ConspiracyTheory Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Our Favorite Summers: 1997
Filed under: Summer Movies »
I was 13 years old in the summer of 1997. I don't know if it's my favorite movie summer, but I do know that it was seminal -- at least in the sense that it was the first summer when I made a concerted effort to keep up with Hollywood's weekly output and see as much of it as I could. Already, I was jotting down my thoughts on everything I saw, fancying myself a budding film critic. The following year, I would start my own website on the now-defunct Geocities, and the rest would be history.
But, 1997. I didn't see everything (so I won't try to cover everything), and there's a lot I haven't caught up with. Still, looking back, I can see the beginnings of my current tastes and predilections. And amazingly, I can still remember the circumstances under which I saw some of these movies. Here are some of my memories.
May 23
The Lost World: Jurassic Park: I remember the talk about whether The Lost World would join the exclusive $200 million club, which just seems so darn quaint now. (It did, by the way.) I also remember the hype about it being the largest opening ever (3,281 screens). I saw the actual movie while visiting family friends in Tennessee. I loved it. Arguably, it began my love affair with Steven Spielberg (I had not, at the time, seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I believe I had seen E.T.)
Conspiracy theorists, rejoice!
Filed under: Documentary », Politics »
Did Cuba pay Lee Harvey Oswald to assasinate John F.
Kennedy? That's the driving theory behind a new documentary from award-winning German filmmaker Wilfried Huismann. Rendezvous with Death is the
result of a three-year investigation, through which Huismann interviewed
with former Cuban secret agents, U.S. officials and a Russian intelligence source, and also delved into Mexican
security archives. The film alleges that in 1963, Oswald made a journey
to Mexico City, where he was paid $6,500 by agents at the Cuban embassy.
The film apparently revolves around the damning testimony of a former Cuban secret agent, who claims that Oswald was a
"dissdent" who would do anything to harm the United States. "He was so full of hate, he had the idea. We used him ... He was a tool." The Cuban
government, the film postulates, wanted to get rid of Kennedy to clear the path for the assendancy of Castro and the
Communist Revolution. Whether the country had a hand in Kennedy's death or not, that goal was claerly met: in the
documentary, a former CIA official tells Huismann, "[Castro] beat us. He bested us. He came out on top, and we lost."The film was shown to reporters in Berlin yesterday; there's no word yet on when it'll be made more widely available, but as I'm total conspiracy theory nerd, I'll let you know the minute I hear anything.
Stabilized zapruder film
Filed under: DIY/Filmmaking », Politics »
Though there's some debate as to its legitimacy,
there's a Quicktime file of the Zapruder film making the rounds, and I'm having a hard time taking my eyes of it. I
certainly don't understand the technology involved, but someone's ostensibly taken the footage – shot on a home
movie camera by an innocent bystander to the JFK assasination, and the key to a conspiracy theory made infamous by
Oliver Stone's JFK – and digitally stabilized and sharpened it. It runs in a loop at the link, and even
slowed down, the meat of the thing goes by so quickly that, if you're anywhere near as morbidly fascinated in this kind
of stuff as I am, you might have a hard time clicking away. Safe for work, but definitely graphic. [via Boing Boing]
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
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