Comment on proposed movie idea.

[Miso]

The backdrop is Sedona, Arizona. There is this ABC man who is a private detective. He is hired by an ABC familyto look into a missing person case of their daughter who may have died in a flash flood but her body was never found. As he begins his investigation the clues take him towards a radical religious/polygamist community that bars all outsiders. He infiltrates by joining the cult and discovers the fate of the missing woman. Can he save the woman and himself before the cult closes in on them........................

Well you have to watch to find out...................

Comments please.

[Seraphfire]

The backdrop is Sedona, Arizona. There is this ABC man who is a private detective. He is hired by an ABC familyto look into a missing person case of their daughter who may have died in a flash flood but her body was never found. As he begins his investigation the clues take him towards a radical religious/polygamist community that bars all outsiders. He infiltrates by joining the cult and discovers the fate of the missing woman. Can he save the woman and himself before the cult closes in on them........................

Well you have to watch to find out...................

Comments please.
Hi Miso, I guess I'll ask the obvious. How does an ABC infiltrate a Mormon polgymist cult like Warren Jeff's cult in the Four Corners area of Arizona? They are white supremacist-like and in addition, they have this habit of kicking out young boys to insure they have a good supply of women. They never accept new men, women yes but never men.

[Miso]

Seraphire, you do not do too much thinking. You must be hanging with Kimpossible too much......

There are many polygamous groups in Arizona, not all of them are Mormon. Dateline did a special on one of these other groups who are New Agers with the polygamist philosophy as well. It is not just Mormons that practice that.

Also you know nothing of radical Mormons who vary in degrees of severity. Not all polygamist Mormons are under the control of Warren Jeffs. There are many different polygamist splinter groups that would have no problem in having someone join their community, regardless of etnicity.

So there really is no problem doing a movie like this. It would be very believable.

[Miso]

I wanted to print my link as proof. Gabriel of Sedona is the leader of the Aquarian Concepts Community in Sedona Arizona. There philosophy is more of a new age type concept religiously yet he practices polygamy. Here is the link to the dateline story. You can see the picture of Gabriel of Sedona. Even looks like a religious nut, huh?


(http://www.nhne.com/misc/gabriel_dateline.html)

Enjoy, not all polygamous groups are Mormon in Arizona. There are many.

[Miso]

The link did not work, I will just type it in. You will have to paste it into the browser.
http://www.nhne.com/misc/gabriel_dateline.html

[buttermilkwise]

The backdrop is Sedona, Arizona. There is this ABC man who is a private detective. He is hired by an ABC familyto look into a missing person case of their daughter who may have died in a flash flood but her body was never found. As he begins his investigation the clues take him towards a radical religious/polygamist community that bars all outsiders. He infiltrates by joining the cult and discovers the fate of the missing woman. Can he save the woman and himself before the cult closes in on them........................

Well you have to watch to find out...................

Comments please.

coincidentally I'm visiting (posting from) Sedona Arizona, right now... about the most unusual thing I see here is various new age shops pawning crystals, psychic services and public signs advertising Energy vortex's on the land. Sedona is also suppose to be sacred land for hte Hopi, and various NA tribes.

Other than that the dirt is red, and there's not much more that's interesting to Sedona than it looks like the backdrop of a frontier western flick.

Also there are almost no asian people here...

[Miso]

coincidentally I'm visiting (posting from) Sedona Arizona, right now... about the most unusual thing I see here is various new age shops pawning crystals, psychic services and public signs advertising Energy vortex's on the land. Sedona is also suppose to be sacred land for hte Hopi, and various NA tribes.

Other than that the dirt is red, and there's not much more that's interesting to Sedona than it looks like the backdrop of a frontier western flick.

Also there are almost no asian people here...

Excellent observations buttermilkwise. That is what makes the backdrop so perfect. It was just two years ago, just a hundred miles to the north where a Japanese woman, an avid hiker, was stabbed to death at Havasu Falls. She was not killed by religious nutjobs, but by a troubled Native American teen.

The detective in my story is out of Phoenix and the woman who is missing happens to be an avid canyoneer. Canyoneering is big around the Sedona area. It is a combination sport of hiking, climbing, scrambling, and swimming through deep narrow canyons cut by water through the soft sandstone. Canyoneers of all ethnicities go there because Arizona and southern Utah are the premiere canyoneering places in the United States. The canyoneer, the female ABC, in the script is thought to have perished in a flash flood, which is the most dangerous part of canyoneering due to the fact when a narrow canyon is overfilled with water it pretty much destroys everything and everyone in its path.

Have you seen a New Ager channel spirits through their bodies yet? There is a place in the mall down there where they do it for the public. I hear it is quite entertaining. They believe in crystals, vortex power, rock people, UFO's, Inverted tornadoes, spirits and galactic beings, etc.
When I was down there hiking down one of the canyons my brother and I witnessed this woman, with a catatonic look on her face, thumping on a watermelon and making strange sounds out of her mouth. It was absolutley hilarious. You might even see a spirit wheel if you hike some of the local trails there. It is a formation of rocks shaped like a wagon wheel where the New Agers leave money, beads, and various other paraphenalia lying about.

Wouldn't it be nice for a change where the two ABC's are the normal people in the movie and the caucasians are the messed up ones? The idea is so diametrically opposed as to anything in Hollywood today I think it would be refreshing and a hit.

[Seraphfire]

Wouldn't it be nice for a change where the two ABC's are the normal people in the movie and the caucasians are the messed up ones? The idea is so diametrically opposed as to anything in Hollywood today I think it would be refreshing and a hit.
Well, I guess this will be in the drama genre and an indie production. Not exactly sure how appealing it would be.

