A North Korean terrorist may be responsible for taking the president hostage, but it’s Bulgarian-made CGI that does the most damage in Antoine Fuqua’s intense, ugly, White-House-under-siege actioner Olympus Has Fallen.

Cut past the pic’s superficial patriotism, and the message is ironically clear: Never outsource your visual effects when a domestic shop will do.
Courageously representing the human element in this mostly digital assault on American soil, Gerard Butler holds his own as a one-man-army. Millennium was wise to push this grim act-of-war movie out three months ahead of Columbia’s like-minded “White House Down.
Olympus Has Fallen” helmer Fuqua, who’s known for bringing an unflinching toughness to inner cities (“Training Day”) and ancient history (“King Arthur”), sticks to the “Die Hard” model here, minus most of the tossed-off one-liners.
In ex-Special Forces pro Mike Banning, Butler presents a gritty but humorless hero who cusses, bleeds and occasionally pauses to remove shards of glass from his wounds.
Olympus Has Fallen

Reviewed at Aidikoff screening room, Los Angeles, March 18, 2013. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 120 MIN.
A Film District release of a Millennium Filmspresentation of a Nu Image/Gerard Butler/Alan Siegel Entertainment production. Produced by Antoine Fuqua, Butler, Siegel, Ed Cathell III, Danny Lerner, Mark Gill. Executive producers, Avi Lerner, Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short, Boaz.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Screenplay, Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt. Camera (color, widescreen), Conrad W. Hall; editor, John Refoua; music, Trevor Morris; production designer, Derek R. Hill; art director, Karen Steward; set decorator.
Cathy T. Marshall; costume designer, Doug Hall; sound (Datasat/Dolby Digital), Steve C. Aaron; supervising sound editor, Mandell Winter.
re-recording mixers, Chris David, Daniel Leahy; special effects coordinator, Jack Lynch; visual effects producer, Scott Coulter; visual effects, Worldwide FX, Ghost FX, Base FX; stunt coordinator, Keith Woulard; associate producer, Danielle Robinson; second unit director.
Jamie Marshall; second unit camera, Gary Capo; casting, Cathy Sandrich Gelfond, Amanda Mackey, Ryan Glorioso.
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Great article from @AsheSchow. I lived thru the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980's/early 1990's asking myself "Has eveyrbody lost their GODDAMN MINDS?!"


The 3 big things that made the 1980's/early 1990's surreal for me.

1) Satanic Panic - satanism in the day cares ahhhh!

2) "Repressed memory" syndrome

3) Facilitated Communication [FC]

All 3 led to massive abuse.

"Therapists" -and I use the term to describe these quacks loosely - would hypnotize people & convince they they were 'reliving' past memories of Mom & Dad killing babies in Satanic rituals in the basement while they were growing up.

Other 'therapists' would badger kids until they invented stories about watching alligators eat babies dropped into a lake from a hot air balloon. Kids would deny anything happened for hours until the therapist 'broke through' and 'found' the 'truth'.

FC was a movement that started with the claim severely handicapped individuals were able to 'type' legible sentences & communicate if a 'helper' guided their hands over a keyboard.
Best books I read in 2020

1. Atomic Habits by @JamesClear

“If you show up at the gym 5 days in a row—even for 2 minutes—you're casting votes for your new identity. You’re not worried about getting in shape. Youre focused on becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts”


Good Reasons for Bad Feelings

https://t.co/KZDqte19nG

2. “social anxiety is overwhelmingly common. Natural selection shaped us to care enormously what other people think..We constantly monitor how much others value us..Low self-esteem is a signal to try harder to please others”


The True Believer by Eric Hoffer

https://t.co/uZT4kdhzvZ

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents...Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without a believe in a devil.”


Grandstanding

https://t.co/4Of58AZUj8

"if politics becomes a morality pageant, then the contestants have an incentive to keep problems intact...politics becomes a forum to show off moral qualities...people will be dedicated to activism for its own sake, as a vehicle to preen"


Warriors and Worriers by Joyce Benenson

https://t.co/yLC4eGHEd4

“Across diverse cultures, a man who lives in the house with another man’s children is about 60 times more likely than the biological father to kill those children.”
A thread of very good, wonderful, truly Super Bowls.

Translucent agate bowl with ornamental grooves and coffee-and-cream marbling. Found near Qift in southern Egypt. 300 - 1,000 BC. 📷 Getty Museum https://t.co/W1HfQZIG2V


Technicolor dreambowl, found in a grave near Zadar on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. Made by melding and winding thin bars of glass, each adulterated with different minerals to get different colors. 1st century AD. 📷 Zadar Museum of Ancient Glass
https://t.co/H9VfNrXKQK


100,000-year-old abalone shells used to mix red ocher, marrow, charcoal, and water into a colorful paste. Possibly the oldest artist's palettes ever discovered. Blombos Cave, South Africa. 📷https://t.co/0fMeYlOsXG


Reed basket bowl with shell and feather ornaments. Possibly from the Southern Pomo or Lake Miwok cultures. Found in Santa Barbara, CA, circa 1770. 📷 British Museum https://t.co/F4Ix0mXAu6


Wooden bowl with concentric circles and rounded rim, most likely made of umbrella thorn acacia (Vachellia/Acacia tortilis). Qumran. 1st Century BCE. 📷 https://t.co/XZCw67Ho03

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