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edt4
member since 01/14/2005
I'm a guy
User Votes: 10911 Helpful / 489 Funny / 1152 Agree / 180 Disagree
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Activity for edt4

yesterday

The "Children of God" cult was one I never really heard about until recently (the late River Phoenix was apparently a member), and it's a doozy. Started by David Berg aka Moses David, the son of a Christian evangelist, the cult...also known as "the Family"...was able to attract legions of the young and disaffected starting in the late 1960's. One of those recruits was Williams, who came from a troubled background. Raised in a strict Christian home, sexually molested by an alcoholic father, she became one of the cult's more devout followers. To attract male followers, Berg would send his most attractive female disciples out to seduce males with sex and word of "God's salvation"...what was referred to within the cult as "flirty fishing"...and Williams, an extremely attractive woman, was one of the more successful "holy prostitutes" within the cult. In time, she became disillusioned and successfully left the cult, although she still professes to be active in the search for spiritual truth. While seemingly candid and forthright, Williams only touches on some of the more disturbing aspects of the cult, such as widespread child molestation (which Berg actively promoted and participated in) and anti-semitism. For a further look into the Children of God, one of the sicker "religious" cults around, also check out "Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge" by Don Lattin and "The Children of God: The Inside Story" by Deborah and Bill Davis.
votes 2 Helpful / 0 Funny / 0 Agree / 0 Disagree

3 days ago

As informed as I like to think of myself as being, I never heard of this guy until they began promoting his TV show on cable recently. At first, I thought they were talking about the guy who played the Robot on "Lost In Space". Probably I've heard his annoying voice a million times trying to sell me crap I don't need, but as much as possible, I try to tune out commercials, any commercials. I'm sorry he died early, but then I'm sorry that Janet Steiner in Towaco died, or that Larry Eccles in Montana died, or the Billy Morgan in Delray Beach died, or that...
votes 0 Helpful / 0 Funny / 0 Agree / 0 Disagree

3 days ago

Review Icon edt4 reviewed La Luna in Foreign Films:
I remember this came out when I was a teenager and was considered quite controversial for its time, and since I'm a sucker for "controversial" films, I recently decided to search it out...and it wasn't easy to find a copy of it, so good luck if you decide to see it. Bertolucci is an extremely gifted film-maker, but any films of his that I've seen have been strange, and this may be his strangest to date. Magnificently photographed (watching this, I wanted to immediately grab a plane ticket to Italy; it brought back all my memories of that exquisitely lovely country), it deals with a recently-widowed American opera singer who moves to Italy with her disturbed 15-year old son. He becomes involved with a "bad crowd", becomes addicted to heroin, and she has sex with him, evidently to cure him (I guess). Jill Clayburgh is very, very good in an exceedingly difficult role (whatever happened to her? Her promising career seemed to take a nosedive not long after this movie came out). If the focus of the movie had remained on her (as "Last Tango In Paris" did on Brando's character), it would, in all probability, justifiably be considered a classic. Unfortunately, most of the film concerns the travails of her son, Joey, who is played by Matthew Barry, and he just isn't up to the task. Because Bertolucci doesn't spell things out in his films, it's up to the actors to convey nuances of emotion and motivation, and all Barry manages to convey is petulance. In fairness to him, this would have been a difficult part for any teenager (the movie is not sexually explicit, but, given its subject matter, there are several sexually-oriented scenes that are pretty disturbing, unless incest is your thing), and Barry tries his best, but I just never bought him in the part. He had the right look, but lacked the necessary talent to bring the character to life in the mind of the viewer (this viewer, at least). I found some of the supporting actors quite interesting. Fred Gwynne plays Clayburgh's husband, and he also is very good (Gwynne was a talented actor who was never able to shed the "Herman Munster" image), although his screen time is extremely limited. Roberto Benigni, of "Life Is Beautiful" fame, makes a brief appearance as an upholsterer. And Franco Citti, who played one of the Sicilian bodyguards in "The Godfather", also makes a brief appearance as a pederast with his lecherous eye on Barry's Joey. Worth seeing, as all Bertolucci's films are, but not something I'll be re-watching anytime soon...unless I get nostalgic for gorgeous Italy. And then I'll probably be re-watching it with the sound off, and my finger on the fast-forward.
votes 0 Helpful / 0 Funny / 0 Agree / 0 Disagree

4 days ago

I think Gene Simmons of "Kiss" felt that way too. He was sacked as a schoolteacher in Harlem (obviously before he "made it") because he replaced Shakespeare material with Spiderman comics.

