Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 407

Florida Representative Garcia: “Communism Works”

Years ago a labor union representative in Ohio confronted me on my position against hiring too many public school employees—which was the direct cause of the school levy activity driving up increased taxation on property values in my community.  At the time they assumed that I would take their “professional” opinion without question and accept their rationale at face value that more unionized tax funded employees were good and beneficial to the field of education.  I was told that the school teachers making over $65,000 per year would not be so outrageously high if everyone had a similar government job.

The comment from the union operative whether they realized it or not had its roots in communism.  It proved that there was something deeply troubling about the way people like the union operative saw the world.  Their version of reality was disconnected from the practicality of real world application and was mired in communist theory.  It was easy to see what was happening once the frame of reference had been established.  Cops, firefighters, political assistants of all kinds, school teachers, IRS employees, virtually every type of government employee had learned to accept degrees of socialism in trade for fantastically high paying jobs with benefits they couldn’t get in the free market.  The goal had been to spread a long-held liberal fantasy of global communist propaganda funded by attacking property values with an ultimate goal of destroying capitalism.  As the union operative pointed out, by making the public sector more attractive to work for than the private—the ways of private industry would either have to compete or be destroyed.  By setting wages unrealistically high, the private sector by communist theory would have to also do the same.  Of course when these people are pinned down to reveal their ultimate plans and their roots, they shy away from descriptive analysis.  They call themselves “progressive” thinkers at best—but usually attempt to disguise their behavior behind American patriotism when in reality they are the opposite.  They do not consciously accept responsibility that their social behavior is communism.

Yet they are not as dumb as they pretend.  They know what they are doing even though collectively they never admit that most public employees are deeply committed to communism by practice.  They assume that most people do not know the definitions for things in a world dominated by passive aggressive behavior—where few people confront anything for what it actually is but instead dance around an ideal for fear of naming an evil which will require decisive action—which nobody wants to do.  In the absence of such confrontation, the communist advocates do sometimes reveal their intentions which have always been there from the very start of their campaigns against capitalism. One such person was United States Representative from Florida Joe Garcia who recently commented positively about communism.

Garcia made the comment during a Google hangout he convened last week to talk about comprehensive immigration reform with supporters. The Democrat attempted to point out how, for all their talk about limited government, many Republicans are fine spending loads of government money on border security.

“Let me give you an example, the kind of money we’ve poured in,” he said. “So the most dangerous — sorry, the safest city in America is El Paso, Texas. It happens to be across the border from the most dangerous city in the Americas, which is Juarez. Right?”

“And two of the safest cities in America, two of them are on the border with Mexico,” Garcia continued. “And of course, the reason is we’ve proved that Communism works. If you give everybody a good government job, there’s no crime.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/21/dem-congressman-weve-proved-that-communism-works/#ixzz32Reb8t9s

Garcia’s comment states that so long as everyone had a good paying job working for government, that there would be no reason to commit crime and peace laced with prosperity would permeate the fabric of civilization.  He’s not being facetious, he is literally advocating on behalf of communism—a socicoeconomic system structured upon common ownership of the means of production.  To Garcia and his fellow progressive advocates communism is the endpoint of human social evolution which will inevitably come into fruition through economic and socialist advances after the demise of capitalism by legislators like the Florida Representative.

In America the game works like this, a person wants to make a good salary for doing as little as possible, so they go to school, get a degree, so they can earn a spot behind the social gatekeepers of federal jobs.  In school, they are taught socialism and Marxism by liberal instructors who have long infested the education system strategically. Most of the students are raised by American capitalism and hold their nose and put up with the liberal professors because they want a government job—and being passive aggressive manipulators of their own existence believe falsely that they can maintain their sanctity by rebelling against socialism through their private actions.  So they get their federal job and find themselves employees of the tax payers.  To protect them from future taxpayer wrath, they join a socialist labor union which is backed by the state.  They often don’t have a choice with these group associations.  If they want the government job, like being a teacher, a firefighter or a cop, they must join these labor unions a trend started by President Kennedy who was struggling with severe communist encroachment during the early 1960s.  After a few years of this behavior they make wages that are roughly 40% higher than the wages of the private sector due to the artificial inflation of those positions by a political class with an ultimate aim of communism.

If the layers of immigration rights are properly explored without passive aggressive diffusion—it will be discovered that American Democrats like Garcia want open boarders because most immigrants are coming from countries already riddled with socialism and are naturally antagonistic of capitalism.  By overloading capitalism with such people—without giving them the benefits of capitalism—but keeping them dependent on government services—long advocating communists wearing the masks of progressivism can advance their agenda through democratic activity one small crises at a time until people have long forgotten the definitions and original objectives of American civilization.

These same Democrats often support the legalization of drug activity—because the drug sales pour money into these immigration blocks giving them the power to attack capitalism through American vice toward narcotics.  American’s own desires for passive aggression are being used against them as a military objective—and have now for several decades.  Those in the heart of the storm—the government employees–have kept their mouths shut because the pay has been good, and they ignorantly believed that they could take the money like a whore—and wash away the crime with a warm shower and a lot of soap—but too late they learn otherwise.

There is no question, most politicians feel toward communism as Garcia does—they just know that saying such things to a public who wants desperately to forget it—do to their growing tendency toward passive-aggressive behavior—taught to them in public schools—is a major faux pas in politics.  Communism is the social practice that progressives particularly of the Democratic Party are after.  Republicans do too, only they still hide behind a false desire for free markets.  Most House Republicans went to Washington financially poor but quickly become rich—and they got that way by the same methods.  They have money thrown at them to accept communism—which they take for the comfort of living.  All they have to do is enter a passive-aggressive legal mode of talking around the strategy socially.  They take their tax payer funded riches, go out to eat in nice Washington restaurants and believe they are capitalists supporting American business.  But deep down inside they know it is communism that filled their pockets and made them part of the wealthy elite and they knock their wine glasses together and pat themselves on the back for being the smart people that they are—until a fellow politician breaks the code of silence and says stupidly what has always really been going on—because the representative from Florida just isn’t so good at the game of passive-aggressive name changing.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com  

A Force For Change: The deep power of mythology to unleash human imagination and potential

My friends at Nostalgic Ink in Mason, Ohio promised that they would have a Tantive IV Blockade Runner for my upcoming game with X-Wing Miniatures—the popular new tabletop game featuring Star Wars dog fighting tactical strategy. I checked around lunch on Thursday the 22nd and the store sorrowfully told me that their truck had not yet arrived with their deliveries. But they informed me a few hours later that it had arrived, and I promptly drove my motorcycle back there to pick it up. They had it waiting for me behind the counter and for a $100 dollars, it might have been one of the most glorious things I can remember beholding my eyes upon. My next thought was how I was going to get that package home on my motorcycle—because it was so big. You can see it in the picture below.

As much as I dislike progressive politics, a failed teaching system world-wide, socialism and all forms of statism my first love is not politics or even conservativism—but mythology. I am not a huge supporter of group behavior and love my independence, but there are a few groups I support, and one of the organizations I have the most reverence for is the Joseph Campbell Foundation. My love of mythology is my number one enjoyment without there being a close second. My love of the Star Wars Miniatures game, X-Wing has a deep history in the old X-Wing computer games I used to play with my nephews all hours of the day for entire weekends. Many times we had to run missions against those Corellian Corvettes and they were at times, very difficult—which is why I still remember them 15 years later. The wonderful people at Fantasy Flight Games have found a modern—low tech way of re-inventing the great mythological storytelling of that old video game with new gorgeously detailed models that really make modern mythology come alive in that game. That’s why I love Nostalgic Ink and many of the people who frequent those places. Likely they wouldn’t agree with me on my views on modern education, politics, drugs, and even traditional values—but they love the mythology evoked in many of the tabletop games sold in that palace of thought—giving us common ground.

