If you’re feeling exhausted by today’s insane hate soaked 2024 elections and looking for break that is sexy galaxy far, far away from the Disney assembly line of Marvel movies, with their predictable plot twists, sky beams, and post-credits scenes, then Barbarella is the cosmic escape you didn’t know you needed. This 1968 space romp, directed by Roger Vadim and starring the unforgettable Jane Fonda, isn’t just a movie—it’s a neon, glittering trip through a galaxy of pure kitsch, camp, and unfiltered imagination.
From the very first scene, where Barbarella peels out of a zero-gravity spacesuit in what can only be described as the slowest striptease in sci-fi history, you know you’re in for something spectacularly different. Forget saving the multiverse with a snap of the fingers—Barbarella is here to save the galaxy with pure sensuality and some questionable combat skills, all while lounging in the kind of futuristic fashion that makes today’s superheroes look downright bland.
The plot? Well, it’s as wild as you’d expect from the late ’60s. Barbarella is sent by the President of Earth to stop a mad scientist named Durand-Durand (no relation to the band…yet), who’s threatening universal peace with a weapon called the Positronic Ray. Along the way, she encounters angelic aliens, a labyrinth of sadistic toys, and a piano-like contraption designed to kill her with pleasure (yes, you read that right). It’s not so much a coherent narrative as it is a sequence of increasingly bizarre scenarios that make you go, “Wait, WHAT?”
What sets Barbarella apart from today’s superhero fare is how joyfully untethered it is from logic or self-seriousness. It doesn’t care about crafting a cinematic universe or tying up every loose end—it’s here to have fun, and you’re just along for the ride. Jane Fonda’s Barbarella is a refreshing heroine; she’s not burdened by dark backstories or moral dilemmas. She’s unabashedly curious, confident, and sexy, battling her foes with equal parts charm and clumsy enthusiasm.
And the visuals! Forget the hyper-CGI of Marvel’s latest epics—Barbarella offers a retro-futuristic aesthetic that’s delightfully handmade. The sets look like they were cobbled together in someone’s groovy living room, and the costumes are, well, the kind of thing you’d only expect to see on an intergalactic catwalk. Fonda’s wardrobe alone deserves its own cult following, from sparkly spacesuits to feathered headdresses that would make even Lady Gaga blush.
Sure, the dialogue is cheesy, and the special effects have aged like fine wine that’s turned to vinegar, but that’s all part of the charm. Barbarella revels in its campiness, a refreshing alternative to the overpolished, franchise-driven spectacles that dominate the box office today. It’s a movie that invites you to sit back, sip a martini (preferably with a cosmic twist), and let yourself get lost in a world where anything goes, and the rules of physics—and fashion—are delightfully flexible.
So if you’re tired of Marvel’s color-by-numbers storytelling and need a break from the endless parade of CGI brawls, take a trip with Barbarella. It’s an unapologetic blast from the past, reminding us that sometimes, the best way to escape reality is to embrace the absurd and the sexy, one sparkly space adventure at a time.
Visit our new PoliticalCoolDown.com page for much needed meditation breaks designed to help lower the temperature.
When I finally finished the editing on THE COOLEST MEDITATION EVER: ANTARCTICA 12.12.12 in late 2016 I thought the movie, Running Time 64 minutes, was going to only look good on the internet.
That all changed for the coolest when we sold out the Sedona Film Festival’s Mary Fisher theater, with 20 people turned away at the door! And the FILM LOOKED AMAZING on the big screen and our audience loved doing a live planetary meditation after, well, I knew we were onto something bigger than Vimeo and Amazon, where the movie can be viewed or bought.
And so we had invented a new movie going experience we like to call a MOVIE AND A MEDITATION, with our Antarctica film being the first of many such nights you can expect from us. As you can see here when the lights came up, people were treated to a Q&A and shared consciousness to send healing love to my mermaid Elizabeth’s first love, the oceans.
From 2010 to 2012 I did many live events with crowds of 100 plus in Los Angeles. 12.12.16, exactly 4 years from my stepping foot on the giant continent of Antarctica, here I was doing a Movie and a Meditation in my new home Sedona with the love of my life and surrounded my some of Sedona’s and LA’s best healers. The applause was like water in the desert of our 6 years in total filmmaking journey.
Buoyed by the Sedona success, after a few months of getting happily sidetracked with work on an exciting new screenplay about the incredible life of scientist, author and inventor Patrick Flanagan, and following a detour to cover the Heyoka president we are all being entertained and stretched by for now, my partner in love and life, Elizabeth and I began touring the film through May to across the Southwest. Here’s some highlights!
