A behind-the-scenes look at writing with authority.
I spend a lot of time reading articles online (movie reviews, political blogs, etc.) every day and I always make sure to read the comments that other people post below them. The majority of comments tend to agree with the writer. But a good third of them have the polar opposite view of the topic. To me it’s funny when they disagree, because ultimately what they are saying (especially when their comment is emotionally charged) is that the writer’s opinion is wrong.
In a way they are the treating the writer’s opinion as a fact, by questioning it like it is a fact. Because only a fact can be wrong. An opinion is completely subjective.
And what that points out is the importance of the natural assumption of credibility in a writer. A convincing writer is able to supplant this idea in the reader’s head: “If he’s saying it, it must be true.”
No writer is completely right-on and in-tune all of the time. Even if a writer was, they may just not simply be right-on and in-tune with the exact same perspective as the reader.
Writers must present their information in confidence, in a way that says, “This is unquestionable truth”. When executed correctly, the reader subconsciously puts their trust in the writer, assuming that if the writer says something that seems a little off, it must be the reader that is out of touch and off-sync, not the writer.
I know this is true for the writers that I follow. Even when I read an article from one of my favorites and I don’t thoroughly enjoy it, or it just doesn’t grab me, I still come back the next day or the next week for more. Because despite their shortcomings, they have instilled a sense of reverence in me through their talent. A sense of belonging, even.
Non-movie review movie reviews by a guy who likes weird movies. Plus a free lesson in demonology.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who liked the movie Paranormal Activity, and those who liked (and actually saw) its current counterpart and competition, The Fourth Kind. I’ve yet to find a critic who thought they were both great movies. Paranormal Activity is the highly buzzed about, surprise blockbuster which has received mainly positive reviews from critics- an independent thriller filmed on a $15,000 budget.
Then there’s The Fourth Kind. A multi-million dollar movie that combines side-by-side glossy professional reenactments next to the “real” footage interviews of “real” people. And the critics aren’t impressed.
But I am.
Conveniently, my wife and I saw both movies over the weekend, back-to-back. I punch people in the face that give away movie endings or essential plotlines. So there’s no fear in reading this that I will do that. I also hate the clichéd term “spoiler alert” which is yet another reason not to give away anything good about these movies.
To truly explain why The Fourth Kind is so great, I first have to clarify why Paranormal Activity is so awful. Paranormal Activity is in essence a movie I saw 10 years ago; evidently enough time has passed that I should have forgotten about The Blair Witch Project by now. I can safely say that anyone who has seen one has seen the other.
The few minor scary moments are overshadowed by the overwhelming feeling I had as I left the theatre, thinking, “That was it? I could have made that myself. That was so pointless. What a waste of my time and money…”
Paranormal Activity seemed like a good idea: A night-vision camera films a couple as they sleep, as they hope to spot the demonic creature that haunts them (makes noises) at night. The thing is, the thought of anyone watching over another person in their sleep is creepy anyway. I know I wouldn’t want to watch what I do in my own sleep.
Ironically, besides the demon, the other creepy creatures watching over the couple in their sleep are the viewers in the movie theatre themselves.
If the movie is indeed scary, that’s all it’s got going for it: Watching people toss and turn in their sleep, waiting for a demon to show up and maybe stand over the girl, possibly whispering things in her ear.
The reason my wife and I decided to see the movie in the first place was because of friends who warned us, “Don’t go see it! It’s demonic. I’ve had nightmares since I’ve watched it…” After hearing that a few times, nothing could inspire us more to go watch it.
But after seeing Paranormal Activity, I am confident that The Wizard of Oz is freakier than this one. Flying monkeys win any day over an invisible demon banging on the walls downstairs in the living room.
Something I think is funny about Paranormal Activity is that it mixes the ideology of demons with zombies. From all accounts I’ve ever read concerning demon possession, a possessed person does not try to kill other people who aren’t possessed. They try to harm themselves, but not commit murder. Demons are looking for a place to dwell in, not a body to kill. That’s my take, based on what Jesus said in Matthew 12:
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there… (43-45).”
I’ll put it this way, if a person’s idea of a good comedy TV show is Two and Half Men (which ratings prove that millions do), then there’s a good chance they would think Paranormal Activity is the epitome of horror movies.
