MOVIE: "Avatar"

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Great White Father has finally incorporated the most elusive power indigenous peoples had left: sympathy for the exploitation of the oppressed. He has learned that, by representing compassion for people who live in balance with their planet, and for that planet, itself, he can rake in billions of dollars from viewers of his film. And he doesn't need to spend a dime of those profits to benefit indigenous peoples or the environment. It is the Ultimate Exploitation and psychic rape of all our ancestors and of Earth.

I've heard people say they want to live on Pandora. Guess what? We already do. Every feature of every "living" thing on that planet  exists right now, on Earth, but in its authentic and viable (not fantastic and biologically impossible) configuration. We can see them on nature programs. We can see them in our yards, in our trees, in our ponds in our seas. They are here, right now. Real hammer headed animals are in danger of extinction today. They need our love and adoration, not a cartoon! Cameron rips off the interesting features of real and threatened beings right here. Nothing in this film is original.

The network of energy on Earth is well documented. In science, it is called Systems Theory: nothing exists without interdependence on everything else. The Gaia Principle goes so far as to posit that Earth is actually a living organism: self organizing, conscious, capable of reproduction, capable of death.

We don't need a fairy tale. We need to see what is around us.

The exploitation of the indigenous is so obvious to anybody who will just look. Remember apartheid in South Africa? Do you think that may have had anything to do with the white minority needing a cheap labor force to mine gold and diamonds there?

Ok, so the film lets us know that indigenous peoples have wisdom, intuit their natural surroundings and revere the sanctity of natural life. And the viewer should sympathize.

The viewer is blatantly told there is nothing we can do to protect and defend such peoples here, nor the planet here. Earth appears not to have a deity who will respond to prayers for help, rally the beasts and save us from ourselves. Therefore, it is useless to try. We are only humans. We cannot make a difference without divine intervention.

The second, most important, message of the film? We must use tactics of violence to force our will on others -- "tree-huggers" or not. There is no option.

We have a planet where trees can heal living beings, where beings can speak to divinity through plants and speak to other beings through a literal connection to them. Why, then, cannot that deity restore balance to her planet without explosions, blood shed, fire, agony, terror? Because we cannot let the feminine goddess principle have any real power?

Another toxic message of this film is that native peoples cannot protect, defend, nurture themselves without the interference of the Great White Father. Who organizes the indigenous population: one of their noble lineage of leaders, holy people, hunters? No. They needed a U.S. Marine to get them together, organize the charge and save them! They couldn't possibly do it without him, right?

The fact is this: violence will never heal our planet. Revolution is simply a turning of the wheel of suffering: those on the bottom revolve to the top, using the same tactics of domination, threat, xenophobia, cultural entitlement, cruelty as the former oppressors. This old and tired paradigm no longer works.

The goddess of the planet could easily have sent weather to make flight impossible. She could have made electromagnetic fields so intense that machines couldn't fly. She could have allowed a fungus or other microbe to eat the seals of the air masks the humans must wear. She could have corroded circuitry with fog. There are a million things she could have done to end this exploitation. Instead, she sent the animals to war with the human invaders? As air ships explode, flora, fauna and native peoples die, the air fills with smoke, fuel pours onto ground and into water, THIS is how a planetary goddess would "restore balance?"

We don't need any more magical thinking about the crisis of Earth. We don't need any more messages about how powerless we are to change anything. We don't need Great White Father to rescue us. We need hope. We need to be challenged to participate in our own lives, right NOW, to restore balance.

A planetary goddess, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus nor anybody else will save us from ourselves. Only WE can do that.

I would suggest we become more like the natives were before contact with the humans, not make the natives more like us.

This was the most dis-empowering piece of cinematic propaganda I've seen since "Birth of a Nation."

Let us get back to Earth. And get to work. Now. 

Mother's Fight to Prove her Daughter Innocent: Mother Fights to Prove Daughter Innocent! Please E...

