Peterka

Oceans Eleven 2 Stars (Average)

Ocean's Eleven is a confusing film about a $160 million heist of three Las Vegas casinos from an impenetrable safe 200 feet underground. I say confusing because it is not really evident whether Ocean's Eleven is supposed to be an action flick, a comedy, a crime story or a drama.

Director Steven Soderbergh tries to make this film slick and clever, and at times it is, but he is unable to pull it off and after awhile it becomes annoying.

This 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven features George Clooney as Danny Ocean who recruits 10 accomplices to pull off the heist. The cast includes Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan, Elliott Gould as Reuben Tishkoff, Bernie Mac as Frank Catton, Casey Affleck as Virgil Malloy and Scott Caan as Turk Malloy and some other lesser lights.

The 1960 original version of this remake featured Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop (otherwise known as the Rat Pack) and Angie Dickinson.

The brain trust for the writing of this screenplay shall remain nameless because what they wrote is inane. These luminaries penned such memorable lines as:

Danny (just released from prison): Now, they tell me I paid my debt to society.

Tess (his ex-wife played by Julia Roberts): Funny, I never got a check.

If that does not leave you rolling over in laughter, try:

Turk Malloy: Watch it, bud.

Virgil Malloy: Who you calling bud, pal?

Turk Malloy: Who you calling pal, friend?

Virgil Malloy: Who you calling friend, jackass?

Turk Malloy: Don't call me a jackass.

Virgil Malloy: I just did call you a jackass.

Not to be outdone, we also get this brilliant exchange:

Virgil Malloy: Are you a man?

Turk Malloy: Yes, nineteen.

Virgil Malloy: Are you alive?

Turk Malloy: Yes, eighteen.

Virgil Malloy: Evel Knievel.

Turk Malloy: (the "s" word).

This accurately depicts the lack of quality in the script, and any script too difficult to understand is not that good, and neither is this movie. Ocean's Eleven earned nothing in awards, even with Brad Pitt and George Clooney doing the honors.

Ocean's Eleven is also one of those films that uses indiscriminate cussing, typical Hollywood dialogue when the script, acting and direction cannot carry the film anywhere.

The Hours 2 Stars (Average)

The Hours features three depressed women from three different generations trying to cope with life, some Academy Award-winning performances and a story line that is even more depressing and repugnant.

Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is married and writing her book Mrs. Dalloway in England in 1923.

Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), who is pregnant and questioning her ability as a mother even though she already has a son, is reading Mrs. Dalloway in Los Angeles in 1951.

Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) is a career publisher in New York in 2001 who is about to throw a party for her friend Richard who is being honored as a poet and dying of AIDS.

All three of these depressed women are interconnected by Virginia Woolf's novel while all of the action takes place in one day in each of the time periods. Woolf is writing her book, Brown is reading the book, and Vaughan is a book publisher nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by her dying friend and former boyfriend Richard (Ed Harris).

As if this is not confusing enough, Director Stephen Daldy and Screenplay Writer David Hare chose to start this film in a totally disjointed fashion that takes the moviegoer too long to figure out what is happening unless they are familiar with Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Hours.

As if things are not heavy enough, all three women kiss another woman in the film, and all are involved in suicide. Virginia Wolf is mentally ill, a very unhappy lesbian at heart and ultimately commits suicide.

Laura Brown either attempts suicide or commits suicide (this movie is such a downer I do not remember which).

Vaughan, a lesbian in a relationship, sees Richard commit suicide by falling out of a window.

Overblown drama does not begin to describe how depressing and repugnant this film is, that is the bad news.

The upside, if there could possibly be one, is an Academy Award winning performance by Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf and the film earned 8 other Oscar nominations. The Hours knocked down 29 other wins and another 57 nominations. The make up on Kidman was so good I did not even recognize her.

In essence, The Hours is a much honored film you can barely strand to watch once because of its content and presentation. There will be no second viewing for me. I am glad that Kidman won a Best Actress Oscar, she deserved it.

