In 1969 co-workers told me about how terrifying the latest movie was, Wait Until Dark. I went to see it and cursed them because it was a boring movie just about all the way through it. It was about a newly blinded woman who was adjusting to life. Her husband returned from an overseas trip and brought her a stuffed doll. It was filled with diamonds and the smugglers came during the day to retrieve their smuggled loot.
Before the husband left town again she asked him to unplug the freezer and he refused. He said she had to learn things on her own and would have to find the plug if she was going to defrost it. She later figured out about the unseen doll and managed to break every light bulb in the house except the freezer light.
The two thieves came back, broke in and she stabbed one to death. The second searched for her in the kitchen and discovered the freezer in the dark of night and jammed it open. She realized he could see and stabbed him four times with the butcher knife. She then called the police. So far it was a dull movie and I cursed. She then walked by the room where she killed the second man. I won’t ruin the movie for you as it can be rented.
Adrenalin shot through me and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, I was terrified!. The scene I saw had never been done before in movies. I got my money’s worth because that movie nearly scared me to death! We wouldn't even go parking afterwards.
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Twenty-five years ago my older cousin called me and said we are going to the movies. She had been helping me awaken to the Woo Woo part of my consciousness. We saw The Sixth Sense. Two years later I saw an interview with M. Night Shayamalan, its director and I think, its writer. He said two most interesting things about the movie.
The first is he said they gave clues when something explosive was about to happen – the appearance of lots of red. He was afraid it gave the movie plot away but it didn’t. He said if a movie is great the attendance increases at a certain rate week over week. But here it was doubling that rate each week and it took them a month to figure out why. All the first timers went right back the next week to see how hood-winked (stupid) they had been when watching it the first time.
The second thing he said was regarding the girl that threw up and said “I’m feeling better now.” The director said they wanted the movie to be as real as they could make it, so they didn’t let the boy see her or practice with her until the day they filmed her talking to him in the dark tent. The boy only knew to open the tent and say his line. The Director said it scared the hell out of the kid, he didn’t know what was happening!
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Twice in my programming career I found myself in a sticky situation when I had to write On The Fly formulas. It is when you experience something unusual or at the last minute and can’t hard-wire a procedure or math equation for it. For instance you may offer a special, large order purchase Volume-Discount to be determined at the last minute (phone call), and you want to protect yourself just in case a bad credit risk wants too big of a volume and possibly stiff you on the payment. So your program asks for input of the company name and agreed upon discount. It then creates the billing information Formula to calculate all terms.
It may move the volume down some or perhaps change the shipping terms to COD as his credit sucks. You would never see this in a hard wired formula, but in this case things are moving fast and you want protection
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Now let’s talk about the new movies we have been watching the past few years. Have you noticed they are all produced from India or overseas, but seldom in the U. S.? Could that be for a reason? Did Covid make Movie Stars swear off of money?
Is it possible that the White Hats hired most of the American actors to play body doubles? And if the White Hats did, wouldn’t they need them to live near the studio for the duration because there is no completed paper script, all the writing and filming has to be On The Fly?________________________________________
When Trump promised us theater, would we have been happy if Frankenstein walked out of the shadows looking like Brad Pitt? We are getting our money’s worth Folks.
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