Drugs: The Tripper, Shrooms and…Severance?

Severance | the Tripper | Shrooms

Psychedelic drugs already have a terrible reputation and it seems like the new trend for horror writers is to make it even worse. It’s bad enough that in some movies the characters hallucinate cartoon birds when they take cocaine, just to use one example. Unrealistic portrayal of drug-use is essentially lying and can only hurt society in the long run. The most dangerous drugs are already legal anyway, and demonizing the drugs that have the most potential to help the people of the world can’t possibly be a good thing. Maybe this is a new tactic in the war on drugs, but hopefully not…since the similarities with Prohibition and the futility of the drug war are apparent even to former narcs and police. (Sorry that I’ve gone a little link crazy with this post, but the topic has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time now.)

(edit: this seemed too official to pass up-> Was Timothy Leary Right?)

 

Severance trailer

Severance starts out with a harmless enough drug trip, but the fact that horror-type things happen afterwards makes it almost like a Friday the 13th approach to sex…if you know what I mean. I liked the film overall and there was one scene (that they just about ruin in the trailer) involving Laura Harris (from season 2 of 24) with a shotgun that I thought was excellent, but a lot of the rest seemed like stuff I had seen before. The reviewers seem to like it a bit more than I did though: and why did they change the poster?

 

The Tripper trailer

Okay…I don’t know much about this one except the basic idea that “a Ronald Reagan-obsessed serial killer targets a bunch of hippies who are heading to a weekend-long concert”, but it seems to be continuing the thread I mentioned before. It’s David Arquette’s directorial debut though (and he supposedly did some “research” at Burning Man), so maybe the message won’t be totally counterproductive…and the fact that Jason Mewes is in it gives me even more hope.

 

Shrooms trailers (russian site)

I know even less about the movie Shrooms, but supposedly “a group of college students encounter tragedy while on hallucinogenic mushrooms” and with a premise like that it’s easy to imagine associations being made between tragedy and mushrooms (and if I’m sure of anything it’s that those two things should never go together.) The tagline, however, is “Get Ready to Get Wasted” and I have to admit…that’s pretty clever.

 

To continue the drug theme in this post I will leave you with something that I think is completely awesome: Kirsten Dunst believes the world would be a “better place” if more people smoked marijuana. I wish more people in prominent positions around the world had the guts to speak their minds when they disagree with the current system. I’ve already stated that cannabis is not my thing, but I think people should have the option if they want it. Besides…illegalizing nature just doesn’t even make sense.

a few updates

John Waters | Singer and McQuarrie | TMNT featurette

• I’m a big fan of John Waters, but not of the movies he makes. The only film of his that I’ve seen is Cecil B. Demented and, while I loved the premise, I felt that the movie did not live up to it’s potential. You might even say the story zig’d where I would have zag’d. In fact, I didn’t know he was the director when I saw the movie…I found out later when I watched a documentary on him. That documentary made me a fan. I really like what he’s about and what he was trying to do with his earlier films…even though they’re not really my thing (sidenote: cannabis is not my thing either and I don’t smoke it, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it didn’t exist…I don’t even like the fact that it’s illegal.) I will say this: John Waters is absolutely one of my favorite movie stars (he says that “a movie star is someone you want to either get drunk with or have sex with” and I’d love to get drunk with him) and I wish there were more people with such unique perspectives in the world. I like people that do their own thing and push the boundaries, so I think it’s delightful that he may soon be influencing young minds through film. This is what he had to say about the children’s movie he’s planning: “It’s a terribly wonderful children’s adventure called Fruitcake. It is a children’s film. One that I’ve been working on a long time, and I’m hoping to start shooting it in the fall. It’s a very special film, and it’s one that could appeal to children that are especially creative.” I can’t wait. And maybe I’ll get around to watching some of his other movies before this one comes out.

• Bryan Singer (X2, Superman Returns) and Christopher McQuarrie (Way of the Gun) are teaming up again for a multi-character ensemble piece set in World War II. The last time they worked together was The Usual Suspects, so you can guess how much I will be looking forward to this project. (edit 2: oh yeah…they’re saying that the next Superman movie will NOT be delayed because of this.)

• There’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles featurette with footage (heh) that isn’t in the trailers. It’s worth a watch and it touches on the individual personalities of each turtle.

Toy Story Requiem

this is completely amazing:

Toy Story 2 + Requiem for a Dream

effects of drugs on spiders

You may have heard of this already, but there seems to be some new information that’s just been brought to light. Several years ago some scientists exposed spiders to different drugs and photographed the effect that it had on their webs:

the web of the drug-free spider.

 

the web of a spider on caffeine.

 

the web of a spider on mecaline.

 

the web of a spider on LSD.

If you want to learn the shocking new information about the crack cocaine spider, go here.

beer goggles

The mystery of the “Beer Goggle” phenomenon scientifically explained:

An = number of units of alcohol consumed

S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)

L = luminance of ‘person of interest’ (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)

Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)

d = distance from ‘person of interest’ (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)

(the formula is real…I didn’t make this up)