Thursday, January 31, 2019
"Thylacine": gay short film by Lampsos about a relationship
A “Thylacine” is an extinct marsupial wolf-like mammal.
I’m not sure whether the term applies to Charlie (Peter Michael
Bondillio) or Nick (Trevor LaPaglia) in this 2014 short film, apparently set on a
California beach, by Alex Lampsos of the New York Film Academy.
The film migrates from library stacks to beaches. This is about younger men wanting
relationships, when sometimes it’s better to spend time alone. This is all Ninth Street Center,
Rosenfels-like stuff.
The French piano music (a Satie Gymnopede and Debussy’s
Claire de Lune) seems understated.
Picture: near one of the Silicon Valley tech campuses (my
trip, 2018).
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
"Bell's Theorem" and quantum entanglement and polarized lenses; and faster than light travel?
“Bell’s Theorem: The Quantum Venn Diagram Paradox” from “Minutephysics”.
I remember seeing the experiments with perpendicular
polarized lens in high school in 1960.
You get curious results as you turn them at various angles.
The video goes on to discuss quantum entanglement, and to
come up with the idea that the universe cannot simultaneously work with both
realism and locality.
Bell’s Theorem used to be cited in science fiction to justify
faster than light travel. I recall that
in Jeffrey Mishlove’s book in 1978, “The Roots of Consciousness” when I was
still living in New York. There was
another book by Isaac Bentov, “Stalking the Wild Pendulum” that expressed a
similar theory.
I tried their experiment with 3-D glasses and it didn't happen.
I tried their experiment with 3-D glasses and it didn't happen.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
"Traveling While Black": NYTimes and Oculus present a VR film supplementing "The Green Book"
Brent Staples, in a comprehensive New York Times article,
presents a twenty-minute film by Roger Ross Williams, “Traveling While Black”,
in virtual reality 360 (requires a smart phone with glasses; on a computer it shows in normal Cinemascope).
The film comes from Oculus, Felix and Paul (and I believe Annapurna).
Here’s a YouTube trailer.
Some of the people are Sandy Butler Truesdale, Virginia Ali,
Samaria Rice.
Many of the participants discuss their experiences in Ben’s Child
Bowl, at 13th and U Sts NW in Washington FC, near the Lincoln Theater.
It opened in the 1930s. In more recent
times it has also become popular in the gay community (Reel Affirmations),
especially filmmakers and artists.
Until the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement, black
travelers were forced to the last car on a train when passing into Virginia,
and were not allowed bathroom access.
In practice travel was very difficult. Some say it still is.
The film supplements “The Green Book” (by Victor Hugo Green),
which as an index of accommodations for black people during segregation, even
in the North. That became the basic of a film by that name (my review).
The impressionistic jazz music score is by Jason Moran.
This film was shown at Ben's Chili Bowl for FilmFestDC.
Labels:
FilmfestDC,
NYTimes,
race,
Short films,
virtual reality films
Sunday, January 27, 2019
"Schizophrenia Simulation": It isn't really multiple identities in the same body, at least not in this film
Here is a short film “Schizophrenia Simulation” from “That
Rick 904”.
An attractive young man spends a day in a suburban home,
experiencing odd visual perception and unwanted sounds and images from his subconscious
(“voices”) which he cannot distinguish from reality.
A girlfriend arrives at the end looking for the package that
he did accept.
The episode seems to present the idea that a schizophrenic
may experience life the way one could experience a lucid dream. You believe the dream while it unfolds, but
you don’t know how you got into the situation in the dream. Yet you are the “same
person” as in your waking life, but somehow you have migrated into a different,
if temporary, reality. In rare cases,
there could be an intimate encounter with someone you “want”. A dream can simulate
what something would be like (even a NDE, which is not pleasant).
The movie “Glass” (M. Night Shyamalan) presents a character played by James
McAcoy with 23 personalities. Is each
personality a different person, a different colonel of consciousness? In terms of the physics of consciousness,
that could be a fascinating idea. If each
of the 23 personalities has a separate thread and does not know the other
personalities or views them from the outside, this might be true. But in the movie it seems as though McAvoy’s
character is always are of all of the personalities, at least from the script.
Can someone really house someone else’s personality after
that person’s passing at times in his body, maybe as dreams? Sounds like a sci-fi idea. I do explore it in “Angel’s Brother”.
Schizophrenia is not the same thing as schizoid personality.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
"Why I'm NOT a Libertarian": it's mostly about inherited (dis)advantages
I’ll let Stephen Woodford, on “Rationality Rules”, explain "Why I’m Not a Libertarian".
