While working on my just-released smart ebook on the 200 greatest films in history, I collected a lot more than 200 films, so I’m already planning a follow-up, only this time, I’m only including films that stream free on Youtube.
I bet you know of a great film that streams free, and I’d sure love it if you sent me a link as a comment on this blog so I can include it in my next series. I program thousands of hyper links in these ebooks to multiple websites, which is why I call them “smart.”
Don Henderson sent me a link to a film called Cool World made in the early 1960s (not the animated feature of the same name). Meanwhile, within a few minutes Dave Allen recommended Nightmare Alley, while James Marshall posted Five Minutes to Kill starring Johnny Cash of Facebook.
Post any links to this blog you think should be in my next film book.
Making Beat Street
I was the first professional journalist to travel to the South Bronx to document an explosion in youth culture that had been going on for a decade while being completely ignored by the media.
After publishing some landmark articles in the Village Voice, I began work on a film script. Since I’d gotten most of my hip hop history from Afrika Bambaataa, the first hip hopper to come downtown, I concentrated on the Black Spades involvement, and failed to mention the Ghetto Brothers or their peace council.
I’d seen The Warriors but had no idea the film was based on a real event. When I asked Bam why the gangs had broken up into crews, he attributed it to the girls getting sick of the violence. In reality, Benjy Melendez played the key role in bringing conga drums back into the streets. I wish Bam had clued me into Benjy’s importance in laying a foundation so hip hop could emerge.
I got played by Harry Belafonte, who bought the rights to my script, and then pressured me to turn over my interviews with hip hop’s founders to the Schomberg Library in Harlem. I was so naive. I had no idea how valuable those transcripts were or how inclusion at the library would soon be broadcast all over the internet, drawing historians to reap the benefits of my research for free without ever having to speak to me. Once Harry got control of those interviews, he didn’t need me anymore.
Recently, Belafonte sold his archive to that library for millions, so maybe Harry sits on their board of directors. When he pressured me to turn over the material, I had no idea I’d been soon fired off my own film project. But revealing me as the true instigator only took spotlight away from Belafonte, who never understood hip hop, which is why Beat Street put more effort on staging the African dance numbers than the break dance battles.
Back in those days, I never met an art director who comprehended graffiti had a unique style. Their attempts to hire airbrush professionals to replicate graffiti were always an utter fail. Imagine if Phase 2 had been supervising the graffiti in Beat Street. Instead, like me, Phase was cut out of the film entirely.
Belafonte had been deluged by chuckleheads claiming they knew the real history of hip hop, and how it came out of Brooklyn, or Queens, or Manhattan, or any damn borough but the Bronx. According to these fools, Phase was a faker and I didn’t know what I was talking about. I heard similar stories when I later published Art After Midnight. One reviewer claimed Jean Michel Basquiat had zero talent and implied I was only promoting him because we were friends. The publisher seems to have bought into that lie because they soon shredded all copies, which is why the book is so hard to find.
When the Schomberg held a 30-year anniversary for Beat Street, they failed to even invite me. Then I noticed that the gifting of my archive had been credited online not to me but to my editor at St. Martins, so I asked the library to return my transcripts and take my name off their website. A reply from their lawyer claimed they never got any transcripts from me.
I put the original script on Smashwords (Looking for the Perfect Beat), and still hold out hope someone will produce the real story with my original title and script.
My 10 favorite spy movies
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) introduced the concept of hypnotic mind control assassins walking among us. The film was recently remade, although the more modern version was a disaster and conveys none of the suspense of the original, which was based on an explosive book by Richard Condon, who’d served as the publicist for Walt Disney before launching his career as a novelist. Disney was very close with J. Edgar Hoover and a real Cold Warrior himself. There were some deep secrets revealed by this film, so much so the studio pulled it one year after release because it had some eerie parallels to the assassination of JFK.
