text:
Short Movie: The Pervert (USA, circa 2011)
"A boy succumbs to the evils of perversion."
This month's short is from some dude named Adam Rosenberg. We first stumbled upon this little cute little gem some time ago while perusing that eternally entertaining black hole of ephemera, the Internet Archives, where it resides in the rubric Prelinger Archive Mashups. (Like the Short Film of the Month of April 2011, Helping Johnny Remember, The Pervert reuses material from the Prelinger Archives.) Since that day some months ago we have found The Pervert elsewhere, and as it has always given us a little giggle whenever we saw it, we figured it is time to share the short but giggle-inducing film with the readers of A Wasted Life. ("What readers?" one might ask, but that is a different story...)
To quote imdb, "Adam Rosenberg is a director and actor, known for Manny (2009)" — and, indeed, though we never placed a name to the short, we caught Manny (full short) — image below — long before The Pervert, but forgot it relatively quickly 'cause though it is a highly disturbing short, it is simply a bit too Jan Švankmajer for us to fully go gaga over.
In any event, we could find little info on The Pervert, and only slightly more on Rosenberg. So, while we were unable to find out when exactly the short was made, we were able to find out that Adam Rosenberg is partial to "backflips, potty humor, and General Tso's chicken". Rosenberg calls himself "an award-winning filmmaker and video editor"; according to his CV, which you can find online at his website, he is a Magne Cum Laude BFA graduate (3.9 GPA!) of the Virginia Commonwealth University Dept of Kinetic Imaging, 2011 and, going by his short film Adam Rosenberg: A Self Portrait, he wears ugly underwear. His CV doesn't say whether or not his is single, but if so, The Pervert would indicate that he is probably one for the ladies. As for what he looks like: he plays the doomed lad in his short film seen at the top of the page here.
The Pervert initially plays with the structure of the good ol' educational film before zooming off to... well, a great magazine collection, mildly nightmarish humor and an abrupt end featuring a cowboy. For The Pervert, Rosenberg appropriates a few minutes from one of the great pieces of anti-sex and anti-porn US propaganda, Perversion for Profit (1965), which can be found in its full jaw-dropping idiocy and embarrassing length all over the web. As Wikipedia succinctly puts it, the propaganda "documentary" is "a vehement diatribe against pornography, the film argues that sexually explicit materials corrupt young viewers and readers, leading to acts of violence and 'perverted' attitudes regarding sex — including inclination toward homosexuality."
The "documentary" was a product of Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL), which, to quote Whitney Strub at Temple of Schlock, was "the pre-eminent anti-smut organization of the 1960s, nestled snugly between earlier Catholic pressure groups and later Christian Right ones. […] Founded by Cincinnati lawyer Charles Keating in the late 1950s, CDL amassed a rapid national following and exerted a powerful influence by the late Sixties, reaching its peak when President Richard Nixon appointed Keating to the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Later Keating let CDL languish as he shifted his interests toward junk bonds in the 1980s, contributing to our current era of disaster capitalism during the Savings & Loan catastrophes of the Reagan era. Apparently sexual decency meant more to him than the financial sort." Perversion for Profit, one of the most popular downloads at the Internet Archives, is extremely popular for mash-ups.
The host of Perversion for Profit, and thus the introductory host of Adam Rosenberg's The Pervert, is the 6'2" former Los Angeles-based news reporter and talk show host George Putnam (14 July 1914 – 12 September 2008). A conservative Democrat (and good argument of the shortcomings of a two-party system), Putnam did go on record in the 80s that he no longer thought "the homosexual" a pervert but rather born that way, but in Perversion for Profit — and the sequences in The Pervert — he palpably conveys the feeling that the whole of the US should best wear a chastity belt and blinders. You can visit his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6372 Hollywood Blvd or, if you keep your eyes open, catch his brief appearance (always as a reporter) in the movies Fourteen Hours (1951 / trailer), I Want to Live! (1958 / trailer), Helter Skelter (1976 / trailer) and — gag — Independence Day (1996 / trailer).
Nero veneziano / Damned in Venice (Italy, 1978)
A fan-made tribute to Damned in Venice:
Hard to believe that such a dull film can be so enthralling...
Aka Die Wiege des Teufels and Venetian Black, Damned in Venice is the second movie we've seen from 1972 that presents one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice, in a less than glamorous or even attractive light. Like Also Lado's giallo The Child (1972), which shares an actor with this film (José Quaglio, here as the duplicitous Father Stefani), this leisurely paced, dank and moody horror film shows Venice as a grey city in decline, rich in atmosphere but decaying and oppressive, almost empty of people — a far cry from today, when even in the rainy off season, which is when we like to go, the city is still so full of tourists that every restaurant still feels no reason to cook a decent meal as all tables will always be filled anyways. Now, like then, the perfect location for the Son of Satan to come onto the world...
In the last of his directorial efforts, Ugo Liberatore, who has always been more active as a screenwriter (among others, he co-wrote The Mill of the Stone Women [1960 / trailer] and The Hellbenders [1967 / trailer]), presents a narratively flawed and somewhat diffuse and almost alienating if ultimately interesting and memorable horror story that most of the few who have ever seen tend to dismiss as an Italo take on Rosemray's Baby (1968 / trailer). To simply dismiss Damned in Venice as such does disservice to this overlooked and mostly forgotten movie, for it is related to Rosemary's Baby only in as much as that it, too, is about the Son of Satan being born unto this earth; other than that, and perhaps the concept of a mother's overriding love for her child, Liberatore's movie owes little to everyone's favorite Polanski flick — and shows a lot more naked nubile flesh, to boot, not to mention blood and gucky stuff.
Mark has a vision:
The plot involves the two orphans, the blind Mark (former Italo child "star" Renato Cestiè, also seen in Torso [1973 / trailer] and A Bay of Blood [1971 / trailer]) and his bitchy, semi-frigid virgin older sister Christine (former German nubile Rena Niehaus of Arabella l'angelo nero [1989 / What is eurotrash?] and Wilde Früchte [1977 / trailer]), who live with their less-than-loving Granny (Bettine Milne of House of Clocks [1989 / trailer]). Mark is plagued by frightful visions of a mysterious man and woman, and when one such vision inadvertently results in the incineration of Granny, the disharmonious siblings go to live with their sickly Aunt and Uncle Martin (Tom Felleghy of Black Emanuelle in Afrika [1978 / soundtrack], Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye [1973] and much, much more) in their squalid, run down and shuttered canal-front hotel. (A hotel in Venice that can't get guests? A canal-front hotel that fails? My, Venice was different in the 70s.) Before long, Christine is running a "hotel" populated by numerous attentive nubile who accept cash and, soon after, the man in Mark's visions, Dan (Yorgo Voyagis of Nosferatu in Venedig [1988 / trailer], Die Washing Machine [1993 / trailer], Delicatessen [1991 / trailer] and City of Lost Children [1995 / trailer]), shows up and Christine, who insists she is still a virgin, suddenly has a bun in the oven...
Heavy on symbolism, Damned in Venice is not as weird as it is strange, and is as equally discombobulating as it is dramaturgically confused and slow. Thus, it is also a hard film to recommend, particular to anyone who has a distaste for leisurely pacing and arty pretensions. One of our favorite arty spleens of the director is his use of the beautiful actress Olga Karlatos, who played Prince's mom in Purple Rain (1984 / the crappy song) and is familiar to most (if anyone) for the wood-impaled eye scene of Zombie (1979 / trailer) — though she can also be seen in such semi-classics as Murder Rock (1984 / German trailer), Once Upon A Time In America (1984 / trailer) and Keoma (1976 / trailer) — in four different small roles of varying importance (as the woman in Mark's visions, his Aunt Madeleine, Vicky's mother, and the Midwife on the ferry), thus symbolizing just how fully evil is pulling the strings.*
That Mark, his blindness and helplessness a literal symbol for the fruitlessness and hopelessness of his attempts to prevent fate, doesn't notice is perhaps understandable, but that no one else does — or perhaps chooses not to — is almost funny. Are we all so blind to evil? In the end, everyone in Damned in Venice, whether good, evil or simply indifferent, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, is, like Mark, doomed to be a pawn of Satan. (Yep, if there is one lesson to be learned from this movie, it is "Trust no one"... or, maybe, "Evil always prevails" — two things currently emphasized and confirmed and personified by the NSA.)
In regards to acting, it is always a bit difficult to make judgment on an Italo film simply because the dubbing is always a minus (and dubbed this film is indeed, with its cast of Italians, Germans and Greeks), but in general everyone succeeds even where the makeup does not. One does often wonder, however, why the filmmakers didn't give blind Mark blind eyes like, say, those of Emily (Cinzia Monreale) in The Beyond (1981 / trailer). To the detriment of the movie, not only do his eyes simply look like eyes that can see, but more than once (or twice or thrice) his eyes obviously see when they shouldn't; had he been given blind contacts, the overall impression of both his blindness and his later regaining of sight would've been emphasized by this small detail.
Damned in Venice is overflowing with "scary" or "gross" or "decadent" events that don't really tie together but combine to create an oddly dreamy, almost narcotic mood in a Venice that, but for a singular fire scene aboard a water taxi, is unnaturally empty... but unnatural is the overall impression of this oddly distant supernatural thriller about the possible arrival of Satan's son — though for much of the movie one is never really sure if it isn't just that Mark is just delusional.
Overlooked and unknown, the film might not be everyone's cup of tea, but fans of oddly aloof and inconclusive horror films liberally sugared with scenes that are as half-normal or abnormal as they are played fully normal (Giogio's fuck scene while Mark is there, a well full of rats and snakes, all conversations with Father Stefani [José Quaglio of — aside from The Child (1972) — Malastrana (1971 / trailer), L'occhio dietro la parete (1977 / soundtrack) and Gualtiero Jacopetti's Mondo Candido (1975 / Italian trailer)] that are played out in his private chambers) should find the film well worth watching. And even those who find the film a bore will probably still spit their beer at the movie's one major shock moment.
