THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Month: August 2021

The Suicide Squad Kills

It is no secret that Warner Bros. has been dropping the ball with the DC Universe. I am not saying that every DC movie that comes out is garbage. Look at the Wonder Woman franchise that continues to grow, and Aquaman surprised many viewers with how fun it was. However, as an overall universe, it’s evident that, as a whole, Warner Bros. has severely dropped the ball. The first Suicide Squad embodied this slight missing of the target more than most of their films. Warner Bros. stacked the cast and came hard with a new style of ensemble anti-hero team; however, the storyline left us wanting more, and a few scenes were either needed or should have been edited out to have a more fluid film. The first Suicide Squad just really left fans wanting. Fast forward five years, and we got the movie we all wanted. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

When the movie opened, I was excited to see that Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Walking Dead, Mallrats) was playing Savant. His look was drastically different than other roles, with him sporting long white hair and his typical smart mouth hardly opened throughout his small part in the film. That another thing, the fact that James Gunn set up an entire team of some great celebrities to play the suicide squad only to kill them off in the first ten minutes was a brave and entertaining plan. The team had Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Castle, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) playing TDK, Jai Courtney (Terminator Genisys, Divergent, Spartacus) as Captain Boomerang, Mayling Ng (The Scorpion King: Book of Souls, Muna) as Mongal, Pete Davidson (S.N.L., The King of Staten Island) as Blackguard, Flula Borg (DuckTales, Tom, and Jerry in New York, Curb Your Enthusiasm) as Javelin and even Sean Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) as Weasel and Calendar Man. This was an amusing cast of characters, but when they all were killed just minutes into the movie, it forced the audience to take a step back and say to themselves, “this isn’t your typical Super-Hero flick.” 

Margot Robbie is back as Harley Quinn, and it seems at this point that Harley will never be played by anyone else. Every hero has been recast in the DC universe (for the most part). Still, at this point, it is hard to imagine anyone else playing the beautifully psychotic former doctor. Margot brings authenticity to this role and does a great job of showing both her crazy side and the intellectual that is still hiding somewhere in the back of her mind. She can get out of situations that would be tough for any hero or villain in a seemingly effortless way. 

Amanda Waller is also played by the same actor in this film, Viola Davis (Fences, United States of Tara, Law Abiding Citizen). After this film, the internet was on fire, with Waller being the biggest, baddest, and most despicable villain in the DC film universe. I don’t know if I would really agree with that, but she is definitely up there on the list. I mean, most villains have a mental disorder at the core of their issues; however, Waller stands with her deep need to “protect” her country and freedom. The scary part of this character is how REAL she is. People in power now have no issue with blackmailing someone to do something against their wishes based on destroying their children’s lives if they fail. It is disgusting. 

With the first squad being killed, a second-team needs to step up. Of course, being the evil genius, Waller knew this would happen, so she already had a team in place. The new group consisting of Idris Elba (Luther, Thor, The Dark Tower) as Bloodsport, John Cena (WWE, Bumblebee, Playing with Fire) as Peacemaker, Daniela Melchior (The Payback, Valor da Vida) as Ratcatcher 2, David Dastmalchian (The Dark Knight, Dune, Prisoners) as Polka-dot Man and Sylvester Stallone (do I need to say anything here…) as King Shark. 

This fun group of action-packed weirdos makes the entire film so much fun. King Shark is my standout character. Sly always makes sure he is at the forefront of any movie he is in, and all though we never see his face, he steals the show in this one just the same. 

I was honestly surprised at how much I liked this film. I have been let down by DC in the past (as we all have, I am sure); all though I always like the movie, they leave me wanting more. This film did everything I wanted and then some. I am happy to see DC and Warner Bros. letting the creative teams do what they do best and letting them run with ideas. Some of the things in this movie really should not have worked. Having a giant alien starfish being the monster at the end could have been done so hacky and goofy that it let the film fizzle out in the future; however, it worked so well artistically and comedically while also giving the action this story needed. I hope that James Gunn will head up more DC films and turn things around for the universe. 

It was nice that Harley was still a focus of the story without it all being about her. The decision to really flesh out each member (for the most part) of the squad was wise. We all love Harley, but we’ve already had her films; it was nice to see they did not use her as a crutch the whole time. 

Written exclusively for TheLastPicture.Show by Jacob Ruble

Disclosure: The links on this page are “Affiliate Links” and while these are shown at no costs to our viewers, they generate commissions for our website(s)

August 16, 2021
Amazon Tips for the Up-and-Coming Author

New authors can have an uphill battle ahead of them in regard to getting attention for their books, and knowing avenues to assist with that struggle can be helpful. For instance, Amazon can be beneficial in getting your books into readers’ hands through these concepts:

Free Book Promotion

In order to take advantage of a free promotion on Amazon, you have to join KDP Select. What is KDP select, you might ask? It essentially means you’ve promised Amazon your book will not be available in electronic format through any other site. The bad news is that this decision rules out any other company you could use to digitally distribute your book. Any time you have to limit yourself in this way, you should stop and give it very real thought. If you just can’t bring yourself to box your book in like this, skip this section!

The good news for KDP Select is that you don’t have to stay enrolled. When the time comes to renew, you can simply decline the offer, and when your membership expires, you’re free to digitally sell your book where you want. This means you can take advantage of these KDP benefits, and then step away from the program to expand your book horizons. While you’re enrolled, as well, you can post scenes and excerpts from your book for promotional methods, so it doesn’t prevent you from pushing your book in that way.

Now that KDP Select pros and cons have been covered, let’s get into free book promotion’s benefits! What this means is that for a time, your book is available for free through Amazon. You might be wondering why in the world you’d want to give your book away, but keep in mind that when you begin as a writer, you don’t have a J.K. Rowling fanbase. You’re not known, overall, and you have to catch your readers’ eyes. One great way to get readers to give you a chance is to offer them one of your books for free.

If you do this, readers are being introduced to your stories and writing style without it costing them a penny, so you’re reaching audiences who might have been reluctant to part with money for a new author. Maybe they’ll love your book and leave a review to draw in more readers. Perhaps they’ll adore it and be a life-long fan. If either of those things happen, you win!

This is a particularly great strategy to utilize if you’re promoting a series since readers can become invested in the first book, and then have to pay for the rest of the series. See? It can be an effective marketing tool!

