Movie Review: 2012

Entertainingly implausible.

Fast and Fun, with amazing special effects, but as I thought way over the top on the plausibility scale.

But then again this film was not meant to be plausible. It is designed to put you right into the action, and thrill even if that means total suspension of belief. But after a while you forget that the escapes achieved could NEVER happen, and just get lost in the visual spectacle.

The script was not as bad as I thought. The basic premise is that in 2012 the poles shift and this destroys the world. While there is scientific basis for this they make it feel pretty fantastic. If the poles did change all communication would be lost instantly. People would also all become disoriented, because we also depend on the Earth's magnetic field for our brains to function properly. But this would not make for a good movie...

Aside from the special effects, I found this film very formulaic, and predictable. But when you spend +$200 million you prob don't want to take many artistic risks. This is your classic disaster film.

All in all I thought it was enjoyable.

Letter to the Addiction Fighter

Letter to the Addiction Fighter

I am a little worried about you. It’s hard to see you fall of the wagon. You know I care about you, and I will always be your friend, and that’s why I can tell you this. Its not easy to hear, but it’s necessary. I noticed you were acting a little strange, and so did many other people at your birthday. Your friends don’t like to see you fall off the wagon and it makes you harder to be around. I like the sober you, and I’m not the only one. You are so much fun, but that all gets lost when you drink or take drugs. I know it’s hard, I’ve been there.

I know you feel like you are missing out when you don’t drink or use. You feel like everyone is having fun but you. But you have to realize that the opposite is actually true. Fun is a state of mind that you can have without drugs or alcohol. Part of growing up, and getting older is realizing that binge drinking is not actually real fun. Drugs are not a sustainable source of pleasure. Once you become dependent on them you are in for a world of pain. You have to move on from them, or you will never be happy. Drugs are destructive, dangerous, and they age you and it keep you from being in touch with yourself and others. If you had to take the downside of drugs before you got the upside, no one would ever take them! I have found that I have only truly experienced fun in situations where drugs and alcohol are not involved. Like connecting and hanging out with friends: good food, hiking, bike riding, conversation and games. Drugs sometimes seem or act like a bonding agent between friends, but drugs prevent actual bonding. Friendships based on drugs never last and are not real. Your real friends are the friends who you (can) connect with sober.

When you are addicted to something, it takes time to find that place of sober contentment. It takes work too. No one says it’s easy. But once you do, you will live a longer, more fulfilling life. You will connect better with people, and you will develop deeper more meaningful relationships. You will learn better, see clearer, and have more energy. Drugs and alcohol prevent you (and everyone) from finding that place of real connection. Connection with yourself, your true feelings, and then connection with others. That is what life is all about. That is what will lead you to true lasting happiness.

The longer you have been abusing something, the longer it will take to break yourself of the addiction to it. A stretch of TOTAL sobriety (don’t transfer your addictions from one substance to another, that doesn’t accomplish anything) is necessary to clear the mind; to find that “moment of clarity”. You need to find that inner peace and strength. We all have it. Some of us just burry it very deep; sometimes under a mountain of ‘lies and emotions’. The more we abuse and lie to ourselves the more digging and soul searching is required to find our true self, our inner peace.

If for years you develop your brain to find pleasure in drugs/alcohol, this wiring of the brain is not easily undone. It takes work. It takes time. But it is worth it. You have to do the work. There are no short cuts (there is no lipo for alcoholics, and we all know lipo is only for minor touch ups, you can’t suck out hundreds of pounds of fat because it would kill you and leave you looking/feeling all wrong). Once you do the work, and find that ‘moment of clarity’ you will realize you are stronger, better and more powerful than you ever imagined. You can do anything, and the world is yours for the taking. You will find success in your work, in your social life, love and with your family.

No one can ever be truly happy if depend on drugs or alcohol to be ‘happy’. Drugs only mask problems, they never solve them. Eventually they will make anyone unhappy, unfulfilled or totally unconnected to their life and friends. So disconnected that their life will fall apart, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically or all of the above.

Being addicted to drugs/alcohol is equitable to being addicted to food. If you are addicted to food and constantly binge on it you become over weight. Drug/Alcohol addiction doesn’t necessarily make you overweight (certainly unhealthy though) but hypothetically it’s the same. The ‘weight’ of the problems with a drug addiction is the same except that the weight is emotional/spiritual/mental/physical. The only way to lose this ‘weight’ is to do the work. You need to work off that ‘weight’ by exercising your spirit and emotions (they become atrophied during addiction). The emotional exercise means to talk it out, search your self, or rather develop your ‘inner strength’. You will need to improve your diet which now is defined as: ALL THINGS YOU CONSUME (not just food). Only consume that which makes you stronger and more present.