If you were expecting a James Bond film on this list, I’m afraid to disappoint. The Bond films are entertaining but really just silly melodramas that bear little resemblance to the moral complexities real spooks face when they delve into deep politics. John Le Carre’s portrayals of spook world were far more accurate than anything Ian Fleming ever wrote, although they both worked for British intelligence, though Le Carre’s “Circus” was initially based on the inner sanctum of the SIS, while Fleming initially worked for British naval intelligence. Based on Le Carre’s third and most successful novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) introduced George Smiley to most of the world.
The Ipcress File (1965) followed in the wake of Manchurian Candidate by delving into the use of hypnotism and psychic driving to rearrange the brains of secret agents who knew too much. It would soon become much imitated. Sealed the career of Michael Caine and got him noticed in Hollywood. Based on a novel by fromer RAF pilot Len Deighton. In response to the Bond franchise, Deighton revealed spook world was actually filled with meaningless red tape and interdepartmental rivalries to great comic effect.
The Kremlin Letter (1970) was a ground-breaking film that bombed at the box office, but remains one of the great masterpieces of the genre directed by John Huston and based on a book written by Noel Behn, formerly of the United States Army Counterintelligence Corps. This is probably the closest thing to a real CIA operation in Russia you will ever find, and it all revolves around drugs and prostitutes. The protagonist is recruited out of the Navy because of his photographic memory and soon enters the rabbit hole into a wilderness of mirrors. The spooks are ruthless and will use any tactic to fulfill a mission, and you never know which side they’re on because sides change quickly.
You don’t see this film on many lists, but I love it, and it revealed the dark underbelly to our involvement in Vietnam, including capturing a monopoly on opium from French intelligence. It’s not really classified as a “spy” movie because the main character was loosely based on Neal Cassady. They even recreate a version of the Pranksters hangout in Perry Lane for the big climatic ending, when the bad spooks and Cassady slug it out. Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978) is a rousing adventure story in which the spooks are the bad guys.
In the real world of spooks, the hidden machinations of the oil industry play a crucial role. Oil is a weapon, and when the price goes high, countries that don’t have any, like China, are kept in check. Syriana (2005) remains one of the few peeks into the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has become a haven for spook activities.
Munich (2006) may be my all-time favorite spy film and details how Israel set-up assassination teams to get vengeance against the Black September group that assassinated their Olympic champions at the Munich games in 1972. Based on the life of real-life Mossad agent Juval Aviv, it shows how the moderate Palestinian leadership was replaced by violent fanatics after the assassinations, leaving the Mossad spooks wondering if they weren’t being manipulated to increase violence and tension rather than resolve it.
The Company (2007) is actually what many undercover CIA spooks call their outfit, and this history of the CIA is better than the more expensive The Good Shepherd, which covered similar territory and was released a year earlier, the difference being this was released as a TV miniseries and not a theatrical film. Unfortunately, both projects blinked when it came to covering the JFK assassination, which was a Company project undertaken by many of the same spooks involved in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Other than that major oversight, there’s some real truths revealed in this complex drama.
Spooks and terrorists go hand-in-hand, and in the wilderness of mirrors it’s often hard to tell the two apart. Carlos (2010) is a masterful glimpse into this world and would have been even better if the original Feelies soundtrack had been left intact. Unfortunately, the band didn’t want to get associated with a notorious terrorist and nixed their music. You won’t find a better miniseries about deep political events and I promise this will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.
There are two celebrated versions of Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (1979, 2011), a loose interpretation of the unveiling of super spook Kim Philby (although some elements are ignored to make it more palatable, especially Philby’s friendship with Victor Rothschild). This famous Le Carre novel is widely considered the most accurate portrayal of MI6-SIS operations. The BBC version stars Alec Guinness while the more modern British-French theatrical film stars Gary Oldman. The theatrical film has better production values, but also makes many changes designed to enhance the drama. The BBC version, on the other hand, is much closer to the original book and more believable as a result. And if you like the 4-hour made-for-tv version (free to watch on Youtube), you can follow it up with the 6-hour Smiley’s People, the final saga in Smiley’s epic battles with KGB’s Karla.
