Once again she conjures up a dystopia, where trends that started way back in the 20th century have metastasized into deeply sinister phenomena.
(Criterion Collection; Blu-ray, $39.95; DVD, $29.95; R) THE FOG John Carpenter's 1980 supernatural thriller, about a California coastal town embraced by a sinister meteorological phenomenon, is reissued in a collector's edition featuring a new transfer and commentary tracks.
With an intensity of vision rarely found in English fiction, he looked at the impact of developments such as the car, air travel, mass media, celebrity culture, and the rise of computers, drawing out a more ambiguous, and sometimes more sinister, side to phenomena generally hailed by a self-congratulatory culture as the expressions of inevitable human progress.
I was, however, very taken with The X Factor interlude starring two of Ambridge's silent characters, Molly Button, the infant phenomenon, and the sinister Nathan Booth.
Introducing itself with what sounds like a distressed extraterrestrial call, the track unites an ensemble of rhythmic noise phenomena with a sinister melodic progression.
The film, by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, charts the story behind Deep Throat - the 1972 pornographic film that became a cultural phenomenon - and the more sinister narrative behind it.
Another student wanted to know: "What's a phenomenon?" One inquired about the meaning of "sinister".
According to Le Parisien, a similar phenomenon took place during screenings of Paranormal Activity and Sinister, with the latter film pulled from more than 40 screens in 2012.
Together with the slightly more sinister yōkai (monsters), kami inhabit trees, rivers, rocks and other natural phenomenon, including thunder and lightening.
But "hauling" is actually rather less sinister: instead of masked youths bragging about what they've stolen, it's a phenomenon whereby kids – usually teenage girls – go online to show off what they've been buying.
