Posts tagged silly
“The Last Exorcism Part II” Not Really
Mar 16th
“Or Is It?”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Last Exorcism Part II has a title that makes you think, whereas the movie itself just makes you cringe or laugh, sometimes simultaneously.
Maybe the filmmakers just wanted to cash in on the popularity of the trend in blockbuster series of movies having two parts to the final episode in the series, but the operative word here is “blockbuster,” which this movie isn’t, and neither was its predecessor.
Anyway, this movie is just as confusing as it is silly, and it continues where the first movie left off, which wasn’t called “Part I.”
Once again, we follow the story of Nell Sweetzer, who is 17 years old and living in Louisiana. Nell is trying to build a new life after escaping the events of the first movie.
Nell is living in New Orleans, and she can’t remember entire portions of the previous months except that she is the last surviving member of her family, and the evil force that once possessed her is back.
In other words, the last exorcism didn’t work, and now it is apparently time for another one.
Or, as a doctor tells Nell, “It’s your life. You get to decide who you are.”
Nell lives in a house with other troubled teenage girls, who are all under the supervision of the doctor.
Nell has a job as a maid at a motel, where a young man named Chris also works, and they act as if they like each other.
However, strange things start happening to Nell.
A radio talks to her, she answers the telephone, and a strange voice says disturbing things to her.
Nell and the other girls go to watch the Mardi Gras parade, and ominous people in unsettling costumes and masks stare at her, and she also thinks she sees her dead father across the street watching her, but of course he suddenly disappears.
Nell also has disturbing and erotic dreams, and so we never know if what we are watching is supposed to be real or just another one of her dreams.
Eventually Nell meets a woman with special powers who tells Nell that the demon that was in her before loves Nell and wants her.
So, naturally this woman arranges for an exorcism to get the demon out of Nell.
The Last Exorcism Part II … or is it?
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Fear of Dying: Naked Curmudgeon by Dan culberson
Oct 31st
Here’s what gets me.
People who try to convert others to their religion are like those who recommend their dentist or eye doctor to people.
They have had satisfactory experiences with their dentist or eye doctor, and the more people who do likewise supports and legitimizes their own choices and beliefs. And as everyone knows who has ever attempted to persuade someone to believe what you believe, if you can demonstrate that your belief is supported in print, your position has more substantiation and more weight. In addition, if your medical recommendations have been in print for 2,000 years, then you have a lot of weight and persuasion on your side.
However, suppose that the dentist and the eye doctor receiving these recommendations are quacks. Suppose the dentist claims he has a better method of filling cavities and better suggestions for good dental hygiene than other dentists, but in fact he removes all his patients’ gold fillings for his own profit and replaces them with a cheaper filling, one designed to wear out and ensure that his patients return for more dental work. And suppose that the dentist’s “Ten Commandments of Doctor Gold’s Good Dental Hygiene” begin with “Thou shalt go to no other dentist than Doctor Gold.”
Now suppose that the eye doctor, who might even claim to be the son of Doctor Gold in order to acquire added prestige and pick up some easy patients, suppose that he, Doctor Christman, claims that all of his patients have special abilities as the result of his practice which enables them to have perfect vision without the need for eyeglasses or corrective lenses of any kind after they are dead.
That is correct. Ridiculous as it might seem, Doctor Christman, without any proof whatsoever, claims that if you patronize his practice, you will be given special powers that will enable you to continue living after you die, and you will be whisked away to some special, spiritual Haven for Doctor Christman’s former patients, where everybody spends eternity with perfect eyesight and presumably continues extolling the wonders of Doctor Christman’s special powers.
Now, remember those people who recommend the practices of Doctor Gold and Doctor Christman? Suppose they get a percentage, a finder’s fee, a kickback for every patient who actually does go to those doctors. That would make their recommendations suspect, wouldn’t it? Especially the ones who recommend that kook, Doctor Christman, who boldly claims with a straight face that if only you go to him for your eyesight needs, he will additionally reward you with life after death?
Why would any sane, intelligent person believe such nonsense?
Well, those few people who are blessed with perfect eyesight who can see clearly in all situations that require clear far vision and closeup vision don’t, because they have no need to correct their eyesight and don’t need an eye doctor in the first place. Nor do they need to follow the “Ten Commandments of Doctor Christman’s Perfect Vision,” which are suspiciously similar to Doctor Gold’s Ten Commandments. They are mostly common sense and obvious suggestions, anyway.
However, there are some people, perhaps even a majority, who are afraid of dying. And if they persuade themselves, either on their own or because of the persuasive powers of those paid shills for Doctor Christman, that simply by patronizing Doctor Christman they will be given the additional magical blessing of life after death, they consider that they would be fools not to patronize Doctor Christman and anyone who knows about Doctor Christman and doesn’t patronize him is just a fool.
In other words, their fear of dying has got the better of them and clouded their vision even more than their correctable myopia.
That is just plain silly. Those people are even bigger fools than the ones Doctor Christman’s patients claim to be who aren’t Doctor Christman’s patients, because there is no evidence that life after death is even possible, much less with perfect eyesight.
What are Doctor Christman’s patients afraid of? Why are they so egotistical as to believe that they are so special that they even need to have a life after death?
Where were they before they were born? Nowhere. What have they felt every night of their lives after they have been born? Nothing. They have been in a state of unconsciousness that people with perfect eyesight and those with corrected vision accept without fear of going to sleep.
Doctor Gold and Doctor Christman are quacks.
I rest my case.