UFO Week - The Program: A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK - THE PROGRAM

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An informative and worthy effort from James Fox, one of the very best ufo documentarians in the business.

Day five of UFO Week is here and today we review the highly anticipated new James Fox documentary, The Program, which was released on December 16th and is available on video on demand.

James Fox is unquestionably one of the very best ufo documentarians working today. He has made five UFO related documentaries in the last twenty-seven years, with The Program being his sixth.

Not all of Fox’s UFO documentaries have worked, but the ones that have, like Out of the Blue (2003), I Know What I Saw (2009) and The Phenomenon (2020), are among the very best ever made.

Fox’s most recent film, Moment of Contact, was a major disappointment as it never fully came together as a noteworthy cinematic venture, and so I was very apprehensive about his newest film.

I am glad to say that The Program, while not nearly as good as the masterpiece that is Out of the Blue, is certainly a top-notch document and important piece of the UFO puzzle for any interested in a serious examination of the topic.

The film, which runs a brisk one hour and forty-two-minutes, opens with a discussion of the “Wilson Memo”, a 2002 memo allegedly sent between Admiral Wilson and astrophysicist Eric Davis regarding the secret UFO programs run by various black budget government agencies in conjunction with aerospace and military contracting companies.

The story goes from there and includes discussions with such serious luminaries as Dr. Gary Nolan of Stanford University and Hal Puthoff, as well as lesser-known insiders like former intelligence agency analyst Lenval Logan, DOD research scientist Sarah Gamm, and former Asst Deputy Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon.

Logan and Gamm in particular make for compelling subjects as they seem like smart people trying to tell the truth while trying to avoid saying anything that would violate any oaths or NDA’s they have signed.

Mellon has become a mainstay in UFO discussions and documentaries and he gives a good interview as he comes across as serious as can be without being a fanatic. That said, I’m a bit wary of the guy with his intelligence background and his insanely rich family background (he comes from the Mellon banking dynasty).

One of Fox’s real strong points as a filmmaker is his ability to properly pace a documentary. His good films flow with an effortlessness that is compelling, and The Program is no exception.

While Fox does appear in many of his films, he is most successful when he is not the protagonist, but just an observer/interviewer.

To his great credit, Fox is masterful with his direct yet easy-going interview style, and he gets the most out of his subjects as is possible.

Another subject examined in the film is the case of Gary McKinnon, a British hacker who broke into U.S. government computer systems searching for secret UFO stuff…and found it. And for his trouble he was arrested and faced extradition and life in prison in the U.S.

What McKinnon discovered hidden away in the government vaults, besides a crystal-clear photo of a UFO, was a list of “non-terrestrial officers” which included names. Quite the unnerving find.

The film then stays in the UK and transitions to a case in Calvine, Scotland where in August of 1990, two Scotsmen photographed a UFO. The British government confiscated their pictures…but one savvy officer held one for himself and kept for thirty years, finally releasing it in recent years.

The photo is extraordinarily good, the story of the two men who took it as told by one of their co-workers, is not. The co-worker sounds like a drunk making up a story as he goes along…and it would’ve been better leaving him on the cutting room floor entirely.

Another issue with the film is the story of Jason Sands, a former-USAF airmen who worked at infamous Area 51. Sands, who was vetted and recently gave private testimony to congress, has footage of a UFO at a firing range, and tells a strange story of an interaction with an alien.

Sands’ story of his alien interaction is definitely outlandish, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Unfortunately, after having watched the film, I’ve since seen Sands interviewed elsewhere where he tells even more outrageous tales about having to execute an alien at the behest of his superiors in order to guarantee his silence about the program in which he worked. This story is just a bridge too far and makes Sands sound like a committed fabulist or a fabulist who should be committed. I wonder if he told that same tale to Fox and Fox wisely kept it out of his film or if it is a new revelation? Either way, I think in terms of credibility it probably would’ve been better for Fox to keep Sands out of his documentary entirely.

The final portion of the The Program deals with the deep state obstruction of disclosure and features the always reliable Rep. Tim Burchett and Mellon describing the undemocratic government within a government that keeps all the secrets. (As an aside about Burchett, I was recently watching an episode of Finding Bigfoot with my son, an Animal Planet reality tv series from the 2010s – and in one episode the crew goes to Knox County, Tennessee to search for bigfoot and the mayor of Knox County – good old Tim Burchett, is there to help out and discuss his interest in the subject. I wholly endorse him being named director of the Federal Department of the Weird, Wild and Wonderful.)

There’s also a very damning display from the repugnant Bill Nelson, a former Senator from Florida and now head of NASA, who puts on a bullshit display that is so transparently dishonest and full of bureaucratic bluster that it is painful to watch. That Fox himself questions Nelson in an open forum, and then does a split-screen between Nelson blatantly lying about whistleblower David Grusch, and Grusch speaking to congress, is a master stroke.

The reality is that deep state despots like Bill Nelson, Admiral Wilson and their ilk are the tyrants of our age. These unelected bullying bureaucrats run the security and surveillance state that is antithetical to democracy and a republic and keeps us in the dark and in our cage.

The Program is about the UFO programs that men like Nelson and Wilson control, and the knowledge they refuse to share because that knowledge is power and they will never give up their unearned power.

The Program is a solid, well-made documentary that is well-worth watching. Unfortunately, it is only available to purchase and not rent, and the purchase price is $17...pretty steep.

The film will no doubt be available to rent at a much cheaper price in the coming weeks, and as good as I think it is, I think it’s worth waiting to rent it a cheaper price than buy at a steep one.

The bottom line is this, The Program is a very good companion piece to Fox’s earlier films, Out of the Blue, I Know What I Saw and The Phenomenon. As a collection, these films make a great starting point for newbies to the subject, and an excellent library of information for more experienced ufologists.

©2024

UFO Week - Battle for Disclosure : A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK - BATTLE FOR DISCLOSURE

My Rating: 1/2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Another in a long line of self-serving, money-grab documentaries from the narcissistic to the point of being messianic, Dr. Steven Greer.

Day four of UFO Week is here and today’s topic is the newest documentary from legendary ufologist Steven Greer, Battle for Disclosure.

The film, which runs one hour and forty-one minutes and is directed by Brent and Blake Cousins, was released on December 10th and is available to rent on video on demand. I rented it the day it came out and paid $1.99, but I have since went back to check the price and has been listed at $9.99 one day and $3.99 another.

The hard truth is the film isn’t worth $1.99, nevermind $9.99 or $3.99.

Steven Greer has produced a bevy of documentaries in recent years. The Lost Century: And How to Reclaim It (2023), Contact: The CE-5 Experience (2023), UFO: Endgame to Disclosure (2023), The Cosmic Hoax: An Expose (2021), Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (2020), Unacknowledged (2017) and Siruis (2013) are among the titles.

These films all share one very prominent feature…namely Steven Greer talking mostly about Steven Greer and how much Steven Greer knows.

If you don’t know who Steven Greer is…here is a primer. Steven Greer, or more accurately Dr. Steven Greer, is a physician turned ufologist who claims to have been an advisor of sorts to numerous presidents and governments officials over the years on the subject of ufos. How he became so close to the halls of power has never adequately been explained, but Greer does have pictures of himself with various big wigs, so there’s that.

Greer claims he saw a ufo as a kid and again as a teen and that he has some deep connection with them. Apparently, it is a very strong connection because he actually claims to be able to summon them.

And thus, we get to the crux of Dr. Greer. Dr. Greer has the distinct whiff of the grift to him, and that stench is quite odious. Greer obviously has a messiah complex as indicated by the fact that he, and he alone, has been bequeathed special powers and the he, and he alone, is the holder of special, secret knowledge. In this way Greer’s school of ufology feels more like a cult than a scientific exploration.

Greer’s ufo thesis is that aliens are a benevolent bunch who want to give humanity free energy technology that will release us from the bondage of our evil overlords and unleash a utopia here on earth. To be clear…I WANT Greer’s thesis to be correct. But Greer is such a shady character and seeming charlatan that I can’t help but dismiss his ideas even when some of them are somewhat believable.

