>> The Switch
>> Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
>> The Other Guys
>> Salt
>> Inception
>> Cyrus
>> The Last Airbender
>> Grown Ups
>> Toy Story 3
>> The Human Centipede

Opening 9.10.10
>> Resident Evil: Afterlife (R) [trailer]
>> Bran Nue Dae (Limited) (Not Rated) [trailer]
>> Heartbreaker (Limited) (Not Rated) [trailer]
>> I'm Still Here (Limited) (Not Rated) [trailer]
>> Legendary (Limited) (PG-13) [trailer]
>> Lovely, Still (Limited) (PG) [trailer]
>> The Romantics (Limited) (PG-13)
>> The Virginity Hit (Limited) (R) [trailer]

Coming To DVD/Blu-Ray 9.7.10
>> Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season [buy]
>> The Office: Season Six [buy]
>> Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season [buy]
>> Jillian Michaels: Shred-It With Weights [buy]
>> Criminal Minds: Fifth Season [buy]

Las Vegas: Satan Vacations Here
by Victoria Alexander
December 18, 2006

Celebrities “Alters,” Namibia, Angelina “Womb Raider” Jolie, Apocalypto, Las Vegas Film Critics Society Top Ten Films of 2006, Britain’s New Jack The Ripper, TDH friend Dee Wolfe, and more...

Me and Mini-Me. Forget the devil! Just blame it on the “Other You.” Remember when having Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) was all the rage? The Skeptics Dictionary defines MPD thus:

“MPD is a psychiatric disorder characterized by having at least one "alter" personality that controls behavior. The "alters" are said to occur spontaneously and involuntarily, and function more or less independently of each other. The unity of consciousness, by which we identify our selves, is said to be absent in MPD. Another symptom of MPD is significant amnesia which can't be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV replaced the designation of MPD with DID: dissociative identity disorder. The label may have changed, but the list of symptoms remained essentially the same.” (Photo of Joanne Woodward in “The Three Faces of Eve.”)

For megastars being just one person is not enough! The great unwashed masses only have one personality. Singer Christina Aguilera has an alternative personality she calls “Xtina.” Madonna’s alter is called “Esther.” Singer/actor Tyrese has a personality he calls "Black Ty." Tyrese said: "Black Ty can rhyme about things that Tyrese would never be able to sing about."

For me, the trend gained fire when comedian Andy Kaufman created an abusive alter called “Tony Clinton.” (pictured) Garth Brooks tried recording as alter Chris Gaines. Now comes indulged “Dreamgirls” star Beyoncé Knowles who tells Parade magazine that it isn’t her onstage – it’s her alter “Sasha.”

Beyoncé says: “I become someone else when I'm onstage. I call that stage persona 'Sasha.’ I wouldn't like Sasha if I met her off stage. She's "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy, too sexy! I'm not like her in real life at all. I'm not flirtatious and super-confident and fearless like her. What I feel onstage I don't feel anywhere else. It's an out-of-body experience. I created my stage persona . . . so that when I go home, I don't have to think about what it is I do. Sasha isn't me. The people around me know who I really am."

Namibia. From Kasane, Bostwana, we again took light aircraft to the Kwando airstrip near our Namibia Lianshulu Lodge. Namibia is now world famous as the birthplace of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. The region we stayed at is known as the Caprivi Strip. Our private lodge was in the Mudumu National Park on the banks of the Kwando River. The Lianshulu Lodge was being run nearly single-handedly by Thorsten Hinz (pictured). Ladies, get those passports ready! Thorsten is 21 years old and single! His email is thrstnhnz@yahoo.com. While the staff at the Lianshulu Lodge was highly effective but near-invisible, Thorsten was always available and eager to be helpful.

The Lianshulu Lodge was rustic (left) and we were there during big flying insect season. One evening a huge flying creature flew straight at me hitting me in the eye. I threw up my hands and screamed to my husband: “That’s it! Bring my dinner to my tent! I surrender.” The highlight of our stay in Namibia was seeing a leopard with its fresh kill. We also visited a local Lizauli village (right). The other photo is from our evening “Sundowner.”

Womb-raider. Radar Online is calling Jolie “Womb-raider.” Radar says: Must ... have ... orphans: Womb-raider Angelina Jolie tells People magazine, "I'd like to add many more children and many more obstacles and many more things to my life." (photo of the luckiest girl, known in the blogsphere as “The Ethiopian Hostage” Zahara Jolie-Pitt)

Holiday Movies. This past week I saw “The History Boys” (gay propaganda), “Eragon” (awful), “Breaking and Entering” (awful), “Miss Potter” (charming), “Apocalypto” (brilliant), “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” (deliciously perverse), “Pan’s Labyrinth” (a cruel fairy tale), and “The Dead Girl” (darkly fascinating).

Apocalypto. It is a daring masterpiece. When all the member’s votes were tallied, the Las Vegas Film Critic Society honored “Letters From Iwo Jima” as The Number One Film of the Year. In my opinion, “Apocalypto” is the best film of the year, and I should know. I’ve seen them all. Here is what is so impressive about “Apocalypto”: It looks authentic. We have never seen anything so foreign but so realistic. And, it is a harrowing adventure story. The story is a compelling drama that never lets up. It is not, as some has suggested, Mel Gibson’s continued passion for sadism. In my opinion, Gibson, whether he knows it or not, has tapped into the Elysian Mysteries.

