Despite my growing fascination with supposedly real-life supernatural events, thanks to my reading such magazines as Fortean Times and Paranormal and watching documentaries on the Discovery, History, and Travel channels, I remain skeptical on whether ghosts exist.
That’s not to say I don’t believe in the afterlife. I know when my aunt passed away in 2000, after being in a coma for several weeks, I was told she had a smile on her face, thus proving to me where her spirit went. That is provided you believe that upon death and having lived a good Christian life, your eternal award awaits you in Heaven.
On the flip side, I don’t believe the story my grandfather told me a few years ago. He said he awoke early one morning to see his bedroom completely illuminated with a very bright white light lasting several minutes.
No lamps were on, he said. He told me he thought it was my late grandmother trying to tell him something. Still say it was probably a porch light from next door that shined through the bathroom window from across the hall to the bedroom.
I have, however, experienced a few strange things at work while alone. But in the three years there, the occurrences haven’t bothered me to the point I think the place is haunted. A couple of coworkers have told me that when they’re alone working in the building, they’ve felt like they heard voices.
I can explain every occurrence that’s happened. The ticking noise I hear coming from one side of the office sometimes is probably a computer or alarm system resetting itself. The reason I heard a loud bang, which was my manager’s metallic name tag hitting the floor one night, was because the plastic clip holding it broke on its own.
I could not find what fell on one coworker’s desk one Saturday afternoon, since my cubicle s in the opposite end of the office. I assumed whatever it was rolled under the desk somewhere. I wasn’t about to go looking for it. I am not maintenance.
I am certain the sounds I hear on the roof at night are either squirrels or raccoons or just the building settling. The wasps I have seen buzzing around sometimes are not something out of the “The Amityville Horror” (1979) where masses of flies milled around a bedroom window. The wasps either go in through the vents or got nests inside. God help them should they see me.
Granted, when I am in the men’s restroom, I have sometimes heard the women’s restroom door open like someone was in the building. I continue to assume security was there at the time and used the restroom before leaving, though I never bothered to see if their police car was parked outside.
Even if I had learned there was no one in the building at the time and that door opened on its own, I still wouldn’t believe the place is haunted. I can understand, though, how some could make that assumption. My dad did on Nov. 1, 2009. The incident happened one month after my grandfather passed away.
My dad awoke to find the living room is disarray like maybe the house had been robbed. The lounge chair my grandfather sat in when he came over was in an upright position as though someone was there facing the television. The television set was to a Christian cable station my grandfather watched in the early morning hours. Several pictures were lying face down while in the kitchen one of the chairs my grandfather sat in was on the table similar to that kitchen scene in “Poltergeist” (1982). The cabinet doors were also opened.
My dad was convinced at that moment my grandfather had come back as a spirit and was trying to tell him something. He even spoke to the parish priest at the church he attends about the “supposed” supernatural occurrences he saw that weekend. The priest gave him sage leaves spiritualists use to cleanse “haunted” homes of ghosts and/or negative energy.
I could not keep a straight face when my parents questioned me about whether I had something to do with it. After all, it’s always the quiet ones people most suspect.
To quote Conal Cochran, the Irish toymaker in “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” (1982), “I do love a good joke, and this is the best ever.”
I admitted to everything my dad wrote on a notepad of the different “occurrences” he noticed during those two days with the exception of two things he listed. He wrote the cabinet doors in the bathroom were left open and the soap was moved.
I didn’t do that. Perhaps it was my grandfather who as a spirit saw what I was doing and decided to join in the fun. Not that I believe that sort of thing.
To this day, whenever I see my sister’s in-laws on the holidays for dinner, they dare me to put the dining room chairs on the table before my parents get there and blame it on a “ghost.”
Cast & Credits: Hilary Swank (Amelia Earhart), Richard Gere (George Putnam), Ewan McGregor (Gene Vidal), Christopher Eccleston (Fred Noonan), Cherry Jones (Eleanor Roosevelt), Mia Wasikowska (Elinor Smith),William Cuddy (Gore Vidal). Screenplay by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan based on source materials from the books East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings. Directed by Mira Nair.
"Amelia," much to my dismay, falls into that category I refer to as the “one-note performance movie.” If such a term exists in "Websters," I am sure the definition is much different from the negative one I define.
The “one-note performance movie” could be 1) the type of film where it literally is all about the lead actor/actress in the leading role and nothing else matters, be it the plot, the screenplay, or any of the other supporting characters. I also define it as 2) a movie so bad, the actor/actress knows it, yet they make the best of their leading role giving a stand-out performance of their own.
