u/Borgisium

Mary Baker Eddy was the founder of Christian Science. In February 1866, she slipped and fell on the ice in Lynne, Massachusetts and claims that through her self-healing she was healed in three days. This is a very important event for the Christian Science movement. Funnily enough only a few months later, Eddy sued the state of Lynn Massachusetts for her “serious personal injuries” from which she had “little prospect of recovering”. Make of that what you will.

I found this out thanks to Knowing Better, here’s the video.

Knowing Better Christian Science

You might have heard the story of Lilith being Adam’s first wife. One of the earliest appearances of that story appears in a book called The Alphabet of Ben Sirach, a text composed possibly around 700-900 AD in what is today Iraq. It’s a text making fun of Rabbinic literature, and it’s so risqué that one scholar urged for the book to be burned even on a Sabbath that falls on a Yom Kippur. Check out this video by Esoterica on Lilith for more information: Esoterica Lilith

It opens with >!the prophet Jeremiah going to find a bathhouse where a bunch of Ephraimites are masturbating. The Ephraimites threaten to assault them as “those in Sodom did”, so Jeremiah jerks off into the bath with them. Later his daughter shows up and becomes pregnant with her father’s spunk and gives birth to a baby who can argue like a rabbi by the time he is born.!<

When I say that a movie is a melodrama, I don’t always mean that as a bad thing. Nerdwriter in his video about “Titanic” (Nerdwriter Melodrama ) said that a melodrama need not be a synonym for bad and over the top drama, but instead a story of good and evil where bundled up emotions are allowed to pour out. One of my favorites he mentions is Douglas Sirk’s iconic film “All that Heaven Allows”, a timeless romance film which was at first dismissed by critics before finding reappraisal by directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who also directed his own melodrama “Ali Fear Eats the Souls”). Another one of my favorite films is “Night of the Hunter”, a melodramatic masterpiece by Charles Laughton about good and evil and innocence. If there’s a film I would include as a classic modern melodrama, it would be “The Green Mile”, and I think you know why. 

The story of death row inmates, their guards, and a christ-like man, the film was a huge success when it came out and is still referenced and cried at to this day. The movie also lays bare some of the worst aspects of King trying to write black characters but we’ll get to that. 

I really struggle to talk about this film because it’s already so iconic it defies summarization, just like “Titanic”. It has over 1,500,000 ratings on IMDb. And how wild is it that Frank Darabount directed two films with over a million ratings (the other being “The Shawshank Redemption”). 

I don’t know if this is sacrilege to say, but as well made as the movie is, it’s too long. The film has a major pacing problem and it feels like half an hour could have been cut out. Also am I the only one who thinks this would make for a great stage play? With the movie’s limited locations and focus on dialogue I think it would be incredible to see it on stage. 

I think that Tom Hanks is pretty good in the film, not his best but he does well. I somehow didn’t know Sam Rockwell was in this and he is a compelling devil to Coffey’s Jesus. I loved Michael Jeter as Del so much and his little mouse Mr. Jingles. Overall the cast did a great job. I especially liked James Cromwell, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, Graham Greene, Doug Hutchinson, Harry Dean Stanton, and that cameo by Gary Sinise. 

Talking about Michael Clark Duncan’s role is difficult. It may be a Tom Hanks movie but Duncan’s the real star. King has often been criticized for perpetuating the magical negro trope, and Coffey embodies it completely. A simple black man with magic abilities who mainly helps out the white characters, though it’s clear that King was trying to make him a Christ-like character. And yet Duncan is giving the performance of a lifetime for it. By the end I had gone from “oh great another magical negro character” to “crying god dammit don’t put him in the dark! He’s afraid of the dark!” Is his character a stereotype, absolutely. Spike Lee was absolutely right to criticize this film for perpetuating that cliche. But Duncan is so brilliant in the role that it feels cheap to throw everything out. With that said if you can’t get behind the character of Coffey you won’t like the film. 

King liked “The Green Mile”, but also joked that it was the first “R-rated Hallmark Film” for how sentimental it was. Personally I would recommend the film, but in the oddly specific genre of “Stephen King prison films directed by Darabount”, I think I prefer “The Shawshank Redemption”. The movie feels a lot more focused and it has better pacing, and the main black character is better written. Also how ironic is it that arguably the most iconic black character from a Stephen King film (Red) was originally not black in the source material. I don’t know what to do with that information. 

At the end of the day it’s a good film to get engrossed into and cry. And I was crying by the end. 

Stanley Kramer was a really good director. But for all the accolades and success he got he also got a bit of derision, mostly by the “auteur critics”. I think it makes sense that he was a big inspiration to Spielberg, as his movies are well-made but also very sentimental. They were often criticized as being little more than “heavy-handed liberal message Oscar schlock”. I’ll say this, Kramer deserves all the attention and praise he got, even if he got a little too much. His movies may be simplistic, cheesy, and moralizing, but the dialogue often had musicality, and they often had fantastic performances. 

This film, the story of two convicts on the run while chained up, one black one white, is a real entry into the genre of “two people of different backgrounds have no choice but to survive”. I am not sure where this genre started, so usually I just say a movie is “like the Defiant Ones but…” 

The two convicts in this case are the late great Sidney Poitier (fantastic trailblazing actor, and an underrated director barring “Ghost Dad”) and Tony Curtis (also a fantastic actor, but someone who says >!the secret to long life is “the saliva of young women”!< I…I don’t have any words). 

I really enjoyed the film. While it is preachy as expected, all the qualities I mentioned above apply to this film. And I think it’s cool that as early as the 50s, the film wasn’t afraid to have the discussion of “oh you can use the n-word but I can’t”. Poitier and Curtis’ performances are nothing short of fantastic, and the plot moves at a mile a minute. You feel the anxiety they feel. 

Overall, I recommend it. 

I was watching a video by the fantastic YouTuber Trash Theory, about the La’s. The La’s were a band which could’ve been great, had it not been for constant lineup changes and perfectionism. Trash Theory defines demo-itis as getting too attached the original sound of the demo over the newly recorded song. The La’s were definitely the worst example of this, as frontman Lee Mavers was an insane perfectionist who spent a lot of time and shenanigans trying to get the sound right. You wouldn’t expect a song like “There She Goes” to have that much drama.

Are there other high-profile cases of demo-itis? Have you experienced it?

>!The band The Human League best known for “Don’t You Want me Baby”, got their name from a faction in the SciFi board game!< >!Star Force: Alpha Centauri!<

My pick would be Randy Newman. Most people my age probably just know him from the charming little music he did for Disney movies like “Toy Story” and “Princess and the Frog”. What many forget is that he has written numerous controversial satirical songs, including one that uses the n-word. The song “Rednecks” from his album “Good Ol’ Boys” is a really sharp, scathing satire of Southern conservatives and their racism, how they “don’t know [their] ass from a hole in the ground” and are “…keeping the n****** down”. As Alfo Media points out, he has numerous songs which seem bad at first but are meant to be satirical. Whether it be “Short People” making fun of little people, “Sail Away” welcoming slaves into the America, or “Half a Man” with violence against queer people.