PROS: The editing and script is put together in that Sorkin fashion - lines edging over each other with razor sharp self assurance and a curious graceful composition.
The dialogue is razor sharp and super fast in a way that respects my intelligence. It also fleshes out the characters to an insane, more-real-than-real way, throwing off slight details both that infer a universe of possibility and gradually build to the inevitable finale even as it detaches itself from the moral implications. I was engrossed in 10 minutes, and that's rare for a drama and me. It's power is that it picks up where our lives lead off, and leads off with the question, 'ok, so what if you WERE at the top, kiddo?' and just goes further down that rabbit hole. Adults are almost a moot point here, often disdained. They control the money here, but for what it's worth, the geek inherits the Earth here, Sunset Boulevard-style. This IS the face of the future I have heard my parents and other old fucks talk about. Subtle touches of disrespect (Mark's wearing jeans to his hearing) show where the power truly is. These are the brightest minds of my generation, entrenched in social politics, which we all know runs the world. The relatively slow and stuffy traditions of Harvard seems very very boring, dead even, in comparison to the way the social mechanics and dialogue play out and accelerate. There is enough quality content here to fill 3 normal films.
The first scene presents two complete characters, two complete people, from two different worlds at odds. Jesse Eisenberg is lethal - portraying a smart, cold, alien, but not illogical, mechanical, verbally atonal sociopath who screws over EVERYONE, not deliberately, but out of an almost blissfully detached state borne out of the physically detached, apathetic student culture. It never occurs to him that he might be doing something wrong, even as he dispatches lethal, brutally honest truths to his accusers in court. The irony here is that he is still driven by the same needs as the rest of us mortals, even as he has about as much knowledge to deal with them as an alien might have on first contact to our race, or on dealing with a new emotion chip. He almost wants to be normal but is too good at being snide and rudely edging people out of the social order - which he does with astonishing rude accuracy towards his legal opposition at least twice. Once Justin Timberlake's smooth, kinda slimy egomaniac Shawn Parker comes into play at the halfway point (time has just FLOWN at this point) Zuckerberg's obnoxious grandeur takes off (walking around in a dressing gown, almost a la Howard Hughes). That's when peoples identities start disintegrating into information technology, personalities become ideas to be bought and sold. The women, bar Erica, seem almost incidental, though there's no emphasis on notions of masculinity so much as Machiavelli.
The subsequent scenes after that first dinner scene.have the momentum of a second-act piece, starting with a montage of Facemash being distributed set against a party (like a programming rockstar, it sets up that the two are about to become one and the same through the social calendar of Facebook, and that the power balance is about to shift, Revenge of the Nerds style).
. In fact, the pacing perfectly follows, not a thing feels wasted. There's a sense of energy being set up from the first frame. Aside from being very smart, this film is a perfect microcosm of the society of my 'modern' generation and all the associated interests, and thats partly why you are sucked in - this film deals with everyone's favourite topic, value. In short, it's hip, even as it skewers the very hypocrisy of hipness and the zero-sum game of, well, social game theory: that if 600+million people are willing to have their most intimate relationships filtered through a Harvard sociopath's vision of 'college online', replete with ninjas, farm animals, short lived media campaigns, and political passivity, that says a lot about the maturity level of most of the planet, now doesn't it? This is a world where people are so disconnected, they sue each other so they can have lawsuits as excuses to agree on a consensus reality. For a film about communication technology, none of them know how to talk to each other.
And oh yeah, the music is a great industrial paranoid modern squeak. Jewish Caribbean night is TERRIFIC. As a nerd, that hacking scene was great ("decrypting SSL code, intercepting traffic over a secure DSL within 10 minutes and drinking a shot every 10th line of code, every 3 minutes, and every time a pop-up comes up.) It feels like what all your John Hughes, teen drama fantasies would be if they could ever be real in this world: ie, not good. The scenes in California feel less like the American Dream and more Project Mayhem - crazed bitch/little girl sets a bin on fire, how precise.
CONS:...none?
