Hogwarts Academy Under Intense Watchdog Scrutiny

Green People Soup was recently fortunate enough to interview Elena Ruggelmeyer, one of the founders of the world's leading anti-Hogwarts movement, What About the Children? In this, part 1 of our candid fireside chat, Elena let us and our readers know exactly why they believe Hogwarts does more harm than good, and what they aim to do about it.

Elena Ruggelmeyer - a pillar of community watchdogs the world over.

Green People Soup: Elena, if I may call you that, it's a pleasure to finally get a chance to sit down and talk about these important issues with you. If you were to read the newspaper, you wouldn't think anybody cared(this article will be published on page 18 of the Culture section). But to people like you and me, who actually care about the issues facing our children and their futures, there's nothing more important than making sure their education matters. So on behalf of the staff of Green People Soup, I'd like to congratulate you on your efforts to raise awareness of this potential problem.

Elena Ruggelmeyer: My mother named me Elena, so it's certainly fine to call me that. And it's a good point you make about the coverage this issue is getting; namely, none. That's really why I started What About the Children? - as a way to advocate their rights as citizens and as people. Clearly, your organization understands what we're about, and I'd like to extend the same gratitude you showed me a minute ago by saying I think what you do is fantastic.

GPS: That's great, I appreciate it. Now let's get down to business. To me, the number one issue is job security. Let's say you've been a student at Hogwarts all your life, and the time is approaching for you to go out and make your mark on the world. What's the job market like for graduates of Hogwarts?

ER: Pretty dismal, really.

GPS: Why is that?

ER: Well, for a number of reasons. For starters, there are only so many bounty hunter positions available at any given time. If you were to look at the wanted ads, for example, in the areas surrounding Hogwarts, you wouldn't see very many looking for magical protectors or hunters. Those jobs are already taken. So what I see happening is a lot of young, intelligent and talented people being led to believe this "school" is teaching them how to apply their skills in the real world, when in reality, it's just the opposite.

GPS: So they're basically being left high-and-dry.

ER: Exactly. It's not enough to excel at your craft. To be successful, you also have to be given, at some point, the opportunity to practice it. I suppose an ex-student could always turn to pure evil. I wouldn't recommend it, but there you have it.

GPS: So you're saying that the lack of career prospects could possibly turn good, caring people into evil wizards hell-bent on destruction of everything we hold dear?

ER: In theory, yes. The obvious example would be You-Know-Who. Ahem. I'm afraid I don't have the actual data on hand to back that up. I'll e-mail you a copy of it as soon as I return to my office.

This face is the possible future of your offspring.

GPS: I'd like that, yes. Moving on, I'd like to talk about the education Hogwarts provides its students. Do you think it's adequate?

ER: In some areas, yes. In others, it is disasterously under-funded. The quality of teachers any school would hope to attract generally relies on how much they are able to pay them, and Hogwarts is no exception. Just look at their Dark Arts department. They've been through how many teachers in the past three or four years? I've lost track. I think it's absurd to imagine any child learning proper defenses against the dark arts when they have to resort to secret meetings behind invisible doors where their actual teacher can't find them. What kind of a message does that send? It's ridiculous, and I can't believe we're the only ones who see it.

Not every student at Hogwarts can attend the secret Dark Arts Defense class.

GPS: You're certainly not, and I couldn't agree more. If I had a child at Hogwarts, I would expect them, after a year or two, to be able to lift me in the air and suspend me indefinitely while they made their escape. Not so. I've had friends' children try it on me; usually, they really suck at using magic.

ER: I think, generally, that's true. If I remember the statistics, only about 2 in every 10 students can be expected to properly invoke the Confundus charm or Flipendo jinx. That's unacceptable. If they were ever to find themselves in a situation where their life depended on correctly using these spells, they'd be done for. And as a parent, it's at least 10 grand down the toilet. Also the death of their child.


That's it for part 1 of our interview with Elena Ruggelmeyer, but stay tuned for part 2 shortly, as we've only scraped the tip of the iceberg as far as the issues at hand go. Hogwarts definitely has a lot of explaining to do, and Elena is here to help usher in that much-needed accountability.

