American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders(2024)

I wanted to say that I saw the Netflix documentary series AMERICAN CONSPIRACY: THE OCTOPUS MURDERS

I saw it when it dropped at the end of February and I’ve been trying to figure out what to say.

The problem is that I’ve been reading and following the story since it all went down and my opinions of the series are tied to that.

For those who don’t know the series follows the story of journalist Danny Cosolaro who was found dead in a hotel room. He had been working on a story about corruption involving people inside and outside the government which he called the Octopus because it had so many tentacles they reached everywhere. Along the way he uncovered some bad things the government was doing as well as he brought some bad people into the light. The thought of many people was that he was killed to silence him.

It’s clear that he did find something was going on but how much of it past a certain point is really a conspiracy is open to debate. I say this because the grand conspiracy that he proposes and that many people have grabbed onto is so huge as to be unwieldy. You can’t have something that big and not have it slip into the light. Is it absolutely possible it was a bunch a rogue bad guys trying to make a buck, but the idea that they actually are controlling so much is pretty near impossible, even if they cast shadows over some corners.

Yes, that’s convoluted but so is the alleged uber conspiracy.

Just because bad people know other bad people doesn’t mean they are in connections in their badness. It’s a fact that is best seen in the various JFK conspiracies, many of which link up all these unconnected people because they were in and near Dallas  or had met tangentially somewhere along the way.

I mention this because the Netflix show at times seems to get a little lost and spins its wheels. My interest drifted in and out. It also didn’t help that the focus on Christian Hansen who was trying to finish what Danny Casolaro started prevented the series from dealing  with certain aspects that could have been more interesting.

Still this conspiracy’s legend is one of the reason that people don’t trust the government and are buying the bullshit of a deep state or hidden cabal controlling the world, and as such it’s worth a look.

MH 370: The Plane That Disappeared (2023)

Three part Netflix documentary about the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH 370 which completely disappeared off radar one day in 2014 and was never seen again

Following several theories about what may have happened the film is some tasty food for thought but it doesn’t provide any solid answers, more so since the theories pick at each other. The film concentrates on three theories, though several others and variations are mentioned. 

The first speculates on the possibility that the captain may have been responsible for the disappearance. It includes discussion of the discovery of the Captain running a flight simulation where the plane  was flown into the middle of the ocean (and it raises problems with that as well such as if you did fly the plane with the intention of crashing it why wait six hours to do so?)  

The second speculates that the plane was hijacked and flown into Asia by Russian hijackers. There are a number of problems with this, such as how could they have done it with no one seeing them do it, however which make it an interesting theory.   

The third speculates that that the plane  may have been shot down since at the time of the disappearance there were two major military training exercises going on near where the plane disappeared.  It also questions whether the wreckage that was supposedly from the plane since all of it was found by one man and nothing has any of the markings indicating what plane it came from, something some experts said was unlikely to happen.

I was liked the series enough that I watched it in one go. I don’t necessarily buy any of the theories, but I was entertained by the speculation

Worth a look with a grain of salt

JFK REVISITED THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (2021)

 

Once more into the JFK rabbit hole dear friends…..

I have been interested in the story of the assassination for decades I used to spend hours with my late friend Lou going over the various twists and bits of information.  I’ve always been looking for some clue as to what happened. Then somewhere about ten years ago I started to back off as it became clear that so much information has been thrown out there that barring a new smoking gun anyone alive on the day could have been drawn into a conspiracy and been made to look like the real killer.  I backed off because it seemed like we might never know.

And it was with that attitude that I stumbled upon Oliver Stone’s latest film on the subject. Currently screening on Showtime It’s a film that looks at recently declassified documents which are coupled with some compelling interviews.  More and more it looks like Oswald really was a patsy and that the CIA had some hand in the killing. While there is no absolute smoking gun it is clear that the CIA was up to no good and worked to hobble any investigation into the shooting. We also have details revealed about Oswald that makes it clear he was a CIA asset and that his defection was part of a deep cover tale the agency was running for some unknown reason.

I was hooked.