Mother's Fight to Prove her Daughter Innocent: Mother Fights to Prove Daughter Innocent! Please E...: "E-MAIL Washington State Governor Gregoir : hhttp://www.governor.wa.gov/contract/ Tell her that Emily’s Darguzhytes, arrest and..."

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Thank you for sharing your concerns about a person you identified as a
patient at Western State Hospital.  Due to confidentiality and privacy
laws, I regret that I cannot speak about specific patients, nor can I
confirm that the person you are inquiring about is a patient here. 

Washington State is governed by very strict involuntary commitment laws,
RCW 71.05 and RCW 10.77.  I recommend a review of these laws if you wish
to examine further the reasons a patient might legally remain under
detention against their will.  The law also addresses how and when
forced medications can be administered if needed.  In addition to
abiding by state law, Western State Hospital is accredited by the Joint
Commission and abides by its standards of quality care. 

Western State Hospital takes every complaint very seriously and makes
every effort to ensure each patient receives the best care possible.
Might I also add that the website from which you received information
refers to "inmates" at Western State Hospital.  Patients at Western
State Hospital are not "inmates" and are in no way serving a sentence.
Patients receive treatment for their mental illness, with the ultimate
goal of returning to the community as soon as they are ready. 

Thank you for interest.

Jess Jamieson, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Western State Hospital

why I'm watching horror movies

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Well, "Teeth" is actually a very dark comedy. Personally, I think it is miscategorized, but I bet they did it because of graphic imagery -- not of the actual biting of male members, but the after effects. I like Teeth because you can't smirk at Dawn for being one of those Abstinence Only people; her reasoning is sound, and has nothing to do with vagina dentata which, at the beginning of the film, she doesn't realize she even has. Dawn only bites when frightened or severely startled. Her gynecologist, for example, was actually molesting her. It's a very well written philosophy of women's right to control our bodies, destinies and souls, couched in this totally ridiculous, humorous and actually dignified point of view. The audience isn't just rooting for Dawn to survive, but respecting her decisions. It's really celebratory; we
laugh because we're happy for her.

There's something about Austin, Kate. I don't know what it is, but a lot of the stuff I find very interesting comes from Austin. Like, once, I met this group of sideshow performers. They actually call themselves freaks. They're people with physical differences and they put on SUCH a good show! It's very amusing and it also introduces people to the liberation of the physically different. Here's their website:

http://www.999eyes.com/

The more I learn about Austin, the more I'd like to see it.

Back to horror. I've seen some interesting Japanese horror, mostly ghost stories, set in period. I've seen some really good Korean and Chinese stuff, too. Most of it is more like the Twilight Zone. Some has gore, but it's not the point of the story and could easily be left out, in my opinion.

I also saw this German flick "Otto, or Up With Dead People," which is commentary on Queer bashing, AIDS,
homeless youth, behavioral health challenges and the degradation of the environment. Otto is a zombie and gets a role in an experimental film about Gay zombie men, organizing for civil rights. It's very gorey. Again, that's more for shock value and is unnecessary, in my opinion, and those of quite a few viewers on NetFlix, too. Still, it's a very poignant film. I guess I can relate because I was a lot like Otto when I was a teen runaway.

Today, I watched The Exorcist for the first time since I saw it as a new release, when I was in high school and still caught up in fundamentalist Christianity. I am AMAZED at how differently I see that film now, and what it tells me about guilt, shame, fear of punishment, etc. heaped on people by hierarchical religious institutions! I no longer believe any of the things that made that film scary back then! Now, it's just sad, and a lot of hard work to watch.

What I'm learning from horror is how to think outside the formula of story telling. I'm also learning what works for suspension of disbelief, and what is just too irresponsible to use as a foundation for a fantasy story. In horror, anything can happen. Most conventional dramas and comedies stay too grounded in mundane life and don't go to that other place. Exceptions would be "Beloved" and "The Green Mile," but those are often not very popular because they're too complex for the viewer to grasp or because the "paranormal" aspects look like a cheesy, cheap plot resolution after over an hour of the viewer wondering what the heck is going on.