Hogwarts Magical Fireworks Show Goes Horribly Wrong; Harry Potter Involved

by Green People Soup staff


Hogwarts, July 8, 9:42 a.m. - During the annual magical fireworks display, five students received third-degree burns, and one teacher's robe was mostly disintegrated when a rogue flame not only increased its size ten-fold in under a second, but then cloned itself many times over and surrounded the Quidditch stadium where the display is held. The flames then proceeded to attack people at random, prompting one very famous student to lend a helping hand.

More on the story after the jump.

An eyewitness saw Harry Potter construct a large water barrier, which he then used against the raging fires. "It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It was like Moses versus the devil or something, I don't know. I saw flames everywhere, people were screaming, then the next thing I know, Harry is running around with his feet on fire, throwing these gigantic streams of water everywhere with his hands. Awesome," said Trig Lothbottom, a first-year Gryffindor student.

Trig Lothbottom, pictured, flees the burning wreckage of his stadium seating.

Thanks to Potter's heroism, the five students with deep burns will recover soon, and damage to the stadium was kept to a minimum. Even the teacher whose robe disintegrated was in good spirits after the flames died down. "Yea, it was a surprise, sure. I guess I'm lucky all that got hurt was my pride. My bum was waving in the wind for a good 20 minutes, you know. 12-year-olds saw it," said Arthur Whip, the visiting Herbology professor who was due to give a lecture shortly after the fireworks display. "I think I'll postpone that lecture, at least until I can get an Obliviate charm going."

The flame was first conjured on the stage next to the Fireworks Display area, and quickly spread from there.

Update, 3:30 p.m. - Hogwarts school officials have put out a press release concerning the fire and its possible cause.

From the press release: "We are all, of course, very grateful to Harry for acting in such a brave and selfless manner. However, our gratitude doesn't dismiss the possibility of this incident being related to the dark arts in some fashion. We are currently investigating this possibility, and if something does turn up, rest assured we will put our top wizards on the job. No one flames our stadium and gets away with it."

Near Dark double dip DVD can BITE ME!!!!!

Not cool cover....cool movie

I guess I can understand why they would do this.....but come on......really!!!???? One of the very cooooooolest vampire movies ever to never utter the word vampire does not need to market itself for a DVD re-release to make itself look like Twilight. For one thing, Caleb never even looks like that in the movie with the pale skin and stupid eyes....he just looks human the whole time except for when he takes sunlight damage. Another thing.....Twilight is not worthy to scratch the nut hairs of Kathryn Bigelow's classic outlaw tale! I guess if it makes more people check it out I should be ok with it..............but it still pisses me off!!!!

Not cool movie

Now if you are a hardcore movie dork like me and you want to track down this masterpiece of 80's vampire flicks........go for the version released by Anchor Bay. Nuff said!

Cool cover cool DVD cool movie

Job outlook dismal for Hogwarts graduates

A recent study has shown that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy is severely lagging behind other technical shools and colleges when it comes to placing graduates into the global marketplace. This does not bode well for aspiring wizards and witches who may have to consider going to learning institutions that offer more realistic career choices. Speaking anonymously, a recent Hogwarts student said, "I had a great time...., but upon graduation I quickly discovered that the curriculum offered there simply did not prepare me for a world where I can't even list the Petronas charm as a job skill on my resume!" The former student went on to say, "I've talked it over with my parents.....and I'm going to America to enroll in Devry University....it's just a shame that I have to start my education all over again from scratch!"

Anonymous student (top row, 2nd from right) at Hogwarts graduation

When asked about Hogwarts current downward trend, Harold T. Shapiro Chairman of Devry University responded, "It's true, year after year we get more and more former wizards coming through our doors here at Devry looking to better their marketability in today's competitive workforce because everything we do in and out of the classroom prepares our students to start or advance their chosen careers. Just look at the numbers and you'll see they don't lie." Shapiro sited that 92% of Devry graduates were employed within six months after graduation compared to 8% at Hogwarts.

Devry Chairman Shapiro

The convincing pie chart making its case

Supporters of Hogwarts have much to be concerned about these days when you add troubling stats on top of everything else that has been happening at the school of late. Staff and students can only hope that the negative spiral can stop or at least slow down before it is too late for this historic institution of the magically gifted.