But Star Wars isn’t just about spaceships and fantasy as I have elaborated often. It is about modern mythology and the perpetuation of goodness and as I have stated—the filmmakers of the series and the people at Disney now behind it—wish very much to use mythology to be a force for good in the entire world. I have said it many times, there isn’t anything happening in the world right now that will eclipse the good work that will come from the Star Wars partnership with Disney. The first traces of this attempt at goodness through mythology can be seen in the J.J.Abrams message below while on the new Star Wars set for the seventh film. The video was posted on May 21st and by the time I picked up the Tantive IV at Nostalgic Ink it had seen nearly 2 million views within that 24 hour span on YouTube. There isn’t a government on earth or organization anywhere that has the kind of ability to reach so many people. Star Wars advocates itself to be a force for good by advocating a force for change. The change they are talking about in the video is not silly progressive politics for the sake of social alliances—but real, genuine change born from human innovation to benefit all of humanity with the gifts of creativity.

 

Star Wars: Force for Change wants to create a brighter tomorrow for thousands of kids and families around the world. With your help and creativity we can develop innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. By acting as a Force for Change, your contribution to support UNICEF’s Innovation Labs and other innovative work for children will fund dozens of life-changing projects like these in communities across the globe: • Portable, solar-powered learning kits being built-in China, Uganda, and Burundi to ensure underprivileged children in these countries have access to relevant, high-quality educational materials. • Mobile phone application developed in South Sudan and Uganda, and used in the Philippines, that helps reunite children with their families after an emergency. • A text messaging solution in Zambia that helps families receive infant medical test results from clinics, in half the time, through mobile phones. Join us! Help create a brighter tomorrow for thousands of kids and families. Be a force for change.

http://www.omaze.com/experiences/starwars-episode-vii

Immediately following that message Lucasfilm sent me this press release which did not surprise me at all. As much as I have raved about Gareth Edwards after his spectacular work directing the new Godzilla movie he was named as the new director of the first Star Wars standalone film—staring either Han Solo or Yoda—likely the later. This to me was tremendous news as I had been saying that Disney was positioning Star Wars to be more than just a huge money-maker for their company—but again, a force for good by using mythology to reach behind political ideologies to get the human race pointed in the right direction. The hiring of Edwards and his response to the alignment I think will have a major impact on the mythmaking experience and the results on a worldwide audience.

Gareth Edwards and Gary Whitta Onboard for Star Wars Stand-Alone Film

May 22, 2014

 

In addition to the episodes of a new Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm and Disney have begun development on multiple stand-alone movies that will offer new stories beyond the core Saga. Gareth Edwards will direct the first stand-alone film, with a screenplay by Gary Whitta. The film is due out December 16, 2016.

Gareth Edwards blazed into the filmmaking forefront with his acclaimed work on Monsters, a film he wrote, directed and served on as cinematographer and visual effects artist. The skill and vision readily apparent in Monsters earned him the high-profile spot directing this year’s smash hit Godzilla.

“Ever since I saw Star Wars I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life — join the Rebel Alliance! I could not be more excited and honored to go on this mission with Lucasfilm,” said Edwards.

Gary Whitta’s screenwriting credits include 2010′s The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington. He is also well-known as a journalist and editor in the video game industry, as well as part of the BAFTA award-winning team on Telltale Games adaptation of The Walking Dead.

Whitta states, “From the moment I first saw the original movie as a wide-eyed kid, Star Wars has been the single most profound inspiration to my imagination and to my career as a writer. It is deeply special to me, so to be given the opportunity to contribute to its ongoing legacy, especially in collaboration with a film-maker as talented as Gareth, is literally a dream come true. I’m still pinching myself.”

http://starwars.com/news/gareth-edwards-and-gary-whitta-onboard-for-star-wars-stand-alone-film.html

So there was a lot to be excited about this week, and especially over the last 24 hours. Through all the years that I have been a member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, George Lucas—the creator of Star Wars—has been on the advisory board so that he could help guide teaching mythology to a new generation. People like me and Edwards are the obvious benefactors. Edwards makes a living from his education in mythology, where I use mine in real world application—both I would consider equally important. If there was ever a man who deeply cared about the direction of society in a positive way—in a way that Walt Disney did—it is George Lucas. Through his deep commitment to mythology he not only produced films like Star Wars which take story telling to powerful new places—but inspired through the Joseph Campbell Foundation to teach a new generation of filmmakers like Gareth Edwards and J.J. Abrams to take movies to places that Lucas and Steven Spielberg could only dream of. Even small little companies like Fantasy Flight Games in Minnesota are helping advance a mythology that literally touches every corner of the world with messages advocating goodness through their table top game X-Wing Miniatures. As for the Force for Change campaign mentioned by Abrams, that is something I can certainly support. I could care less about being in the new movie, but I do care deeply about the advancement of goodness throughout the world, and there isn’t any vehicle anywhere but Star Wars with Disney at its back that has the power to pull it off. It is for those reasons that the new Tantive IV by Fantasy Flight Games is one of the neatest things I have ever seen for the price of $100.

The Tantive is just a model, but it’s what it represents that matters. It is a force for change that leads to good—and that makes it wonderful and worth pursuing on the cusp of a wave that is hitting the world in very positive ways.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com  

INTOLERABLE: How the TEA Party was started and why

It took me a few weeks to get around to it, but I finally had the opportunity to watch the new documentary by my old friend Doc Thompson featuring the origins and validation of the TEA Party movement which began during the Bush administration and exploded under President Obama. Now 14 years of deficit spending that is a train wreck in American history the TEA Party has risen as a direct response to the irresponsible nature of government. The documentary is very good and even better, it is free. Doc and his producer Skip LeCombe put a lot of effort into the enterprise and are offering it for mass viewing. They are asking for donations, but the heartfelt documentary can be seen in its entirety at the following link:

http://intolerable.us/

Or, you can see the movie right here:

Written and produced by Matt Roman, along with Doc Thompson and Skip LaCombe, Intolerable was released on Tuesday May 6th featuring original music and material marking the inaugural project of File 55 Productions. It was an ambitious effort that certainly caught the eye of Glenn Beck and was featured on his radio show.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/06/theblaze-radios-doc-and-skip-tell-the-true-story-of-the-tea-party-like-youve-never-seen-it-before/

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/05/07/new-documentary-seeks-to-tell-the-truth-about-the-tea-party/

Glenn had been encouraging his audience to stop thinking and start acting when it comes to following through on various passions and projects. The Blaze Radio Network’s Doc Thompson and Skip LaCombe personified that advice.

Glenn asked Doc and Skip to talk a little bit about the purpose of the documentary.

“You know the misconceptions about the TEA Party that’s been pushed out there. I got really frustrated after our tour, and I said, ‘Let’s tell the truth about the TEA Party, so people can share it and save their friends and neighbors,’” Doc explained. “[That] is what it really is: It’s good, hard-working Americans that share your same values… You’re going to watch this. You’re going to get good information. And you’re going leave feeling good. You’ve going to have some direction for the future.”

“We offered it for free because we want as many people to see it as possible, but we’re also capitalists,” Doc said. “And then from here, some of the donations we get, we’re going to put the money toward a whole lot of other projects that we have rolling out. We have about 15 things we’re going to do in the next couple of years… We’ve got a bunch of good stories.”

As I watched the film I thought back in time a bit and remembered how the Republican Party tried to cozy up to me during this TEA Party rise. Actual candidates and the people who finance them expected me to be pulled into their web. The Republicans rode the wave of the TEA Party making it their own, and around 2012 turned on it all together. The establishment began taking drastic steps into the other direction, back toward the progressive middle. I remember well the difficult conversations I personally had with high level local Republicans in my town who hoped and prayed that I would play along nicely—which of course I didn’t.