Keep Your Author Page Up-To-Date

One of the perks of utilizing Amazon as an author is the Author Central page that allows you to create a page for yourself. This page can include a picture of you, your biography, and other details that a reader might find interesting. For this reason, keep your page current so your reader isn’t finding the release date to last year’s book noted with “Look for my upcoming novel!” These kinds of discrepancies can have a reader believing you don’t care enough about writing to keep these details accurate, which can be a poor representation of how passionate you are about writing or how appreciative you are of your readers. After all, you’re giving them outdated information!

Since you can also list upcoming events on your Author Central page, being current becomes more pressing. If you’re going to be at a book signing next month, make sure your readers know they can find you there by letting them know on your author page. This way, you’re boosting the odds of meeting your fans face-to-face and revealing how seriously you’re taking this writing business.

You can also upload interviews, trailers, or other media to your author page, and this concept elevates the already mentioned details of showing your readers they matter and keeping your details up-to-date. An interview, as an example, allows your readers to get a look into you as an author, and a book trailer can promote that new release you’ve been working on for over a year. These details, however, are at their most effective when they’re dealt with in a timely manner. A reader might be less likely to care about a book trailer for a novel they read three years ago, and an interview about how you felt when you were at that book signing five years ago feels dated and irrelevant. For these reasons, keep that author page current!

Quickly Add Your Books

One detail that you certainly should consider with your Amazon author page is what books show up on your site. If you don’t show your readers all of your available books, the odds that they’ll overlook one or two elevate drastically, so be sure to keep your list of books current.

Fortunately, Amazon makes doing this very easy. All you need to do is sign into Author Central, click on “Books,” and then click on “Add More Books.” From there, you can search for books that need to be added, and then claim them with the “This is my book” response. After a bit of time, the book will show up on your author page, and readers can find all of your available books just by going to your site.

Keep an Eye out for Bad Reviews

Sometimes, little to nothing can be done about bad reviews. Even if a person is just choosing to be mean, there’s little you can do to counter that negativity if it’s technically about your book. Other times, however, people with too much time and too many cruel intentions can discolor your book’s reviews by adding 1-star ratings with descriptions that don’t fit your book. Trust me! I’ve had this happen! Two reviews were on my books that were plagiarized from a website and concerned books that were very much not mine.

Luckily, Amazon seems good about taking care of these details. I reported both of these instances with links to the plagiarized reviews and had my friends take action as well, and both of the reviews went away. Had I not looked to see those reviews, though, they could still be there and hindering my sales. Basically, keep checking on your books, and if something looks fishy, report it!

Be Aware

As great as Amazon seems, it pays to be aware. While Amazon is one of the main online sellers in the world, they’re not the most author-friendly venue. For instance, all book reviews do not make it onto the site, and some of them can just disappear if the site decides they’re not appropriate or relevant—such as reviews that are from people you know or people you gave free books to for a review.

One problem, of course, is that Amazon does not know everyone know, but still makes these kinds of calls. Beyond that idea, authors logically utilize the free-book-for-review idea, particularly in the early stages of a career. So if you’re going to offer free books for reviews, think about directing reviewers to other sites so that reviews won’t vanish on a whim if Amazon decides they’re not appropriate.

Additionally, you might want to brush up on rules and regulations since it’s very easy to step over-the-line in regard to what Amazon will and won’t allow on their product reviews. For instance, you can’t post a URL to a product outside of Amazon. If you have a review deleted, by the way, you don’t get another try at it. You’re basically banned from reviewing that product.

It’s also worth noting that you can’t review your competitors, which means authors who review your book might have their reviews refused or deleted, and you have to spend a certain amount of money on Amazon before you can post a review.

None of this means you shouldn’t utilize Amazon for reviews, but be sure you’re keeping tabs on what can and can’t be done there, and encourage your reviewers to post their reviews on other platforms. If not, all of your good critiques could fade.

But…

If you take the time to educate yourself on these details, Amazon can be used to promote your book in a number of ways. Since it’s such a big online organization, why not give it a try?

Source –www.forlearningminds.com/

August 15, 2021
Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929)

A quick glance into classic film history will return one name repeatedly, Alfred Hitchcock. Even the most novice cinema fan will have a few Hitchcock movies they can easily throw out to solidify their knowledge of film history. Most of the time, when speaking with someone about the go-to films from Hitchcock, titles like The Birds, Rear Window, Vertigo, and of course, Psycho are thrown around the most. However, all it takes is a little more appreciation for the craft of Hitchcock to have a fan wanting to dig deeper than the surface. Once this is done, an entire catalog of films will be unearthed.

Before she broke big with the films mentioned above, Hitchcock had a few silent films worth looking into. One of these is a movie titled, Blackmail. Before I go any further, I should say that technically, Blackmail was the first British “talkie” film. Two versions of the film were made, one talkie version and one silent version, to not leave out the theaters that had not updated their systems yet. It is essential to note the significance of a film like this coming out in 1929. A movie being released with any sort of talking at all was groundbreaking to many regions. Hitchcock knew that the industry was moving into the “sound” direction, so while he was filming this movie, he purposely shot specific scenes in a way that would work well for both silent and sound editing. After filming, the studio told him that they wanted to add sound to the film. Luckily, thanks to Hitchcock’s forward-thinking, it was not too challenging to add partial sound. The only major issue that he ran into when he added the sound was the thick Polish accent that the actress Anny Ondra had. He simply had her lines dubbed by Joan Barry reading the lines off-camera while Ondra mimed the words to fix this issue. Creativity like this earned Hitchcock his place as one of the most innovated and creative filmmakers who ever lived. Although this may seem like an apparent move to make today’s industry, this was an entirely new way of taking on the extra burden of adding sound to film.

When viewing Blackmail, it doesn’t take long to see Hitchcock’s fingerprints all over each scene. There are multiple complicated relationships all being tied together. A woman put in a horrible situation, murder, cover-up, and a big finale in a recognizable location. Although these situations have come up in other films by numerous filmmakers, there is something dark and almost thick about the way Hitchcock would do them.