Copyright 2006 Ed Bagley

Ed Bagley is the author of Ed Bagley's Blog, which he publishes daily with fresh, original writing intended to delight, inform, educate and motivate readers with articles about Internet Marketing, Careers, Movies and Life. Visit Ed at . . . http://www.edbagleyblog.com

Media coverage is extremely important when it comes to the image the world has about any group in society. It may even be decisive. And as for any other group, this is true for the erotic power exchange world as well. Since erotic power exchange is attracting more interest in society, it is only logical the phenomena gets increased media coverage. In addition, the current trend - especially in audiovisual media - to try and cover more eroticism in general contributes extra to this trend.

Journalists trying to cover the subject are faced with various difficulties and complications - the most important being the complexity of the subject as well as the difficulty to find people who feel comfortable with talking about their most intimate emotions in mass media. Next to that, to an outsider it is not easy to understand the cultural differences within the group and the subject takes up quite a bit of research and/or pre-production time as well as space or air time to cover it in a more serious way.

"The scene" does not exist

Despite what general opinion would like people to believe, there is no such thing as "an EPE (or BDSM) scene". Instead there are different cultures, different sexual preferences and most of all individuals and couples practicing or just fantasizing about power dynamics in an erotic setting. One of the main difficulties is that - as a result of the very individual determination of sexual behavior in general and with that erotic power exchange - it is extremely hard, if not entirely impossible to find common denominators. Hence talking to one or two people will only sketch THEIR views. These may be significantly different from others and are most certainly not THE views or opinions.

First of all, there are very distinct differences in culture, based on sexual preference. Homosexual EPE is very different in many aspects from its heterosexual equivalent. Homosexual men are - in their EPE-emotions - very different from homosexual women and within the heterosexual world the first main difference should be made between the Maledom/femsub (dominant man/submissive woman) and the Femdom(me)/malesub (dominant woman/submissive man) cultures. When concentrating on the heterosexual "world" only, one of the major differences is the fact that the Femdom(me) culture is dominated by women, who have made a profession out of their nature; a phenomena that is almost non-existent in the Maledom/femsub culture (although there are professional submissive women and -albeit extremely few - professional dominant men).

Most of the literature available is about homosexual erotic power exchange, where power dynamics are different, the culture is much outward oriented and - although this a dangerous generalization - generally speaking, more rough. In addition, there are many technical differences between homosexual and heterosexual EPE. Another very important consideration is that sexuality between members of the same sex is entirely different from sexuality between members of the opposite sex. Beyond these major variances, there are many other heterosexual-specific concerns, such as the fact that a heterosexual couple will usually be confronted with having to raise children. It is, therefore, impossible to rely on available literature when it comes to form an undistorted opinion on heterosexual erotic power exchange.

The image of erotic power exchange is, to a large extent, generated by both pornography on one end and one-sided, dysfunction-oriented clinical and scientific research. Hence the picture the media paint - for understandable reasons - is a picture very few erotic power exchange people would recognize. One of the main reasons for this sullied view of EPE is the fact that it is difficult for media to get people to talk about their emotions. The majority of people interviewed - since they are usually the only ones available - are people who are commercially active in the erotic power exchange world - predominantly dominatrixes. These people usually and again understandable, have a one-sided image. Professional EPE-activity is a commercial enterprise with the aim to make profit, not to express the person's own feelings towards a partner. Since the vast majority of EPE-professionals are dominatrixes, they will attract a very specific type of person, in particular submissive men. Very few of the clients a professional dominatrix has, have an active erotic power exchange relationship with their partner. And, the professionals interviewed have an entirely different agenda. Their motive is not to give unprejudiced information about their subject. Their first objective is to attract (more) clients and the immediate second motive is to make sure they stand out from their colleagues.