Of course this is how they play the game in Washington and why people like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are such bad people—at least as politicians.   They talk tough on the stump speeches, but behind the scenes, where the money gets raised—it’s a different story and they expect that the friendships established will make good people overlook bad things for the good of the Party. TEA Party supporters of course didn’t go for this and stood against the establishment which is the cause of a kind of civil war in modern America. The result is that only the strongest people of the TEA Party movement are still actively involved. Gone are the crowds shown in Doc’s documentary, but we all knew even back then that the momentum would not last.

My personal crises came as Judge Napolitano was pulled off the Fox Business Channel, and my friend Doc Thompson was fired from 700 WLW radio within days of each other. Doc was being attacked for his beliefs and the company he was working for hid the termination behind a ratings drain—which wasn’t the case.   And my Republican friends wanted to pull me into their world of charity events and careful politicking that was sensitive to progressive issues—which I personally have no sympathy for. I made my stand, pissed off a lot of people and relationships were fractured forever. When the smoke cleared, I was still a TEA Party supporter and my friends were left without the benefits of my friendship. It was foreign to them that a man would stand on principles and that realization made me very angry.

Many people have pointed out that my articles from the start to the present have changed over time. I can understand that. In the beginning I had hope for people like Governor Kasich, Governor Christy, Paul Ryan, even John Boehner—but after just a few years, they have all failed to hold their moral ground. They proved to be a lot of talk, but way too willing to make a deal just to stay in power. I have watched the NDAA get passed in the middle of New Years Eve, and watched Obamacare shoved down people’s throats. I have watched the Justice Department commit crimes and get away with it because they are the law. With each story, my hope for the preservation of the system as it is currently has evaporated. So the tone of my articles has evolved with that sentiment.

Doc Thompson could have just given up after he was terminated from 700 WLW and his home station in Richmond, Virginia. But he didn’t.   After a lot of fighting, he become employed by Glenn Beck and has excelled from there. Most people would be happy with just a gig like that—but Doc is taking things several steps further and this new documentary is just the start. I am proud to see the documentary Intolerable be released. There is a defiance in it that is healthy for America. Anyone who watches this film and thinks the TEA Party is a bunch of racist radicals is the actual villains of society. Nobody can watch Intolerable and then turn around and say the TEA Party is not the last beacon of light for the freedom that is unique to America—unless they are part of the undoing of it.

Doc and Skip did a great job of representing the TEA Party and getting to the truth of the movement and providing context to the rhetoric that is against it. It is a documentary that has been needed, and now it can be seen by anyone anywhere who has an internet connection. So there is no excuse to not see it. So watch it, learn from it, and spread the word around. Doc Thompson has done the hard work of making it. The least you can do dear reader is give it an audience.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com  

Help the Children of the World SEE GODZILLA: What box office totals really measure

For me, movies have always been a measurement about the temperament of a society in general. The kinds of films that make money, and those that don’t speak largely about the values of earthly civilizations. I enjoy most films, small art pictures like Atlas Shrugged sometimes because they don’t make much money and speak to a very focused and intelligent audience. I also like films like the new Godzilla movie which speaks directly to the masses with enthusiastic hope. What is different now as opposed to even a decade ago is that occasionally, huge blockbuster films like Godzilla are released simultaneously around the world and provide a very clear picture of what those worldly economic conditions are relative to the United States which can be directly measured by ticket sales.

Godzilla earned an estimated $103 million from 64 overseas markets this past weekend—during its opening. Warner Bros. reported that 51 percent of those sales were from 3D showings.

The movie’s biggest markets were the U.K. ($10.4 million) and Russia ($9.1 million), and it had the top opening of the year in Australia ($6.1 million). Other major territories included Mexico ($8.9 million), France ($6.5 million), Korea ($4.5 million), Brazil ($4.2 million), Italy ($3.6 million) and Spain ($1.6 million).



Godzilla opens in China in June, and then Japan in July. If it lives up to its potential in those two markets, it should wind up with over $400 million from overseas sales.

Produced by Legendary Pictures and released by Warner Bros., the monster movie reboot earned an impressive $93.2 million at the domestic box office.



Godzilla‘s domestic debut ranks second in 2014: it wound up in between Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($95 million) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($91.6 million). It also opened significantly higher than last summer’s World War Z ($66.4 million), and more-than-doubled Pacific Rim‘s $37.3 million.

It’s also worth noting that Godzilla earned more in its first three days than Star Trek Into Darkness earned in its first four ($83.7 million) on the same weekend last year. It was also above 2011′s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($90.2 million).

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3845&p=.htm

To sum all this up properly just in the North American continent Godzilla made $93 million dollars. Over the entire rest of the world the film made $103 million without China and Japan being factored. Those countries will see the film over the next couple of months. With all politics removed from public relations jargon promoting all these other countries as equal to the United States, and the demand for Godzilla being universally equal all over the world—it could be observed that dollar for dollar—The United States—a capitalist country has the buying power of the rest of the world combined.

For instance, Brazil is a large country, but because they lean in the direction of socialism, they have a per capita income that is far below that of The United States. $4.2 million is about how much most states made in America displaying vividly that in Brazil there are not nearly enough movie theaters available to show the film. In America, I have around seven different theaters to choose from to see Godzilla while in Brazil, there may only be a few theater in each major city. The rural areas of Brazil are lucky to have power let alone have a theater down the road from their house making it impossible to even think of seeing Godzilla. So as a country, their demand to see the movie was high, but their people because they are poor did not have much opportunity to attend a theater. Even more pressing to the whole problem is that there is not enough per capita income to dictate that an investor could even open and operate a movie theater in the country. Italy and Spain are both socialist countries and put out a pathetic number in response to the Godzilla box office. Again, it is not that people did not want to see the movie. Those that could did. But in those countries, there just aren’t enough theater owners who want to embark on the entrepreneurial activity of theater ownership.

France put up a respectable number as they have several major cities that have movie theaters. In the future however because of the socialist policies of the current government penalizing the rich, there will likely be far less real-estate investment into movie theaters leading the country back into something like what Spain, Italy and Brazil are putting out as far as economic activity.

Economic activity is of course the access of investment into theater ownership and access to money to attend a movie by the general population through disposable income. If taxation consumes much of that income, then movie attendance will of course decrease. After China loosened up a bit toward western films and actually allowed their citizens to watch movies like Godzilla, they are usually good for around $40 million in opening weekend box office totals out of a population matrix of over a billion people. Much of this market base is around the capitalist region of Hong Kong, but the communist portions of the country are still deeply deprived of business investment and disposable income to even purchase a movie ticket. There are likely millions of children within China who would love to see Godzilla, but they can’t because no movie theater owners want to deal with the communist government to operate such things with all the restrictions involved. After all, China only allows ten films a year from America. The rest of the year there aren’t many opportunities to see movies that are good. China isn’t making many movies, and neither is the rest of the world. Only America makes movies like Godzilla and only a select few are allowed to be seen within a communist country. Godzilla will be one of them—thank goodness.

Here is a sad statistic; the entire country of Australia which is a large landmass, only produced $6.1 million in Godzilla sales—mostly on the east coast of the country.   Australia has also functioned under socialism for a number of years which has killed their economic growth and the results can easily be seen in the terribly deficient movie theaters available. Obviously people in Australia would love to see Godzilla, but they do not have enough movie theaters to allow such a thing. They have not been friendly enough toward entrepreneurial activity to allow their people such a positive leisure time activity like seeing Godzilla.