And now for the underdog. The Fourth Kind focuses on the clients of Dr. Abigail Taylor, who hypnotizes her “alien abducted” clients into revealing the traumatic events that their minds are not allowing them to remember. They all have the same re-occurring nightmares and remnants of memories involving an owl that visits them in the night.
One of the most terrifying parts of this movie is when the abductees, under hypnosis, try to explain what happened to them. The terror on their faces says it all. And their screams.
The other part of this movie that really stands out to me is when one of the “alien’s” voices is recorded on a tape recorder. The language it speaks in is Sumerian (modern day Iran), which is one of the world’s oldest languages, dating back hundreds of years before Christ.
Interestingly, and this is one of the major reasons I’m fascinated by this movie, when they find a translator to decode what the “alien” said on the tape, the message is actually demonic: “I… am… God.” He also claims to be “savior”. What is misdiagnosed as alien abduction is actually demonic visits/possession.
Another hint of this demonic slant appears when one of the hypnotized abductees describes the re-occurring owl dream as “the ultimate feeling of hopelessness”. That’s a spiritual issue. Especially when combined the “alien’s” statements of ultimate deity.
I admit that if I wasn’t solid in my spiritual beliefs, this movie would keep me up at night (and possibly Paranormal Activity as well). The Bible makes it very clear that a person has put their trust in Jesus as their eternal hope, believing in Him to forgive them for their lifetime of spiritual debt, they will be inhabited by the Holy Spirit- therefore making it impossible for a demon spirit to dwell inside. The New Testament is full of stories about people who were possessed by demons, but none of them knew Jesus at that point.
And the biological half-brother of Jesus wrote in the book of James: “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. (2:19)”
In the Bible demons were cast out of people by using the name of Jesus and they shuddered at the fearful thought of him. I am inhabited by his Holy Spirit. So why in the world would I be afraid of a demon trying to inhabit me? It’s fascinating. It’s creepy. But I’m not worried it will happen to me.
There’s obviously spiritual warfare to deal with, but that’s a completely different story. That’s not possession; that’s moral combat.
The Fourth Kind is a meatball of sci-fi. It’s like putting all these things in a blender: Unsolved Mysteries, The X-Files, conversations with my Haitian dorm mate (who grew up in a village with witch doctors), LOST, Dateline, and the movie Insomnia.
It’s a pass/fail formula. For me, it works is because it was able to truly suspend my belief. It was completely entertaining. And at least for my wife and me, it was very thought provoking. Enough that we’re planning to see it again this weekend. I call it original, smart, truly frightening, sci-fi spiritual, trippy, and disturbing.
On the downside, I have trouble figuring out whether the acting is either really good or really bad. Plus it’s a movie that’s supposed to be about alien abduction but it’s really about demon possession and this is never addressed in the movie. And most importantly, I’m pretty sure the “real” footage is fake. But it doesn’t really bother me. Because this movie is effective, at least for the 15% of the critics who gave it positive reviews.
Aside from demons, something both Paranormal Activity and The Fourth Kind have in common is the lack of blood and violence. The secret to the scare of both of these thrillers is seeing terror through the victims. Not the beast itself. And that’s unusual in a movie genre crowded with slasher and torture films.
It all comes down to this question: What’s scarier? For a person to lose their life by a killer they can see, or to lose their soul by one that’s invisible?
I am thoroughly amused by advertisements designed for morons. The “healthy” snack franchise Smoothie King wins a special prize in my book. Every morning as I’m driving to work I have to look at their lame sign with a weekly message for passers-by. Every year during the first week of May their marquee reads, “Slim down for summer with a healthy smoothie for dinner”.
Yes, because drinking a smoothie with more sugar than two sodas is going to help the situation. Like having a syrup-based smoothie instead of balanced dinner is going to magically melt the pounds away. Simply hilarious.
But this week’s sign literally made me laugh at loud in the car, looking like a crazy man when seen by the cars next to me at the red light: “Flu season? Not this year! -Immunity Boost”.
Are you Efron kiddin’ me? While Smoothie King’s Echinacea-based “immunity boost” in their smoothies has to do some good, it’s asinine to trust that this $2 shot of an herbal supplement in itself will prevent the flu. So lame.
