Tat2ts Interview - Dave answers questions about GritFX and T-Shirt Design...

I invite all GritBLOG readers to check out what Dave had to say on Vic's (aka Tat2 T's) blogspot.

Vic has been nothing but supportive of GritFX. He is always willing to share his views on what's happening in the industry and will often email me with information he thinks will be useful to us. Please show the great man some love and visit the blog today.


Above: Dave wearing his "Crazy Swedes" t-shirt.

"Narrow Your Focus" - Black & White Body Images...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I've read a lot of blog posts over the last week about New Year Resolutions and how we fail to keep these every year! The general consensus is to focus on smaller goals rather than the full picture.

In view of this, I thought it would be appropriate to share a collection of images where I focused on the smaller parts of a whole.

Project Censored

At the end of each year, the Project Censored website lists their selections for the years’ top 25 censored news stories. These stories received no mention in the mainstream media or were presented by the networks with limited and often misleading information. Details of these newsworthy items could be found on the internet, but in that way, not particularly accessible to the majority of the world’s population who receive their news from mainstream media outlets.

You can view the full list of censored stories at:
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/

Below are three that I found most pertinent and alarming.

El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
In July 2007, community leaders and residents who were demonstrating the privatization of El Salvador’s water supply and distribution systems, were arrested by Salvadoran police and held in custody for almost a month. Fourteen people were charged as “terrorists” under El Salvador’s anti-terrorism laws, modelled on the USA Patriot Act. As Project Censored points out, criminalization of political expression and social protest presents a serious danger to the peace and human rights of Salvadorans that were secured after a twelve-year civil war.

Members of El Salvador’s water workers union (SETA) state that privatization of the country’s water would have the same devastating effect on the population as when the telecommunications and electricity sectors came under private ownership. Many workers were fired and forced to reapply for the same positions at lower pay and without benefits. But it seems that the ability to protest such actions of government will not be tolerated under US-backed Salvadoran authority. Salvadorans insist that fighting for water is a right, not a crime - but the quest for global domination by corporation is extending at a rapid rate that only spells doom for those caught in the middle.


Worldwide Slavery
Project Censored reports that twenty-seven million slaves exist in the world today – more than at any time in human history. Globalization, poverty and greed facilitate the growth of slavery and it is not simply confined to the Third World. According to the US Department of Justice, 17,500 new victims are trafficked across American borders every year, with about 800,000 trafficked across international borders. Slavery now rivals drug trafficking and illegal arms trading as the most lucrative criminal enterprise on the planet.

‘Bonded labor’ continues to be the most common form of this insidious racket. An individual can fall under the control of a wealthy person by simply accepting a loan. In impoverished circumstances, it is not that difficult to understand how easy this can happen. When the wealthy patron continues to increase interest and add inflated expenses to the original loan, an individual can remain servile their entire life – sometimes passing the debt onto family members. Despite the efforts of non-governmental abolitionists in liberating slaves, the mainstream media has tip-toed around this problem for some time, seemingly unable to accept that (yes, I’ll say it again) there are more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history.


Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
In the Japanese Parliament in January 2008, during a live television broadcast, Parliament member Yukihisa Fujita openly questioned the validity of the War on Terror and insisted that an investigation into the catalyst – 9/11 – be conducted by Japanese authorities. Even though twenty-four Japanese citizens were killed on 9/11, Fujita made the comment that no mandated criminal investigation had been carried out by the Japanese government.
The Parliament was meeting to debate Japan’s renewed ‘anti-terror laws’, which would result in a commitment of logistical support for coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Fujita felt it was timely and appropriate to discuss the ‘suspicious information’ being uncovered by independent journalists on the internet. Fujita presented slides to demonstrate these arguments and detailed such events of that infamous day including the lack of evidence of a plane crash at the Pentagon, the odd collapse of WTC7 and the preceding day’s insider trading – all details well known to “9/11 Truth” researchers. Incidentally, it was reported by Project Censored last year that the FBI had “no hard evidence linking Osama Bin Laden to 9/11”. This would be hard to accept for most Americans constantly fed statements by the mainstream media for the last seven years that told the contrary.

