http://www.mininova.org/tor/2970781

Many critics’ reviews would compare Sasha Baron Cohen’s latest movie with the previous one, Borat. Of course there are similarities between both pieces, they were both obviously created by the same man, and there are similar structure forms of many hilarious sketches – that many said would be more appropriate for youtube and that this is not a real movie. In art, there is no “real movie” concept. Either you belong to one type of films or you don’t, and this the real issue -  critics may not have enough categories to classify some films. Bruno is an amazingly hilarious piece of the 7th art. It is always surprising, striking and creative. Sometimes this comes in the form of textual jokes such as when Bruno is asking two stone-heads from a PR company what topics are up today in order to attract camera time, the girls mention Darfur and Bruno asks what’s next Darfur, what’s Darfive?

Sasha got a real pair to get into an ultimate fight championship ring and face a redneck public while french kissing his partner in the film; or when Bruno gets into an ultra-orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood and has to escape so as not to be beaten up by an angry mob. In another occasion he met what seemed to be a Al-Akhsa Brigade Martyrs member and asked him who could kidnap him. Later on Sasha got sued by this person he interviewed, who is some kind of non-profit organization worker, and got real-life threats by the real terrorist organization that this worker was supposed to belong to.

As I see it, Sasha targets in his film – first and foremost – the gay community, not leaving any stereotype in place. All of us know most gays are not that provocative, wearing huge platforms and being so effeminate. The second target would be the homophobic people, or anyone feeling that way, be it left or right wingers, westerns and easterners, Catholics and Jews alike.
I couldn’t help myself from thinking of Zoolander and of Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. The first one also focuses on a comedy around the figure of a well known gay hair stylist and the second one, around a weird voyage into the real far left behind America, similar to the one to which the two gay “curators” belong to.

When contemplating how to rate this movie, again we face the same dilemma of rating a movie filled with violence, unethical behavior, materialism, the types of behavior that can serve as a highway to hell for persons, if hell exists. And in another part we have 2 sequences of a guy’s penis rotating and dancing, I don’t think that anyone’s libido could be aroused from these two sequences, maybe not even homosexuals. Well we know well the hypocrisy involved in these ratings.

It is ok if my kid is filled with hatred and violence from a Schwarzenegger movie, but it is not ok for him to see a male or female genitalia, which all humans have. I will let a psychiatrist deal with this enigma while he/she cries out “clear” after giving a well-earned dose of electricity to the people responsible for these ratings.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2714054

Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell bring up a magnificent documentary around the first single-handed, non-stop, round-the-world yacht race held in 1968, the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Two prizes were giving, a golden globe to the man who finishes first in the race, and a 5000 pounds prize for the fastest man, but that was nothing compared to have your name written in the history books. There were no participation requirements, for this race wanted also to award those sailors who were already  at sea on their private round the globe seas sailing adventure, the sailors were to start the race anytime between the 1  till the 31 of October, in order to avoid the winter weather of cape Horn.

According to the written records we have, the first to solo circumnavigate the globe seas was the american Joshua Scolum in 1895 and took him more than 3 years to accomplish with only the help of dead reckoning at his Spray. The difference this time was that it was non stop. For the inspiration of the participants, in 1967, Francis Chichester was knighted by the Queen for his personal adventures and achievements representing the UK and one of the participants, Frenchman Bernard Moitessier will be inspired by Slocum, calling his barque, Joshua. The adventure was filled with dangers and incognitos, for no one knew whether a boat or a human could take it.

Nine were the sailors who started the race, one was the sole navigator seeing back UK coast. The protagonists of the quest were 6 Englishmen (John Ridgway, Chay Blyth, Robin Knox-Johnston, Bill King, Nigel Tetley and Donald Crowhurst), 2 french nationals (Loïck Fougeron and Bernard Moitessier) and Italian Alex Carozzo. All of them were experienced sailors, but Crowhurst; six of them retired in the course of the race, 1 sank and rescued and one committed suicide. The wild South Atlantic Sea,with its five-story waves, each of them so different from the previous one, and foresees nothing about the next one was in great part responsable of this.