For example, in Battle for Disclosure, Greer talks about how a lot of ufo sightings are actually human made crafts that were reverse engineered from alien craft byu a dep state cabal. Greer’s argument is that these human-made ufos are “illegal”…and he can “prove it in a court of law”, because the government didn’t disclose the technology…or something like that.

Greer’s legal grandstanding feels like just another example of his messiah complex…like who gives a shit if Steven Greer can “prove in a court of law” that the dark deep state is up to ufo shenanigans…because you aren’t going to get it into a court of law…that’s how the game works.

Throughout the film Greer, with a peculiar, ever-present and diabolically persistent, booger-free nose hair saluting out of his left nostril, declares that HE could prove his case in court…but then never actually meticulously makes his case for the cameras.

Battle for Disclosure is structured in such a way that it is obviously made for people who have been closely following Greer’s films and philosophy over the years. It hits the ground running from the get go and doesn’t give much context, expecting viewers to know the backstory already.

In another peculiar move, Greer goes out of his way in the first third of the film to berate, diminish and ultimately dismiss journalist Ross Coulthart, and whistleblowers David Grusch and Lue Elizondo as deceptive scions of the deep state. He doesn’t specifically lay out his case against them but just attacks them.

Now, many of my friends in the ufo community (I have a lot of them), think very highly of people like Grusch and Elizondo and Christopher Mellon. They are all in on these guys and hang on their every word. I, on the other hand, am not and do not. I look at these characters with the most jaundiced of eyes. I don’t trust them because to trust members, or former members, of the intelligence community, is a fool’s errand. These people are professional liars and they are very good at manipulation. To be clear, I don’t dismiss everything they say out of hand, I am just skeptical of what they say and more importantly, why they may be saying it.

The problem, of course, is that Greer attacking Elizondo and Grusch and their ilk without making a viable and clear case against them, doesn’t do much to damage their credibility nor does it elevate his…it just makes him seem petty and jealous of all the mainstream attention those guys get.

In the last third of the film the narrative shifts to a collection of men recounting their experiences with ufos of one type or another. These men, all military men at the time of their encounters, tell compelling but often-times preposterous tales – all of which Greer substantiates through his alleged unnamed insider sources in the deep state.

The first story is from former US Marine Michael Herrera, who claims to have stumbled upon a human trafficking operation in Indonesia run by black ops guys that used ufo/alien tech. He said his superiors were pissed at him and his team about their discovery and told him to keep his mouth shut.

Another story was told by DC Long, who while working on a military base saw technology that could use some strange sound wave technology of some sort to lift massive blocks of granite. When Long refused to sign an NDA regarding what he saw, the government destroyed his father’s construction business and confiscated all his equipment. Long’s father never spoke to him again until he was on his deathbed.

The third story is from Steven Digna Jr., who saw a ufo while doing live fire drills on a military base. Digna is in such a diminished physical and mental state at the time of shooting his interview, that it is preceded by a disclaimer of sorts telling the viewer that these guys have been through the ringer and it’s taken a deadly toll on their lives.

Digna’s story is, frankly, the most believable, but he is in such a fragile physical and emotional state it is difficult to watch him or to know if he is telling the truth.

The final story comes from Eric Hecker, who worked for the Navy and Raytheon and went to Antarctica to work security there. Hecker claims he saw a directed energy weapons system there that is capable of creating earthquakes. He claims it is the largest telescope that is also a phased array transmitter – a sort of air traffic control for UFOs – and is capable of faster than light communications. Hecker claims this weapons/communications system is above and beyond nations…it’s a transnational program that answers to no government.

The stories told by these men are pretty fascinating. I found Hecker’s the most chilling, Digna’s the most believable, Long’s the saddest, and Herrera’s the most bizarre and incomprehensible. Your mileage may vary.

As for the Battle for Disclosure as a whole, I found it to be a poorly constructed, muddled and jumbled mess of a cinematic venture. It is less a document designed to inform or convince than it is a money grab from those already converted to the Church of Greer.  

Battle for Disclosure, or any of Greer’s films for that matter, are not really useful for the majority of ufologists, nor are they a good place to start for newbies, as they are too fantastical and Greer is too aggressively grating and dubious a spokesman to be convincing.

The bottom line is, while I am immensely skeptical to the point of devout disbelief, I do hope that Steven Greer is right and that E.T. is coming to save our home and free us from the villains who currently rule our world, but that doesn’t make his documentaries good or worth watching or very informative. They are, for the most part, pretty much a waste of time….and if you’re a dope like me…a waste of money too.  

©2024

UFO Week - Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown (MGM+) - A Documentary Review

BEYOND: UFOS AND THE UNKNOWN

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE. IT. NOW. One of the very best UFO documentaries I’ve seen. Highly informative and insightful. Well worth watching whether you’re a seasoned ufologist or a newbie to the topic.

It is day three of UFO Week here at the home office and things got off to a decidedly bumpy start with two less than stellar documentaries in day one and two.

Thankfully, day three is a gem.

The documentary today is Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown, a four-part documentary miniseries from JJ Abrams’ production company Bad Robot that released it’s first episode on October 27th and its last episode on November 8th.

Bad Robot released their first UFO documentary back in 2021, simply titled UFO, and I found it to be professionally made but underwhelming in a style over substance kind of way.

Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is not underwhelming in the slightest. Simply said, it is exquisitely made, abundantly researched, and one of the very best documentaries on the subject I have ever seen.

The documentary series, which runs roughly four hours long in total, hits upon a myriad of angles related to the UFO topic. It examines it scientifically, historically, politically and spiritually.

If you’re looking for a murderer’s row of UFO experts Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is the documentary miniseries for you.

The stellar first episode opens up with a bang with Dr. Gary Nolan, an esteemed medical professor at the prestigious Stanford University, speaking about his scientific and medical work with various intelligence agencies on deathly serious UFO-related topics.

It then dives into the bevy of sightings and experiences of Navy pilots who witnessed and recorded their interaction with various entities in the last twenty years…resulting in the Gimble and Go-Fast videos made famous in the New York Times article of 2017 that brought the UFO topic into the mainstream.

This episode features prominent Naval personnel like former pilot Ryan Graves, Rear Admiral Tim Galudet, as well as Leslie Kean, the journalist who wrote the NY Times piece in 2017, and Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense – and now prominent UFO disclosure advocate.

Also examined are the maze of various UFO programs in the Pentagon over the years and the mind-numbing acronyms that go along with them. As well as the very complex political situation around the subject, which is explained by Senator Kristen Gillibrand, who describes the military’s handling of the UFO situation, “duplicitous and inappropriate.” Wow.

Episode two delves into the history of ufology and features a who’s who of UFO heavy-hitters, like the godfather of ufology, Jacque Vallee, and the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried, PhD Hal Puthoff.

Also explored are the early days of ufology, including Donald Keyhoe’s important work and the curious case of J. Allen Hynek.

One of the most important things discussed in this episode is how it is the Navy pilots who are reporting UFO encounters, with nary a peep from the Air Force. The reasons why this might be are fascinating, not the least of which is that the intelligence agencies take a large chunk of the Air Force budget for black projects, so they are deeply intertwined with the Air Force…and not the Navy.

The other big topic in episode two is Whitley Strieber and alien abduction. Strieber, who was a novelist who was allegedly abducted in the 1980s in upstate New York and wrote a best-selling book about it titled “Communion”, was a catalyst for hundreds of thousands of regular people across the country to come forward with their abduction stories in letters to him after he published his book.

Strieber’s story is an intriguing and compelling one, and he is a terrific spokesperson - articulate, humble and serious.

This leads into episode three and four which feature Jeffrey Kripal, a professor of philosophy and religion at Rice University, who has begun to gather UFO source material from Strieber and Vallee among others in one place so that scientists and academics can do serious study of the subject without ridicule. He has also has begun conferences on esoteric subjects that brings together experts and experiencers to discuss once taboo subjects academically and scientifically.