This film follows the story of Alice, a young woman who is dating a Scotland Yard detective. One night when her boyfriend, Frank, fails to meet her expectations, Alice decides not to go out with Frank but instead leaves with a stranger that has been flirting with her. The stranger is an artist named Crewe. Alice follows Crewe back to his apartment to look at some of his artwork in an act she will soon regret. If she was able to curb her innocence for, but a moment, her life would have been drastically different. While in his apartment, Crewe creates an image of a naked woman. Alice, slightly worried now, pushes her feelings down deeper and, in jest, signs her name to the art piece. Crewe takes this as an opportunity and asks her to model for him. Things turn from creepy to deadly when he forces her onto the bed and begins assaulting her. In a desperate need to escape, Alice grabs a knife close by and kills Crewe. When she leaves, she is in a complete daze from the trauma that just occurred and has no idea that she was seen leaving the apartment. The next day when her boyfriend Frank is called to the scene, he notices one of her gloves there, and in an attempt to cover up (at least until he knows what’s going on) her actions, he takes the glove with him. However, when Frank goes to Alice’s fathers’ shop to speak with her about the glove, a mysterious man shows up with the other glove, and the Blackmail begins.

There are specific scenes in the film that stand out as being both suspenseful and utterly creative. When the murder occurs, the audience does not actually see what is going on due to the curtains around the bed. Instead, it is implied what is taking place, and once Crewe is dead, his hand rests lifelessly over the edge of the bed. This is important because, throughout the rest of the film, there are times when Alice will see someone resting their hand on a ledge or out of a car window and immediately be taken back to that horrible bedroom. This is a trick that Hitchcock will come back to many times in other films, showing something that triggers the feeling of a specific scene. He does this in the film Vertigo, with the circles signifying the feeling of falling. It is a simple trick; however, the subtlety in which he used them in his films is what creates the feeling of uneasiness for viewers. The rule of “less is more” is no more apparent than watching a Hitchcock film. Because of his signature touch, compelling story, and spectacular acting in Blackmail, the film was voted best British film in 1929, and in 2017, Time Out magazine ranked it the 59th best British movie ever made. Alfred Hitchcock was known for having small cameos in many of his films, although has his fame rose, he would have less screen time. His cameo in this film is one of his most extended screen times ever. Just a few minutes into the movie, we see a young boy pestering a man while trying to read a book; the reader, of course, is Hitchcock himself.

Written exclusively for TheLastPicture.Show by Jacob Ruble

Disclosure: The links on this page are “Affiliate Links” and while these are shown at no costs to our viewers, they generate commissions for our website(s)

August 15, 2021
Best Books of 2020

Some of the Best Book of 2020

2020 did one thing that could be seen as a silver lining in what is otherwise a dumpster fire of a year, it gave us time. Time to sit and think, dwell on our life, binge watch television or finally read that book we have been staring at on our nightstand. I set a goal of 30 books each year to read and honestly, I may reach that goal one out of three years, but I still set it! I really just want to read 20 books, but I find that if I set my goal or 30, I will read around 25-27 books, so I technically go past my goal. It’s just a simple way that I trick myself, which is easier than it should be. With 2020 I made the decision to read some NEW books that I had never even heard of to try and get a little more culture than normal. Most of the books I pick up have been on shelves for as long as I have been alive, sometimes longer! So, this was going to be a treat for me to jump into more modern styles of writing. Turns out, I ended up reading mostly books I already had in my back log. I researched a lot of books that were going to be released in 2020, made a list of the ones that were best sellers or the ones that I felt would be a good fit for me, and I fell short of reading any of them! So, I decided to give you a chance to check them all out. Below is a list I put together through all of my research into, the best books of 2020! Do better than me, read them.

*To see an entire list of best of books released in 2020, check out goodreads choice awards.

The Trials of Apollo: The Tower of Nero

Rick Riordan is the R.L Stine of my kids’ generation. It seems he is always pumping out books that fly off the shelves and as someone who has read is fair share of Riordan books, I can see why. Okay, so these books are for middle school aged children but to be honest, a good story is a good story and sometimes it is nice to pick up smaller, easy to read book to fly through and give yourself the confidence to reach that 30 (come on its 20) book challenge! The Trials of Apollo: The Tower of Nero is the final instalment of this newest series by Riordan. It continues the story of the Greek god Apollo in his most recent incarnation as a teenage kid on earth.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

This is one that I still plan on reading this year (I promise). To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was written by Christopher Paolina and has already won itself some awards. It is a science fiction story set on a new planet being discovered by Kira Navarez. Kira finds an ancient alien relic while surveying this new planet and after her initial excitement, she quickly becomes terrified as a nightmare of situations unfold. This story sounds like it is right up my alley and I am delighted to say, this is next on my list this year.

Ready Player Two

When Ernest Cline released Ready Player One back in 2011, it grabbed my attention in a way that no book ever had before. I could not stop reading it and since my first read, I have read this book once a year, every year. I know, why would I read a book I have already read when I have so many books I want to get to and so little time to do so, it’s just that good, plain and simple. When it was told that the sequel would be released, I had mixed feelings. On the one had I was excited to step back into the world of the Oasis, but on the other hand I know that it is next to impossible to recreate that feeling of excitement when discovering something for the first time. I let the fear control me this time as I have yet to crack this sequel open. The reviews have not been the best (or the worst), but I feel that this story is simply overshadowed by its predecessor. Taking place just days after the first book ended, Ready Player Two brings us back into the life of Wade Watts. Wade discovers a new easter egg hidden within the vault that promises to take the Oasis to the next level, but not without a quest first of course.

The Vanishing Half

Set in the fictional town of Mallard, La., The Vanishing Half is about twin girls of color who decide to run away from the violence and oppression that exists in this 1950s world. The small town they are from prides themselves on their “light skin” and does its best to showcase how “elite” they are. When the girls finally make the decision to run away, one of them makes the choice to live her life as white and due to this vanishes from her sister. This is the second book published by Brit Bennett and she does a fantastic job of giving multiple layers to the characters and creating a feeling of emotional attachment from the reader. One book that actually made its way into my goal of 2020, this is a great read especially for the time we are living in today. Anything that can force someone to see things from another point of view and create an overall sense of love and sorrow, is a winner in my eyes.

There were many other books published in 2020 that deserve a read; however these are the main ones I took a look at and felt earned a place on my “to read” list of 2020. Anyone looking to branch out and possibly grab something from modern day literature would benefit from reading these books. That is why I chose these, due to the fact of my personal feelings for the one I read, the authors I trust and the one I desire to read the most.

