I'm Peter. I'm going to be the host of your host today through the session. And for starters, we're also testing out a feature today. We have an automatic transcript feature. So if you'd like to see text as I'm speaking or David speaks, you can have a look for the little CC icon. That's just available for English speakers so far until they release it for Spanish as well. But we're just trying out that feature. So we're going to start with David today showing the movie. And then afterwards we'll have a 10 minute break, then followed by breakout rooms where you can share anything that comes up for you during the movie, any emotions. And then we'll have a 45 minute break. And then I'll be holding the closing session today. So enjoy the day. And I'll pass you over to David now. Thank you, Pete. Hi, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to another joyful awakening day on Saturday. How wonderful that we can spend the day together like this with such a devoted purpose to forgiveness and allowing our mind to be healed. I think of Jesus' message in the Course. He says in the Course, Jesus says, you cannot wake yourself, but you can allow yourself to be awakened. Well, that's good to know. That makes it really humble. That means that we can take the pressure off of our personality cells and realize that we as a person don't have to figure out how to wake up from the dream.  Just like Jesus and the Holy Spirit are seeking our mind to wake it up, to help it remember the truth and the love and the light. And all we have to do is really stay open and be willing to follow whatever prompts and guidances and signs and symbols come our way. So our part is really pretty simple. We have to stay willing and open to listen and follow. And then we just put it all on the Holy Spirit to run the show, to lead the way. And that's where we feel the happiest when we realize we're not in charge of our own awakening. We're just allowing it to happen. So today we have another classic movie. This is, again, one of our all-time classic movies. And this morning I was pondering, because I always talk about prayer a lot and how prayer is the medium of miracles and everything starts with prayer. And I was pondering, I was thinking back through my 35 years of working with the Course, what are my two favorite prayers? Meaning which prayers have I prayed in my heart the most over the last 35 years? And the first one I think is one you might relate to, it's called Help. It's just plain help. The simpler the better, help, you know? And of course the Holy Spirit hears the prayer of our heart. So the Holy Spirit is very aware of that prayer for help. And the second one I think right behind help for me is Make It Obvious. That's my second favorite prayer. I mean, considering this is an ego world, we're in the fog of sleep, we're in the fog of forgetfulness with this world.  Some people call it hypnotism. But whatever you call it, it's sleep. And when you're asleep, I can't think of anything that's really more helpful than just crying out for help when you need it or saying Make It Obvious. Because Make It Obvious is really a prayer for guidance. It's like, Make It Obvious is like, even if I can't hear your voice, you still can make it obvious to me. Make it obvious in my nighttime dreams. Make it obvious with signs and symbols. Make it obvious with music on the radio. Make it obvious with the birds, with people. Make it obvious in my dream. Come reach me in the dream. Even if I can't hear your voice, or I would say until I can hear your voice. Because if you keep following the signs and symbols, you know, you hear the voice. And the voice will speak through you very easily when you're open.  So today's movie, as always, has come as a prayer, as an answer to prayer for the prayers that you put out in the themes. And of course, we have a combined poll now. We have English poll, we have a Spanish poll, we have a tribe poll. So when you vote for a theme, it is coming through loud and clear that this is like the prayer of your heart. Take me to the movies, Jesus, and answer my prayer in the movie. Let me have some fun. Let me enjoy this. Let me enjoy this awakening. Let me allow you to wake me up and let me enjoy it and have some fun in the process. So the number one theme that you voted for this week was called asking spirit to make it obvious in matters of decision making. That's fantastic, because we all know that's a key. We're dealing with decision making every moment, every day. There's a part where Jesus says, decisions are continuous, although you don't always know when you're making them. Isn't that fascinating? Decisions are continuous, but you don't always know when you're making them. What does he mean by that? What do you mean? I don't always know when I'm making them. He's talking about the unconscious mind. Maybe we've made some decisions about ourselves and the world based on our unconscious beliefs and maybe what we call decisions that a person is making are just outcomes of our belief system. So if we have a very limited egoic belief system that is sponsoring our decisions, then our decisions, I would say, ultimately aren't free. We can't know free will if we believe in the ego. How could our will be free? If we believe in a death wish, if we believe in limitation, how could we know what's unlimited? If we believe in fear, how could we know what love is? You see how important it is to really pray to be guided because all of the guidance that we receive, it's not really guidance to make us have a better life as a person on Earth. It's more guidance on our mind releasing our false beliefs about our identity, about our identity, about everyone's identity, because that's what's holding us back from love and light. It's just false beliefs.   