Is it fair to judge the world against such standards—well, yes it is. Godzilla is the kind of movie that boys, girls, young, old, virtually every market demographic in the world would like to at least see, but those opportunities do not exist in countries struggling with socialism, communism, and over restrictive governments. Countries like Russia have at least stepped up to the plate and allowed for western films to be shown in their city multiplexes and they produced a respectable $9.1 million, just shy of England which boosts a much smaller landmass and total population. Such comparisons speak very accurately about the economic strength of the cultures viewing the film Godzilla.

Godzilla is s global phenomena built with Japanese branding for many years, so it is a stable platform to make such comparisons. And the economic status of the world is easy to measure against such a globally unified reference point. If you want to measure the strength of a nation, just look at how many people attend movie blockbusters and determine if they have access to a movie theater, have expendable income, or live in a country that allows the kind of free speech needed to see such a thing. Then ask why they can’t, and you will have the answer as to which political systems work best for the people they are supposed to serve, and which ones simply use people as a platform for their own self-importance.

I bet dear reader—that you had no idea that the new Godzilla movie told so many stories on so many levels—but now you do.

Rich Hoffman   www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com 

My Wife Saves The Day: Fantasy Flight’s Corellian Corvette–just in time

I work hard, and I am involved in a lot of real life crusading on many fronts, and part of my stress management—especially lately—for the last year has been the new Fantasy Flight Game, X-Wing Miniatures.  It is so fun, and so exciting, that I could literally speak on it for hours and hours without a single pause.  It is good in so many ways that I find it’s creativity and contents redeeming in intellectual recharging leaving me to spend much of my spare time in the world one can create within its framework as a tabletop game.   My love of the game has been so intense that due to the new Epic Play format which requires a tabletop play area of 3’ X 6’ I had to find something better to set up these huge games involving the new capital ships and rules associated with them.  My wife found some really large fold up tables and benches that will allow the setup of this massive game just in time for the new Corellian CR90 Corvette which is coming out this week and has had my interest for nearly a year now.

The next two weeks for me involves a lot of X-Wing playing, some of it requiring traveling.  So it’s been on my mind.  This very interesting Corellian Corvette ship is coming out right in time for some of these events, and just weeks after this release is the distribution of the Wave 4 ships, which will feature the E-Wing—specifically the Corren Horn card I am very eager to put my hands on.  My previous weekend was busy learning how to fly these big ships, and tracking down a second game mat to encompass the second half of the gigantic play area for Epic Play and Cinematic play.  My wife found a match to the one we already have from a remote distributer out-of-state and ordered it ahead of our pressing weekend events.  But that left us looking for a proper set of tables that could be set up and moved around easily depending on where we were playing.

My wife again found the perfect set; a pair of fold up 8’ X 2 ½’ tables that put together side by side gives plenty of play surface.  Such an area is just too big for most dining room tables and is nearly impossible to travel with.  She found these tables at Wal-Mart along with matching bench chairs that easily can be packed up and traveled with so that X-Wing Miniatures can now go anywhere in the world we wish to take it.  After receiving my Rebel Transport, CLICK HERE TO REVIEW, I had been stuck trying to figure out how to play it and still have room to spread out all the other items it takes to play the game comfortably.  One problem we have in our family is that when we have large get together events, the women tend to conjugate in the kitchen talking while the men and boys all want to play something—like X-Wing.  But then we have to wait for the dining room table to be clear so we can play, it leaves us impatiently waiting for dinner to be over so we can gain control of the dining room table—which ruins the purpose of a nice dinner to begin with.  With these new tables it will no longer be a problem.  I can set the game up outside, in the living room, in the basement, in an upstairs room, anywhere we want.

I love that the game is getting so big.  It is exciting for me, because I love all the complexity of having massive scenarios of strategic opportunity.  It is interesting to me to have so many variables above and beyond a few ships dog fighting to the death.  And my collection is getting so large, that setting up everything literally takes up an entire large room.  The Rebel Transport which came out a few weeks ago showed me quickly that more space would be needed because once the Corellian Corvette comes out; space would become a necessity leaving me scrambling for solutions ahead of its release.  Below are the stats and benefits of the new CR90 as described by Fantasy Flight Games.

The Corellian CR90 Corvette in Combat

At ninety squad points, the Corellian CR90 Corvette eats up a massive chunk of your available resources, so how does it hold up in battle?

For starters, the CR90 features a primary weapon with an attack value of “4” that can fire at enemy ships as far away as Range “5.” Accordingly, if you’re approaching your squad-building with an eye toward your economy of attack dice, shields, and hull points, the CR90 forces another wrinkle into the equations. By firing before other ships are even in range, the CR90 is effectively adding actions and attack dice to your squad.
Then, how about those shields and hull points? Both the fore and aft sections of the CR90 feature their own shield and hull point values, and altogether, between the two, the ninety points you spend on the CR90 nets you eight shields and sixteen hull points. That makes the CR90 a rather difficult starship to destroy, especially when you factor in the ability to reinforce either the fore or aft section, adding an evade result to each attack against that section made during the round.
Even after the CR90 takes a pounding, it can use the recover action to spend energy to recover shields. The result is that if your opponent doesn’t throw absolutely everything against your CR90, it has a good chance of surviving and recovering to turn the tide back in your favor. Of course, if your opponent does focus all of his guns against the CR90, that means your other ships are free to wreak havoc.
Meanwhile, the CR90 can spend energy to fire powerful secondary weapons like Single Turbolasers and Quad Laser Cannons. Because you can equip up to two of these hardpoint weapons on the CR90’s fore section and another on the aft section, your CR90 may perform as many as four attacks each turn, all with attack values starting at three or four.
The CR90 also has access to a number of upgrades that simply aren’t available to smaller ships. For example, the Rebel Transport Expansion Pack introduced several members of the Echo Base command, including Toryn Farr, Carlist Rieekan, and Jan Dodonna. It also introduced the WED-15 Repair Droid, which could partner with the R2-D2 from the Tantive IV Expansion Pack to work fast repairs on your ship every turn. Also in the Tantive IV Expansion Pack, Raymus Antilles works wonders when his CR90 is supported by starfighters with Ion Cannon Turrets or Ion Cannons.
Finally, as a huge ship, the CR90 simply obliterates any small or large starships that get in its way. If a small or large starship gets caught in its path, that ship is destroyed… no attack rolls necessary. This means that the mere presence of a Corellian CR90 Corvette in your squad is likely to force your opponent to adjust his intended flight patterns.

All together, the CR90 can harness its raw bulk, its primary and secondary weapons, and its many possible crew options in order to punch gaping holes in enemy squadrons.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4821

The new Epic Rules allow for up to 300 point squads which means there will be a lot going on during a game which can quickly become overwhelming.  So it was refreshing that my wife found such a wonderful solution at Wal-Mart—of all places.  For just over $300 dollars I had my problem solved so that 12 people could sit around this massive table top and play X-Wing Miniatures comfortably—and still spread out all our stat cards and squad builds without struggling to find space around the periphery of the game mats.  The tables work so well I would have paid $1,000 for them—they are that good.

For me this whole hobby experience has become a bit like a model train obsession.  Fantasy Flight Games has done such a good job of hitting that market and giving such well made models something useful to do.  The CR90 will just add a tremendous layer of mythology to an already deeply involving game.  I probably spent 6 hours alone over this past Saturday just reading through all my cards in preparation for the events coming up over the next couple of weekends.  The game itself isn’t that expensive, but with ships like the CR90 costing around a hundred dollars of actual money, this is a hobby that can chew through several thousand dollars, which is where I’m at.