Interesting idea but I personally think just outing conservative white people as ignorant and racist people many are would do much more than show some white fringe groups that everyone pretty assumes are weird. Coincidentally, those Sedona fringe groups tend to be more liberal and open minded to minorities than the conservative right.

P.S. If you're going to keep the polygamist angle, I still don't understand how an Asian male would be able to penetrate the group. Unless his offer is to smuggle in more Asian females. :biggrin:

[kimpossible]

Seraphfire said "penetrate the group."

[lethal]

There are a number of Asian Mormons or at least Pacific Islander ones. I don't think it would be that out of the ordinary. That said, Seraphfire's point about the introduction of a new male would be less plausible. Lastly, the description sounds like it could be good for an hour long episode of a show on TV, but a full length feature film? I'm not digging that.

[Miso]

Thanks lethal for talking about the numerous Asians who are members of the Mormon Church. There are over 878,000 members in the Mormon church who are Asian. That is nearly ten percent of the church population.



Apparently you did not watch the video on the link I posted. The Aquarian Concepts community practiced "polygamy' secretly. Only the leader, Gabriel of Sedona was allowed to have more then one wife. People of all ethnicities joined his church. Later on he would council a husband or wife that they were not compatible and that they should separate. Gabriel would then romance the woman telling her such inspiring things that having sex with him could cure the woman of any illness! How's that for a new pickup line? This guy was so horny that he told the Dateline undercover female reporter that they had known each other in a past life and had sex many times. He counciled her to leave her husband (another dateline undercover reporter) and marry him.

To answer your question. Anybody could infiltrate, the dateline reporters did, you did not have to be a couple to join, a single person could join their community. The reason why Gabriel wanted anybody he could get to join is the rule being that all personal assets were turned over to him and he would oversee your life and you would be protected and happy. In other words he takes your money and you become a slave in return. Religion in extreme forms has that habit of making stuff like that happen.
Needless to say, the character in the movie, could easily infiltrate a group like the aquarians, feigning belief, in order to get an up close personal look at what is going on.

It works on all levels. I have the script done actually.

A lot of Asian would be attracted to New Age Ideals. Most of the philosophies of New Agers are based on Eastern religions. The idea of a new ager not accepting someone who is Asian into the group does not make any sense at all.

[thaite]

Hmm, didn't I see this before in The Wickerman ?

[buttermilkwise]

Have you seen a New Ager channel spirits through their bodies yet? There is a place in the mall down there where they do it for the public. I hear it is quite entertaining. They believe in crystals, vortex power, rock people, UFO's, Inverted tornadoes, spirits and galactic beings, etc.
When I was down there hiking down one of the canyons my brother and I witnessed this woman, with a catatonic look on her face, thumping on a watermelon and making strange sounds out of her mouth. It was absolutley hilarious. You might even see a spirit wheel if you hike some of the local trails there. It is a formation of rocks shaped like a wagon wheel where the New Agers leave money, beads, and various other paraphenalia lying about.

Wouldn't it be nice for a change where the two ABC's are the normal people in the movie and the caucasians are the messed up ones? The idea is so diametrically opposed as to anything in Hollywood today I think it would be refreshing and a hit.

I'm leaving tomorrow but the other thing I see here was a funny sign at bike & beans, (rental bike store) saying " Hippies use the backdoor."

As far as meeting hte people of Sedona Sepraphfire is right on the money, almost all of the people i've met here within a circle of friends of parents friends (who are almost all white people) i've met are very liberal and are actually very nice, warm, and genuinely inclusive of many people. To me it would literally be impossible to find that kind of hospitality if I were to go to the eastcoast or something.

So when you were going off on the whole asian people as normal and white people weird, sorry dude that's unfair and it just doesn't fly with me after all the people i've met. Yeah I haven't met the nutcases here, and i'm sure they are there but every place you go to will have it's share of bad apples.

Imo if you wanted to see smelly messed up hippies, and bible thumping loudmouth preachers out in public I'd go to downtown Santa Cruz instead.

edit: I also met a very pretty hippie chick at a dinner party, if any of you asian guys really want to meet white girls, you'll have a better chance here than normal for sure...

[Miso]

So when you were going off on the whole asian people as normal and white people weird, sorry dude that's unfair and it just doesn't fly with me after all the people i've met. Yeah I haven't met the nutcases here, and i'm sure they are there but every place you go to will have it's share of bad apples.

Well keep enjoying watching movies like "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I am going to submit this script regardless. It is time for a change.

[Seraphfire]

Well keep enjoying watching movies like "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I am going to submit this script regardless. It is time for a change.
I think you're being a bit too black and white in your replies. If your goal is to portray white people as the weirdos while promoting Asian Americans Butter and I simply don't think it's the best course of action. Seriously, why knock on the one segment of the white population that consistently has been the most open or the least racist to Asian Americans?

Aren't there white supremacists out there who are married to Filipino mail-order brides? Wouldn't they be a better target?

Basically, are you really going to change anyone's minds even if you achieve your goal? AAs will still be viewed as foreign because relative to the weirdos anyone can still look foreign.

It's like the defenders of that piece of crap movie "East Broadway" (or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. One rather very minor AM/AF romance isn't progress if the main protagonists are a flagrant WM/AF.

[Miso]

Well you are the ones fixating. There are good and bad in all people regardless of race. Just because I write a movie where there is an Asian hero and a caucasian villain would be no different then say "Thunder Heart" where the Native Americans are the heroes and the caucasians are the villians or Shaolin Soccer where the Asians are the good guys and the causcasion soccer team are the bad guys.

So as you see, your point is not really an issue is it. I like my idea and I am going with it.

Thanks for your unbiased opinion..............

[Miso]

One minor correction, it was the American drugs that made the evil Asian team so good. Strike that example, go with Thunderheat and Once upon a time in China.