Movie Review: Black Death

In an age of darkness one man will face the ultimate battle against evil.

But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of existence, the least touch of truth rubs, it off and when we what a hallow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.- Lord Byron

Viewed	2.28.2012
Genre	Horror
Language	English
Rated	R:Strong brutal violence, and some language
Parent Advisary	Parents should be careful as this movie is brutal and questions a number of Christian Ideas. It is important that you have a discussion with your child after viewing this movie.

I found this movie listed on Netflix, in their new release section, and felt it was a tremendous movie.   Black Death illustrates the terrible effects of the bubonic plague.  Superstition filled the time.  The church ran everything.  And anyone outside of the norm could be branded and burned a heretic.

   This movie could easily be missed, as it was produced by Europe, Germany and England, and was released in Ireland, so the "American Media" did not advertise it.  But if you were to miss it, that would be a shame. 
Why spend the time on a movie set in a far past?  This movie embraces a time of uncertainty.  This movie illustrates a historical period where the elite grasped control over its citizens. The movie looks at woman who dare survive a time that they are made the enemy.    The movie then looks at death.   Death is a very difficult thing to look at truthfully.   We often avoid the topic because death is painful. The movie explores necromancy, and answers why one may desire to raise the dead from an untimely end.
Stephen King said in an interview with the Paris Review that horror explains the cult of fear and confusion in an uncertain time.

"In every life you get a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you,"

  The message is a warning against a nation or a people allowing fear to rule them.  

Director	Christopher Smith
Prodcued By	Egoli Tossell Film (presents) HanWay Films (presents) Zephyr Films (in association with) Ecosse Films Post Republic, The (in association with)
Released	UK 26 May 2010
Special Awards or Noted Where	aired in the BBC FILM 4 Fright Fest
Locations	Blankenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany (Castle Blankenburg)		Burg Querfurt, Querfurt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany		Torgelow, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany (Ukranenland)

Notes on Authors

Stephen King is our Charles Dickens:

"I'd say what I do is like a crack in the mirror. If you go back from the books from Carrie on up, what you see is an observation of ordinary middle-class American life as it's lived at the time and that particular book was written. In every life you get a point where you have to deal with something that's inexplicable to you, whether it's the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we're talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What this shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we life in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires, and ghouls and ghosts." Stephen King in an Interview to the Paris Review

Hot for Teacher

I love this teacher from Hawaii. She is using cool videos to get kids interested in history. If I was lucky enough to be in her class, I would have thought she was the hottest adult I knew.

Zeitgeist 2012

“Realism; fatalism; phlegm. To live in the Fens is to receive strong doses of reality. The great flat monotony of reality; the wide empty space of reality. Melancholia and self-murder are not unknown in the Fens. Heavy drinking, madness and sudden acts of violence are not uncommon. How do you surmount reality, children? How do you acquire, in a flat country, the tonic of elevated feelings?”
― Graham Swift, Waterland

1. Japanese firm plans to build space elevator by 2050
   
2. Edgar Wright to direct Johnny Depp in movie inspired by TV's classic Kolchak: The Night Stalker ...
   
3. Ira Glass on Storytelling
4. Google plans to sell augmented reality glasses.
   

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 16:29

“Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? Vladimir: Yes, yes, we're magicians.” ― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

The Price of Oranges Nancy Kress1989

The Plain Facts

1. Length:24 Pages
2. Genre:Science Fiction
3. Category:Time Travel in the Era of New Wave Science Fiction (Hard Core Science Fiction)
4. Characters:  Harry, Jackie, Manny, Robert Gernshon
.
5. Setting
.
• New York

Time From	Time To
1937	1989

Culture Clash

• 1937 Man vs. 1989 Man.

So, what's It About Man?

Two old men setting on a park bench waiting for the world to return to a better time. They converse about a nihilistic grand-daughter. The story is written with a heart for the characters. Can there be a nobody from a given age who can show us what love is? The author also asks what is the weight of history?

Intrepid-Revelations Previews

Then in 2009, a box of photos from November 1963 was found under a bridge in Fort Worth, Texas. One of the photos appeared to show an image of a saucer, in roughly our current position, but I believe the image was an irregularity on the negative. Steve Stone. Intrepid - Revelations (Kindle Locations 2452-2453). Steve Stone.

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 15:29

Traplanda by Charles Sheffield 1987

The Plain Facts

1. Length:28 Pages
2. Genre:Science Fiction
3. Category:Time Travel in the Era of New Wave Science Fiction (Hard Core Science Fiction)
4. Characters:
Helga; Shirley Martindale; Mr. John Kenyon Martindale; Owen Davies; and the Narrator.
5. Setting
Argentina and Chile's borderland, between latitude 46 and 50 south.
• The time is in the present age.

So, what's It About Man?