OVERALL: I never would have guessed, given the subject matter, that this is a superb, superb film that stands with 127 Hours as the best of the year. Almost a cautionary, Citizen Kane-esque tale of what happens when the technorati by various means, 'chase the dragon' and lose their soul. There's a lot here that's so good, it gets you riled up like only the drama, potential, and hormones of school can. A+
That said: read this. http://www.businessinsider.com/is-the-social-network-true-2010-10#
(note to self: I watched most of this at 1.5x speed and it was actually really good. I like having this excess mental RAM put to good use.
Monday, 17 January 2011
I'm sorry.
Private thoughts.
I just woke up from a very vivid dream about school life. This is day 17, Kris is away in Australia. 2 weeks to kill.
Anyway, I was on a bus. And everyone represented an element of my personality. I didn't know any of these people but I could feel their energy. There was a deep sense of hostility in the room, of aggression and confusion. I felt about 5. A lot of things came flooding back. How I hated uniform. How I felt like a lamb to the slaughter.
I've realised that I just...don't like people. That I came into this world deeply sensitive, seeking someone the same, finding that was impossible and that I was the exception to the rule, even though I wish that I wasn't because the pain of being singled out as a 'weirdo' was excruciatingly painful, and the pain of being sensitive to the brutality of that kind of environment probably drove me a little crazy at a young age. But I played it up to spite them (wow, that showed em!)
I was privy to how my first self talk was profoundly negative. How my earliest awareness included the idea that I would never fit in. How I never got past a place in my life where I was looking up to people of the age I am now and seeing only cocky anger, judgement, and hypocrisy, and silently mulling whether this world was worth living in even as I dehumanized myself gradually. I can only say the state of the world right now is a direct consequence of the kind of emotionally drug-addled consumer insanity where we are ALL still emotional 5 year olds, projecting our programs of the school bully onto each other and the world with such power and skill the circle completes behind our back without our knowing and gives us a cold kick in the arse for good measure before it sends us on our merry way to nowhere.
My memories of school, as a sensitive, were mainly that of anger, depression, hostility, alienation, and uselessness. Of an incredibly vivid and powerful fear of teachers. Of how they would yell, judge you, look at you and find you wanting. This particular one really got under my skin, it means my earliest memories of my fellow man were chaos and disruption, and then a deeply painful period of utter rejection. It's why I hung out in the Library in the Priory. Not fitting in is hugely painful. Good if you survive it, but it's a pain that no one in my position should have to bear.
To the educators: what are you trying to prove? That we should replicate your way of life after you have apparently destroyed it at the root level, which is a child's innocence? That goodness and morality have to be stamped into a person? Even if it were, does that make it real or right? Are you going to have the open hearts of a thousand Yes-Men, bullies, coddled introverts and gossip hounds? Fuck your way of life. I would rather burn the schools, burn your useless reputation, burn capital punishment, burn this world to the ground, than go through any of that again. But I know I will, because you got to me before I had the chance to recruit myself to my own cause, didn't you? And you've got plenty more lined up to take my place after this illness eats me alive. Loughborough Grammar School thinks that by creating more lawyers and doctors from behind its' pious, judgmental walls, the world will be 'saved', but their vision is one of cowardice, because money and class only insulate you from the problem of your own mortality. It doesn't matter that our climate is rendering life on this planet impossible. It doesn't matter that we're running out of oil. It doesn't matter that there are too many of us on this planet. Not to you. I hope you've enjoyed your cheese and wine fundraisers, because the party is most definitely over.
This seems like such a futile gesture to myself, writing this post. I can't be fully honest about the nature of the revelations I get because it's not direct experience, I can only pour out my feelings when they occur, before they vanish into the ether and the inevitable programming takes hold, another circle that completes itself without your knowing. I mean, thank God for the body's ability to regulate with homeostasis, right? It keeps me breathing, though I don't know for how much longer. My only hope to myself is to observe and pour out whatever comes through, I just don't know.