He doesn’t believe in natural rights, or free will, and he
believes that we didn’t choose the circumstances of our birth or our talents, so
we couldn’t have earned all we have.
He says libertarianism is more about “freedom from” than “freedom
to”. He also mentions that a personal social contract is necessary for any kind of order. (Hope that doesn't lead to a social credit score!)
Yet he says he is a “liberal”.
Friday, January 25, 2019
Food Insecurity: short film shows how spoilage in a low-income community can be deadly
Here’s a rather alarming short with a life-saving warning. Chubbyemu
posts a 6 minute short, “A Student Ate 5 Day Old Pasta for Lunch. This Is How
His Liver Shut Down”.
The student, 20 years old, an African-American in California
in a community college but with little money, was food insecure. He accidentally left out a pasta and his
roommate put it away in the refrigerator.
The pasta contained a common bacterium but an unusual substrain
that makes a liver toxin because of slightly different biochemistry (like an
extra ammonia radical or something). The
student started vomiting shortly after eating the lunch and passed out. He died within 24 hours. The liver toxin prevents the normal ATP metabolism
from working in body cells. The biochemistry resembles that of Reyes syndrome in children from aspirin.
The film does show how food insecurity can be deadly in low
income communities.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
A film production company in Minnesota is sued for its content choices under a state public accomodations law (Telescope Media Group)
There is a case in Minnesota where a film or video
production company is regarded as a “public accommodation”. This is the Telescope Media Group in St.
Cloud, and the case is Telescope Media Group v. Lindsey.
Apparently the group emphasizes its own style of Christian
films. It apparently made a video
arguing that marriage is only for one man and one woman, and was challenged
legally under Minnesota’s “public accommodation laws”.
This case parallels Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, bur here
the creative activity is filmmaking.
Now there would seem to be an issue as to whether the
company produces films with “other people’s content” rather than its own (theoretically
that could even have been my book when I was living in Minneapolis from
1997-2003).
One the one hand, if I were to produce my own screenplay (“Epiphany”,
derived from my three DADT books) with a company, where at the end only “the
chose few” get to escape a dying Earth for another planet – could I be pursued
to produce another film where there is no Darwinianism (or Specer-ism) and everybody
survives and lives happily every after?
Theoretically I could be viewed as favoring “Nazi” philosophy materials
otherwise.
On the other hand we expand out and look at cases where on
the Internet, Patreon seemed to be de-platforming conservatives – it wasn’t a public
accommodation (Jan. 16). But now there is information to the effect that it has
come under the clandestine influence of payment processors, who will be
investigated for anti-trust violations by suppressing competition.
James Gottry has a story about the company in the Minnesota
Star Tribune.
When I lived there, IFPMSP was active there and had monthly screenings at Bryant Lake Bowl on Lake Street
in Minneapolis (Josh Hartnett was there sometimes). So the group ought to be concerned about this
case.
The Center for the American Experiment wrote up this case in
an article called “Opposite of Free Speech” on p. 18 of the Winter 2019 issue
of Thinking Minnesota.
The article defended free speech from both sides and did not
oppose same-sex marriage per se.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
"Quantum Leap Tackles Gays in the Military": Matt Baume adapts an old sci-fi sitcom to give a brief history of the DADT policy and repeal
Matt Baume (on Patreon) presents “Quantum Leap Tackles Gays
in the Military” (2019).
“Quantum Leap” was a sci-fi series where Sam goes back to
the past and borrows the body of someone and changes the future. His companion is a holographic character
named Al. (In Dan Fry’s “To Men of Earth”,
that’s the name of the human-looking alien.)
The video frames little scenes from the episode, focusing
back in 1964 where Sam inhabits the body of a gay sailor, closeted, who has to
change his behavior to avoid a lynch mob.
(That was the year of real lynch mobs in Mississippi against three civil
rights workers.)
The character survives to participate in Stonewall in 1969,
although, as Matt notes, most of the participants were fluid or drag queens and
not macho-men like Sam.
The narrative does note how the AIDS epidemic forced a lot of men "out of the closet", and curiously the "personal responsibility" or "chain letter" narrative from the right wing that became so threatening in the mid 1980s was largely forgotten.
The narrative does note how the AIDS epidemic forced a lot of men "out of the closet", and curiously the "personal responsibility" or "chain letter" narrative from the right wing that became so threatening in the mid 1980s was largely forgotten.
The rest of the episode recalls 1992-1933, when Bill Clinton
proposed eliminating the ban on gays in the military. Republicans went to their base, and Clinton
had to settle for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue”. It would have been nice to mention Keith Meinhold, Joe Steffan, and Tracy Thorne.