The threat-laden soundtrack by Pino Donaggio:
* We liked the Last Supper, too, but felt it wasn't really sleazy enough...
R.I.P.: Alexandra Bastedo
Alexandra Bastedo
(9 March 1946 – 12 January 2014)
The mostly forgotten (outside of the Commonwealth) 60s sex symbol Alexandra Bastedo, a "devoted animal rights activist" and vegetarian, died the other day of cancer. We here at A Wasted Life rather liked her exotic eyes and her prime 60s figure and her filmogaphy, which we take a look at below...
13 Frightened Girls
(1963 / dir. William Castle)
(Aka The Candy Web) Alexandra Bastedo made her film debut in this quaint and dated lesser outing from the great William Castle. In a typical Castle publicity stunt, the famed producer/director searched the world for young female talent — "Teenage Diplomats" — to play the given female schoolgirl character representing real nationality (and, in turn, be the girl driving the bus in a certain scene for the print released in their individual country as well as introduce the trailer meant for their homeland). The England (Bastedo's country), Sweden, France, and German versions of this sequence are presented as bonus material on the 13 Frightened Girls DVD in the William Castle Film Collection box set from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. In the end, not all were really from the country they represented (Judy Pace, for example, also making her film debut here was an American, not a Liberian), but most — like Alexandra Bastedo, as the English "Alex" — used their real names in the movie. The title is a direct play upon Castle's earlier (and better) horror film, 13 Ghosts (1960 / trailer), but is also not fully true: the move features 15 not-so-frightened girls.
TV Guide hates the movie: "This idiotic spy film aimed at juveniles features Kathy Dunn as the daughter of an American diplomat on a holiday in London. She stumbles onto a political murder and informs Murray Hamilton (of Seconds [1966 / trailer] and Hysterical [1983 / trailer]), a CIA man she has a schoolgirl-crush on. Through her father's connections, Dunn has access to many foreign embassies and becomes known in the espionage world as 'Kitten', a hunted agent. Hamilton finds this out and goes to the Swiss boarding school she attends to save her from disaster. [...] His [Castle's] direction is usually bad, and the screaming gaggle of girls he 'discovered' get on one's nerves after a bit."
The Dissolve, however, is kinder: "Forget the horror-movie title, which was changed in some places to the more tonally apt The Candy Web. 13 Frightened Girls is like a Disney version of a spy picture, completely devoid of anything objectionable, aside from some outdated notions of gender roles. It's colorful, with some of the chipper overtones of juvenile fiction, and some of the despondent undertones of the Cold War era. [...] Mostly, it's sturdy. What gets forgotten in all the reminiscences about Castle's shillery is that the man was a competent, crafty director, not some hapless hack. Without his gimmicks, Castle's films probably would've been mostly forgotten, because they aren't that good. But they're good enough that fans can give thanks that those gimmicks existed, because they've kept his work alive in B-philes' hearts and minds."
Judy Pace, who plays the Libyan student, was actually from the US and grew up to be the "personification of black beauty" in the 60s and 70s and is found in such great films as Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970 / trailer) and Frogs (1972 / trailer)...
The Liquidator
(1965/66, dir. Jack Cardiff)
Alexandra Bastedo's (uncredited) part is so tiny in this spy caper — she appears somewhere as a radio operator — that we include the movie here only because it was directed by Jack Cardiff (who later directed The Freakmakers [1973]) and features both a great credit sequence and groovy title track.
Title Sequence and Track of The Liquidator (1965):
The Liquidator was based on the first (published in 1964) of a series of eight pulp novels written by the British pulp author John Gardner, whom should not be confused with the serious American author John Gardner who wrote Grendel. MGM hoped to develop a franchise from the espionage spoof, but eventually vetoed the idea. DVD Talk says The Liquidator is "an upscale production that can boast a good leading man in Rod Taylor and a creative director [...]. Saying that The Liquidator has dated isn't enough, as its problem is a tonal friction that gripes many a SuperSpy® contender. The comedy wants to be slapstick-broad and tongue-in-cheek cynical at the same time. It wants to sell sex, yet is too tame to present any real sexual content. Finally, the audience will be way ahead of most of the plot developments, especially the story's main 'twists'. Just the same, Taylor and Cardiff put on a lively show."
An opinion shared, for the most part, by The Mystery File, which says that "Thanks to the cast and a script that closely follows Gardner's novel, this spy spoof works both as a send-up of Bond and as damn good spy film on its own." They explain the plot as follows: "Rod Taylor is well cast as Boysie, a handsome amoral bungler, coward, and general screw-up, who is mistaken by Colonel Mostyn (Trevor Howard of The Third Man [1949 / trailer]) of MI6 for a cold-blooded killer when they meet during the fall of Nazi-held Paris. Twenty years later Mostyn is second in command of MI6, and a series of defections and had headlines [sic] has convinced his boss (Hyde-White of The Cat and the Canary [1979]) that what the service needs is an executioner, a liquidator who will rid them of embarrassment before it gets that far. Mostyn remembers Boysie, whom he finds burying his partner (they owned a pub together) whose wife he has been having an affair with. Mostyn jumps to conclusions, and before he can protest, Boysie finds himself the private executioner for the British Secret Service. And it isn't a bad life. He has a lush apartment, a nice stipend, a sexy sports car, a parade of beautiful girls, and there is always the sardonic Mostyn's secretary Jill St. John (of The Concrete Jungle [1982 / trailer]) — if only there wasn't that silly rule about inter-service romance. Then the first problem arises. They actually want Boysie to kill someone..."
Lalo Schifrin — Bikini Waltz:
Doctor in Clover
(1966, dir. Ralph Thomas)
Alexandra Bastedo's has another (uncredited) part as "Nurse at Party" in this, the sixth in a series of British comedies that began with Doctor in the House (1954 / clip) and ended with Doctor in Trouble (1970 / trailer) but continued long after as various TV series in Britain. Like the Carry On series, the Doctor series in all its forms is proof positive of England's refined nature and cultural importance.
The year it came out, Doctor in Clover was one of the 15 best British box office draws; in its land of origin, it was shorn a full four minutes to get the then applicable A-rating ("children must be accompanied by adults"). TV Guide kindly describes the movie as "a dreary, depressing, unfunny comedy." The plot? Let's look at Brit Movie Co for that: "More comical situations at Saint Swithins Hospital, Leslie Phillips (of The Gamma People [1956 / trailer]) is on call in place as Dr Gaston Grimsdyke, who is more interested in the nurses than the patients. Grimsdyke loses his job as medical officer at a women's prison, so he enrolls in a refresher course with his old medical tutor Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) — who is determined to make a successful physician out of him. There are some complications involving a rejuvenation serum, which is accidentally injected into the irascible Sir Lancelot, causing him to wreak havoc at a party." As the trailer informs us, the movie introduces another mostly forgotten 60s sexpot, "a beautiful young sexstacular French star in her first British film, Elisabeth Ercy".
Elizabeth Ercy, seen above from the movie, was born in Dresden, Germany on 20 July, 1944; she went on to star in that great, depressing horror film The Sorcerers (1967), directed by Michael Reeves, the man behind Witchfinder General (1968). Unlike that of Alexandra Bastedo, Ercy's career ended soon thereafter.
Trailer to The Sorcerers (1967):
That Riviera Touch
(1966, dir. Cliff Owen)
Alexandra Bastedo's career takes a step forward: she receives on-screen credit as the "Girl at roulette table" — but the real cheesecake factor of the movie was the Canadian-born Suzanne Lloyd (born on November 11, 1934 in Toronto) as the deceitful Claudette, who retired at the "young age of 40".
That Riviera Touch was a vehicle for the English comedy due (Eric) Morecambe and (Ernie) Wise, whose partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe died in 1984. Primarily a TV phenomena and unknown outside of the land of fish and chips, they made three of movies together in the 60s, of which this is the second; like Doctor in Clover above, it was one of the top 15 British box office hits of 1966. Brit Movie Co calls the movie "a routine comedy" and complains that "despite many colourful shots of the Côte d'Azur and a riotous closing sequence involving a helicopter and water skis the duo are unable to sustain feature length narratives and ultimately the film is lacking in laughs."
Film 4 explains the plot to "this, the second and best of their so-so big-screen outings": "Eric and Ernie star as traffic wardens who, thanks to a muddle up with British royalty, find themselves holidaying in the south of France. There, they become involved with Le Pirate (Paul Stassino of Die Screaming Marianne [1971 / trailer]), a Gallic thief who intends to use the hapless pair to smuggle his goods overseas. Of course, it's not long before pandemonium reigns as our comic heroes cross swords with all sorts of villains and almost come to blows over the comely thiefette Claudette (Lloyd).
Opening Credits — Bastedo's Name Is There:
The Scales of Justice: The Haunted Man
(1966, dir. Stanley Willis)
As the website Radio Sounds Familiar explains: "The Scales of Justice [was not a TV series but] was a run of thirteen British cinema 'B' films made between 1962 and 1967 at Merton Park Studios in London by Anglo-Amalgamated. They were based on real criminal cases and each film was introduced by the famous crime writer Edgar Lustgarten. The titles [above] feature the symbolic scales held by the statue of Justice, which is located on top of the dome of The Old Bailey. In the opening narration she is described as having '...in her right hand, the Sword of Retribution, and in her left — The Scales of Justice'." Only later did they actually end up on TV.