A picture based on alternate motives

Unfortunately, the EPE image is predominantly influenced by several elements all of which have ulterior motives. Non of them have had or currently have the objective to communicate unprejudiced information. Let's make an interesting list of the four most influential factors on the image of erotic power exchange:

Science

The majority of scientific publications on the subject originate from the psychological/psychiatric field. None of these publications deals with the power exchange between healthy, well-adjusted people, capable to make safe, sane, consensual, well-informed and conscious decisions. Instead, all these publications deal with people seeking help (usually from the author) and have been written primarily to advocate either one specific opinion or one specific treatment by one specific therapist. Unfortunately, there is no broad, large scale research available on the phenomena of EPE. It is estimated that as much as 30 percent of the adult population has erotic power exchange fantasies and is (potentially) active in this area. The largest group that has ever been the subject of research is a group from approximately two hundred people from one country. This can hardly be called representative for the world-wide group, hence all conclusions should not be projected on the entire population. Unfortunately, this happens all too frequently.

Furthermore, much of the available scientific research available and quoted, is extremely outdated. This is especially true for politicians, legislators and lawyers in many countries, who will go back and cite research that is at least thirty or forty years old. Whereas no court or scientific body in the world would accept other (semi)medical data that old as a basis for judgment, when it comes to erotic power exchange this is still generally accepted.

Pornography and pseudo-experts

These two groups are mentioned in one header deliberately because pseudo-experts predominantly style themselves on the pictures painted by pornography, sometimes cleverly validating themselves and their views by misquoting scientists. Both pornography and pseudo-experts have only one objective: to sell as many books, articles, magazines or videos and CD's as they possibly can. Erotic power exchange-related pornography is mainly sold to people who are NOT active in erotic power exchange. Much of what is sold is - unfortunately - quite often mistaken for information, especially by people who are new to the subject. The picture painted is not meant to give information, but instead, is meant to indulge fantasy. In these situations fantasy does not have to become reality, and when it comes to erotic power exchange, hardly ever does fully.

Media

Without making any judgments here, the media plays an important role in the image-building. Next to the difficulties sketched above - the fact that it is indeed extremely difficult to depict a clear image of EPE and the unintentional effect of dominatrixes - it is obvious that excess-oriented journalism does not help and, again, does not have the objective of communicating factual and independent information, but has the objective of selling copy as well as entertaining.

The "community" itself

Even though the various support groups put a lot of effort in trying to inform and educate, their efforts reflect the average lack of experience in mass communication as well as the variety of opinions that even the EPE community itself holds. None of the support groups, not even larger national groups like the USA National Leather Association, have any critical sway in the EPE community, compared to the number of people interested in the subject. This is again the result of both the variety of opinions held as well as the different cultures. Individual subgroups are only just finding out they have a different identity from other like-minded people. This is new and somewhat disturbing to many and it is difficult for groups as well as individuals to find and identify with a "new" identity.

These support groups are small. They do not have one-tenth of the budget, that scientists and especially pornography producers can use. There for it is a very uneven battle, trying to fight the misinformation with little more than a personal computer and a xerox-machine, when resources in the pornography industry are huge.

Finally, there are the well meant efforts of individuals, especially on the Internet, to try and build personal home pages that provide "information". Such information is usually highly individual (and as such useful for identification purposes) and of little or no relevance for a more general informational approach.The bottom line is that the information/misinformation ratio is about 10:90. It is no wonder the image the outside world has is the wrong image; an image that has very little to do with the day-to-day practice of erotic power exchange.

Author Hans Meijer is the chairman of the Powerotics Foundation, an organisation dedicated to providing quality information about alternative lifestyles.

"Abstinence" in society is a rather rare sexual lifestyle. "Abstinence" among Roman Catholic clergy is the norm and in other forms of Christianity far from uncommon among the clergy. Yet, while all "non-mainstream" forms of sexuality are object of fierce debate (and sometimes even crusade), "abstinence" is not. In fact, it is often praised as a virtue.

This is a strange situation.

While procreation is considered important by Christianity, the actual act (and as such the sex) is reserved for the people. The Christian leadership (or lower, middle and upper management if you prefer more modern terms) is excluded from the act itself, the gift of life and such things as parenthood. All these are considered virtues, yet withheld from the management. Among these, a very rare form of alternative sexuality (not having any) is advocated.

Meaning: if you want to be part of "the management" you have to adhere to an alternative lifestyle. Apparently alternative lifestyles are important. Even better, adhering to a specific alternative lifestyle is an important part of what separates the cattle from the sheep.