Episodes three and four delve deeply into the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of UFOs and what they may be beyond physical objects, and what they may mean to science, philosophy and humanity going forward.

Episodes three and four are so rich with deeply serious and thoughtful discussions on elevated esoteric matters that they are worth watching over and over again…as is the rest of the series.

For seasoned followers of the UFO topic, Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is a gloriously rich documentary that not only informs but seriously challenges.

For newcomers to the subject, this documentary is a great starting place if for no other reason than to give a brief glimpse at the scope and scale of the subject matter, and to do so with a seriousness that it deserves.

The biggest problem with Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is that it is very difficult to find. The documentary is currently only available on the streaming service MGM+. Not only do I know no one who is a subscriber to MGM+, I myself had never heard of it until I went looking for Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown. That’s not a good thing because unless if you’re a UFO nerd like me, you wouldn’t know this documentary series exists, and therefore won’t ever stumble upon it unless you explicitly are looking for it.

Hopefully it will eventually become available to rent through Amazon or Apple in the future, but for now the best thing to do to see it is to sign up for MGM+…which will give you a free week before it’s month to month subscription at $6.99 kicks in. Watch Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown during your free week…in fact I’d recommend you watch it twice, like I did…and then cancel your subscription before you actually have to pay.

The bottom line is this…whether you’re a ufologist or a newbie, Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is a must-watch documentary miniseries if you want to have a deeper understanding of the UFO phenomenon and topic. I highly recommend you put in the effort to find and to watch it because considering what is going on in our world at the moment, arming yourself with as much knowledge as you can is a very good idea.

©2024

UFO Week - Investigation Alien (Netflix): A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK - INVESTIGATION ALIEN

My Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT.  An abysmally made mini-series that is allergic to insight and context. Total shitshow.

Investigation Alien, a six-part documentary mini-series that premiered on Netflix on November 8th, follows legendary reporter George Knapp as he and his team seek the truth of the UFO phenomenon.

George Knapp, for those who don’t know, is one of the most important journalists in the UFO community. Knapp was taking the UFO subject seriously back in the 1980’s as a television reporter for KLAS-TV in Las Vegas when no one in the mainstream media would touch it with a ten-foot pole. In fact, when Knapp was maybe the first legitimate journalist to cover the UFO topic without smirking and winking to let the audience know it was all a joke. To Knapp, and to a large audience, it isn’t a joke, and he covered it like a real news story.

Among the prominent stories that Knapp has brought forth are John Lear’s claims of the U.S. government having downed craft and bodies, much reporting on Area 51, reporting on bizarre happenings at Skinwalker Ranch, and his bombshell 1989 interview with Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked at Area 51 on alien craft.

Knapp is still at the forefront of serious journalists reporting the UFO topic, and if you watched the recent congressional hearings with whistleblower David Grusch, you could see Knapp sitting directly behind him in the galley.

Knapp’s bona fides and his integrity when it comes to UFO reporting is unquestionable, so when I heard he had a Netflix documentary mini-series coming out, I was very excited.

Then I watched Investigation Alien.

This series is a devastating disappointment. It is so bad, so cheaply made, so derivative and dull, and frankly, so tawdry and stupid and such a brazen money-grab, that it has deeply damaged Knapp’s standing as a journalist, his integrity and has forever tarnished his legacy.

The series is poorly produced and shot like a second-rate reality series as it follows Knapp, and some superfluous and annoying underlings, as they go out seeking the truth about cattle mutilations, Brazilian UFO sightings and alien encounters, underwater anomalies off the Pacific coast, the Phoenix lights, and government cover-ups.

None of the six episodes is even remotely interesting or well-made, and in fact, some are so stupid they made me laugh out loud when I wasn’t cringing. No new information is presented, no insights gained, no compelling knowledge shared.

To give an indication of how ridiculous this series is, there’s a sequence where Knapp goes to talk to a “whistleblower” and they meet out in the middle of nowhere at night, with car lights the only illumination. The setting is obscenely absurd but is fitting as the whistleblower is a clown who fits right in with the reality tv circus that is Investigation Alien. If this were a genuine journalistic endeavor, instead of a tawdry money-grab, they’d meet the whistleblower in a hotel or office and keep him in shadow instead of putting on a dog and pony show meant to look like an adolescent spy thriller.

The cattle mutilation episode opens the series and is so painfully moronic and intellectually obtuse it made teeth hurt. Knapp goes to the Northwest to talk to two ranchers who’ve lost cattle to mutilation. No insight is given, no context supplied, no case built or presented.

Watching the first episode was a devastatingly deflating experience, and the rest of the series goes about as well as episode one. Getting through this idiotic mess of a mini-series is a complete slog.

I’ve spoken to multiple people with considerable knowledge on the UFO topic who have watched this series and the vast majority of them were at a minimum disappointed, and some of them loathed it with a furious passion.  Consider me among those in the latter category, as this series’ stupidity left me in an incandescent rage.

One well-informed ufologist I spoke to was so pissed about the series that he seriously thought that the show was intentionally bad at the behest of the powers that be who demanded Knapp scuttle his credibility and with it the ability of the general public to take the UFO topic seriously. I don’t know if that is true but I will say that the series is so bad that I can see how someone would think it is.

Knapp is partnered on a podcast, titled Weaponized, with documentarian Jeremy Corbell. Corbell and Knapp are one of the more prominent pairs in ufology - for example, Corbell too can be seen sitting in the front row of the congressional hearing featuring David Grusch, right next to Knapp.

It is very interesting to me that Corbell, despite being attached at the hip to Knapp the rest of his professional life,  is only seen very briefly in Investigation Alien. It is also curious that Corbell himself didn’t direct it, since he is a documentarian and has made a notable documentary on the UFO subject, titled Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers. It would seem from Corbell’s reticence to be in this ill-conceived and dismally executed Knapp series that he knew it was going to be a shitshow from the jump and was trying to salvage whatever credibility he could by keeping away from it. Wise move.

Ultimately, Investigation Alien is an unconscionably awful documentary mini-series that would set back the seriousness of the UFO topic decades if it weren’t for the real-time events happening in the world that prove it needs to be taken very seriously.

I cannot, under any circumstances, recommend Investigation Alien, even as an introduction to the topic of UFOs. The series is just too egregiously made and too unserious to be of any value even to newcomers.

©2024

UFO Week - Manhattan Alien Abduction (Netflix): A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK: MANHATTAN ALIEN ABDUCTION

Earlier this year I was alerted to the fact that starting on October 30th and running up to December 16th, there were going to be five UFO-related documentaries being released on various streaming platforms.

As someone who has been interested in the topic and followed it for the majority of my adult life, I was glad that there would be a bevy of new UFO documentaries to digest. I was so happy, in fact, that I decided that once the final documentary, James Fox’s The Program, was released on December 16th, I would have a celebratory “week” on the website and review all the UFO documentaries over the course of five days – one review a day.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to UFO week…namely UFOs!! In the past two weeks there has been a cavalcade of coverage of the UFO topic because apparently New Jersey is being swarmed by drones of “unknown origin” that nobody seems to be able to do anything about. (As an aside…its odd that they are called “drones” when in fact they are the etxtbook definition of UAP’s - unidentified aerial phenomenon, or UFOs - unidentified flying objects…makes you think)

The New Jersey reports have been followed by reports, and video, from other areas of the country and the globe. Truth be told, a week before the New Jersey sightings, my son and I witnessed a very bizarre anomalous object flying at night over our farm in rural Pennsylvania. It looked somewhat like a plane, but it wasn’t a plane, and it made no noise and had odd lights on it that are not like the lights on a regular plane. We spotted something similar, but not identical, just last week as well, again at night.

We get lots of military craft flying over our farm so I just chalked it up to some military craft I couldn’t identify….and maybe it is…and maybe that’s what everyone is seeing over New Jersey. Who knows? There have been other reports in the local media of UAP/drones in the area over the weekend.

