Last year, reports of strange light orbs appeared inside the Riverwalk Fellowship Church in Texas as people worshiped. They began to take pictures, and then video of these orbs, convinced that they were witnessing a miracle of God. One year later, a Dallas television photographer took shots inside the church and found a large blue orb of light. Several smaller orbs surrounded it.

The photograph was examined by Dr. Randall Scalise of Southern Methodist University, who teaches a class on recognizing pseudoscience. He determined the orbs appeared because of a reflection inside the camera, caused by background lighting and dust particles.

The orb in the video wasn’t as easy to explain. Taken by a teenage boy, this video shows an orb of light traveling from a woman’s feet, through her body and out of her head. The video was sent to paranormal psychologist, Dr. Lloyd Auerbach, who suggested that the orb represented psychokinetic energy, or healing energy. Dr. Scalise remains skeptical.

Source: Topix.net

Stephen King has confirmed that Lost co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof will adapt his epic multi-volume book series The Dark Tower for the screen. Up to this point, King has refused to sell movie rights for this series, even from his longtime collaborator, writer/director Frank Darabont, who adapted The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

“I said no to everybody until recently, because I didn’t think much of the chances of it being a good movie,” King said in a panel discussion launching Marvel Comics’ new Dark Tower comic books at the New York City Comic Con on Feb. 24.

Stephen King considers The Dark Tower series his life’s work. He has been writing these books since he was 22 years old, so I guess they would be. They are so different from the rest of his books.

He finally relinquished the rights to the Lost co-creators because he is an ardent fan of the show.

In all honesty, I expected Ghost Rider to flop, as far as the plot went because one of my colleagues had told me that it was slow. The movie was a bit slow in the beginning as you learned about Johnny Blaze’s background––why he sold his soul to Mephistopheles, how he became a ghost rider, and exactly what a ghost rider is. Once Johnny made his pact, the movie took off.

We’re catapulted to the present, where Johnny makes one death-defying stunt after another in order to atone for the death of his father. Soon Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) comes to Johnny and orders him to capture Blackheart (Wes Bentley), who literally plans to unleash hell on Earth. Once Johnny completes his task, his soul will be set free, or so the devil says.

Right about this time, Blackheart and his cronies appear in some small desert town to wreak their havoc as they searched for Blaze. This was the only character that disappointed me. While the makeup artists did a great job making Bentley look creepy, he fell flat on his acting skills. I expected to feel more hatred coming from this prince of darkness than I did. Instead, his words came out wooden.

Despite that, I enjoyed this movie. It had a solid storyline, a near-perfect cast, and superior special effects. Recommended for ages eleven and up, due to the violent themes.

I missed this movie when it came out on television late last Spring. When it came out on DVD, I bought it knowing that I had a 50/50 chance of feeling disappointed. That’s been my experience with Stephen King movies. They’re either very good (i.e., The Stand) or very bad (i.e., Maximum Overdrive). Desperation fell in between.

The movie begins with married couple, Peter and Mary driving across the Nevada desert. Mary spots a dead cat hanging from a speed sign and is properly spooked. Their situation goes from ho-hum to bad in a big hurry when they are pulled over by Sheriff Callie Entragian, who promises to kill them. He hauls them off to jail, where he shoots Peter before he takes Mary up to the holding cells.

Mary finds a family and an old drunk huddled in the cells. A short time later, writer John Marinville (Tom Skeritt) joins them. Entragian takes the wife of the tourist family and disappears for a while, giving everyone ample time to escape the jail. Escaping the town of Desperation is another matter, as they find out.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I haven’t read the book in years, but remembered the basic plot. Desperation the movie didn’t sway too far from that. The best characters were David Carver (the religious boy) and John Marinville (the self-serving writer). While the boy was all about letting God lead them out of Desperation, Marinville relied on himself. That made for a good conflict. Recommended.