Author Ed Haas contacted the FBI to ask why Bin Laden’s connection to 9/11 was not mentioned in his profile on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Haas was promptly told that there was no evidence that could be presented to a grand jury that would convict Bin Laden of the crime! Haas posed the question as to the authenticity of the Bin Laden “confession tape”, released to the public on December 13th 2001. If the tape were authentic, it would provide enough evidence for a conviction. However, the FBI doesn’t seem to think that this is the case, throwing serious doubt on the tape itself, those who presented it as ‘evidence’ and the ethics of the seemingly corrupt mainstream media who continuously flogged the tape on air as proof and justification for the invasion of Afghanistan to “flush out Bin Laden”.

by Max Drake
(Freelance writer and artist for GritFX.)

WADRICK’S THIRTY SECOND FILM REVIEWS (the 1980’s)

The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)
Ruben Blades, Richard Bradford, Sonia Braga, Julie Carmen, Melanie Griffith, John Heard, Daniel Stern, Chick Vennera & Christopher Walken.
Written by John Nichols & David Ward.
Directed by Robert Redford.

In the beautiful country surrounding Milagro, New Mexico, developers plan to build a resort that will have disastrous consequences for the locals. When a poor bean farmer (Vennera) decides to use the developments’ water supply to irrigate his beanfield, he stirs up a whirlwind of strife that eventually involves the entire town. This whimsical tale has a cast of many talented performers - from Blades as the humdrum town sheriff, to Walken as the company man who attempts to subvert the efforts of the townspeople trying to put a stop to the capitalist plans of big business. Often fanciful, this morally uplifting film is deftly handled by director Redford and buoyed along by a wonderful score by Dave Grusin. Taken from co-screenwriter John Nichol’s novel, this is one of those movies that somewhat slipped through the 80’s cracks - however it still remains one of the decades’ best films.

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The Ninth Configuration (1980)
Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jason Miller, Ed Flanders, Moses Gunn & Robert Loggia.
Written & Directed by William Peter Blatty.

At an old castle used by the US military as an asylum, the inmates are greeted by the arrival of the new head psychiatrist, Colonel Kane (Keach). He proceeds to indulge their whims and many begin to suspect that he is nuttier than they are. But that’s only the beginning of this ‘metaphysical nightmare’, often referred to as the true sequel to The Exorcist. Rarely seen, this incredible film features some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written – an endless barrage of psychological theories pertaining to the existence of good and evil and their place in humanity. Adapted from Blatty’s own novel Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane (the film’s title at one point – see poster above) this classic film features wild performances from all involved, a crazy barroom brawl and a denouement that will knock your socks off. The Ninth Configuration is a must-see for anyone who loves writing and the art of filmmaking, especially those who think they have seen or heard it all.

Embedded File of a Ninth Configuration scene:

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The Gate (1987)
Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp & Christa Denton.
Written by Michael Nankin.
Directed by Tibor Takacs.

Perpetual nobody Stephen Dorff was once close to becoming the next hot thing in Hollywood. Some poor career choices left that option wanting, and he soon disappeared into the B-Grade netherworld. Before all that even happened, he was your typical 80’s teenager opening the gates of hell in his backyard in The Gate, a dodgy addition to the myriad horror films churned out by the studios in the wake of such successes like A Nightmare On Elm Street. According to esteemed critic Leonard Maltin, The Gate came close to topping that Hoffman/Beatty disaster Ishtar in its opening weekend, which gives you an idea of how crap both films were. Cheesy effects and cheesy acting, coupled with a good helping of mozzarella writing made The Gate yet another piece of horror trash that has been relegated to the annuls of film oblivion.

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RATINGS CHART...

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(Wadrick Jones is a freelance writer for GritFX and will post weekly thirty second film reviews on this blog.)