The money is worth it because when I set up that world and play the game, a lot of the nonsense going on outside in reality gets put on pause for me.  It manages stress in ways that might otherwise become unbearably overwhelming.  It allows players to live in a mythology that isn’t imposed upon by a story teller, but is happing by the decisions made by the players and it has a logic to it that fits my real world concerns.  So it’s an exciting time for me—especially in the world X-Wing Miniatures.  There is a lot for me to look forward to regarding that hobby, and I am so happy to have the leisure which that game brings to spend my time with and share with the people who matter most to me.

Sometimes the best things in life are the smallest—and this is one of them which ironically is growing in EPIC proportions.

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com 

The ENORMOUS box office of Godzilla: A skeleton key to human civilization

You could smell it in the air on Friday.  My wife and I went to an early showing of Godzilla after having a nice lunch at Chick-fil-A and already the Showcase Cinema in Springdale, Ohio was cranked up in anticipation of what turned out to be a fabulous movie.  READ MY REVIEW HERE.   It was simply a jaw-dropping experience and the buzz was already percolating into what would become a $32 million dollar evening after a $9 million dollar Thursday night of special showings.  The theater was buzzing with excitement the likes of which I had not seen in years and the film hadn’t even thought of hitting Saturday yet.  Projections had the film only doing $65 million dollars over the weekend, but by Saturday morning, it was obvious that Godzilla would crush the opening of Spiderman 2, from two weeks earlier of $91 million.  My wife and I bought our Imax ticket and quickly discovered on a gigantic poster that we would be treated to a free popcorn just for buying the Imax ticket, so we picked up some wonderfully buttered popcorn and stepped into history as the best monster movie ever to be filmed played before our eyes.  During the climax my wife was so excited she almost leapt at the screen laughing, pointing, and was ready to punch something.

At the conclusion a few of the employees who came in to clean up asked me how the movie was, and stated that they couldn’t wait to get off work so they could see it.  My wife and I were the last to leave the theater and I told them that they needed to clock out right now, and get up in those seats and watch this movie right now.  It was that incredible, history making awe inspiring—and the ramifications of it would manifest long after what would turn out to be a monumental opening weekend.  I knew as the credits stopped rolling that this movie was going to explode with global business that would topple $1 billion dollars and launch new life into a film genre that will ignite the imaginations of millions of young people and I enjoyed the reverence.  Unlike The Amazing Spiderman 2 which saw a major drop in business during its second week of release, Godzilla would likely see even more business over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend as word of mouth will spread like wildfire about how good the movie is.

So what does this mean?  Why is the box office of Godzilla so important?  Well, I have been writing a lot lately about the importance of mythology in our culture.  It shapes everything from philosophy to politics and is likely the most important attribute to any human society.  There are a lot of elements in our present world that makes human beings feel powerless, and subjected to abuses, so when their imaginations are stimulated with thought, there is a sense of freedom in the exchange.  When a movie is as exciting as Godzilla is, and inspires so many people to go to a theater to experience it, a unifying philosophy is being painted across the canvas of human society and it is a wonderful thing to witness.  When a movie does that kind of business, other studios are forced to copy, and that means that films that are losers, like Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi, and other progressive films must adapt and compete against traditional films that a majority of the world population yearns for.

There is no group hugging going on in Godzilla.  The hero is Godzilla who stands as a solitary savior of mankind and the main protagonist who is on his own adventure is also the last man standing to save mankind from disaster.  The rest of the characters can only watch everything happening with passive helplessness.  It is in this attribute that once again traditional films destroy the box office business of collective message stories attempting to sell progressive storylines.  When a traditional old-fashioned film like Godzilla does such good business the public is voting, and the votes favor tradition because other studios—due to capitalism are forced to compete or go out of business.

Japan’s Tolo studios have had the rights to Godzilla for years, and they have nurtured it along.  But they knew that if they wanted to take Godzilla into the realm of international—mainstream sensation, they needed Legendary Pictures to pull off the task.  Legendary Pictures put up 75% of the nearly $200 million dollar budget and hired relative newcomer Gareth Edwards to direct the film.  There weren’t any film studios in France able to perform such a task, not in England, not in Germany, certainly not in China and Japan was obviously limited in their abilities.  It took an American production company to achieve the objective of spreading the Godzilla message and did they ever pull it off.  The risk of Gareth Edwards not only paid off, but the film will evolve into a sensation that will not be forgotten any time soon.  It is a benchmark film that will take the world by storm.

This is yet another example of many themes discussed here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom day in and day out over a number of years now and it was quite refreshing to see the early wave of Godzilla before everything became much noisier.  I was not surprised to see such a ruckus, human beings are starving from substance, and Godzilla delivers it.  If Godzilla were simply about destruction, it wouldn’t do such good box office numbers, and the buildup of the character over the last 60 years has not prepared people for this kind of market desire.  The old films were fun films, but not good ones.  It is for the unspoken themes for which Godzilla is so popular, the one against the many, the mysteries of our own past unrealized, the protection of man’s creations over the creations of nature, the futility of those same creations against the scale of nature at times, and individual will.  It’s also about hopes, dreams, and the importance of family.   The scene where the main protagonist helps a little boy find his parents is just another reiteration of that main family theme found throughout the film.

History has been made and it was a fun weekend watching the events come together as the box office numbers of Godzilla came in.  It felt like victory for all those who support classic elements in movies which builds the mythology not just of our nation, but now of the world.  These days, it’s no longer cars that America exports that are so prized throughout the world, or the aviation industry, or even food—it is mythology which can only come from the imaginations of free people.  Only in America could a movie like Godzilla be made, and that was obvious as I left the theater ahead of a box office wave which consumed the world and brought a smile to my face for more reasons than that the movie was a great one.  Mythology has the answers to many of our contemporary problems and hidden within the Godzilla film is the skeleton key to healing human civilization.   And the key has now been turned.

By the way, Lengendary Pictures is now working with Universal Studios and their next big monster movie after Godzilla is Jurassic World.  And they love the script so much, they are already talking sequels.  I am very happy!  And really looking forward to it!

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com 

Lakota Student Lies About NFL Career to Impress Teacher: The sickness of teacher/student appeasment

Lakota once again is plastered all over the Tri-State news market for sheer stupidity and carelessness among their reckless administrators and general employees. Word from within the Lakota school system has said that a former student from Adena Elementary came to the school to see his old teacher.  Jeff Kline bluffed his way past the supposed beefed up security which was improved after the recent levy passage in November and enjoyed something of a hero’s welcome as he paraded the halls talking about his experiences playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars.   Here is how Fox 19 reported the story.

At Adena Elementary School in West Chester, you have to check in, get a visitor’s badge and have an escort. That’s what an ex-student did last week. He committed no crime and was “who he represented himself to be,” says a school spokesman.

However, he lied about his career, saying he played in the NFL, according to police, and letters sent home by school staff.

That sent up some red flags, and leaves a lot of “What ifs” in the minds of parents. The incident has the school looking over their security plans and policies. 

“We have officers that are assigned to the beat. They’re obviously going to increase their presence. When you have concerns, when parents are concerned, they want to see that presence up there,” said Capt. Brian Rebholz of the West Chester Police Department.

Police have spent time on the school grounds as students are coming and going from the property.