BEFORE HITTING THE ROAD…
We landed a superb pet sitter for our 1 year-old rescue dog Lincoln. That done we set out in our Jeep, loaded with DVDs and cool perks which funded this entire trip and all our computer gear to be able to service our clients while on the move. First stop…
The Enchanted Forest Reiki Center in Las Vegas generated a small turnout, but the mini-crowd loved the film. Best of all the film’s humor brought a laugh to woman who was recovering from the recent loss of a dear husband. Quite the come down in scale from the sold-out Sedona film fest, but we’d learn on the road in Santa Fe that the amazing Amma’s first events were small as well.
Next it was onto the OC for a screening at The Temple of Light.
Unfortunately, I suffered food poisoning I picked up in Vegas taking my grieving 88-year-old mom to a fine Mexican restaurant. It was long drive to LA, sparing you the gory details. But I was too busy worrying for my mother, broken-hearted about her husband and great stepfather of 30 years and lost in coma after stroke, to feel sorry for myself. I was relieved to hear my baby brother was coming into Vegas to care for mom soon. I had spent 3 weeks caring for my it was his turn to be on watch. We’d been tag teaming since the early part of 2017.
Unfortunately, as a result of my being sick and checking on mom daily Elizabeth and I were unable to market much for the OC. We’d hope I LA fan base would make the 90 minute trek but not many did. Still, amazing people showed up like Bahkti star Larisa Stowe.
Donna who we toured Egypt with last year and Deanna Cook, who hosted us for a few days and we in turn hosted in Sedona. We looked on the intimate size as chance to keep perfecting our Movie and a Meditation format.
I discovered on the trip that I have developed terrible cat allergies because the people we were staying with had not one but two cats. Despite a sneezing attack mi screening, the event was magical. The Antarctica movie gets people relaxed and ready for the planetary meditation that follows.
Next up the EarthShift conference in Desert Hot Springs. The poster makers for the event could not fit the information about our event within the evnt, so we made our own poster.
At first I was taken aback seeing we’d be screening in the middle of a noisy vendor bazar that surround the theater seating area but the tech running the show did a great job of quieting the crowd.
Big applause from a gathering for our Saturday matinee. A great Q&A. We were honored to have the event creator himself Julian Forest accompany Elizabeth for the guided meditation.
After our matinee, Elizabeth found us a great spa that turned out to be a huge health boost for my ongoing battle with black mold poisoning I suffered in 2013/2014. And we stayed at the home of the amazing Joan of Angels, surrounded day and night by her prolific visionary ET inspired angel art.
Next, it was back to base in Sedona. Our rescue dog Lincoln greeted us with such joy on our homecoming. The little fella had proved quite a handful for our talented and loving pet sitter. Lincoln had the best in care while we were on the tour, including two pet shrinks our sitter brought aboard in our absence. We saw great progress in his journey relaxing into his happy new life. But our little rescue dog was so sad our pet sitter told us while we were away that it was clear to us Lincoln would be happier coming with us on the next city, Santa Fe.
Since 2011 Elizabeth has spent her birthday at the amazing Amma’s event. So with Santa Fe the screening marketing work was integrated with attending the Amma event. We rented a beautiful casita new where the film was screening. Lincoln loved staying there and near us while we attended the Amma events in short bursts.
Sadly I learned, while we waited for our Amma hugs, on June 13th that my stepfather, great guy who took such sweet care of my mom for 30 years, had passed in Vegas. After nearly 3 months in a coma, the Navy vet had given up the battle. Fortunately, my brother was already in Vegas caring for our mom. The poor thing had exhausted herself and broken her hip while we were on the road. And for the few days while she was down, Nick got lost in our insane hospital system. I tracked him down by calling all the major hospitals.
My brother really came to the rescue while Elizabeth and I were stuck on the road. My mom has accepted my brother’s invite, over our invite to come to Sedona, preferring to return to her native home state of Wisconsin. She’s doing great and not following her husband as often happens. People in my family live to over 100 and I think she’s going to be another.
Grieving, caring for my own and family illness while promoting was not easy on me. Luckily Elizabeth was all over it. We were looking forward to filling the 150 seat theater we rented in Santa Fe for after the Amma event.
But we made a miscalculation in selecting the Screen. Santa Fe is small by LA standards, and to we former Los Angelinos driving ten minutes to the theater from the downtown seemed no biggie. We were wrong. Net result a small turnout again.
