Highly Recommended. A simple black hotel manager in Rwanda rescues over a thousand refuges from a genocide of Hutus against the Tutsis in the 1994. I would say that this movie gets my vote for the second best movie of the year, after The Passion, which is the undisputable finest of the year. Million Dollar Baby would probably be third. I must confess, that even though I am a total apologist and fan of fictional stories, the ones that touch my soul the deepest are the true ones like Hotel Rwanda. When you see the heroism of a man like Paul Rusesabagina, you are simply cut to the heart and challenged to examine your life and seek a more courageous and noble lifestyle. There’s something about knowing a real person actually behaved like this, a real person actually acted heroically and compassionately. Put simply, I kept breaking out into tears throughout this movie. Tears over the atrocities committed over 10 years ago in Rwanda, tears over the acts of courage and heroism by an ordinary man, tears over love and compassion of family and friends that can exist in this world, and tears over the fact that the atrocities going on right now in the Sudan and Congo are thrice as bad, and NONE OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA CARES enough to report on it. It seems that Americans are concerned about violence against blacks in this country or atrocities against Jews, but they do not tend to care about atrocities against blacks in other countries. Especially when it is black on black or when it is Muslims murdering Christians. This film is a black Schindler’s List. Humble Paul, the hotel manager, who has settled into the comfortable life of managing a hotel frequented by United Nations officials and rich foreigners gets challenged out of his comfort to help the less fortunate when they come to the hotel trying to escape the genocide going on outside the walls. According to the movie, the difference between the Hutus and the Tutsis was simply made by the Belgians when they pulled out of the country and divided the population by physical characteristics like nose shape etc. I don’t think this is really accurate though as the Tutsis supposedly invaded the Hutus 600 years ago, long before Belgian rule. So, that seems to be a bit contrived by agenda. The Hutus become a majority and kill off the Hutu president who was trying for peace, and blame it on a Tutsi conspiracy. This gives the military the motive to being the killing of all Tutsis. At an important moment in the film, Paul asks all the refugees to start calling any officials or dignitaries they may know to tell them about the massacre. He seeks to have camera footage of the atrocities aired because nothing else is working. “We must shame them into helping.” The reporter replies with cynical but ruthlessly correct understanding, “If people see this footage, they’ll say, “oh my God, and go on eating their dinners.” And that is in fact what DID happen. The US, France and Germany are called cowards for not doing anything to stop the killing beyond sanctions. The actor Don Cheadle is now calling for the US to use force to stop the killing in the Congo and Sudan. Well, that is a very hypocritical self-righteous call because if the US is supposed to go in and stop every civil war with our own military, then why isn’t Cheadle fighting for the war in Iraq? 3 to 6 million killed in genocide over there. So Iraqis don’t count? Only genocide of blacks should be stopped, but not genocide of Middle Easterners? And of course herein lies the problem, while the United Nations is accurately portrayed in the movie as the useless impotent presence it was and is everywhere, the US is still somehow the bad guy for not sending our kids to die in other people’s civil wars. Well, if we should go and stop every civil war and genocide that occurs, we would have to invade half the countries around the world. Is this really what these people want? And by golly, we aren’t even allowed by these same Hollywood types to stop Iraq’s civil war and genocide. So what is it? Should we or should we not be the policemen of the world? Should we or should we not stop civil wars of other countries? You can’t pick and choose. I don’t believe we have the moral right to send our sons to die for foreign interests, but I do think we can do many other things such as sanctions, public shaming, UN condemnation, publication of atrocities, etc. I also wonder if the true story had more faith in it. In the movie, there is a mere reference by Paul, “I thank God every day for the time we’ve had.” But that’s about it. The driving force of faith is often excised by Hollywood ignoramuses who don’t understand the transcendent origins of people’s beliefs and behaviors. Great moment in the film when Paul discouragingly tells his wife, “I was a fool. They made me believe I was one of them.” In other words, the rich foreign owners of the hotel, used him for their benefits and gave him little perks to make him happy, but when the trouble started, they bailed. His wife replies, “You are no fool. I know who you are.” Wow, a profound revelation of the heart of marriage. Being truly known by someone. There is a mature understanding of marriage beyond the Romantic notions of feelings and sexuality. Another irony about the story is that while there is an atrocity revealed, it is rather ironic that the Hutus, being the bad guys of the story, are the not so in the story of their origins where the Tutsis actually invaded, conquered and enslaved the Hutus 600 years ago. But that is another story… Another interesting thing: The Hutus keep calling the Tutsis “Cockroaches” which is the semantic necessity for genocide, the dehumanization of the victims, just like Jews being called “Vermin” and rodents in Nazi Germany.