So whenever you get depressed at thinking how long this is going to take you to forgive, just remember Jesus is saying, how long is an instant? Come with me here. Let's have some fun and let's let this thing go because you don't really need these false beliefs. They're not bringing you joy. They're not bringing you peace and happiness. So the second theme is having faith in times of darkness. God will pull me through. And I get asked the question a lot, like, what do I do in emergencies? What do I do in my darkest hour? What do I do when I just feel so closed off from everyone and everything and closed off from God? And that is the key to faith to faith is the ability to to go deep inside and stay with the curriculum. It's like, stay with the forgiveness. Stay with the whole point of everything that we're doing is for spiritual awakening is to come back to the present moment. So the darkness is like a cloud that's trying to cover us over, block out our purpose. And then when we learn to expand our faith, we just keep coming back. We we may, for a moment, look at some things in the world or some appearances, some behaviors and and go, oh, that's I was just doing a counseling call. I think it was yesterday and and my friend was saying, what what do you do when you look at the world and everything you see is meaningless and you feel terrible? And I as she was saying, maybe I guess maybe I don't believe it's meaningless. I said, if you feel terrible, I think I think you do give some meaning to it because that's lesson number two, I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me. So we're going to take a ride with the main character today in this movie about having faith in times of darkness and just letting God pull us through, you know, in fact, the best thing to do when you feel really dark is make sure you're not in the driver's seat.  OK, the third one we have is being vigilant against thoughts of competition and comparison, comparison and competition. Yeah, that's those are sticky, sticky, sticky. Whenever we are comparing ourselves to someone else or we're comparing one person to another or comparing really anything of this world, one situation to another, one time to another, one outcome to another. That is that's just purely judgment. And we never feel happy when we're when we're judging and comparing. And we never feel happy competing. God didn't create us to compete. God created us to be love, to be one. And then competition is an invention of the ego to try to keep us locked into a false identity, which is linear time. So the key for the ego to keep the mind stuck on the timeline is competition and comparison. And then forgiveness or non-judgment is the Holy Spirit's key to unlock us from the timeline and drop us in the present moment. When when we don't judge, we're present. We're just present. We're holy and we're present when we're not judging. And when we're judging, then we're stuck in our perception of being on the timeline. OK, the next one is letting time be used to undo the belief in time. That's why we have these Saturday movies. All the movies I show on Saturday are given to me by Jesus. And they're all stories. I mean, that's what a movie is. It's a story. It's a timeline story. But it has so many elements of healing release that it's like a story that's encouraging us to drop the story. It's a movie that's encouraging us to drop the movie. The movie of our lives, you know, what we say when we meet somebody. Where are you from? Tell me about yourself. When were you born? Who is your family? What do you want to do when you grow older? You know, what do you do for a living? All these are stories, lots of stories. And we're into watching movies that help us reach behind the story to a state of mind, to a state of presence. And the last one that you voted on was facing strong feelings of overwhelm in my special function. That as soon as we start to become intuitive and we feel like, oh, I've got my calling now. And then when you start to give your heart and soul to your calling, the ego is not happy because when you give yourself your mind over to your calling, you're basically saying, I want to wake up and I'm here to fulfill my part, my function. And the ego is not happy with that at all. It's going to say, stop, don't fulfill your special function because you'll die, but actually we'll live. Once we fill our special function, then we've done our part.  Just a big, warm, loving embrace. That's all that's left after our special function is fulfilled. So why not shine your light for however long and with whoever or wherever you're to shine it? That's just part of the special function. And in the movie today, the main character, he has great difficulty accepting his calling, accepting his special function. And it's because of these ego investments in the self-concept. The movie today that we're going to be watching is Bruce Almighty. Bruce Almighty. And, you know, we have a lot of great movies in our collection. And Bruce Almighty is right up there. It's a classic all-time movie with Evan Almighty. And that's another one. I could have just shown Evan Almighty today and taught the same lesson about make it obvious through Evan Almighty. And both these movies have Morgan Freeman playing God. That has to be one of the most obvious answers to make it obvious when God shows up in your life as a man, Morgan Freeman, very uncompromising, but very gentle, very humorous, very warm and sparkly, not taking anything seriously. I think there's a line in this movie where Bruce is so angry at God, he's like, smite me, oh, great smiter. And when and when Morgan Freeman finally gets to meet him, he says, oh, I've I've got a long file on you, a whole lifetime file on you. And some of the most recent entries are a little disturbing. But basically, Morgan Freeman says, well, I'm I'm not really one for blasphemy, but that one really, really makes me laugh.  