The theories about the sightings in New Jersey are all over the map. There are people claiming they are “Special Ops” drones used to sniff out a nuclear threat posed by a “loose nuke” or a “dirty bomb”. The theory goes from there and speculates the nuke is from Iran or China or Russia.

Others speculate that it is actually a false flag and that nefarious elements of the U.S. government are planning to detonate a nuke and blame it on…Iran, China and/or Russia in order to get the neo-con world war of their dreams.

Then there are those who think the “drones” are from Iran/China/Russia and are part of some recon mission that is a prelude to a Pearl Harbor type event.

Then there are others who think that the events of the last two weeks are the beginnings of “disclosure”, where the government admits there are aliens and they’re here, or the aliens step out of the shadows and tell everyone themselves that they’re here.

There are others who think that this is just a false flag using Project Bluebeam to make it appear there are alien craft in our skies in order to scare people and drum up a draconian response that demands we give up more rights to the powers that be in order to stay “safe”.

And finally, there are those who claim that this is all a hoax or a mass hallucination, and that some teenagers are flying normal drones over New Jersey as a gag and the media and the populace are going full War of the Worlds on it because they’re in the throes of hysteria.

As for who to believe…one thing is for certain, whatever government spokespeople say - don’t believe it as it is either going to be a manufactured lie or completely and utterly incorrect. That you can take to the bank.

What do I think is happening? Honestly, I don’t know. My sense is that the false flag discussion, be it about nukes or Project Bluebeam, are probably on the correct track…but who the hell knows?

On that note…let me officially welcome you to UFO Week!! Let’s start things off with a review of the Netflix documentary mini-series Manhattan Alien Abduction.

MANHATTAN ALIEN ABDUCTION

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This could have, and should have, been a thorough debunking of an abduction claim, but it is a rather empty and shallow miniseries that diminishes everyone involved.

Manhattan Alien Abduction, which premiered on Netflix on October 30th, tells the story of Linda Napolitano – who claims to have been abducted from her New York City apartment on November 30th, 1989, and her nemesis, Carol Rainey, who thinks the story is an elaborate hoax.

Napolitano’s story is, not unexpectedly, an odd one. She claims that on November 30th, 1989, in the middle of the night, that aliens abducted her out of her 12th floor Manhattan apartment “on a blue beam of light, lifting her onto a reddish-orange spacecraft that quickly sped off toward the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Linda’s story could easily be dismissed as the ravings of a mad woman except for the fact that there were 23 people who claimed to witness it, among them a “world leader”, namely United Nations Secretary General Perez de Cuellar.

What really propelled Linda’s story into the spotlight was that she brought her tale to ufologist Budd Hopkins, who was one of the leaders in the study of alien abduction in UFO culture, and was a conduit for Linda to the wider UFO community.

Hopkins, who died in 2011, was very well known in the UFO world for having been among the first, along with Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, to use hypnosis to help people recall their abduction experiences. Hopkins hypnotized writer Whitley Strieber and assisted him in recalling his famous abduction experience which is recounted in the blockbuster book Communion (1987).

Hopkins brought Linda into his world of self-help alien abduction survivor meetings in his New York City apartment, and dove deep into her story, including with hypnosis.

Carol Rainey was Budd Hopkins’ wife at the time of Linda’s alleged abduction, and had a front row seat to Linda’s relationship with Budd and with her time in the spotlight recounting her tale to anyone who’d listen in the media.

Manhattan Alien Abduction is essentially a cat fight between Linda and Carol stretched over three episodes.

Carol is there to debunk Linda’s story, and Linda is there to convince you of it.

In my less than humble opinion, neither woman succeeds, despite the mini-series obviously being made for Carol’s benefit and from her perspective rather than from Linda’s or from a genuine journalistic instinct.

Linda’s story is, frankly…preposterous, and it only gets more and more outlandish with every passing fact and incident that comes to light.

For example, Linda claims that two bodyguards for UN Secretary general Cuellar, named Richard and Dan, come to her apartment in the days after her abduction and, in a somewhat menacing fashion, question her about the incident, and in doing so admit they, along with Cuellar, saw the whole thing while driving by that night.

That element of the story is fine and is very helpful in making Linda seem somewhat believable…but the Richard and Dan story just goes off the rails from there.

Linda claims Richard and Dan later abducted her…while she was walking down the street audio recording herself for her own safety, and abscond her to some location to threaten and question her again.

This second Richard and Dan story is, frankly, embarrassing. It sounds so fake and so stupid is boggles the mind that anyone would tell it, never mind believe it. But Linda told it, and Budd Hopkins believed it.

Linda seemed to have Hopkins wrapped around her finger by playing the ‘fragile bird who needs protecting’ game, and Hopkins fell for it. This seemed to infuriate Carol back in the 1980’s and 90’s…and still today.  

Back at the time, Carol, a self-proclaimed documentarian and journalist, then goes about getting Linda on camera as much as she can and investigating her story in order to debunk it. Carol, and the makers of this docu-series, think she has succeeded…I don’t.

To be clear, I don’t believe Linda’s preposterous and ever more outlandish story. It is so outrageous and ridiculous as to be absurd. But that also makes it very easy to debunk…and Carol and the makers of this documentary, fail to do even the most rudimentary journalistic work to expose Linda as a fraud…but they work very hard to make it seem like they’ve done the work.

For example, Linda and Budd have 23 witnesses who claim to have seen her being abducted into the New York night sky. That’s a lot of witnesses. A scene plays out in the documentary where Carol, while videotaping in the early 90’s, has Budd call one of the witnesses in order to question them, but Budd isn’t able to get in touch with them and leaves a message. This is his second attempt to do so. No other attempts are made…and Carol, and the producers, claims this proves all the witnesses are fake or frauds. Huh?

The claim is also made by Carol that she called one witness and that it “sounded like Linda”. Again, this is the extent of the journalism on display in this series. Out of 23 witnesses, one didn’t call back and the other sounds kind of like Linda, and so that makes all 23 fake or fraudulent? That is just as ridiculous a claim as Linda’s original claims.

Then there’s the story of Richard and Dan, the UN security guards for the Secretary General. Back in 1990 Carol films Linda as they go through file footage of various UN events and Linda actually identifies one of the guys in the video as being Dan. She literally ID’s the guy.

Now, does that mean it is the guy? Does that mean that the guy she ID’s came to her house and did all the things she claims? No. What it does mean is that it should be easy to investigate who that person is…and maybe…just maybe…find him and talk to him. If you work as a security guy at the UN, there’s a paper trail, pay stubs, taxes, insurance, and all the rest. There’s a paper trail and probably a picture ID on file. Do Carol and the producers of this series investigate and find that material? No, they don’t. Why not? I have no idea. Maybe they’re lazy.

Carol and the producers do have handwriting analysis done on a type-written letter signed by Secretary Cuellar in which he claims to have seen all that happened to Linda that night in 1989. The hand writing analysis is on Cuellar’s signature and the expert declares that no one writes their name exactly the same way twice and this signature is too perfect to be real.

Now, the signature and the type-written letter may very well be fake, but public officials use signature stamps to sign their name all the time…is it out of the possibility that this happened here? No. Did Carol or the producers acknowledge this? Also no.

If Linda is as big a bullshitter as she appears to be in this documentary, you’ve got to find more substantial evidence and prove she is a bullshitter…it can’t be that hard.

What about the other 22 witnesses? Did they try and track them down? Who are they and where are they?

Where’s the investigation into Richard and Dan and the UN and all that? This is simple stuff. It may not be easy to do and may take effort, but if Linda is so full of shit then it should be easy to prove and yet they never prove it.

With the slightest bit of awareness on the game being played on you by understanding what is missing from this series, Manhattan Alien Abduction looks in hindsight to be a cheap and tawdry venture.

As bizarre and unbelievable as Linda’s claims are the investigation into them is shallow and amateurish. Do the work. Track down the witnesses. Find a connection. Don’t just speculate and assume and conjecture and imply…investigate and prove…or in this case, disprove.