Next Stop, Jesus! - Religulous (2008)

The first thing you should know about this documentary is that it was directed by Larry Charles. The same Larry Charles that directed Borat. So right off the bat, you know this isn't going to be a totally even-handed affair. The film is by no means vitriolic or demeaning, but it has its moments that are obviously skewed. I happen to agree with everything Bill Maher says in this documentary, but I also understand that it's not going to win anyone over who doesn't see things the way he does. But that's not really the reason I watched Religulous. I wasn't looking for Maher to present scientific evidence or fully construct logical arguments. Honestly, I was watching this film so I could see the crazy people and laugh at them. And in that regard, Religulous did exactly what I wanted.

The whole thing is basically Bill Maher traveling around, interviewing believers and non-believers alike, asking questions about their faith, and cracking some jokes at their expense. Before seeing the film, you might think Maher utterly trashes anyone who believes in God. But at its heart, it's not a venemous film. Maher, for the most part, respects the people he's interviewing enough to let them explain their position, and afterwards ask them serious questions. Sure, here and there he adds some off-color joke aimed at the religion his interviewee is part of, and it's funny. To me. If you're religious, probably not quite as much. But still, even if you're religious, you have to give him his overall civility. There were countless times where, if it were me, I would probably get a little rude or condescending towards some of these people. The ex-gay minister who doesn't believe anyone is really gay comes to mind. That just smacks of ignoring your own desires, but whatever.

Maher goes everywhere from Israel, to the Bible belt, to the Netherlands, and to the heart of Mormon Utah. Speaking of Utah, those fucking guys have quite a setup there. It's almost, if not just as ornate as the Vatican. In Italy. As in Europe, where their architecture is actually pleasing to stare at for more than five seconds. Yea, I was surprised to see that shit in Utah. Props on that. But besides that, you really have to be hardcore to believe the stuff they do. I'm just saying. Mormons also don't seem to be very inviting to outsiders, since just the mere sight of Maher sent the Mormon Enforcement Brigade into their midst to drive them away. An even more amusing fact was that Maher actually tried to get an interview with the Pope. He failed, but still. However, he did find an actual Vatican priest who holds some pretty unconventional views about his own faith. I'll put up a little clip of him below. He deserves it. Among the other colorful characters is a dude who believes he is the second coming of Christ, a weed-smoking spiritualist who doesn't really know what the fuck he believes in, and a Jewish guy who invents(or cheats, IMO) his way around restrictions on the Sabbath. If nothing else, you could say Religulous asks the same basic questions of every religion, and it doesn't come off as picking on anyone more than the rest.

All in all, your mind is already made up whether or not you believe one word that comes out of Bill Maher's mouth when it comes to religion. You either believe or you don't. So it's armed with that knowledge that I ask you to just watch it for fun. Regardless of your personal beliefs, at least watch it and form an opinion afterward, not the other way around. If nothing else, it can serve as a nice jumping-off point for a serious discussion with those you know of differing faiths. Or, if you agree, it's a great film to pop in and have some laughs while still engaging your brain a tad bit.

Christian Bale's Skeletal Structure, as Seen in The Machinist (2004)

I guess I can't avoid starting out by mentioning Christian Bale. More specifically, the things he's willing to do for a part. Apparently, the list includes what I can only imagine as starving yourself for a very long time. He looks absolutely emaciated. It's hard to look at him for any set amount of time, and I couldn't help but marvel at what it takes to do that to yourself in the name of your craft. And if he was going to starve himself, The Machinist was a good reason to do it.

There is something I've noticed with every Brad Anderson film, and the best way to describe it is there being a creeping tension and foreboding in all the atmospheric conditions he creates. It's almost identical in Session 9, and Transsiberian definitely has elements of it. Anderson is astutely aware of his characters' surroundings, and he populates them with people and things that can make you a little bit uneasy. And in The Machinist, everything is off somehow, but it's hard to pinpoint. Trevor Reznik(Bale) doesn't live in a super-creepy apartment building, there's nothing terribly upsetting about his job, and everybody else around him seems normal enough. Yet and still, something doesn't feel right. There's an inate quality that pushes the film more in the direction of horror, but without any of the genre conventions.

Bale plays a guy working at some kind of machine factory, and he's been there for, as far as I know, at least a little over a year. When the film starts, he's already a full-on bag of bones, so there's no real transformation happening. But the point isn't to see him transform; instead, it's about what he's become. What exactly that is, and why it's happened are two of the questions the film digs into.