You know, it's, you know, in Christianity, the worst thing you can do when I was growing up, they would tell me, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. But the worst thing you could do was take the Lord's name in vain. Is they called it blasphemy. They were like, like the Holy Spirit can forgive anything, anything you do, but not blasphemy. It's almost what you mean. You mean if I blaspheme, then I'm guilty. They said, yeah, that's right. The Holy Spirit can handle anything else.  And this really comes through Morgan Freeman's version of God, both in Evan Almighty and in Bruce Almighty. OK, who's the who's the director behind these two spectacular all time classics, Tom Shadyak, a very devout devotee of Jesus, a very devout Christian. And wow, when Jesus wants to use a director in this world, he he just picks Tom Shadyak. If it doesn't matter what he wants to teach, like if he wants to teach no private thoughts, no secrets, no people pleasing. He has Tom Shadyak make a movie called Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. And he takes one of the most difficult topics and he makes the most funny, spectacular movie that leaves you laughing the whole movie as it's so practical and it's so spectacular. And in this movie, he again has Jim Carrey playing the lead, just like in Liar Liar. And and he's Bruce, Bruce Nolan in our movie today. He's a TV personality. You know, he covers special events for his news team. And he has a career in his mind and he wants to expand and grow in his career. Every time we have a thought of a career, an earth career and trying to better ourselves in an earth career, that is the ego. The ego goals are always make a false self-concept and then try to improve it, whether it's a person to try to improve as a person or improve an interpersonal relationship or improve a career, improve your your life circumstances or whatever. Anything that involves improvement of the personality self is actually a defense against the light because the personality self is an illusion.  You were created perfect by God. So in this movie, Bruce. He has a girlfriend and his girlfriend. His name is Grace, but a beautiful name, Grace, because that's really going to be a key on the on the pathway to wake up. Her name is Grace and Jennifer Aniston plays his girlfriend, Grace. And of course, Morgan Freeman plays God. And there is Jim Carrey playing Bruce Snowlin. And then there is another person on his news team. And Steve Carell plays Evan. And of course, in the following movie, the follow up movie, Evan will have his own lesson in waking up to God. Equally funny, equally spectacular. I think Evan Almighty is more undoing the family self concept where Bruce Almighty is more undoing the special relationship in terms of a couple and undoing the career concept, which is a pretty strong egoic push in this world, you know, to have a career because career is supposed to provide you safety, security, is help help you survive and all these things. And and career is just another word for vocation. And Jesus tells us that your vocation is healing the mind.  The vocation is not to be aspiring in a good career in this world because because your vocation is healing in mind.  It's it's it's literally forgiveness and coming to the atonement, which is accepting the correction for the error called ego. That's it. And in the Course in Miracles, Jesus says, you have one responsibility and that is to accept the atonement for yourself. He says it twice in the course in different contexts. Miracle workers, sole responsibility is to accept the atonement. The teacher of God's sole responsibility is to accept the atonement for himself. So that's the simplicity of focusing on where your true responsibility is. But if you aim responsibility to the world towards your personhood, towards your personality, and you try to become a good or a better or a perfect person, not not going to happen. There's a song God didn't create the little green apples. Well, God is no respecter of persons, as the Bible says, you know, personhood is the persona is mask and God is the creator of spirit of I am presence, not a creator of mask. That's another Jim Carrey movie, the mask. Speaking of Jim Carrey, I just want to stop for a moment and say he just several days ago, he had his 60th birthday. So on behalf of all of us here and all of us around the world, we want to just say, happy birthday, Jim, because you're helping us wake up with some love and laughter. I mean, we want to laugh until we cry. And and that is some acting ability, Jim. So happy birthday, Jim. So happy 60th birthday. And also, I'd like to take a moment to honor our dear friend, Tick Not Han today. Tick Not Han just passed away at 90, like 95 years old.  