Another video, on Trump’s transgender ban, seems in order.
Monday, January 21, 2019
"We Believe: The Best Men Can Be": Gillette inserts itself into the debate on culture and values
“We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” is a micro-film (less than 2 minutes) from
Gillette.
The film addresses #MeToo, inappropriate pressure on women
in the workplace, and fathering boys not to engage in bullying. Toward the end, it refers to “the best a man
can be” and today’s boys are tomorrow’s men.
It is still ironic that his comes from a company that makes
shaving gear. You can blow this up into
talking about support sessions (for cancer treatment) called “Be Brave and
Shave”. And there is the idea "Be all you can be" (in the Army).
The "CharismaMatrix" offers his critique of the film and notes that implies men shouldn't wear shorts in public. (What? Long stockings with garters? Prudishness about the hair? or absence of it?) He also makes up a mock "toxic femininity" commercial.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
"After the Fall": a young woman survives a zombie apocalypse with a weapon and a diary, and slowly finds other "live ones"
Douglas Anderson Cinematic Arts and Diamond Acres Media
present Matthew Manyak’s 2017 film “After the Fall”
The girl (Brittany Paul) keeps a diary, and travels with an AR-15. She traverses a
southern pine forest, in early winter, heading north (later we will learn she
is near Jacksonville, FL) . She carries a weapon, and shoots cannibals. Soon she finds another young woman (Brennau
Schuman) but when the girl shows a flesh-eating bacteria wound, she asks to be
shot. Brittany continues north and finds some men in town who are still
alive. Maybe she’ll be pregnant and civilization
can start over.
The film uses sepia colors, and it is often hard to tell if
this is a northern or southern landscape.
Picture: Disney Epcot, 2015
Labels:
dystopian world,
horror,
indie sci-fi,
Short films
Thursday, January 17, 2019
"At the End": alien race offers to selectively evacuate Earth from a coming gamma ray burst from a super-nova
The CG Brothers and director James J. Whitmore present a dystopian
short film “At the End” (2015), based on a
short story by Nicole Taylor.
A supernova’s effects will reach Earth and cause extinction.
An alien civilization offers to rescue some of the residents it handpicks, but
to take them back into slavery in a totalitarian, Nazi-like society on another
planet. The spaceships are pretty
interesting to look at. Needless to say, riots break out as the media warns most people that their personal lives as they knew them are running out of time. It's like getting drafted.
A young couple waits for the end “On the Beach”, literally.
The only way a supernova would destroy life on Earth would
be a gamma ray burst. As best we know,
there is nothing close enough to Earth and unstable enough to create that
threat.
But the social issue that the film poses is provocative and
troubling.
Labels:
conscription,
dystopian world,
indie sci-fi,
Short films
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
"The Rise of Alt-Tech": a conversation with a cryptocurrency entrepreneur on overcoming corporate Internet censorship, Patreon style
Dave Cullen, of Computing Forever (in Ireland?) interviews Bill Ottman in a half-hour
video “Overcoming Censorship: The Rise of Alt-Tech” So I’ll call this a movie (not a coma).
The speakers review the Patreon situation (that exploded Dec.
6 with the banning of Sargon of Akkad) and note that Patreon’s behavior is
controlled by Stripes in the payment system (others say MasterCard, who are paired
up with Stripes); yet Patreon cannot be transparent in how it is influenced. The idea of "manifest observable behavior" was reneged on.
They also discussed how these big companies became ideological
after becoming big – because liberal globalism and inclusiveness is best for
their own growth – hence they have recently been tied to the Democratic Party,
not the old Reagan Republicanism. They’re
left with trying to blackball those whose association seem to tie them to
populism, which is indeed dangerous.
Ottman (from Minds) suggested that users start getting more
used to decentralized processing, cryptocurrency, and P2P, which of course has
been around for years (but remember Sean Fanning’s Napster). Ohio, he said, accepts state taxes in cryptocurrency.
Yet there have been some issues, as when Coinbase banned the personal account of Gab’s
found
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
"Will Article 13 Kill the Internet?": attorney looks at how the EU Copyright Directive works even outside the EU
Today’s “Movie” will be a 2-hour-16-minute superchat by
attorney Lior Lesig ("YouTuberLaw") , titled “Will Article 13 Kill the Internet?” It offers the
hastag “#SaveYourInternet”, under the channel “Legal Dissent”.
