-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Click Here: <A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.conspiracy:602687">MOVIE REVIEW: "Tailing the Millennium"</A> ----- Subject: MOVIE REVIEW: "Tailing the Millennium" From: Tin Foil Hat <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">tinfoilhat@my-deja. com</A> Date: Tue, Mar 14, 2000 4:11 PM Message-id: <8amkg6$i81$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "THE LAND OF THE LOST STORY" by Marian Hollenbeck Copyright 2000 (In "Tailing the Millennium", government cover-ups get by with a little help from friends in the media.) The director and narrator of "Tailing the Millennium: A Grassroots View of America in 1999" recounts at the beginning of her film the start of her love affair with conspiracy theories. As a child listening to the radio with her father, she would hear a particularly intriguing news item. "Sometimes we'd even hear it twice. And we'd sit and we'd wait and we'd wait for an expanded update but usually we would never, ever hear it again. It would just disappear so completely as to make me question whether or not I'd even really heard it the first time." After a well-rounded liberal education from her Canadian university ("I learned pretty quickly in University that your sole purpose as a student is to regurgitate back what the professor told you in order to get a good mark," she remarked), and having lived the high life for several years, Anna Zetchus decided to move to New York and actually put her acting talents to the test - which meant struggling and waitressing. It was there she met and married Benjamin Raetz, and not too long afterwards, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where their son Hamlet was born. Now a housewife, Anna was content to spend her spare time (what there was of it) surfing the Internet - "and there," she reveals, "I found the Land of the Lost Story." Her re-established relationship with the journalistic Bermuda Triangle was heightened in early 1999 upon viewing "Waco: The Rules of Engagement". The Davidians desired to be filmed by the press so that the American public could see them for who they really were - a tapestry of colors and backgrounds, a collected, peaceful group with men, women and children living in harmony. The FBI didn't allow the media inside, but gave the group a video camera. "The media had promised the Davidians they would show it, but then they stated they would not show the video in that they believed that the video would 'elicit a sympathetic response' from the American people," Anna asserted in our discussion. "That idea haunted me for a really long period of time because it embodied everything about how I was beginning to see that the powers that be do not want critical thinkers. They want happy consumers. I believe the American people were robbed in making their own decision or understanding truly the situation, or just seeing these people as fellow human beings, fellow Americans." So the Los Angeles housewife, with financial support from friends and well-wishers and the company of her loyal and patient husband, her son, and a photojournalist friend, armed herself with a Canon XL-1 camera, loaded up a Jeep Cherokee, and hit the road - about 8,500 miles worth in six and a half weeks - to pose questions about such topics as Y2K, Area 51, gun control, Waco, and the New World Order to those willing to answer in a provocative exercise of what Anna terms "guerrilla journalism" in her attempt to compare and contrast the information disseminated by the pro-government media versus what the experts - and the American public - truly know and believe about the controversial subjects touched upon in the film. Among the interviewees in "Tailing the Millennium" are students of Littleton, Colorado (which Anna compared to the "Cone of Silence" in the inability of the internal factors of that town to comprehend or discuss last year's Columbine High School massacre), people on the street in New York City, leading Biblical prophecy and governmental experts, an astrophysicist from Jet Propulsion Laboratories, a master practitioner of the occultic arts, members of the military current and past, maverick Internet journalists, the unofficial tour guide of the Branch Davidian site in Waco, Texas (a place Anna describes as "desolate, abandoned by God"), and the man whom Rush Limbaugh stated, according to a Clinton Administration memo, is the "most dangerous radio host in America". All of the subjects seemed willing and eager to talk about their pet causes save this last subject, underground radio host William Cooper, who had stringent stipulations on how his segment would be edited (not at all) and who would be permitted on his property to film him (Anna and the camera - only). Needless to say, it wasn't an easy project for the crew whose driving force was "a wing and a prayer". The average temperature on the road was 104 degrees. Disagreements among the crew heightened the level of tension as the journey went on. Several times the project was in danger of being scrapped due to dwindling finances. (After all was said and done, after having their fat pulled out of the fire on numerous occasions, the Raetz family returned home with a whopping three dollars remaining to their name.) Yet despite the hardships and debts, they came back to Los Angeles with 65 hours worth of footage. Then the real work and expense began. "People have a passion for filmmaking, and the best way to quench it is to make a movie," was Anna's wry commentary on her foray into guerrilla journalism. "For anyone who's making a movie - whatever it's going to cost you to make it, that is the exact same amount it is going to cost in post-production." At this writing, Anna still must rely on a financial miracle to complete the necessary editing and clean-up to bring her project up to her professional expectations. Not even to mention the herculean task of whittling 65 hours of film down to two hours and four minutes. Anna was at this point forced to determine how to put together (or rather, take apart) her leviathan, and decided that the editing process depended upon six captions and the appropriate topics that would fit within these captions. The results, in a word, are startling. The quality of the film, while redolent of a high-grade home movie, is surprisingly effective considering the spartan amount of equipment and the tiny production team, and the slightly muddy sound, rather than detracting from the caliber, actually sets a realistic mood throughout, even enhancing the more poignant aspects of the Waco segment and the increasingly ominous subject matter brought forth in the latter half of the film. The credit for the music belongs to Benjamin Raetz, whose results in setting the pace and tone of the film are stylish without lofty or unnecessary interference. "Tailing the Millennium" is liberally peppered with eminently quotable interviewees and speakers. The vigilant editing shines forth especially in a duel of religious opinions between Christian astrophysicist Hugh Ross and George Hiram Derby, a pagan former policeman now employed by Panpipes Magickal Marketplace in Hollywood. A healthy portion of this film incorporates footage of Washington, D.C.'s "Rally Against Treason" where Christopher Hitchens, a socialist writer for "Vanity Fair" magazine, and Alan Keyes, the most conservative of the Republican candidates for President, actually break bread together in their denunciation of a mendacious, arrogant government and its supportive toadies in the media, and the willingness of both to lie to the American people for the sake of hiding the government's insidious actions and its intent to deny the precepts of the Constitution, and as a result, facilitate a path towards increasing government tyranny. For this, both Hitchens and Keyes agree that the government and media must be held accountable for their complicity to rob Americans of their rights and freedoms. This was the main goal of "Tailing the Millennium", Anna admitted. "The American people have been successfully sedated. I wanted to provoke people to ask questions, to let them know they have to wake up to this no-accountability society." And although Anna confesses that even for herself her movie raises more questions than answers, surely "Tailing the Millennium" can be added to the woefully short list of films that aggressively demands answers from those powers in high places. ("Tailing the Millennium: A Grassroots View of America in 1999". Crosswalk Entertainment/Benanna Productions, 1999. Director: Anna Zetchus Raetz. Producer: Benjamin Raetz. Executive Producers: Viki Brooks, Michael Brysch, Benjamin Raetz. Director of Photography: Robert Stolarik. Editor: Derek Vaughn. Production Assistants: Cynthia Coldren, David Crisler. Featuring interviews with William Cooper, George Hiram Derby, Joseph Farah, Dr. Kent Hovind, Texe Marrs, Chuck Missler, Jeffrey R. Nyquist, and Dr. Hugh Ross. Running time: 124 min. For more information on the interview subjects and their sites, visit www.crosswalkentertainment.com) Sent via Deja.com <A HREF="http://www.deja.com/">http://www.deja.com/</A> Before you buy. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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