Little Black Book
Not very recommended. Feminist parable about the unreliability of men for female happiness. But its pretty well done and entertaining, up until the ending agenda that leaves the viewer unsatisfied. Brittany Murphy plays Stacy, a new young hireling to a daytime sleaze talk show, a female Jerry Springer, Kippy Kann, played by Kathy Bates. Stacy’s dream is to be Diane Sawyer and Carly Simon roled into one, but in the mean time, she has to work her way up the ladder while maintaining a romance with her boyfriend Derek. Someone comes up with the idea of doing a show on men’s little black books, to discover the women in their lives. When Stacy stumbles upon one of Derek’s ex-girlfriends talking as if she still has a connection to him, Stacy is drawn to Derek’s “little black” palm pilot. What’s very clever about this story is its mentor, played by Holly Hunter as the cynical experienced writer Barb. Barb apprentices Stacy throughout the story, giving her wisdom on how to deal with her boyfriend – by not trusting him. The other great element is that it winds up being a trap. Barb is actually manipulating Stacy into one of the Kippy Kann shows. So Stacy ends up as one of those dufuses who walks in to the show having no clue SHE is the sucker. An excellent revelation of betrayal as Stacy becomes one of the fools who is deceived, just as she has deceived her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends for her own purposes. This is an excellent morality tale on that level. But then it gets into trouble, when Barb, who should be the devil, turns out to be Stacy’s salvation because Derek really is still in love with his ex, and not Stacy. So it turns out to be “for her own good.” Well, I think it is a rather unique and interesting unpredictable storyline to have the heroine realize she is not “the one” for another man, and therefore he is not “the one” for her. Romances of course usually end up with the revelation that it was all a big misunderstanding, and the boyfriend loves her more than any other. Sometimes these kind of romances can reinforce the Romantic humanistic worldview that salvation is found in romance, the love of another human being. For that reason, I like having a romance where the person discovers that another person is NOT what completes their humanity or saves them from their despair. The first false ending is another great unpredictable twist that I liked. Stacy is all alone, now, but a stronger person for having walked away from a detrimental relationship. Okay, I’m with them. Fine. She meets an old friend from high school by chance and blurts out in a fairy tale way that now she realizes why this all happened to her. It was because somehow this old friend was the solution to her happiness. Very deliberately schmaltzy. But then she sees that he is married and she walks away embarrassed. So the point is made by the story that her revelation about Derek was NOT for her to be fulfilled by another man, which is the predictable romance ending. I even found that rather insightful and clever. But here is where the feminist agenda flows in like a Carly Simon concert on estrogen. Next scene we see Stacy getting a job with, who else? DIANE SAWYER. The woman of her dreams! Stacy jumps up and down and say’s “I got the job! I got the job!, using the word “job” so many times to make sure we do not miss the agenda that it is a job that will satisfy Stacy and fulfill her with happiness, not someone to love. And what makes it even more embarrassingly preachy is that Carly Simon just happens to be there for an interview and the two jump up and down together. Oi vey! This is the old feminist rant from the 60s, and to be quite honest, its almost ludicrous to think that there are some women around who actually still want to be like men. Problem is, even men have finally discovered that jobs and careers do not make happiness at all. Feminists are like 10 plus years behind the curve. Come on and catch up, ladies. Newsflash: careers do not provide the meaning of life and happiness. Even men have figured that one out. You don’t want to be more stupid than men do you? That’s what makes this movie unsatisfying. The solution for Stacy’s happiness turns out to be a very empty proposition, at least for those of us seeking transcendent meaning and purpose in life. This life is not all there is. The things that really matter are the love of God and neighbor. Stacy should watch the movie The Family Man and learn a little bit from a man who’s already been there done that and found career to be a spiritual and human dead end. All in all, a very clever anti-romance that is soured by an outdated feminist agenda.
Million Dollar Baby
Partially Recommended with Extreme Caution. Boxing trainer reluctantly trains an eager young woman to be a champion boxer. This movie will most likely win the Oscar for best picture of 2004, even though The Passion deserves it far more. It is a brilliant work of passion and heart. Even though I abhor it’s worldview, it provides much to think about in terms of the harsh realities of life and the search for redemption. The problem is that I think Clint Eastwood, does not believe redemption can be found in this world. First, Mystic River, now Million Dollar Baby and others of his movies (Unforgiven) seem to communicate a despairing nihilistic worldview. Let me explain. This movie is basically a brilliant incarnation of the “quality of life” argument for euthanasia. Thirty years too old, Hillbilly girl with passion to be a champion boxer enlists Eastwood’s character to train her. Trouble is, he doesn’t want to work with “girlies.” And he’s a man with a bitter past struggling with God to understand. The boxer is played by Hillary Swank, who is superb here, in the girl who is terrible and without training, but is so determined that she persuades Clint to train her. Brilliant supporting role by Morgan Freeman as Clint’s right hand man, who also has his failures to overcome. The girl boxes her way to the top in no time, virtually knocking out everyone along the way. But Clint’s motto is repeated over and over, “Always protect yourself.” And so he does throughout his boxing training and life. And that’s why he loses boxers because he holds them back, trying to protect them, rather than letting them reach for the stars and fumble a bit. For years, he writes letters every week to his estranged daughter who returns them all for what he did to her in the past. So he finds the opportunity to find a daughter in Hillary. And Hillary suffers from rejection by her hillbilly white trash family who doesn’t give a damn about her. Her father ran off when she was a kid, so she looks to Clint as a father figure to replace her dad that she never had. It’s incredibly moving and powerful. Morgan is a fighter, who represents the ghost that haunts Clint. Clint had managed Morgan as a young boxer. One fight, Morgan was cut badly but wanted to keep going. Clint didn’t want him to, but let him. And Morgan ended up losing and losing the sight in his eye because of this. Now, he works for Clint in a sweaty gym. This is why Clint will no longer let go of his