This discussion refers to Article 13, which along with Article
11 (the Link Tax) are very controversial and disturbing proposals that are
percolating in the European Union, as part of the proposed EU Copyright Directive, and are likely to go into effect in most
countries by the end of 2020 at the latest.
Article 13 would hold platforms (like YouTube) responsible
as the speaker for any copyright infringement from users. Various versions of the proposal limit the exposure
just to “larger” commercial platforms (social media companies) and claim to
recognize Fair Use but give platforms no way to protect themselves from users
except to limit the content to larger users whom they know well.
Content originating outside the EU, not going through newer
EU protocols, would likely be blocked in the EU, even though that could
probably be circumvented by VPN’s.
Blogger, for example, probably would have to suspend EU
country specific TLD’s for users who weren’r prescreened by their rules.
The whole measure seems to be an exercise in protectionism,
trying to enable legacy media companies to fend off low-cost competition from newbies.
The first part of the video is a summary of the Article 13 provisions
and shows the logical contradictions within the wording.
Monday, January 14, 2019
"Could Ceres Be Home to Alien Life?": SEA video
SEA offers an 11-minute video “Could Ceres Be Home to Alien
Life?”
Ceres is the largest asteroid, close to 500 miles in
diameter, with one third of the mass of the asteroid belt – so it may be termed
a minor planet.
It has one mountain, which may be a cryovolcano, and
apparently an underground ocean, and a considerable amount of nitrogen locked
in ammonia, which offers the possibility of organic chemistry around the bright
spots.
It would have very low gravity.
Wikipedia: attribution: By NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA - https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA22083.gif, Public Domain, Link
Labels:
extraterrestrial life,
science documentary,
short
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Mikel Wisler's workshop: "Screenwriting for Short Films"
Mikel Wisler does a workshop (April 2016) on “Screenwriting
for Short Films: How to Structure Your Plot”
Wisler presents a trailer for “Parallel”, a sci-fi, before
explaining how the Internet – especially YouTube – have changed our expectations
of short film.
He describes the three act structure for storytelling. This is the proverbial beginning, middle and
end, with a drop-off at the climax.
He mentions the idea of setting up the “rules” for your
world, like inside an O’Neill Cylinder. You need a provocative or exciting incident
very quickly.
Wisler’s website is “Stories by the River”.
The key point for a short film occurs at about 34:05.
I wonder how his remarks apply to Carter Smith’s “Bugcrush”
(2006).
Saturday, January 12, 2019
"Cat in Automatic Escape Room", normally dangerous fun for people
I’ll give a cat video tonight, to demonstrate cat
intelligence.
That is, “Cat in Automatic Escape Room”. The first 6 minutes shows the cat solving the
puzzles; then the creator of the escape room explains it.
Mammals that hunt prey for a living have problem-solving
abilities that resemble some of human capacities.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Andy Warhol's "Empire", sped up by a factor of 64, only one shot in the 8-hour film
I don’t recall having heard of Andy Warhol’s single-shot
eight hour movie “Empire”, comprising only a shot of the Empire State Building in
Manhattan, in black and white.
The video above shows the film sped up by a factor of 64.
Brenda Cronin, in the Wall Street Journal, describes a
screening at the City Hall Cinema where a melee broke out after ten minutes. Tickets were $2?
Wednesday, January 09, 2019
"MasterCard Is the Final Boss": how globalization may have led payment processors to try to suppress conservative of even hyperindividualistic speech (and crushing Patreon)
The 40 minute documentary “MasterCard Is the Final Boss”,
animated, by ShortFatOkatu , lays out a quite chilling theory of why payment
processors, most of all MasterCard, are behind so many of the recent
de-platformings.
He explains how Mastercard links “inclusivity” to “data” and
even filed for a patent to use data to predict future political events (like
Brexit). Critical is the idea of “digital
identity (at 20:30).
A financial institution’s future business growth means
having more consumers, so it pays to be inclusive of groups that might
otherwise be at odds with each other (such as LGBT and Muslims must both be
included enthusiastically). MasterCard
also admits that it pursues political activity that advances its future
profitability, which generally includes more immigration and more attention to
developing countries, pretty much the opposite of Trumpism and right wing
populism. It even includes participation in philanthropies or other activities
from the workplace (even like kiva) that would tend to cause more overseas
inclusion. Therefore it may have a
reason to pressure others into “charitable” activities that would support its
own future business model (such as Facebook’s trying to get users to run
donation buttons from their own personal pages, which might amount to
conditionally compelled speech).
The video also looks to a dystopian future where DNA prints
could be used to exclude “undesirable” people from the financial system.