Now suppose we turn the table (for arguments' sake) and the alternative lifestyle community would start to condemn and fight "abstinence" with the same vigor as others condemn and fight them. All in all the "alternative lifestyle community" is a huge segment of the worlds' population. If alternative sex would be a binding factor or an important political issue for voters it is not unlikely one third of any government would probably be gay, into BDSM, fetishism and polyamory. Suppose the debate was not about gay marriage, but about these horrible deliberately and wilfully unmarried people? Would that not be strange?

It does not matter if you advocate a religious or evolution-based theory. Both will put procreation in front of everything else. Life is valuable to both. Wether "life" is God-given or the result of a long evolutionary trail - as far as the importance of life is concerned - is actually only a secondary argument. Those into "abstinence" for religious reasons refuse to take part in this - apparently and without question important - process. They wave their option to procreate, so to speak. They have to, otherwise they quite often cannot be part of "the management". This leads to an interesting philosophical question: "Can it be a requirement for your management to not use the God-given ability?"

Fact of the matter is that the alternative lifestyle community will not turn the table. For a very simple reason: they respect other peoples' views and lifestyle choices. So, as far as they are concerned, "abstinence" will never be subject of debate. In fact, they are likely to even join forces with clergy and others, should "abstinence" ever become subject of debate. Simply because the alternative lifestyle community considers it an important personal (human) right to choose your "sexual format" (no I am not going into the "it is not a choice, I was born like this" debate).

The point I want to make is this: if a form of alternative sexuality is a pivotal factor to clergy (and at least among Roman Catholics it is), clergy by definition should adhere to the right to make your own sexual lifestyle choices. Or should they not?

Hans Meijer, a Dutch former journalist and government spokesmen, is the chairman for the Powerotics Foundation. This organisation is dedicated to provide quality information about alternative lifestyles.

The early summer period is considered ideal for you to take care of your neglected self, to rectify any of your bad winter habits, to find the necessary time to improve your health and fitness levels, to offer some small "gifts" to your body and consecutively to improve the quality of your life. Following the above list is not something one should recommend only to people that are healthy and fit, but most importantly to those who work too much, are always under stress, do not engage in any type of physical activity, and of course, have bad eating habits.

Reduce the Stress Factor: This comes first in this list of advices, since stress is directly related with a variety of health problems. Experts suggest that those suffering from stress should sleep for 30 minutes during the day; apart from the required 6-8 hours of night sleep. Even if your work does not allow you to be home before 6 p.m. try sleeping for half an hour when you get back. It is rejuvenating and equals two hours of night sleep. Moreover, instead of watching TV you should listen to your favorite music, sit comfortably on the couch and read something pleasant. The continuous parade of images on the TV screen increases your stress levels, while reading and listening to a tune can both entertain you and help you reexamine your worries later with a clear head.

Eat Healthier Food: Apart from stress, the high levels of sugar in your blood in combination to an unhealthy diet you follow can weaken your heart. Thus, you should add to your daily nutrition, foods that contain fibers, like whole grain products, fruits and vegetables, pulse, etc. If you cannot say goodbye to sweet flavors, it is best for you to eat dark chocolate, honey roasted nuts or dried fruits. These will provide you with the sugar you want to taste, but will not add tremendously to your daily calorie intake.

Find Time to Exercise: Imperative for your good health and your normal heart's operation is to exercise regularly and frequently. If it is difficult to find those extra minutes during the day to visit the gym or participate in any sport, select to use the public transportation that is available in your area and get off one stop before your final destination in order to walk; if that is feasible of course. If you have to drive, try parking five minutes further away from your house or office and then walk the rest of the distance. Use the stares instead of the elevator and during the weekend if you select to dine outside your house, go somewhere that you can walk before dinning (e.g. sea, mountain).

Drink Water: Extremely important for your body to stay fit is to drink water. Water is one of the few things you should never exclude from your diet. Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water a day and try to choose water instead of a soda drink or coffee during or after dinning.

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles for http://fitness-talk.net/ - In addition, Jonathon also writes articles for http://forahealthyman.com/ and http://learntobecloser.com/