My 10 favorite horror films
The British may own spooks and black magic through their dominating James Bond and Harry Potter icons, but the Germans initially ruled over the birth of horror films. The first masterpiece of the genre is the expressionistic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Modern concepts of hypnotism and mind control are expressed in this film, although the CIA would not adopt them for another 20 years or so.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is one of the greatest spy movies ever made, and also a terrific horror story with many layers. It introduced the concept of brainwashing through psychic driving and ritual abuse. In fact, the story was so on target the film had to be pulled for many years after JFK was assassinated, simply because the assassination had too many similarities with this story. In fact, Oswald was undoubtedly a victim of MKULTRA hypnosis programming. The 1960s was really the classic era of this genre and half my top ten come from the decade.
Carnival of Souls (1962) sets the record for low budget, having been made for around $33,000. Despite the lack of any real resources, its a psychological masterpiece driven by an incredibly disturbing organ soundtrack. People have tried to remake this but never to the same effect.
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the great masters of the genre and made many films that deserve consideration, including Psycho. But The Birds (1963) is my favorite of all the scary films Hitch made, and it’s been made all the more disturbing by the recent revelations he used the production to torment the female star, Tippie Hedren, because she refused to submit to his sexual desires.
My favorite director in this genre, however, is Roman Polanski, and his Repulsion (1965) is without doubt one of the most disturbing psychological experiences of my life, the first real immersion into the world of psychosis.
It doesn’t take a big budget to make a great horror film, and that’s been proven over and over. I don’t really care for the slasher films and gore is not my bag, and in a way I guess this film got a lot of that trend going, but today it seems super tame in that regard. Night of the Living Dead (1968) was an original update on the zombie film.
I don’t know why The Tenant (1976) doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Although I enjoyed the basic horror melodrama Rosemary’s Baby, I found this film far more psychologically interesting, exploring concepts of psychic possession and split personality syndrome in a highly original manner. One of the most under celebrated films you’ll ever see.
The Shining (1980) was strangely uncelebrated when it came out, although I found it to be one of the scariest films I ever sat through, a real descent into madness even more powerful than Polanski’s Repulsion. It did eventually attain the status it deserves and now serves as a launching pad for numerous rabbit holes and disinfo stories, so great is its resonance on the telepathic plane.
Talk about psychologically disturbing, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) set a new bar in that regard. Proving once again that big budgets don’t necessarily make for big horror, director John McNaughton fashioned this masterpiece on a measly $100,000 budget. The film launched a few careers and deservedly so. And I should add I’ve known John since high school and recruited him into my band The Soul Assassins in 1988 in New York City to play organ.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is a wonderful merger of fantasy and horror and seems to owe a ton of inspiration to The Shining, especially the ending. Of all horror films released in the last few decades, this one really stands out as my favorite.
PTSD is the new normal
One in three teens is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and the percentage of highly stressed teens is growing at an alarming rate. Teens have now surpassed adults for exhibiting signs of PTSD.
This is a great tragedy and a likely the result of drugging an entire generation with stimulants and SSRI’s. Obviously, the mass drugging is not working, in fact, it seems to be contributing to the problem.
Part of this equation is also the immense cost of college, which puts tremendous pressure on kids to make grades and parents to save. The shrinking job market also plays a major factor, because opportunities after college are shrinking.
But the media also plays a major role with relentless violence pornography and amplification of terror events. You can’t help but be psychologically impacted when a horrific event of violence commands the news for days.
I’m not in favor of censorship, but I do yearn for a rise in conscious media that honors the benefits of peace culture and shows respect for non-violence, and projects that lifestyle as an honorable path. One way to implement this is to show appreciation for the hippie movement, something on the cusp of a 50th anniversary, and a true piece of American history.
Strangely, much of the story is still untold, starting with the death of hippie’s greatest avatar, Johnny Griggs, founder of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.
Who knows, hippie energy might come around again someday. I sure hope so.
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Chakra-Candles/dp/B00BVMZ8U8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415013461&sr=8-1&keywords=candles+Steven+hager
Remembering Philip Marshall
I bet you never heard of Philip Marshall. He was a pilot and worked directly under Barry Seal in New Orleans at the height of the Contra-Cocaine effort, when planes full of guns were flying south and coming back stuffed with happy dust. Barry was one of the biggest spooks in history and ran an immense operation, but he turned on his CIA masters and went rouge and was soon dead.
