Some Absolutely Fascinating New Documentaries

[Hunter]

Watch Dear Zachary. It will leave you feeling like a kick in the stomach. It is right there with The Imposter, two of the very best.

[Jerky]

Now Im a rather sensitive movie viewer. Even sometimes scenes of punching rally bothers me, whereas Matrix or Total Recall like violence doesnt.
I've seen the post millennial wave of extreme European cinema, and what makes these films so jarring beyond even the most graphic American horror film is the shocking realistic violence comes out of nowhere and during films that appear to be dramas/mysteries/thrillers not necessarily horror films.

Snow Town(Australia), Kill List(UK), A Serbian Film(Serbia), Martyrs(France), Irreversible(France), Frontier(s) (France), etc. I might even add Lars Von Triers Antichrist tho thats more artsy fartsy. It's hard to see these as entertaining, so much as endurance movies or experiences.

Yes, and the worst thing is, I can imagine worse, which I hope people never put on film. Although Martyrs comes as close as I want to come to it.

Serbian Film and Kill List I found almost satirical in their off-kilter approaches. They hardly bothered me, Serbian Film because it was SO over the top, it felt like Grand Guingol, and Kill List, because I was frankly fascinated by the story unfolding before me.

Snow Town is one I haven't seen. Will have to do so.

Also, don't you think the post-millennial Euro cinema owes its vitality to Japanese extreme cinema of the 90s (in particular Miike)?

Jerky

[vince]

I like Miike.....

[fruhmenschen]

You might be interested in the work of Mark Macy. 20 years ago an organization called ITC was formed
in an attempt to use modern technology to communicate with the spirit world. see
http://www.worlditc.org/
I accompanied Mark to Trier Germany to shoot video footage of their International conference.

Mark Macy was a member of the group and here is two film reviews by him.


Good afterlife documentaries are rare here in the States. When two are released in
the same year, that’s big news!

This could be the year.

A couple of weeks ago I shared a rough cut of Dan Drasin’s landmark film, Calling
Earth, which examines technical spirit communication with a focused, analytical
eye... and which is close to completion.

Another film is scheduled for release soon... The Life After Death Project, by Paul
Davids... and a short introductory trailer was posted this week.

I’ll include below some links to the two films and their producers, and to the new
trailer. But first, let’s talk about this latest film by Paul Davids.

First I should warn you that the biggest surprise you’re likely to see in Paul’s
trailer is the segment with me in it, which gets a little spooky... and I’ll explain
in a moment what I think is happening with the distortions, gas-like emissions and
shape-shifting. Meanwhile....

Paul’s film seems to be geared (moreso than Dan’s film) to the general public and
mainstream market, for various reasons:

* It revolves loosely around a central plot, which is the life and possible
afterlife activities of one Forrest J Ackerman, an avid writer, editor, agent, and
researcher of sci-fi literature and monster movies. Ackerman was an atheist during
lifetime, but apparently changed his tune in the afterlife. Paul Davids presents
evidence that Ackerman has been busy since his death in 2008, creating strange
anomalies in our world. Many of the interviews in the film are used to support that
idea, while lending some insight in the nature of the spirit worlds and how they
interplay with our world. (The weird goings-on during my interview might be a case
in point.)
* The film is drawn more toward spooky anomalies (troubled spirits, bumps in the
night....) than to serious spiritual influences on our world (inspiration,
meaningful communications, loving transworld connections, our ancient spiritual
heritage and paradise destiny....), which is typical of mainstream films.
* It includes a wide spectrum of interviewees—nurses, doctors, filmmakers,
scientists, afterlife researchers, psychic mediums, NDE survivors, and others with
strange stories to share.
* Also included in the film is a token skeptic (http://www.michaelshermer.com/) in
the name of “fair and balanced reporting,” a principle that originated in early
journalism to promote objective reporting... but has evolved into something of a
festering tumor in the body of modern journalism. The traditional mainstream media
today (CBS, NBC, ABC, daily newspapers...) often insist on dissenting views in the
reports they publish. A recent example of how objective journalism has evolved into
a media sickness is global warming
(http://4ddad.wordpress.com/tag/dissenting-views/) . Though it is accepted as
reality by more than 90 percent of climate scientists, mainstream reports about
global warming usually give equal voice to a few loud, vocal detractors, who are
often funded by energy companies and far-right political groups that choose to be in
denial of the historic dangers posed by global warming, usually for financial,
religious, and political purposes. In the case of afterlife reporting, decades of
serious research can be undermined, negated and neutralized in a few seconds of film
footage by the shallow comments of one or two skeptics.