I woke up this morning and I could feel that Tick Not Han, that that soft, graceful, peaceful presence. And I could hear Jesus saying, blessed are the peacemakers. And so Tick Not Han, he's with us right now. I'm sure he's going to have a good laugh. You can't go wrong with Jim Carrey and Tick Not Han in your presence. You've got you've got the best of laughter and the best of stillness and presence. So we honor Jim and his 60th birthday and Tick Not Han for his amazing 95 years of of teaching and learning peace. He's definitely one of the peacemakers. And also, I just I really like to see that how everything that is used in this world is used to go beyond the world. I mean, that's one of our our themes is letting time be used to undo the belief in time.  That was one of his Jim Carrey movies. And then, of course, with he had many he had really great blockbuster movies. But I think with Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty, we got to see the best of how you're a director in this time and space timeline for God. Tom Shadyak hats off to you for letting your skills and abilities, amazing skills and abilities to be able to work with people like Morgan Freeman, Steve Carell, Jennifer Aniston and Jim Carrey and pull off these movies. You know, I mean, in many parts of the world, God is is not a word that's spoken. I see some of you there from Europe. I mean, with all the things that have been seemingly happened in Europe over these last decades in the name of God, whether it's been the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades killing Muslims in the name of Jesus or a number of things that have happened. I know when I've gone to Europe and I've been over there many times people, they do like a lot of non-dual teachings. But but but the word God is still one of those things. It's like they would rather they would rather thank the universe than God. Thank you, universe. Thank you, allness or oneness or whatever, because the name of God has been so misused by the ego that people just don't like to talk about God. You know, I I have to I've enjoyed teaching him in quantum physics. I teach it in quantum physics when I go to Europe a lot of times. There was a time I went to Ireland, Ireland and Northern Ireland, where I was using a movie called God's Not Dead and Jesus had me edit the movie. Jason Warwick was doing it. And basically he had a different God's Not Dead movie for Ireland and for Northern Ireland, so that the people could hear it in their own way. Jesus said, here I want this one here, this one here. And now we're openly going to share a movie that's God coming seemingly into form as a person. Well, Jesus did it 2000 years ago. So Morgan Freeman is his is our more modern day version. I think George Burns, the great comedian, George Burns with the cigar and Gracie, his wife. Now we've got Jim Carrey and Grace in this movie, and we have have God. This movie is is helpful because when you start to feel like things are going bad in your awareness and your experience, the tendency in this world when things seem to go against you, you perceive that they're going against you is to start to lean towards a victimization mindset or an abuse mindset or I'll call it a mistreated mindset. That is the farthest thing from the truth, because these are ideas that God doesn't even know about. So if you want to know God and you've got these ideas in your mind, then this is where the forgiveness work comes in. But frequently, when people have a misperception of being abused or mistreated or victimized, tendency is sometimes to blame God. And I think this goes all the way back to to the Genesis in the Bible where it said God created the heavens and the earth. And so your mind is going to be really angry about that second part.  You you are doing this to me. You are the creator of the universe and you are doing it to me. And I'm mad at you. The only thing is, is God isn't the creator of the cosmos. God is the creator of the heavens, but not the earth ego is the projector of the earth. So that's an important correction in Genesis. But for most of us, this is what we have felt when we were growing up, where we where people have been known to shake their fists and look up like, why are you doing this to me? So today's movie will be an attempt to let's take God off the hook, especially since God didn't create this world. We why would we get angry at one who who's only love? It must be we don't know the one that's only love if we're getting angry at anything because God is just pure love. And if we're going to know God is pure love, we have to learn to forgive what we thought we did or what we believed in forgive our own misperception. You know, the course says, you know, when you forgive, you don't forgive your brother for what he did. You forgive your brother for what he did not do. This actually applies really well to God. Let's not forgive God for what God did. Let's forgive God for what God did not do, which was create error. God of love is not a creator of error. God doesn't know about the ego. God doesn't know, he says in the course, God God is aware that his creative channels are blocked, but he doesn't really know what that is because he he didn't create it. And the Holy Spirit is our bridge to remember God, to remember the love that we are. So this movie is really good. We can see in this movie, too, that that Bruce has is pretty strongly tied into a self concept in terms of a television personality. And that just means that his worth is very tied into advancing and succeeding as a television personality. And that, of course, is where the anger is coming up from, because that's that's an example of the authority problem. And it's also an example of the unhealed healer. When when we hold on to a false