Exophrine posted a BLOG item 30 days ago

Twin Movies:
How Hollywood Doubles Their Income

Like anyone here, I love movies just as much as the next person; and I've also grown tired and quite sick of the lack of creativity in the films that are released now. I guess it's more accurate to say that it's the lack of courage to make a film that's original and not guaranteed to make a bundle throughout its run. No movie studio wants to take that risk like they used to.

Recently, though, I've come upon a new (to me) concept called "twin movies." This basically confirms my fear: that one movie studio somehow catches wind of what another movie studio is doing and decides to do the same thing, making it a competition of who can make the better movie, and who can release it faster. That's why we always get at least two movies occasionally that seem a little too similar.

Here are just a few examples. There are quite a great many that fit the description.

...and the most recent case...

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Exophrine posted a BLOG item about 1 month ago

Movie Theory: SIGNS
They're Not Aliens, They're Demons

When it comes to movie theories, I tend to look at them the same way English classes and book clubs across interpret books, stories, and poems. With that in mind, we take a look at M. Night Shyamalan's movie SIGNS.

This is a movie where Mel Gibson plays a former priest who is also a single, windowed father to two children with Joaquin Phoenix as his brother. In a small town, they (along with the rest of the world) encounter a visit from life forms that are not of the planet Earth. The common idea that everyone think is that these life forms are extraterrestrials, but what if they're not? Someone on Reddit (by the name of FrancisDollarHyde) provides us with an alternate view: they're not aliens, they're demons.

When I first saw this film, I didn't realize that it wasn't about aliens at all. It's about the return of demons. Notice it's all about a priest's resurgence of belief, and a preordained moment of redemption-if-dared-and-attempted. There is no alien technology or weaponry or clothing of any kind, only a clawed, naked beast creature and lights in the sky.

Furthermore: The running joke throughout the movie is that people see these "invaders" in a way that's related to their particular frame of mind: The cop sees them as prankster kids, the bookstore owners see them as "a hoax to sell commercials," the Army recruitment officer sees them as invading military, the kids see them as UFOs... and the Priest sees them as test of faith. This understanding of the film removed my hatred of the "You've got to be kidding me; they were killed by WATER!" concept. In fact, the priest's daughter had been referred to as "holy" (as revealed during Mel's key monologue)–recognized by all who saw her at her birth as "an Angel;" and her quite particular relationship to water is shown to be very special and spiritual: In other words, she has placed vials of what are, essentially, HOLY WATER all around the house. (And the creature's reaction when coming in contact with this blessed liquid is EXACTLY like monsters/vampires being splashed by spiritual "acid.")

This view of the movie also explains the creature's actions: They act like superior tricksters, are not able to break in through closed doors, can be trapped behind simple wooden latches –all mythological elements of demons and vampire-like creatures of lore. It also explains the news over the radio at the end of the movie that an ancient method of killing the creatures has been found "in three small cities in the Middle East" - one would suspect the religious "hubs" of the three main Abrahamic traditions, each discovering the "mystic methods" of protection-and-dispatch that I’ve noted earlier.

Note also: All the Christian iconography throughout the movie, the references to "Signs and Wonders" (the true meaning of the title), the crucifix shapes hinted-at everywhere (check out the overhead shot, looking down on the street driving into town) and the ultimate fact that the entire movie is built around a Priest rediscovering he is not abandoned to a random, Godless, scientifically-oriented Universe but, rather, is part of a predicted and dreamed-of plan.

Now –these creatures may for all intents and purposes be some sort of extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional "aliens" –but the point of the movie seems to be that they are, in the ACTUALITY OF THE FILM WORLD, the dark stuff from which all the character’s tales of devils and night-creatures were born.

Exophrine posted a BLOG item about 1 month ago

Theory on THE MATRIX:
The Humans Are The Bad Guys

Usually, I'm all for movie discussions, and there are a lot of theories out there that are actually pretty interesting and worth consideration. Personally, my favorite movie theory is one called the "Ferris Bueller - Fight Club Theory": in the movie FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF, Ferris Bueller and Cameron Frye, to the normal viewer, are two best friends; however, in reality, Ferris is part of Cameron's imagination: they are the same person, very much like in FIGHT CLUB. Oh yeah, spoilers...