I have seen less than a handful of “one-note performance movies” this year and that is not a good thing. If the Razzies ever came up with such a category for the first time next year, I would add Dakota Fanning from "Push", Sienna Miller from "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra", and Seth Rogan from "Observe & Report." Add Hillary Swank’s performance as “Aviatrix” Amelia Earhart to the list of competitors of which there can be only one winner for a Razzie Award in the “one-note performance” category, and I predict Swank would win by a landslide. At least that’s who I’d vote for.
Swank is no doubt a dead ringer for the real Amelia Earhart in terms of appearance so much so I find it eerie. We even see her freckles, which is something “the vagabond of the skies” didn’t want captured in pictures and newsreel footage of her. Her publicist and eventual husband George Putman (Richard Gere) agreed.
I am amazed sometimes at how actors are made to look exactly like the actual people to the point you could almost be fooled into thinking you are watching the real thing. Val Kilmer looked exactly like singer Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s "The Doors" (1991). The same went for Denzel Washington in his role as controversial African American leader Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s 1992 film.
"The Doors" and "Malcolm X" offered substance. Amelia offers up everything but. Screenwriters Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan who base their script on the biographical books, East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings, along with director Mira Nair know the notes. They capture Earhart’s private life with Putnam, her brief affair with TWA founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) and her relationship with his young son, Gore Vidal (the kid doesn’t like his name).
In between these dramatic moments is the black and white newsreel footage showing the real Earhart’s successes and sometimes failures as well as her publicity stunts promoting various products and being an inspiration to women everywhere.
Swank provides a few memorable scenes. I especially liked the moment where she takes First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) on a flight. If the incident actually happened, Earhart allowed her to take the plane’s controls without anyone aboard knowing it. I also liked the moment where Earhart showed her vulnerable side and didn’t like how she looked. In a scene that could almost hint that perhaps Earhart was a closet lesbian, she tells Gene Vidal how she admires the young, elegantly dressed women sitting at a restaurant commenting on their nice legs, versus her own boyish-like appearance.
There is even a surprise revelation or two. We learn, for example, that her navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) is an alcoholic, which is something I did not know, if true. It’s obvious the filmmakers attempted to stay faithful to the biographical material right down to the model of the ill-fated plane Earhart and Noonan flew in, the Lockheed L-10 Electra. They just don’t know how to put any of this to music. The film and Swank’s character are so emotionally distant, it’s like spending almost 40 years with someone you’ve fallen in love with and by the time they have unexpectedly passed on, you are unable to shed any tears because you haven’t really gotten to “know” them.
A movie like this should make us hope Earhart will reach that lone island before fuel runs out on her much publicized flight around the world July 2, 1937, despite the eventual tragic outcome. Instead of making me shed any emotion for the character, all I saw from the film’s final few moments was just another scripted scene that was part of her life.
A big screen adaptation about Amelia Earhart should not only have the word “epic” written all over it but “Oscar” worthy as well. On one level, Amelia could be considered an art house film that you’d find playing in theaters that show only independent movies. Amelia should have been the kind of film critics would have not only embraced but small crowds as well; enough to still give it a chance at Oscar nominations.
It is instead the equivalent of a forgettable 111-minute TV movie of the week with aerial cinematography that is far from any of the exciting flying shots done in "Top Gun" (1986) or "The Right Stuff" (1983). Gabriel Yared’s musical score is nothing more than a pale imitation of the memorable slow moving, inspirational, sometimes sad ballads John Barry churned out for a number of the James Bond movies, "Frances" (1982) and "Chaplin" (1991) to name a few.
Even more annoying is how I often had a hard time hearing what the characters were saying. I know I am getting old but I’ll blame the theater’s sound system where the technicians know nothing about making the dialogue stand out and drowning out all the other unnecessary noise going on in the background before I assume I’m having hearing problems.
Instead of being an independent success, "Amelia" will probably go down as an expensive, if not embarrassing flop for Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film reportedly cost $100 million to make and failed to hit the top ten box office hits opening weekend grossing just a paltry $4 million. If it had been good enough to attract the critics and exhibited Oscar potential, that might have given the film some better financial success.
So much has been discussed in the seventy plus years since her mysterious disappearance on whether or not Amelia Earhart actually survived. The aircraft she flew in was reportedly never found. There is speculation maybe she and Noonan were taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers and tortured or that she was a spy working for the United States government and that her final trip around the world was just a cover. The most interesting one I saw discussed on a National Geographic episode was that she actually returned to the states but under a different identity altogether. None of that is discussed or proposed here which would have probably made the storyline more interesting. What we get is just how her fate played out that day.
When movies are based on biographical books or any book whether it be fiction or non fiction, I have always heard they are better than the films. Amelia Earhart’s life story deserves a better adaptation than the one released. The only thing "Amelia" does is make me want to read those two books about her life on which this film is based.