Traplanda South America calls the explorer for a variety of reasons. Some come for Gold? Some come for revelation? Other journeyed in the name of science. No matter the reason the adventure was always treacherous.

Movie Quotes

From Dusk to Dawn 2

[the men are watching a pornography film] Jesus: This movie is very low quality. Ray Bob: Don't look that bad to me. Jesus: There's no story. Bucky: It's a fuck movie. I don't watch a fuck movie for the story. I watch a fuck movie to see fuckin'. C.W.: I got to side with Jesus on this one. I personally appreciate an attempt at telling a story. When I care more about the characters, I care more about the fuckin'.

This quote made me think of the Reservour Dog scene in which the gangsters are talking about like a Virgin. Serious conversation around something that is not so serious.

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 14:29

Fire Watch Connie Willis 1982

The Plain Facts

1. Length:     36 pages
2. Genre:      Science Fiction
3. Category:  Time Travel
4. Epigraph:    History both trumped over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over. - Sir Walter Raleigh
   

Characters

Teacher	Students	Catalysts
Dunworthy	Kivrin	Langley
	Bartholomew

Setting

• St Paul's Cathedral, England. 

Time Origin	Lands On	Exits On
2040	September 20th 1940	January 3rd 1941

So, what's It About Man?

A student is sent to the future to find the perfect survivor from the Blitzkrieg of London and especially St. Paul's Cathedral.  

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 13:29

“I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.” ― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

TIMETIPPING by Jack Dann 1975

The Plain Facts

1. Length:9 Pages
2. Genre:Science Fiction
3. Category:Time Travel in the Era of New Wave Science Fiction
4. Characters:Moshe the "Time-Tipping Yid".
5. Setting
• Broklyn New York
• Somewhere in the South West of the United States.

Time From Time To Time Slipping Age 600 yrs in the past

So, what's It About Man?

A Brooklyn Jew time slips from synagogue to synagogue, spying on the monks as he travels "Times Highway." One of my favorite stories in the collection: "The Best time travel stories of the 20th Century."

Zeitgeist 2012

 

Toys Remain in the Attic.

1. Iran Bans the Simpsons.
2. Toys not allowed to protest in Siberia.
3. Americans Still believe that there are Vampires in Forks Washington.

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 12:29

People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.”
― Bill Watterson, The Calvin And Hobbes: Tenth Anniversary Book

 

Anniversary Project Joe Haldeman1975

The Plain Facts

1. Length:10 Pages
2. Genre:Science Fiction
3. Category:Time Travel
4. Characters

Future Beings	1950 Humans
Three Phasing	Bob
Pa of Three	Sarah





5. Setting
• America

Time From	Time To
Future Million Years Ahead	1951

So, what's It About Man?

Earthlings, celebrate an anniversary of the printed word, in a future millions of years from now. A story about understanding the context of events. Sure the future beings have the word preserved, but they have no idea how the word was used in a literary society. Their society is post literary.

Zeitgeist 2012

"

"Nazi sci-fi film Iron Sky 

becomes Berlin talking point"

By Emma Jones Entertainment reporter, BBC News in Berlin 

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”

— Lloyd Alexander

Science Fiction is a great vehicle to look at our current milieu and cultural zeitgeist.A spoof on Nazis is premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.  The film is gaining great interest and creating much conversation. 
Germany needs to look at their Nazi Propaganda with a fresh point of view, with truth encapsulated by a shell of sweet humor.   A truthful look is an important part of healing.

Novel Reivews:

Review-Stephen King's 11.22.63

 

 11/22/63 by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As Stephen King said repeatedly in 11.22.63, “The past harmonizes”....and so does this book.  11.22.63 shows King traveling in the time streams between 2011 and 1958 United States.  I agree with Time Magazine when they said that this book is a great travelogue back to the 1950’s American Landscape.   However, this book is much more than just a mere nostalgic kick down Route 66.
 
The main character, Jack Epping, thinks he must go back in time and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.  He, like many, feels that if just John F. Kennedy was not shot then the world would be a much better place.  But we find that changing the strings of time is never for the better no matter the intentions.  And you can’t stop God’s hand in our storied time; there is no legislation to do away with earthquakes, or tornadoes.

This book was tremendously researched, and because of this one comes away with a sense that this really could be true.   King used his historical research and connected the strands into one epic masterfully.  He is a master at pinpointing the zeitgeist for our age; he understands the times and the people better than the talking heads over at C.N.N. and Fox News. I might even say that Stephen King is our current United State's Charles Dickens.

Be careful for time traveling with King has the possibility of creating jet leg without stepping across a time zone.  The end of the book is a stunner.