4 days ago

Thanks. That's a good way of putting it-- "cultural icon" rather than "artist" or "musical genius". When people with a straight face start comparing his "artistic" influence with that of Shakespeare, I think we really have lost sight of what actually constitutes an "artist".

5 days ago

Stories are now starting to emerge of prescription drug abuse (and the dispreputable, highly-paid "doctors" who provided the prescription drugs; probably the same sort of doctors who consented to the multiple plastic surgeries and gave Jackson the face of a monster), a daily shot of Demerol, an addiction to Oxycontin. Whether true or false, it will probably be weeks before it is precisely determined. Deepak Chopra, a friend of Jackson's, has been interviewed, and said Jackson's addiction to Oxycontin concerned him enough that he was considering an "intervention". I've said some harsh things about Jackson (as I told a friend when the child molesting allegations first arose against Jackson years ago, "If he didn't molest those kids, it's only because he's a eunuch and is physically incapable of the sex act."), and I stand by them, but there's no denying that he was a tormented, deeply disturbed individual. For as long as he had money...like Elvis...there were always people willing to cater to his delusions and addictions. His legacy? I don't deny that he was talented; he wrote much of his music, and, while it really isn't my kind of music, there's no getting around the fact that a lot of it was good. Still, I think people go overboard in analyzing his "impact". On Friday, I heard a panel discussion on NPR (I can't remember the names of the participants, unfortunately) and they all spoke glowingly of Jackson's "artistic contributions" to the culture. One of them said (and I paraphrase), "In 400 years, people will still remember Michael Jackson like they do William Shakespeare now." Even one of his fellow panel participants said, "I don't know that I'd say that."
Another participant said, "Everything you hear nowadays has been influenced by Jackson. Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, for example, have been influenced by the music of Michael Jackson." Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears? If that's the case, it ain't much of a legacy. To me, Jackson obviously has made the same sort of cultural impact that Elvis Presley did, but neither one of them comes close to being the sort of "artist" that Miles Davis was, or Billie Holiday, or even Frank Sinatra. Presley, who also wasn't untalented, took a style of music that others had perfected, and homogenized it down...made it accessible...to a white audience. I'm not suggesting that that was necessarily a bad thing (while such a "homogenization" originated in racism, Camille Paglia wrote a piece asserting that if it weren't for Elvis, we wouldn't have the Rolling Stones, or the Beatles, or a great many of the quality musical groups we've had). But it doesn't transform him into an artistic giant. As for Jackson, he wrote catchy pop songs that spoke to more than one generation. Nobody can take that away from him. But, again, it doesn't make him an artistic giant, and it doesn't guarantee the immortality of his work. As a final, I can state without equivocation, for all the negative things I have said about Jackson (and, again, I don't think they're out of line), I'm sorry that he was so tortured, and I do hope he's found a peace in death that he obviously was never able to find in life, money, talent, and public adulation notwithstanding.
votes 9 Helpful / 0 Funny / 5 Agree / 0 Disagree

5 days ago

Tragic in the sense that he was a relatively young guy, and he left kids and family behind. In terms of his career, it seemed that his best days were behind him; I thought he was perhaps the funniest, most creative performer on one of my all-time favorite comedy TV shows-- "SCTV". Once he left that show, he had a great deal of commercial success with the movies he appeared in, but they were pretty awful movies. Not to say that he was that much different from other talented performers from SCTV and SNL who left TV for cinema-- it seemed that guys like Candy, Eugene Levy, Dan Aykroyd, and others, plummeted down from the heights of comedic genius to the depths of hack mediocrity once they left TV (which assuredly had more to do with the directors and writers of the movies they appeared in than it did with them, but the reality is that most of these movies were painfully unfunny). From what I've read, Candy was a genuinely sweet guy who basically ate himself to death (he remained sensitive about his weight; he apparently refused to appear in one sketch that made his excess poundage its focus). I remember reading that Eugene Levy, his fellow SCTV associate and a friend, tried to advise John on his excessive eating and its potential effect on his health, but ultimately realized that you can only admonish someone so many times before you become obnoxious to them. So, in the interests of friendship, Levy gave up nagging on Candy.
votes 5 Helpful / 0 Funny / 2 Agree / 0 Disagree