personality self concept, whether it's a TV personality, whether it's in an interpersonal relationship or whether it's even a spiritual self concept. You know, you the ones that are really the ones that teach and and extend the peace are the ones that aren't identified with the body. I mean, that's that is the greatest teacher of God. In fact, Jesus says that it only takes one teacher of God to to save the world, but that teacher is not a body or antibody. That's what that's his criteria for being the teacher of God that saves the world, not a body or antibody. And I think of Tick, not Han, who just passed away because he had some great quotes and all of his teachings and writings over the years. But one of them is like, let's walk together. Let's just walk. He says, without any thought of a destination. And that's a beautiful quote from Tick, not Han, because he's saying, stay present. Don't think of your destination as something in the future. Right now is the destination. It's not a future destination. It's right now, right now. And and he was such a teacher of peace. I think, yeah, some years ago, he had a stroke and he couldn't speak anymore. So he just went back to Vietnam to the same monastery where he was ordained when he was 16 years old, 80 years prior to the stroke. And he just was silent for his remaining years. Wow, love it, Tick, not Han. That is spectacular. Another famous teacher, Ram Das, had a stroke and he he did regain his ability to speak before he passed away. But but Tick, not Han, so graceful, ordained as a monk at 16.  That's just giving you an example of how graceful you can be with this world. That's grace. That's grace. That's just pure grace. And and today, Jim Carrey is going to help us start to laugh at the self concept that we had been so invested in, trying to make something of ourselves in the world, trying to be something important, be somebody important. He's going to help us laugh at that idea. And that's that's no small thing, along with the Morgan Freeman, Steve Carell. You know, these are these are some of the best comedia comedians and actors that you ever find all in the same movie. Oh, it is smoking. We're we're smoking in the humor today. So I think we have we're just in for such a beautiful treat and I will pop in from time to time. But I just want you to to really watch how when when Jim Carrey's character, when Bruce really starts to get really angry and upset, I want you to pay attention to our prayer of our heart, the number one theme of today, which is make it obvious. When he gets angry, just notice how the signs and symbols of humor are there to to hold him in his angriness to carry him along when he's most angry. When people talk to me, they go, oh, I am lost when I'm angry. I am so far from God, I feel like I can't get back. But that's the time when you pray, make it obvious. That's the time when you pray help, when things get really bad, seemingly in your perception. That's when you send out that beautiful prayer for help or to make it obvious. And that's what I like about this movie. This movie doesn't have this isn't a movie about Jim Carrey channeling the Holy Spirit. It's more of him being willing to let his emotions up. And I can't really, frankly, think of a better actor at at being so expressive with emotions. He uses every every mannerism known in the human condition. His face stretches his. I mean, at the end of this movie, Pete, when when you guys are shown this movie, please, at the very end of the movie, let it play through the song. Are you ready for a miracle ready for my love? Let's get the song about miracles in there. And then let's go all the way to the outtake bloopers as the as the credits are rolling. Let's see some. Let's just see how much fun they had doing this for the Holy Spirit and Jesus. When they make these movies, you think they're having fun when you see the movie. You should see the bloopers that come. If you you will see that they are having so much fun making this because this is the Holy Spirit behind this movie. Tom Shadyak directing doesn't get any better. I can't think of a director on the planet that can do what Tom did. Actually, this is Jesus coming through big time. He got a hold of Tom and whoa, we got the benefit of that. And then you've got, you know, Jennifer Aniston and you've got Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman. And whoa, this is a bundle of joy. So even the outtakes are funny.  This is some kind of miracle we're talking about. This is for us. This is telling us this is the way we're supposed to live every day. We're supposed to have that same fun as they did making this movie. And I have to say to Tom Shadyak's credit, after he made the big movies, he bought he already had a big house in Hollywood. But when he had these movies that came out, he made so much money off of these movies that he bought a big, big, big Hollywood house.  And then to his credit, he was standing in the hallway as he walked into his new giant mansion for the first time. And he stood there in the empty hallway and he looked around it and he said to himself, what is this for? What's a bigger house even mean? Oh, Tom. Oh, he's going beyond the director. Oh, he's tuned into the to the source. What is the purpose of this big house? And he moved into a trailer. He he actually left that giant. I don't know. I can't. I just don't have never heard of movie stars or directors doing this. He moved out of this giant mansion into a trailer. And people in Hollywood thought he had lost his mind. He found it. He found he found his divine mind after these movies. And I can see why, you know, he he was so surrendered to Jesus in making these movies that he connected with the essence of Jesus, the essence of love, the essence of what it means to be a teacher of God, a teacher of God does not want anything. He cannot give away. What would he wanted for? He could only lose because of it.  