The plot of The Haunted Man: "Actor Bill Kenton (James Ellis, who plays "Psycho Ward Guard No. 1" in Re-Animator [1985]), injured trying to prevent a raid on a shop, returns to his career, to find that he cannot remember his lines. Forced to leave the theatre, he becomes a man obsessed with finding the thief." Alexandra Bastedo, who can be seen cuddling with Keith Barron (of Nothing But The Night [1973]) in the background of the screenshot above, plays "Laura". All thirteen instalment are now available on DVD.
Trailer to Nothing but the Night:
(1967, dir. Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Richard Talmadge and possible others)
Alexandra Bastedo appears somewhere in this, one of the most legendary cinematic fuck-ups in the world, as "Meg". We saw the film many a year ago, long before we even registered that was a "Alexandra Bastedo", and had we even known of her we surely wouldn't have seen her amongst the plethora of much more famous names that flit, explode, crawl, dies, walk, run, whatever across the screen. If we remember correctly, the only thing we really like about the movie was (spoiler) that everyone dies...
The BBC is right when they saw "the film itself may defy description" and "the lurid sets and costumes amount to two hours of Technicolor madness". Is the film good? No. Is it jaw-dropping and entertaining? Yes — in a mostly train wreck sort of way. A flop with the critics, it was a popular hit and made a profit despite the movies explosive budget (which went from 6 to 12 million dollars while filming). It works much better now due to the nostalgia factor than it did when it came out and tried, so desperately, to be (to quote La Cinema Dreams) "like Barbarella (1968 / trailer), Myra Breckinridge (1970 / trailer), and The Magic Christian (1969 / trailer) [...] a 'head film' from the start. A head film being a movie that either courted young, college-age audiences by attempting to cinematically replicate the psychedelic drug experience, or one that was best appreciated in an altered mind state."
As TCM explains the plot: "The original James Bond (007) retired following his star-crossed love affair with Mata Hari [...]. But as the international crime organization known as SMERSH threatens world domination, he agrees to come out of retirement. After his longtime superior McTarry ('M') is killed, Bond goes to Scotland to console McTarry's widow, Lady Fiona, unaware that the woman he encounters is actually a SMERSH agent. Bond's charms are such, however, that Lady Fiona gives up her life of espionage and retires to a convent when Bond declines her offer of love. To outwit his enemy, Bond decides there should be more than one 007 agent. He enlists the services of Vesper Lynd, the world's richest and most seductive spy; Evelyn Tremble, the inventor of a foolproof gambling system; Cooper, a strong-arm agent trained to resist women; and Bond's own daughter, Mata Bond [...]."
Casino Royale Theme Song:
(TV series, 1968-1969)
While this British "cult" TV series "filled with intelligent, intriguing characters, exotic settings and fabulous cars (DVD Verdict)" is not whence we know Alexandra Bastedo, it would seem it is whence most do, as virtually every obit we read was apt to say something along the lines as what Wikipedia does: Alexandra Bastedo is "best known for her role as secret agent Sharron Macready in the 1968 British espionage/science fiction adventure series The Champions." Indeed, Boot Hill quotes the actress as have said: "Apart from becoming a household name in England, Scotland and Wales, I became an international star, particularly in Spain and South America where they called me La Bastedo." We here at A Wasted Life, however, are not familiar with the 30-episode series, which supposedly also ran in the US on NBC in 1968, a time when our tastes were still more oriented towards shows such as Batman (1966-1968) or The Monkees (1966-1968).
Classic Film and TV Café explains the basic set up around which the series was constructed: "Three secret agents, being pursued by bad guys, crash land their plane in the Himalayas. All but dead, they are found by an elderly man who takes them to an ancient city occupied by a secret civilization (shades of Shangri-La). Not only are our heroes healed, but they are 'made better.' They gradually learn that they have been given superhuman powers: they can communicate telepathetically, their senses are heightened, and they possess great strength. They can also 'sense' when danger in imminent or when one of them is in trouble." They fought international threats for 30 episodes before succumbing to the deadliest of all TV enemies: low viewer ratings.
Other than Bastedo as the semi-superwoman Sharron Macready, The Champions also featured the fellow super-people Craig Stirling (Stuart Damon) and Richard Barrett (William Gaunt) and their non-super boss Tremayne (Anthony Nicholls of Night of the Eagle [1962 / trailer] and The Omen [1976 / trailer]).
At one point (2007), Variety announced that Guillermo del Toro would be doing a film version of the movie, but it would seem that nothing ever came of it.
Go here for Part II
Go here for Part III
Posted by Abraham at 3:24:00 PM No comments:
Bert I. Gordon is one of the great heroes of low budget schlock and treasured guilty pleasures, mostly from the third quarter of the 20th century. Director, writer, producer, auteur, the man is still alive but hasn't made a film since his 1990 horror film Satan's Princess (1990 / full movie); a fact that might have changed by the time you read this, as although it has hardly received the fanfare the news perhaps deserves, the good man is currently making his first film in over 25 years, the thriller Secrets of a Psychopath, due out in 2014 and starring a typically (for him) career-stalled, genre-laden name, Kari Wuhrer (of Thinner [1996] and Anaconda [1997]). One can only hope that that film is more akin to his classic trash — Beginning of the End (1957 / trailer), with its classic scene of a dumb man screaming silently; The Amazing Colossal Man (1957 / trailer), with its memorable hypodermic-needle harpooning scene; Attack of the Puppet People (1958 / trailer); War of the Colossal Beast (1958 / trailer); the teen-heavy Tarantula (1955 / trailer) spin Earth vs. the Spider (1958 / trailer) ; the fun, unjustly maligned and overlooked ghost story Tormented (1960 trailer / full movie); the nasty thriller The Mad Bomber (1973 / trailer); and the undeniably horrible but hilariously entertaining duet The Food of the Gods (1976 / trailer) and Empire of the Ants (1977 / trailer) — and less like his duds, Picture Mommy Dead (1966 / German trailer), Burned at the Stake (1981) and all his comedies (though, in truth, How to Succeed with Sex [1970] is of note for being such an unfunny comedy that is funny in its unfunniness and really deserves to be seen just to even learn how funny unfunny can be).
Necromancy, aka The Witching, Rosemary's Disciples and Horror Attack, we are sad to say, is not one of Gordon's better films, either in terms of being fun and trashy or serious and scary (not that one ever really expects the latter from a Gordon film). Of all the titles the film has had, Rosemary's Disciples is perhaps the most apt, for the core narrative thread is stolen directly from Polanski's much more successful Rosemary's Baby (1968 / trailer): hubby Frank Brandon (Michael Ontkean) falls in with coven of devil worshippers and trades off his wife Lori Brandon (Pamela Franklin) for... a hedonistic lifestyle and a good job in a toy factory!?
Michael Ontkean sells 7-Up:
Instead of having the events based around an apartment building full of witches, however, the events are moved to the difficult-to-reach, small, rural town located somewhere in California called Lilith. (Here alone, the astute already know something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as the town is named after Adam's first wife Lilith, the world's first feminist who smartly chose to leave the Garden of Eden for her own personal freedom away from the domineering Adam.) Unlike in Rosemary's Baby, however, our endangered heroine — who just had a miscarriage back in the big city — should not give birth to the devil's baby, but rather give up her life so that the dead son of the town's patriarch Mr. Cato (a slumming Orson Welles) can return to life...
The version we put in our DVD player was the re-release version from 1983, The Witching / Horror Attack, which is graced with an entirely new opening scene of a Black Mass featuring a lot of male and female frontal nudity from people that appear nowhere else in the movie as well as an Orson Welles stand-in wearing a goat's head so as to hide the fact it's a different actor. The scene is neither needed or in any way horrific, but as we here at A Wasted Life do like pointless nude scenes we tend to see the added scene as perhaps the best one in the whole confused and mostly incomprehensible movie.
But the fact that The Witching is a new, re-cut version makes it a bit hard to place the blame of the movie's total failure upon Bert I. Gordon, as aside from the added nudity, the confusing ghostly female (Anne Gaybis of Wham! Bam! Thank You, Spaceman! [1975 / trailer]) spouting inane tirades to our heroine is also a new addition. In any event, we find it doubtful that the original version, Necromancy, could have been all that much better than the re-release, especially since the terrible one-note performances of Pamela Franklin and Michael Ontkean are so typical of the performances found in most Gordon films. (OK, Michael Ontkean, whom most people know as Sheriff Harry S Truman from the classic TV series Twin Peaks [1990-1991], was always better looking than he was good at acting, but Pamela Franklin proved her stuff at a variety of ages in a number of memorable films, including The Innocents [1961 / trailer], The Nanny [1965 / trailer], And Soon the Darkness [1970 / trailer], and The Legend of Hell House [1973 / trailer].) The best acting of the movie, aside from Orson Welles' obvious walk on non-performance, is that of the actor playing Dr. Jay, Harvey Jason, who looks like and conveys the hedonistic quality of a refugee from the Golden Age of Porn, the perfect quality needed for a person that has given himself over to the total hedonistic abandonment the coven members practice and enjoy. (An interesting tidbit of trivia: he and Pamela Franklin met for the first time on the set of this movie and are still happily married today.)
Overly talky and expository, The Witching is nevertheless often messy and incomprehensible. But for all the bad acting and dialogue and loose plotting and pointlessly arty cinematography and editing, it is the dislikably whiney and overly helpless heroine, Lori (Franklin), which becomes the most annoying aspect of the movie. Indeed, she does more damage to the flick than all the other flaws combined: forever ignoring the facts she is confronted with — including both dead bodies and honest town folk that don't hide their religious affiliations — and refusing to flee from the imminent danger, Lori literally whines her way to her fate. Had Lori only been given a brain and at least a little mettle, The Witching might have at least achieved some character identification and, through that, some effectiveness as a lightly arty exercise of third-rate, mildly moody horror. An understandable and sympathetic heroine would also have given the depressing ending a lot more punch, because the viewer might have still at least cared...