6 days ago

A friend of mine just had liposuction (which she did not need; she's already as skinny as a rail, but that's another story for the listing under "body image" problems...) and had intense pain and swelling, more so than seemed normal. Her doctor prescribed darvocet, which she said did next to nothing for the pain. She requested something stronger (like 90% of my friends, she's had her share of addiction issues), but the doctor, whether because he's aware of her addiction issues...which seems unlikely...or for some other reason, told her to stick with the darvocet. She did, not without a lot of grumbling, and helping it along with some valium. I used darvocet some years ago...not for physical pain, but for "psychic" pain...and I don't remember it as being all that strong. Then again, I suppose for someone without addiction issues, it might knock them off their feet.
votes 1 Helpful / 0 Funny / 1 Agree / 0 Disagree

6 days ago

Review Icon edt4 reviewed Kanal in Foreign:
This was the 2nd film in Polish director Andrzej Wajda's War trilogy, and it's a harrowing masterpiece. Released in 1956 and based on a true story, it tells the story of a company of battered Polish resistance fighters taking to the sewers of Warsaw as the Nazi invaders systematically hunt them down and smash them. Brave patriots united in their cause, but each with their own weaknesses and idiosyncrasies, they're resigned to death, but determined to inflict as much damage on the enemy as they can before that death takes them. In spite of this resignation, they slowly become mad as they wend their torturous way through the foul labyrinth of sewers underneath Warsaw. This is as close to a vision of hell as I've ever seen on film, and the viewer can almost smell the shit and the fear and the desperation, as the characters react to their situation in a variety of ways-- lunacy, drunkenness, stoicism, heroism. Unusual for any film released in the 1950's...unusual for any film released even today...the strongest, most admirable character in the film is a female, a beautiful partisan known as "Daisy" (played by Teresa Izewska). Running a close second is Lieutenant Zadra, played by Wienczyslaw Glinski. Close to death himself, half-crazed by hunger and disease, the final scene where he reluctantly descends down into the sewer again, knowing that most if not all of his people are probably dead, and knowing that he himself soon will be, is as heartbreakingly beautiful a scene as I've ever seen in any war film. A must-see masterpiece.
votes 1 Helpful / 0 Funny / 1 Agree / 0 Disagree

6 days ago

Recommended, because it's pretty unique for most Westernized audiences looking for something different (remember, I said "unique"...not necessarily good...I rated it as "good" because anything "unique" these days gets an extra star from me). Released in Pakistan in 1967 as "Zinda Laash", this is Pakistan's answer to Dracula, and it borrows more from Hammer's "Horror of Dracula" than it does from Bram Stoker or Universal's "Dracula". It basically follows the well-known Dracula story...think Lahore instead of the Borgo Pass, though...and the black-and-white photography and some of the locations are pretty eerie, but some of the scenes are direct steals from the earlier Hammer film, as are selections on the soundtrack. Instead of being called "Dracula" or "Vlad Tepes", this vampire is known as "Professor Tabani" and he comes to his vampiric status not through alchemy or the Black Arts or the bite of another vampire, but through chemical experimentation ala Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There are other disconcerting elements too-- there are way too many scenes where the women...one scene in which a female vampire is about to bite her victim...suddenly stop what they're doing, or attempting to do, and break into song and dance, which I guess is a staple of the "Lollywood" or "Bollywood" film genre. Needless to say, it distracts from any sense of possible "terror" and instead induces laughter. There are also long, tedious stretches where not a whole lot happens. Still, there are moments of surprisingly effective atmosphere (the location of Tabani's "castle" is quite creepy, and "Rehan"...love some of these actor names like "Cham Cham", "Baby Najmi" and "Latif Charles"...in the lead role of Tabani has his moments, although he channels Christopher Lee way too much). For a long time, this was thought to be a "lost" film, which was discovered a few years ago and restored with commendable skill (there are a few shaky moments, but overall the restoration team did a splendid job). "Mondo Macabro" are to be commended for making available many obscure, international "Gems" to an American audience, which has assuredly never even heard of them, much less seen them. Again, don't expect "Nosferatu" or even "Count Yorga", but this is certainly as "different" a horror film as you're going to find out there.
votes 1 Helpful / 0 Funny / 1 Agree / 0 Disagree
By the Numbers