The solitude, you, the boat and the sea; The need for outer communication with other humans; Under these conditions you start to better knowing yourself, how do you come out and cope with situations and challenges you were never tested before? You start analyzing your creeds, your family, your country, yourself,…

The nine participants would follow the already abandoned clipper route (after the opening of the Suez and Panama canals): from the UK, south into the Atlantic ocean, to pass the cape of Good Hope, towards Australia, New Zealand, the rest of the Pacific, cape of Horn to enter back into the South Atlantic back Northwards to the UK.
This is the kind of quest not for adventure, fame, prestige or money, is a voyage into isolation and the delicate mechanisms of the mind, a battle which many thought you would finish mentally handicapped, like happened with Slocum, who suffered of metal lapses after his prolonged periods of time in completely loneliness with the waves as sole companions.

Some others thought that if it wasn’t your demons dwelling inside you, it would be the sea who´d finish you, as it happened with Joshua Scolum himself, lost in the seas eventually.

Before getting into the real protagonist of this documentary I think it deserves to mention the most intriguing figure of them all: Frenchman Moitessier. He was so mingled, so united with its maritime environment, so in peace with himself, the boat, the elements,… that right before he had almost accomplished the target and finished the race, at the point where he had already surpassed the cape of Horn and being located at the coast of Brazil pointing towards the Northern UK, he reported to his wife at Paris: “We shall meet again later”. At the time when he was already 7 months at sea and 6 weeks from home, Moistessier abandoned the race and turned his  bow again towards the cape of Good Hope, he was sailing on around the world, … for a second time (another 21.000 nautical miles).

The main character in this piece is an unknown to sea sports fans, Donald Crowhurst, an ambitious, creative and charming individual married with 4 kids, who never really made it in any of the careers he started. This was for him his chance to make it big time, to come back home as a hero, to start a new with 5000 quids, to be recognized. He signed a contract with a local promoter, for which if the race is lost, Donald will have to buy back the boat built from scratch from the promoter, meaning, he will be bankrupted, so for Donald, loosing was not an option.

In order to get some more buzz and sponsors for his voyage, he was convinced to set sail 140 miles into the opposite direction of the race, to the North, and reached the coastal village in a 2 week time for what it was supposed to take him only 3 days, instant deception involved him together with the fact that he sailed without having completed any of his security devices, he expected to have them finished aboard at least before encountering the dangers of the South Atlantic. This never happened and made him realize this was probably his last endeavor. He was expected to communicate with new paper editors any time possible to report about his position, status, etc, in order to publish articles on the Sunday Times…and this is what he did…at the beginning.

Once he reached the South Atlantic ocean, the place that made Blyth and Ridgway retired, made him realized that he would never make it, so he started sending fictitious reports of his whereabouts so, while not moving from the Brazilian coast, could wait to the other two remaining sailors to make it back northward to the UK, and choose when to join them back, without actually ever sailing the whole race. The whole plan though will require to fake a sailing journey of hundreds of days inventing all the info in the logs, something quite challenging and even impossible, for after the race, these notebooks would be thoroughly revised by judges.

To come up with all that fake info and be accurate of every single day, and make it fit.
Right after rejoining the two remaining boats in the race, Tetley and Knox, Donald made up his mind and came to the conclusion that the farse would be discovered and total humiliation was not something he was prepared to cope with. The he wrote is his notebook these words:

“when I was 5 years old, I knew all about G’d, he was an old man who would punish me if I was naughty. By the time I was twenty, I decided there was no reason to expect any assistance from G’d, if he existed at all.”

“Man was avoiding his responsibility by constantly looking to G’d for assistance. The cosmic integral, the sum of man adds up to nothing (Sum?=[0]+[0]).”