Written exclusively for our company by Jacob Ruble

Source –Coolmambo.com

August 6, 2021
Stephen King’s Top Ten Movies

Stephen King is one of the most successful authors to ever live. Currently, he has sold over 350 million copies of his 61 published novels. He has been called the “King of Horror”. His first novel to get published was Carrie in 1973. Carrie was actually King’s fourth novel and he famously threw the first draft away only to have it pulled from the garbage by his wife who promised to help him write it. Over the years King has been a major inspiration to keep pushing and never take no for an answer. When he was younger, he would submit short stories to hundreds of magazines only to get rejected over and over again. He tacked a nail up in his room and every rejection letter he received he would pin to the nail. After he got so many the nail fell out of the wall he could have easily given up, but instead he just got a bigger nail. It is encouraging to hear that one of the most successful writers ever had to jump hurdles and force himself into success.

Shop NCAA, NFL, MLB, NBA, & More at Fanatics Official Site! Over 600 Teams. Gifts For Every Fan.

Once his books were published, it wasn’t long before they were made into films. Some of Stephen King’s movies and television shows have been solidified in horror hall of fame while others are best to be forgotten. King has had at least 84 movies made based on his stories, and not all of them are winners. It is hard to carve away all of the films to be left with a top ten, but after a lot of research and hours watching the films, here is a top ten list of Stephen Kings movies, worst to best.

The Dead Zone (1983)

The Dead Zone was released in 1983 and made $20.8 million in the box office. The film was based on the book of the same name published in 1979. Director David Cronenberg (The Fly) brought to life the screenplay written by Jeffrey Boam (The Lost Boys). It stars Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, and Martin Sheen. This is actually one of my favorite King novels and the movie is a great adaptation. In the early 2000’s there was also a mini-series based on the novel that stared Anthony Michael Hall.

The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile was released in 1999 and made $286.8 million in the box office. The film was based on King’s book of the same name that was published in 1996. It was written and directed by Frank Darabont (Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors writer) and stared Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Bonnie hunt and Sam Rockwell. The movie has so much heart and deep meanings that many consider this to be the go-to film when speaking about Stephen King.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Doctor Sleep was released in 2019 and made $72.3 million in the box office. The film was based on the 2013 novel of the same name. It was written and directed by Mike Flanagan (Hush) and continues the story of Danny from The Shining. It stars Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, and Cliff Curtis. It’s not always easy to write a sequel to a book/movie that was released a few decades prior, but both the film and novel Doctor Sleep shows the right way to do this.

Pet Sematary (1989)

Pet Sematary was released in 1989 and made $57.5 million in the box office. It was based on the 1983 King novel of the same name. Directed by Mary Lambert (Siesta) and was written by Stephen King himself. The film stared Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, and Miko Hughes. I watched this film as a kid and it certainly had some scary moments in it, but years later after I had my own children, I watched it again. The second viewing was terrifying! The entire time all I could think of was one of my kids becoming a homicidal zombie kid intent on killing me.

Misery (1990)

Misery was released in 1990 and made $20 million in the box office. It was based on the 1987 novel of the same name. It was written by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and was directed by legendary Rob Reiner (This is Spinal Tap). The film stars James Caan and Kathy Bates. My first viewing of this movie did not amount to much in all honesty. But when I re-watched it was a young adult I fell in love with the suspense and attention to detail that the story provides.

Christine (1983)

Christine was released in 1983 and made $21 million in the box office. It was written by Bill Phillips and directed by horror god John Carpenter (Halloween). The film was based on the 1983 novel of the same name. It stared Keith Gordon John Stockwell, and Alexandra Paul. Christine was the first Stephen King film I watched, and I instantly fell in love with his story telling.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Shawshank Redemption was released in 1994 and made $58.3 million in the box office. It was based on the King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The film stars Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Clancy Brown and Bob Gunton. It was written and directed by the same man as The Green Mile, Frank Darabont. When you ask most people what their favorite movie is, this movie will be brought up more than any other. Not your typical King story, The Shawshank Redemption is a became a cult classic once it started running on TNT.

The Shining (1980)

The Shining opened in 1980 and earned $47 million in the box office. It was based on the 1977 King novel of the same name. Directed by Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange) and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. The film stars Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers and Danny Lloyd. This was a movie I was supposed to wait to watch until I was older but snuck a peak anyway. It had a profound effect on me, not just being scary but caused me to seek out the feeling one gets from scary movies.

Carrie (1976)

Carrie was released in 1976 and made $33.8 million in the box office, and this was off of just a $1.8 million budget! It was based on King’s first published novel based on the same name and was directed by Brian De Palma (Scarface) and written by Lawrence D. Cohen (Ghost Story). It stared Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, and John Travolta. This was not just King’s first novel, but also his first story to see the screen. After this film, King would have over 100 adaptations of his stories hit the screen as a film or television show. There is a reason he is the King.

Stand by Me (1986)

Stand by Me was released in 1986 and made $52.3 million in the box office. It was based off the 1982 novella, The Body. Director Rob Reiner also headed up this film. Stand by Me stared Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Keifer Sutherland, and was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss. Stand by Me did a fantastic job of showing the internal struggles of boys who are coming into their teenage years. When I think of Stephen King films, this is the first one that always comes to mind, simply for the effect it had on me when I watched it as a 13-year-old boy. It caused me to confront certain issues I was dealing with in my family (my father mostly) and what I was feeling about growing up.

Written exclusively for TheLastPicture.Show by Jacob Ruble

Disclosure: The links on this page are “Affiliate Links” and while these are shown at no costs to our viewers, they generate commissions for our website(s)

August 6, 2021
5 Best Kevin Costner Roles

KEVIN COSTNER MOST MEMORABLE ROLES

Kevin Costner is one of those actors that people tend to forget about these days. I have no idea why when the subject of “who is the best actor” Costner is always looked over. Okay, maybe “best” actor is stretching things a little, but some of the roles that he has taken on has brought depth and emotion to characters that could have been easily forgettable. I think that it is time that Kevin Costner got the respect he deserves, okay, alright, I know that people are not shutting him down and saying he is NOT a great actor, I just find it strange that he is not at least in the top 10 lists I see floating around. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Let’s celebrate the great accomplishments that Kevin Costner has made both in the past and still working on today. Here are my top five favorite roles that Kevin Costner brought to life.