Readers who liked this book can also check out Jack Finney’s Time and Again and From Time to Time.
View all my reviews

Literature as Philosophy: 11.22.63

Oswald: Psychopaths Next Door

Time According to Stephen King: Impressions from 11.22.63

Note:this review on the premise that time travel is possible, in order to avoid getting stuck in a review of time travel 

 

Time harmonizes with itself.    One can imagine a classical guitar player playing a melody, so pure that the million strings on the million string guitar gets tighter and tighter, then the crystal breaks and shatters as the customers scream.  Time knows how many strings are to be played at any one time.  King shows that if one goes back in time the harmony may get too pure that it will reverberate across the time strings.  The tune will have costly results.
Time is not something to play with. We all have a need to reset some part of our past.  The day we walked into the local newsstand and bought our first porno magazine.   The day we missed an important deadline.  The day we blew off our dad or mom when they needed us most. But time turns on a dime. The tune has already been perfectly harmonized.   So what does that mean to the troubles of a time?  Well that is part of the harmonization.    However, this is not a bitter note.  This is a note that life is life.  And one’s hopes are important, because when people lose hope there is bound to be explosions.

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 11:29

LEVIATHAN Larry Niven  1970

“I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.” Howard Zinn

The Plain Facts

1. Length:ten pages
2. Genre:Science Fiction
3. Category:
• Time Travel
• Hard Science Fiction
• the "hardness" or rigor of the science itself
4. Characters:

Collectors	Collected
Svetz	Godzilla(not named as?)
Ra Chen	Leviathan
Secretary General	Library at Alexandria
	Sperm Whale





5. Setting
• United Nations Labrotary (Not Sure? So if a correction is needed please help me.)

Time From	Time To
Post-Nuclear Age	Pre-Nuclear Age

So, what's It About Man? According to the Editors of The Best Time Travel of the 20th Century "'Leviathian!' postulates a fascinating question regarding time travel: what if where a traveler ended up is not only back in time, but back in some other time stream." So the collectors go into the time streams and find the things that the United Nations must catalog. What happens when the things fight back?

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 10:29

Rainbird R.A. Laferty 1961

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

The Plain Facts

1. Length:10 Pages
2. Genre:Science Fiction
3. Category:Time Travel post Golden Age of Science Fiction
4. Characters

Creator	Nemesis
Productivity	Time Wasted
Old Gaff	young galoot
thinker	worker





5. Setting
• Devil's Head Mountain Massachusetts

Time From	Time To
1779	1844

So, what's It About Man?

What if you could talk to your younger self and by pass all the time wasted on dead ends and winding paths? How productive could you be with your life? What could an individual achieve if they could bypass the time wasters of life? Would this be a benefit or a problem for mankind?

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 9:29

The Man Who came Early Poul Anderson (published 1956)

The mountain goats that stood watch over the fjord, indifferently chewing on the wild grasses between the rocks, had kids following them on their steep paths... Olaf, my third father, my king, had a son, stillborn. Olaf wept. Kenna wept. I wept as the boy was buried inside the casket with his mother in our graveyard by the church.” ― Jason Born, The Norseman (The Norseman Chronicles)

1. Length:Twenty Three Pages
2. Genre: Science Fiction
3. Category: Time Travel in the Golden Age of Science Fiction
4. Characters

Civilized	Barbarian
Priest	Thorbrand-Norse Warrior
White Christ	Thor and the Frost Giants
Time Traveler Gerald	Warlocks
Irish Monks	Norsemen

5. Setting:
• Iceland
• Time Periods

Time From	Time To
1933	970

What's It About, Man?A time traveler,Gerald, finds himself in a time before Iceland had been civilized. He must find a way to survive, in spite of the culture clash, and the lack of knowledge of the time. Will the shock be too much for him? This story is told from the perspective of the Icelandic of 970 A.D.; which is a nice twist to the usual narrative told from the time traveler's perspective.

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 8:29

A Gun for Dinosaur by L. Sprague De Camp (1956)

“You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more," said Yo-less. "It's specialist. You have to call them per-petroleum persons.” ― Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Bomb

Summary - Non spoiled

• Length:26 Pages
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Category: Time Travel "Golden Age of Science Fiction"
• Characters:
• Mr. Seligman (a man who wants to hunt dinosaurs but only weighs 150 pounds.)
• Narrator/Dinosaur Hunting Guide
• Raja the hunting partner to the Guide.
• Augie Holtzinger: a customer who goes hunting despite his fiance's warnings.
• James: a gun happy hunter who might rival the dinosaur in the size of his brain.
• Clare: Augie Holtzinger's Fiance.
• Setting:Missouri.
• Year Story Is to Take Place:The future with the time machine, and the past 100,000 B.C. or earlier. The butterfly effect does not reach out to us when we change the period from 100,000 B.C. or earlier; but if we move to much closer to our own time this will create devastating effects.

What's It About, Man?

