Race to Witch Mountain is a 2009 American science fiction adventure film directed by Andy Fickman and starring Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Ciarán Hinds, and Tom Everett Scott. It is a reimagining of the 1975 film Escape to Witch Mountain, which was based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Alexander Key. The film follows two siblings, Sara and Seth, who possess paranormal abilities and are being pursued by both government agents and extraterrestrial beings. In Race to Witch Mountain, a Las Vegas cab driver named Jack Bruno, played by Dwayne Johnson, reluctantly becomes involved in a mission to help Sara and Seth, played by AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig, who are seeking to retrieve a device that will save their planet. As they are pursued by both government agents and an alien assassin known as Siphon, played by Ciarán Hinds, Jack must use his driving skills and resourcefulness to keep the siblings safe. The film takes place in the fictional town of Stony Creek, Nevada, where several supernatural events occur.
Lauda, suffering under the effects of the Schwarzette's data storm, uses his bits to dismantle Guel's Dilanza, proclaiming he will take revenge upon Miorine in Guel's place, calling her a witch who has enthralled his brother. When Lauda charges with his sword, Guel pulls a feint with his own, taking the blow close to his cockpit; Lauda flashes back to the day their father introduced them, where Guel hugged him and told him how happy he was to have a little brother. Coming to his senses, Lauda pleads with Guel to escape from his wrecked Dilanza; refusing to run from his sins, Guel only disables one of the Schwarzette's Shell Units before pushing it away. Before the Dilanza can explode however, Felsi appears in her own, using a special gel to stabilize Guel's wrecked mobile suit, saving his life while calling the brothers out on the stupidity of their conflict.
After Quiet Zero is shut down, Miorine tells Prospera that she should follow her own advice, and move forward, sincerely noting that the two of them, along with Suletta and Ericht, will be a family once she and Suletta marry, recalling a more mocking sentiment from Prospera back in Episode 7. In the last years of the 60s, the city was terrorized by the return of the Zodiac Killer, still at large after having committed a series of signature murders earlier in the decade.
The film takes place in the fictional town of Stony Creek, Nevada, where several supernatural events occur. The plot revolves around the siblings' efforts to reach Witch Mountain, a mysterious location that holds the key to their mission. Along the way, they encounter various obstacles and face numerous dangers, including encounters with both human and alien adversaries.
Season Of The Witch
David Talbot took the title of his 2012 non-fiction book, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love, from Donovan’s psychedelic rock song of the same name (subtitle notwithstanding). In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Talbot explained why the title suits his retrospective of San Francisco between the years 1965 and 1982: “The song caught that paranoid and eerie aspect of the 1960s, so it was appropriate to the mood of much of my book.” While “eerie” may seem an unlikely term to characterize the upheavals of the 1960s, as “ground zero” for the era’s cultural revolution, San Francisco experienced a striking number of strange events. The emerging progressive forces clashed with the city’s longstanding Catholic power structure, and the fallout included nothing less than abduction, assassinations, and mass suicide.
But to begin, Talbot goes back to the 1930s to the madcap romance of Vince Hallinan, a San Francisco attorney, and his plucky girlfriend, Vivian Moore. Together, they outfoxed the law to protect Vince’s shady clients. Eventually, they married, had six boys, and turned their combined talents to defending labor leaders and civil rights. Talbot argues that “because of the Hallinan family […] the seeds [of progressivism] had been sown in San Francisco. It all came back to the Hallinans.”
The book’s first section, “Enchantment,” covers the early stages of the city’s counter-cultural movement, beginning with the Human Be-In of January 1967. Billed as an event open to “every tribe” in America, it attracted a crowd of 20,000 to Golden Gate Park, where rising icons such as Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead took the stage. The momentum rolled forward into the 1967 “Summer of Love,” during which time some 75,000 young idealists flocked to the city. For the conservative Irish Catholic mayor and his chief of police, this youth wave constituted an invasion to be met with iron-fisted law and order. Residents of the hippie Haight-Ashbury neighborhood—home to Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead—anticipated that “Summer of Love” pilgrims would overrun their district, taxing its resources. City administrators disregarded pleas for help, so the Haight community created its own social services network. A group known as the “Diggers” opened “free” stores, where the indigent young could get food and clothing at no cost. In response to skyrocketing incidences of drug overdose and STDs, David “Doc” Smith established the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic.
Music funded the Free Clinic. Rock concert promoter Bill Graham was both a father figure and talented manager for bands like the Doors and the Grateful Dead. At the old Fillmore Auditorium, he staged successful benefit concerts for the Free Clinic. Scott Newhall, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, struck a tone of benevolence toward hippie culture, encouraging tolerance for the lifestyle among its readers. The paper’s music editor, Ralph J. Gleason, avidly covered the emerging music scene, while DJ Tom Donohue helped launch the new Rock sound on his start-up underground FM radio station. Talbot writes that “music was the signal” that called the young to San Francisco.