To the teachers: what are you trying to prove? Do you think by keeping the ornate tradition alive, you'll somehow instill respect in your young ones for what's come before? That we simply MUST honour the tradition of corpses, of the dead? Why must we honour corpses? They're DEAD, they don't care! Why did you make us wear uniform, a psychological gesture towards how you used to conform? Does it make you happy to see us acting with the same insanity that you have exercised in the past? You have created the notion of a world where it's perfectly OK to act without heart, without love, compassion, without your own truth. Where it is possible to fake life. I understand but I cannot forgive you. Because in this narrow window of time before this transforming gap in my own awareness closes, I get to see a quantum leap in my own development, with my waking eyes, in dream state. I understand, that it's possible to live in a world where none of this was necessary. For a brief moment, that world becomes more real than waking state. For a moment, I become angry enough to justify my existence and pay credence to my pain.
The final message? I guess I really don't like people or myself. I think people are stupid, ignorant, violent, and self destructive, and I don't really see any hope for mankind. Bottom line. I see it as logical cause now, from a young age. I say this with a mixture of incredible sadness and resolution, because I know Ive wasted my life on this shit, that my demons have become my best friend, no more than a relic of the unresolved, and thus it's natural cause that something like this should happen. Negativity lingers in the heart and slowly poisons and ingratiates you into a painful reality, over months, years. You can feel yourself gradually going down like an emotional submarine into your own private hell, one which has many faces without a root, appearing and disappearing like a silent weapon for a quiet war as we all play these different roles, none of which are real.
I'm not completely angry. I'm actually quite satisfied. This feels natural, the first thing in a while, I mean, negativity is very logical. The good events in our life tend to naturally resolve, they don't re-emerge. It's the negativity that lingers in the subconscious, it's messages literally trapped in every cell, faceless but very powerful, as its' programming is insidious and thick, subtle, many headed, and virtually invincible, as every wound gets passed down to the seventh generation. This isn't me being flowery. I am being literal. It gets stuck in the tissue of your body. I can feel that, I intuitively know how true that is, don't I? I know I can't stick my fingers in my ears and start singing like a 3 year old when it comes to genocide, torture, rape, and all other manner of things I can't take responsibility for but nonetheless feel the consequence of in a very subtle way. That's the power of these kinds of hurt, they ARE cancerous. They bury deep in your mind and appear as self obsession. Silence like a cancer grows.
I hate how they looked at me and instantly found me wanting. Was I a soft target for you? I hope I justified all the self hatred you invested in yourself. I hope I gave some credence to your hurt by being someone different enough to hate. I hope you enjoyed my Angry Leftist years as I hid in the bathroom at school. Getting hit by my mother, spat at by Marcus, humiliated by my peers, by women, brutally, feeling my life slipping away...and now this. You think that stuff is just going to magically resolve? This is how school shootings happen. Get enough disaffected kids, heartless bullies, and emotionally deadened adults in a room and watch who gets it in the head first.
Point being...I'm writing this because I now remember how I felt like. I remember that sick, sinking feeling in my gut as I attended school over the years. I remember having this ugly, violent animal in me develop because I never felt communicated with or even remotely understood. This goes against everything I've taught myself, to let this out, because normally I wouldn't. I would simply not exist, not be there, just be invisible. Why? Even a knock down, drag out school fight is better than that. That's something that parents don't understand. When it comes to schoolyard politics, it's actually OK to kill the other guy - that's the world we've created, anyway. The only truly unacceptable way to live is to not stand up for yourself.
YOU HAVE TO HUMANIZE YOURSELF. I'm not talking about BS New Age positivity where you never have to go through hell. I'm not talking about disgusting self help where people follow the unicorn of success instead of baring their heart. 'Point A to Point B, bro!'( Eugh. 'Bro' is the last catchphrase of an adolescent culture just about ready to blow up). It's a tough racket out there, and thank God that it is, because otherwise, I would get very bored.