fighters, because he feels guilty for doing so in the past and now must overcome that guilt by letting Hillary seek the championship. Trouble is, Hillary gets to the top, but then is hit from behind by a dirty trick and she falls and breaks her neck, rendering her a quadrapolegic on the level of a Christopher Reeves. So the rest of the movie is the struggle with Clint’s guilt over this pain again and whether or not he will kill her as she asks him to. After living the dream she had, she feels no life in this existence and wants to die. He ends up killing her with an injection of adrenaline and taking her breathing tube out. Then he disappears into the backwoods. The whole emotional power of this film is to create a life that has real hope and energy and exciting dreams in the boxing girl, so when we see her paralysis, we can feel the tremendous loss of hope and value in a life lived to the fullest of one’s dreams and hopes. We feel the extremity of the loss of quality of life, so that we may sympathize with the belief in euthanasia as a justified act. This movie reminded me of Cider House Rules. Both movies make arguments for controversial deeds, by incarnating the best emotional argument for it in a powerful story. This shows the power of story like nothing else. Cider House Rules incarnated the incest argument for abortion, and Million Dollar Baby incarnates the quality of life argument for euthanasia. And I must say, it is very powerful, no matter how false it is. The worldview of this film is humanistic and nihilistic. Clint seeks God for answers throughout the movie, which is fair and honest, but when confronted by the priest that euthanasia is murder and a sin, he finally gives up on God and walks away in order to kill his beloved Hillary. So God has nothing valuable to say about the meaning of life, because God supposedly doesn’t have a good answer for this. Well, too bad they don’t know Joni Erickson Tada. That’s the story that counters this one. Where a woman is a quad, but finds God through the suffering that wakes her up to what is really most valuable in life. Joni’s story is the one we really need to hear. Of course, this is just way too easy to SAY with WORDS, and the fact is, I totally empathize with the desire to die as a quad. But that doesn’t make it right. I am just saying that the truth is not determined by our feelings, and sometimes the truth and life is not fun or good to us. But none of this justifies murder. It is one thing to stop “extraordinary means” of life support, but quite another to inject someone with an overdose of adrenaline or morphine. One is letting a person die, the other is killing them. Unfortunately, Clint does both and is therefore guilty of murder. Another problem is that they set up the Hillary character as a fighter who fights her way out of poverty and white trash only to give up when she faces the biggest match of her life? Not consistent with the character they set up in Hillary. It says that she ultimately failed cause she gave up. She tossed in the towel, which makes it unsatisfying as a story. She doesn’t win the final fight, she gives up. That is a failure of character. This humanistic worldview conceives of a universe in which there is no ultimate good, only a choice between the lesser of two evils, killing someone you love to release them or allowing them to suffer because you don’t have the guts to kill them. But either way, life is miserable with no good option. In reality, there are other options. And Joni is a perfect example of this, of a woman who wouldn’t give up the fight. Clint never regains his actual daughter and loses the one hope of a daughter replacement, and ends in hiding all alone. Morgan gets a lonely gym, and Hillary dies – but, hey, she has the experience of seeking her dreams. Her request is that with each day, “they are taking away” the sounds of the cheering and the crowds and her importance. “They were chanting for me. I was in magazines.” This is so sad to me that we find our value in life in glory and personal ambition rather than knowing our Creator. Well, I would agree that there are some choices in life that are not black and white, but this is hopelessness and despair to give up on life in the name of blocked goals or desires. Who are we to define a life not worthy to be lived? If I can’t get what I want, then I should be able to die? Says who? Who died and left us God? Well, this is all academic arguing for me. The fact is, I have lived for far too long in a world of “argumentation.” A world of rationality and logic with little experience of such misery and pain. So, the fact is, I think I would rather truly share the pain of a person suffering than seek to find my first opportunity to launch into my carefully crafted abstract logical argument about God’s sovereignty, true though this is. I think it is really valuable to see this movie and really experience the heart of an argument like this, because it isn’t mere logic that satisfies the burning desire for meaning and truth. I am not denying logic or devaluing rationality. I am merely saying that for too long I have elevated reason to a godlike status, but have been able to do so only from a privileged position of not having to actually experience the real pain about which I often argue. I don’t think truth is determined by experience and I don’t think lack of experience disqualifies rational truth, but I do think lack of experience requires me to shut up and listen more readily before rattling off my string of logical abstract arguments unconnected to any real suffering. I want to suffer with those who suffer and cry with those who cry, not just spew out mental abstractions. This movie helps me to care more, makes me want to care more, even if I disagree with its philosophy. But having said that we should have an empathy for such suffering in life, let us not be deceived. To attempt to prove that some lives are “unworthy to be lived” as the Nazi booklet on eugenics tried to prove in the 1930s, is an atrocity. In my research lately, I discovered that the Nazi eugenics program and its sterilization laws in the 1930s were based upon American eugenics laws in the 1920s. Yes, those “scientific” Social Darwinists, among whom was the nefarious Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes, who ruled in the Buck v. Bell case that “three generations of imbeciles was enough” so they sterilized thousands and thousands of the “feeble-minded” (mentally retarded) and other “unfit” members of society – and all in the name of Darwin, I might add. How’s that for a Crusade? Yes, it is a fact, people: Ideas have consequences. And if you believe morality is a social construct for survival, then you will end up justifying killing those who you don’t like (such as Jews and Christians). What chills me to the bone is knowing that the mindless youth of today, who are literally manipulated by their postmodern culture of pure image and entertainment, are the ones who will be euthanizing me in my later years. Oh, yeah, one other thing, WAY TOO MUCH NARRATION. Clint, please, lay off the heavy handed telling us everything with words.