Now I have another favorite movie theory, and this one actually is more air-tight than the aforementioned theory. This one proposes that in the movie series THE MATRIX, the roles in the battle between humans and machines are actually reversed: the humans are the bad guys and the machines are on the side of good.

No, the Matrix isn’t wrong. Not at all. In fact the humans in the Matrix are the real villains of the series. Lets look at the facts of what lead to the actual Matrix. Humanity created the machines and AI, they used them as slaves, and they rebelled. In this war they were defeated. If you watch the animatrix you actually see that the machines were willing to make peace with the humans, but they refused any such notions. Instead they kept fighting to the point where they unleashed a doomsday weapon that blotted out the sun permanently. This was an effort to kill the machines, an act of genocide, but arguably this act would destroy them as well. As expected this act actually weakened the human race by starvation, but the machines adapted quickly.

Instead of leaving the human race to die, the machines in an act of mercy decide to preserve the human race to function in a forced symbiosis. It is my belief that the machines could have used other animals to power themselves, or even used geothermal power as the humans did. Indeed, the machines are the ones who show mercy to the humans, even attempt to make their lives utopian, something the humans could have never achieved themselves, but of course they reject this. One has to even ask why the quality of life in the matrix should even matter to the machines. I believe this also proves the machines to be empathetic and more so than the human race. We actually see this empathy later with the “rogue” program that has a family (the indian couple at the train station). This empathy is something the human have not shown the machines in anyway.

So yes the matrix is a prison, but it is a prison built for humanity’s and the machines’ own protection. Humanity had proven to be not only self-destructive but also genocidal. This would be grounds enough to let the human race perish, but the machines had more mercy than to let that happen. They did realize that humanity did need to be controlled, but they actually did it in a very benevolent way, and imo they were shown a mercy that they didn’t deserve.

Furthermore, you have the rebel humans. Now lets look at these guys. You might be asking “megatom but if the machines are so benevolent and merciful why do they hunt down and kill the freed humans?” The answer is very simple. The freed humans and “the one” had all proven repeatedly to be proponents of destruction. Six times before the matrix, both humanity and the machines were brought to the edge of extinction due to the actions of the one. Granted the machines had begun to see this as some inevitability, they still needed to defend themselves from this act of terror or in reality hope to destroy it, which is why they continue to try to kill all the people of Zion.

TL;DR: The humans are the enemy, and consistently act as a force of destruction bringing both the machine race and the human race to the brink of destruction. The Matrix is a merciful prison to contain a violent race that inevitably causes destruction.

Pretty sound theory, and if you want proof, everything pretty much checks out.

Exophrine posted a BLOG item 3 months ago

BOOK REVIEW: CHEAT - A Man's Guide to Infidelity

Guys, have you ever felt the urge to cheat on your girlfriend? Have you ever wanted to be able to date another girl while dating her? There's nothing wrong with doing it, or even wanting to do it. The problem is...where do you start? How does one go about cheating? How hard can it be?

Well, here's a book that takes a stab at telling you everything you wanted to know. Written mostly by stand-up comedians (Joe DeRosa, Bill Burr, and Robert Kelly), CHEAT a serious guide for guys that's all about cheating on your girlfriend or wife. It tells you pretty much everything about being a cheater: the right mindset to have about cheating, the potential dangers of cheating, who to cheat with, and then it gives you all the dirty details on the who, what, when, where, and why of sneaking around. It tells you how to prepare, how to approach, and how to cover your tracks. It covers prostitution, side relationships, booty calls, f*ck buddies, and even one-night stands. If there's a way to cheat, this book will probably cover it and show you how not to get caught.

It also has stories of failure (got caught) and success (came out on top) from people who have cheated in the past, plus analyses of each story.

It's a great and funny book. I enjoyed it immensely. I highly recommend it.

NOTE: it has lots of language in the text. Very NSFW.