I'm trying VERY hard not to fall into either trap. Don't get me wrong: Beloved is brilliant, even the film. But the ordinary audience member has too little background in African American history, in poetic metaphor, psychology of trauma and indigenous spirituality to have references for it as a film.

By the way, Marianna Dengler paid for tickets so I could take the local girls in the 'hood to the opening of Beloved at the fancy theater here. THEY understood it, with barely ANY experience in any of the above subjects, except what we'd discussed from films they'd seen at my home. But they got it, just like my illiterate, hillbilly grandma was the ONLY person who understood the e.e. cummings poem I read at my father's memorial!

I think we learn too much stuff and that's how we lose intuition and native emotion.

So, by watching horror, which is a huge genre of multiple sub categories, I am learning how to think for my self, not by rote formula, and still tell an effective story.

I'm also so appreciating cinematography, SOUND and music, etc.

I'm not interested in snuff, violence, etc. I'm interested in story telling. I've even learned some interesting stuff from Ed Wood. He's not as awful as people think, writing wise. His thinking and storytelling were interesting. I loved "Glen or Glenda" and am now trying to wade through "Bride of the Monster," which has some decent writing in it.

There's a film called "Matinee" with John Goodman. He's bringing a B horror film to a theater in the Florida Keys. It's called "Mant," about a mutated man/ant, product of nuclear radiation. Problem is, he's doing it just as the local sailors are on stand by from the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's a great discussion of nukes, the effects of Cold War propaganda on civilians, etc. But it's VERY funny and VERY scary, but not for horror reasons. It doesn't preach at all and it's really entertaining.

I first watched James Whale's Frankenstein with a new eye after Vito Russo's book Celluloid Closet, which taught me how to really look at movies. I've never been to film school, you see. I began to see all kinds of interesting stuff in Frankenstein: subversive ideas, sexualities, abstract art, metaphors, etc.

So, I'm learning how to write my story by watching other story tellers of unusual tales.

ALSO: It is very gratifying to me that I am unliving some childhood trauma. I was TERRIFIED, as a child, by the film, Them, which was the original, nuclear mutant ant film (and filmed in places I frequented, like Joshua Tree and the Los Angeles River).

That's why I rewatched The Exorcist today. I'm thinking of revisiting other films onto which I'd projected the terror of my childhood, as well.

I'm still flirting with Lugosi's Dracula, by sneaking up on it with those bad Ed Wood movies. I've developed a genuine affection for Lugosi as a result, but still can't bring myself to watch Dracula.

Dracula symbolizes the late night visits to my bed by my parents, you see. I'll get there, just not yet.

But I could hug Lugosi now; back then, I can't tell you how frightened I was of him, or anybody with an accent like his. Our neighbors were Czech, and I was convinced he'd jump the fence with a knife in his mouth and kill us all in our sleep (effects of Cold War stuff here).

I do not remember most of my childhood. Dracula may bring some stuff back, given how resistant I am to viewing it.

But, I made it through The Exorcist today without any traumatic memory associations, so maybe it's time.

Seeing Lugosi now, knowing how painful, lonely and frightened his life was in addiction, I feel myself want to cry. I learned this from the movie, Ed WOod, and then looked Lugosi up. He was a sad old man, desperate and broke, with no other talent besides being the bogey man. sigh.

See, a lot of stuff gets classified as horror just because nobody really knows what else to do with it. It's the weird independent films, the real artists, the backwater messages and ideas.

What passes for horror these days is just pathetic. Some of this older stuff, the foreign stuff, the low budget stuff, though, is really interesting.

There's a film called Horror In The Wind. A drug gets accidentally released on the population. It was SUPPOSED to keep people pacified. It was an experiment of the theocratic government of the USA, under President Pat Roberston. But something goes horribly wrong. Instead of making people passive, it just reverses sexual orientation: all straights are now Queer and Queers heterosexual. The CONVERSATIONS about this are PRECIOUS. It's a TERRIBLE movie, but it should be a cult classic. I call it the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes for Queer Nation. It's a lot of fun. That is categorized as a horror movie!