And that's all I can safely divulge about the film without going into spoiler territory. I'll say this: if you're in any way interested in films about or pertaining to tragedies(Greek or otherwise) or the human condition, then give The Machinist a shot. As is also the case with Anderson's other films, it's not one you'll be popping in the DVD player once a month to get your fix. Rather, it's an experience that slowly makes its way around your brain and simmers a while, letting you soak up all the little details and nuances until you've taken away any and everything possible. That's not to say it's difficult to watch or hard to understand. It's quite the opposite, actually. It's a simple story, but the layers it has and the humanity it shows are both integral parts to the success of the actual storytelling. And to me, it succeeded greatly.

But how can a film successfully portray a character without making him well-rounded or at least showing more than one side of them? Apparently, very easily. If that's a genuine question of yours, then I can answer it by saying that not all great characters in film history are well-rounded, or even good people. The Machinist is a shining example of a talented filmmaker taking one aspect of the human psyche and putting it on full display for feature length. Not all of it is pretty, and not all of it is safe. The point, at least the way I saw it, was to take stock of yourself and understand how events have shaped the person you've become. Whether it comes from external forces or something inside yourself, if you can't recognize it you have no chance of overcoming it or living with it. Such is the dilemma facing Trevor Reznik, and it's one I think everyone should experience at least once.

The O.G. "Public Enemies" of cinema's past

It seems a bit unusual to have a depression era gangster flick like "Public Enemies" making its debut during a season usually dominated by Optimus Prime and Captain Kirk, but I'll take a huge helping of Michael Mann cops and robbers any time it's offered to me and gladly ask for seconds. As "Enemies" hits screens to mostly positive buzz, I thought I'd look back at some of Hollywood's "original gangstas" and their exploits that have influenced filmmakers for several generations of celluloid crime.

The term "Public Enemy" was coined back in 1930 by the chairman of the Chicago crime commision to publicly denounce guys like Al Capone and other infamous gangsters of the era. Later, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI used it when they named various fugitives they were tracking down. Guys like Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Bonnie & Clyde were all outlaws that made this famous list during what became known as "The Public Enemy Era." There is no doubt about it....these were THE bad guys that the law had to bring down for being a blight on society. For some strange reason, people love the stories about bad boys and eventually, Tinseltown would be all too eager to oblige.

The Public Enemy (1931)

Back in the day, this guy defined cinema bad-assery. James Cagney was his name and he was not the man with whom to fuck. Just ask his nagging girlfriend how she likes her grapefruit. Named after the era it represents "The Public Enemy" is the story of Tom Powers, as he makes his way to the top......and eventually the bottom of the bootlegging underworld. This was one of the first pictures to attempt to portray the mob world in a realistic fashion. They didn't glorify it, and they wanted audiences to know that "crime does not pay!" The main character meets his fate in what can still be considered by today's standards somewhat grisly fashion. Just thinking about the last scene gives me chills.

a fistful of fruit for the whiney woman...

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

Don't let the silly name fool you. This film is as endearing as it is tragic. Cagney takes center stage again this time as the former gangster Rocky Sullivan. Rocky has been in prison for several years and after being released, decides to finally walk the straight path. He gets a little help from his best friend and former thug turned priest Father Connolly.( played by real life pal
Pat O' Brien) Unfortunately, an old nemesis (none other than Humphrey Bogart) who owes Rocky some money turns up and makes it difficult for him to adjust to life outside of prison. Throw in the comedy stylings of the Dead End Kids, and you have yourself a stick of pure movie dynamite!

White Heat (1949)

Yes, Cagney makes the list for the third time in a row. His wallet is the one that actually says "Bad Mother Fucker" not Sam Jackson's!!!! Cagney took a break from the tough guy roles to prove he could do other things. He won an Oscar as the singing dancing playwright George M. Cohan in the 1942 musical "Yankee Doodle Dandy," but everybody really just wanted to see him come back and kick some ass again.........did he ever.

Cody Jarret is not a nice man. He steals, has no problem murdering his own crew or anybody else that pisses him off, and the only woman he loves is his mother. After Jarret goes to prison, the police send in an undercover agent posing as his cellmate to find out who on the outside launders his cash because if they get that guy....it will go a long way into shutting down the whole ring. We get jailbreaks, double crosses, and a truly explosive ending that will have you screaming....."made it ma.....top of the world!!!!!!!"