All that said, Paul Davids’s film is inventive, fascinating, and enjoyable, and I
think it’s something the public could enjoy... and learn from.

So... here’s the 8-minute trailer to Paul’s film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpvq1X7nqc8&w=560&h=315

And here’s what might be happening during my segment, which begins about 6 minutes
into the trailer. First, there’s an emanation of spiritual substance (ectoplasm)
from my hands. Then, the spirit group present at the event tries hard to open the
veil between our world and theirs in a way that will manifest on digital recording
media... not an easy task! The result is a melting-away of physical structure,
especially my body. The strangest part is the last few frames, in which my face
morphs into something kind of monstrous... which the spirit team could indeed have
planned in honor of Mr Ackerman. J

This, of course, is speculation that makes sense to me based on 20+ years of
afterlife research, especially ITC.

You’re welcome to consider other people’s speculation about those anomalies... but
I’d urge you to be leery of those who express their views with “certainty.”

More about Paul Davids... (http://www.pauldavids.com/basic/pd_cover.html) and
his film.... http://www.lifeafterdeathproject.com/about-the-film

A Huffington Post article about Paul’s film...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/1 ... 80368.html

More about Dan Drasin... http://dandrasincom.ipage.com/Dansworld/Home.html
and his film....
http://dandrasincom.ipage.com/Newscienc ... Earth.html
An FMBR event featuring Dan Drasin next month...
http://www.fmbr.org/newsletter-mail.pdf

[Jerky]

As a lifelong fan of Forry's (and Famous Monsters) and harboring a lifelong interest in these subjects, I thank you so much for bringing this film to our attention!

Good luck with it!

Jerky

[MinM]

http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/may/31/g ... ze-artist/



http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index ... 5&p=263755

[KUAN]

Grist for the R.I. mill

[cptmarginal]

http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/may/31/g ... ze-artist/



http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index ... 5&p=263755

He's a very convincing salesman, though:

Also, don't you think the post-millennial Euro cinema owes its vitality to Japanese extreme cinema of the 90s (in particular Miike)?

Yeah, for sure. Miike could never have been so weirdly prolific if not for the Japanese V-Cinema scene he started in, and his ability to make some of his most popular movies within that context was definitely influenced by the prior success of outlaws like Sogo Ishii and Shinya Tsukamoto

I like Miike.....

I like Miike too, but the only one of his "extreme" films that I really appreciate is Ichi the Killer. It's the first of his films I ever watched, back in 2002. My actual favorites from him are movies like Bird People in China, Guys in Paradise, Yatterman, Happiness of the Katakuris. The side of Miike that most interests me gets little attention compared to his controversial stuff. It's funny that his name is still shorthand for extremely perverse cinema, as he's currently working on a career in mainstream Japanese kids movies - and nearly all of my favorites from him fit into neither of those categories

[jcivil]

Ooopps... methought there was a doc thread, yet when I searched "documentaries" no results. Hmm. So, again.

MY man came through again with another quality production!

Stim for videographer!

Very good piece around the Quebec riots and actions.

http://www.submedia.tv/street-politics-101/

Luv it.

[conniption]

Not sure how "Absolutely Fascinating" this documentary is because I haven't watched it yet. Came across it at Dangerous Minds.

A Very British Witchcraft (Full): Documentary on Gerald Gardner & Wicca
46:07 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHAqBjOvYOQ

Published on Aug 18, 2013

The extraordinary story of Britain's fastest-growing religious group - the modern pagan witchcraft of Wicca - and of its creator, an eccentric Englishman called Gerald Gardner.

Historian and leading expert in Pagan studies Professor Ronald Hutton explores Gardner's story and experiences first-hand Wicca's growing influence throughout Britain today.

Born of a nudist colony in 1930s Dorset, Wicca rapidly grew from a small New Forest coven to a worldwide religion in the space of just 70 years.

It's a journey that takes in tales of naked witches casting spells to ward off Hitler, tabloid hysteria about human sacrifices and Gerald Gardner himself appearing on Panorama.

Note: I do not own any right on this video.

[Hammer of Los]

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The Source Family looks great, thanks Kuan!

I''m diggin' the guy with the staff.

And the doc on Gardner looks good too.

I like a bit a wicca.

Herne the Hunter bears the hart's antlers.

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[coffin_dodger]

Hey HoL - you can watch it here...but shush - http://snipurl.com/27qqp60

[Laodicean]

Four Horsemen

[coffin_dodger]

Secrets in Plain Sight
Scott Onstott



Looong video presentation. Interesting, though.