Necromancy, aka The Witching, Rosemary's Disciples and Horror Attack, is a dud of a horror movie that is not scary, interesting nor funny. Not imperative viewing.
The Ten Best in 2013
Year 5 of A Wasted Life's "Ten Best Films in XXXX" list... the rules, as they have crystallized over the past five years:
1. The films need not be made in the year in question (2013), they need only to have been viewed for the first time and reviewed that given year.
2. They need not even be good films, they need only to have left an exceptional impression or been in some way memorable enough while watching that they achieved a level of "unforgettableness" that makes them, in our non-humble opinion, worth watching — if only one time.
3. Short Films of the Month are as a rule excluded from the list, one: because simply by dent of the fact that their being chosen as a Short Film of the Month already makes them recommended, and two: the "Ten Best" list is for feature-length films only.
4. The order in which the films are presented is immaterial. This is not a countdown list, going from "tenth best" to "best". As far as we are concerned, all films presented are equally deserving of their placement.
This year, there were a total of 60 blog entries here at A Wasted Life, of which one was the Ten Best Films in 2012 list, 12 were short films and five were R.I.P. Career Reviews of notable folks who have gone on permanent vacation — Harry Reems (six instalments and counting), Ray Harryhausen (3) Jim Kelly (2), Haji (1) and José Ramon Larraz (3) — with a total of 15 instalments. Thus, in grand total there were only 31 feature films reviewed this year, the lowest amount since this ego-stroking blog first went online. And with such a low amount of movies, it is perhaps not surprising that for the first time we weren't able to come up with a full ten movies for the list. This year, we only have an "official" nine — and a forced nine at that.
That said, we must admit that there are two feature-length films that probably would have made the list, but don't due to rule Number 1: in the case of the two old German flicks directly below, we not only didn't watch them in 2013, but the reviews were actually written almost a decade ago and we've seen both movies a couple of time since then. Thus neither makes the final cut, though we like them both and can only say watch them if you have the chance — no German Edgar Wallace or Brian Edgar Wallace krimi is ever a total waste of time. Of the two below, Der Rote Kreis is probably the better one, while Der Frosch mit der Maske, being the first of the historical Rialto Wallace series, is more historically relevant. Both make for worthwhile viewing, no matter whatever flaws they might have. But, in any event, they are not an official part of The Ten Best in 2013 list and are presented here only because, well, because we want to present them here.
Der Frosch mit der Maske
(Germany / Denmark, 1959)
Aka: The Fellowship of the Frog
German Trailer:
Der Rote Kreis
(Denmark / Germany, 1960)
Aka: The Crimson Circle
The Sadist
Aka Sweet Baby Charlie and Profile of Terror. OK, we break a rule here. Here at A Wasted Life, we are listing The Sadist in the first position on this list because, well, it was truly the best movie we saw this year and deserves a First Place rating. Almost unknown, this film seriously needs to be rediscovered and shared and finally given the credit it deserves. Searing black and white for a nasty, hard-boiled story told in real time. We would list this movie up there with Detour (1945 / fan-made trailer / full film), The Honeymoon Killers (1969 / trailer) and Night of the Living Dead (1968 / trailer / full film) as one of the best low budget B&W genre movies we've ever seen. Watch it. Now. Or go die.
Full movie:
Wheels / Tockovi
(Republic of Yugoslavia / Serbia, 1999)
A well made, East Bloc wanna-be Tarentino movie that saves itself by displaying a lot of personality — Wheels is low budget, bloody, nihilistic and funny as hell. Good luck finding it, but it's worth the search...
(French, 1975)
Jess Franco (12 May 1930—2 April 2013) at his artsy-fartsy, decadent best. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but we found the amalgamation of ugly people, sex and violence amazingly intriguing. Without a doubt, one of our favorite Franco films to date, full everything you might expect from the infamous auteur, god rest his soul. Also, we really must say that Franco's longtime muse Lina Romay (25 June 1954—15 February 2012), who gets naked a lot in this movie, never looked better than she does here... The blogspot Ninja Dixon has a nice plot description, which we'll use again here: "Bored upper class is enjoying a simulated black mass including a human sacrifice. Something for the rich and famous to tickle their boring lives and hopefully tickle their sex-lives even more. But in the background the defrocked priest and now adult author Mathis Vogel (Uncle Jess himself) is slithering around taking detailed notes about the masses. He's still a strong believer and wants to save these poor women from Satan — and the only way to do it is to slaughter them as a sacrifice to God!"
Dirty War
(Spain, 1984)
Hitman vs Hitman scene:
Aka Guerra Sucia. Regrettably enough, we've been unable to locate a trailer from this movie anywhere online, but the outtakes here give you a good idea of what to expect. Is Dirty War a good movie? No fucking way — it's a fucking Juan Piquer Simón movie, for Christ's sake, so it's a mess. But, as is often the case with his movies — his real masterpiece Slugs (1988) being the best example — Dirty War takes on that special otherworldliness that only true craptastic movies have. As we say in our review, Dirty War [...] is "a crappy, trashy piece of shit, actually. But [...] it is also a wonderfully entertaining piece of flotsam that occasionally verges on surrealism." We loved it, and can only say: watch it, you'll hate it.
Chase scene:
Piranha 3DD
This movie makes it onto our list only by the tip of a nipple. The original Piranha (1978) is one of our favorite idiosyncratic exploiters from the Golden Age of Exploitation, so we were very prepared to totally hate Alexandre Aja's 2010 remake Piranha 3-D... but we didn't. We really enjoyed it. Still, despite all the T&A and gore, there was an undercurrent of Puritanism in the movie that we could have done without, and which costs that film its place on this list. This Puritanism, however, is totally lacking from the direct-to-DVD sequel that followed two years later, Piranha 3DD. Piranha 3DD is a totally infantile T&A-heavy piece of unapologetic trash; the story is dumbed down, but the amount of silicon and blood and guts remain more or less the same — and all that graced with a totally meta self-referential performance by one of our most-hated performers, David Hasselhof, that works so well that we almost became a fan. (Almost.) Perhaps if we had a broader selection of movies to choose from, Piranha 3DD wouldn't make the cut of this list, but beggers can't be choosers and besides, who can truly hate a movie about killer prehistoric piranhas that invade a pool park full of buxom babes?
Red-band Trailer:
Tokyo Gore Police / Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu
(Japan, 2008)
From the makers of that Nippon masterpiece Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009), yet another tasteless, P.I. and blood-drenched masterpiece. The influences of Hieronymus Bosch and Sigmund Freud are a lot more obvious this time around than the Pop Art extremes found in VGvsFG, but this year-older movie is nevertheless just as bat-shit crazy. You like fountains of gore? Hot Asian babes? Nightmarish imagery? Racially incorrect characterizations? This film is for you...
Hardgore
Opening scene:
Aka Horror Whore and Sadoasylum. The first hardcore fuck film to ever make its way onto one of our "Best Films" lists. Hardgore is an unbelievable piece of flotsam from the early Golden Age of Porn that defies categorization and believability. What were they thinking when they made this movie? But for one scene, Hardgore totally fails as a visual aid to your greased palm — in fact, despite genital detail and constant exchange of body fluids, this body-hair heavy porno movie is sure to keep you limp or dry — if not, you can rest assured that you are probably not normal. Hardgore is definitely not a good movie; in fact, it is not a movie that probably deserves any form of recommendation... but it is an indescribably jaw-dropper; a unique oddity that hits 100 on the bizarre scale. And as such, we might not recommend it but we do have to say it was one of the most "memorable" movies we saw in 2013, and thus rightfully earns it place on this list. Watch it — if you dare.
Naked woman (Dianne Galke) running down the hall:
An early non-masterpiece of exploitation displaying truly Ed Woodian directorial and narrative finesse, Maniac is one of the great Guilty Pleasure of filmdom. Read our review to learn about this great movie and its equally notable filmmaker...
5 Minutes to Live
Another movie that probably wouldn't make the cut had we a greater selection to choose from. 5 Minutes to Live is hardly a masterpiece, and it suffers from a very weak female lead (Cay Forrester) and a terrible framing structure; but, for that, it is relatively well shot and edited, moves at quick enough pace, has one or two decent shocks and stars the great Johnny Cash as a violent psycho. The last alone makes the movie worth watching on a rainy day. Of course, you can just wait until the Jan de Bont remake is released, but then you won't have the pleasure of watching a drugged-out Cash making his feature-film acting debut.
Movie of Special Mention
With 5 Minutes to Live, our list of The Ten Best Films in 2013 thus ends — one film short of a full ten fingers. And since we are one short, we've decided to bend the rules a bit (again) and add this "Movie of Special Mention". It is one of the many films we saw this year that we didn't get around to writing about... but even if we had, we couldn't put it on the list 'cause we've seen it two or three times before. Nevertheless, we feel this movie deserves more attention than it ever gets, and thus we present it as our unofficial tenth movie.
Daughter of Horror aka Dementia is an under-seen surreal, semi-feature-length expressionistic noir nightmare that has, amongst those who have watched it, as many detractors as fans. We are definitely fans. Made in 1953 and released in 1955, Dementia is the only known movie from the unknown filmmaker John Parker and, until Re/Search wrote about it in their influential volume Incredibly Strange Films, it was best known (if at all) as the movie being watched in the original version of The Blob (1958) when the blob invades the cinema. Long in the public domain, it is easy to get a hold of nowadays, though usually in the re-release version with an added narration by Ed McMahon. Watch it. Now. Or go die.