 

  http://www.fox19.com/story/25520691/lakota-school-looks-at-security-after-man-poses-as-nfl-player

As to the name of the former student no media outlets are reporting it for some reason—the kid is over 18, so saving the boy from embarrassment as a former student is rather stupid—considering they say they are desiring to fix the problem going forward.  Channel 19 did put up the name of a fourth grader in their report, so why the police and school would protect a person who lied their way past security to massage his ego around a bunch of children is unfathomably idiotic.  The Cincinnati Enquirer has the name because they checked NFL records to see if the kid had actually ever played professional football even as a practice squad member—which he didn’t.   Lakota, after the incident is now boosting their police presence, which they stated was the reason for the latest school levy—and they got caught being star struck by a former student who could have just as easily have used the same story to get into a classroom and bring harm to students.  There are so many things wrong with this situation that is being ignored that it is literally unbelievable all the people involved actually consider themselves intellectually mandated to advance society as educators—and they have really missed the mark. As anybody who knows anything about dealing with such matters understands, you must identify the cause, not the effect.  These news outlets have reported the effect of the issue, but not the cause.  Throwing more police into the halls of an elementary school at Lakota and sending home a strongly worded letter might make all the parents feel safe and secure—but it does not solve the problem.

The former student obviously wanted to return back to Adena to fulfill some goal established during his days there as a student.  This is the danger of children bonding more with teachers than their own parents as children.  The parents of this NFL imposter should really be ashamed of themselves for producing such a shallow young man ill prepared for the world.   I mean what was he thinking—even after he went to Adena to have all the little kids and teachers suck up to him with his made up NFL experience—he would still have to return back to his car to drive away knowing that he is a loser who hasn’t done anything yet in life.  The fact that he was willing to put on a cloak of such deception speaks loudly as to his actual values.  He cares more about what people think of him than what he really is, and this will lead to a disaster as this event is just a prequel.

Then there are the idiotic teachers so hungry to believe that their work with the young man led to something wonderful, like an NFL career.  The fact that they so willingly bought the story says that they wished to be deceived—they wanted to believe that their adopted son—a former student of the Lakota school system, could punch out into the world and be successful based on their instruction—and all they really did was raise a liar.  And who would be surprised, after all isn’t that what Lakota is really about?  Aren’t they more concerned with appearances than actuality?  Lakota is about raising money through taxes for their unionized teachers disguised as basically pre-adult day care.  Parents drop their children off to daycare facilities up to age 5 and conduct their lives almost independently—as though they were disconnected from their children leaving the little minds to be raised by baby sitters.  When the children become of age for public school, they are then placed in an older version of day care organized by the state to spur job creation among the men and women who reside within its borders.  Much of what actually happens in public school is about illusion anyway—so that those busy parents don’t feel guilt and change their behavior.  The employees of this ridiculous system wish so fervently that it would work and inspire children to greatness that they will soak up any little morsel of success story as a fact without any analysis contrary to their desire.

Interesting how the school board president Julie Shafer didn’t put the young man’s name up on her Facebook account like she did when I called her levy supporting friends’ fat-assed whores—which they are.  They are metaphorical whores to the needs of the state at the cost of their children which sickens me.  If Lakota wanted to stop the kind of behavior shown at Adena they would have released the kid’s name to put the scare into anyone else thinking of doing such a thing—but Lakota is actually terrified that future students might not do the same and become deterred from massaging their egos with the illusion that their efforts at public education are worthy—and successful.  Lakota school administrators and teachers want to believe that they can teach a child to grow up and become a gladiator in an arena filled with drunken fools and scantily clothed cheerleaders to destroy other human beings with the force of their own head.  Their bodies may become ruined after only 15 years of this behavior, but heck, they might get on ESPN a few times.  That is success—a really good player might be able to purchase a boat in Florida and pour $10,000 into the G-String of strippers on a Saturday night before a big game.  Without question these are the thoughts of the teachers giving Kline a hero’s welcome in the halls of Adena elementary with children present and watching closely the adult behavior.

Ultimately, Lakota produced a child in Kline who would rather lie about his career just to impress others—which could be said about every level of the Lakota organization.  Suppressing stories are the same as lying because the attempt is to hide the truth.  The parents of Kline are even worse, they surrendered the instruction of the young mind of their son to a bunch of pretentious Lakota babysitters who created such a deep yearning for acceptance in the young lad that he actually made up a story about his success to visit an elementary teacher he should have long outgrown and forgotten about.  The story is actually a serious one—it’s not about lying to breach security, it’s about the deep need to lie, so to make a former teacher show once again respect to a grown man who still has unresolved issues from his childhood.  Lakota just as they taught the young fellow did what they always did, they threw a few more cops at the situation to make parents sleep better at night, and will undoubtedly throw more money at the situation which is essentially like throwing gas on a fire—but it makes everyone feel better about themselves.

The cause of this tragedy is that the student, Jeff Kline, desired to actually visit a former teacher and get their approval.  To do it, he had to give the school what he thought they valued to get them once again to look favorably upon him like they did when he was a child yearning for a gold star to be put at the top of his work assignments.  Lakota taught Kline to strive for that appeasement at whatever cost, even if lying is the method of obtaining the objective.  After all, that’s what Lakota does—so why wouldn’t their rudderless students do the same?  The answer is they will do as they were taught—and to that effect Jeff Kline did.

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com 

Godzilla For President: A review of the new Gareth Edwards masterpiece

What would you get if Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and Akira Kurosawa all made a movie—it would be Gareth Edwards new Godzilla film.  That is not to say for a second that Edwards is a copy-cat filmmaker paying homage to his boyhood heroes.  The 2014 Godzilla film released by Legendary Pictures is simply that good, and is sincere in its tip of the hat to those great filmmakers.  While watching I kept thinking of films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Birds, Ran, Dreams without attempting for a second to show its superiority to the classic Godzilla movies—but rather being very respectful of them.  If there is a tight rope of movie marketing, authenticity to a beloved character, and the necessity to navigate the needs of the movie industry, Gareth Edwards just propelled himself into one of the top filmmakers in the world forever by walking it cleanly.  The new Godzilla film is simply astonishing.  I have read the reviews and spoken to several people who had seen the movie and I have come to realize that the movie is so vast in its scale that most viewers can only grip one of the many plot lines of the film.  Being spoiled spoon fed movie goers for so many years; they have forgotten the old Hitchcock films and likely didn’t bother with Kurosawa due to the subtitles.  Well, Edwards didn’t have that problem and has simply made a masterpiece that will have a major impact on film history.   I know good when I see it and this Godzilla film is great, incredible, astonishingly beautiful, captivating in virtually every way, and is simply a benchmark film redefining the genre of monster movies.  This Godzilla movie is what Cloverfield wanted to be.  It is simply jaw-dropping grand.  It will take several viewings for everything to settle in and history will study this movie as a masterpiece of modern film.

While waiting in line to see the movie I wrote yesterday’s article about Godzilla.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.  So I am already a fan of the 60-year-old monster.  I had to take a few hours after watching the movie to calm down and check my emotions to ensure that I wasn’t just being inflammatory with my enthusiasm.  After rolling around in bed for about 10 hours unable to sleep still excited about this Godzilla film I have concluded that perhaps I haven’t been excited enough.  Four key scenes will explain why without giving away the movie.  The first is the birthday metaphor so carefully weaved into the Bryan Cranston portion of the story.  It was remarkably powerful, and so subtle that most viewers appear to have missed it upon their first viewing.  It was a touch of Steven Spielberg that I haven’t seen from a filmmaker since the film Always.  Then there was the flaming train engine coming out of an intense fog at night across a railroad bridge.  The film quality looked as though it belonged on the pages of National Geographic.  The cinematic effort of that shot was simply mind-blowing.  Then there was the airport scene where the power had gone out across an Hawaiian city then came back on to reveal a giant monster destroying everything—with the main characters rushing toward the devastation.  There has been nothing like that done in movie since Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  It was over-the-top exciting, but never so much that it came out campy.  Godzilla pays tribute to these beloved old films without insulting them with direct mimicry.   Then there is the airdrop into the city of San Francisco during the monster fight.  The only filmmaker who ever attempted portions of these kinds of visuals is Akira Kurosawa.  The colors, the atmospheric conditions, the ceremonial aspect of the scene, the immensity of the whole enterprise culminated in that portion of the movie and was simply magnificent.  Edwards was well aware of his geography during the entire film.  The film went from extreme long shots of a storm over the city with the tiny troops falling toward their apparent doom with swirling cumulus nimbus clouds reaching into the upper atmosphere.  Then there are the hand-held shots as they fall through the cloud layer and into the destruction of the city while Godzilla is fighting with the monsters.  All these were cut together with the same level of continuity and it was seamless.  The long view of existence right along with the human perspective was astonishing.  I can’t say it has ever been done more effectively than what Edwards did in this movie.  There was a scene from Close Encounters years ago where the shadow of the mother ship was cast against the ground at night over the unaware human drivers of a truck.  That shot was incredibly difficult to pull off and came from the mind of a very young Steven Spielberg before he got old and stuffy.  I can’t recall another filmmaker trying such a thing since then—until this Godzilla movie.  It is hard to do such atmospheric scenes and Spielberg has given up on trying now that he is in his “mature” years.  But the ambition of Edwards deserves recognition as film schools will study this scene for years attempting to break down its effectiveness.