Here’s another oddity about this mini-series, namely that Carol Rainey has her own major biases from a tormented childhood in a religious cult, and from her personal relationship with Budd Hopkins, that skew her own objectivity and judgement.

Hopkins and Rainey divorced in 2006, and when he died in 2011 he was in a relationship with Leslie Kean. You know who Leslie Kean is? She’s the journalist who went on to break the big UFO story published in the New York Times in 2017 that brought ufology into the mainstream.

The question I have after learning of Hopkins relationship with Kean, and Carol Rainey’s background and her obvious jealousy of Linda Napolitano, is this…is this docuseries just Carol Rainey in a jealous fit trying to destroy the legacy of Budd Hopkins, Linda Napolitano’s reputation and undermine Leslie Kean’s life’s work?

As much as I think Linda Napolitano is a fabulist, I think Carol Rainey is one too…and a much more nefarious one. Rainey is the woman scorned, and while she may be right about everything, her personal vindictiveness and venom are not journalistically acquired evidence…they are just grievances in the form of accusations.

Ultimately, Manhattan Alien Abduction disappoints despite a very compelling thesis, and is scuttled by a thoroughly amateurish and weak journalistic effort that fails to adequately disprove something that should be so easily debunked.

©2024

Encounters (Netflix): A Documentary Mini-series Review - The Truth is Out There...But Not So Much in Here

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

 My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Newbies to the UFO story might find this a decent if uneven place to dip their toe into the topic. Viewers more informed on the UFO phenomenon won’t find much useful in this tepid and tame mini-series.

Encounters is the new four-episode docu-series on Netflix that explores four different UFO mass sightings at four different locations across the globe. The series, which premiered on the streaming service September 27th, is garnering some attention because it is produced by Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin.

As someone who has had a longtime interest in the subject of UFOs, and who has read and watched a great deal about the phenomenon, I was excited to see Encounters. With UFOs, or as they’ve now been deemed UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomenon), finally being publicly taken seriously by governments and the media after years of being scoffed at, the opportunity for quality documentaries to inform audiences and initiate further investigation is at an all-time high.

Prior to Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment producing Encounters, other high profile Hollywood producers/directors have stepped into the UFO breach in recent years in similar fashion. JJ Abrams’ 2021 docu-series titled UFO, is one example.

Encounters is very similar in some ways to Abrams’ UFO as both are four-part docu-series, both cover a lot of familiar ground that UFO afficionados will know well, and both are decent enough starting places for the uninitiated to dip their toe into the UFO subject. Unfortunately, both are also, despite their best intentions, middle-of-the-road, rather forgettable projects.

Unlike Abrams’ UFO series, Encounters for the most part stays away from the UFO hot topics that have made headlines in the last five years or so and instead focuses on four mass sightings in recent and not-so-recent history.

The first episode is about the 2008 sighting by hundreds of people in Stephensville, Texas.

This first episode is, like all the others, very well shot and professionally produced. The witnesses presented aren’t just credible but are interesting, and their stories are compelling. Even more compelling is the radar evidence discovered after a FOIA request that backs up the claims of those who saw UFOs and saw F-16s quickly chase after them.

One minor issue I had with the first episode is that it never mentions that Stephensville, Texas is very close to the home of George W. Bush, who was President of the United States at the time of the UFO incident. This seemed a curious omission in recounting the tale.

Episode two covers the 1994 encounter at the Ariel School in Zimbabwe. This incident is fascinating, but the episode is a bit bumpy. For instance, 60 students claim to have seen a UFO and an alien in broad daylight, but one student, who is now a grown man, claims he made the whole thing up and everyone else just went with it and now believe the delusion. I understand wanting to show both sides of an argument, but this lone student seems, frankly, unhinged, and his testimony about it being a hoax feels, ironically enough, absurd in the face of the counter evidence.

This episode is noteworthy solely because it introduces the remarkable Dr. John Mack, the late Harvard psychiatrist who in the 1990s began to take the alien abduction phenomenon seriously.

John Mack’s story is worthy of an extensive documentary all its own, but Encounters is only able to give a brief background on his astounding career and the impact he had on the subject. One can only hope that a more extensive documentary on Mack is produced, but for the time being this quick review in episode two will hopefully pique newbie’s interest in the man and his work.

Episode three examines the 1977 Broad Haven Triangle incident, in which a bevy of Welsh school boys and townspeople witnessed UFOs and aliens. This episode was the weakest of the bunch as it never streamlines its storytelling or clarifies the bizarre incidents in question.

The incident itself is fascinating, as all of the children who witnessed it were quickly separated by skeptical teachers and asked to draw what they saw, and drew the same thing. The counter point is that at that time the culture was awash in UFOs and so all people, not just children, had a foundational understanding of what UFOs would look like and thus rendered them in unison upon request.

Much of the other witnesses in the Broad Haven case tell interesting stories but they feel less compelling, and frankly less believable, than the three other incidents examined in this series.

The final episode looks at the plethora of UFO sightings in Fukushima, Japan after the horrific earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

This episode features the very best video evidence in the series, but also wanders down some pretty bizarre, and frankly, unhelpful paths when interviewing residents of the area.

For example, one woman, a drama teacher and pseudo-spiritualist, claims she is an alien and is inhabiting a body on earth to witness the great transformation that is happening. This woman, who is like every other new age kook I’ve ever met, and trust me when I tell you I’ve met a hefty number of them, suffers from the shadow disease of new age-ism, namely egregious narcissism. Why the producers would include such an obviously low-credibility nutjob like this woman is beyond me as it demeans the topic and diminishes the mini-series.

The spiritual element of UFOs is a big topic in this episode as the cultural differences between East and West are explored, with the East being more open to UFOs as some sort of spiritual phenomenon rather than a physical one.

The Fukushima UFO case is one of the more evidence-based ones, so it makes the producers decision to focus on more esoteric subjects rather than on the actual evidence very counter-productive and dismaying.

On the whole, Encounters is disappointing for someone like me as I know a lot about these incidents already, and the series doesn’t really bring anything new to the fore.

To someone with any background in UFOs, Encounters is decidedly tame and feels rather out of date. If the series came out a decade ago it would’ve felt much more relevant and interesting.

That said, if you spend the majority of your time in the mainstream and are a newbie to the UFO subject, then Amblin’s Encounters could be a decent enough place to dip your toe into the topic, as would be JJ Abrams’ tepid UFO series.

But if you want to take a serious look at the subject of UFOs, I would recommend starting with the work of documentarian James Fox, whose films Out of the Blue (2003), I Know What I Saw (2009) and Phenomenon (2020), are as good and as informative as it gets in the genre.

With those three films as your foundation, you’ll have a solid understanding of the history of the subject and how we got where we are today, and what might come tomorrow.

As for Encounters, despite covering some truly vital incidents, it never rises to be anything more than a brief overview of a topic worthy of so much more.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 107 - No One Will Save You

On this episode, Barry and I talk about No One Will Save You, the terrific new sci-fi/horror movie on Hulu. Topics discussed include UFOs, the uncomfortable accuracy of the film's  title, the excitement of an ambitious and well-made movie, and the exquisite performance of actress Kaitlyn Devers. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 107 - No One Will Save You

Thanks for listening!

©2023

No One Will Save You: A Review and Commentary - Keep Your Eyes to the Sky for the End is Nigh

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed but fantastic film that features a mesmerizing lead performance and top notch sci-fi and horror thrills.

In a movie year that has thus far been consistently underwhelming, No One Will Save You, the new sci-fi horror film currently streaming on Hulu that was written and directed by Brian Duffield, is an invigorating cinematic experience that far exceeds expectations.

No One Will Save You tells the story of Brynn (Kaitlyn Devers), a young woman living alone in a rural part of America in modern times (the exact year is never made clear at the film’s open). Brynn is an odd duck and an outcast in her rather unfriendly small town. She is unquestionably living a life of alienation and isolation…and then some-thing arrives in the middle of the night, and she is forced to deal with it…and with other things she’s long tried to avoid.