Lieutenant Dunbar: Dances with Wolves- 1990

Let’s kick off the list with the first Kevin Costner film I remember watching, Dances with Wolves. This film was based on the book written by Michael Blake. Costner not only stared in this film, he was also the director and I can say that still to this day, I watch this movie at least five times a year. I love the way that it transports you back to the west without making it seem like the natives were a ruthless bunch of heathens, in fact, this film does a fantastic job of giving depth and emotion to characters that most films at the time ignored or made one dimensional. The way that Costner’s character was dropped off in a “foreign” land not knowing what to do or what was coming, it made the viewer feel the same way and was a joy to take the path of adventurer with him. This is still one of my favorite movies of all time, and rightfully so since it won a ton of awards including Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director as well as a Golden Globe for best director.

The Postman: The Postman -1997

I have always been a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories, Mad Max was one of my dad’s favorite movies so we would watch anything that was even close to it growing up, and The Postman quickly became another favorite. Admittedly, it has been a while since I watched this movie, but I remember parts of it vividly, like the Shakespeare play he puts on and the lions that seem to be in waiting at all times. There are some strange plot points about this movie for sure, like the fact that there still seems to be an abundance of guns and electricity, but no gas or food. Even with the plot holes, I look back on this film fondly and have even read the book it was based on written by David Brin. Costner also stared in this film alongside Will Patton and Larenz Tate with smaller roles by Giovanni Ribisi, Scott Bairstow and even Tom Petty. Sure, this may be a strange movie to go back to, but I have great memories of watching this film.

“Devil” Anse Hatfield: Hatfield’s & McCoy’s-2012

The Hatfield’s & McCoy’s feud that spanned over multiple generations is a story that was begging to have be made into a dramatization. Fun fact, when doing our family ancestry, we found out that years after the feud, a Hatfield married a McCoy and that is where my family comes from. Okay, back to Costner. The role he takes on as Devil Anse Hatfield is perfect casting seeing how Devil Anse is the type of man to brood and keep his own style of morals and values all the while feeling as though he is doing the right thing no matter who gets hurt. One is reminded of Costner’s roles in Wyatt Earp or Open Range while watching this mini-series. The way the drama is stretched out over each episode plays a large part why Costner won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Miniseries as well as a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries.

Jake: Silverado-1985

I am sure nobody could have guessed that I was going to put this role on the list but go back and watch the life that Costner brings to Jake. His character is not really one of the “main” characters in this story and he is not in the entire film, but the fun “kid-like” persona that he brings is a comedic relief in the over all story. After the first time I watched the film, he was the one I was drawn to the most. Over the years Costner has played MANY western themed characters, but to my knowledge this is the only one with the kind of “fun” one thinks of when thinking of Billy the Kid and the likes.

John Dutton: Yellowstone-2018

All of these years later and still when Kevin Costner puts on that cowboy hat, he makes you believe he is the real deal. Yellowstone is a show that honestly took me by surprise. I have watched many dramatic television shows over the years, and I was not sure this one would hold my attention. But the twists and turns in the series makes for an extremely fun ride and the development of John Dutton in the show is one of my favorite parts. You start out really hating his character as a father but over time learn why he is the way he is, and it is pretty eye opening. This has become one of my favorite shows, and I can’t wait for the next season to start.

Robert “Butch” Haynes: A Perfect World (worth adding)

In this Clint Eastwood directed film (who is also a co-star in the film), Costner plays an escaped convict who kidnaps a child who has been sheltered by his religious mother, and as the film progresses the kidnapper and child become close friends. Costner slowly becomes the father figure that this kid desperately desires. This film is on the Honorable mentions list due to the depth that Costner brings to his character as a hard neck who has a softened heart. This is a role that not many people think of due to Costner’s long list of great films, but it has always stuck with me as a great story with a sad ending. When I first watched this movie, I was drawn in by the “outlaw with a heart of gold” role that develops as the film unfolds and I am always surprised when friends have not watched this movie.

I would also like to add that although Waterworld was a flop, I loved this movie! Costner’s role was pretty one dimensional throughout the enter movie, but it is still a fun film.

Other great roles he played:

Frank Hamer, Highwaymen

Charley Waite, Open Range

Roy McAvoy, Tin Cup

Stephen Simmons, The War

Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp

Frank Farmer, The Bodyguard

Jim Garrison, JFK

Robin of Locksley, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Ray Kinsella, Field of Dreams

Crash Davis, Bull Durham

Eliot Ness, The Untouchables

The worst character he ever played in my opinion, Johnathan Kent in the Man of Steel movie. I don’t blame him; however, I do blame the story itself.

Written exclusively for our company by Jacob Ruble

August 5, 2021
The Call of the Wild: Movie vs. Book

Many children in grade school must read Jack London’s book “Call of the Wild.” Due to this requirement, fans of the book continue to grow with each passing grade. Fans will remember the ugly truth about nature London lays out on each page. The acts of violence, along with multiple deaths, stay with children as they read this book. The book, first published in 1903, solidifies its effect on readers since it is still relevant today. 

Disney takes a different approach in the film to make it more family-friendly. In the book, the man in the red sweater is a bloodthirsty psycho who seems to beat buck within an inch of his life. In the film, however, Buck is only hit one time by this character. Animal violence in any movie is hard to watch, so the fact that Disney left these scenes out is not necessarily a bad thing. While Buck’s life in the film is sad, it doesn’t come close to being as devasting as the book makes it out to be. The brutality of man is prominent on almost every page of the book, but in the film, there are only a few instances where we see how harsh humans can be to animals leaving out the “mercy killings” the book describes. Electing to leave out most of the death scenes is not much of a surprise in the film. One scene that sticks out in the book is when an entire team of sled dogs (minus Buck) drowns when the ice breaks as they are crossing a river. While Disney is no stranger to death scenes, they chose a different path in the film, and all the dogs escape without harm. 

The book always makes Buck the center of attention; however, in the movie, we see the time split between dog and man, Jack Thornton’s man (Harrison Ford). Ford Narrates the film, which gives the feeling of him being the star. The narration was another decision that did not come as a surprise. Film lovers have an easier time following the tale of someone they can relate to rather than an animal, regardless of how unique and lovable the animal may be. Certain films pull that dynamic off, but it is always a gamble, one I do not think Disney wanted to make. The first time Thornton appears in the film is when Buck is coming off the boat that brought him to Alaska after being taken from his luxurious life. We then see him again when he saves buck from the hands of Hal (Dan Stevens). The book made it pretty clear that we were following the life of Buck, and although Jack Thornton was a large part of that life, being one of the first men to show love and kindness to Buck, he was only a small part of his tale. The film takes its liberties here and has Jack and Buck’s relationship seem like it is the final chapter of the story. 