God, I am very very lonely and want someone to understand. I convinced myself I was broken and beyond repair. The extraordinary bitterness and emotional violence was never worth it, not for a second. Watching my parents and my sister fight, feeling the grief, hiding, failing and coming to a rumbling, gradual, sickening lurch of a realisation that my life is actually getting worse. I'm sorry, please forgive me God. I don't know how to get out of this mess, and I see your children making things worse and even more painful. I feel every last drop of it as if I were feeling it for the first time, and that's why I'm impeaching you as I impeach myself to feel something, to feel anything. What do we do? We are a generation regurgitating the uselessness of the past. What good is this ride, this journey? What's the point? Is there a way of escaping the sadness and fear, or do we just go straight through it? Am I as sad and pathetic as I make out here? I don't think so. I came to pull the IV out of my narcissism and drain it like a boil.
I remember when I would listen to metal and it surged with passion and life. When the music I loved helped me to escape from the nightmare my life felt like. And now it feels empty and hollow, quite literally a broken record to me. I know the sad reality that most of these people live, in order that they can feel like a success for 1 hour a day on tour. I wouldn't recommend killing your idols in all cases. It leads you towards hating culture and being unable to express or feel. I mean, an inability to feel anything. Anhedoniac. That's not normal, but a normal consequence of the life most of us lead - endless stimulation, not looking at depth, dehumanizing media sources, various theologies that promote self hatred, ignorance, and hurt, all coming together with the subtle, overreaching feeling that this reality is a prison that seeks to punish you for your simple desire to be loved.
The feeling is starting to subside now, the post dream awareness has run its course and I've said a lot of what I need to, but I recognize and understand now that I am a very sad, bitter and lonely man who feels a deep sense of fear and guilt for the stupid way in which he ran his life. I understand that feeling nothing is not only deeply unnatural but consequential. I understand you cannot escape your past. I understand the limited value in writing these posts, hoping to convince anyone of what I'm feeling, even myself, because I know I cannot go back. I don't want the empty words and shallow applause of those who think they understand. I understand my hatred and violence are NOT normal. I understand fear and pain are NOT normal. But I announce this not in the bluster of a business but with a sad, weary, groan of spirit and a knowing I'm not able to escape my own narcissism.
Well. I might if I survive Anna.
God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2011/01/12/VI2011011207235.html?sid=ST2011011406249
Private thoughts.
I just woke up from a very vivid dream about school life. This is day 17, Kris is away in Australia. 2 weeks to kill.
Anyway, I was on a bus. And everyone represented an element of my personality. I didn't know any of these people but I could feel their energy. There was a deep sense of hostility in the room, of aggression and confusion. I felt about 5. A lot of things came flooding back. How I hated uniform. How I felt like a lamb to the slaughter.
I've realised that I just...don't like people. That I came into this world deeply sensitive, seeking someone the same, finding that was impossible and that I was the exception to the rule, even though I wish that I wasn't because the pain of being singled out as a 'weirdo' was excruciatingly painful, and the pain of being sensitive to the brutality of that kind of environment probably drove me a little crazy at a young age. But I played it up to spite them (wow, that showed em!)
I was privy to how my first self talk was profoundly negative. How my earliest awareness included the idea that I would never fit in. How I never got past a place in my life where I was looking up to people of the age I am now and seeing only cocky anger, judgement, and hypocrisy, and silently mulling whether this world was worth living in even as I dehumanized myself gradually. I can only say the state of the world right now is a direct consequence of the kind of emotionally drug-addled consumer insanity where we are ALL still emotional 5 year olds, projecting our programs of the school bully onto each other and the world with such power and skill the circle completes behind our back without our knowing and gives us a cold kick in the arse for good measure before it sends us on our merry way to nowhere.
My memories of school, as a sensitive, were mainly that of anger, depression, hostility, alienation, and uselessness. Of an incredibly vivid and powerful fear of teachers. Of how they would yell, judge you, look at you and find you wanting. This particular one really got under my skin, it means my earliest memories of my fellow man were chaos and disruption, and then a deeply painful period of utter rejection. It's why I hung out in the Library in the Priory. Not fitting in is hugely painful. Good if you survive it, but it's a pain that no one in my position should have to bear.
