Category: Entertainment (Page 6 of 9)

Crop circles with an appealing Mayan theme have appeared in Wiltshire. On second thoughts, I’m not sure that the phoenix is part of Mayan mythology (it’s Persian).

Phoenix Themed Crop Circle

But the whole ‘The Mayans believed the world would end in 2012’ thing is too cool to pass up.

Actually the Mayans don’t seem to have believed that, it is just that their calendar ticks over then, like an odometer.

But there are some odd references to gods returning then, so who knows?  Well, one reference. And it’s fragmentary. But that probably just means someone tried to hide it. Or something.

This is an even more interesting circle:

Pi Crop Circle

It is a geometric representation of the first ten digits of Pi.

Whatever else all this means, it certainly means that there are some people in Wiltshire with mathematical and artistic talent, decent lawnmowers, and plenty of time on their hands.

Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack. he was fifty. The same age as me.

He was a bit of a Peter Pan, always seeming young, despite the ghastly plastic surgery.

The last several years have been difficult for him, with accusations of child abuse followed by declining income.

People with high public visibility are easy targets. An accusation of child abuse is enough to destroy a career.

This gives money seeking predators enormous power. All that is needed is to arrange for a child to be alone with the star for a few minutes, and that is enough to have a basis for blackmail.

‘Give me $2 million or I’ll go to the police.’

Because there is no way to prove something did not happen, and people are so willing to believe the worst, it may seem easier for a high profile personality to pay the money. Then if that gets out, the celebrity magazines take it as proof of guilt.

Of course some celebrities really are drug abusing, child molesting monsters. I don’t think it is fair to Michael to assume he was – there is not enough evidence to make that judgment.

But there is enough evidence to be thankful for his contribution to music and dance.

It became fashionable to dislike his music after ‘Bad’ (which really wasn’t). But you only have to watch the videos of ‘Beat It’  (from ‘Thriller, the biggest selling album of all time) or ‘Black or White’ (the biggest selling single of the nineties), to realise that he was an entertainer who was genuinely creative, and genuinely entertaining.

Requiscat in Pace.

Probably nothing. That is, nothing except a high altitude weather balloon made of a then classified material crashing, later to be recovered by members of the 509th.

But then, it seems to be true that the first press releases from local authorities including the military, reported the finding of a flying saucer.

And there are reports (although now mostly second hand) of men who were there reporting seeing oddly shaped bodies and strange materials.

The base intelligence officer who was tasked with taking the wreckage to another base reports leaving it in an office there and returning a few minutes later to find that the space debris he had brought had been replaced with parts of a weather balloon.

One account of those days comes from Julie Shuster, whose father was the press officer at the Roswell base.

“My daddy didn’t lie. My father saw the bodies, my father saw the craft,” she says. “He saw bodies – large heads, almond shaped eyes… and material that couldn’t be burnt, ripped, cut – anything.”

Well, maybe. But then ..

Is it just a coincidence that aliens have never managed to find an earth-dweller who knows how to operate his own camera properly?

And why, if you have journeyed light years across the unknowable vastness of the heavens, would you confine yourself to a fleeting and ambiguous appearance before a handful of New Mexican ranchers?

I wrote about the taxpayer funded Australian film Samson and Delilah a couple of weeks ago.

Gary Johns has written a review of the film. The review appears in today’s Australian.

Here’s a bit to get you started:

The film opens with a typical day in Samson’s life. He wakes to reggae music from his brother’s band playing on the porch of the archetypal concrete box house. He sniffs a can of petrol. There’s nothing to do, no work, no school. Instead, Samson follows young Delilah around as she cares for her grandmother. He is clearly taken with her, but cannotor will not say so. Instead, Samson throws stones at Delilah to catch her attention.

The next day, Samson whacks a band member over the head with a lump of wood, and in retaliation his brother beats him senseless. Samson takes his filthy rubber mat and blanket across the road and camps outside Delilah’s concrete box. Delilah’s grandmother dies, Delilah is beaten by other women in punishment for the death; the two steal a four-wheel-drive and head for town. In town Delilah is kidnapped by youths, possibly raped and certainly beaten. Nevertheless, the next day she returns to Samson who has taken shelter under the bridge on a dry river bed. He did not think to look for her. Next day, they wander out into traffic and she is run down. He did not think to look for her. The ambulance people return her, patched up.

One critic said it was “one of the bravest Australian films I’ve ever seen”. And so it was, as a documentary. Except in one respect: Delilah enters a church (suspiciously like the John Flynn church in Alice Springs) and then wanders out under the stern eye of a clergyman, who offers no help. If this is meant to convey a message about the missions, it fails. The missions saved more than souls in outback Australia, they saved lives.

Thornton says: “As far as telling a story that’s realistic, I needed to go all the way and not hold back on how grim things are. Most 14-year-olds in Alice are walking around with the knowledge of a 90-year-old, from what they’ve experienced. They’re bulletproof.”

No they are not, they are traumatised and despondent.

Any answers, Warwick? How did you escape? What is your optimistic story? How did you learn to read and write? Do you live on country, totally dependent on the white man’s petrol and canned food?

Like many films and documentaries before it, Samson and Delilah succeeds in showing the hopelessness and violence of life in remote aboriginal communites. Like those others, it offers no solutions.

Despite the rantings of deranged critics, writing from the comfort of their Melbourne apartments, this film offers neither joy nor hope.

Film makers can be agents of change. They can and must do better than simply preaching or pointing accusing fingers.

Music producer Phil Spector has been sentenced to 29 years to life for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.

Phil Spector Wears a Barack Obama Badge

Yes I know. Murderers might have voted for Bush as well. I’m sure some did. They just didn’t wear badges announcing the fact to their court appearances.