Posts tagged humans
“Blackfish” Tragic Story of Tilikum’s Revenge
Aug 31st
“Tilikum’s Revenge”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Blackfish is a heartbreaking documentary about what has happened once again when humans mess with Mother Nature.
As an old television commercial used to say, “It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature.”
“Blackfish” is the name that the First Nation’s people call the orca, or small gregarious whale that is also known as the killer whale, which we are told has 48 sharp teeth but is amazingly friendly and has no record of doing harm to humans in the wild.
The operative phrase here is “in the wild,” because the movie begins with a 911 call on February 24, 2010, from SeaWorld Park in San Diego and the chilling words, “A whale has eaten one of the trainers.”
The trainer was Dawn Brancheau, who was drowned and torn apart in front of horrified families during her performance with an orca named Tilikum.
Tilikum, one of the largest orcas in captivity, is now estimated to be 32, and he had been linked to two other deaths since he was captured in 1983 off the east coast of Iceland.
Incidentally, orcas are believed to have a life span comparable to that of humans, and we learn that there is every indication that they use language, and their brains have a part that humans don’t have, which is associated with an emotional center.
So, what went wrong with this gentle giant?
The movie uses interviews with experts and former trainers from SeaWorld and other marine parks to help us understand what happened in Tilikum’s past and come to a conclusion as to why this tragic death was not an accident and certainly not caused by anything the trainer did.
We learn about how orcas are trained to perform tricks during shows, how they are punished even by other orcas when they don’t perform as desired, and how mothers grieve when their babies are taken away from them and shipped to other marine parks for various reasons.
We also see interviews and learn about other tragedies around the world involving trained orcas at other marine parks, and you start to wonder how we allowed the situation to get to this point and why we allow it to continue to this day.
Blackfish is the tragic story of Tilikum’s revenge, who today is kept caged and brought out only to take bows.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Blackfish – Movie Trailer
Aug 26th
Magnolia Pictures invites you and a guest to attend an advance screening of BLACKFISH, an eye-opening documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Many of us have experienced the excitement and awe of watching 8,000-pound orcas, or “killer whales,” soar out of the water and fly through the air at sea parks, as if in perfect harmony with their trainers. Yet, in our contemporary lore this mighty black-and-white mammal is like a two-faced Janus-beloved as a majestic, friendly giant yet infamous for its capacity to kill viciously. BLACKFISH unravels the complexities of this dichotomy, employing the story of notorious performing whale Tilikum, who-unlike any orca in the wild-has taken the lives of several people while in captivity. So what exactly went wrong? Shocking, never-before-seen footage and riveting interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades, and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry. This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals.
“The Host” of Two Minds, One Body
Apr 6th
“Of Two Minds, One Body”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Host is based on the novel written by Stephenie Meyer, who also wrote the books that were the basis for the Twilight series of films, but this one doesn’t have any vampires or werewolves in it, just aliens.
When the movie opens, Earth has been invaded by an alien race that has inhabited almost every human body, and the humans who haven’t been invaded are on the run.
We learn that the aliens don’t change the worlds they invade, but they just occupy and improve them.
Yeah, right.
We see one young woman being chased by aliens and put up a fight, but she is captured.
An alien known as The Seeker looks down at the captured woman and says, “This one wants to live.”
The mind of the young woman, Melanie, played by Saoirse Ronan, stays active even though her body is taken over by an alien mind.
How do we know this? Because we hear the thoughts of both minds, but you can figure out the problem with this gimmick, can’t you?
Both minds are played by the same actress, therefore they sound exactly alike, and when one of the minds starts thinking, we don’t know if it is the human or the alien speaking.
Also, which mind is in control of the body?
Well, the alien mind says to call her Wanderer, and the human mind, Melanie, dreams, which we see and which fills in her back story, but then the Melanie body escapes when she is being interrogated so that the aliens can find other humans.
We can see the difference between aliens and humans, because the aliens all wear white clothes. The aliens also don’t lie, because they trust each other, and therefore it is easy enough for Melanie to borrow an alien’s car and take off in search of other humans.
However, Melanie and Wanderer get into an argument and one of them crashes the car.
Well, to make a long movie short, Melanie and Wanderer find some humans who are led by Melanie’s uncle, there is a three-way love story, but the movie’s pacing is so slow, what could have been a promising story just drags along.
Also, some famous actors in it are unrecognizable.
The Host is of two minds and one body, just like me about this movie.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”