Philip was his aide at the time, and he went on to write a “novel” about those years called Lakefront Airport, after the New Orleans airport Barry first employed for smuggling operations, a site later switched to Mena, Arkansas, after a favorable Governor to the CIA was installed there no doubt.
Marshall used his spook connections to write an expose on 9/11 that actually tracked the real information and tied the event to a Bush-Saudi alliance. I plan to get this book very soon as I believe it’s probably got some explosive revelations that have not been unveiled anywhere else. Marshall was a real insider, and capable of following the threads, so there’s a good chance this book shines a spotlight in some dark corners.
But there’s a price for telling the truth in America, and in this case, that price included the murder of his children and dog?
They were all found shot dead. The kids were arranged on the couches as if they both were sleeping when assassinated with a bullet to the brain. There was zero investigation and it was immediately ruled a double murder suicide by Marshall, who by all evidence was a completed devoted single dad who would have done anything for his kids. But one day, he woke up and decided to kill off everyone?
The official story does not hold water, however, as there is no way Marshall could have fired all those bullets without the shots being heard all over the neighborhood. And since there was no disturbance, that means a silencer had to have been used, something not found at the scene. But since the crime scene was sanitized, and no forensics conducted at all, we will never come close to the truth.
Oh, and Marshall’s relationship with Barry Seal is well documented, as was Seal’s long history running guns and drugs, and some of those operations were reportedly done under the guidance of Oliver North.
Here’s a shot of the notorious Operation 40 crew assembled as a CIA assassination squad. Seal is the third person sitting on the left. The guy hiding his face? That’s Frank Sturgis, who would soon start work on assassinating Fidel Castro. The latin guy in front with a cigarette in his hand? That’s Felix Rodriguez and he went on to kill Che Guevara, along with many others no doubt. I only show you this photo to explain how real Seal and Marshall are in the kingdom of spookdom, which is why this death should have been taken very seriously by local law enforcement, and not shoved under the rug so quickly.
Which is the real killer of Gemma and David?
Perhaps you heard the story of how Gemma Moss, 31, supposedly died from “cannabis toxicity?” At least, that was the findings of the local coroner in England. This is the second time a coroner in England has claimed death from “cannabis toxicity,” something not recognized by the medical community. Gemma was a devout Christian who left three young children behind. She passed unexpectedly in her sleep. She was estranged from her husband, who reportedly lives in Jamaica with their daughter, while Gemma was raising their two sons. She was a regular user of cannabis, who typically smoked half a joint a night to help her sleep. If she had a heart attack, as the coroner claims, then she died from a heart condition, not from “cannabis toxicity,” which can result in panic attacks, the munchies or sleep, but cannot kill.
Today, we learned of another sad death. David Hallman, 21, a senior at Denison University in Ohio, who was majoring in history. He’d spent three years on the swimming and diving teams, and remained close with his teammates, although he was no longer competing.
David left Brews Cafe at 2 am and started walking home early Saturday morning. But after walking a half mile, he either passed out, or decided to take a rest. David was found frozen that night after a frantic search that lasted for hours. He was slumped against a garage door across the street from a golf course.
Now David didn’t die from alcohol, he froze to death, but, in fact, without the alcohol in his system, he would not have passed out. Death from hypothermia after binge drinking is fairly common and every year an average of 1,300 people in America die from hypothermia. If you are binge drinking during winter months, and the temperature is below zero, please take a cab home. Cold can kill you, cannabis cannot.
Why Mark Passio is just another rabbit hole
In the fall of 2012, I was asked to check out an emerging conspiracy researcher named Mark Passio, former member of the Church of Satan, who claimed to have uncovered the secret mind control formulas being employed by the Illuminati to secretly manipulate the world. I couldn’t make it through to the end of his extremely long, extremely lightweight video simply because Passio is so full of crap, starting with his acknowledgements towards the “masters” who taught him most of everything he knows, especially David Icke, an obvious fraud and professional disinfo artist. Icke pretends the world is controlled by shape-shifting aliens from another dimension? And somehow, thousands are hookwinked into believing this transparent nonsense? Obviously Passio is one of Icke’s hoodwinked true believers.