He gave his whole heart through Bruce Almighty. He gave his whole heart to Evan Almighty. He gave his whole heart. And then when he had the mansion, he was like, this doesn't mean anything at all. He also went through if you and if you really want to look up his life, you see, he went through extreme conditions. He went through he had a fall when he was out jogging one day and he went through extreme conditions of what seemed to be a mysterious, painful injury that that took him down into deeper into prayer and deeper into faith after his movie making days. And then, of course, even years later, he had he had a beautiful comeback movie that I saw years after all of that. I remember I was flying down to Brazil down to Sao Paulo and my friend Jeffrey Kosker, who he came up and he came up to where I was sitting. And he said I was sleeping at the time. But he said, tell David when he wakes up to watch this movie and it was called Brian Banks. And I was like, I watched it. Oh, tears of all one another great forgiveness movie. And I'm like, who made this movie? Tom Shadyak. Ah, that was his comeback movie after years of of going through all this dismantling. He Hollywood wouldn't give him a job, but he made this movie. And wow, he got me crying on the on the plane because Brian Banks was such an amazing, based on a true story, so to speak, in this world, you know, amazing forgiveness movie. One of the best I've seen. So let's sit back. Let's enjoy this movie, enjoy all the humor. And from time to time, I will join you in it. And as we're watching this movie, you just remember, this is this is the way that that Jesus wants us to handle this world when when we get upset, be transparent about it and and be willing to be shown what to do or what to do next, because that's what happens with Bruce.  He's very upset. He becomes more frustrated and angry. And that's when people start in this world, tip over to the ego. They they go to drugs. They go to addictions. They they got caught in the ego's temptations when things get really bad. But if we're ready to make the turn and really turn it over to the Holy Spirit, that's when we get lifted up when we're tempted to go down and the grace of God swoops in there and Jesus just comes swooping in to save our mind in a miracle, a miracle moment. That's what this movie is about. Lots of miracle moments. So happy Saturday. Happy birthday, Jim. And let's all have a good time enjoying this movie with Jim Carrey's amazing.


Today we have the heavy burden of deciding the fates of the Avengers. Fun isn't something one considers when talking about DC movies. But these, they do put a smile on my face. Let's fuse. The scene in 2012. They've killed, they've grieved, they've changed actors completely. One may have made love to a Hulk. In the beginning there were just some sorry bunch of hotheads with special abilities brought together by Samuel L. Jackson in an eye patch. I know his name's Nick Fury, but Sam Jackson just seems cooler. I'm sorry, I just always call him that. Iron Man was the leader because his movie was the most popular. A brilliant inventor who was finally willing to make the ultimate sacrifice by the end of the film. Captain America was also the leader because comics. A super soldier who was thawed out to help save the world.  Hawkeye was really good at aiming at things. And Black Widow? She was hot. Loki quickly became a villain favorite in Thor so it made sense to double down. Hiddleston proved to be a fun, tricky antagonist and the perfect starter to this universe. Age of Ultron brings back the full crew and a couple newcomers. Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch being one of the standouts. Mainly for her awful accent, which she would holly bury in later installments. But also for her interesting character and abilities I'm still not clear on. Her brother Quicksilver was unfortunately overshadowed by the exact same character in a different franchise. Most of the returning cast retain their same charm and smart-ass personas. Captain America gets a bit of a potty mouth this time around. And the Hulk has a raging case of green balls for Widow. Thor randomly leaves at one point to take a hot bubble bath. And we start to see early signs of Iron Man getting snippy with stars and stripes. Vision is introduced a bit later in the picture with a little help from the lead villain Ultron. This is easily the silliest and most cartoony of the Avengers flicks, but I'm still a big fan. Now the trailers certainly didn't help those that didn't like this one. They showcased a much edgier, much darker, sinister version than what we saw on the screen. I still found James Spader to be completely menacing and a scene stealer whenever he was present. It was relatively easy to reminisce on the characters in the first two Avengers films, but Infinity War is just insane. The sheer amount of big-name players involved in this galaxy-spanning adventure is amazing to say the least. Homecoming Spider-Man, the entire Guardians of the Galaxy crew, T'Challa and the Wakanda tribes, and of course the Avengers themselves. Ant-Man and Hawkeye were missed.  