“Do we go on clinging to the idea that G’d made us or realize that it lies withing us to make G’d. By learning to manipulate the space time continuum, man will become G’d and disappear from the physical universe as we know it.”

“I have become a second generation of cosmic being. I am conceived in the womb of nature, in my own mind, in the womb of the universe. I was forced to admit that nature forces on cosmic beings the only thing they are capable of: the sin of concealment. It is a small sin for a man to comit, but it is a terrible sin for a cosmic being.”

“I am what I am and I see the nature of my offense. I would only resign this game if you would agree that in the next occasion that this game is played it will be played by the rules devised by my great G’d. It is finished. It is finished. It is the mercy.”

“11:15:00. It is the end of my game. The truth has been revealed and it will be done as my family required it to do it.”

“11:20:14 There is no reason for harmful”

Robin Knox-Johnston took the race after 312 days.

Three videos in Italian, on “The Long Way”, about Bernard Moitessier’s journey around the globe, non stop, 1 full circumnavigation of the earth + 1/3 more till Haiti:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2687405

I tried to recollect any Harvey Keitel’s movie where he didn’t act in a fantastic fashion. This film is no exception. In this movie, Harvey plays a corrupted lieutenant of the NYC Police Department. The character is so destroyed inside that killing himself a little more wont take him lower from where he stands now. Crack, heroine and cocaine, alcohol and pills are in the daily menu  of this cop, for which the boundaries between legal and not, moral and not, law enforcement officers and criminals, these boundaries are almost nonexistent, by osmosis.

His bookmaker pursues him in order to be paid for the cops debt, his co workers don’t seem to really care about him and the ones that really show him respect and caress are the criminal and junkies. He lives in a world of being a cop only for the sub world of simple street criminals, while he behaves exactly like one of them.
He got himself so deep into trouble with black market betting that he knows the bullet with his name on it has already left the smoking barrel.

The punch line arrives when he actually finds out the moment crime perpetrators and handcuff them and takes them to where all of us expects him to, the police station, so he can get a special reward of 50 k that could partially help him to cover his debt, but instead of it, and as a kind of redemption quest, he does the only good deed in the picture, and offers a new life to the crime rapists, and put them into a bus to somewhere where they can start from scratch. The end is foreseeable as it was supposed to end in the real life.

England 1 France 2 Official Match Highlights
Uploaded by fatv. – Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2499297

Mars Underground tells the tale of a group of people – in this particular case – of scientists, that isn’t accepted by the mainstream decision-makers of their institutional (in this case, scientific) community.  This is the story of the quest for Mars and of the plan’s forefather, Dr. Robert Zubrin. After the Apollo mission to the moon, it was clear to Zubrin that NASA works better if it is entrusted with a mission that has only one, clear, objective – as was the case when they had to master a plan to conquer the moon. Unfortunately for Zubrin, there are politics involved in the NASA budgeting and high position egos are also at stake. How will someone come up with the plan, then?

The main idea is easy: Wasting money on pending space stations or on a second tour to the moon should be halted – and instead, a tour to the only known planet that
has the required resources for humanity to thrive, Mars – should be expedited.

Zubrin’s plan was already given a chance during the Bush senior administration, when NASA asked for $450 billions in expenses in order to finance a second visit to the moon and a first visit to Mars. As expected, the plan was not approved by the US Congress. Zubrin then stepped in and recalculated the whole visit to Mars and concluded that only $25 billions would actually be necessary. He tried to harness support for this plan in NASA and other scientific institutions was actually successful in doing so, until some high positioned NASA big-shots rejected his plan again.