To be clear, No One Will Save You, which is writer/director Duffield’s second feature film, has its flaws and it isn’t perfect, for instance the last quarter of the film is tonally and stylistically not as strong as the first three quarters, but it is ambitious, inventive, very well-made, exceedingly well-acted and undeniably compelling.

Director Duffield shoots the film with an impressive amount of confidence and directs with a strong but deft touch. In order to avoid spoilers, I will not get into specifics but will only say that there are numerous scenes that are expertly choreographed and shot that leave you feeling like you’re in the hands of a master. For example, the kitchen sequence, bedroom sequence and basement sequence, are all top notch and exceed expectations and audience conditioning.

Even the last quarter of the film, which transitions from a survival story to a sort of spiritual and psychological, Jungian confrontation with the self, despite its unorthodox nature, is handled extremely well from a filmmaking perspective.

Throughout the movie Duffield pays homage, and borrows liberally, from a plethora of films, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Signs, War of the Worlds, and even The Exorcist, but he does so subtly and ultimately ends up putting an original spin on his alien encounter movie that in lesser hands could have been a trite and forgettable cinematic experience.

Duffield’s greatest tactic is that he consistently pushes back against the audience’s conditioning. We think we know what will happen next and how Brynn will behave, but Duffield almost always subtly subverts that expectation, and it is often exciting, occasionally confounding, but always compelling.

As great as the directing is on this film, the straw that stirs the drink is Kaitlyn Devers who stars as Brynn. Devers, who speaks only one line of dialogue in the entire film, is absolutely mesmerizing as she carries this entire enterprise on her shoulders and never falters.

Devers, who was terrific in the 2021 Hulu miniseries Dopesick, fills her continuous silence with a vibrant and vivid inner life that reveals itself in her expressive eyes. She wisely avoids the pitfall of over expression and simply lets her Brynn be and react in the moment, even when frozen in horrifying moments.

Devers’ skill and talent are on full display in this movie, and it is the type of performance that can catapult an actress on the road to the A list. One only hopes that Devers follows an artistic path rather than chase stardom, as she seems well-equipped to play nearly any role, but ill-equipped to do vacuous Hollywood bullshit.

Another notable thing about No One Will Save You are the visual effects. The film’s stated budget is $22 million and one can assume that a healthy portion of that went into the CGI aliens and it is money well-spent as the look and feel of the aliens elevate the film a great deal.

Most films with a smaller budget would bend over backwards to avoid showing the aliens in order to save money, but director Duffield never shies away from exploiting his superb supply of aliens.

The aliens in this film are fantastic as they are familiar enough to us from previous movies, but are still unique and original in their own right. The most impressive part about them is how organic and real they seem, and the diversity of alien types.

No One Will Save You comes at an interesting time in terms of taking the notion of aliens and UFOs seriously. In recent years the subject has been taken much more seriously by the political establishment and the mainstream media.

Just this year we’ve had congressional hearings on the issue and have had legislation passed giving whistleblower protections to people in the know who’ve been working in the shadows on the topic and may literally and metaphorically know where the bodies are buried. Exciting stuff for someone like me who’s been ravenously devouring any and all UFO related info since I was a kid.

In this context, No One Will Save You is an unnerving tale as it lays bare a likely reality regarding the UFO phenomenon…namely that aliens are not here to help us and that they are not benign. Many in the ufology field and many in the military hierarchy believe that UFOs and aliens are malignant predators and likely colonizers or destroyers. Some believe that the reason “disclosure” of all UFOs and aliens is being thwarted by the powers that be is because civilization will collapse when humans acknowledge that the reality of aliens on earth means we as humans are considerably lower on the food chain than we had hoped.

In this sense No One Will Save You is correct…if aliens are real and are coming to earth, no one will save us from them…not your community, not your government and not your church – as shown in the movie. If history teaches us anything it is that beings that have advanced technology and intelligence will enslave and slaughter those who are intellectually and technologically inferior.

The film’s title isn’t just accurate in regards to an alien invasion, as the coming collapse of not just the American Empire, but also the U.S. dollar and the economy as well as the entirety of Western Civilization (American and European), will lay bare the cold hard reality that…No One Will Save You. Your government won’t save you, the magic soil you live on won’t save you, the police won’t save you, your community won’t save you, your church won’t save you and your delusions of national grandeur won’t save you. And some benevolent alien species finally revealing themselves and solving all of our problems won’t save you either.

The Fourth Turning is upon us here in the West and that sound you faintly hear is the thin ice we’ve been living on cracking right before we plunge into the deep, dark depths of a new dark ages.

All the signs are there and they are flashing bright red. From our decadent culture to our decrepit ruling class to our malevolent media to our know-nothing citizens and our criminal underclass and criminally corrupt overclass. The house of cards is teetering and when it falls, not if it falls – but when…NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU.

Another interesting subtextual idea that you can ever so slightly perceive in the film is that tyrannical leadership, a sort of fascist or communist oppressive system, is the only thing that can keep humanity/community alive, even though the illusory life led under that despotic rule is not really living. In order to avoid spoilers, I won’t get into the specifics of how that conclusion is revealed in the film, but I think by the end it becomes clear.

Neo-Cons and war-hungry Neo-Liberals might argue that the thesis of the film is that the aliens are the Communist Chinese and they aim to wipe out human freedom and control all people…I am not reflexively anti-China but I can see that interpretation, especially considering the notion of social credit scores and incessant surveillance.

Regardless of what the film means – and it could mean even more than I’ve spelled out here, it is undeniably cinematically invigorating and definitely worth watching. Despite its flaws it features a terrific performance from Kaitlyn Devers and strong direction from Brian Duffield, as well as some fascinating CGI aliens. Overall, I highly recommend No One Will Save You to anyone even remotely interested in sci-fi movies or horror films, and even to those who don’t usually get into those genres.

 Follow me on Twitter: MPMActingCO

©2023

Asteroid City: A Review - The Unbearable Quirkiness of Wes Anderson

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Cinephiles should watch it because it really is masterfully photographed, but normal people will find its excessive twee-ness and unorthodox storytelling tiresome and/or irritating.

The word “twee” is defined in the dictionary as “excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty or sentimental.” Surprisingly, filmmaker Wes Anderson, whose films include Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Moonrise Kingdom, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Isle of Dogs, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch and his newest cinematic venture, Asteroid City, is not pictured next to that definition in the dictionary since his movies are the ultimate cinematic embodiment of the word – for good or for ill.

Asteroid City, Anderson’s 11th film, hit theatres this past June 16th and barely anyone noticed. The film, which boasts a large ensemble cast of stars, including such luminaries as Scarlet Johansson and Tom Hanks, quickly came and went, but it just premiered on the streaming service Peacock – where I got a chance to finally see it.

As a general rule I love that Wes Anderson films exist even when I don’t love the Wes Anderson film I’m watching. This is very true of Asteroid City as it is an impeccable piece of cinema, but not a very good movie.

On its surface, the film, set in a sort of hyper-stylistic 1950’s America, follows the travails of a disparate group of people who come to a remote desert town (Asteroid City) for a youth astronomy convention and science competition.

Of course, Wes Anderson being Wes Anderson, he doesn’t just tell a straight forward story about people and a place. Asteroid City is really like a cinematic Matryoshka Doll (Russian Nesting Doll), as it is really a stage play, within a stage play, within a stage play, within a movie.

That set up is as twee as can be, and the execution of the film is twee too…but in a good way.

Anderson, as always, shoots a glorious movie. His highly stylized approach is visually stunning and includes sharp framing, crisp camera movements and exquisite colors and lighting. Anderson and his longtime collaborator, cinematographer Robert Yoeman, once again create a film with a stunning level of visual precision to it that is greatly appealing and extraordinarily impressive.

But despite the visual feast on display, the film’s storytelling and drama is pretty thin gruel.

