zeitgeist

religion, terrorism, myths, politics, money…

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ 

stuff to think about

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Pixar really knows how to punch someone in the heart, this 2009 3-D animation movie tells the tale of an old man who finally gets to make his life complete by going on an adventure to South America, which he’d dreamed of since he was a young boy

Juno

a 2007 flick I watched on TV sometime this late spring, good, true, likeable characters, the main one is Juno MacGuff played by Ellen Page, a teenager in high school, who becomes pregnant, it’s a touching story in the right ways, in cool ways, & there’s some nifty dialogue, script written by Diablo Cody

The Class

Original Title: Entre Les Murs

a 2008 film set in a classroom of young teenagers in Paris, France taught & supervised by the main character, François Marin, their French teacher, it focuses a lot on the local scene of the politics within that classroom, as well a little of it out on the playground

intriguing & contemplative, including bits & pieces of the many intertwined relationships between teachers, students, and parents, it also included the most wacked out explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem that I’ve ever heard

Slumdog Millionaire

a 2008 movie set in Mumbai, India which follows the young lives of two brothers, Jamal & Salim, and a girl, Latika, through quests for money and love, intense yet poetically beautiful

Religulous

a film I went to watch a couple months ago at a movie theater the night it premiered, October 3, 2008, I was well satisfied with it as a whole, it is a documentary style film following Bill Maher as he discovers some amusing yet disturbing sides to religion, it points out things worth wondering about, let alone gives us a chance to realize some of the absurdness religions have caused in our world, directed by Larry Charles

The Emerald Forest

a 1985 film produced by John Boorman, based on the actual story of a man who loses his son at the edge of the Amazon RainForest to a native tribe, referred to in the movie as the Invisible People, who live within it,
after 10 years of searching he finds his son, Tommy, who is now in the latter half of his teens, transitioning into the status of being regarded as a man amongst his tribe, & whose one lady love is named Kachiri, he eventually exits the wilderness, without his son (& without the photojournalist he previously left behind, Uwe Werner, who was tagging along with him, & was left behind with The Fierce People, I’m not sure what to think happened to him)
then later on, Tommy goes to the city in search of help from this biological father of his, Bill Markham (his other father being the chief of the Invisible Peoples’ Tribe who raised him after taking him from the Termite People – as those who were tearing down the rainforest were referred to)
together they free & get back the women of the Invisible Peoples’ Tribe who had been captured by the Fierce Peoples’ tribe & traded to the Termite People who used them for prostitution,
the movie depicts how these tensions are brought on by the ever expanding boundaries of the urbanization into the Amazon RainForest, which has held the dwellings of so many natives,
during the film the Chief of the Invisible People points out to Tommy that the Fierce People would not be taking over the turf of the Invisible People, if they hadn’t been losing territory themselves,
in the end Bill Markham, for the wellness of his son’s, & his son’s tribe’s future, takes part in destroying his own dam, one which he had helped build at the beginning of the movie, (cuz’ he works as an engineer)

I think it was a really nicely shot movie, well paced, with many subtle points made along the way which touch the heart, & the storyline was well put together

Charley Boorman acts the main part of Tommy, or Tomme, rather, as his name changed over to as he was adopted into his tribe, Dira Paes acts the part of Kachiri, Powers Booth acts the part of Bill Markham, & Meg Foster the part of Jean Markham, his wife, & Tommy’s biological mother, (the family also has a younger child, a daughter, who has a small role in the film), the Chief of The Ivisible People (Wanadi) is done by Rui Polonah, & Uwe Werner is done by Eduardo Conde

the main message of the film, as illustrated by its captions at the end, is that a lot of rainforest is being destroyed, & along with it the habitats of thousands upon thousands of native people, whose ways of life do not deserve to be so recklessly & cruelly discarded
this movie strongly depicts them as being as respectable as anybody else

W.

I went to see this 2008 movie, directed by Oliver Stone, the night it was released here in the U.S.A., October 17th, it’s a sorta sad, half-hearted comedic take on the life of George W. Bush, & perhaps as such, one that’s out of the realm of being purely political, but ironically in this world, everything’s about politics, & this movie has that soft oberserver friendly feel to it, instead of being a shout that’ll be counter drowned by another shout, it escapes extremes, & perhaps some not-so extremes, seeking out various shallow, arbitrarily “neutral”, grounds for us to explore instead, perhaps it’s aiming at a mainstream chance at getting the general American public more exposed to their current president

Slacker Uprising

a film produced by Michael Moore, is being released now through the website: http://slackeruprising.com/ where one can buy copies of the DVD or download it for free (currently – it’s been reported that it’ll only be available like this for another two weeks (until October 14th))

the film is about Michael Moore’s tour as a speaker from college campus to college campus across the U.S.A. trying to stir up the energy to tip the scale in this country’s upcoming presidential election next month – I’m interested in watching it

WALL-E

a good, well animated, 2008, Pixar movie, about a robot, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth (class) ), & his robot love interest, EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), as they join forces to literally & figuratively bring humanity back to Earth, I went to a midnight showing of it on the day it premiered here in the U.S.A., a few months ago, June 27, 2008

Little Miss Sunshine

a 2006 film with Abigail Breslin playing said Little Miss Sunshine, character name Olive Hoover

I watched this movie some time ago, & sorta liked it, in its quirky ways, it’s about this little girl & the unfolding day-to-day events as she & her family travel to have her in a beauty pageant which she is really excited about participating in

it deals with homosexuality, death, our culture’s treatment of a girl’s image, & even some philosophy, but all lightly & cleverly balanced & with tact, a fluid acceptance of these issues as they are, or as they are presented rather, a dysfunctional family a person such as myself could love

The Day The Earth Stood Still

“klaatu barada nikto”

a movie in black & white which I watched a while ago, though I’ve been familiar with the phrase from far before seeing it, an odd movie, though a good movie, a 1951 movie, which tries to send a message that we still don’t seem to get, today

a movie about a major alien encounter with the world, our world

V For Vendetta

a 2006 movie with Natalie Portman & Hugo Weaving, I went to the theater to watch it when it came out, a great film

set in a futuristic society of control by fear, the rebel V moves to start a worthy revolution, & Evey joins his side