text:
class User < ApplicationRecord
  # Use Rails' "has_secure_password" so that local accounts' password is
  # is *only* stored as a bcrypt digest in password_digest
  # (an iterated per-use salted hash).  We want users to be able to edit
  # their profiles later, so disable the default password validation
  # since it interferes with editing (see "validates :password" below).
  has_secure_password validations: false

  has_many :projects, dependent: :destroy
  attr_accessor :remember_token, :activation_token, :reset_token
  before_create :create_activation_digest

  has_many :additional_rights

  # This is the minimum password length for *new* passwords. After increasing
  # this, users can log into existing user accounts even if they don't meet
  # this requirement.
  MIN_PASSWORD_LENGTH = 8

  # BCrypt hash function can handle maximum 72 characters, and if we pass
  # password of length more than 72 characters it ignores extra characters.
  # Hence there's a need to put a restriction on maximum password length.
  # This is an unfortunate limitation, but 72 characters is enough entropy
  # in practice.  See ActiveModel::SecurePassword.
  MAX_PASSWORD_LENGTH = 72

  validates :name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 50 }
  validates :email, presence: true, length: { maximum: 255 },
                    uniqueness: { case_sensitive: false }, email: true

  # Validate passwords; this is obviously security-related.
  # We directly control validations instead of using the default
  # validations in "has_secure_password", so that users can edit profiles.
  # In particular, we have to enable "confirmation: true" since that is
  # no longer checked by "has_secure_password".
  # The "allow_nil" means that updates may have an empty "password" field,
  # which will be interpreted as "do not change the password".
  # This is important for GitHub users, who don't give us passwords.
  # Non-nil passwords (which are *required* when creating a local account,
  # and also occur on password changes) must pass these validations,
  # including the bad-password check.
  validates :password,
            length: {
              minimum: MIN_PASSWORD_LENGTH,
              maximum: MAX_PASSWORD_LENGTH
            },
            password: true, # Apply special bad-password check
            confirmation: true,
            allow_nil: true