Speaking of geography it was impressive to tie in events happening halfway around the globe in simultaneous bits of story.  For instance, Las Vegas gets attacked by a monster as Godzilla is hunting the beast from the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Hawaii.  The extra attention to little details like proximity of terrain to each other in a world shrunk by Google Earth was so refreshing that even smart people seeing the movie will be impressed that Edwards thought of them while staging scenes.  The characters in this Godzilla film were intelligent, and cared about the circumstances around them.  That was refreshing.

Then there was the soundtrack which was equally remarkable.  I had never knowingly heard any of Alexandre Desplat’s work until this film, but it was quite powerful.  Desplat certainly tapped into great film scores by John Williams, particularly Jaws because it was evident in the film score.  The resemblance to that classic piece was unmistakable.  I have listened to the soundtracks of Jurassic Park and The Lost World countless times, and the notes and cues from Godzilla are right in line with those pieces.  It was yet another circumstance of welcomed surprise in a film full of them.  There was a raw majestic energy included with the music that was as big as Godzilla and the story line itself.

The character of Godzilla unlike the past had a deep intelligence to him, a knowing alertness to the circumstances of civilization and his desire to advance it.  That is a new element to these kinds of monster films, Godzilla was quite well aware of his ancient role as a kind of protector of man’s achievements.  He wasn’t interested in the mindless toppling of buildings and power lines, but of hunting down and destroying the monsters which were destroying the cities of earth.  There has been a lot of talk about Godzilla being a boon to nature—reminding mankind that it is not in charge.  Yet if Godzilla were so interested in nature, he would have allowed the giant creatures—MUTOs (Massive Unidentified terrestrial Organisms) to breed and hatch their babies which are all they really wanted to do.  From the vantage point of Godzilla mankind’s creations are pretty insignificant, yet he consciously made a decision to pick mankind over the MUTO creatures.  Several times in Godzilla’s efforts were close-ups on his weary face as if he had been fighting this battle for several millennia.  Edwards smartly captured this intelligence and made this Godzilla much less primal, and much more sophisticated.  As strange as it sounds the creature seemed so smart that I wouldn’t have been shocked if he didn’t sit down with some tea and discuss James Joyce as a literary endeavor.  He was what I described in my referred article written prior to seeing the film as a kind of overman.

Godzilla is movie making at its absolute best.  There isn’t anything better out now and hasn’t been in many years.  Even the epic nature of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films can’t hold a candle to Godzilla.  This monster film is a benchmark for these types of things that will set the bar very high.  Many reviewers continue to compare Godzilla 2014 to Pacific Rim, but the two aren’t even close.   The only thing they have in common is that both films deal with large creatures.  Godzilla is about so much more.  It’s a movie that needs to be seen many times to understand, and even more times for just the sheer entertainment value of it.  The cost of seeing the movie is worth the climax of the film itself.  They simply don’t get better than that and will still be fun after the 100th viewing.  Godzilla 2014 will become the next favorite film of many little boys desperately seeking something meaningful in their young lives.  But for the adults who grew up with the old versions, this Edwards film is a sheer work of art that will be difficult for any filmmaker to surpass for many, many years.  It is a treasure onto itself and a gift to every creature with eyes, ears and an imagination.  I give Godzilla an enthusiastic thumb up with both hands and both big toes and a smile from ear to ear.  It is movie making at its absolute best and then some and will never be forgotten in my household likely being played continuously forever once it hits Blue Ray.  In the meantime, I will go see it again.

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com 

Godzilla: A relatable character better than people

Today is a wonderful day to be alive. Why? Because a new Godzilla film is out and I love that particular movie monster—I understand him. I do not understand the cry baby cop on some television drama distraught over their many bad decisions in life. I do not understand the middle-aged man who would trade everything he built in life for sex with a 20-year-old girl. I do not understand a bunch of wives sitting around a table playing cards complaining about their husbands. But I do understand a rampaging monster that can pick up buildings and throw them around like toys.

I have always loved Godzilla. As a kid I watched the entire 1954 version ignoring the plot all together just to see the monster appear around the halfway mark. The boredom was worth the visual spectacle of a monster destroying everything in its path. One of my favorite films of all time is Godzilla versus King Kong—I will watch it to this very day when it’s on television. However, many of the reviewers, which are shown below seem to think that a Godzilla film is supposed to be about the human characters—and they are terribly mistaken. After watching the film they expected the humans to live up to the gigantic movie monster and were disappointed that they did not measure up. Here is what they said about the new 2014 version of the film.

“Edwards’ ‘Godzilla’ is a pleasingly paced 3-D spectacle that pays chilling homage to the artful legacy of the original 1954 film — Ishiro Honda’s ‘Gojira’ — while emerging as its own prodigious monster movie.” — Jessica Herndon, Associated Press.

“Someone should tell Warner Bros. that when they’ve got a presence as big as Godzilla, they don’t need movie stars, because frankly, who remembers the characters in a rampaging-kaiju movie anyway? Still, just to be safe, the studio has stuffed Gareth Edwards’ deafening, effects-driven reboot with an Oscar winner (Juliette Binoche), three Oscar nominees (Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn), an Emmy winner (Bryan Cranston) and an Olsen sister, leaving scarcely enough screen time for the monster itself.” — Peter Debruge, Variety.

“Unlike last year’s disappointing ‘Pacific Rim,’ ‘Godzilla’ actually shows us its monsters without a scrim of rain and a cloak of darkness. And the thrill of the film is getting the chance to fetishize their sheer size and physicality as they rip through power lines and demolish buildings with their lashing tails. In its handful of moments like these, ‘Godzilla’ almost makes you feel like a kid again.” — Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly.

“Superbly made but burdened by some dull human characters enacted by an interesting international cast who can’t do much with them, this new Godzillais smart, self-aware, eye-popping and arguably in need of a double shot of cheeky wit.” — Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter.

“This ‘Godzilla,’ though it surpasses Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Hollywood version, remains safely within the bounds of the modern action movie spectacular. It is at once bloated and efficient, executed with tremendous discipline and intelligence and conceived with not too much of either.” — A.O. Scott, The New York Times.

“The title character looks imposing, in the CGI work of Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital sorcerers, but the movie is often so dark, using a palette of gray and brown, as if coasted in rust, that he’s hard to see. … And the human drama, mostly involving Joe Brody (Cranston), his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) and his son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), never clicks. The problems of these three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans when San Francisco is getting Sanforized.” — Richard Corliss, Time.

