Josselyne Sarango Torres - A review for the film "Knowing"

                                                       KNOWING

It´s a fact that most people are interested in the future. This story starts fifty years ago, in 1959. The opening of a new school is coming soon and the group of teachers have thought that is a good idea to prepare a time capsule. So the day before the celebration all the students drew a picture to put inside them. But one little girl, called Lucinda, doesn´t draw, she starts to write loads of numbers. She was a strange and solitary child, because everybody was sure that Lucinda had mental problems. Although these ideas are wrong, and all the voices that she hears in her head was a warning of a global disaster. The day when the capsule was buried Lucinda disappeared and many hours after her teacher found the little girl in the gym loft, with lots of injuries in her fingers, because she was writing numbers on the door using her nails.

50 years later this school celebrates a half century. The life completely different and now the film talks about Caleb and his father. This little boy has a disability and he sometimes confuses sounds. Caleb has the same quality as Lucinda, but nobody knows this. His mum died in a house fire and his father John was very unhappy. So in this ceremony the head of school took out the time capsule and gave the letters for all the students. Surprisingly, Caleb received Lucinda´s numbers and his life changed. 

He had rare nightmares and three men talked with them when he was alone.John is very confused and  worried, because he discovered that these numbers were the date of the worst tragedies in history, but there are other that haven´t occurred yet. John is trying to avoid disasters and he starts to investigate all about Lucinda´s life. 

According the list numbers the first disaster was near but the figures didn´t coincide with any date. He continued with his normal life but when he was in the motorway, he discovered that the numbers were GPS coordinates and he was in the exact place. A few minutes later a plane crash took place in front of him. Many people died, exactly 81 persons, and John knows that two tragedies are going to occurr. 

The second disaster took place in the underground, but this time John warned the police  the day before the accident. Even so, no one heard his predictions and the disaster happened again. John, terrified, decided to look for Lucinda´s daughter to explaining him the quality of his mother.

Finally he found her, but she had bad news and all the world was in danger. John knows that is impossible that no one survives, but he promises herself that will try to saved Caleb. Diana (Lucinda´s daughter) also promised to save Abby (her daughter) so she decided to go to some huge caves to survive. However, John discovered that Lucinda tried to write the GPS coordinates of the place that they would be safe. The problem was that he needs the door of the gym loft, because she wrote the correct numbers there. Diana didn´t wait John and she carried Caleb and Abby to the caves. Everybody continued with their normal life, only John and his family knew about the end of the world. 

2 hours later Diana stopped in a petrol station to buy something and when she was inside the shop, the three men took the children. Diana, desperate, stole a car and pursued her car, but a lorry crossed and she died in this accident.

Jhon discovered that the safe place was Lucinda´s house and they always try to protect children, because they are the "elected" to continue with the human race. So that night Caleb and Abby saved and the human race continued in another planet.

The next day the rest of the Earth burnt with the sunlight, but our life didn´t finish with this.

Friday the 13th, The end of the world!

Hello!This is a former article, but I decided to republish it due to the fact that today is the first Friday 13th of the supposed last year of the world: 2012!

Friday the 13th myth makers

Watch out for black cats, avoid mirrors and ladders and, by all means, don't spill the salt.

As most people probably already realize, today is Friday the 13th, a date commonly associated with bad luck.

For the next several hours, millions of superstitious individuals across the country will hold their breath anticipating misfortune. Others will avoid leaving the house altogether, refusing to drive, shop or work on the ill-fated day.

But whether you're a true triskaidekaphobe (a person with an irrational fear of Friday the 13th, also called a paraskevidekatriaphobe) or just mildly suspicious, it's probably a good idea to know just where your trepidation comes from.

Though it's hard to pinpoint the exact origins of any superstition, several Internet sites are devoted to the history of the Friday the 13th legend. And most list the same possible origins of the rumoured curse. One of the more lucid sites is David Emery's urbanlegends.about.

According to the site, the superstition is derived from myths about both Fridays and the number 13.

Fridays, for example, are hailed as a particularly significant day in the Christian tradition. Obviously, there is Good Friday, the day Jesus Christ was crucified. But according to Christian lore, Adam and Eve also supposedly ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday, the Great Flood started on a Friday, the builders of the Tower of Babel were tongue-tied on a Friday and the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday.

Of course, the Bible doesn't specifically note many these events occurring on Fridays, and Emery explains some of the tradition may have stemmed from the fact that pre-Christian pagan cultures hailed Friday as holy days. The word "Friday" is, in fact, derived from a Norse deity who was worshipped on the sixth day of the week and who represented marriage and fertility. Fridays in the early Norse culture were associated with love and considered a good day for weddings.

Over time, however, mythology transformed the Norse fertility goddess into a witch, and Fridays became an unholy Sabbath. Incidentally, the goddess' sacred animal was a cat, which may explain the legendary connection between witches and cats, as well as the superstition about black cats heralding bad luck.

In addition to the legendary significance of Fridays, the sixth day of the week also was execution day in ancient Rome and later Hangman's Day in Britain, according the Emery's Web site.

The number 13 also has mythological and religious symbolism.

Both the Hindus and Vikings reportedly had a myth in which 12 gods were invited to a gathering and Loki, the god of mischief, crashed the party and incited a riot. Tradition in both cultures holds that 13 people at a dinner party is bad luck and will end in the death of the party-goers.

Following in that vein, the Last Supper in Christian tradition hosted 13 people and one betrayed Christ, resulting in the crucifixion.

The number 13 also has been associated with death in other cultures. The ancient Egyptians, for example, believed life unfolded in 12 stages, and the 13th stage was death. The Egyptians considered death a part of their ultimate journey and looked forward to the spiritual transformation ‹ thus 13 was not an unlucky number in their culture ‹ but like so many others, the tradition warped through time and cultures, eventually associating the number 13 with a more negative and fearful interpretation of death, Emery writes.

Finally, Emery suggests the number 13 may have an unlucky connotation because of its association with the lunar calendar (there are 13 lunar cycles in a year) and with femininity (women have 13 menstrual cycles in a year).

Then, there's the event that ties the two superstitions together.

"Though it's clear that superstitions associating Fridays and the number 13 with misfortune date back to the ancient times, some sources assign the precise origin of the black spot on the day itself, Friday the 13th, to a specific historical event," adds Emery.

It was on Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, that France's King Philip IV had the Knights Templar rounded up for torture and execution. The Knights Templar were an order of warriors within the Roman Catholic Church who banded together to protect Christian travellers visiting Jerusalem in the centuries after the Crusades. The Knights eventually became a rich, powerful ‹ and allegedly corrupt order within the church and were executed for heresy.

So, who knows?

The date may be forever cursed by one event that occurred nearly 700 years ago, or by a series of cosmic coincidences.

Or it may be a figment of human beings' collective imaginations.