In Good Company
Recommended with Caution. I was moved by this story of a fifty-year old being demoted in his ad sales job, and getting a new boss who is 26 years old, knows nothing about ads or sales and is falling in love with the fifty-year old’s daughter. I guess because it rings close to home, as I get older, I see how age is not respected in this culture and youth and ambition is worshipped to the detriment of humanity. That’s what this great movie is all about. Some will no doubt see this as TV type storytelling. But I say, if so, it is the best dang TV I have ever seen. So much heart and humanity and love in this film. Dennis Quaid, one of the best underappreciated actors ever. He is so “everyman” it’s amazing. And that’s why I relate to his character. So, the 26 year old is named Carter and he represents the typical ambitious young shark learning what it takes to climb the corporate ladder. Unfortunately, because of his workaholism and worship of career, he loses his new wife (not without her own sin of adultery and immaturity). Quaid, playing Dan Foreman, learns his Sports magazine has just been acquired by a media mogul played like a Ted Turner by Malcom McDowell. Meanwhile, Carter takes his cues from his young shark boss, a heartless soulless snake, who ultimately turns against Carter. So the whole thing is a comparison of family values of community and people and loyalty versus corporate greed and using and heartlessness. The movie has a realistic share of the heartless layoffs of loyal workers, the stress of wondering if you are going to be next, etc. Scarlett Johanson, plays Dan’s daughter, Alex, with poise and elegance. The comparison of young Carter without a life and nothing but career versus Dan, who has family and is actually happy with an uneventful life. That’s what makes this movie so emotionally powerful, because it actually portrays a normal family life, not as boring or dreadful, but as a satisfying good life, and even as more desireable than a “successful” career. Boy, ain’t that rare in movies. Carter starts the movie as the guy who is cutting employees and ruthlessly pursuing his success. But by the end, he has seen in Dan’s family that very meaning he craves and cannot have. “I want my life to mean something the way this all means something to you.” He can’t believe that Dan actually believes in his company’s product so that he makes a big sale saying, “The best thing about it is, it really is the best thing for the client to come on board.” Carter asks him, “you really believe in this stuff.” “Why else would I do it?” replies Dan. Yes, the dinosaur ways of the old school meant that you sold products to people cause you believed in the product and wanted to help the person. And it shows this “dinosaur” old school as superior to the new school that conceives of people in terms of marketing demographics and consumers without souls. I loved it. So the kid learns that if he wants to find the meaning that Dan has, he has to act with Dan’s character. So when it comes time to fire Dan, Carter makes the choice to go down with him, but they save the day because they work together cooperatively rather than competitively. What’s cool about this story is that at the end of it, the guy doesn’t get the girl. Carter doesn’t get Dan’s daughter. Carter makes the right choice at the end, but is only a beginning. Changes can occur, but lives take a while to process and fully change. Character takes time, step by step of making the right choices. The value of family in this story was amazing. Almost to the point of unbelievablitity. When Dan discovers his daughter is seeing Carter, he wants to know if she is sleeping with him and feels betrayed by her dishonesty in hiding it from him. He even slugs Carter, in what I consider a rather unfair reaction. After all, their attraction was without any connection to Dan. And so what if they fall in love with each other. What does that really have to do with Dan, other than his pride that the kid is his boss? But so what? But I think it had more to do with Carter’s lack of character. One likeable aspect of Carter was the fact that he was completely honest around the daughter. She says, “Wow, you are incredibly honest” to his openness about his faults. He says, “No, actually, I’m not usually. Just around you.” Great romantic line of truth. Anyway, by now, the daughter is going to NYU, but she breaks up with Carter and tells her dad it wasn’t because of him, it was because of her. She just needed to focus on her education. But somehow underneath it, we can’t help but know that her father’s disappointment was what helped her realize her own choices were immature. She realizes Dan took out a second mortgage to pay for her education and she was not respecting that sacrifice by making mature choices like focusing on that education that was worked hard for. Amazing that this kind of stuff comes from a Hollywood movie. Parents are right? Romantic “Love” is not god? Yeah!! But I must say one major disappointment is the fornication that is very “naturally” a part of the daughter’s relationship with Carter. Of course, Hollywood assumes true love must be consummated with fornication and this is so assumed by our culture, that to even bring it up as an objection marks me as a fundamentalist religious fanatic from the Dark Ages. But the truth is, you will never understand the depth of true love if you do not love truly. And true love waits. Simple as that. True love respects the act of sex as a holy union with special status between a man and woman committed for life, not an act engaged in with people you have good feelings about. That is a devaluation of love and dilutes its specialness. But of course people who engage in premarital or extramarital relations do not understand this because they have never lived it. Those who do not delay their gratification do not understand that delayed gratification is EVEN more pleasurable. Now, those who delay sexuality until they are “in love” with someone may be a step close than the promiscuous, but they’re still missing it. They’re missing the component of sexuality that can only be achieved through life long commitment, the component of intimacy. And yet, ironically, intimacy is the one thing they are all trying to find! Ah well… Another thing about the depiction of modern corporate culture as heartless, soulless, backstabbing and concerned only about the bottom line. As in the movie, megamergers become absurd giants of soulless marketing enterprises devoid of concern for people, defining