“The climactic fight grows a bit wearying, and plot holes loom. Cleverly, though, destruction is not always shown head-on; sometimes it’s glimpsed through a hazy airport window or car windshield….Aiming for a titanic tale that is also seriously ominous, ‘Godzilla’ opens with a bang and concludes with an exhilarating roar.” — Claudia Puig, USA Today.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/godzilla-reviews-does-new-monster-reboot-have-bite/

Years ago when I was at the precipice of overcoming mankind and having my roots deep within its culture I would actually sit on the edge of Price Hill and conceive in my mind walking through the city of Cincinnati and treating it like Godzilla. At the time I was deeply involved in business and politics and felt I was at least equal to the most sophisticated elites within the buildings of the vast cityscape. I no longer felt reverence for meeting mayors, wealthy business owners, political power players and the intellectual gate-keepers—particularly from the University of Cincinnati. I had overcome the art community of Eden Park, the old money of Hyde Park and all their Yuppy children, the criminals of Over-the-Rhine, and the sports figures along the river—and I had outgrown them all.

It was easy for me to sit on that hill overlooking the city and imagine crushing everything intellectually, politically, and economically. At that point I felt I understood my childhood love of Godzilla. I was around 26 at the time.

I no longer relate to the human characters in most films and television shows. So when a film like Godzilla comes out, I am happy because I often feel that such characters were made for people like me. Thus it is a glorious day and the world is better because Godzilla is conceptually alive within it!

Rich Hoffman   www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com 

The Trouble With American Productivity: How cannibal cultures and religion destroy initiative

If you have ever tried to start a business, start a new product within a large organization, or make anything that involves the participation of the population at large you will undoubtedly have run up against tremendous opposition that needlessly seems intent to derail your plans. Deep pocket old money tends to purchase away opposition to their projects with political contributions and under the table buy-offs. But new money innovation has only one way through the gauntlet—and that is by surprise. A fledgling entrepreneur must hope that they can take the market by surprise before the parasites zero in and destroy their efforts. Currently in America—as in most places in the world, it is nearly impossible to do business as most organizations are plagued with do-nothing bureaucrats created by government for the purpose of job creation—without any zeal for production of any kind. They have a parasitic relationship with production—the key to any economic endeavor–and simply get in the way of creating anything of value. The reason for this issue is actually extremely complicated and must be understood by examining closely the map below. It is not enough to complain that the situation is one of economic theory or political philosophy—but is much more primal than that and extends back to the beginning of the human race.

Looking at the map it will be seen the pattern of ritual cannibalism cultures as they flourished during various periods throughout the world. The map is useful and comes from the book Atlas of World Mythology: Way of the Seeded Earth Part II and is one of the most treasured books in my collection. The map is not concerned with periods by millennia so much as the pattern and residual effects of cultures that had foundations of cannibalism and human sacrifice in their societies. In Europe this was a dominate ideal which can clearly be seen in the Biblical translations that flourished in Europe during the times of the first printing presses and the Roman Catholic Church who built their version of Christianity around such ideals of sacrifice.

Across the Middle East it will also be noticed that the entire region from Greece down to the Persian Gulf had elements of cannibalism which should be obvious to the students of Zoroastrianism which became the foundation of Christianity and Islamic faith—both riddled with deep beliefs in sacrifice serving as their foundations. It should not be a surprise that the concept of Sharia Law allows for it’s followers to sacrifice themselves in this world for promises in the next—which is the basic premise behind the human bomb terrorism acts. The notion of human sacrifice is alive and well behind every Islamic terrorist. The goal of the terror is to convert people into Islamic faith through fear—to force them to take the path of least resistance. They are not asking people to become committed to the Muslim faith through religious purity—but through fear. This is a tribal remnant to their ancient tendency toward cannibalism. Their mythology which formulated the philosophy of their society is rooted in human sacrifice. The fundamentals of their faith believe falsely that something must be given up before something can be gained.

Cannibal cultures seen in the zones indicated on the above map tended to be agriculturally based. The workers of the fields at the time as they do today—tend to plant seeds in the ground and hope that the gods bring them rain to nourish the seeds to healthy crop yields. They felt they needed assurances that crops would grow prosperously and developed mythologies which attempted to appease nature by viewing the crops as gifts from some mystical source which desired some kind of payment. Because of this they developed human sacrifice rituals and other types of blood gifts hoping that they would not starve with bad crops.

The correct way to view agricultural activity then and now is to see the work of planting seeds as productive and the science as stable. If you perform the work, you tend to yield the results. This is why under American capitalism farmers tend to thrive where other countries not as free tend to starve if given the same type of land, the same access to water, and the same general labor force. The cannibal cultures of the past which led to the major religions of the world started with an incorrect premise that pointed their entire societies in the wrong direction. The emphasis of their religions is on sacrifice instead of productivity.

In business this old irrational notion congers itself up in the bureaucrats against industry who still believe that something must be sacrificed if something is to be built—as if all things were created in a finite state and that something must be given up to have something new. Job creation is an act of invention—of making something that wasn’t there before like a painting, a sculpture, or a literary work. A goat doesn’t have to be sacrificed to create a job. The gods do not hand them out to those who have been naughty or nice—jobs are created by minds able to make them. However, for those who do not understand such things, they believe their role in the process is similar to those old cannibals of yesteryear. They will sabotage creativity at every opportunity and attempt to stop any productive enterprise with an ancient commitment to the notion of greed—that a job creator is trying to build something without giving something up. For any such person in an altruistic society is viewed as greedy if they wish to make something—profit off it—and prosper without some kind of sacrifice to the gods of the past. These definitions are left over from their ancestors who literally believed that death of something had to occur before life could prosper.

Christianity is riddled with this type of behavior. The very core aspect of the religion is that Christ died for our lives and that we were condemned of sin at birth. But because Christ gave his life—we are allowed to prosper as human beings and that we should participate in some kind of sacrifice to give thanks to the effort. This is just an old variant of human sacrifice as it was propelled across the European region shown on the map. To replace the sacrificial tendencies of the Pagans Roman Catholics in a desire to preserve their empire used the notion of Christ’s sacrifice as a way to pull belief into their desire for a pacifist kingdom united under the flag of Christianity. There are of course wonderful values in Christianity, but the essence of it is false, the ideal of sacrifice as being needed to be productive.

Work is done by individuals. Goodness is not a gift from out there somewhere in the universe, but within our own hearts. Goodness is made by the mind of man. And everything that comes from the mind of man is considered productive when it is applied to reality. Productivity is the act of planting a seed into the ground and watering it with labor. Productivity is creating a job that was not there before to fill a market need that also wasn’t there before a mind made a need imagined by someone’s mind.

Productivity is not the government regulator who hampers creativity in business to protect a turtle habitat, or the union steward who keeps workers from hitting their piece rate while nearing a labor contract. It is not a mindless bureaucrat that thinks productivity is compliance to some stupid rule that man came up with out of a silly notion rooted in sacrifice—sacrifice to Mother Earth, sacrifice to mother government, sacrifice to our fellow man—sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice–ancient beliefs that were flawed four thousand years ago and are still wrong today.

When something productive is attempted the old cannibals of our society come out in full attack—and this is something that will not stop until the mythologies that form their cultures changes. As long as terrorists are willing to blow themselves up to gain access to a bunch of virgins in another world, or sins are removed from behavior because Christ was killed for disrupting the political order of the Pharisees—there will be lots of opposition to real productivity. And starting businesses, creating jobs, and conducting anything productive will be a constant uphill battle riddled with anxiety. That anxiety is needless, but is a direct result of old cannibal cultures and their stupid belief that sacrifice trumps production. Clearly all those who think in such a way are wrong—they just don’t have the ability to understand what a detriment they are to the human race.

Rich Hoffman

  www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com