To the educators: what are you trying to prove? That we should replicate your way of life after you have apparently destroyed it at the root level, which is a child's innocence? That goodness and morality have to be stamped into a person? Even if it were, does that make it real or right? Are you going to have the open hearts of a thousand Yes-Men, bullies, coddled introverts and gossip hounds? Fuck your way of life. I would rather burn the schools, burn your useless reputation, burn capital punishment, burn this world to the ground, than go through any of that again. But I know I will, because you got to me before I had the chance to recruit myself to my own cause, didn't you? And you've got plenty more lined up to take my place after this illness eats me alive. Loughborough Grammar School thinks that by creating more lawyers and doctors from behind its' pious, judgmental walls, the world will be 'saved', but their vision is one of cowardice, because money and class only insulate you from the problem of your own mortality. It doesn't matter that our climate is rendering life on this planet impossible. It doesn't matter that we're running out of oil. It doesn't matter that there are too many of us on this planet. Not to you. I hope you've enjoyed your cheese and wine fundraisers, because the party is most definitely over.
This seems like such a futile gesture to myself, writing this post. I can't be fully honest about the nature of the revelations I get because it's not direct experience, I can only pour out my feelings when they occur, before they vanish into the ether and the inevitable programming takes hold, another circle that completes itself without your knowing. I mean, thank God for the body's ability to regulate with homeostasis, right? It keeps me breathing, though I don't know for how much longer. My only hope to myself is to observe and pour out whatever comes through, I just don't know.
To the teachers: what are you trying to prove? Do you think by keeping the ornate tradition alive, you'll somehow instill respect in your young ones for what's come before? That we simply MUST honour the tradition of corpses, of the dead? Why must we honour corpses? They're DEAD, they don't care! Why did you make us wear uniform, a psychological gesture towards how you used to conform? Does it make you happy to see us acting with the same insanity that you have exercised in the past? You have created the notion of a world where it's perfectly OK to act without heart, without love, compassion, without your own truth. Where it is possible to fake life. I understand but I cannot forgive you. Because in this narrow window of time before this transforming gap in my own awareness closes, I get to see a quantum leap in my own development, with my waking eyes, in dream state. I understand, that it's possible to live in a world where none of this was necessary. For a brief moment, that world becomes more real than waking state. For a moment, I become angry enough to justify my existence and pay credence to my pain.
The final message? I guess I really don't like people or myself. I think people are stupid, ignorant, violent, and self destructive, and I don't really see any hope for mankind. Bottom line. I see it as logical cause now, from a young age. I say this with a mixture of incredible sadness and resolution, because I know Ive wasted my life on this shit, that my demons have become my best friend, no more than a relic of the unresolved, and thus it's natural cause that something like this should happen. Negativity lingers in the heart and slowly poisons and ingratiates you into a painful reality, over months, years. You can feel yourself gradually going down like an emotional submarine into your own private hell, one which has many faces without a root, appearing and disappearing like a silent weapon for a quiet war as we all play these different roles, none of which are real.
I'm not completely angry. I'm actually quite satisfied. This feels natural, the first thing in a while, I mean, negativity is very logical. The good events in our life tend to naturally resolve, they don't re-emerge. It's the negativity that lingers in the subconscious, it's messages literally trapped in every cell, faceless but very powerful, as its' programming is insidious and thick, subtle, many headed, and virtually invincible, as every wound gets passed down to the seventh generation. This isn't me being flowery. I am being literal. It gets stuck in the tissue of your body. I can feel that, I intuitively know how true that is, don't I? I know I can't stick my fingers in my ears and start singing like a 3 year old when it comes to genocide, torture, rape, and all other manner of things I can't take responsibility for but nonetheless feel the consequence of in a very subtle way. That's the power of these kinds of hurt, they ARE cancerous. They bury deep in your mind and appear as self obsession. Silence like a cancer grows.