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

What can you say.......but.....Faye.....Faye....Dunaway! She was a knockout in this picture, and combined with the talents of Warren Beatty and a young Gene Hackman......you have yourself one of the very best the genre has to offer. It's a tale of young lovers who blaze a path of robbery and murder across the midwest and into the history books as they inevitably meet their bullet riddled destiny. At the time, the violence in this film was quite jarring. "The Public Enemy" tried to show mob life in a realistic way...."Bonnie & Clyde" showed what those bullets actually do when they hit their mark and critics were not initially impressed. Time has been kind to "Bonnie" and it's still a hell of a film. It marked a change in filmmaking style. No longer would a guy just get shot and fall down.......we'd get to see those exploding squibs in all their gooey glory! Contemporary Hollywood gunfights owe a huge debt to "Bonnie & Clyde." Clyde Barrow just wanted to be remembered.....well.....believe me Clyde........we remember.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Hot on the heels of his mega-hit from 2007, Michael Bay follows up Transformers with a sequel that promises bigger explosions, bigger robots, and a lot more mayhem and bang for your buck. Does it surpass or even equal his earlier work? Let's find out.



Haha, fooled you. I didn't see that shit.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three Remake, or...God Dammit, Tony Scott. (2009)

Son of a bitch, someone needs to give Tony Scott a tri-pod. You know, that thing cameras sit on top of. To keep it still. So you your movie doesn't look like a YouTube video that's having trouble loading. Also, at one point early on in the movie, I counted the seconds between cuts. Want to guess the length of the longest one? I'll give you four seconds. Why? Because that's the answer. So what did we learn from this information? Basically, when Tony Scott is on, he's fucking ON. But when he's off, you're pretty much wasting your money and time. It's a shame, really.

The more I think about this fucking thing, the more unnecessary it becomes. Why remake this? If the filmmaker has nothing over and above to add to the experience, then he/she has no business even attempting it. It's only cheapened, and in the case of Pelham, the cheapening comes in two different flavors. The first being Scott's stubborn reliance on jump-cuts and dizzying 360-degree panning shots of someone talking. Do I really need to see all around someone when they're just standing there speaking? No, I don't and neither does anyone else. I can think of maybe a handful of times when it would be appropriate. None of those scenarios rear their heads in this movie, so it just comes off as stupid. The second being the addition of truly sappy situations that only served to make me secretly throw up behind my stadium seating, and then proceed to look at my puke dribbling down the steps. It's more entertaining than the shit that was added in the film, so in my book, that was a bonus. I'll even give you the most glaring example. It's a spoiler, but if you've seen the original, you already know how the movie turns out. ****SPOILER**** THE BAD GUYS LOSE. So with that out of the way, I can describe this lame shit for you.

Denzel is a transit guy, and you'll have to excuse me if I can't remember his job title. I don't work for public transit, so I don't really give a shit. He's the guy that talks to trains on a microphone. Or at least he is when the movie starts because he's under investigation for taking bribes. He's fallen on the totem pole, and we as an audience are made painfully aware of this. Of course, when he gets the call from the hijackers, you automatically know at some point he'll be offered a bribe. Does Denzel take it? Fuck no. You're an idiot if you thought otherwise. Or slow. Either way, he has to allow the hostage negotiator to send a team of FBI agents or whatever the fuck to his house to search it and make sure he's not in league with the criminals. Denzel then gets a call from his wife, wondering what the hell is going on. He tells her it's just part of the process, and that he's talking to the terrorists. Later on, he tells her that he has to go meet them in person, to which his wife's reply is, and I'm paraphrasing, but this shit is really in there, "you better come home, because we need milk. Don't forget the milk." The object of the conversation being Denzel making it out alive and bringing home the milk to his poor, distraught wife. BOO-FUCKING-HOO. Guess what the last scene in the god damn movie is? HE BRINGS HOME THE FUCKING MILK. That's how you chart suspense if you're a movie exec. Oh, and fuck you, movie exec.