I’m of the old school of belief that says to let nature just run its course. The more I am exposed to what’s out there, the more immunity my body builds.
While I do catch something more serious every five years like strep throat, in which I have no choice but to visit a doctor and get a prescription to fight it off, I’ve learned in my 28 ½ years that pretty much every week of October 14th, March 28th, and sometimes January 15th, I suffer from major allergic reactions. To the air, I guess. And usually when that happens, it turns into a mild form of sinusitis.
I have encountered this so many times that it’s just a part of life to me now. Being that I get around five sick days a year from my employer, I use them for the days of the year I have the most severe symptoms: migraines, toothaches, oversensitive skin, body aches, depression, lack of appetite, inability to focus, foggy short-term memory.
Since I have dealt with allergy and sinus issues most of my life, I know that what many people call being “sick”, I simply call a “bad allergy and sinus week”. Unless I have a lasting fever or am unable to swallow food and keep it down, I am not sick. And I’m definitely not wasting my time and money to go pay a doctor to give me a prescription to weaken my own body’s ability to fight off what I can become stronger by suffering through.
If I’m gonna be “sick”, I might as well enjoy three straight days of Netflix online streaming without the interruption of a doctor visit.
In the final scene of the 1983 classic holiday movie, A Christmas Story, Ralphie’s family is forced to have their Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant because their neighbors’ dogs ate the turkey. Today I had my first holiday dinner of the season. I reminded myself how miserable I would be (like with every other holiday feast) if I ate too much.
For the first time ever, I was successful. I controlled myself. I didn’t feel like I had been given a tranquilizer dart after the meal.
But even with the careful planning of portion control, it’s easy to eat too much and feel groggy the rest of the day. I discovered why today. Holiday dinner are a Chinese buffet, in disguise. All the major elements are there:
Meat that has little flavor (turkey). Cooked vegetables that are saturated in butter and often intertwined with pork (green beans). Plenty of carbs (mashed potatoes, hash brown casserole, macaroni and cheese, and of course, dressing). And a sugary dessert (carrot cake, pumpkin pie, egg nog). All set up on two big folding tables. Come-and-go-as-you-please-there’s-plenty-more style.
Really, eating Chinese food for the holidays isn’t much different than what we do anyway. Except there are no labels required to inform us of exactly which meat is being served. Because that’s never a good thing.
As followers of the financial superhero Dave Ramsey, my wife and I are both allotted $10 each at the beginning of every week for what is called “blow money.” We can waste it on whatever we want: going out for lunch (instead of bringing our lunch to work), buying a CD, picking up a magazine at the book store, anything that would fall under the category of “disposable income”.
Because it’s evitable we all blow money each week. It keeps us from going crazy. Besides, we all “deserve it”. But my wife and I are putting perimeters on this human tradition. In the terminology of a child, it’s our weekly allowance. The rest of our income is for our needs (groceries, gas, etc.) and paying off our debts. No exceptions.
In the past year since we started doing this, my “blow money” has mainly been spent on the cheapest coffee available at Starbucks ($1.75 with tax). Taking the five minute drive during my lunch break as my workday escape. Sitting in a comfy leather chair, reading a book, sipping what truly is wonderful coffee.
And really, I must admit that a major reason I frequented Starbucks is because all of the staff there knew me by name. There is much truth in the lyric from the Cheers theme song, “You want to go where everybody knows your name.” But like any fast food joint (which Starbucks definitely is, just an upscale version of one), the place has an extremely high turnover in staff.
I realized last week all the people I knew there have gone on. And I just don’t feel like starting over with a new cast of characters. So as of last week, I stopped going.
Conveniently at the same time, I learned that the new office I now work in is a two minute walk from a beautiful walking park. So now I can take a nature walk (comparable to a state park) during my lunch break and read outside at a picnic table next to the flowing creek beside me. And when it’s too cold, I can walk an extra five minutes to Barnes and Noble and get the warm atmosphere I liked so much at Starbucks.
So now each week I use less gas, get more exercise, see the great outdoors, and don’t waste $10 a week on coffee. And now I’ve converted back to work coffee, bringing in good creamer from home like Spiced Vanilla. Still, work coffee is pretty awful. I entitle it “Cigarettes: The Drinkable Version”.