MOVIE: "The Exorcist"

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As a former thumper, I can tell you why it was terrifying. We knew nothing of Islam, except that we believed it was a false religion, superstitious, and a road to Hell. We knew nothing of ancient cultures of the Fertile Crescent, but knew Biblical condemnation of others. The demon is based on a real, pre-Islamic deity, not associated with evil locally, but only by Christians. The audience is already set up, thrust into a culture about which we know little beyond superstition and stereotypesl Coincidental happenings, such as a dog fight and a carriage coming out of a blind corner, as omens of interference by demonic forces. Also note: disabilities will be targeted as evidence of evil. Specifically, the black smith with a cataract in his eye. All fundamentalists are warned away from dabbling: by playing with such items as Ouija boards, we open a gateway through which evil can manifest. As a person with a brain injury, I sincerely resent the linking of behavioral health challenges with evil or demon possession. Fear of female sexuality is a prime factor in this story; Regan exhibits symptoms just after her twelth birthday: onset of menses? So called witchcraft, indigenous faith practices, are not synonymous with satanism; that's Christian propaganda. Props to two actors who were uncredited: Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge, who had to sue to get credit as the voice of the demon and Eileen Dietz, who performed the demon, particularly in problematic scenes. Props also to sound engineering. At the time, the innovations in sound and music were extra terrifying, as these were relatively new and unheard techniques (Tubular Bells became a huge hit, as a result). I am very grateful that I am no longer victimized by the guilt, superstition, fear, shame and smallness of a religion that needs to resort to parlor tricks to keep its victims – congregation – dependent. Seeing this again, I see the only power the church has is from the ignorance of its followers.

MOVIE: "Teeth"

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First off, mad props to the old guy in the red Cadillac (Doyle Carter). I just pray he was as embarrassed acting his role as I was watching. I've met creepy leches like his character and, yes, they are that ugly. Sorry, Mr. Carter, bu that means you did a great job. Quoting the Austin Public Library here, QUOTE Doyle has been an extra in over fifty motion pictures with speaking roles in several movies and commercials. . . . He tells Texas Ranger stories, circus stories, and performs a one-man show on Will Rogers. Doyle is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, The Tejas Storytelling Association, Central Texas Storytelling Guild, and the Wild Western Arts Club (Trick Ropers Association). END QUOTE The more I learn about Austin, the more I suspect I should be living there. Next, the sound track is as good as anything Danny Elfman ever squeezed out. This film had a 2 million budget, and is darn near flawless. Please note the name of the dog owned by her half brother, Mother. This movie is fascinating on at least fifty levels. And now a word about the lead actor, Ms. Jess Weixler, a Julliard graduate and Louisville, KY homegirl. I foresee the next Helen Hunt here. What range! The grotto scene? It brought tears to my eyes, as it begins to dawn on her character what just happened. I once laughed, while making love to a guy. I saw a look of terror and pain cross his eyes. I will tell you, from first hand experience, that this primal fear some men have of the vulva is very real. And all I did was laugh. Speaking of laughing, this film totally cheered me up! I scared my cat twice, guffawing loudly. It's only horror to boiz who can never be men!

http://www.teethmovie.com/

MOVIE: "The Girl Next Door"

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My genitals are mutilated; my mother tried to pull them off with her fingernails.

QUOTE Likens attempted to escape a few days before her death after overhearing Baniszewski's plan to have her dumped in a wooded area nearby, but was caught by Baniszewski as she reached the front door. As punishment, she was tied in the basement and given only crackers to eat. On October 26, 1965, after multiple beatings, burnings, and scalding baths, she died of a brain hemorrhage, shock, and malnutrition. END QUOTE

Wikipedia

Every dime of profit from the story of Ms. Likens should go toward ending child abuse. Nobody, not the actors, the director, the novelist, the miriad other knock-offs of this story, not the police, the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the undertaker or NotFlux -- should get a single penny of profit for this story. It should all be donated to keep it from ever happening again.