If you are looking for the trail into the real Illuminati, it runs through Yale University’s Brotherhood of Death, aka the Order of Skull & Bones, as proven by Antony Sutton’s America’s Secret Establishment. Sutton did real research on real people and his mind wasn’t clouded by occult dogmas. The dogmas are just what is used to hoodwink the true believers. Real history is the study of economic forces, not occult wisdom, which is just the flip side of fundamentalism and no more credible, and both sides of that dialectic are controlled by spooks.
Just looking at the evolution of the distribution of wealth, it should be obvious there’s a concentration of power that is increasing power through the generations, an operation going on for the last 2,000 years. In a true participatory democracy the opposite would be taking place: wealth should become better distributed over time and not monopolized by the already rich.
In Europe, some of the wealthiest families can trace their ancestors through 30 or more generations, while in the United States, some of the wealthiest families are descendants of the Robber Barons who emerged after the Civil War. The biggest international corporations have interlocking boards of directors and these people live in a world of secret clubs, secret societies and secret monopolies.
They don’t want us investigating this world because they don’t want the masses to start conspiring to vote away their wealth, so they create a lot of fake, garbage, click-bait to confuse the subject, much of which involves trying to scare you with magic symbols and spooky soundtracks, the same way some religions try to scare you with imaginary concepts. Occultism and Fundamentalism are flip sides of the same coin, and equally controlled. All divisive issues are carefully mined with spooks on both ends, who drive the conversation between two designated poles, thus establishing the center of gravity on that issue. Left and right are an illusion because both sides work for the same masters.
All of Passio’s work is a continuation of a long line of counterintelligence disinfo, and the mere act of watching hours of his video is the equivalent of undergoing mind control, so my suggestion would be to avoid his scary stories.
One thing I pointed out a year and a half ago is Passio’s four major influences are all tied to the UFO community, a meme likely orchestrated as an intel rabbit hole op. UFO’s have been used as cover during MK/Ultra brainwashing experiments, something done to hide the identity of the real perpetrators doing the brainwashing, while providing a backstop no serious person would swallow. When you start accepting the tall tale that powerful aliens are among us, you immediately lose all credibility in the real world and pretty soon will be rendered unable to effectively investigate anything because you’re too busy looking for little green men from outer space.
And that is precisely where intel wants to lead potential citizen researchers. What they don’t want are serious investigations into 9/11 that involve tracking real forensic evidence into Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to uncover CIA, MI6 and Mossad links to the event.
The first person who questioned my original blog of Passio was a credible researcher and publisher who complained I’d dragged UFO’s into the conversation, while Passio didn’t mention UFOs in his original videos. I predicted that would soon change, based solely on Passio’s source material.
You see, Passio’s “research” is built on the backs of notorious frauds and disinfo artists, which is why I can dismiss it so easily. You cannot construct anything real based on “research” of people like David Icke and expect anything but bullshit to emerge the other end, because Icke is pushing total bullshit. Yes, I know some of the stuff Icke says is real, like there really is a conspiracy of power at the center of the banking industry. That’s obvious. But it’s not being run by aliens from outer space. That’s a hoodwink rabbit hole that serves only to protect the perpetrators by placing a false mirror over them. If you’re busy looking for shape-shifting aliens, you can look for a long time, because there aren’t any, and if there were, they would have killed people like Icke and Passio a long time ago.
For those who didn’t believe my prediction Passio would soon be pushing “aliens are here,” check out this recent comment I found on his website:
“Mark links ancient accounts of extraterrestrial visitation to our planet with the manifestation of the psychological conditions in which the human species currently finds itself. Questions explored include: Were we actually created by non-human entities as a hybrid slave species? Did our extraterrestrial “parents” inadvertently create a slew of genetic anomalies in the human species, including primary psychopathy, as a result of their imprecise genetic modifications? Did our extraterrestrial forbearers provide to us our systems of government, money, and religion; and to what ends did they do so? What effect did our “cosmic parents” sudden disappearance have upon the collective human psyche? What does humanity need to understand to rectify the deeply-seated psychological trauma that it has amassed over eons, as a direct result of our troubled origins?”
