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FeedPete's weekend round-up: Slumdogs, Wrestlers, and Orson Welles
Want to see something good this weekend? There's plenty of Oscar bait out there
Clearly the movie you have to see before this year's Academy Awards is Slumdog Millionaire. It's an instant classic, expertly directed by Danny Boyle and starring a dynamic cast of Indian actors, many of whom are familiar to Bollywood fans and quickly becoming worldwide stars. The movie is just thrilling from start to finish, at times comical, intense, disturbing, uplifting, and always entertaining. It's going to win the Best Picture award in February, you can pretty much take that to the bank. Slumdog Millionaire is playing at the Vine Cinema in Livermore, the CineArts in Pleasant Hill, the Piedmont Theater in Oakland, and the Albany Twin. If you've already seen Slumdog and are looking for a good rental, try one of Danny Boyle's earlier films. Alfred Hitchcock fans should watch Shallow Grave, Pulp Fiction fans, try Trainspotting, horror fans, get 28 Days Later, sci-fi geeks Sunshine, and the rare family films-with-a-brain-and-heart genre fans need to check out Millions. Boyle's body of work is really impressive, considering how many different genres he's tackled. And he brings them all together, and raises the bar with Slumdog Millionaire. Can't wait to see what he does next!
I'm also a huge fan of The Wrestler, director Darren Aronofsky's electric spin on the sports hero film. The center of attention, of course, is Mickey Rourke's massive role of a lifetime perfromace as Randy "the Ram" Robinson, a middle-aged pro-wrestler whose glory days are slipping further into the past. Rourke won the Golden Globe last Sunday, and should take the Oscar as well. Also doing great work here are Marisa Tomei as an aging stripper and single mom, screenwriter Robert D. Siegel, and Aronofsky who stages some brutal wrestling matches while keeping the poignant melodrama from sinking into pablum. The best place to see The Wrestler is on the giant screen at the CineArts dome in Pleasant Hill. You'll feel like you're in the ring with the Ram!
I'm still eager to see the acclaimed Happy-Go-Lucky and Rachel Getting Married, and both are playing at the charming Elmwood Cinema on College Ave. in Berkeley. This is a cool neighborhood theater, the kind that used to be on every American Main Street, 50 years ago. The great things about the Elmwood is that they find the smart little films that deserve an audience, and keep showing them while the multiplexes offer the newest junk
Hardcore film buffs should head over to the wonderful Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley, where the "Unknown Orson Welles" series continues on Saturday and Sunday. Check it out:
Saturday, January 17, 2009
5:00 p.m. “My Name Is Orson Welles”
Introduced by Stefan Drössler. Excerpts from TV programs depict Welles as an indefatigable globetrotter. Plus a compilation of Welles’s takes on Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
2:00 p.m. Unfinished Works by Welles
Introduced by Stefan Drössler. Fragments from the legendary thriller The Deep, as well as The Dreamers and Don Quixote.
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Posted at 10:36 AM in Pete's Popcorn Picks | Permalink
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San Francisco, CA
WHY PEDOPHILES ARE FALLING IN LOVE WITH SINGLE MOMS
Pedophiles are learning to love single moms. Not because these predators are changing their sexual preferences, but because many single moms are inadvertently creating happy hunting grounds for that subspecies of pedophiles who like their prey young – really young.
“Think of it” says Crystal the Jacquez, managing editor of Guys That Lie.com, an online back grounding site. “If you’re one of the tens of thousands of pedophiles with a taste for really young kids, how do you get to them? Children under five or six are just too young to be online by themselves.”
“So what does this most dangerous form of pedophiles do?” asks Jacquez, “He surfs social networking sites looking for the pages of proud single mothers just aching to show potential dates how beautiful their children are and just hoping to attract men who will not only will love them, but will love their children too.
Well, the single moms who put photos of their pre-school kids on their social networking homepages are certainly attracting at least one type of child-loving guy – pedophiles”
“And single mothers almost always do it.” says, Jacquez. “Just look at the pages of Facebook and MySpace. It’s not only incredibly dangerous but worse, most single moms have absolutely no idea that it’s dangerous at all!”
Literally, millions of single moms are now on social networks like Facebook and MySpace -- and almost all of them proudly show off photos of their kids on their homepages and profiles.
So if you’re a pedophile stalking preschoolers, half an hour of searching out single mothers on social sites and you’ve got a dozen lush candidates – photos and all - just a few key strokes away”.
Not only that, continues Jacquez, “but the predators know that these kids are often protected only by lonely, vulnerable women. WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY! It’s a pedophile’s dream!
Read this excerpt from a report in the journal American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association, regarding pedophiles stalking pre-schoolers on the internet:
“Finding prepubescent victims directly (on the Internet) is quite rare; such offenders use the Internet in other ways. Pedophiles typically get access to preschool victims through online contact with parents”
“If you have pictures of your child on line,” says Jacquez, “don’t be too surprised to get a message like the following from some nice sounding guy”:
“Hey! I just saw your profile on Facebook and you are one great looking lady --- and that little girl of yours is just marvelous looking! She looks so bright etc. etc. etc!”
“You’re going to have a new best friend very soon,” she says. “Count on it!”
Who hasn’t heard of Lolita, one of the most famous books in America, in which the pedophile gets access to the prepubescent daughter by courting her divorced mother. You can still see the movie on cable TV with James Mason and Shelley Winters as the grown-ups and Sue Lyon as Lolita.?
Jacquez also cites the following statistic from: Offender Characteristics, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics re. Victim-offender relationships in sexual assault regarding who sexually assaults children under 6 years old.
Who assaults children under 6 years old:
Trusted family members: 48.6%
Strangers: 3.1%
Trusted family acquaintances: 48.3%
“If a pedophile targets your child’s photo on your homepage, trust us,” says Jacquez, “they’ll become a ‘trusted family acquaintance’ soon enough. “
“Don’t close down your social network homepages” Jacquez says. “Just get those photos of your kids off them!”
“One thing more thing,” says Jacquez, “when you meet a new guy online, check him out immediately with us at Guys That Lie.com (www.guysthatlie.com). Our site is free and was built in order to empower women to check out the backgrounds of guys that they meet online.
“First, check our Child Molesters Section where we access the photos and home addresses of over almost 1,000,000 registered sex offenders. Then check him out in our Criminal Records Section. Then check to see if he’s using a phony name. After that, check out all his claims about his background. There is no way,” she says, “that you can be too careful.”
Guys and Lies also has a special page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/guythatlie and on MySpace at www.myspace.com/guysthatlie.
Jacquez asks you to please forward this article to single moms you know who have their kid’s photos online..
Contact:
Crystal Jacquez, managing editor
Guys That Lie.com
415 678-8610
crystal02@guysthatlie.com
http://www.guysthatlie.com