First, in late September there was the unnecessary death of 16-year-old sophomore honor student Derrion Albert from Christian Fenger Academy High School in Chicago, who got caught in the middle of a fight between two groups of teens from different neighborhoods.
Chicago prosecutors charged four teenagers from ages 16 to 19 in the Albert killing.
Then on Oct. 14 came the news about 15-year-old Michael Brewer being set on fire by a group of juvenile delinquents, not only because Brewer reported one of the suspects to police days before for stealing his father’s bicycle, but because Brewer owed one of them a lousy $40 for a stupid video game!
The way President Obama responded to the Albert killing and the response of a lawyer for one of the suspects in the Brewer case infuriated me.
Given that Chicago is Obama’s hometown, I would think he would have addressed the Albert case head-on and speak to members of the drive-by liberal Obama controlled state run media during a press conference that day or that week.
But, Obama had more important issues that week. That didn’t include the health care debate, the rising numbers in unemployment, the war in Afghanistan, or the “Derrion Albert” incident. Instead, he made an emergency trip to Denmark, in hopes of landing Chicago the 2016 Olympics.
To manage the Albert case, the president sent Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to the windy city the week after to meet with school officials, students, and residents to discuss school violence.
Way to go, Mr. President!
It’s as though such discussions will help curb the city’s spurt of fatal student shootings. Before 2006, according to an Associated Press story Sept. 28, 10 to 15 students were fatally shot each year: The number climbed to 24 fatal shootings during the 2006-07 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-08 school year, and 290 last year. What will Chicago’s magic number in student deaths be when the 2009-10 school year ends?
Then on Oct. 16, I read on www.truecrimereport.com of lawyer Steve Melnick pleading for the release of 13-year-old Jeremy Jarvis, one of the suspects who took part in the Brewer attack, explaining how his client was traumatized and needs to be at home with his parents.
"He is a 13-year-old child," Melnick said. "I don't know of his involvement in this case, but from reading just the police reports, it appears that his involvement was on the periphery and wasn't directly involved in this horrible attack on Michael Brewer. And if so, he needs to maybe be home with his parents and begin counseling and therapy because he witnessed a horrible attack."
Melnick, your client, the no-good piece of s--- he is should have thought about that before he took part in this heinous act! To quote a priest I had who taught Social Issues class in high school, “You do the crime, you do the time.”
Jarvis is one of five suspects arrested in the Brewer incident and according to Broward County Police Sgt. Steve Feeley in a CNN article said only one of them “seems genuinely sorry about it.”
That person, however, is not Jarvis according to the truecrime.com article but Jesus Mendez, the kid who actually lit Brewer on fire.
The others, Feeley, said upon their arrest laughed about the incident.
"In my 31 years -- I always say, 'it's the most heinous crime I've ever seen,' " said Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti to reporters earlier that week. "This one fits in that category. The fact that a person would intentionally ignite another child on fire -- it's indescribable."
I get sickened whenever I hear of defenseless dogs being abused and set on fire by kids with nothing better to do. Then I hear about a kid being set ablaze and I can’t think of any words to say how disgusted I am. My ideas of vengeance are things only Satan himself could produce for an eternity in Hell and are too gruesome to publish here.
I have always believed when people commit such atrocities, and I don’t care how old they are, even if they are aged 5 and they knew fully well what they were doing when they committed the act, they need to be locked up for 25 years or more.
Now, however, I am beginning to believe the responsibility should not just be on the youths who committed the acts, but on their parents as well.
It breaks my heart at how far and how low society has stooped to when it comes to today’s youths having targets of unnecessary violence. When I attended grade and high school, my worry was either being bullied or coming home with D’s and F’s. I knew I’d be yelled at by my parents, who’d make me do the assignment over.
Today, kids living in violent suburbs are more afraid of not coming home from school at all. I look at my two young nephews and I can’t help but worry about whether they might be the next Derrion Albert, Michael Brewer, or the target of some psychotic classmate out to unleash their pent-up rage on the entire student body with gunfire. Now it’s not just coming home safe from grade school and high school parents have to worry about, but college as well.
"Someone said he (Derrion Albert) was in the wrong place at the wrong time," said student Annette Holt of Chicago. "No, he wasn't. He was in the right place. He was coming from school."
The one and only solution, to keep such incidents from happening, must start in the homes with parents.
"It is our problem. We have to take control of our children," said Dawn Allen, who attended a vigil for Albert last month in Chicago.
"Our country, our world, needs to wake up and see what is going on with our children," said Michael Brewer’s mother, Valerie. "They need to do something. This has got to stop. It's not just my son. It's everybody's children. This could happen to somebody else, and God forbid -- I don't wish this agony and torture on anybody. We have got to do something to make this violence stop today."