  # We don't allow locale nil. There's no need to, because the record has a
  # default value (and the default is used if we don't supply a value).
  VALID_LOCALES_STRINGS = I18n.available_locales.map(&:to_s)
  validates :preferred_locale, inclusion: { in: VALID_LOCALES_STRINGS }

  # Returns the hash digest of the given string.
  def self.digest(string)
    cost =
      if ActiveModel::SecurePassword.min_cost
        BCrypt::Engine::MIN_COST
      else
        BCrypt::Engine.cost
      end
    BCrypt::Password.create(string, cost: cost)
  end

  def self.create_with_omniauth(auth)
    @user = User.new(
      provider: auth[:provider], uid: auth[:uid],
      name: auth[:info][:name], email: auth[:info][:email],
      nickname: auth[:info][:nickname], activated: true
    )
    @user.save!(validate: false)
    @user.send_github_welcome_email if @user.email
    @user
  end

  # Activates an account.
  def activate
    self.activated = true
    self.activated_at = Time.zone.now
    save!
  end

  # Sends activation email.
  def send_activation_email
    UserMailer.account_activation(self).deliver_now
  end

  # Sets the password reset attributes.
  def create_reset_digest
    self.reset_token = User.new_token
    self.reset_digest = User.digest(reset_token)
    self.reset_sent_at = Time.zone.now
    save!(touch: false)
  end

  # Sends password reset email.
  def send_password_reset_email
    UserMailer.password_reset(self).deliver_now
  end

  # Sends welcome email to GitHub users.
  def send_github_welcome_email
    UserMailer.github_welcome(self).deliver_now
  end

  def admin?
    role == 'admin'
  end

  # Returns a random token
  def self.new_token
    SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64
  end

  # Remembers a user in the database for use in persistent sessions
  def remember
    self.remember_token = User.new_token
    self.remember_digest = User.digest(remember_token)
    save!(touch: false)
  end

  # Returns true if the given token matches the digest
  def authenticated?(attribute, token)
    digest = public_send("#{attribute}_digest")
    return false if digest.nil?
    BCrypt::Password.new(digest).is_password?(token)
  end

  # Forgets a user
  def forget
    self.remember_digest = nil
    save!(validate: false, touch: false)
  end

  # Returns true if a password reset has expired.
  def password_reset_expired?
    reset_sent_at < 2.hours.ago
  end

  # Returns avatar URL
  def avatar_url
    if provider == 'github'
      "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/#{nickname}?size=80"
    else
      avatar_id = Digest::MD5.hexdigest(email.downcase)
      "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/#{avatar_id}?d=mm&size=80"
    end
  end

  private

  # Creates and assigns the activation token and digest.
  def create_activation_digest
    self.activation_token  = User.new_token
    self.activation_digest = User.digest(activation_token)
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Since 1980, Dada has earned a prestigious role in the design sector, revolutionizing the world of the kitchen.
Dada is synonymous with elegance, tradition but also experimentation, and thanks to its valuable collaborations has extended its success, as in the case of 'Tivalì' kitchen designed by Dante Bonuccelli.
A unique design in step with home and living trends, where elegance is combined with professionalism for everyday comfort.
With an attention to detail and a strong passion for each phase of the project, Dada exports Italian high quality kitchens worldwide.


text:
Кивийоки — река в России, протекает по Лоухскому району Карелии.

Общие сведения
Вытекает из безымянного озера на высоте 212,3 м над уровнем моря, в верхнем течении принимает приток из нескольких озёр, включая озеро Кивиярви. В среднем течении пересекает дорогу Калевала — Тунгозеро и принимает левый приток — Хилипяййоки, вытекающий из озера Хилипяйярви. Устье реки находится в 11 км по правому берегу реки Шурийоки. Длина реки составляет 21 км.

Данные водного реестра
По данным государственного водного реестра России относится к Баренцево-Беломорскому бассейновому округу, водохозяйственный участок реки — Ковда от истока до Кумского гидроузла, включая озёра Пяозеро, Топозеро. Речной бассейн реки — бассейны рек Кольского полуострова и Карелии, впадает в Белое море.

Галерея

Код объекта в государственном водном реестре — 02020000412102000000321.

Примечания

Бассейн Валазреки
Реки Лоухского района

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Racial integration laws exempting charter…
Racial integration laws exempting charter schools might be unconstitutional, MN judge rules
By Josh Verges | jverges@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
State laws that exempt charter schools from racial integration mandates might violate the Minnesota Constitution, a judge ruled this week.
The preliminary ruling came in the case of Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota, whose plaintiffs argue metro area schools are so segregated that students of color can't get the "adequate" education the constitution guarantees.
The plaintiffs charge that segregated charter schools are part of the problem.
Since 1999, Minnesota schools have been required to monitor the racial makeup of their students and create plans to integrate if they're found to have an imbalance. But charter schools specifically have been exempt from those requirements.
Higher Ground Academy and Friendship Academy of the Arts, charter schools with almost all-black student populations, intervened in the case in hopes of preserving that exemption. They say their black students get a culturally affirming environment and perform better than students at competing district schools.
But on Tuesday, Hennepin County District Judge Susan Robiner refused the charter schools' request to declare that the exemption is constitutional.
Robiner wrote that plaintiffs attorney Dan Shulman presented evidence that when they wrote the exemption into law in 1999, "state actors … were acting intentionally to allow school districts to become more racially polarized."
Robiner continued: "It is reasonable to infer that if (charter schools) were subject to such oversight, their racial imbalance would have been mitigated by operation of integration plans mandated by the desegregation rules."
The Department of Education tried, through its rule-making process, to eliminate the charter school exemption in 2015, but an administrative law judge said the department lacked the authority to do so.
Even if she had sided with the charter schools on the exemption's constitutionality, Robiner wrote, that would not necessarily have protected them from having to integrate.
That's because if Cruz-Guzman succeeds in obtaining a court-ordered solution for Twin Cities school segregation, the remedy may well include the area's charter schools.
The lawsuit, filed in 2015, is tentatively scheduled for trial in July 2020.
Eagan proposes Diffley Road safety changes; student on bike dies after being hit by car in 2019
Workplace testing program key to Minnesota's return to school
Forest Lake school demolition starts next month
St. Paul Public Schools
Josh Verges | Education reporter
Josh has written about St. Paul public schools and higher education for the Pioneer Press since 2014, 11 years after the paper first published his byline as a University of Minnesota intern. He did a two-year stint on city government and crime in Austin, Minn., and spent seven years in Sioux Falls, S.D. covering crime and education, as well as editing. Josh was good at baseball once. Now he plays tennis against old men.
jverges@pioneerpress.com
Follow Josh Verges	https://www.facebook.com/joshverges Follow Josh Verges	@ua14
More in Education
3 in every 8 St. Paul students pick distance learning over return to school

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


CRCC Asia is seeking ambitious, talented and hardworking students and graduates for its 2014 China Internship Programs. This is an incredible opportunity to gain excellent professional experience and transferable skills in one of the world's most important and fastest-growing economies. Our China Internship Program is highly regarded by employers and is certain to make a positive impact on your resume. Many of our previous interns are now working in top international firms. You will work in a company in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Sanya where you will be required to work independently and in international teams. Our internships last 1, 2, or 3 months. Chinese language skills are not necessary, fluent English is the only language requirement. There are many sectors available including Law, Finance, Marketing, PR, Advertising, Business Development, Pharmaceutical, NGOs, Sustainable Energy and Engineering, and many more. Our program has been featured in numerous high profile media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek and the BBC.
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Working on layouts and art work using a range of media, including photography and computer-aided design.
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Art Gallery: Supporting the exhibition team when arranging exhibitions and events. Working to promote the gallery's activities through media, marketing and attendance at industry events.
Editorial Project: Client interviews, restaurant write-ups, event write-ups, and weekly blogging.
Photography Project: Identifying potential clients, organising and supporting photo shoots, and assisting in client partnership proposals.