I can assure you none of these questions matter and I don’t need to pay $10 to attend this lecture to know everything in it is bunk. The only point of material like this is to lead people into a rabbit hole and make them feel powerless to control anything, because how could you affect a system being run by all powerful aliens? In truth, Passio knows little about the real oligarchy that runs the Central Banks, because if he did, he’d have real info involving real people to share, and not just a bunch of hocus pocus nonsense based on imaginary evidence.
So free your mind from this crap and climb out of the rabbit hole and start dealing with reality. It’s a lot more interesting than this garbage.
Of course, you could prove me wrong by just providing some real forensic evidence of an alien invasion. But please, no pictures of gargoyles, dragons or reptiles from ancient cultures, because that sort of stuff doesn’t prove anything. Just post a link to some video of a real shape-shifting alien in action and if the video is authentic, I will take back everything I’ve said. And if what Icke says is true, that footage should not be hard to locate. After all, Icke claims to have seen these shape-shifters many times before. And if that’s true others must be seeing them as well. So how hard is it to whip out a smart phone and shoot some video? And why hasn’t that video emerged after all these years? And please, don’t bother sharing that ridiculous video of Justin Beiber’s snake eyes. Justin is neither an alien nor a member of the Illuminati, because if he was, he wouldn’t have to take shit from anyone, and that is obviously not the case.
My 10 Favorite Science Fiction Films
In Victorian times, a woman’s ultimate fear was to grow up and find herself married off to some inhuman beast, a deep-rooted fear expressed through novels like Jane Eyre. But in the 1950s, a similar meme began expressing for young teens, and no film expressed this meme more powerfully than Invaders From Mars (1953), a film that cast a shadow over those strange goings-on in the world of adults. I viewed this film as a second grader on a black-and-white in the den of our home outside Boston. I was home sick with a fever, which just intensified the experience immensely. I soon had many dreams inspired by this film, a sure indication of its power in the telepathic plane. Strangely, you almost never see it on television, and the British re-edit destroyed the original ending, which was designed to mimic The Wizard of Oz, as the copy at the top of the poster indicates.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) continued along a similar meme, although this time around the protagonist is an adult and aliens are breeding in pods everywhere up and down the West Coast. Science fiction opens up a lot of possibilities in many different styles, from comedy to super realism to fantasy, but the two of the best examples of the genre on my list were both designed as B-grade thrillers on low budgets, but like Night of the Living Dead, managed to scare teens silly and touch a psychic nerve. Strangely, this film suffered the same sad fate as my first film for the scary ending was jettisoned and replaced with a deus ex machina fake ending instead? I hope the latest versions of these films restore the superior endings the directors both intended.
For my tastes, the glory days of science fiction came in the 1980s, and were aided immensely by the emerging use of CGI. By the way, don’t expect to see Avatar on my list as I positively hated that film, and really don’t care for any CGI blood-baths no matter what the genre. Most of the recent science fiction blockbusters have disappointed me for some time, and I consider the genre in decline, although I did love Gravity and would put it on the list except it’s science fact, not fiction. And I think that’s one reason this genre has suffered for nearly forty years. Our culture is advancing so fast the imaginations of writers have difficulty leaping ahead, simply because paradigm shifts are so quick in real life.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was a game-changer and introduced the super realistic special effects which created something close to a real space ship experience before the advent of CGI. It was a flawed masterpiece, however, simply because the build-up was so great and the ending so weak. Of course, the ending was actually fantastic if you were on LSD at the time and this may have been one of the first Hollywood films people of my generation flocked to while tripping. I don’t recommend synthetics these days, however, so if you want to trip out while watching this, I’d suggest peyote or mushrooms as a much better and safer alternative. And yes, those sacraments will greatly enhance the experience and you won’t even notice the limp ending.