There are, as is par for the course in a Wes Anderson movie, the cavalcade of eccentric, emotionally distant characters who behave in idiosyncratic ways as they experience dramatic life anomalies.

In terms of storytelling and character development, like much of Anderson’s recent work, it falls very flat. Yes, the story is clever…but much too clever for its own good, and the end result is a film that feels too cute by half…or considerably more than half.

The story’s Matryushka Doll/multiple layers don’t add to the drama but consistently detract from it and feel like a cheap cinematic parlor trick to try and enhance a shallow idea. The characters are all thin caricatures, and the dialogue feels less stagey and theatrical than just plain phony.

The lead of the film is Jason Schwartzman, a frequent face in Anderson’s films. Schwartzman is a mystery to me as he has never been good in anything in which I’ve ever seen him. Schwartzman is cousins with the co-creator of the story for Asteroid City, Roman Coppola of the vast and impressive Coppola family. Hmmm…maybe I’m beginning to understand why Jason Schwartzman has a career despite his minimal talent.

Scarlet Johansson is very good in Asteroid City as Midge Campbell, an actress and mother, and her work in this film is a pretty notable reminder that she is a movie star and would’ve been one in any era of Hollywood.

The rest of the cast are fine, I guess. From Tom Hanks to Bryan Cranston to Tilda Swinton to Maya Hawke to Jeffrey Wright to Steve Carrell and on and on, are all pretty forgettable. Watching this cast perform this script is unfortunately like watching a junior high drama class play out an inside joke that no one else gets or even remotely cares about.

Like seemingly all of Wes Anderson’s films, the movie also features oddball teenagers and kids who act like adults, and goofy adults who act like kids. This formula has occasionally worked in Anderson’s past, but here it feels tired to the point of cliché.

As for the deeper analysis of Asteroid City, it is interesting that it deals with the notion of aliens, UFOs and visitation all while those topics are in the headlines in the real world.

As congress holds hearings on alleged crashed UFOs that have been retrieved along with Non-Human Biological Entities, and military pilots share their stories and data of interactions with UFOs, it is pretty interesting to watch a film that somewhat grapples with the question of how earthlings would handle the notion of not being alone in the universe, or that they’re not on top of the knowledge food chain.

I’ve been interested in, and studying the UFO topic for a very long time, and Asteroid City portrays a scenario which feels surprisingly pretty realistic despite being played for laughs.

If a UFO landed on the White House lawn and aliens got out and waved for the cameras, there would probably be a gigantic freak out by the populace accompanied by a reflexively authoritarian and tyrannical response from government. And then, after a few weeks (or even days considering our attention deficit culture) people would basically go back to their lives and their usual petty bullshit. Governments, of course, would keep their newly pronounced and always-expanding powers – in order to consolidate their power, silence dissent, line their own pockets and cover their own asses, forever and ever.

The aliens would probably not really care about us one way or the other, which may be the most frightening prospect of all…that the human race is utterly irrelevant.

Anyway, those are the thoughts I had after watching Asteroid City, which to its credit, at least had me mulling the future of mankind, aliens and the impact of disclosure.

As for whether I recommend Asteroid City? Well, if you work in the film industry or are a cinephile, then yes, I’d say you should watch it because Wes Anderson is a very particular talent and his films are important in the grander arc of cinematic history and within the current art of cinema. But if you’re a normal human being who just wants to watch a good movie, maybe be entertained or enlightened or deeply moved, then Asteroid City is not for you because, unfortunately, it doesn’t really do any of those things.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Moment of Contact: Documentary Review and Commentary

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. A rather poorly constructed documentary that lacks coherence. Not worth paying to see but if you’re interested in the subject of UFOs, when the movie comes to streaming check it out for free at your leisure.

Ever since 2017, when the New York Times put their establishment stamp of approval on the UFO topic by running a story which contained previously unseen video of UAP’s (unidentified aerial phenomenon) obtained by Navy pilots, UFO stories have been taken more and more seriously by the mainstream media.

The giggles and eye-rolls which accompanied previous reporting on UFOs and the snarky comments about “little green men” have diminished as serious-faced military men and steely-eyed national security people have stepped forward to say, “hey, something really is happening here, and we better figure out what the hell it is!”.

I’m a UFO afficionado who deep down wants to believe…so much so that I do actually believe, but I’m also compulsively, if not pathologically, distrustful of the government, most particularly of military and intelligence agencies. So, I was excited by that NY Times article that started the recent surge of respectability for the subject of UFOs, but didn’t trust the two men who came to the fore as the faces of the UFO respectability program, Luis Elizondo and Christopher Mellon (of THE Mellon family).

Not surprisingly, as time has worn on that 2017 NY Times article has been exposed as being riddled with shocking inaccuracies and intentional misinformation, and Elizondo and Mellon have been shown to be basically the Butch and Sundance of UFO bullshitters.

To be clear, the establishment media, which is just the propaganda wing of the military and intelligence industrial complex, is not “all-in” on UFOs. Hell, just this past week a story ran in the Times that declared that those famous Navy videos were of “drones or trash” according to “unnamed sources”. That article and its sourcing should be a giant red-flag that a great battle is being waged behind the scenes over the UFO topic and the old guard is not going to go quietly into that good night.

The one thing we can be assured of is that Truth will not be on the agenda when the UFO topic is bandied about in the media or by government, military and intelligence toadies.

That most recent cynical Times article poo-pooing UFOs is a predecessor to a UFO/UAP report that is supposed to hit the public this coming week. The report has been getting a lot of hype in the UFO enthusiast community, with breathless yet familiar claims that “disclosure” of alien life and UFO visitation would be coming in the near future, but the “drones and trash” Times article has poured cold water on that utopian notion.

One man who was vociferously declaring that the upcoming UFO/UAP report was going to be very big news was documentarian James Fox.

Fox captured the recent ‘taken-more-seriously’ UFO zeitgeist in his worthwhile 2020 documentary The Phenomenon, which covered the various UAPs that befuddled Navy pilots in the Atlantic and Pacific and were captured on Navy cameras and instruments.

Other filmmakers have tried to follow in Fox’s footsteps. For example, J.J. Abrams produced a four-part docu-series for Showtime in 2021, lethargically titled UFO, but that was a rather forgettable piece of work.

Another Fox UFO documentary is 2009’s I Know What I Saw, which is well-made but not nearly as good as his very first foray into the subject which was his 2002 doc Out of the Blue.

Out of the Blue is the Citizen Kane of UFO documentaries. It’s a fantastically well-made movie and a truly remarkable piece of work that, despite often being somewhat difficult to find, is a must-see for anyone with even a passing interest on the subject.

The bottom line is that Fox is now, and has been for quite some time, the preeminent UFO documentarian and has made a name for himself being the UFO doc guy.

In recent days Fox has once again been in the spotlight. Hell, nowadays you can’t turn around without stumbling across Fox either on social media or TV because he’s out promoting his new documentary, Moment of Contact, which chronicles an alleged 1996 UFO crash in Varginha, Brazil, which included the supposed retrieval of one or two alien beings.

Moment of Contact was released on October 18th and is currently available via Video on Demand on Amazon and Apple, with the price to purchase (it’s not available to rent) being $19.99.

As someone with a longtime interest in UFOs, who is well-read and well-versed on the subject and who is also a fan of Fox’s earlier work, I was excited to see Moment of Contact, but was less-than-enthused to pay $20 for the privilege, so I waited until I got a copy for free from a fellow UFO researcher.

After having finally watched the documentary, all I can say is that I’m glad I didn’t pay for it.

Moment of Contact is easily Fox’s weakest effort in terms of UFO documentaries.

The story of the Varginha UFO/Aliens is as compelling as it gets, as it covers a UFO crash, aliens and alien retrieval, Brazilian and US military intervention and strong-arm cover-up, as well as human death, yet Fox somehow manages to make a documentary about it that’s as dull as dishwater.

Moment of Contact struggles to keep audience attention because it’s simply much too scattered in its focus, incoherent in its narrative and underwhelming in its execution.