The plan’s key, stated briefly, is to spend more time 0n researching Mars instead of 0n the combustibles to get there. Sticking a flag in the planet’s surface, as was done with the moon, will not suffice or be satisfactory this time around. The first cargo would wait until the orbits of Mars and Earth orbits are closest to each other and would then enter Mar’s atmosphere, saving astronomic sums in combustibles. The first cargo would also include only one space shuttle, that will produce – using a small nuclear  reactor – the sufficient amount of combustible needed for trip back from Mars to planet earth, from the moment it lands on Mars. In the meantime, a second space shuttle will take off from earth, with cosmonauts aboard, who will be expected to stay in Mars for 6 months – thus, dividing the space cargo into 2 parts, which will rotate and be connected to one another and allowing for the needed gravity to be created, with all of its beneficial implications.

The expedition of scientists would eventually set a record for staying in Mars for 1 year,   and will have sufficient time to conduct all warranted researches. Among them, is to try to recover any proof of earlier life that supposedly existed on Mars, another test would be to pollute the planet atmosphere so as to bring about a rise in temperature that will lead the iced waters to melt and water the soil. However, some in NASA still object to the whole idea and claim that staying on Mars will expose the astronauts to great danger emanating from radiation and raise the probability that they will be afflicted with cancer.
In response to this matter, Zubrin suggested that a centered area inside the spaceship will be built, in order to protect the passengers from the extreme radiation caused either by the Sun or other particles traveling in space. Zubrin also pointed out that  “These  cancer odds are greater for smokers, only a 1% increase in the chances of developing cancer would grow for those members of the crew.

http://www.mininova.org/get/2130283

Planet B-Boy is an excellent documentary about Hip-Hop dancing, music, the hip-hop protagonists and their life style. The guys in the doc are, no doubt, completely sporty, dedicated youngsters, that burn long hours every day on rehearsing movements, jingle jangling and choreography which originated in athletics, breakdance, martial arts and disco.

People from all over the planet gather in Germany and push themselves to get the title of Best Hip Hop group in the world, as representatives of their home countries. The prize is not monetary, the drive is purely honor – to go back to their countries of origin, and let the world know who is simply the best at this field. Many may think that this is a western “thing”, but it is amazing to see how this culture impregnated many young kids of Japan and Korea. It is also astonishing to see the amounts of adrenaline and energy that the dancers convey to the spectators, how esthetically they perform, with rhythm being primordial and acrobatics crucial. Be ready to feel the thrill.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/330297

Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, this is an eye-opening documentary about human cruelty inflicted upon animals, and about the hypocrisy of humans, who unhealthily, immorally and abusively consume everything  that comes from animals, conduct experiments that aren’t lifesaving on them, use them for entertainment purposes, skin them, etc.,…and all in a mass-production way, so as  “to cut expenses”. For example, “let’s keep skinning the foxes but without the expensive anesthesia”.

We humans are hypocritical because at the same time we involve ourselves in this carnival of the senses, we turn our heads and intentionally ignore others’ suffering, we will eat our foie gras but will comfortably choose not to khow how it was “produced” and will even say “why would they show us these things on tv?”. Well, if we have what it takes to enjoy the foie gras, we better have the stomach to deal with the torments the duck goes through, just to be served on our adorned platter. The next time you eat anything that is made of cows, be aware that it was most probably de-horned without any anesthesia, that it was given antibiotics, and that its excruciating death was as slow and Dantesque as you can imagine any death in a torture chamber to be.

Animals skinned alive for our clothing

We are a global species and are the end consumers of all of these products originating from the animal world. We know very well that animals are helpless when it comes to defending themselves against us, more sophisiticated elevated sense of being. We also know that the indifference and insensitivity we have developed over the years toward the suffering of our fellow-animals, will only lead us to be bound to do the same against under another human, or as Leo Tolstoy put it: “As long as we have slaughtered houses we will have combat fields”; For you cannot be the same individual after you cut a small’s animal testicles with your bare hands, or when you burn an animal alive, or when you skin another animal alive, or when you see animals agonizing from pain after the blows you have inflicted on them. We are what we eat and what we do, and no painful death can go unfelt  in the meat we eat.

slow painful death so we can eat a steak, totally concious in video

Next time you go to a zoo, don’t buy a ticket when they tell you “that it’s educational”, for there is nothing that you can learn from an animal in captivity, it is either a physically or mentally sick animal.