The book’s overall tone is that Buck is continuously evolving into the wild dog that rages within him and his eagerness to join the pack running in the woods grows with each page. Conflict within Buck plays a significant role in the development of the book, and a large part of that has to do with the evil nature of humankind to him. Since the film leaves a lot of that violent nature out, it stands to reason this desire to run wild with the wolves plays out for the film’s final act. The written work weaves in and out a tribe of Native peoples called the “Yeehat” who ultimately kill Jack Thornton, causing Buck to turn his back on any domestication left within him and kills as many of the murderers as he can. The film opted out of bringing in the fictional tribe of the Yeehat for any scene. 

It is unfair to judge the film based on the book due to both types of media. The film connects the audience to Ford’s character Thornton through his narrations and back story. The book chose to join its readers to what it was like to be a dog ripped from his home and forced into virtually slave labor at the hands of a violent and uncaring race of humans. Both the film and book do a fantastic job of pulling in their audiences. However, they do so in different ways. Jack London was a master at his craft, painting an exotic and breathtaking picture of what life was like in Alaska. London’s works have influenced many to escape their day-to-day lives and fled to the great white North. The film does that great of a job showcasing the splendor that Alaska has to offer. Several scenes do a great job portraying the landscape as a beautiful and unmatched work of art, but it falls short of inspiring the same kind of spirit the book ignited. 

It is important to note that one version is not better than the other version. The fact that both deliver a message in a unique voice is both satisfying and entertaining. London birthed this story through his imagination and desire to explore the great Alaskan wild. Disney took the inspiration of great storytelling, colorful characters, and man and beast’s relationship and left their fingerprints on the tale. 

Written exclusively for our company by Jacob Ruble

Source – CoolMambo.com

August 4, 2021
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Review
- Details:
- Directed by  Robert Wiene
- Written by  Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz
- Released  February 26, 1920
- Budget  $12,371
- Box Office  $4,714
- Cast  Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Fehér, Rudolf Lettinger, and Lil Dagover
Break Down:

The film opens with two men sitting outside under a tree talking. The younger of the two men, Francis (Fredrich Feher), says that “the spirits have driven me away from my family and home.” Just as he says this, a ghostly woman dressed in all white and seemingly incoherent walks by them. The man explains that she is his fiancée and tells his friend they have been through a traumatic experience. As he begins telling the story, the scene changes to a flashback of what happened.

Here we are introduced to a mysterious man named Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss). The Doctor is attempting to get a permit to perform his sideshow at the fair that just came into town. The clerk, however, is being extremely rude to him. After making fun of Caligari, the clerk approves the permit and leaves the room. Later that night, the clerk is found dead.

The next day, Francis and his good friend Alan decided to visit the fair. Francis and Alan are in love with the woman we are introduced to at the start of the film, the dazed woman in white, Jane (Lil Dagover). While the two friends are at the fair, they stop to see the sideshow. Part of the sideshow is Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet. The Doctor has a somnambulist with him, which is neither awake nor asleep, someone in a daze. The Doctor claims that his somnambulist, Cesare (Conrad Veidt), can see into the future and picks Alan to come to ask Cesare a question. Alan asks, “How long shall I live?” Cesare’s reply is, “The time is short. You die at dawn!” That night, someone breaks into Alan’s home and murders him while sleeping, the same way the clerk was murdered, stabbed to death.

Francis, along with Janes’s father, Dr. Olsen (Rudolf Lerringer), gets permission from the local police to investigate Alan’s death. They begin by searching out Dr. Caligari and Cesare to question them. They gain no information, and later that night, a man is caught attempting to murder a woman. The police assume he is the same killer. Still, the man confesses to the attempted murder and denies the two previous murders.

Late at night, Francis keeps an eye on Dr. Caligari and thinks Cesare is sleeping, but it is a fake in the box resting. Cesare breaks into Janes’s house and attempts to kidnap her. However, a group of people see this and begin chasing him, so in an attempt to lose his pursuers, he drops Janes’s body. He continues running, but soon, Cesare falls down, dead. Francis checks the box to find a dummy inside instead of Cesare, and the Doctor flees. Francis follows Caligari to a nearby insane asylum.

While Francis is looking into the asylum, he learns that Caligari is actually the asylum director. The staff begins to help Francis. Together, they find the Doctor’s journal that reveals his obsession with an 11th-century monk named Caligari. The monk used a somnambulist named Cesare to commit murders in Italy. Caligari becomes so consumed with this story that when a somnambulist comes into the asylum, Caligari begins experimenting on him. They soon become his Cesare. Now, more fit for a straitjacket than a white coat, Caligari becomes a patient in the very asylum he once ran.

The film then goes back to the beginning setting with the two men on a bench. However, it is then revealed that Francis is actually an inmate and Jane and Cesare, a quiet man who is not a somnambulist. Dr. Caligari is, in fact, the asylum director. Francis attacks the Doctor and is then thrown in a cell where the Doctor states, “Now that I understand his delusion, I am confident I can cure him.”

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has been called many things, and the masterpiece seems to fit the best. The layout of the “frame job” story is so well crafted that it still holds up decades later. The writers Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer took moments from their own personal lives to create the suspense and horror portrayed in the film. The story that sticks out the most is the one Janowitz tells of a murder he witnessed in 1913. He was close to an amusement park and noticed a young girl going into some bushes. A few moments later, a man came out of the bushes, but the girl was never seen alive again. He learned the next day that she had been murdered. This moment in time stuck with Janowitz for perhaps some feelings of guilt for not stopping what happened. Much like Francis in the film, who is upset about Alan’s murder, especially since they were told Alan would die. Perhaps there was some guilt there or the feeling of remorse for not taking the situation seriously. Many critics claim that this early German film had undertones of following authority mindlessly and the dangers that can come with that. The critics claim that Cesare represents the German citizen who will blindly follow command and even kill if necessary. Although Janowitz and Mayer both had their issues and dislike for the military, there is little evidence that this was their intent when writing the film. It could be said, however, that their subconscious was deep at work while writing. Janowitz was actually an officer during the way. By the time he got out, he was bitter and resented the military. Mayer claimed he was unfit for the military due to his mental illness and spent some time in an asylum being monitored. It was in this asylum that he met a director who served as inspiration for Dr. Caligari. By the time Mayer was released, he also had a significant issue with authority. However, the original script that was found in 1950 shows no evidence that the writer’s intent was to make a statement with their film. Nonetheless, the idea was created and is heard to this day. Whether that statement was conscious, or subconscious we will never know.