You won’t find Star Wars or Star Trek on my list, or even Dune for that matter. Many of the biggest commercial productions were okay, but this is the top ten so it’s hard to make the cut. However, a low-budget spoof on those films did make it, and it’s seldom celebrated comic masterpiece named for a famous Grateful Dead song, a song that was often a peak moment of their set when a film first appeared called Dark Star (1974). So after going from two thrillers to hyper realism to comedy, the list now enters what I consider the golden age of science fiction.
Alien (1979) was the debut of CGI in a Hollywood science fiction film as far as I know, or something very close. This film took the regular meme of alien possession to much greater realism and theatricality. It was Ridley Scott’s second film and he decided to make it after viewing Star Wars, replacing that film’s light comedy and bloodless battles with a much darker and gorier naturalism.
The Thing (1982) was similar to Alien in some ways, except the location was not a space ship far from earth, but the ice-cold Antarctic. In this thriller, the alien is a shape-shifter who can instantly inhabit anyone and remain undetected. The isolated team is swiftly traumatized and and seeks to determine who may be an alien among them.
Of course Philip K. Dick was a game changer in this genre and a big inspiration to the cyberpunk and cypherpunk movements, but Dick didn’t arrive on the Hollywood scene until Ridley Scott made Blade Runner (1982), although the original story was titled: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Arnold wasn’t very cool until this film came out, but who knew he could be perfectly cast as a robotic killing machine devoid of human emotions? I have to wonder if some of our current school shooters aren’t channeling his character somehow. Meanwhile, Hollywood keeps making the sappiest of robot films, many of which are animated and incredibly maudlin and hardly worth watching, while this gory masterpiece still holds up. The Terminator (1984) is the name of the film.
It’s not often that the sequel is better than the original, but that happened with Aliens (1986). It’s notable that films by Ridley Scott anchor and define this great era in film. Sir Ridley rules the genre more than any other director. I hope he returns to the genre soon as I haven’t really loved any of his films since Black Hawk Down.
The French, like the British, have made many attempts to jump into the science fiction genre over the years, although many of the French productions have been somewhat comic and campy. This film follows in that tradition with the notable addition of advanced CGI. This film was a massive commercial success while receiving mixed reviews. If you haven’t seen The Fifth Element (1997), I suggest you check it out. It doesn’t have the somber nihilism of British films like 1984, but I find it much more entertaining.
Snowden is an intelligence dangle, not a real whistleblower
Notice how Edward Snowden released some juicy information on British intelligence right before the Olympics kicked off? The Olympics are a magical ceremony and manipulated for propaganda purposes. And what did Snowden tell us? That MI6 is ahead of the CIA and NSA in both technology (hacking) and in-the-field spy-craft.
And in a nutshell, here’s how the field system operates: A honey trap is set online via social networks and lures a target to a wired hotel. Snowden gives few details, but I would imagine these encounters take a wide variety of forms, and may involve documenting use of illicit substances for the purpose of getting a manipulation handle on the target.
My guess is honey traps are male for gays and female for hetros as both bases always need be covered. My question is: are these just working escorts rented for an hour, or real spooks? Although I imagine there must be a nexus where those two converge. And if so, why hasn’t the British honey-trap sex-kitten super-spook been more celebrated? Apparently, the world’s ultimate black widows work for MI6. Don’t these spooks deserve their own icons to accompany James Bond, the female version and the gay version? These spooks are not assassins, but high-priced escorts schooled in sexual services. This my friends is the real world of spooks and how they operate.
Amazingly, the heads of all British intelligence services held an unprecedented joint national press conference in which they solemnly declared many field operations were now compromised, and al Qaeda was certainly running amok with the aid of Snowden’s information.
The wag the dog movie continues.
Meanwhile, as investigators piece together Snowden’s history for a better understanding of his actions, it turns out he was using a common software to automatically download massive files to his own hard drives for a long time, something that could not possibly go unnoticed. And, in fact, Snowden was visited by an NSA team to investigate these massive downloads, and simply told them it was: “Part of routine maintenance.” And that transparent bullshit was accepted and the team returned to Washington with zero to report. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
Unless you understand that Snowden is an intelligence operation and not a real whistle blower.