While the film isn’t perfect, the first half narrated by Whoopi Goldberg about the assassination is better than the second narrated by Donald Sutherland which looks at the games the CIA was playing, it is always thoughtful and compelling. I loved it and I can’t wait to dive in again.

Highly recommended

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (2020) hits VOD today

Follow up UNACKNOWLEDGED s a look at how the governments of the world have changed the long held narrative to UFOs and aliens aren't real to acknowledging that something is going on and we are having visitation and how that is now being spun so that the secret government can spin it so they can use the threat of an intergalactic war to create a one government world. Dr Steven Greer and people like him are here to save us by attempting to make contact with the aliens first.

First a statement of my view point- I have thousands of hours of UFO and paranormal videos. I have hundreds or books on the subject. While I have been not as dilignt in keeping up on the various topics over the last few years- owing to a History Channel dumbing down of the discussion I am well versed on a the subjects covered.

I say that because as entertaining as this film is I am left to shake my head about a great deal of it.  have severe problems with the idea of grand conspiracies and the notion of the deep state and related ideas of the Illuminati and other secret governments. Large scale conspiracies tend not to be there  simply because you can shut people up. Do I think Greer and his notions of alien visitation are  factual? Definitely some of it is.  The problem is that a lot of this has problems and while I trust Greer (I have been aware of his work for years) I am not certain of the people feeding him information. There really is a lunatic fringe that spout things, like the QAnon and other loony tales, that just come from jokesters and the unwell.

That said I had a good time watching this film. Yes I found there was much to ponder and yes I found some stuff a bit loopy, but over all I had a good time watching it, which is all you need to know.

If you like stories of UFOs and the paranormal I highly recommend this film.

Second Dallas

Massimo Mazzucco's film on the Robert Kennedy Assassination is a retelling of the events surrounding the controversial event. Was the killing the work of a lone gunman or were there more people involved?

Mazzucco's film is a breezy 54 minutes (the 75 minute run time on the DVD case is because the DVD includes a selection of RFK speeches). The film hits all of the major points that have gotten under people's skin over the last 47 years, from there being too many bullet holes, angles that make no sense, people overheard claiming responsibility and the destruction of evidence BEFORE the trial, this is a film that will make you wonder what exactly happened in that kitchen pantry all those years ago.

While Mazzucco has made a great primer on the conspiracy he has done so by reusing tons and tone of old footage. Being a conspiracy nut for years I've seen most of this footage before. Some of it is so familiar that it was used in several other documentaries. That doesn't make the film a bad one however it makes it less interesting to anyone who has been delving into the RFK murder. On the other hand if you don't know anything about what happened or may have happened this is a good place to start- or reaquint yourself with the details.

We Steal Secrets:The Story of WikiLeaks (2013)

Alex Gibney's film on WikiLeaks focuses on its founder Julian Assange, as well as one of his sources Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning who was caught by military authorities when they realized that he was the source of hundreds of thousands of documents passed to the website.

Acting as a biography of Assange and the organization he founded Gibney has made a film that manages present the now exiled free speech advocate as both a savior and a man with his own agenda. It's a film that leaves you feeling very troubled because you don't know what Assange's game is. Assange is shown to be a man who very much believes that all information being available to all people is a good thing, except as several of his supporters point out that it's not because it could (and did) get some people killed. We watch as Assange changes from being a fly in the ointment to a wanted rock star who may have gotten too big an ego boost from all that happens. Perhaps he thought he was too big to fail.

(Bonus points to Gibney for taking on the rape charges head on by interviewing one of the women involved. Its clear that the sex wasn't rape, however apparently Assange intentionally tore the condoms for reason no one quite knows. All of the fuss was simply because the women wanted Assange to take an AIDS test and refused to. Since if he had AIDS the intentional infection of someone would be a crime the police got involved.)

By the late stages of the film as Assange's behavior becomes more suspect, everyone begins to ask the most obvious question is he heroic? While many people applaud his releasing documents it becomes clear that he really never took any risk, while Manning, who had been feeding WikiLeaks documents ended up thrown in jail. Who is the hero and who isn't?