them as consumers etc. Now, the reason I didn’t get the feeling that this was the typical Hollywood socialist or Communist attack on capitalism is because it contrasted the worst of corporate megalomania not with a Marxist or Michael Moore type view of so-called “social justice,” but a moral view. It was caring for people, human beings, family and loyalty, versus the dehumanization of people into objects of conquest and consumers to manipulate. The problem with the Marxist /socialistå screeching about social justice is that they conceive of the individual in the same exact terms as does the greedy multinational corporate conglomerate. People are not humans, they are “groups” of objects defined by their communities, to be manipulated for their own good. They have no will or even responsibility to leftists. They are VICTIMS. And Victims must be engineered to be saved. And of course, who has the goodness and freedom to control them? Why the leftists of course. Back to the dehumanization of megacorporations. Let’s face it, our culture is becoming more and more heartless and less family driven. The Ted Turner guy in the movie tries to paint the picture of their company becoming a new democracy, with a new electorate, a new country. I think that this kind of culture is in fact resulting from the creation of multinational companies. Nationalism is being replaced by multinational marketing. Corporations are defining people in terms of money and are repatriating loyalties away from family and nation into the dollar. The attempt to abolish countries and nations is not driven by egalitarianism, but by a dictatorship of the soul. You don’t abolish nations, you replace them with a new authority. Multinationalism is not a “sensitivity” to other cultures and worldwide harmony without “the bigotry of nationalism.” Multinationalism is ultimately a betrayal of the “masses” into slavery under a new oligarchy of the super-rich. It’s great that the movie had an appropriate critique of such consumer culture and multinational corporate heartlessness without being Marxist. Of course, the ultimate irony is that it is a multinational megamedia corporate conglomerate that funded the movie critiquing such multinational megamedia corporate mindset. Ah, the ironies of life.
Flight of the Phoenix
Recommended. Great popcorn adventure movie. Actually, a survival adventure movie about a group of people trying to get out of the Gobi desert by rebuilding a small plane out of the parts of the plane they crashed in. I really enjoy Dennis Quaid. He is an underestimated actor. And the story really kept me interested. The writers, Scott Frank and Edward Burns, even put a heart and worldview into it. Unfortunately, the worldview is rather humanistic and empty. Once again, a story about life and death where God is virtually ignored, except to criticize him. A guy sees another guy praying over his ration of peaches and says, “I’m amazed that during these dire times, you thank God for anything.” He then tells a little joke about a boxer crossing himself before fighting and someone asks what it means, and another says, “Not a damn thing if the man can’t fight.” Well, yes, this is another humanistic interpretation that tries to reinforce the fact that if we survive it is because of our own ingenuity because God is irrelevant. Man will fly himself out of his problem. Then later, that joke teller answers someone regarding his “belief” in getting out of the desert. He says he believes in spirituality not religion. “Religion divides people. Belief in something unites.” Well, duh. What do you think religion is? IT’S A UNITY BASED ON BELIEF. The storytellers here clearly show their philosophical ignorance and religious bigotry. It is not religion that is the problem it is man’s inherently selfish nature that turns all beliefs into division rather than uniting. Of course, it’s TRUTH that ultimately divides anyway. Those who do not have the truth or want it accuse those who do of division, when in fact, it is the rejecter of truth who is the divider. But that aside, you know this is the writer’s own viewpoint because he provides no retort in the mouth of the believer. Believe me, I can think of a hundred great responses. So, that means the writer wants that view to prevail or have the upper hand cause it has the “last word.” Unless of course, the director changed the original script by cutting out a good response in the editing. That is entirely possible. There is another “thematic” moment where a character spells out the theme: “Man only needs one thing in life: Someone to love. And if you can’t give him that, give him something to hope for. And if you can’t give him that, just give him something to do.” In this sense, hope or meaning is constructed by the individual in a meaningless universe where our value comes from choice. A touch of Existentialism. As Sartre would say, “to do is to be.” Also a typical Romantic idea that in the absence of God, “love” between two humans is all there is. Well, Ironically, later on, when the hero tries to validate his reason to go on when there is no hope because “We’re not garbage. We’re people. We’ve got families, lives to live.” But of course, if there is no God, then all that meaning is self-delusion. There simply is no difference between garbage and people. We’re all made from the same molecules. There was a great opportunity in the Giovani Ribisi character, who was a great character as the annoying know-it-all, whose knowledge saves them all because he builds planes. There is a time when his arrogance reaches a truly repulsive level when he says that everyone else but him is dispensable. In other words, the typical humanist notion that knowledge is salvation. I think that this was a wasted set up because they never conclude with this character fault. They never really shame this part of him. They could have shown how knowledge alone does not save, but so does character and sacrifice. Like maybe a character could have saved Ribisi by sacrificing himself and that would be a point in the story that, No, the only reason Ribisi is alive is because of the goodness of another or something like that. My point is not to rewrite the story but simply show that a better worldview could have made this story more satisfying for me. But it’s still a good adventure movie anyway. There is some humbling and self sacrifice, it’s just never tied in with the theme like it should have been. Alas, you can’t expect much character or value from humanists with no understanding of transcendence.