Watch “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” on TheLastPicture.Show

Written exclusively for TheLastPicture.Show by Jacob Ruble

Disclosure: The links on this page are “Affiliate Links” and while these are shown at no costs to our viewers, they generate commissions for our website(s)
August 4, 2021
The Perks of Amazon Prime

You’ve no doubt heard of Amazon Prime and maybe even scrunched your brow in confusion about why a person would pay to be a member of the site just to shop. The truth, however, is that this membership can be wonderful and actually save you money from year to year. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the benefits of being an Amazon Prime member!

Free Shipping

There are plenty of ways to get free shipping on Amazon, no doubt. Those options include buying items that are automatically provided with free shipping and making sure you have the minimum amount required in appropriate items for general free shipping. Both are great ideas, but let’s be honest. Sometimes, the item you need isn’t available with general free shipping, and if what you need is only five dollars, the free-shipping-by-order-total isn’t a great strategy. It’s frustrating, in the end, to buy something for five dollars and have to pay an additional five dollars in shipping.

This is one of the biggest ways that Amazon Prime shines because there is no automatic requirement to get free shipping. If your item qualifies, you can pay the five dollars—period—for the purchase without having to double the price just for shipping. This is a fantastic option for people on a budget who buy a little here and a little there because it negates having to pay bigger amounts at one time to experience free shipping. Think of what you could save during the holiday season with this detail!

Quick Shipping

In addition to free shipping, you can also get your items quickly by subscribing to Amazon Prime with time frames like one or two days for shipping. This can come in handy for last-minute, unexpected expenses—like finishing touches to a party you’re about to host. Maybe you realize you don’t have enough of the plates you’ve chosen for the handful of people you recently invited, so you just have to order more. For time-crunched purchases like this, you can’t necessarily beat the one-or-two-day idea to get your details in order just in time for your upcoming events and needs.

Music

There are so many ways that Amazon Prime can boost your music experiences, including access to various songs and the ability to listen to them, without ads, even when you’re away from your computer. Going for a jog, for instance, can be done while you listen to tunes. You can also build your own playlists or take advantage of the already available ones. Quite literally, you can add over a million songs to your life by taking full advantage of this Amazon Prime detail. These songs can be played on a number of devices as well, like Echo, the Amazon Fire TV Stick, and BlueSound.

Movies

With Prime Video, you gain access to a number of television shows and movies through your game system, your TV, your computer… And some of these options are Prime exclusives, like Britannia , Mozart in the Jungle , and Absentia . Other than Prime exclusives, you can also check out popular films like Iron Man , Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark , and Star Trek , and TV shows like Grimm , Psych , and The Pyramid Code . You can also choose to add on specific channels, like Starz and PBS Kids, to boost your movie/TV experience. It truly is a benefit for anyone interested in trying out new shows and movies.

Books

For a reader, there are similar benefits as well. Through Prime, you can browse more than 1,000 options to add to your reading device. Considering a reader can easily go through a book a week, knowing that a book for each week of the year can come from your Prime membership is a big deal! Books like Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown, The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus: Book 1) by Rick Riordan, and The Fog Seller by Don Daglow are available with no cost beyond membership, so filling up your to-read list for a year (or two or three…) won’t necessarily prove too challenging with Prime!

Games

Gamers can find a specific perk for Amazon Prime membership as well since every month, they are given bonuses and gifts for their gaming experience. These bonuses can come in the forms of a game or character, among other things, but from month-to-month, you could experience a boost in your video game life. Currently, the games that are addressed for this boost include Call of Duty WWII: The Resistance and Paladins: Champions of the Realm , so who knows what next month will bring? To find out, subscribe!

Prime-Only Offers

There are buying options on Amazon that only exist for Prime members, which when you think about it, are kind of the ultimate thank-you a company can hand to a subscriber. For sure, some of these deals are worth looking into! For instance, at this moment, a toy workbench that is listed with a regular price of $54.99 is cut down to $22.97 for Prime members, which is about a 42% discount, and pre-order for the new movie, The Greatest Showman , is $14.99 on DVD for Amazon members instead of the listed typical price of $29.98 (50% savings). Clearly, the deals reach various shopping categories, and if you shop well, you could make up for the Prime price just by catching great deals for items you need in this Prime-only element. Sounds good, right?

Photos

No, this bonus does not mean that Amazon is selling you photos of other people, but it’s giving you a way to store all of your current photos! Whereas other Amazon customers can upload 5 GBs of photos, Prime members do not have a maximum amount noted on the site. If you wanted to, with that in mind, you could store all of your photos with your Prime membership. This can be done through an Amazon Drive app that you can download to your computer so you can browse your photos on a tablet, a Fire TV, or Echo, among other options. You can even have your photos put on gifts with free shipping to your home. For a photo fan, this is a deal that can catch the eye!

Easy Renewal

You don’t have to do much to keep your Prime membership going since Amazon will automatically charge your card the upcoming fee when it’s due. All you need to do, then, is make sure that you have the funds available to pay for the service, and you can keep using your Prime membership for these benefits without worrying over the details of when it’s due.

On the flipside, though, this does mean that it’s incredibly easy to get charged for Prime for a year you didn’t want the membership to extend into if you don’t cancel before the renewal fee shows up. Be sure, on that detail, that you cancel your membership in time to not be charged. Fortunately, Prime is easy to cancel as well since you just have to go to your Prime account and hit “End Membership.” Just pay attention to when it’s due, and you can end this before you get charged, should you decide against these benefits.

Low Price

While it may seem like a hefty amount of money to attain this Prime membership—$99—keep in mind that this is an annual amount. If you think of that number on a by-month basis, it averages to $8.25 per month. If you decide to pay per month, it’s $12.99, and it increases your overall payment to $155.88, which is a significant increase but does allow payments to come in smaller doses.

Let’s say, though, that you choose the $99 option. If you were planning on spending even $1 a week on books, within the 52 weeks of the year, the amount of money saved is over half of the Prime fee. If you add in music, movies, games, free shipping, and Prime-only deals, it becomes remarkably easy to see how Prime membership would eventually pay for itself. So if it will, in the end, balance out to cost you nothing or even save you money, why not go for the easy photo storage, the quick deliveries, and the media that’s there at your fingertips?