Also, the next time you visit San Fermin or a rodeo, acknowledge the fact that you are  a sadist, or that you don’t mind watching another being’s suffering till death just for you to “have fun”.

The nest time you visit a circus, bear in mind that you are only watching how an animal was taught to perform under physical constraint and fear of physical punishment, only to perform tricks for your eyes. Do not be surprised if the animal eventually retaliates.

The next time you take your usual Bayer aspirin or the product of any other corporation, Colgate or the others, keep in mind the great number of animals that have been systematically tortureed, even when they know that if a testing on an animal had positive results, they will still have to test on humans.

Next time you see someone from Al Qaeda decapitate some journalist’s head, be aware that he probably “practiced” previously with animals, so that you and I can eat them.

It is in our hands to decide whether we should cause so much suffering, torture, agony and slow death during the lives of animals so that they may serve to feed us, dress us and entertain us.  If there is a G-d out there, I definitely do not think that he would ever take all of this that we are committing, for granted.

Score: 10

Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz

Surfwise is above all adjectives, an inspiring chant of life – life in a different, alternate way, to the standard path we all know. This is the story of the Paskowitz family, a Californian 9- kids patriarchal family who went through their adolescent years, brought together and glued by surf and by the centrifugal force that Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz – the ultimate beach boy, created.

A story of the quest for wisdom and life enriched with experience instead of knowledge and average know-how. Dorian truly touches you with first-hand life wisdom – the kind of wisdom so foreign to any university, college or school. These were the tools that Dorian wanted his kids to acquire when he raised them on a motor-home and embarked on a trip of the surfing way of life: eat healthy, live healthy, surf healthy. To some, these commandments may represent a motto, to others – a marketing technique, and to many Californians today and then – true words of faith.

Paskowitz Family

Doc was above all a surfer, the father of the first surfer family, who directed a surfing camp at San Onofre for many years, where the creme de la creme of surf gathered together, either to teach or to learn, and above all – to share their love for this fantastic sport/culture/philosophy/way of life. Doc taught his 9 children to eat healthy, so as to surf longer, and to contend with little – for when you take more than you need, you are in fact taking from someone else. And still, most of his children today, though some of them resent him – still make a living from surfing. Young Dorian abandoned Texas and chose to become a lifeguard in California.

Dorian Paskowitz at his best

He then studied medicine in Stanford, which he described as “a place to acquire knowledge, not wisdom”. He finally chose Hawaii as a place of residence and got married, but his first wife cheated on him and they were divorced. The trauma from the separation from his second wife led him to travel to  Israel, in search of his Jewish roots, and to seriously research the female sexual cycle, practically.

Dorian Paskowitz, the grandpa

He ended up back in the States, where he met his last wife, of Mexican origin, who received the highest score for her sexual performance, and to whom he is still happily married. It is mainly the story of a man who committed plenty of mistakes, also with the upbringing of his children, but who recognized them – and hoped for better. A truly wise human being. Score: 8.

surfwise family surfers

the family on the caravan

Well, here is our stand up comedian and actor from movies like Ray, Collateral or Any Given Sunday. Jamie is a funny fellow, with great imitations, very much already into the main stream of the american comedy, nice looking and athletic, he makes pretty much into the group of african american comedians that made it successfully into Hollywood. At this time, close to the 9 11 attack he will pick on talibans, come up with his experience from his trip to Africa, imitate his most famous brothers and sisters and still put some sex into it as I am acustomed to see from african american stand up comedians. Score: 7