Beyond the Sea
Not Recommended. Boring biography about Bobby Darin. This guy’s life and character and music was so uninteresting, that I kept falling asleep. So, to be technical, I didn’t see a lot of the movie. One thing I did catch was a theme that expressed, “Memories are like moonbeams. We do with them what we will.” And it seems to justify the fanciful construction of the movie into a fantasy of memories itself. Loose history is all right cause, hey, what are memories, anyway, but arbitrary constructions? Its one thing to say we do this, but another to affirm it.
Spanglish
Kind of Recommended. James Brooks is a brilliant dramedy director. I recommend his stuff because regardless of his lack of a strong moral worldview, he does try to address morals and the emotional reality of life and he makes you think. Lots of laughs here and touching human moments that make it rather good storytelling. This story about a Spanish speaking woman hired by a rich family and how she brings light and life into their lives is very well written with some GREAT lines and great characters, very true to life, and funny moments all wrapped in together. I must say, Adam Sandler is GREAT when he is not in an Adam Sandler movie. He can really be a great understated actor. I thought he was great in Punch Drunk Love as well. Anyway, this movie is about a lot of things. But one of the themes is how the heart of our humanity lies not in perfection and success and excellence, which tends to destroy and dehumanize, but in loving one another with all our faults and messy weaknesses. So you have a wife, played a bit too over the top by Tea Leoni, who is neurotically obsessed with perfection and excellence, while Adam is the husband/father who is a chef but who is the opposite. He hates perfection precisely because it does destroy the fun of life. He doesn’t want his restaurant to be reviewed with too high a score because that happened before in New York and the “heart went out of it all” when it happened. He just wants a pleasing loving environment. Well, these opposites cause the comedy and pathos in the film. A great mom character by Cloris Leachman, a has-been singer who wasn’t really famous anyway but admits in the film, “I loved everybody, that’s what’s killing me.” And to the Spanish maid, “I lived for myself, you live yours for your daughter, none of it works.” Great lines from her, like to Tea, “Lately, your low self-esteem is just good common sense.” Some very touching and moving relationship issues with Leoni’s daughter, who is a little chubby and suffers implied rejection from her mother from this. Very poignant thing about love and acceptance without perfection. So, back to the main story. The father, played by Sandler, of course is pushed into struggling with a growing interest in the beautiful Spanish Maid played by Paz Vega. I don’t have a problem with having this in the story, but it seemed to be a dominant focus. That sexual tension becomes the driving force of the movie rather than a factor that drives him to redemption back to his marriage, like in Shall We Dance?, which is superior in this sense. My big complaint is that Brooks fancies himself a “realist” in leaving the dominant relationship between Sandler and Leoni up in the air at the end rather than bringing redemption or resolution like in Shall We Dance? Sure, some good things happen. Leoni confesses adultery and tries to fix it, and Sandler gets to the moment where he wants to sleep with the maid but in her wisdom she says, “There are some mistakes you cannot make when you have children.” They don’t do it. Some great stuff here, but I felt that Brooks lingered too long on that “connection” between Sandler and Vega, trying to milk some good out of it as if it’s just another “just married to the wrong person” kind of thing. Like maybe we can get that human connection from each other even if we “can’t have sex.” Rather than, No, I need to rekindle my marriage rather than wallow in fantasy (again, like in Shall We Dance?). And the Maid should NOT have told him she loved him and walked away. That was very irresponsible. It was not the right thing to do. And don’t attack me with “that’s reality. Sometimes marriages don’t get back together etc.” Because movies ARE NOT REALITY. They are worldviews to teach about how we should act in our reality. It’s okay if someone doesn’t fix their marriage. But what’s not okay is for the hero to not make a defining choice of redemption. THAT is unsatisfying. I want values affirmed, I don’t want nihilism affirmed. If he loses his marriage because he makes the right choice, fine. Just so long as the hero makes the right moral choice. DOING THE RIGHT THING is what it is all about. And another annoying thing was that Sandler was made to be the good guy, but he really wasn’t in my mind. His fault was just as wrong as the others, but it was never resolved. His fault was that he was TOO easygoing. Or rather, that his own desire of avoiding perfection was itself a flaw of him wanting to avoid