Overall

While a person may scoff at the idea of paying almost $100 to be a member of Amazon Prime, the hard facts are that if you’re a frequent shopper on the site, the fee could be less than the amount of money you’ll save through the benefits involved with the purchase. If you have a lot of Amazon purchases in your future, this is a great up-front expense to save you money in the long-term!

Disclosure: The links on this page are “Affiliate Links” and while these are shown at no costs to our viewers, they generate commissions for our website(s)

August 4, 2021
Cryptocurrency? Bitcoin? What the Hey?

What exactly is cryptocurrency anyways? You may be one of the many individuals out there who are wondering this very question. Well, you’re in luck because this article is tailored specifically to you and all of my fellow less-than-tech-savvy individuals out there.

Many of you may already know that the United States has long been utilizing Fiat currency ever since the early 1970s. Fiat currency is not backed by a physical good such as gold or silver. We realize quite early on that this may pose a potential problem eventually and as a result switch from the gold standard and commodity money to Fiat currency.

Your money is printed on paper and every bill that you hold in your hand is technically only worth the paper it’s printed on. So why are some worth a dollar and others $100? Well, that’s because pretty much everyone else on the planet agrees with you on it’s printed value.

See, the creators and originators of bitcoin fundamentally understood that as long as they were able to corral a few of their buddies to agree on the value of a cryptocurrency it could be legitimately worth something.

They literally created money out of thin air. A form of digital payment system that made headlines when an individual by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz famously purchased two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins back in 2010. Today that bitcoin pizza is worth about $20 million as of last month.

The actual inventor of bitcoin is still unknown as users of this form of currency tend to remain anonymous. All we know is that it was originally created by a user under the alias of Satoshi Nakamoto, who distributed a white paper on the topic of a peer-to-peer currency to his base of colleagues.

The rest is history.

Bitcoin Basics

Bitcoin is open source peer to peer (P2P) money. What makes this form of digital currency so interesting and novel is that it is the first well known form to not only have no federal backing but no central agency.

The validity of value and transactions are all recorded on what is known as a blockchain which is a public ledger that is used to record all transactions. The database is maintained by a network of nodes which verify the transactions and it is a distributor database, updated about six times an hour with a new group of transactions. The transactions include basic information about the sender, receiver and the number of bitcoins in the transaction and the bitcoin earned are stored in a virtual wallet of sorts.

New bitcoins are created with every ledger update, however this is by no means an infinite form of currency. This is because the original founders of the digital currency created a formula which specified that the “number of new bitcoins created with each such update is cut in half every four years, until it reaches zero in 2140, when the total number of bitcoin units will reach their maximum quantity of $21 million”.

Reviews on the worthiness of the investment are varied with some claiming it to be a good investment and others claiming that it would be ludicrous to partake in. One thing is for certain regardless of your point of view and that is that the market is about as volatile as it gets. How volatile you ask? Well about seven times more volatile than gold, “eight times greater than the S&P 500 and 18 times greater than the US dollar.” Sheesh.

Earning Bitcoins

There are several ways to earn bitcoins if you’re interested in jumping in on the action. Perhaps the oldest and first method ever was through a technique called “mining” – similar to the concept of mining for gold. Mining used to be a more profitable venture than it is today and has since become m ore of a chore than a money maker.

It involves the process of solving a series of complicated mathematical problems for the purpose of validating and storing transaction information on the blockchain. However, in recent years it has become increasingly more difficult and the simple things such as the price of electricity can overshadow the reward given the amount of time, attention and effort that is put into the process.

Other ways of earning bitcoins are by finding ways to work for the cryptocurrency. There are several services that offer opportunities to work for digital currency and all it takes is a simple Google search to get on the inside. Earning bitcoins as a freelancer is a popular method and there are several bitcoin startups that can help you along your journey to fattening your bitcoin wallet.

Thinking of putting some of your assets to use? You could always open up a shop and begin selling for cryptocurrency. The great thing about this is that every niche can profit from bitcoins whether you’re a writer, artist, musician or a simple ETSY DIY’er.

There are places to gamble online where you can earn and spend your bitcoins and trading is another popular method which carries a similar level of risk and potential profit.

As of today there are countless businesses and institutions that officially accept bitcoins. There have even been US political candidates such as New York City Democratic Congressman Jeff Kurzon , who began accepting the digital currency as campaign donations.

As of 2015 the number of merchants that accepted the form of currency exceeded 100,00 with several nonprofits such as the Mozilla Foundation, Greenpeace and Democracy Now! accept bitcoins. Other businesses include PayPal, Microsoft, Dell, Overstock.comm, Newegg and TigerDirect – and the list only continues to grow and grow as time goes on, especially in light of recent interest of the federal government.

Federal Government Response

The digital currency began attracting the interests of the federal government once it began taking storm a few years after its inception and they have since made quite a stir about the potential hazards and risks associated with its use. Amongst individuals steeped in the tech world, research has found that it is a popular form of currency for those engaging in illicit activity due to the anonymous nature of the process. Drug dealers and individuals looking to trade on the black market have as a result found this the perfect choice to meet all of their dark-web needs.

Recently there have been talks in the bitcoin community about the prospect that the federal government will begin to issue its own form of cryptocurrency or even bitcoin. The federal government has always maintained a strong watchful eye on the digital currency, however has publicly remained surprisingly supportive of it. This however is most likely due to the fact that legislators fully understand if they “place too high a regulatory burden on these innovations” they will “effectively cede them to the very illicit actors [they’re] trying to stop.”

A while back, as you know, I called on federal authorities to shut down the website Silk Road, which they recently did. Many people interpreted my action at the time as directed at bitcoin because bitcoin was the sole method of payment on Silk Road, and assumed that I also wanted to shut down or stamp out bitcoin. That is not the case. I do not want to shut down or stamp out bitcoin.”

-Senator Chuck Schumer,

Regardless of how the government truly feels on the subject, one thing is for certain – it has taken the world by storm and has the potential to have disastrous effects. However, digital currency such as bitcoin also has the potential to revolutionize our lives. The anonymous nature of it all has left the federal government nervous and attentive with many worrying what the long term repercussions could be of a non-centralized form of currency. We are eager to see what happens in the future as we know only time will tell.

Source: https://www.forlearningminds.com/

August 2, 2021