Thanks for pussying out on that one, Disney. Damn it. The big surprise for me was how much I loved Doctor Strange this time.  Thor also managed to go from one of the least interesting Avengers to being one of my favorites in the MCU. And he became a great replacement Superman for the DC version that's just butt-hurt and angry all the time.  If Loki and Ultron are great Saturday morning cartoon villains, then Thanos is an HBO Game of Thrones level boss. I was legitimately fearful for every single character when he would apparate into a scene. No one seemed safe, no one was off the chopping block. Except for maybe Black Panther since his movie made like a cabillion dollars. Josh Brolin voiced and mo-capped one of the best bad guys in the last decade. An impressive accomplishment for both the actor and the writers involved. Especially when we're this deep into the franchise. We'll talk a little bit more about it in round two. The first Avengers was all about forming the band. Nick Fury and Agent Colson popped up here and there during the origin films. But here we get to see their intentions put into play. The Avengers initiative is activated when Thor's baby bro comes down to Earth, steals a powerful weapon known as the Tesseract, and destroys a shield office. The movie is a very straightforward affair with the heroes meeting, arguing, and eventually saving the day. Loki's a cunning villain. He knows he's no match for these power players. So he brings with him a disposable alien race and attempts to break them down from the inside. The movie's still a blast to watch today, but certainly seems a bit timid compared to what's to come. And the life of Ultron certainly has its fair share of haters, and I completely understand why. I'm not one of them. I actually like this movie a lot. It's really just a continuation of what we've already seen, and the more adult movie teased was nowhere to be found. The whole team's back together doing their thing relatively easily until a new threat is created.  And since Ultron is artificial intelligence, he can take down the Avengers technology, which he does. And it really has no bearing on anything. It should have been a bigger deal than it was, but it's not addressed much, outside of the team having to hang out at Hawks House for the day. And I think that's the biggest hang-up people have with Age of Ultron. This so-called age is really just a three-day weekend. It's like vacation with Ultron. Weekend at Ultrons.  This is where Infinity War absolutely decimates the first two films. The film's scale is enormous, with multiple threads going on at once. Most of them intersect, and all of them are important to the main plot.  He and his space buddies start stone hunting, attacking various planets and portions of the Marvel factions. The movie's constantly jumping to different points and characters, but it never feels disjointed or sloppy. The forging of an axe shouldn't be that interesting, but directors Anthony and Joe Russo managed to get it done. Once more, Thanos is a powerhouse of a villain, one that can hold his own against four or five Avengers at once. This is the first time I was genuinely on edge during a Marvel movie, and when it was all said and done, I was finally able to take a breath. Do I think these characters that died are gone for good? Absolutely not. I'm sure most of them will be back, but the fact that they even went here, ended on such a sour note? I think that deserves some respect. These are massive movies with gigantic budgets. The money that doesn't go directly into Robert Downey's bank account is all on display. Director Joss Whedon handles the first two movies much in the same vein as a kid playing with his childhood toys.  He pits them against each other at different points because he knows fans want to thaw versus Hulk battle. The Russo brothers of the kids that grew up, they're Andy from Toy Story 3, still want to hang on to that magic, but they're going to treat them a little bit more adult-like. The spectacle is on display still, but the tracking shots and other gimmicks feel less fan-servicing. I've always been critical of the Avengers theme and the lack of real standout scores, but the darker tweaks on the material really stand out now. Not going to lie though, big part of me wanted to hear the immigrant song playing one more time when Thor slammed down to Wakanda with his battle acts and friends. I think he was playing in a lot of people's heads already, so they should have just put it out there. I don't really have any criticisms of these films. I think they set out and do exactly what they wanted to. They tell a fun story, they have laughs, they have excitement, they have amazing spectacle, and there's not a whole lot more that I could ask for.  The artists, musicians, animators, set designers, and the thousands of other people that helped craft these movies should absolutely be commended, especially those who worked on the wardrobes for Scarlet Witch and Black Widow. As much as I enjoy Avengers and Age of Ultron, Infinity War is playing in a different league. Oftentimes the term epic is tossed out willy-nilly, but Infinity War is just that. And you should absolutely take my word for it. After all, I'm a grown man wearing a Marvel T-shirt I bought at Target for $8.99, so if that doesn't scream credibility, I don't really know what does. I'd love to hear from you though. Leave a comment on your favorite film, vote for the winner, and remember, this is more than just reviews, this is Movie Feuds. And Infinity War 2, holy hell that has a lot to live up to. Hope you don't last Jedi this thing.