According to US federal law, this film is child pornography. Depiction of full frontal nudity of a child being tortured is inexcusable. It makes this film lolicon manga, which is even illegal in Japan. It is the ultimate violation of Ms. Likens: what her torturer could not finish in the way of humiliation, objectification and complete dismissal of her rights as a human being has bee expertly accomplished with this film.

MOVIE: "Otto or Up with Dead People"

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The only thing truly pornographic about this movie is the fact that modern culture has decayed to such a point of indifference, hostility, greed, lust and cruelty as entertainment that such a film needs to be made. Sound engineering, composition, camera work were very, very good. Some locations were quite visually striking. I am sorry Medea is such a ridiculous characture, as nearly everything she says is true, but spoken in the shrill polemic of the self-righteous and, therefore, influentially impotent. I suppose she speaks for modern, post-industrial culture, which is eating its young. For me, the movie began as side-show camp, degenerated into a revolutionary manifesto and, just as it began to tail spin toward Earth, pulled up at the last moment to become deeply moving and poignant. I know Otto. I was Otto. Cans of gasoline were never far from my consciousness. Feral children seldom have many options; control of the individual body is one of the only ones available. This is a love story to the lost children and a wake up call to us smug, complacent adults who live in denial as we bequeath squalor and filth to our offspring.

MOVIE: "Female Misbehavior"

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I am beginning to see a common thread among gender benders, defiers, outlaws and cyborgs: survival narcissism. We are so shunned, derided, stigmatized and persecuted, we tend to retreat into ourselves. This can manifest as a sense of superiority, self aggrandizement and blaming everybody else for the fact that we do not fit in because, obviously, they are idiots. That is a slur against people with behavioral health challenges. Stigmatizing the most vulnerable among us to make our point just makes us look crass. Or, we can mask our fear, loneliness, self doubt and anger with an artificial persona that, embarrassingly, screams and pleads to be recognized, loved and appreciated, even though we have limited real talent and can only expose our genitals in public in order to get attention. Or, we can encase ourselves in armor and devote an inordinate amount of time, money and energy on putting layers of steel and leather between ourselves and those we desire. Or, we can honestly embrace the fact that we've HAD to be self obsessed, in order to survive our transition from being fundamentally uncomfortable with ourselves, speak honestly, in a calm, friendly, relaxed and self loving manner about our past journeys and hopes for the future. Almost everything Paglia said is true, but she is shrill, self righteous and undeservedly haughty. Sprinkle is vaudeville gone tragically wrong. No offense, leather woman, but I know a lot more interesting people in the life than you. Max, you are just lovely! Your insights into changes in your feelings as a result of hormone therapy really got me interested in what that really means about gender, and I'm a feminist. You were a cool drink of calm, after the shrill and shiny three before you. All four of you, I wish you peace, humility, joy, love, patience, respect and dignity.

MOVIE: "Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities"

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These folks do not owe anybody a dang thing. They took the time, energy and risk to invite us in to their circle. And NotFlux users whine that they are too nineties, whatever that means, too San Francisco. What? Is it a trans person here who implies they set a bad example "for the rest of us," like it is their job to dress like Barbie or Ken to make the larger society comfortable? Excuse me, Barbie and Ken have no nipples or genitalia! Who wants to live like that? Better living through modern surgery or chemistry may be the thing for some people. Fine. Why is it such a threat if some other people do not choose to participate in gender segregation? Reading reviews here, I was afraid I was going to see a bunch of immoral, drunken circus freaks, living in mansions and copulating with alien artifacts! Ok, maybe I did see more of Ms. Sparkle than I would have preferred (with or without clothing). Maybe the interior design, landscaping and architecture are too upper middle class for my change purse. I agree the homogeneity of skin color got tedious. What we miss by marginalizing and silencing other humans! Regular people are dull in this modern, prefabricated age. Yeah, they move rocks, waggle dongs, make inscrutable vid poems and shoot their friends in the rump with a needle, without alcohol. Stop clucking your tongues! Someone is clucking at you, too. Let us all silence our inner chicken.

