The Babadook (2014)

I had high hopes for this movie. It is critically acclaimed and everyone is raving about how amazing this horror movie was. So when I was invited to screen it I was quite excited.

The Babadook starts off strong, building an emotional groundwork of sorrow and anxiety built around the death of a father on the drive to take his pregnant wife to have their child. The child is high maintenance and clearly has emotional issues – but at first you think the mother is dealing with it fairly well.

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Of course, right after that, things take a turn for the worse as the child’s obsession with monsters and weaponry get him kicked out of school. To make things worse, it is the approaching the child’s birthday, and that pushes the barely holding it together mother over the edge.

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And that is just about where the movie lost it for me. Every movie has to have internal rules, and the movie has to follow them. Vampires can be killed with stakes through the heart, zombies die when you crush their skulls. Horror movies usually have some rule that brings the badness, which the main characters dutifully perform to kick off the fun.

And that is where The Babadook loses me. It sells itself as a horror movie, but it is really just a psycho mother having a psychotic break and almost killing her kid. But it never really commits in either direction.

When she goes to the police station she lowers her hands, and you aren’t sure if the blackness you see is soot – or the pastels from her making the actual book. And then of course there is the fact that her friends mention that she used to be a children’s book author.

And that is why I didn’t like the movie. I felt like it didn’t commit. There is enough mind bending stuff that it could have been something supernatural – but in the end I felt like the movie copped out and left it as just mommy having a psychotic break. It could have had a more satisfying ending to me.
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Bad Gun Handling – Clear It Before Cleaning It

I am amazed that accidents like this still happen.  I hope Jose Conseco recovers. It is sad to see anyone hurt like this, especially since it is completely avoidable.

  1. Check your weapon before you clean it. Is the magazine well empty and is the chamber empty? If it’s a revolver, make sure all the cylinders are clear.
  2. Never put your hand in front of the barrel. Always treat a weapon like its loaded.

The other option is to lose a finger…(and I’m guessing most of us don’t have super models to take care of us afterwards).

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This Really Is Amazing Growth

Carol’s character really has done a one eighty, and it happened so subtly and well that you never really saw it coming until it was right in your face.

And sadly, I said I would have put her down when Rick left her out in the world. But if it was for real, I think I would have put her down. It is too dangerous to leave potential enemies behind you.

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Scary Political Analysis From CNN Commentor

Sad, scary, but likely very accurate predictions as to what will happen if the right takes control of both the house and the senate. I just don’t understand how people can vote against their own best interests. And I know the right phrases things in ways that might sound good (reference the “flat tax” and regulation items below) but the average person should be able to see through this. It doesn’t help those of us in the middle class – it helps the rich and the ultra rich.

Here’s the GOP’s plan:

1) Tax cuts for the rich, although this proposal is usually couched in more pleasant language like “corporate tax reform” and “instituting a flat tax.”

2) Repeal Obamacare, so we can get back to the good old days where everyone is entirely at the mercy of their insurance company.

3) Deregulation, so corporations don’t have to put up with burdensome regulations like not spilling poison into people’s drinking water.

4) Build a border fence, so billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars can be funneled into the coffers of defense contractors.

5) Eliminate the last remaining vestiges of campaign finance regulation, so anonymous billionaires can funnel millions of dollars into elections to trick you into voting for the candidate who will turn give said billionaire massive tax breaks.

6) Pretend to care about jobs and the economy, because how else are we going to get you misguided plebeians to vote for us?

Original CNN Article.