As the Godend Party of Zambia, our position on the recent price hike is that the new dawn administration, the new dawn government, President Haka Hinda Ichilema and his team is turning out to be the most anti-propor ruling government or ruling political party that we have ever had since the independence of Zambia. And this month's price increase of fuel is testament to that. The fuel price hike is hurting the majority Zambians because the cost of essentials is going beyond their reach. The cost of cooking oil, the cost of millimil, the cost of soap, the cost of clothes, the cost of everything transport is going up in this country.  It is also affecting the way the local and medium small businesses are closing up because they cannot keep up. And especially in a country where for example rentals are paid in US dollars, it is a complete nightmare. We have been calling on the new dawn administration to come up with local intervention measures to protect the vulnerable, to protect local businesses. And nothing has been done. And we are not talking about subsidies, we are talking about tangible local intervention measures to ensure that local businesses thrive and also create relief for the majority poor. The only people that are smiling right now in our country is the white foreign, is the foreign monopoly capital. They seem to be smiling and they are praising the president every day because whatever economic policy that is introducing seem to favor them. And that is not right. The president is elected for his people. The government is for the people. They must look after the interests of our people. So we are calling on president Daka indi Hilema to come back to reality, come back to reality and look after our people. The economics that you are initiating right now are not relatable to the Zambian people. And once again we call on the new dawn administration to come up with local intervention measures to ensure that the majority poor and local businesses are protected. I thank you.


showing this movie to people because I believe it identifies the activists among us because you get stirred when you see the culture that this practice came from and the culture of the industry and that was probably an unfortunate thing that I made that document with my phone number on it, my name because things started right out to be a great coincidence for all I know but ever since that time for about perhaps six months I experienced things at my home here in Bristol at night and I got phone calls and I got emails that were pretty awful and I didn't tell my doctor about this and my doctor said Jennifer you need to just get at this just leave this whole thing alone and I did but it definitely affected me and I didn't talk about it I did not share this I did not really share this with my fellow activists because I didn't want to scare them I didn't want them to think that there could be anything that I want to hurt them from or deter them from their activities so I kept it quiet and that was probably a mistake but I did tell a few people who were close to me because I felt like my life was in danger and so I told my friends I said if anything happens to me because in my efforts of showing this movie I really helped touch the hearts of a lot of people who are here tonight this is a movie if you haven't seen it you should see it cast play in the movie so so I am here now and I am advocating for myself and I realize that in order for me to get well I would like to find other people and think that they may have experienced harassment terrifying things that affected their health and so if you want to come up to me and we could talk I think it would be a fascinating topic and who knows there might be a little investigation at some point Thank you Ms. Fiannick Ms. Bailey Barry Bailey B-A-R-R-I-E B-A-I-L-E-Y and I'm from Salisbury South of the United Nations because I was listening but this thing kind of gone through my head precedence even setting the precedent in this situation for a few four years there's been double steep landsom threatening landowners they don't sign on the line right away and oh you can't tell anybody what you've paid for and then they find out what you've fought back numerous cheerleading by the Department of Public Service for PGS instead of being in service to public numerous environmental violations lacks enforcement by the agency natural resources and being the public service board now the PEC has also led lives what I see tonight is that the local people here are the ones who are actually doing the due diligence of oversight this is an open indication of other corporations especially possible industries to come into other areas of Vermont because you can get away with things because regulation enforcement is so black that's not what we should be doing in Vermont we do not want to set precedent as an open invitation for the large power struggle of fossil fuels against the local we need to hold our heads up high ask our public utilities commission to do the right thing create a public investigator who's not associated with our public service I've lost faith in them who's not affiliated with A&R who cannot get out in the field and do their own assessment work but some of them are truly independent and it's not correctly paid by our gas but will be billed through the state to Vermont Gas so I ask that you on the public utilities commission please consider the precedent that's being set and help us go on a straight and narrower time so that we aren't seeing this precedent from others to come thank you Ms. Bailey and finally Mr. is it Poisner Powsner Powsner P is a theater of the U.S. and E.R. what's the first name? J.L. from Iowa I guess I have a more personal comment I just wanted to apologize to the future generations of Vermont that are going to have to live with our actions and I think we all failed to come together I think in honor of the apologies I think the U.C. those apologies I think Elko those apologies I think Vermont Gas those apologies and I hope one day we can move towards a place in a conversation where we can talk about making amends Mr. Powsner Mr. Cushik Mr. George Cloak C.K. I'm a retired former minister of the military I've been thinking it's a time role and I've been talking for a long time but we have something to add I want to do it from this perspective that a good religion a good religion a good religion and good living is worrying about love and is about rules which not to say that rules don't matter and love is motivation for keeping the rules so I've heard that every four or seven for a fee some fee mentioned the rules that I wish that they were enforced and I'd like everybody to know who has some leadership position or responsibility that involves other people that very here is a lot of care for each other a lot of care for earth that is ours to use and to live in and to reserve for others and to be able to respect and honor and care for each other in every way we can so thank you for listening thank you Mr. Cloak that is now 24 speakers does anyone else wish to speak if no one else has additional comments thank you to everyone who came tonight we appreciate your comments and concerns good night