To be honest there is a great deal of information here-the film runs 130 minutes  which is at least 40 minutes more than most docs. Plus the DVD has 25 minutes of deleted scenes making two and a hal hours of material to take in. There's so much here that I really need to see itagain, especially since what you find out towards the end affects how you feel about the beginning.

For me this is one of Gibney's best films and a must see.

(allow me a moment of snark- if you've seen this I have to ask how could you be shocked by Snowden's revelations in CITIZEN FOUR since what he reveals there is implied or mentioned outright here)

Spooks, Hoods & JFK The Shocking Truth

You wanna hear a good story? I mean a really good story?If so you should try and see Spooks, Hoods & JFK The Shocking Truth, because Chauncey Holt's story is a doozy.

The film is largely an interview with Holt conducted  eight days before he died in 1997 during which he tells his life story. From growing up as a bootlegger and moonshiner, to getting involved with organized crime, befriending Meyer Lansky,  and working with the CIA. His work placed him, or so he says, in Dallas on November 22 1963.

As with many other people Holt claims to know what really happened. Unlike many other people he was documents proving chunks of what he claims. Is it all true? beats me, but it is one hell of a story. Actually in this case it's not so much the story, but the teller,Holt is one hell of a storyteller spinning out his tae with the greatest of ease. Its a story that you fall into and the sort of thing that makes wonder when you get to the end where the previous two hours went to, time blows by.

I have no idea if any of what he says is true. Clearly based on on the documentation some of it is, but thats not important. What is important is that over the course of two hours Holt, sitting alone in a chair, spins out his tale and holds you in rapt attention, something that many big budget Hollywood films never do.

If you're interested in what may or may not have happened in Dallas in 1963 track this film down.

Conspiracy Cinema by David Ray Carter

When I started David Ray Carter's Conspiracy Cinema I kind of groaned. Reading the various introductions and forwards to the book I expected a book similar to many of the films it covers - a bit jagged but very heart felt. I know that anyone making some of the films the book looks at tends to be passionate but not always possessing the best skill. The rambling introductory pieces made me fear that this might be the case with the book as a whole. Happily this is not the case and Carter's volume is an important book in film scholarship.

While nowhere near a complete catalog of conspiracy documentaries, Carter instead chooses to take a look at the greatest hits and important films. These are the titles that you are most likely to run across or in some cases should be running down if you are interested in a particular conspiracy, not only JFK, Oklahoma City  911 but also chemtrails., the Catholic Church or Barrack Obama and the New World Order.

The strength of the book is that Carter looks at the films in three ways- first he looks at the films as films. How do the films play as entertainment? Carter lets you know. Some films such as some of the 911 filmsare so technical that anyone watching the film will have their eyes glaze over. Are you going to be entertained? The book tells you

The other two ways the films are looked at is from the point of view of novices to the subject and as those well versed. Repeatedly throughout the book makes the statement that if you know anything on the subject that you’ll not find anything new. This may sound like small potatoes but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up a documentary based upon a recommendation only to find that they were good introduction on the subject but basically useless for anyone who already knows anything on the subject.

Alternately I’ve gotten several films that I thought would be great entries into a subject only to find they were much too technical. Conspiracy Cinema takes all of the guessing out of which film you should see.

Carter's approach is that all of the conspiracies have some sort of sort of merit either in information or as entertainment. It's clear he doesn't subscribe to many of the conspiracies laid out but he does find them interesting enough to warrant an investigation by the curious.

Actually Carter mentions in the introduction that the book came from his regular day job as a film critic. Wanting to get away from the typical material he watches for his day job he dove down the rabbit hole and not only found a distraction but a side stream that no one had charted before.  Carter decided to report on what he found and we are better for it.

I am a conspiracy buff. I love diving down the rabbit hole myself (hell I've done several weeks of conspiracy films) and I am floored by Carter's work. At long last someone not in the middle of the conspiracy field has looked over the field objectively (and entertainingly) This is something that someone should have done years ago but no one did.  How could we not have had a survey of  conspiracy films before?

Anyone interested in conspiracy or documentaries in all their forms should read this book. It will open your eyes- and entertain you.