The film’s failures are many. For example, it fails to piece together a coherent timeline of events in Varginha back in 1996 on the night of the crash and the days following. Minor mis-steps, such as constantly changing perspective of an overhead map meant to show the space where portions of the incident occurred, highlight the lack of precision and attention to detail that the subject requires. This inability to give the viewer an adequate understanding of the time and space where events took place, makes for a confusing and frustrating viewing experience.

Another minor example is that the majority of people in the film are Brazilians who speak Portuguese. Fox has an interpreter with him and she repeatedly mis-interprets what people are saying to him, which is evident by reading the sub-titles and contrasting that with what she says to Fox. The mis-interpretations are minor, but once again they speak to Fox’s failure to attend to detail and be precise. How can we trust what the film is claiming if we can’t trust what it is literally being spoken on film?

Fox compiles numerous eyewitnesses and they tell compelling stories, but to the film’s detriment, he’s never able to gather any substantial evidence to back up their remarkable claims.

For instance, Fox never uncovers paperwork proving U.S. Air Force flights into the area which would at least make the claim of US military and intelligence agency involvement substantial. Hospital records of the man who allegedly died after coming into contact with an alien, or even his military records, would also increase credibility, but Fox fails to provide them.

I understand these are difficult things to acquire and that subterfuge is the name of the game for officials concerning this subject, but with no electronic data like radar, or official documents – like flight, military or hospital records, then we are left with just witness accounts from regular people and rampant speculation.

At one point Fox brings the mayor of Varginha in and the mayor tells him he thinks the story is true. This mayor has no connection to the case whatsoever, and considering the city of Varginha embraces the UFO story and may be angling to use it as a tourist attraction, his beliefs have less-than-zero credibility.

The rest of the film feels as half-hearted and superficial as that visit from the mayor of Varginha.

Fox has recently been on social media claiming that there are two witnesses who say there is video evidence of the alien captured in Varginha. He claims these people have seen the video and he is working hard to get it, and once he does, he will share it with the audience.

If in fact Fox uncovers video of an alien, then it’s a true game-changer, but until then, Moment of Contact is a rather vapid documentary into the fascinating story of the Varginha incident that does a disservice to the very complex subject of UFOs.

To be clear, I actually believe the story of the witnesses to the Varginha UFO, I just think Moment of Contact fails to feature them together in a coherent and insightful way, and thus ends up not bringing anything of note to the discussion.

If you’re a UFO enthusiast, Moment of Contact will be frustratingly rudimentary and not worth a $20 price tag. If you’re someone new to the subject, the story might be eye-opening, maybe even too eye-opening to be believable. Either way, what happened in Varginha deserved a much better documentary than James Fox’s rather flaccid Moment of Contact.

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 41: Top Five Alien/UFO Movies

In anticipation of the Pentagon releasing its UFO Report, Barry and I prepare for an alien close encounter by listing our top five alien/ufo movies. Tune in to find out if it's true that in space, no one can hear you scream!

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 41: Top Five Alien/UFO Movies

Thanks for listening!

©2021

Pentagon UFO Report Viewer's Guide

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 59 seconds

The Pentagon is releasing their UFO report, so now might be a good time to check with movies to see what to expect when we make contact.

This Friday the Pentagon is supposed to release its highly anticipated report on UFOs, or as the government now calls them, UAPs – unidentified aerial phenomena.

Similar to Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I’m a long-time, self-confessed, tin-foil hat wearing UFO enthusiast/fanatic. As such I’m delusionally hoping the recent government and media pivot to taking UFOs seriously will lead to some sort of “disclosure”, where the truth out there will finally be revealed.

Of course, my more rational side knows that anytime you’re relying on the government or media for transparency or truth you’re playing a fool’s game.

Regardless of what the new UFO report says, the possibilities of what’s going on in our skies and under our seas span from the mundanity of mistaken perception combined with malfunctioning equipment to the momentous notion of extra-terrestrial/inter-dimensional visitors. Despite the alleged implausibility of it, my bet is on the latter, which means that aliens are indeed traversing our air space and ocean depths with technological aplomb and military impunity…so it might be a good idea to figure out their intentions.

As a film critic, I thought the best way to prepare for contact with our elusive galactic visitors the Pentagon cannot confirm or deny exist was to turn to movies as a guide, as our collective imagination has projected onto the silver screen and our culture a cavalcade of useful alien archetypes.

The Benevolent Aliens

Movies about human-alien contact that feature gentle aliens we’d be lucky to have visit us are very reassuring, and among the very best that cinema has to offer.

In this archetype, which features fantastic movies like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Abyss, Arrival and The Iron Giant, the aliens are good guys and the villains are our aggressive and deceptive government.

In some of these types of films, like Starman, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Midnight Special, the alien can be a pseudo-Christ figure, and government bureaucrats a nasty combination of the Sanhedrin and brutish Roman soldiers.

These benevolent alien stories put us at ease because in them humans are still in power. These movies are philosophical in nature and posit that the problem isn’t the aliens, it’s our own corrupt human nature, something we foolishly believe we can eventually overcome.

The Malevolent Aliens

Hollywood has inundated audiences with a plethora of malevolent aliens with distinctly human-mindsets over the years as well, which may lead us to assume nefarious intentions on the part of actual visitors from space.  

For instance, in the less than stellar Independence Day, War of the Worlds (1953/2005), Edge of Tomorrow, Battle: Los Angeles and Starship Troopers, aliens, despite their non-human appearance, seem remarkably human in their militaristic behavior and thirst for blood and conquest. The malevolent alien archetype scares us because it renders us powerless and reflects our violent aggression back onto us.

The creators of these fictional aliens assume that extra-terrestrials share our depraved belligerence and can only be defeated by military force (and accompanying bigger budgets), which is not surprising considering Hollywood’s long-standing, fierce commitment to making shameless propaganda for the Pentagon.

A similar archetype is the vastly superior malevolent alien with a specific weakness. For example, in the taut thriller A Quiet Place the terrifying aliens are blind but have super-sensitive hearing…maybe too sensitive. In the often-over-looked M. Night Shyamalan gem Signs, the alien’s weakness is water, while in War of the Worlds it’s susceptibility to the common cold.

This specific archetype is actually religious in nature as it spotlights humanity’s desire to think they exist under God’s divine protection against the demonic evil of alien invaders, which is sort of amusing considering there are actually reports of some real-life military brass believing UFOs/Aliens are “demonic” entities.

The Hunters

To me the most terrifying alien archetype is that of the alien hunter whose prey is humans.

In Predator, the alien hunts humans for sport, and in the Alien franchise, the alien is a horrifying beast relentlessly hunting humans in order to propagate its species by incubating its eggs in our bellies. Alien in particular forces humans to consider the prospect of being moved down the food chain, and while that’s exhilarating in fiction, in reality it’s absolutely chilling.

The Shapeshifters

Another terrifying alien archetype is the shapeshifter that can assimilate and mimic humans. Films like The Thing (1983), Species, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956/1978) and Under the Skin all turn humans into potential aliens.

This archetype is unnerving because it makes us suspicious of other people and ourselves. Aliens might already be among us, and anybody, including us, could be an alien. That said, if aliens are seductresses that look like Scarlett Johansson (Under the Skin) and Natasha Henstridge (Species), there are worse ways to die.

In conclusion, to be optimistic about alien visitation, watch E.T. For a realistic portrayal of how all this UFO stuff will go down, check out Close Encounters or Robert Zemeckis’ under-rated Contact. For a philosophical/religious alien experience dive into Arrival, Starman or The Iron Giant. For a tense thrill ride, go with A Quiet Place. To indulge the nightmare scenario, go with John Carpenter’s The Thing (1983) and Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Alien. To see a fantastic documentary that seriously examines the UFO phenomenon, watch Out of the Blue (2003). And to find the truth regarding UFOs, keep your eyes on the prize and to the skies, and trust absolutely no one.  

A version of this article was originally published at RT. 

©2021