MOVIE: "Irina Palm"

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In order to see how funny this movie is, must it be absolutely necessary that one be a dowdy, fat, middle aged woman? I cracked up through the whole thing! Most of the humor is in how humorless others are. Look, I just wish somebody ever loved me enough to do what Maggie did! I would do it, if someone I loved needed me. It is hard, after fifty, for me to see myself as still worthy of love and respect. We live in a culture where the value of a woman is still, far too much, based on her ability to please men. Maggie found a work-around. It may have made the heads of those around her pop like a tick, but that is not the responsibility of Maggie. I am so glad to see scripts being written for real women, going out, timidly, into the big, bad world and shaking it, quite literally, in this case, to its knees. Brava!

MOVIE: "Tadpole"

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Since when is a fifteen-year-old child QUOTE old enough to make your own decisions END QUOTE ?? I agree with another viewer review here: if this were a girl, being seduced by a forty-year-old man -- Oh, but I forget: there is a film here on NotFlax called THE LOVER. In it, a fifteen-year-old girl is beaten and raped by a thirty-five-year-old man. The scenes are graphic. It is child pornography, legally; it does not matter the age of the actor portraying a child. Yet, NotFlax viewers RAVE about what a great film it is! Soon, we will catch up to Japan and lolicon. Our daughters will turn tricks in their school uniforms; toddlers will pose provocatively on magazine covers. Porn sites, accessible in the USA, already depict grown men raping babies. This movie is NOT FUNNY. Were the lead an ADULT of eighteen years or older, it MIGHT be funny. But this is a child, completely drunk, statutorily raped by a forty-year-old. When I see a child drunk, I alert the family. If the family is to blame, I call child protective services. I do NOT RAPE HIM!

TADPOLE? Why, he is barely a SPERM!

MOVIE: "Secret Society"

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Wow! I SO wish we had a Sumo club where I live! I would SO be there! What a positive, funny, honest film! I wonder how they got any male rikishi to perform in this film? Sumo is pathologically sexist and xenophobic. Women are not allowed to TOUCH the mat. Only one foreigner is allowed in any Sumo stable, and naturalized Japanese citizens are not even permitted to participate, as they are born outside of Japan.

HOWEVER! I do think Sumo could be a GREAT way for fat women to bond, learn self discipline, find the beauty in their strength, kick some skinny @$$ and generally cause a lot of chaos! I could not stand the regimen of actual Sumo, and I doubt a lot of non-Japanese could. I doubt a lot of Japanese could!

But this film was SO FUN!

MOVIE: "Lilies"

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With all our wealths of talent, technique, equipment, production funding, script writers, engineers and even locations, why cannot US film makers produce something worthy to even stand in the shadows of this piece? What a cast! The lighting! The sound track! The acting! The interpretation of the play and the play within it! And the play within that! I will always remember this film, and I cannot say that about many. Some here called it QUOTE boring END QUOTE and I cannot imagine it! I needed to eat and kept saying, after this scene, I will pause it. It never happened. I did not want to interrupt it and was constantly on edge to see what happens next! It is finally over and I am FINALLY eating! So, if you are hypoglycemic, I suggest you prepare a meal in advance: something easy to eat without looking at it, because you will not be able to take your eyes away long enough. This is brilliant.

MOVIE: "Last Chance Harvey"

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You think you have done an ok job with your life when suddenly, everybody you know angrily, impatiently informs you that you are not welcome, you cannot be trusted, you are no longer needed and you are a bit embarrassing.

The pain of that, the humiliation, the sense of helplessness, the grief and the regret can quite literally kill you. I have some experience in this, so I could relate.