Evidence of Revision (2006)

Daunting and exhilerating ten and a half hour look at the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations with side trips into organized crime, mind crontrol and Jonestown

Stitched together from other sources, both news reports, documentaries, interview pieces and other sources. Evidence of Revision is frequently one hell of a killer historical document, never mind the subject matter.

The thesis of the film is that the John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Assassinations were all conspiracies, perpetrated by people connected to the government (LBJ, CIA) and covered up in part thanks to J Edgar Hoover. I don’t know if the film ever proves who actually was behind the killings* however thanks to the use of simple news footage they make it clear that something more than the story reported in the history books was afoot.

I’m not going to wade into a discussion of the conspiracy that the film sets out. This is not laziness on my part nor is it any sort of commentary about the validity or lack thereof, its simply that the entirety of the series is ten hours long and that any detailed discussion of the material would take up the better part of a large book. It would also require sitting down and spending several weeks going backward and forward through the series, which as of this writing is time I don’t have. Pieces in part one ties into part six. It’s a stunning achievement and if you can get through some odd technical hiccups due to the variety of sources the film provides real food for thought.

While I’m not going to discuss the conspiracy, I will discuss the most extraordinary assemblage of either the JFK and RFK assassinations and their aftermaths you have ever seen. What Terrance Raymond has done is truly brilliant and amazing. Weaving together all surviving footage into a chronological narrative the film puts you there in the moment in a way that I’ve never experienced. Events, where possible transpire in real time. If there are multiple camera angles, as there are with Oswald’s shooting and Sirhan Sirhan’s arrest, you see the events in split screen or in multiple images. You couldn’t have seen events this well even if you were there in the moment. If it were a film it would get an Oscar, or if it was a network TV show it would get an Emmy.

Even if you don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy Evidence of Revision should be seen for parts One and 4 which detail the life, deaths and aftermath of the Kennedy brothers.

Yes its that good.

The series can be found on You Tube and other websites and is highly recommended for the history, if not the speculation.

Article on Terrance Raymond

Robert Groden's Case for Conspiracy (1993)

Robert Groden’s Case for Conspiracy is a look at the assassination of JFK and is a great place to start looking into the events back in November 1963 or to reacquaint yourself with the details.

Groden’s film was released about the time of Oliver’s Stone’s JFK, and while it could be argued that the timing was set to tie in with the release of the big budgeted film, one has to remember that Groden has been a decades long critic of the Warren Commission and its conclusions. If Groden released the film to make a couple of extra bucks by striking while the iron was hot, you can’t fault the sentiment.

Groden’s film begins with a recreation of the day in Dallas via archival footage and sound recordings. Taking us from the arrival of the President and his wife on to his shooting and the announcement of his passing. We then get a simple examination of what happened via news footage of eyewitness interviews and police reports before moving onto an examination of the evidence as laid out in the warren commission report (I recently heard someone say the only people who don’t believe the Warren Commission Report are the people who’ve read it).

A wonderful simple piece of filmmaking, Groden’s film simply states his view that something was wrong with the official story he then uses the report against itself, adding contemporaneous news reports as back up. It’s not a screaming indictment of some grand plan (ala Stone’s JFK or any other film on the assassination), rather it’s a quiet and nuanced examination of the facts that finds that the official story is wrong.

Quiet is sometimes better. Quiet sometimes makes a bigger impact.

Groden’s film makes an impact, and if it isn’t big and loud its so much better for it.

Murder in the Heartland (1995)

One of the first or perhaps the first of the Oklahoma City bombing documentaries, it’s also probably the best. The reason it’s the best is that the questions the film raises are still haunting the event almost 20 years later, there are some things we still don’t know.

For those who don’t know the film looks into what exactly happened at the Arthur P Murrah Building in Oklahoma City when Timothy McVeigh set off a truck containing a fertilizer bomb in front of the government office building. McVeigh essentially did it alone, though he (may have) had some help from Terry Nichols who actually acted as a witness against McVeigh. There was according to the official story only one explosion.

MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND  looks at the story as told by government officials and then compares it to the story of witnesses who tell a different and more troubling story.