text:
Home Speed Read SPEED READ: Headlines from The Sports Examiner for Friday, 14 June 2019
SPEED READ: Headlines from The Sports Examiner for Friday, 14 June 2019
Rich Perelman
Welcome to The Sports Examiner SPEED READ, a 100 mph (44.7 m/s) review of what happened this past week in Olympic sport:
Wednesday: After some reversals in Federal court, the NCAA has formed a working group to figure out how to reform its rules to allow collegiate athletes to be paid for the use of their name and likeness. There's a good idea here, but let's not kid ourselves. This will likely create just as problems as it purports to solve.
Friday: Australian Olympic insider John Coates, a close advisor to International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach, says the Games of the XXV Olympiad could be awarded as early as 2020 (!) and that Australia is in a prime position to get the event!
Monday: The IAAF Council decided to keep Russia on suspension and the federation's task force is well aware of some shenanigans going on with a doping violation cover-up and some suspended coaches showing up in the wrong place. The head of the Russian Olympic Committee was not amused. The IAAF also decided to change its name and logo, both of which are dumb moves.
HEARD AFTER HALFTIME
Thursday: Another doping positive from the London 2012 Games, this time in canoeing … sad news of the passing of U.S. distance star Gabe Grunewald … LSU frosh Sha'Carri Richardson turns pro … Calgary's 2026 Winter Games bid effort and vote cost half as much as expected … and more.
Monday: The 50th World Archery World Championships are underway in the Netherlands and Brady Ellison leads a strong U.S. presence among 30 prior Olympic or Worlds medal winners in Recurve and Compound. And there is Olympic qualifying the line.
Thursday: Sold-out Bislett Games in Oslo saw six world-leading marks, including 9.85 for U.S. star Christian Coleman in the 100 m, but the race of the day was teen Sydney McLaughlin rocketing down the straight to fly by Rio Olympic champ Dalilah Muhammad in the women's 400 m hurdles! Wow!
Tuesday: The last major tune-up for the World Championships is in Warsaw (POL), with many of the top teams in the world looking for medals. Can anyone stop Norway's Anders Mol and Christian Sorum from winning their fourth major tourney is a row?
Thursday: The final tune-up for the Tour de France is the Tour de Suisse that starts this weekend, with an excellent field and the return of Colombian star Egon Bernal from a broken collarbone.
Tuesday: The United States women's National Team pummeled Thailand by 13-0 in the FIFA Women's World Cup, a new record for the most goals in a World Cup game. Alex Morgan had five alone – tying the record – but our exclusive look at the first round of matches shows this tournament is all about Europe … so far.
Thursday: The 15th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup starts Saturday, with matches in the U.S., Costa Rica and Jamaica. Mexico is the hot favorite, and what about the U.S, losers of its last two friendlies, to Jamaica and Venezuela?
Thursday: New Zealand can win its fifth World Rugby Sevens Series title in the final leg of the season this weekend in France, while the U.S. women can clinch their highest finish ever and a spot in the Tokyo 2020 tournament!
Wednesday: Modest fields for the final Tyr Pro Swim Series meet in Clovis this week, but perhaps a new star to look for in 2020?
Wednesday: Strong marks at the Australian World Championships Trials, as Emma McKeon and Ariarne Titmus going 1-2 in the 400 m Freestyle in the second and third-fastest times of the season. Plus American Michael Andrew moving to no. 3 for 2019 in the 50 m Back at the Mare Nostrum series in France, and the dozen swimmers who earned $50,000 or more at the FINA Champions Swim Series.
Thursday: Cate Campbell swam the sixth-fastest women's 100 m Free in history at the Australian World Championships Trials, and three more Aussie stars weren't far behind. Plus another win for Mitch Larkin, his third at the Trials.
Canoe-Kayak: Slalom World Cup season begins at the London 2012 venue.
Cycling: Tour de France warm-up, the Criterium du Dauphine in France.
Cycling: Another Tour de France warm-up, the Tour de Suisse in the Swiss Alps.
Table Tennis: Best in the world lined up for the Japan Open in Hokkaido!
Highlights of the coming week, with previews in the coming days on TheSportsExaminer.com:
● Athletics: The IAAF Diamond League is in Rabat (MAR) for another meet on Sunday!
● Football: The Women's World Cup continues and the CONCACAF Gold Cup begins!
● Wrestling: USA Wrestling's final Final X showdown comes Saturday in Lincoln.
And, don't look now, but the IOC will soon select the host for the 2026 Winter Games.
TSX Speed Read
Previous articleSWIMMING: Smith and Pickrem win two each in Tyr Pro Swim at Clovis
Next articleSWIMMING Panorama: Australian trials finish with three world leaders and a powerful Worlds team


text:
El premio Joaquim Amat-Piniella es un premio literario en lengua catalana convocado por Òmnium Cultural del Bages - Moianès y el Ayuntamiento de Manresa en recuerdo del escritor e intelectual manresano Joaquim Amat-Piniella. El premio se libra anualmente en la ciudad de Manresa.

Historia
Se creó en 2000 a iniciativa de la delegación en el Bages de Òmnium Cultural, con la colaboración del Ayuntamiento de Manresa, la Fundación Caixa Manresa y la Editorial Columna. En un principio estaba destinado a premiar novelas históricas inéditas centradas en algún gran movimiento social y contemporáneo y estaba dotado con 2.500 euros.

A partir de 2007 se da un nuevo enfoque a la convocatoria. El premio tiene que recaer en una obra narrativa, novela o libro de memorias, que refleje una preocupación social hacia el mundo contemporáneo. También se dejan de premiar originales inéditos y se distinguen obras publicadas durante el año anterior. La dotación económica desaparece, pero se recupera en 2019 con una dotación de 2000 euros para la obra ganadora y se otorga al ganador un galardón en forma de escultura diseñada por el escultor manresano Ramon Oms.

En la actualidad organiza el premio Òmnium Cultural Bages - Moianès y el Ayuntamiento de Manresa en colaboración con la Biblioteca del Casino, el Gremi de Llibreters de Catalunya, l'Associació Misteriosa Llum i l'Associació Memòria i Història de Manresa.

Ganadores

 2001 Rafael Vallbona por La comuna de Puigcerdà
 2002 Manuel Valles y Norberto Delisio por Caminar sobre gel
 2003 Desierto
 2004 Josep Maria Loperena por La casa del fanalet vermell
 2005 Desierto
 2006 Agustí Segarra por La ciutat en flames
 2007 Antoni Pladevall por Terres de lloguer
 2008 Joan Garrabou por Confessió general
 2009 Jordi Coca por La noia del ball
 2010 Sílvia Alcàntara por Olor de Colònia
 2011 Jordi Puntí por Maletes Perdudes
 2012 Jordi Estrada por Rius paral·lels
 2013 Rafel Nadal por Cuando érem feliços
 2014 Monika Zgustová por La nit de Vàlia
 2015 Pep Cuello por Dos taüts negres i dos de blancs
 2016 Joan Daniel Bezsonoff para Matar De Gaulle
 2017 Martí Domínguez por La sega
 2018 Ramon Solsona por Allò que va passar a Cardós
 2019 Joan Lluís-Lluís por Jo soc aquell que va matar Franco
 2020 Marta Marín-Dòmine para Fugir era el bell que teníem
 2021 Àlvar Valls por Entre l'infern i la glòria
 2022 Vicenç Villatoro por La casa dels avis
 2023 Maite Salord per El país de l'altra riba