But the giddy days of psychedelic music and free love soon gave way to a darker side, as Talbot relates in the “Terror” section of his book. Rampant drug-related activities in the Haight inevitably led to sordid mayhem, and the murder rate jumped. In the last years of the ‘60s, the city was terrorized by the return of the Zodiac Killer, still at large after having committed a series of signature murders earlier in the decade. Then a group of Black Muslim militants randomly murdered and dismembered over a dozen whites during the “Zebra Killings” of the early 1970s. In 1974, the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. The group, self-described anti-fascists, hoped to score a big ransom for Hearst but instead, met its end in a police shoot-out. Jim Jones orchestrated the next atrocity. Pastor of the Peoples Temple in San Francisco, he held hundreds in his thrall with his charismatic sermons on racial justice. When accusations of abuse and extortion surfaced, several hundred worshipers followed Jones to his compound in Guyana, where he directed their mass murder-suicide in 1978.
Ten days after this tragedy, San Francisco politician Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S. During the late ‘60s, San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood had become a sanctuary for gay culture, and Milk’s political activism started on Castro Street. Mayor Moscone supported gay rights, but many of the city’s old-guard Catholic politicians did not. Dan White was among the latter, and his actions signified the conservative backlash against increasingly liberal policy-making. After shooting Moscone and Milk, White surrendered himself to police officers. He was convicted of manslaughter, a crime less serious than murder, triggering riots and subsequent police crackdowns in gay nightclubs.
In the final section of his book, “Deliverance,” Talbot claims that two occurrences in the 1980s healed the city’s collective psyche after the trauma of the previous years. The 1982 San Francisco 49ers’ Super Bowl victory provided catharsis, and afterward, Talbot writes that “many of the Faithful simply remained in their seats […] some in tears, letting all the tragedies of the past come spilling out of them.” Secondly, the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, which ravaged the gay community, paradoxically united the city. The federal government simply ignored the crisis, so San Francisco, under the leadership of Mayor Dianne Feinstein, pulled together to provide medical services and care for its own.
Talbot’s book sets up San Francisco in the 1960s as a crucible of opposing forces from which, in the 1980s, it emerged as a progressive “beacon of enlightenment.” But lest this sound like a reductionist battle between the good liberals and bad conservatives, know that it’s not. Talbot exposes the complicity of the city’s liberal leadership in the Jim Jones massacre. Clearly besotted with San Francisco, Talbot measures everyone, left and right, against its enlightened ideals.
David Talbot took the title of his 2012 non-fiction book, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love, from Donovan’s psychedelic rock song of the same name (subtitle notwithstanding). In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Talbot explained why the title suits his retrospective of San Francisco between the years 1965 and 1982: “The song caught that paranoid and eerie aspect of the 1960s, so it was appropriate to the mood of much of my book.” While “eerie” may seem an unlikely term to characterize the upheavals of the 1960s, as “ground zero” for the era’s cultural revolution, San Francisco experienced a striking number of strange events. The emerging progressive forces clashed with the city’s longstanding Catholic power structure, and the fallout included nothing less than abduction, assassinations, and mass suicide.
The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its action sequences and performances, particularly from Dwayne Johnson and the young cast. However, some criticized the film for its lack of originality and simplistic storyline. Nevertheless, Race to Witch Mountain was a commercial success, grossing over $106 million worldwide. Overall, Race to Witch Mountain is an entertaining and action-packed adventure film that offers a modern twist on the classic story. With its impressive special effects and strong performances, it successfully brings the world of Witch Mountain to a new generation of viewers..
Reviews for "Deconstructing Race to Witch Mountain: Lessons in Storytelling"
1. Sarah - 2/5 - I was really disappointed with "Race to Witch Mountain." The storyline was just so predictable and cliché, with the same old formula of a group of people saving the world from aliens. The dialogue was also really cheesy and cringeworthy at times. I expected more from a Disney movie. The acting was nothing special either, and the characters felt one-dimensional. Overall, it just didn't live up to its potential and felt like a forgettable movie in the end.
2. Michael - 2/5 - I found "Race to Witch Mountain" to be a rather dull and unengaging film. The action sequences were unimpressive and lacked any real excitement. The plot was also quite messy and convoluted, which made it hard to follow and understand what was happening. Additionally, the humor felt forced and fell flat most of the time. I was really hoping for more from this movie, but sadly, it just didn't deliver.
3. Emily - 1/5 - "Race to Witch Mountain" was a complete waste of time for me. The story was extremely predictable, with no surprises or twists. The special effects were underwhelming, and the acting felt wooden and uninspired. I also found the pacing to be extremely slow, making it difficult for me to stay engaged. Overall, I would not recommend this movie to anyone looking for an exciting and captivating experience.