particularly upsetting for their friends and family.”

Whether it’s mistaken identity or a simple prank, rumours heard on the internet often aren’t what they first seem.

Les Voyeurs #87 – Les films maudits

Diffusion le : jeudi 12 novembre 2009 à 18h sur Radio Grille Ouverte
vendredi 13 novembre 2009 à 18h sur Radio 16.
Rediffusion le samedi 14 novembre 2009 à 10h sur RGO.
En téléchargement pendant une semaine ici.
Et en écoute permanente là.

Actualité

Aux Arcades d’Alès :  A l’origine de Xavier Giannoli, Panique au Village Vincent Patar et Stéphane Aubier.
Sortie en DVD : Antichrist de Lars Von Trier, La haut de Pete Docter et Bob Peterson, Public Enemies de Michael Mann, Coffret Lautner/Audiard : Les Tontons flingueurs, Les Barbouzes, Ne nous fâchons pas
Ressortie : L’Étranger de Luchino Visconti, Les Ailes du Désir de Wim Wenders.
Projets : De Force de Franck Henry, nouvelle trilogie Jurassic Park.
Les essais de Kurt Russel pour jouer Han Solo dans Star Wars ici.

Dossier de la semaine : Les film maudits

Les films inachevés

L’Enfer d’Henri Georges Clouzot de Serge Bromberg et Ruxanda Medrea sortie mercredi 11 novembre
Une partie de Campagne de Jean Renoir
Napoléon de Stanley Kubrick
Don Quixotte d’Orson Welles
L’Homme qui tua Don Quichotte de Terry Gilliam
Lost in la Mancha de Keith Fulton et Louis Pepe

Les comédiens morts pendant les tournages

Les Rumeurs de malédiction

Superman : les comédiens ayant joué Superman ou Lois Lane sont victimes d’accidents, de suicide, de folie…
L’exorciste de William Friedkin : 9 morts pendant le tournage, un incendie inexpliqué…
Poltergeist : plusieurs morts après le tournage…
Rosemary’s baby de Roman Polanski
Le Conquérant de Dirk Powell : tournage sur un lieu d’essais atomique. 96 cancers, 46 morts dont John Wayne

La bande originale de la semaine :

Thème de Mon nom est Personne par Ennio Moriconne.
Extrait de la bande originale du film Mon nom est Personne (1973) de Tonino Valerii et Sergio Leone

Chronique : La Carte Postale Sétoise

Neo publishing le site

Musique :
Cursed par Kiki Bohemia

Extraits :
L’Enfer
L’Homme qui tua Don Quichotte
L’Imaginarium du docteur Parnassus
Le jeu de la mort
Superman

Présentation : Erik Antolin, Jérôme Bauzon, Cédric Cance
Carte Postale : Jan Jouvert
Réalisation : Jérémie Adrian