According to the witnesses in the film there was two explosions that brought the building down, there was only 1 ATF agent in in the building but right after the explosion the site was filled with them, and allegedly there were other suspicious people lurking around who better matched the descriptions of various John Does wanted for questioning. There are also problems with official statements and what was reported by the media on the scene.

I'm not sure how much I believe of the conspiracy story, but  unlike many other events thought to be the work of dark masterminds, this one actually has enough veracity to at least make you question the official story.

The strength of the film comes from a couple places.

First and foremost the film is told as if it was a TV news special report. Structured as a an investigation the film creates an air of mystery that carries the viewer from start to finish. We want to know the answers to the questions raised and so we become invested in what we are being told. Additionally the film neither gets histrionic in its telling or overly fanciful. What it reports is what it has information to back up.

The other thing working in the favor of the film is that even twenty years on we still don’t have the answers to most of the questions. Unlike say 911 or the London Bombings which collapse more and more as a more information is released (part of the questions arose in the case of London when the authorities refused to release pictures of the bombers in the subway system- questions that disappeared after the photos were released). This is an event that still has real unanswered questions and not ones based on misinterpretation or disregarding facts.

I'm genuinely impressed that the questions raised still hold up.

Where I can recommend many other conspiracy films for the shits and giggle factor, MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND is recommended because it makes you stop and ponder really what happened- especially now when enough time has past  that we can be dispassionate.

See this film.

SIlver Circle (2013)

I am forever looking for small independent films needing to be helped along to find an audience. When I was at New York Comic Con this weekend I picked up a couple of small films that filmmakers were selling in the hopes of find some hidden gems.  One of which was the animated SILVER CIRCLE.

Pasha Roberts's film is set in a future a few years off. The worst economic crisis ever sparked an economic collapse that resulted in the rampant inflation and the Federal Reserve taking over the housing markets. Gold and silver has been outlawed and money is worth less each moment that passes. After the Fed clears out a track of homes, eleven of them are burned down. Investigator Jay Nelson is put on the cases which drops him down a rabbit hole as he discovers a rebel movement and finds out what is really going on, and who is really in control.

The first thing you have to do when you see this film is get past the animation style. Looking more like a retro video game than a feature animated film, the films style is going to lose viewers just on the face of it. You have to push past the low budget style. We have to celebrate that some one is telling a good crime story and not worry about the animation style. The fact that I'm saying go past the animation style says a great deal about the film.

If you get past the animation style you have to decide how you are going to look at the film. Will you take it as a straight on thriller, in which case you'll have a pretty good time; or are you going to see this as a political tract and polemic on the evils of the Federal Reserve, in which case the film collapses.

To be honest the films big problem is that the film was designed as a rant against the Fed and big finance. Through out the film the action stops dead as one character or another rambles on to our hero about what the Fed has done and is doing.  Not only do the long winded rants kill forward momentum they take place in a world that is part of some alternate reality. Yes there are problems with the Fed,but the big conspiracy that Roberts is claiming to exist is more dystopian fantasy than reality. It requires huge leaps of faith and logic that just aren't there and the likelihood of say the Fed getting a police force and control of housing just isn't likely to happen any time soon, even if there were an economic crisis.

If one wanted to keep it simple the reality of the film is pure fantasy- look at the way the world is set up and consider what the world shows of how people live and realize things would be vastly different considering the price of bread is 58 dollars a loaf. Look at post WW1 Germany- which I know is what Roberts was aiming at when he missed the mark. Things would be much more chaotic. Things wouldn't be as they are now, but vastly down graded. The background universe of the film is being set up to make a point not to actually work which is where the WTF moments come from. This is a world that comes a writers imagination and not reality.

If you can ignore the polemic the film is actually a pretty good thriller. Yes its the sort of thing we've seen before any number of times where one good man is sent on a quest that ends up revealing a grand conspiracy, but the film is well written (politics aside) and has some great action set pieces- I like Jay being rescued by Zoe early in the game, and it has some great slimy villains.

Is it a great film? No but assuming you can divorce yourself from the off the wall universe the film operates in it is a good one that I would watch again.