This sort of aggressive consumer globalizing has encourage
the labeling unpopular people as “alt-right-adjacent” or as sympathetic or
encouraging others to engage in anti-inclusive activities – which is why people
like Milo and Sargon of Akkad "had to go" (as "alt-right-linked" even if not that extreme themselves). I think this explains why Google and the
progressive Left were so offended by James Damore (and Charles Murray, as well
now as people like Jordan Peterson), whose ideas make moral sense from an
individualistic or “personal responsibility” perspective but confound those who
want to leverage identarianism for future political or economic growth. Murray, though, doubles back a bit when he
encourages a certain amount of tribalism or eusociality. Introverted people,
who tend to be more individualistic and more conservative, don’t fare well with
this setup.
I can remember at ING-ReliaStar in Minneapolis in the late
1990s when inclusivity was promoted but then was so benign. Supporting diversity cost nothing then.
Monday, January 07, 2019
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962); when fiction comes true
“The Manchurian Candidate”, based on Richard Condon’s book,
has been filmed at least twice; but let’s focus on the 1962 black and white
film by John Frankenheimer for United Artists.
If ends with the famous shootout scene at a convention by a previously
hypnotized enlisted man Shaw (Lawrence Harvey), who gradually gets drawn into affecting
the election by triggering events as programmed in Manchuria by the Soviets.
I remember a scene in a well known Connecticut Ave. apartment.
Marco (Frank Sinatra) is his CO, and Angela Lansbury is the
evil Ms. Iselin, who wants to be vice president.
Guess who the Manchurian Candidate was in 2016.
Update: Jan. 11
Now see this story about the unmentionable president in the New York Times today, breaking news story about an FBI investigation into his being possibly set up by Russia. David Hogg characterized this as the national security emergency. We need David Hogg's feature documentary now!
Update: Jan. 11
Now see this story about the unmentionable president in the New York Times today, breaking news story about an FBI investigation into his being possibly set up by Russia. David Hogg characterized this as the national security emergency. We need David Hogg's feature documentary now!
Sunday, January 06, 2019
"9 Tips for Writing Short Films" from a film student
“9 Tips for Writing Short Films” from Blackstone Avenue.
The speaker sits in a high rise window (Toronto?)
He says, keep it simple.
Make it a story that has a point.
A short film has a length of 40 minutes or less. Typical budgets are 4 figures, sometimes 5.
Do your research, like a school assignment.
Cast adults as such.
Saturday, January 05, 2019
"The Case Against Tattoos" and self-effacing body art
“The Case Against Tattoos”, from the bad uncle, “Blue Collar
Logic”.
He starts with an interesting thought experiment.
I see tattoos as disfiguring, but more for white men. His sequel is for men.
They compromise the “trappings” of masculinity.
But the speaker points out, they are more or less permanent.
Friday, January 04, 2019
"Resignation": short film, in which a young man (and tech geek) finds out the responsibilities of being an alien when the "rescue" craft approaches Earth
“Resignation” is a short film by Mike Ozmun for Rebel Hound Studios.
David Schmidt plays Gene, a young single scientist in
Austin, TX with a girl friend (Ariel Gilman) who may be dying (like of cancer).
He leaves his rambler home in Austin and drives to Big Bend on a day that there
is a sudden announcement that an asteroid will hit Earth within 24 hours.
When he reaches the park he meets a friend, played by Ozmun,
and then we learn that they are both aliens who will be picked up by the object
and evacuated. But David wants to take
care of his girl friend. The curious
thing is that he is on Earth as a contractor, as an employee of an alien company
and he can “resign”, like in a chess game.
The film won an award from the Philip K. Dyck film festival,
and has been shown in various short film festivals.
Tuesday, January 01, 2019
"Duma": in South Africa, an orphaned cheetah practically raises a boy after father dies
Carol Ballard’s “Duma” (2005), for Warner Brothers, is
another big cat film.
In South Africa, a rancher Peter (Campbell Scott) adopts an orphaned
cheetah, who grows up to adulthood as a household pet bonded to the boy. The cat, sometimes behaving like a dog, learns
to operate the TV remote, and sits at the family dinner table. Peter had determined to return the cat to the
wild.
But Peter gets sick and dies, and the boy grows up depending
on the cheetah as he gets bullied. Eventually Duma, the cheetah, has the urge
to mate and recognized females. He is both
a wild animal and almost human at the same time.
I saw this film in 2005 at the Avalon in NW Washington. It’s surprising it isn’t branded as Warner
Independent Pictures.
By Tech. Sgt. Joe Zuccaro - https://www.dvidshub.net/image/147321, Public Domain, Link
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