When are parents going to stop being preoccupied with their own lives and start paying more attention to what their kids are doing?
The campus newspaper will be publishing an exclusive all-nude issue featuring male and female staff writings writing and copy-editing articles in the buff!
That’s right! You read it right here!
Actually, no, they aren’t. That was all just one big tease for you people who have probably never picked up a copy of the college newspaper here on campus. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason why you might be interested in getting your hands on an “All nude” issue published by the college newspaper staff is so you can do what you normally do in private when you gaze at female centerfolds found in Playboy or in the yearly edition of Sports Illustrated. And when I am talking “private,” I am not talking about “drooling.”
Sex sells. Such is the attitude magazine publishers, and, in some cases, newspaper editors have in a print industry hard hit by the recession. Publications are so desperate to win over readers that their concern is not in providing content but offering up slices of female cheesecake as an attempt to get readers to buy something they’d normally wouldn’t.
If you buy into the reason the New York Post published photos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews nude in her hotel bedroom because ESPN outed her as the one seen in the infamous Internet video taken by the peephole pervert last August, you’re nothing more than a born sucker.
The New York Post did it to sell newspapers.
As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, when I frequented the bookstores, or maybe I just didn’t pay attention to what was sitting on the magazine racks, I didn’t recall various periodicals flaunting front covers of celebrities with either a tie or string bikini like I see now.
I always thought nudity was relegated to the just the pornographic magazines, all of which came equipped with that sealed plastic bag.
Not so anymore. On Oct. 9, ESPN magazine, which is published by Disney, unveiled their first ever “Body Issue” featuring various male and female athletes in either the nude or seminude positions.
I guess Mickey Mouse has no problem showing supposedly tasteful photos of martial artist Gina Carano, tennis star Serena Williams or major league baseball’s Ivan Rodriguez in the buff. How ironic. They embrace nudity, and yet they won’t release ABC’s “The Path to 9/11” out of fear the film will ruin former President Clinton’s legacy as America’s leader who claims he tried to kill Osama bin Laden during his eight years in office.
I have nothing against magazines publishing nude photos of celebrities with either little or nothing so long as the publication or article printed has something to do with the images.
There is a reason why Shape magazine has former “Seinfeld” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus showing off her trimmed abdominal muscles in a bikini. The picture is not just to show off how good looking she is at 48. Somewhere in that issue is an article explaining how she got herself to look that way.
That does not, however, explain the reason actress Jennifer Aniston’s appearance on the front cover f GQ magazine in only a tie. What does she have to do with a gentleman’s fashion magazine? I have to wonder about the decisions some actresses make when it comes to losing the robe for the cameras. The minute Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner offers a top Hollywood actress like Aniston, Lindsey Lohan, or singer Britney Spears to pose nude for half a million, they say no. Yet when some non-pornographic publication calls asking if they’d lose the clothes for an upcoming issue, they say yes.
I can’t help but laugh at how bookstores today attempt to make certain publications inaccessible to the kids by placing them on the top magazine racks. Just because 8-year-old Mikey, Jr. can’t quite reach the top rack for a closer look at the front cover of Out magazine that caters to the gay/lesbian community showing singer Lady Gaga with nothing on doesn’t mean the kid’s blind.
I might as well start calling Allure magazine “Playboy Lite” judging from the nude spreads I saw of comedienne Chelsey Handler, actress Eliza Dushku, and TV chef Padma Lakshmi in their April 21 issue which was promoted by the entertainment media.
The answers they gave in Allure are the pornographic equivalent of what centerfolds in Playboy or Maxim say.
“My boobs are good,” said Chelsea Handler, when asked what body parts of which she is most proud. “They’re real and perky. Even if you can’t see them, the important thing I that I know about them, and the guys I’ve slept with know about them.”
“I tend to sleep in the nude,” said Padma Lakshmi. “I’m an innately tactile person and a very sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word ‘leaning’ or it sounds like I’m boasting! When I’m in my own private space, I do spend time with very little on.”
Seeing them in the buff with hands over their breasts and private parts, I have to ask, why don’t they just let it all hang out for Playboy? These pictorials are nothing more than their way of saying, “Look at me, loser. Sit there and dream about what you not only wish you could have but will never ever look like no matter how much you diet and exercise.”
The content readers are supplied with today is not journalism. Writers and photographers are not working the journalism profession. They are instead working in the business of publishing soft-core pornography.
In today’s print industry, the editors and publishers are the pimps, the female celebrity icons who strip down are the prostitutes, and the readers are the johns, who shell out their hard-earned money to gaze at something they’d normally never buy much less read just to get a cheap thrill.
I don’t happen to be one of those people. Are you?