Now, through some fluke -- or is it just enough wisdom to answer Opportunity? -- you recognize that your life has shifted, the old rules no longer apply and that you have choices you have not experienced since you were a very young person.

Do you scamper to pick up whatever shards of your life you can patch together, or do you take this last chance?

I have not been charmed by Dustin Hoffman like this since MIDNIGHT COWBOY, quite frankly. Emma Thompson is uncharacteristically passive, but even that performance is powerful, as it is a conscious choice to not resist this phenomenon that quite literally just sits down next to her and will not take no for an answer.

The sound track was awesome: evocative, but light, timeless but fresh like a dry, white wine.

Quite frankly, I had no idea London was so beautiful and bright.

I think James Brolin is a jerk and, therefore, perfectly cast in this film.

The nobility of a misguided person, dusting off the delusions of a rote life, making amends and moving on: it is a classic tale, on a humble scale.

For those of you who hated this film, wait until the disappointments and regrets of later years and view it again.

For those of you who think it an ill match, Thompson played opposite Hopkins, who shares the same birth year with Hoffman. Nobody objected then, so let it be now. Perhaps Thompson is too timeless and too wise for men her own age? Perhaps Hoffman is too full of life to be old?

MOVIE: "Latter Days"

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Wow! There are some CRABBY people watching Queer films on NetFlix! Whew! Maybe it is because I lived in Los Angeles back in the seventies, when we did not HAVE any protections, sympathizers, supporters, etc. So, to me, this movie is profound in that, here we are, forty years later, and the SAME issues of persecution, self hatred, condemnation and electroshock are still in the conversation! Yes, you should probably know a bit about Mormons to really appreciate what that kid is giving up. I also liked that the Mormon is not portrayed (in fact, none of the missionaries are) as some backwoods, awe shucks, naive doofus. In fact, our hero is actually thoughtful, articulate, meditative, funny, philosophical, tender, tough. He walks in to this with eyes wide open; he knows the consequences and he is true to himself. Mr. Superficiality is not a factor of being Gay as much as it is of being a wanna be artiste in Los Angeles, waiting tables. I'm sorry boys so young still act so silly in this day and age. I had hoped we might evolve beyond that by now. Something nobody has mentioned: this film has a wonderful sound track. I did not look up artists, etc. I am just telling you what my ear heard. I liked these people, except broke arm mormon (get it?), who was an intentional arse hole. Technical question: is that filmed in an old mansion, used to be pink, converted to apartments, down on 4th street in Santa Monica? I used to stay there with a friend who rented the gardener shack. Made me home sick. I liked it, but then, I am an old woman who still remembers when kissing a person of the same gender in Los Angeles County was cause for lewd conduct arrests. The boys were pretty. The girls were, too. Fun dialogue: dots and peeps. I was eating peeps while I watched, by coincidence.

MOVIE: "The Stepford Wives"

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Ok, I would have given 4 stars, except I do not think blaming it on a woman is any indication of so-called liberation. Sorry. Where can you hide a whole town of robots? I suggest Fort Sumner, New Mexico, from which I barely escaped with my life last year. A Christian cross, 4 ft. tall, hangs in the public high school office. All the women look, pretty much, like those in the movie, except tight jeans, cowboy boots and hide purses with giant Christian crosses made out of nickel- and quarter- sized rhinestones are allowed. I realized the similarities during the Senatorial candidate announcement and actually started to cry. Only local cell phones work. There is no over-the-air television, even with converter boxes. There are 2 radio stations; one IS public radio, but they broadcast -- and I mean this literally -- elevator music from 10am to 4pm, weekdays. It is not as affluent as Stepford, for the most part. But the men are terrified and the women are passive and on prescription anti-depressants. Speaking of drugs, Glenn Close is a spokesperson for Mental Health America, which is a front for big PhRMA lobbying; they want everybody on drugs, even toddlers. So, I would have to say this is really happening and so quietly, with our own permission, that I do not think anybody can stop it now. They even have a real drug now called Soma. Enjoy your cupcakes.