L.Sprague De Camp masterfully tells what the relationship between Dinosaurs and man would truly be. His details are realistic and his stories are formed by the science that has been uncovered from this time period. This story seemed more realistic than Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder."

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 7:29

Harvey the Rabbit

Death Ship by Richard Matheson (1953)

nothing but the ghost of space haunting the reflective consciousness." Henri Bergson

"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way." — Charles Bukowski

Non Spoiler Summary

• Length: 20 pages.
• Genre: Science Fiction.
• Category: Time Travel-Golden Age of Science Fiction.
• Year Story Is to Take Place: 1997
• Characters in Story: Mason, Captain Ross, Mickey,

What's It About, MAN?

Three astronauts find a wrecked space-craft. The space-craft holds their own bodies, dead, decaying, in the wreckage of time. They must find an answer to the paradox, what happens when you find yourself dead in the future, because you found yourself today through time travel. Or is this just an optical illusion? Or are they ghosts who haunt the planet trying to get home, but never quit getting there?

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 6:29

Painting: by Utagawa Kuniyoshi(1899)

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradburry(1952)

A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives—of approving of some and disapproving of others. Charles Darwin

Summary-Non Spoiled

• Length:11 Pages
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Category: Time Travel in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Dinosaur Time Travel.


• Rules and Possible Paradoxes Of Time Travel
1. Stay on the path. A time traveler can not touch the past in any way or there are giant consequences. "With a stump of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice."Butterfly Effect
2. Can't meet your self.




What's It About?

A group of men go on a hunt. The hunt takes place back in time during the age of the dinosaurs. The only rule for the hunt is stay on the path. What happens when one man walks off the path? What consequences are there in a future world not yet evolved?

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a truthful look at life from the eyes of two sisters separated by space but not by time. The book is written as a series of epistles that move the reader through the time apart and between two sisters caught in the transforming times they live in." They both grow before the readers eyes, and their letters to each other bridge the gaps apart. This is a story about faith, hope and love.
This book is compelling and at times offending. It offends because Alice Walker does not hold back, she shares her views of the relationship between whites and blacks in this torn up world. She shares her views on what is progress and how it affects the natives. She shares a truth that needs to be written, for if it is was told to us we would want to verbally fight back.


(I hope to write more tomorrow after listening to the discussion held at the main branch library at 12:15.)

View all my reviews

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 5:29

I'm Scared by Jack Finney (1951)

Summary Non Spoiled

• Length: Twelve Pages
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Category: Time Travel
• Paradox: What if the fourth dimensional universe responds to our sense of nostalgia? What happens when man is desperate to escape the present?
• Culture Clash
  Now vs Then
  
  

  What's It About?

  
  A man in his sixties tunes to a radio on a frequency from yesterday, but that's just the beginning of time breaking apart.
  
  

Time Travel with Phil ROUS 4:29

Time's Arrow Arthur C. Clarke (1950)

Summary "Non Spoiled"

• Genre
Science Fiction
• Category
Time Travel
• Length
13 Pages
• Paradox/Time Travel Rules
What if the thing that you are researching actually has the power to move you to a place where your existence would be threatened by the things in that new-universe? Negative Entropy and the theory of Time's Arrow.
• Culture Clash
1. Scientists caught in a land before time where the dinosaurs may want to eat you at any time.
2. Physicists versus Geologists
3. Private research vs publically granted research

Summary

This is the story of a human visit to a "Land Before Time". A time before man; a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Time Traveling with Phill R.O.U.S. 3:29

The Star Mouse by Frederick Brown(1942)

Summary:

• Length: Nineteen Pages
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Category: Space Opera/Folk-Tale
• Brief Summary
  

A technically minded professor hopes to send a rocket to the moon. He finds a mouse who he calls Mitkey (Mitkey is the way the German immigrant might pronounce Mickey). As he travels in space he runs into a dark planet called PRXL. What happens next is unbelievable!

Time Traveling with Phill R.O.U.S. 2:2...

Lassnig (3 Ways of Being)

Time Locker by Henry Kuttner (1941)

Summary: Non Spoiled

• Length: Twenty Two Pages
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Category: Time Travel
• Summary:
A talented, absent minded scientist creates a time machine. His lawyer buddy uses the time machine to win his legal cases. What will be the consequence(s)?

Stories with Phil the Trime Traveling R.O.U.S. 1:29

Yesterday Was Monday Theodore Sturgeon(1941)

Summary: Non Spoiler

• Length: Sixteen Pages
  
• Genre: Science Fiction
  
• Category: Time Travel
  
• Summary:
  
  Harry Wright went to bed on Monday night only to wake up on Wednesday. What happened to Tuesday? As he wakes up he finds himself stuck between acts in a place between time. Will he find his way back from a place in between today and tomorrow?