I hate how they looked at me and instantly found me wanting. Was I a soft target for you? I hope I justified all the self hatred you invested in yourself. I hope I gave some credence to your hurt by being someone different enough to hate. I hope you enjoyed my Angry Leftist years as I hid in the bathroom at school. Getting hit by my mother, spat at by Marcus, humiliated by my peers, by women, brutally, feeling my life slipping away...and now this. You think that stuff is just going to magically resolve? This is how school shootings happen. Get enough disaffected kids, heartless bullies, and emotionally deadened adults in a room and watch who gets it in the head first.
Point being...I'm writing this because I now remember how I felt like. I remember that sick, sinking feeling in my gut as I attended school over the years. I remember having this ugly, violent animal in me develop because I never felt communicated with or even remotely understood. This goes against everything I've taught myself, to let this out, because normally I wouldn't. I would simply not exist, not be there, just be invisible. Why? Even a knock down, drag out school fight is better than that. That's something that parents don't understand. When it comes to schoolyard politics, it's actually OK to kill the other guy - that's the world we've created, anyway. The only truly unacceptable way to live is to not stand up for yourself.
YOU HAVE TO HUMANIZE YOURSELF. I'm not talking about BS New Age positivity where you never have to go through hell. I'm not talking about disgusting self help where people follow the unicorn of success instead of baring their heart. 'Point A to Point B, bro!'( Eugh. 'Bro' is the last catchphrase of an adolescent culture just about ready to blow up). It's a tough racket out there, and thank God that it is, because otherwise, I would get very bored.
God, I am very very lonely and want someone to understand. I convinced myself I was broken and beyond repair. The extraordinary bitterness and emotional violence was never worth it, not for a second. Watching my parents and my sister fight, feeling the grief, hiding, failing and coming to a rumbling, gradual, sickening lurch of a realisation that my life is actually getting worse. I'm sorry, please forgive me God. I don't know how to get out of this mess, and I see your children making things worse and even more painful. I feel every last drop of it as if I were feeling it for the first time, and that's why I'm impeaching you as I impeach myself to feel something, to feel anything. What do we do? We are a generation regurgitating the uselessness of the past. What good is this ride, this journey? What's the point? Is there a way of escaping the sadness and fear, or do we just go straight through it? Am I as sad and pathetic as I make out here? I don't think so. I came to pull the IV out of my narcissism and drain it like a boil.
I remember when I would listen to metal and it surged with passion and life. When the music I loved helped me to escape from the nightmare my life felt like. And now it feels empty and hollow, quite literally a broken record to me. I know the sad reality that most of these people live, in order that they can feel like a success for 1 hour a day on tour. I wouldn't recommend killing your idols in all cases. It leads you towards hating culture and being unable to express or feel. I mean, an inability to feel anything. Anhedoniac. That's not normal, but a normal consequence of the life most of us lead - endless stimulation, not looking at depth, dehumanizing media sources, various theologies that promote self hatred, ignorance, and hurt, all coming together with the subtle, overreaching feeling that this reality is a prison that seeks to punish you for your simple desire to be loved.
The feeling is starting to subside now, the post dream awareness has run its course and I've said a lot of what I need to, but I recognize and understand now that I am a very sad, bitter and lonely man who feels a deep sense of fear and guilt for the stupid way in which he ran his life. I understand that feeling nothing is not only deeply unnatural but consequential. I understand you cannot escape your past. I understand the limited value in writing these posts, hoping to convince anyone of what I'm feeling, even myself, because I know I cannot go back. I don't want the empty words and shallow applause of those who think they understand. I understand my hatred and violence are NOT normal. I understand fear and pain are NOT normal. But I announce this not in the bluster of a business but with a sad, weary, groan of spirit and a knowing I'm not able to escape my own narcissism.
Well. I might if I survive Anna.
God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2011/01/12/VI2011011207235.html?sid=ST2011011406249
Friday, 17 December 2010
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.