People spaced themselves out in the 150 seats and so the audience energy was dispersed with few laughs or giggles of delight we are used to getting them. Two people even walked out mid-film. Yikes. But the core audience who stayed after were amazing. The of them Sidhi yogas like Elizabeth.
Coolest Yogini Ever: Elizabeth England
On the plus side, and the theme of this trip, it became an intimate gathering where we could hug every movie attendee Amma style. Once again a quality not quantity crowd. Here’s a snap of the 40 foot screen the movie was shown on. Again blown away by how good the movie looks and sounds on the big screen.
The lesson in all this? We learned tours are hard work to manage and market if they are spaced to close together. Especially harder on the road with everything else that’s going on with our lives. So we’ll promote Boulder heavily for a month from our Sedona base where we and Lincoln have happily retuned,
Next up for the MOVIE AND A MEDIATION tour: Boulder Colorado August 1st. A 200 seat theater. Can we sell it out like Sedona? You bet! Our confidence is bolstered by the fact we have added two exciting guest co-hosts, famed sonic healing artists Jonathan Goldman and Andi Goldman.
Face it, my fellow humans born with egos, besides people in a forest there are a lot of other creatures always present to hear a tree fall; birds, deer, bears, dwarves, elves, fairies, other trees, etc. But a film that never reaches an audience is far quieter than the proverbial witness-free tree.
The flood of films with big stars and name directors competing for filmgoers’ pocketbooks against an independent filmmaker/self-distributor like me is beyond daunting. Even virtual venues like YouTube, Vimeo, Itunes, Facebook, Amazon and more are flooded with content. Just looking at Youtube alone, over 300 hours of new content is loaded per minute.
To get that last stat of 300 hours of new content added per minute per day to sink in, think of it this way: If a person devoted all their waking hours to being current on just one minute of new YouTube content it would take that viewer 3 weeks of dawn to dusk viewing. Accomplished only by eating all their meals at the computer screen and using a bed pan for rest room breaks.
Getting the grim picture for independent content creators? So the only solution to getting an important film like THE COOLEST MEDITATION EVER: ANTARCTICA 12.12.12 out to as many hearts and souls as possible is an ample ad and marketing budget.
Let’s back up for a minute. Why is this experimental meditation film, made on a shoestring budget and filmed in Antarctica in 2012, important for people to see? Simple. The film, a collection of 24 meditations, all done 9 days in advance of the end of the Mayan calendar, set intentions for evolution human consciousness. When people see the movie it’s an anchoring-in and activation.
That’s the serious “Why?” The film is a paradoxically whimsical creation that strives not take itself too seriously.
Back to the topic at hand. Ads cost big money and are the only way to get this movie out to the world. Next, crowd funding is the only way to fund our ads budget, as no studio is going to be interested in a movie about a man having visions of ETs that pestered him in dreams all the way to Antarctica by 12.12.12 to head the Mayan calendar off at the pass. But crowd funding is a swollen field too as there are so many wonderful independent films out there.
My solution? Copy the PBS, where I had a prime time show air in 2000, fund raising model of giving valuable prizes for support dollars. When I came up with this idea, after much wringing of hands, late 2015, in the week between Xmas and New Year’s, little did I realize I would attract not one but three giants of spirit science to grant us products from their lines to offer as prizes.
The result for The Coolest Meditation Ever is the most successful pre-launch for film crowd funder to date I know about. I am pleased to report that our snowball approach grows our ads war chest daily. Contributors are loving prizes from scientist Patrick Flanagan, sonic healer Jonathan Goldman and cosmic coach James Wanless.
Adding luster to our coolest ever prize packages is the fact all contributions to our film starting late last year are tax deductible! This is thanks to my soulmate Elizabeth England who, in addition to connecting me to James Wanless, introduced me to Carol Dean of From the Heart Productions who became our fiscal sponsor and presto tax deductible prizes.
BTW, read about how this project actually helped bring about Elizabeth and I becoming a couple with some help from the ET spirit Ohom.
You can see our trailer and learn about all the coolest prizes from our titans of spirit science. Cool thing is all prizes are available right now, well in advance of our 4.4.16 crowd funder launch on Indiegogo, at CoolestMeditationEver.com
But we made a miscalculation in selecting the Screen. Santa Fe is small by LA standards, and to we former Los Angelinos driving ten minutes to the theater from the downtown seemed no biggie. We were wrong. Net result a small turnout again.
Media, Meditations & Musings 