If you've read this far, you'll have noticed I'm not going too much into the nuts and bolts of the film, save for a couple of items. That's because all you need to see is the original with Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau. Really, that's all you need. It's superior in every conceivable way. The beauty of the original is its simplicity. It's pretty much just Matthau and Shaw talking. Sure, things happen around them, but they're the crux of the story. It's sort of the same in the remake, but the extraneous bullshit really takes the shine away from the stars. Case in point - Travolta. He excels at hamming it up as a bad guy. Broken Arrow and Face/Off come to mind. In Pelham, he does ham it up quite a bit, but it's restrained when compared to the two films I just mentioned. He's a little more nuanced, and more convincing as an actual person. The hamminess is still present, but he strikes a great balance between believability and bad guy over-the-top evil.

Denzel is good, as per usual, and I did think it was a nice touch to make him more of an every-man instead of the cop or negotiator. In one scene, a cop asks him if he's ever handled a gun, to which Denzel answers "no." That doesn't happen very often in a Denzel movie. At least not in most of them. And with that, my praise ends. I guess I don't really need to rail on it any more, since my stance is pretty rock solid at this point. There's nothing else to talk about, really, except for my insistance that you do NOT go see this. Buy the original on DVD instead. It's an old version, and I doubt there will be any new ones made because of the remake, but it's still worth it. You might have to mess around with your settings to get a widescreen presentation, and then you'll notice the image being stretched a tad, but it's totally watchable. Much more so than this pile of trash.

No trailer for this one. Watch Walter and Robert. My colleague talked about it once.

I'll Stay Awake, Thanks - Long Dream (2000)

You know, there are some directors out there who I think would greatly benefit from sitting down and watching this movie. I check the budgets on a lot of movies, and most of the time I wonder to myself how the fuck $100 million can be blown through so easily. Higuchinsky, the director of Long Dream, would laugh at the people responsible for spending that much money. All of his movies were really low budget, but guess what? They don't need the money (granted, I haven't seen his last film, but I seriously doubt anything has changed in that regard). The sad thing, however, isn't how much money he has or doesn't have for his films. Believe it or not, he's only made 3 films.....ever. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a national emergency, but I haven't seen any reports about it on the news yet.

Long Dream is about just that: a long dream. It takes place in a very dark and claustrophobic mental hospital, where two doctors are studying a curious patient. He came to them with a pretty fucked up problem. Every time he sleeps, his dreams seem to last longer and longer. In the span of, say, eight hours, he experiences days in his mind. At first. What starts out as a few days of experiences increases exponentially every time he sleeps. You'd be forgiven if you didn't realize the ramifications of this. He explains it best himself when he tells the doctors that one of his dreams was about him frantically searching for a bathroom for eight years. That's fucked. What if it's a horrible nightmare? It might end up being twenty years of swimming away from a gigantic shark, or god knows what. If that's not a scary premise for a horror/sci-fi flick, then I don't know what is. One thing I guess I should mention is the length of the film. It's only an hour long, so if you're looking for any kind of character development or complex plot, you'll have to look elsewhere. It's as straightforward as can be, and it doesn't bother with anything except being really weird. And I mean that in an exceptionally good way.

Higuchinsky is a very visual director, despite the low budgets he works with. Everything about his films, from the sets to the lighting and camera angles, is bizarre and other-worldly. Long Dream is no exception, and the green-tinted, narrow hallways of the mental hospital are foreboding enough, never mind what's happening in that dude's head every night. Also, Higuchinsky doesn't usually work with a lot of CGI. In Long Dream, it's practical all the way. I won't go into what kind of effects are used, but I'll let you imagine what might happen to a mind and body that experiences hundreds of years of existence. It's a crazy-ass concept, and it takes a crazy-ass director to pull it off with this kind of twisted confidence. To me, it's a must-see for any horror or sci-fi fan, regardless if you watch foreign films or not. It's just so fucking weird and creepy. I love it for the same reasons I love his other film, Uzumaki, but I'll save my comments on that one for another day. Instead, I'll leave you with this thought: a 100 year dream consisting solely of having sex with Naomi Watts. Or whoever, it's your call. Your wife, even.

This scene isn't very exciting, but it's the only one I could find that didn't show too much. When he wakes up, the doctor basically asks him if he was dreaming. He says yes, and the doctor asks how long it lasted. He says a year and a half.