(MK-OFTEN) Matinee of the Living Dead

Sixty years of sorcerous entrainment have ravaged the hearts, minds and bodies of the American populace. It's been a long march, one that is now reaching its destination. 

Here's another example of where it all began...

Dark City: The Ante/Anti-Matrix

Like the The Matrix a year later, writer/director Alex Proyas’ Dark City offers up his take on Neo-Gnostic savior mythology, but shuns the Wachowskis’ intersectionalist/ queer-theory approach in favor of the fertility symbolism of the ancient Mystery cults.

Atlantis and the Villa of the (AstroGnostic) Mysteries

 

Seeing that I briefly touched on 1985's hit film Cocoon during the Atlantis livestream, I thought now's the perfect time to take a, um, deep dive into some of the cleverly-embedded esoteric symbolism in the film.

Aliens Invade Laurel Canyon

I recently posted an audio podcast of my talk on Dave McGowan’s Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon over at the SSI. That raised the issue of Wavelength, a 1983 film that seems like a strange kind of companion piece to the book.

Winona, Interrupted: Little Girl Lost

Or, "Open Season on Kids in the Predators' Paradise of Post-Hippie California"...

What Did They Do to the Ultimate 90s It Girl?

Winona Ryder was THE Nineties It Girl. She ruled the hearts and minds of GenXers across the world (guilty) - and dated a string of A-list rock and movie stars - only to fall from grace in the hardest way at the dawn of the new millennium.

79 Varieties of Apocalypse

 

We looked quite a bit at 1983 last year, and this year I want to return in force to 1979, which was a mind-numbing 45 years ago now. 

Mulholland Drive, 911 and... Barbenheimer?

Maybe the simplest description I can offer of Synchromysticism is "the bleed-over of dream logic into consensus reality." The keys to this process are myth, symbol and co-incidence. 

DogDay ReRun: 1983 - The Year that Broke Reality

 

That helmet looks vaguely Kirbyesque

1983 hovers like a wraith over all of my work and I've never been quite sure why. 

Entering the Kubrickon

Here's the second half of my talk with Jasun Horsley on his new book, The Kubrickon: The Cult of Kubrick, Attention Capture, and the Inception of AI.

Our Gods Wore Spandex: Last Supper for Superheroes

Our Gods Wear Spandex hit the shelves fifteen years ago this month and prophesied the coming rise of the superheroes, back before the Spandex Age of Cinema took off with the releases of Iron Man and Dark Knight. The age which is now most definitely drawing to a close.

Stranger Things 4 Livestream

Depressed the holiday's over? Don't be: we'll be capping off the long weekend tonight (July 4th) at 10 PM ET with a deep dive into the unspoken subtexts of Stranger Things 4...

Stranger Things Deep Dive Livestream

Come join us for an epic deep dive on the disturbing history (and unsettling future) behind the Stranger Things phenomenon. There's a lot more going on with this series besides monsters, mind control and Eighties nostalgia.

click on the Moon for details

Archived livestream is available for all Secret Sun Institute scholars now.  

You can enroll for as little as three dollars a month. 

There's also a Discord server for SSI patrons. Come meet the others there.

 

 

 

Sirens, Shimmers and Even Stranger Things

She turned thirteen on...

I'm still in the middle of my Stranger Things 4 watch but I can say definitively that it's leagues above the wretched third season, wherein the writers tried to repurpose the franchise as a comedy and failed like very few things have failed in all of human history. 

Sorry, Eternals. The Spell's Already Been Broken.

 

I haven't seen the Eternals movie yet, meaning I haven't yet seen the movie coming out today called Eternals. But I've seen The Eternals onscreen time and time and time again, and so have you. 

1983: The Year That Broke Reality

That helmet looks vaguely Kirbyesque

1983 hovers like a wraith over all of my work and I've never been quite sure why. All I know is that I sensed something definitively change in the spring and summer of that year, even if those changes have only become apparent in the past few years. 

But all I can say for sure is that something somehow seemed to have entered our world from somewhere else.

 

SynchroCinema Seminar: Midnight Special (2016)

Being the age I am and having consumed as much pop culture junk as I have, I’ve come to a point in which I have near-zero interest in "escapist" entertainment. 

Deep Diving: Beyond the Black Rainbow & Mandy

Regular Sun readers already know I am a huge fan of Panos Cosmatos' two feature films, Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy. 

I'd go so far to say they're among my top five movies of the past two decades, if not the top three. If there were even just a few more like these I wouldn't be so pessimistic about cinema.

It's Like the Apocalypse. Only Stupid.

So, how prophetic did this turn to be? 

SUCKIEST. ANTICHRIST. EVER.

Oh, for Heaven or Las Vegas' sake. Two-thousand years of speculation and terror and mass cult suicides and bad gothic fiction and this friggin' nebbish is the Great Beast 666? 

I want a refund.