Why whitewash the cruelty of the Mayan civilization? Gibson’s brilliance as a filmmaker is that the film does not have a message. We have instilled “Apocalypto” with a message. This is its true power.

Gibson just told a riveting, exciting story. But, in doing so, he has made us think. I do not want to be preached to. I do not want Hollywood to make me a better person.

Did the Mayan rulers actually believe that daily human sacrifices would keep the Sun rising every day or make the corn grow? Did they really believe human sacrifices would keep their women fertile? Were there more practical reasons for the Mayan industry of human sacrifice?

Human sacrifice throughout history is a fact. It’s just got a different patina now. We have coated it with the hallowed word “democracy.” Abraham, the founding patriarch of the Israelites, was commanded by God to offer his son up as a sacrifice. Clearly, this was something that was commonplace at the time. Proceeding to obey, Abraham was prevented by an angel as he was about to sacrifice his son, and slew a ram instead. This symbolically ended human sacrifice and transferred it to animals. We continue the practice by burning Church candles.

Bloodletting. Mayan bloodletting practices also served to witness the form of god or an ancestor. At the height of an elaborate ceremonial dance performed before thousands in a large plaza, the king would pierce his penis using the spine of a sting-ray, as blood from genitals was considered especially powerful. The queen at this time would splice her tongue. String would be drawn through their wounds to further increase the blood flow. Blood caught on strips of paper would be burned in a ceremonial fire and produce columns of smoke in which a shape of a god would be observed by a hallucinating king (due to the affects of blood loss, drugs and fasting).

Las Vegas Film Critics Society Top Ten Films of 2006. Our balloting is finished for the year and here are the Top Ten Films of 2006 thanks to the hard work of tallying the ballots by our president, Jeff Howard. (1) Letters From Iwo Jima, (2) The Departed, (3) Babel, (4) United 93, (5) Dreamgirls, (6) Blood Diamond, (7) Thank You For Smoking, (8) Perfume, (9) The Queen, (10) Flags of Our Fathers.

The Suffolk Strangler. Britain has another Jack The Ripper. He’s being called “The Suffolk Strangler” after five prostitutes in the eastern England town of Ipswich have been found murdered. Former top cop Lord Stevens profiles the serial killer that has galvanized the country. According to Lord Stevens, he will soon be caught, within a week or ten days, so let’s take a look at some excerpts from what Lord Stevens profile says:

“The Suffolk Strangler lives just half a mile from where he killed his first victim. His home is probably within a mile of where he dumped her body too. He still lives there and has a carefully chosen bolthole, a "killing room" where he takes his victims to kill and keep at his pleasure. He's a clean, relatively smartly dressed man in his 30s with a job and a good IQ, quite well thought of by those who know him, quite possibly married and he drives a presentable car or van.

“And, at the very least, he has attacked or even killed women BEFORE the murders in this current series of linked slayings. For I fear the five murders we know of in Ipswich are the climax of his orgy of violence, NOT the start.

“But who is he? Men like the Suffolk Strangler are what is known as "organized" killers. That is they are not someone who kills spontaneously in a frenzy, then thinks afterwards about how to get away with their crime. This is a man who has fantasised long and hard about this killing, and has planned as far as possible (perhaps for years) down to the smallest detail about how to live out that fantasy of murder and not get caught afterwards.

“He has planned too how to survive in society while he moves towards that objective. Organised serial killers like this man generally have higher than average IQs — they have to keep up their double life. It's very unusual for an explosion of murders to suddenly happen like this. It feels more to me that this is the climax, rather than the explosive start, of this serial killer's career.” News Of the World - Online Edition

Life in the 1500’s. Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, “saved by the bell” or was considered a “dead ringer.”

A friend of TDH: Dee Wolfe. Dee Wolfe has been a “scribbling poet” for 40 years and is a faithful reader of TDH. He has studied, and sat at the feet of the masters, and has known the likes of Mark Strand, Larry Levis, Allen Ginsburg, and Charlie Potts (who used to read to him his letters from Charles Bukowski).

Dee is also a very talented nature photographer.

Dee writes: “I have scribbled reams and reams, and studied to the very frontiers of my feeble intelligence the sublime verse of Emily Dickinson, the greatest of us all, to whom I tip a humbled hat. I have produced my share of drivel. I have been publicly humiliated for taking a stand, and have fought my fights and lost a good many as a poet who believes most sincerely in the cause of the transcendently beautiful.” With The Moonsong Round, composed in 1982, Dee reconciled the death of his sister in 1977 with the birth of his first son in 1979. themoonsonground.html

As I am a river wanting his source
So I travel on;
Unfamiliar grows the land
As I am gone.

Be a charter friend of TDH. Let me know what you are doing.

If you would like to contact me about this column, or be included on my private distribution list for a weekly reminder, just email me at Masauu@aol.com.

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