Frightened Critics Torch Movie to Protect the Revolution

I am editing photos from our trip to Switzerland and Italy. It’s a real challenge. In the past, my cameras shot JPG files, and after that, I adjusted them to some degree (or not), and that was that. Now I am shooting raw files, and I have to use a program to make them look nice.

My knowledge of digital photography is weak, but if I understand things correctly, a JPG is an edited photo. If your camera shoots JPG’s, it’s editing them before storing them, based on some set of parameters nerds put in there. The photo you end up with doesn’t contain all the data your sensor picked up, because the camera discards it to save space. A JPG is pre-edited to look pretty good, and it usually works.

A raw file is whatever your camera picks up, whether it looks good or not. Your job is to take the file and mess with it until you like it. Because the file is raw, there is a lot more to work with, so you can make much larger adjustments without ruining the shot.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m sitting here being disappointed over and over in the shots I took, because a lot of them look horrid when I open them. But they do clean up well, in many cases.

Editing is slow because I am not used to Photoshop. It’s not like my old copy of Photoshop Elements, which was very easy to use right from the start.

I’ll post a couple of shots. Not life-changing, but good enough to prove we went somewhere.

I’m taking a break right now because I hate Photoshop.

I’m thinking about a movie I saw during the trip. I rarely watch movies because Hollywood is an abcess and I think God does not like fiction, but when you are stuck in a tiny hotel room with covid, and you have three woke-country TV channels in English (they all seem exactly the same), you will be tempted to expand your options.

Somehow I came across a Youtube clip of a film about demonic possession. I don’t like entertainment about the occult, but I found the clip compelling, and my wife wanted to see the movie, so we watched the entire film. Maybe this was hypocritical. Not sure. You have to be careful with bright lines.

The movie is called Nefarious, and it’s about a serial killer who is about to be executed. A psychiatrist is engaged to determine whether he’s sane enough to kill, and the psychiatrist commits suicide. A doctor the psychiatrist mentored replaces him, and the movie consists mostly of his interview with the murderer.

The murderer says he is completely possessed. He rarely speaks as his human self. He says his name is “Nefariamus,” and he tells the second doctor that he, the doctor, will become famous for writing a new book: the dark gospel.

The doctor is an atheist, so you can imagine how impressed he is at first.

The demon tells the doctor all about Satan’s kingdom and the things Satan’s spirit cronies have done to destroy the world. Abortion, every type of immorality Hollywood loves…you name it. He explains why evil spirits hate God and how this hatred is the foundation of their unprovoked cruelty to human beings. It’s really something to hear. It’s pretty accurate.

Most Christian movies are bad or mediocre, but this one features top-notch acting and dialogue. It’s low budget for sure. Almost all of it takes place in one room. But Sean Patrick Flanery, the actor who played the killer, was nothing short of spellbinding. Everyone enjoys a clever, superhuman film villain, and I thought this guy was better than Anthony Hopkins.

The movie has its flaws. Not all of the actors are great, and there were things that could have been improved, but it was very good. Certainly better than much of the garbage that brings people major awards these days. Like I always say, Cher and Marisa Tomei got Oscars.

Those awards seemed remarkable to me, because I did not yet live in a world where a huge man in ladies’ underwear could win a prize for giving a girl brain damage in a volleyball match.

Having seen Nefarious, I wondered why I had never heard of it before.

Of course, the obvious occurred to me. We live in a world where Barack Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize for winning an election, but Donald Trump, a man known for spreading peace, was ignored after putting the Abraham Accords together. Maybe the critics had killed the movie because it honored God and exposed their industry’s patron spirits.

Well, here is a screenshot for you.

That’s from Rotten Tomatoes, the famous site where critics and actually human beings review films side by side. In case you don’t know, the critics say movies are “fresh” or “rotten,” and actual human beings use a star system. The rating generated by human beings is called the Popcornmeter.

This movie has 21 critic reviews and over a thousand reviews from real movie watchers. Look at the difference. The critics say 33%, which is abysmal, but the audience says 96%, which is about as good as a movie can do.

Wonder why there is such a difference. Hmm.

Let’s quote some critics.

Nefarious has been inaccurately described as a horror movie. It’s a poorly made psychological drama about a death row inmate, with no real scares and too much over-acting. As this dull movie drones on, it becomes preachy propaganda for right-wing beliefs.

I like that one, because that critic really dropped her pants for us. She admits leftists think Christianity is “right-wing.” How long have I been saying leftists hate conservatives because conservatives are associated with Christianity? I doubt she even thought about the way she was exposing herself. There is virtually no political material in the film, but it’s full of religious matter, and that’s what set her off.

As for “preachy propaganda,” wow…should I sit here and try to list all the leftist propaganda films critics have loved? I’d be here for days.

Nefarious advertises itself as a possession thriller but pulls a bait & switch to deliver a Christian and Conservative propaganda piece. Flanery does his best to elevate what is otherwise a 90 minute sermon on abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty.

If you like your demons on the preachy side, then you may enjoy [this movie]. The rest of us will find [it]…tedious, heavy-handed and indoctrinating.

The film’s heavy-handed and bogus message tells us that Hollywood is immoral because it acts to corrupt its viewer’s minds.

The only thing not covered in this Christo-fascist manifesto of a movie is “guns.”

While there are moments of intensity in Nefarious, there isn’t a moment in the film that feels like cinematic horror unless you’re talking about one of those evangelical haunted houses where demons pop out of the walls to warn of the evils of the world.

Nefarious builds to a howler of a climax that delivers exactly what you’d anticipate from the makers of God’s Not Dead, just in an even more preposterous way. The big scene would be perfect for an Airplane!-style spoof of evangelical-themed films.

Subtlety is not the film’s strong point. Neither is casting.

That’s idiotic. Do critics pan other movies for not being subtle? Not if they push the left’s agenda. And the two central characters in this film did great jobs. It has been years since I’ve seen a performance as good as Flanery’s.

They filmmakers cast Glenn Beck as himself, interviewing the psychiatrist a year after the execution. That was a mistake. For one thing, Beck is not a Christian. For another, he looked like Johnny Depp dressed him. A creepy chin beard and bunch of old-looking and seemingly-unrelated clothes piled on top of each other, as though he found them in a Salvation Army box. And his performance was bad. It was very odd. He leaned toward the psychiatrist and maintained an expression I would ordinarily associate with strong sexual arousal, as though he were talking to an Onlyfans model after a long period of solitary confinement. His lower lip hung loose and swung as though trying to wave at the other actor.

Beck should not have been cast in this or any other movie, but the two leads were excellent.

I don’t know how Beck got in there. Did Mormons back the movie? They are a real problem for ignorant people who think Mormons are Christians. I wonder if Beck invested in the film on the condition they include him.

I have never been a Beck fan. Not for 10 seconds. He’s a kook.

I still remember the nutty video he did, in which he claimed he was nearly killed by a hemorrhoid laser. Try and imagine a scenario in which that is even possible. No, don’t.

By the way, The Passion of the Christ got a whopping 49% from leftist critics at Rotten Tomatoes.

Not subtle enough for them, I guess.

I don’t know if you should see Nefarious or not. Just telling you what I thought about it. But I can confidently say that if you still don’t think Satan controls Hollywood, you need to snap out of it.