Referencias

Enlaces externos

 Historia y premiados
 Historia y finalistas 2013

Joaquim Amat-Piniella
Joaquim Amat-Piniella
Joaquim Amat-Piniella


Amy is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania holding a Bachelor of Science Degree in "Child Development and Family Relations". She previously worked in Child Care over a four year period before stepping up to the challenge to partner with Cross Cut Church in launching Cross Cut Child Care Center.
Amy lives in Patton with her husband and two young children. She is a member of Cross Cut Church where she is a active in teaching children in Jr. Church. Amy is passionate about growing and nurturing children into all that God has designed them to be.
Tracy is a graduate from Clarion University with a Bachlehor of Science degree in Early Childhood/Elementary Education and a Bachelors of Arts in Sociology. She has her Level I PA Certificate, on her way to recieving her Level II.
Tracy has eleven years experiece working with children of various settings: daycare, preschool, church. Tracy and her husband, Jason reside in Patton with their daughter Kay. Tracy enjoys doing cross stitch and watching her favorite sports team on TV. Her favorite color is purple.
Heather is a graduate of Carlow University holding a Bachelors of Arts in Early Childhood Education. Heathers has twelve years of child care experience (Group supervisor, Assistant Director and Subsitute teacher at Cambria Heights). Seeing the excitment on a child's face when they finally understand what she is teaching is her favorite thing about working with kids.
Heather resides in Northern Cambria with her husband Brad. They have three children. Heather enjoys spending time with her family, going to the beach and softball/baseball games.
Ali is the youngest of our staff, but don't let that fool you. She has many years experience with children. As a teenager she was the go-to babysitter in her extended family. She has been active in Cross Cut Church for over eight years, participating in Youth Ministry, Sunday School all while voluteering in the church nursery and Vacation Bible School program.
Mandy holds a Certificate in Child Development Association and has worked in Child Care for over ten years. Mandy is fabulous with our infants. For past five years she has worked with infant/toddlers. It takes a special person to know what a baby needs without the ability for them to communicate.
She is a member of Cross Cut Church and is active working with children in nursery and the Vacation Bible School program. Mandy lives in Hastings and has three children. She loves to be outdoors and taking walks. Her favorite color is blue and her favorite food is "sweets."


In the fall the upland hunting here is great, there are thousands of acres which are owned and made accessible by the larger paper companies. Sportsmen enjoy the vast alder swamps and hill country that makes the region's woodcock and grouse seasons so fantastic. There are record size deer on the ridges and hillsides; you are smack in the middle of the best moose country in the state. The bear population is high if you choose to hunt the bruins.
In the Winter we have one of the most extensive trail systems in the East. The Pittsburg Snowmobile Club pittsburgridgerunners.org has several groomers to cover the trail system that interconnect with Maine, Vermont, and Canada. You can reach the trails from your cabin and once to them, have a great trip through the woods and mountains ahead of you. Gas is readily available.
With Spring and ice-out the area attracts fishermen to some of the most unspoiled, seldom visited, cleanest and most beautiful high-country ponds and beaver flowages in the Northeast. Back Lake is a 359 acre cold spring fed lake that holds brook trout, brown trout and an abundance of rainbow trout. The lodge has boats, available for rental or bring your own boat, there is a boat ramp a short distance from the lodge.
Miles of ATV riding fun can be found in Pittsburg. The Great North Woods Riders ATV Club greatnorthwoodsatv.org maintains a trail system on 8,000 acres of privately owned land. There are approximately 60 miles of trails ranging from graveled roads to tight wooded trails with some muddy areas.
Hiking, Swimming and Bicycling are some other area activities that are enjoyed by all.


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The Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards are a division of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The division was founded in 1981 and serves the Mid-Atlantic states and regions.  In addition to granting the Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards, it recognizes awards scholarships, honors industry veterans at the Silver Circle Celebration, conducts National Student Television Awards of Excellence, has a free research and a nationwide job bank. The chapter also participates in judging Emmy entries at the regional and national levels.

References

Regional Emmy Awards
Awards established in 1981
1981 establishments in the United States


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Editorials » Hobbies and Interests » Gaming »
How To Play Fantasy Baseball
By: Billy Beansprout
The first thing you want to do to play fantasy baseball is find, or form, a fantasy baseball league. Ten to twelve teams is usually the norm in a league, though you may have anywhere from four to 24 teams in a given league. Each team in the fantasy league must consist of 23 players. Many of the leagues you will find use only American or National League players, so the number of quality players is limited.
Your team's roster will consist of nine pitchers, five outfielders, two catchers, one player for each of the three bases, a middle infielder, one corner man, and a miscellaneous player (designated hitter in AL based fantasy leagues, utility man in NL based fantasy leagues.
Players: Choosing Your Team
Each owner is given a list of players, and their eligible positions on draft day. There are two methods used to select your team in a fantasy baseball league. One method is the draft method, the other is the auction method.
Draft method- The teams are arranged in a random order. Following this order, owners take turns selecting players until all teams have twenty three players. The draft order is usually reversed for even numbered rounds. Before drafting starts, decide if the league will wipe the slate clean for the next season, or whether it will protect seven to fifteen players.
Auction method- In the auction method, each fantasy baseball team owner will start with 260 units of credit. Owners will take turns opening bids on players. Bidding proceeds, as with a normal auction, until only the highest bidder remains. Bidding will have a minimum increase of one unit of credit. With the auction method, you can force teams to stay under the 260 credit unit salary cap, or allow the purchase of remaining players once the bidding is complete and the owners have their teams completed.
Players and Their Eligibility
A player may play any position that he played in at least 20 major-league games the previous year. If he doesn't have a position that he did play 20 times, he is eligible for the position he played the most often. The player is also allowed to play any position that he may appear in through the season.
How Fantasy Baseball is Scored
Cumulative scoring system-
There are a total of eight categories each team will be scored on. These are batting averages (pitcher excluded), home runs, runs batted, stolen bases, run average, wins, saves, and WHIP (Walks and Hits divided by total Innings Pitched). At the end of the season, each team is ranked from first to last in each category. In a ten team league, first place in each category will receive ten points. Second place receives nine, so on and so forth. The champion of the league is determined by the highest score at the end of the year.
Head to head scoring system-
Based on the same eight categories, teams play a game each week with another franchise. Each team will receive a point for each category they win, and ties are thrown away. Alternatively, teams can receive two points for wins, and one point for ties. If tied games will not be allowed to stand, strikeouts, doubles, runs, triples, and home team wins are excellent tie breaking categories.
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Why the Hell Is Richard III Trending on Twitter?
By Stephen Marche
History made one of its strangest entries into modern life yesterday. English scholars and archeologists declared that the body they had exhumed from a parking lot was beyond a reasonable doubt that of Richard III of England, who died at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. While the discovery is weird enough in itself, it's not nearly as weird as what happened next: Richard III started trending on Twitter. Many kings have died in bizarre ways, but the afterlife of Richard is unique. It's also oddly contemporary.
There is something perfect about the discovery of Richard III's body being announced to the public just after the launch of House of Cards, which is the latest iteration of his story. The Netflix show, with its Machiavellian intrigues and evil protagonist, is the latest version of Richard III — highly derivative of Shakespeare's play, and a role in which House of Cards's lead Kevin Spacey triumphed recently at BAM. For five hundred years now, that story has represented the threat of abuse that inevitably occurs in a government with a systematic way of passing down legitimacy. He is a monster-hero who, despite physical weakness, manages to worm his way into power through sheer manipulation and a purified spirit of malevolence, before getting his comeuppance. It's a fun story, mainly because the struggle for power is so frequently evil and also so deeply entertaining. That's what's unique about Richard and the legends that have accrued around him. Many fables of power, like The Lord of the Rings, can describe corruption well, but they take it so seriously. One aspect that they miss is the sheer entertainment value of dirty politics.
Richard has come to represent something else, which is equally contemporary: the abuse of history. The case of Richard III may be the one example in which the conspiracy theorists are actually right. The narrative of Richard was constructed after his death, first by Thomas More and then, later and more importantly, by Shakespeare. Their take on Richard was unfair to say the least, painting him as an illegitimate, child-murdering tyrant. They were trying to please their Tudor masters who had to justify their victory in the War of the Roses. The story stuck despite its obvious motivations. It continues to stick even after its validity has more or less disintegrated. It's hard to run PR against Shakespeare.
Several pundits have claimed that Richard III was the first "victim of spin," and they're not entirely wrong, although his defeat involved five hundred years of history rather than some random twenty-four hour news cycle. He was certainly at the beginning of a political order in which the struggle to control the story was as important as the struggle to control the battlefield. We are still living in that reality. The most amazing thing about Richard's body emerging from the parking lot is how little has changed since he was buried under it five hundred years ago.
Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture.
Stephen Marche Stephen Marche is a novelist who writes a monthly column for Esquire magazine about culture.
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