Once you are ‘inner strong’ and emotionally fit the work gets easier. Once you are fit, if you slip up it’s easy to get right back on track. But most likely when you are really fit you don’t really slip up. Once you are in great shape (some people may have damaged themselves so bad they will never be truly ‘inner strong’) the addiction begins to not exist. If you address and fix your addiction early, you can control it and mitigate the damage it causes. If you do that, you may eventually be able to treat yourself to a little ‘slice of cake’ everyone and then without falling right back into addiction. But if you are still way over weight you can’t indulge until you are grounded and able to physically/emotionally metabolize your indulgence. Most people find that they don’t even like cake anymore because they like the way they look and feel without it so much better.

If you have an addiction, you can and should beat it. You can do it. If you have friends with addiction, help them. Tell them you care about them, and you want them to succeed. Once you beat your addiction, you will be in control of your life. You will find that people treat you with admiration and respect. Hold on to the good. When you feel the urge to drink, or do drugs remember the pain it causes. See the path that the drugs take you down… they take you to a place of loneliness, suffering and floundering. The path of sobriety, of balance and restraint, one choice at a time, one day at a time, takes you to deep inner strength, fulfillment, beauty and happiness.

NETWORK

I watched the movie ‘Network” (1976, Faye Dunaway) recently; if you haven’t seen it rent it. It’s a great film. It’s about a TV news anchor who has a breakdown and says he is going to kill himself on his show. When a network executive realizes how high his ratings are, they put him back on TV. It’s witty, satirical and very relevant today. From it’s take on the dark times (the recession of the 1970’s, the War in Vietnam) to the corporate take over of the world (just beginning then) it is a great parallel to the times we are in today. The main character ‘Howard’ is exploited by the Network until he says something on the air that hurts the networks parent company. When the CEO of the company requests to see Howard, he explains to Howard how the world and the Network really works: Corporate power and Money. Howard then takes a very dark world view and his high rating begin to decline. The Network then has to figure out how to get rid of him…

The film was way ahead of it’s time. It takes a postmodern look at not only TV, but characters, screenplay/story structure and the way the world works. It’s a neo-noir film that is comedic in its darkness and witt. After I watched it, I realized, it’s a great look at how America works. It’s interesting, scary, and available for your viewing pleasure.

Ramblings about TV...

Rambling about TV

Did you know that no one really knows what the entity of ‘TV’ really is. What it means and what it does…

If you ask me: TV is a postmodern religion.

People live by it. Worship it. Follow it. Do what it says. And in the worst cases it rules the entire mind of people. TV is culture. TV watches us as we watch it. How we affect TV and it effects us is not clear (Chicken or Egg?). Today we can interact with TV live. We can vote, Tweet, or email the show. Now TV is merging with the internet, it’s available on our phones and is merging with reality…

Reality TV isn’t real. But it’s also not unreal; “It’s real-like”. Reality TV brings out the worst in us if you ask me. It’s the cheapening of the medium. It cuts us down to the very worst parts and edits together stories that don’t exist. If the people on it aren’t competing for “love” (please), or groveling in the mud (ew), then they selling themselves or their “skin care lines or fashion line” that they (in ‘real’ reality) had no hand in making or creating. But what I can’t stand most is when they are not acting like themselves… they are acting like they think they should, or the other Reality stars who came before them… it’s so fake. Reality TV needs a reality check!

With that said I do like a few Reality shows. “The Amazing Race” is one of my favorites. I also like “Flipping Out” because I feel like ‘Jeff’ (the star) is the same when the camera is on or off: crazy. I also got sucked into “The Real Housewives”. The only season I couldn’t get into was Atlanta. It was too “Jerry Springer”. Bravo is on a roll if you ask me, which is great for NBC (which owns it) because NBC can’t get it’s act together.

NBC lost me when it decided to put Leno on at 10pm five nights a week. If I was Conan O’brien I’d be pissed. But more importantly it’s cheap on their part. How about you develop some real shows NBC!! Stop being so cheap! Make some new shows!! Plus Leno had his run and needs to just be done. Some people don’t know when to let go…

NBC did one thing right and that is hire Joel McHale. The Soup with Joel McHale is easily my favorite show right now, since it brings together the best (i.e. the worst) that TV has to offer. They watch all the shows I never would and give me the best parts. Love it.

Sometimes I feel like there is too much TV. Sometimes I feel like there is nothing to watch. I don’t feel like TV is getting better, per say. But I do feel like it is getting more creative and more informative. TV is finally getting diving into things it never touched before… secrets about the world. They can do this, because they know it’s hard to catch them unless you know what you are looking for. TV knows most of us, as Jean Baudrillard put it:

“You are hypnotized by the tube, by the obscene flow of images. You raised your eyelids. A vampire is kneeling over you – voluptuously – the muscles of her neck, the ivory curve of her shoulders, illuminated as if by cool moonlight. She licks her scarlet lips like an animal, glazing them with a sheen of moisture, her engorged tongue glistening as it laps the white teeth. She leans closer, you feel her cool breath, then the sharpness of incisors penetrating your neck. You close your eyes in a long ecstasy and wait – wait with beating heart.”

TV… Humanity’s Frenemy.