Brazil By Terry Gilliam.

Brazil by Terry Gilliam.

A good film, one that I felt was made exclusively for me. I was transformed upon first watching this. Brazil is an amazing masterpiece of a movie. Is it better than Blade Runner? ...Close.

Uncanny vibes, everything about it is freaky, every character in the film feels like they have this sinister agenda underneath this goofy facade, and it has an ending that's horrifyingly hopeless and really upset me upon first viewing. I was like, "Please, that is not the way it ended. Please no..." But I'm SO glad it ended like that, because apparently there was an alternate version where it ended happily. Forget that. It would not be as nearly as impactful if it didn't have that.

I should note that Terry Gilliam does this thing with fisheye lenses where he makes certain things in frame feel all the more close and intrusive to your personal space. The way he distorts the screen...say someone has a screwdriver or a syringe in their hand. It can really just bend around to really feel like it's about to get you. There's just something really intrusive about some of the visuals in this film.

"Cigarettes and chocolate milk These are just a couple of my cravings Everything it seems I like’s a little bit stronger A little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me." —Rufus Wainwright, "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk"

Fun Fact:

Zeus was even more popular than you realized.

There's actually a temple in Egypt that was dedicated to Zeus. I'm not making a word of that up. It's not dedicated Osiris, not Set, not even Horus. A temple dedicated to Zeus.

Apparently, the site was originally found in the early 1900s when French Egyptologist Jean Clédat found ancient Greek inscriptions referring to a temple to "Zeus Kasios". Kasios being the local Syrian Mountain where Zeus was worshiped at one point, but the temple wasn't excavated until recently. They've also found inscriptions in the area that tell of the Roman Emperor Hadrian renovating the temple as recently as the second century. The team of archaeologists are continuing to explore the site and personally, I can't wait to learn more about what they dig up.

Some of my favorite Ghost Stories on film.

1) Casper

2) Personal Shopper

3) The Innocents (1961)

4) The Uninvited (1944)

5) Ringu (リング, "Ring")

6) The Haunting (1963)

7) The Stone Tape

8 ) The Shining (1980)

9) The Others (Spanish: Los otros)

10) The Sixth Sense

11) Kuroneko (藪の中の黒猫, "A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove"; or simply "The Black Cat")

12) The Woman in Black (1989)

13) Any episode of BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas

14) Kwaidan (怪談, "Ghost Stories")

15) David Lowery's A Ghost Story (Masterpiece.)

16) The Changeling

17) Hasta el viento tiene miedo (known in English as "Even the Wind is Afraid" and "The Wind of Fear")

18) Stir Of Echoes

"The limits of your language are the limits of your world." ― Ludwig Wittgenstein

Cartoons I'd recommend showing or watching with your kids:

1.) The Iron Giant

2.) Miyazaki movies (of course)

3.) The heartbreaking The Red Turtle

4.) Cartoon Saloon films

5.) Adventure Time (amazing)

6.) Gravity Falls (also amazing...)

7.) Avatar: The Last Airbender

8.) The Legend of Korra

9.) Batman: The Animated Series

10.) Gargoyles

11.) The Spectacular Spider-Man

12.) X-Men: Evolution

13.) Over the Garden Wall