some kind of responsibility like growing up. But this was not developed. He says school is supposed to make his daughter feel good about herself. And this is shown as positive. Yes, school should not make you feel BAD, as in attacking you. But the purpose of education is the same as maturity: To grow. And growth does not come without pain. The problem with educational philosophy in this country is precisely that they have jettisoned excellence or growth and replaced it with self-esteem, which has created an entire class of stupid young people who feel good about themselves. Well, I guess that makes them better slaves of the State, which is the purpose of secular indoctrination anyway, which is the ultimate goal. Back to the movie. My point is that this nice guy laizzes faire calmness should have been a flaw that the hero had to overcome, but it was not. I reckon the major theme was focused around the main character, which was the daughter of the Spanish Maid. And her problem was that mom was so overprotective of her because she wanted her to maintain her Mexican heritage. SO when the little girl gets a scholarship to a private school and becomes the substitute darling daughter of Leoni, the Maid loses control and her daughter becomes TOO American. She still ends up taking her daughter out of private school. But the daughter concludes in an admissions application to Princeton that If they don’t pick her, that won’t hurt her. Because “Your decision will not define me. My identity rests on one fact. I am my mother’s daughter.” So the main character learns to accept becoming like her mom. Well, this seemed rather weak to me. I think that the answer is really more in between, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding where it concludes “Don’t let your past control you, let it be a part of who you are.” That middle way seems more wise to me. You don’t reject your heritage, but you don’t worship it either. It’s only a part of who you are, not the whole. And the Maid never really learns this either. But anyway, the girl’s conclusion doesn’t really say much to me. It doesn’t seem to include the balancing fact that she is also who she is because of all the influencing people in her life, not merely her mother. I mean she should have learned a lot about life from that family she was with for three months, you’d think. Despite these confusing and contradicting elements and themes, the movie still captures some very touching human moments and wisdom along the way. I probably sound more negative here than I should. Oh well, forgive me.
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Not Recommended. I put this into the category of boring expensive kid’s films like Harry Potter. I actually had to go to the bathroom in the middle of it and waited for an action sequence cause I knew I wouldn’t miss anything. This movie tries to bring some depth to the kids genre by being a story that isn’t about happy endings with elves and sweet candy. It’s the story of three siblings whose rich parents die and whose uncle, Count Olaf, wants to get rid of them so he can inherit the money. Jim Carey is great in the role of the sleazy actor, Count Olaf, trying to off the little siblings. And it’s not a dreadfully boring movie like Harry Potter. But it does seem a bit dark for younger kids, what with all the death and scariness going on in it. The narrator gloats over how his story is not happy at all and if you want happy stories, you had better go elsewhere. Then again, look at many of the original fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood and others. Those were very brutal stories and yet they are classics. On one level, I think the essence of growing up and “coming of age” is precisely facing one’s mortality and fairy tales help children to do this. Fantasy can be extreme cause its not real life, and it is symbolic. So it could be argued that this story is in that tradition. Okay. Fine. But the moral of the story is read at the end through a letter to the kids from their parents that was sent to them before they had died. And it just reads like a tacked on moral that doesn’t carry much weight to it. It was not emotionally moving or incarnate like The Incredibles. The parents just tell the kids, after we have seen them go through all these life threatening attacks from evil people, that “there’s much more good in the world than bad, you just have to look hard. And what may seem as unfortunate incidents can be a doorway to a new journey. With family around, there’s always something to do, whether inventing something (like the older sister Violet) or reading (like the middle brother Klaus) or biting (like the young Sunny).” Well, it just doesn’t have much punch to it. Like this is the solace for all the pain and suffering in life? Like this is how we grow up by just sticking our head in the sand regarding evil and keep moving? Very weak and humanistic. Without any moral fiber or character. Unsatisfying. It should be “Fight evil!” “Do right!” Like The Incredibles.