Incidentally, here's a snippet from Onstott's blog:

Something Nothing Everything

July 22nd, 2013
Posted in Consciousness

I was born without both of my legs below the knee and without my right hand. This is due to a rare condition called amniotic banding where fibrous material wraps around limbs in the womb, cutting off circulation so that the affected limbs do not develop. I have walked on artificial legs all my life and do very well considering.

My body is defective but I have never thought of myself as defective. I know very well the limitations of my body and completely accept them. By virtue of this uncommon limitation I realized early in life that I am not my body nor sensations felt in my body. This is the grace of my physical disability. If I am not my body then I am something wholly different, but what that something is, is another question. I do not have a problem with it and never have because I am not handicapped, only my body is.

My “differently-abled” body gave me more time to develop my brain’s cognitive abilities. I couldn’t play football nor join the military, as my father would have liked. Instead I became a high school valedictorian and got a full-ride scholarship to a top ranked university. In my striving for academic achievement I subconsciously became attached to the notion that I was my mind. The more I learned, the better I seemed to become, at least in other people’s eyes. I recommend developing one’s cognitive abilities to a high level. The human mind is a wonderful tool.

However I found that once well developed, the continual pursuit of cognitive development is ultimately hollow. Thoughts come and go. You experience a thought for a few seconds and then it passes away. New and old thoughts continually mix and dance about within your mind. No matter how much ability you have in analyzing, synthesizing, and reorganizing thoughts, they still come and go.

So if I really am my mind then I cannot be any possible thought, regardless of its content, or I would come and go and that is simply not my experience. I am always here being aware. I must therefore be where thoughts come from. I am thinking rather than thoughts. I am a process not an object, a verb rather than a noun.

I am always the subject of my sensations, thoughts and perceptions of my body, mind, and the world respectively as the one who experiences them. As a consequence of this I can never be an object. I am no thing, nothing; I witness things.

If you struggle with the notion that your body is not something then consider that the atoms making up your body are continually and naturally being replaced. In fact there is no atom in you that is conserved after the passage of a few years. As a physical object you are a pattern at best, a pattern that is itself continually transforming. Your materiality and its pattern are ever in flux. Some thing therefore cannot be who you are. There is only one aspect to you that does not change, namely your awareness. How far from your awareness are the sensations of your body? How far from your awareness are your perceptions of the world? Do your thoughts take place in a separate space compared your sensations and perceptions? There is no distance. There is no space.

Consider also that the atom is not only made up of 99.9999% empty “space” but the deeper quantum physicists look the more they see that the atom is really a complex set of mathematical probabilities and that it is impossible to observe an atom without changing it. There is no real substance to the atom or the world outside of awareness for how else could you be aware of it?

In my case it took 42 years to fully realize that I transcend the body, mind, and world! However this isn’t really true, is it? If I am both something and nothing then I am a paradox. Who I am transcends the physical and yet I experience physicality in this body every day. I embrace paradox as myself.

What I learned from researching and producing both volumes of Secrets In Plain Sight and in writing Taking Measure is that the world is a setup, that reality bears the unmistakable signature of design and this necessarily implies consciousness. We live in a matrix. The numbers are too perfect, the geometry too sacred, the synchronicity too miraculous to be the result of random chance.

Some imagine human conspirators, aliens, angels, demons, hyper-dimensional beings and/or God behind the curtain ordering the cosmos, our planet, our cities, our buildings, our cultures, our bodies, and/or the microcosm.

I accept all of these actors and recognize that they are each partially responsible at different scales but the consciousness ultimately responsible is you. For who do you suppose the actors truly are? There is only one “I am” behind the curtain. Your conscious awareness perceives these words right now. You are simultaneously intimate and impersonal.

Awareness not only transcends but is immanent in the entire universe pervading all space, time and matter. I am everything. All phenomena are nothing but my awareness of them and they are made of awareness myself.

My nothingness literally is the substance of everything. I am this paradox at the heart of all things. I am the ineffable verb, the unlimited creative potential bringing forth the dance, the dancers and the dance floor.

I went from believing I was a mind who emerged within a body inhabiting a world—to thinking I was really no such thing—to realizing that my body-mind and the world are made of nothing but consciousness. All that is consciousness and yet we are mysteriously manifesting staggering complexity within ourself for ourself, experiencing it all right now.

[Hammer of Los]

...

I caught the Gardner documentary on BBC4 the other day. I quite enjoyed it.

It stressed that Wicca was pro feminist and pro eco friendly, so no doubt it's an NWO plot.

That Onstott fellow looks interesting too.

I very much liked his little exposition above.

His intuition serves him well.

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