Breaking the rules is a hillarius piece of stand up show by this awesome monster of comedy: Sam Kinison. The first association I had when I first saw and heard Sam was: “this fatty reminds me so much of Bill, Hicks that is”. Digging a bit into the net pages, I found that both masters of laugh and entertainment had a relation. Actually it was Sam the one that hsa the original grotesque laughing and bulgar sexual jokes that we all love, even though Bill kicked the bucket in 94.  Nevertheless all comparisons are hatreus for we are dealing here with two statues of truth telling through jokes, both Sam and Bill stand for what they are on their own, and as someone put it: “there is nothing original, eveything has an origin”.  Score: 7

If there is an educational and informative documentary work, Zeitgeist is its name. A deep research into our current monetary system based on enslave, scarce and above all profit for the benefit of CORPORATIONS. Names like Exxon, Texaco, WalMart, Merrill Lynch, CityGroupInc, Morgan Stanley, CNN, CBS, FOX, MacDonalds, AT&T, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, etc,… All  these nice entities are the real owners of our global world and won’t think twice to send their economic hitmen and try to brive heads of state in order to let them into his country and exploit his resources.  Once the specific foreign leader bribed, the companies get into the country, exploit its resources by a small fraction paid of the real cost of it. Thus, the profit is all for the corporations and the targeted country is left as before but this time with no natural resources and a bunch of corrupted new rich men leaders.

If the leaders refuse to be bribed… accidents happen, CIA fashion. If the CIA cannot do it, the Army will, and then you will find that what it was supposed to protect and defend its citizens is now fighting for corporation interests instead of values. Just to exemplify this: Before 1980’s Afghanistan produced 0% of the world’s opium, after the US/CIA backed Mujahideen won the Soviet/Afghan war, by 1986 they were producing 4-% of the world’ heroin supply. By 1999, they were producing 80% of the total market supply. But then something unexpected happened, the Taliban came to power and by 000 they had destroyed most of the opium fields. Production dropped from 3000+ tons to 185, a 94% reduction. . On Sept. 9th 2001, the full Afghan invasion plans were on G. Bush’s desk. . Today, after the US invasion, US controlled Afghanistan provides 90% of the world’s demand breaking records nearly every other year*.

These same corporations are the ones that killed the electric car, which by the way, it is a known solution since the beginning of last century just because it doesn’t go on petrol, thus we have no profit there, so they banned the use of the batteries (that are also under their control) in these cars. These are the people that wont blink while deforesting the amazons or as Bayer, who wouldn’t have remorse after selling in Europa what was previously banned in the US, a medicine that had been proved cause of aids in many patients. This people aren’t neither interested in well being and environment, but in proliferating, keeping people watching American gladiator and made them think that technology put them on the unemployment.

And here is where it comes www.thevenusproject.com: a new way of thinking and acting for today’s generation. On an era where technology success surrounding us in our daily chores there is no excuse to make the change the corrupt system where we think our politicians will take care of us in this democracy and push forward our interests. Reality is much different: those leader have pending bills with those people that actually placed them on the top, yes, you guessed right again, the corporations, those entities that pay for Obama’s election campaign and right after he won, will pay a visit to his office. And this is how the current system works.

This same corporations control the media, so they can keep you with their news, right where they want you to think. And here is the way we can improve our situation in order to make things change: do not support this corporations by buying their news, by consuming their products, electricity or water, try to be as much self dependent as possible, for in this materialist world we all know what happens when an article/idea is not consumed: they stop producing/exploiting it, it dies and they will have to come up with something the people wants. That is what happened when they started boycotting the city bus companies in southern US for the where were part of the racist system against African Americans. And what are the options? As mentioned, planet friendly technology together with environment protecting energies like tides, helical, waves, solar and thermo, all of them long knocking on our doors.

I found this piece of investigation not only a must-see, but a must follow. There are some grey areas where I may object, such as simplifying all religions and make one from all of them, saying that we are all the same. Score: 9

* Source: Washington Post, “Afghanistan Opium Crop sets record” and UNODC report “The Opium economy in Afghanistan”