The Aviator
Not Recommended. All right. I have decided to announce the Triumvirate of Mediocrity: Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino. These three guys are somehow worshipped as “auteurs” of artistic films. But what they really are is masters of mediocrity; overlong boring mediocrity, I might add. All of them think their movies are worth two and a half or three hours of our lives, and thus become thieves for stealing this precious time from us. While this movie has an interesting depiction of Hughs’ descent into his madness, it is all rather unfocused and boring drama. Scorsese thinks that “mental illness” Hollywood glamour and movie stars makes for interesting movies, but he is wrong. It’s what these external things reveal about our internal spirituality that is interesting. I did not care one whit for Hughs. He is no hero. And is therefore unworthy of such status in a film. He is an unsympathetic selfish self-obessessed idiot. And he was interested in sexy movie stars like Hepburn and Gardner, who were also unsympathetic selfish self-obessessed idiots. And the whole thing about how he sought to make fast planes and fought to share the airs in competition with Pan Am – who cares? I did not care one moment for this story because it was not made interesting. The Right Stuff made manned flight to the moon and the history of flight with Jaeger and everything very interesting. This made the history of flight boring. Well, it wasn’t horrendously boring like Alexander , made by Oliver the Mediocre, it was only mildly boring. But that’s enough to just say No. And you know, it shows Hughs’ descent into neurosis, but it makes no sense of it. It is just arbitrary. Where did it come from? Why did it happen? Maybe in real life it was a mystery. But this is the movies, not real life. Since they show nothing of his inner character, or his true quest for meaning, it reduces to a shallow examination of the external degeneracy of neurosis. Yeah, but how is this a reflection of his INNER SELF? Everything is external in this movie, and thus boooooring because it seeks the external sufferings of life without the true INNER HUMAN DRAMA. Pretty movie stars with pathetic juvenile temperaments are not interesting if we learn nothing about where this lack of character comes from. Hughs’ external malady should have been a metaphor for the internal flaw of everyone in this film but nothing like this is ever attempted. Thus it fails even as a tragedy because this Hero is a victim, not of his own flaws, but of some external arbitrary malady. I guess this is the essence of humanist tragedy. Life is arbitrary suffering in a chance universe. And that is why true humanist epics are unsatisfying and lack the transcendence that makes for a great movie.
Sideways
Not Recommended. These guys are good filmmakers. About Schmidt was brilliant. Election was naughty, but original. But this movie shows that the filmmaker’s humanism is quite frankly, morally inadequate for a fulfilling story. Miles, a depressed failed writer takes his best friend, Jack out for a week of wine tasting in Northern California before Jack’s wedding. It all goes down hill when Jack, being the shallow actor that he is, turns out to be a heat seeking sexaholic. He lacks any sense of faithfulness to a woman he is about to be married to. He will literally jump in the sack with any woman he can find, and does so a couple times. Well, that ain’t so bad for a topic of a movie if you deal with it right. After all, Miles, the hero, hates this infidelity, but he tolerates it in the name of friendship. In the mean time, he hooks up with Maya, thanks to jack’s help who tells Miles, “This is my nut. Don’t sabotage me. Have some fun.” So the whole story is about honesty and grabbing for the wine of life. In fact, there is one brilliant and touching scene where Jack and Maya tell each other about their favorite wines and they are clearly analogies of their own lives. Jack likes grapes that need to be tenderly and patiently handled and believed in their potential. Maya loves the process of wine being a gusto of reaching out and enjoying it all, etc. But this movie proves to be morally bankrupt for a couple reasons. I have no problem with a story about a guy who learns to deal with his unloyal friend IF the hero actually grows up or ultimately makes the right choice and finds redemption in walking away from such “so-called” friends. The point is that such friends are NOT friends, but users. That’s what honesty and loyalty stories are about. Problem is, Miles never does. He continues to aid and abet Jack in all his infidelities, all the while griping and complaining about how wrong it is. BUT THEN HE NEVER TELLS JACK’S FIANCE AND ALLOWS THE WEDDING TO GO ON. This is so morally pathetic that I lost all respect and sympathy for Miles. He is an idiot and a fool for staying with a man like that. He doesn’t even challenge this toad. And this is supposed to be a hero? The story hurts itself. The only redemption is that Miles has trouble going for Maya, and when she discovers Jack’s deception she breaks it off with Miles. Miles says, “I’m not Jack.” But of course, he is. If he never chooses to stand up to or divorce himself from this kind of lack of character, then he is in fact exactly the same. This comes from an obviously modernist humanist moral view that thinks loyalty to friendship is higher than the truth or morality. So, allowing the fiancé to be betrayed is somehow moral? I don’t think so. Jack is a creep and Miles never does the right thing. And Jack is supposed to just be this comedy relief, “isn’t that funny how shallow he is, but hey, they’re best friends.” No, he’s not. He’s a turd that should be flushed down the toilet of life. This makes Miles a repugnant undesirable hero, and that is why the story not satisfying. Furthermore, the actual redemption of the movie focuses on Miles going back to Maya at the end, as if all he really needed to do was to get the girl. Which makes the girl look pretty stupid to be willing to take back a man who never apologizes for partaking in such betrayal. And she complains about being betrayed before by her ex-husband, but she continues to choose moral losers like Miles? This is the problem, not the solution. This is her character flaw, not her redemption. But alas, this is the central conceit of humanism. It really thinks finding another human to love is the ultimate meaning of life, not truth or morality, which reflect higher values of character that make a person worthy of their humanity. Well, humanism doesn’t want to make moral judgments on things like infidelity or irresponsibility, or rather, it values loyalty to friends higher than loyalty to spouses, which is fundamentally inverted morality. But after all, humanism thinks there are no ultimate higher absolutes or God to which we are accountable. A humanist universe is ultimately relative morality and truth, so the love of another human becomes the God substitute, which explains this morally pathetic story.