PRO: The whole film plays out like an episode of the Twilight Zone, 'when worlds collide', dealing with culture clash and prejudice in an accelerated way. All the characters are equally solid; foils for every side of an argument. Spencer Tracy plays the elder statesmen confronted with his social 'what-is-itis' and the encroaching limitations he can't see but we can, discovering his heart. Katherine Hepburn plays the emotional and heartfelt mother who reasonably believes in his daughters' will and optimism above any of the social pressure she might face. Katherine Houghton plays the invincible, bright eyed daughter of life who's oblivious to reality to the point it just might work. Sidney Poitier is a quiet, smart, and sensitive doctor coming out of heartbreak, who understands the immense social pressure of an idealised, inter-racial relationship better than anyone knows. Watching the characters viewpoints bounce off each other, break down, reform, is the very stuff of humanity.
The film is a drama that solely thrives on the acting, and it's generally superb, watching the older generation deal with change and fear of the unknown, freedom against security, and that strength could be applied to many of the issues we face today, so this is not a dated work by any means. The central scene between the Prentice men is powerful - watching his father try to convince his son to 'obey reality' at the expense of his heart, out of a misplaced sense of old age, forgotten passion, and arrogant rights. The stereotypes don't remove you from the narrative as long as you are engaged on every side of the debate - I was.
Here is a fantastic piece of dialogue towards the end that speaks for every man facing his father on practically every issue like this.
"You listen to me. You say you don't want to tell me how to live my life. So what do you think you've been doing? You tell me what rights I've got or haven't got, and what I owe to you for what you've done for me. Let me tell you something. I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you're supposed to do! Because you brought me into this world. And from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don't own me! You can't tell me when or where I'm out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules. You don't even know what I am, Dad, you don't know who I am. You don't know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs! You understand, you've got to get off my back! Dad... Dad, you're my father. I'm your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man. Now, I've got a decision to make, hm? And I've got to make it alone, and I gotta make it in a hurry. So would you go out there and see after my mother?"
CON: The energy of the film is roughly the same throughout - we pass through the 3-arc narrative at the same pace throughout, which makes the dramatic peaks and troughs more even and leaves the film often feeling like 'debate club' or an after school special. The last scene is a bit schmaltzy, as is the theme song. It would have been better to make Poitier's character less well off: instead it feels dated and slightly toothless by the final reel.
OVERALL: Powerful must-see drama, all things considered. B.
The film is a drama that solely thrives on the acting, and it's generally superb, watching the older generation deal with change and fear of the unknown, freedom against security, and that strength could be applied to many of the issues we face today, so this is not a dated work by any means. The central scene between the Prentice men is powerful - watching his father try to convince his son to 'obey reality' at the expense of his heart, out of a misplaced sense of old age, forgotten passion, and arrogant rights. The stereotypes don't remove you from the narrative as long as you are engaged on every side of the debate - I was.
Here is a fantastic piece of dialogue towards the end that speaks for every man facing his father on practically every issue like this.
"You listen to me. You say you don't want to tell me how to live my life. So what do you think you've been doing? You tell me what rights I've got or haven't got, and what I owe to you for what you've done for me. Let me tell you something. I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you're supposed to do! Because you brought me into this world. And from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don't own me! You can't tell me when or where I'm out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules. You don't even know what I am, Dad, you don't know who I am. You don't know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs! You understand, you've got to get off my back! Dad... Dad, you're my father. I'm your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man. Now, I've got a decision to make, hm? And I've got to make it alone, and I gotta make it in a hurry. So would you go out there and see after my mother?"
CON: The energy of the film is roughly the same throughout - we pass through the 3-arc narrative at the same pace throughout, which makes the dramatic peaks and troughs more even and leaves the film often feeling like 'debate club' or an after school special. The last scene is a bit schmaltzy, as is the theme song. It would have been better to make Poitier's character less well off: instead it feels dated and slightly toothless by the final reel.
OVERALL: Powerful must-see drama, all things considered. B.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Raiders.
PRO: It's infused with classic style but adjusted for the intensity of the modern age. Harrison Ford as Indy - human, smart, charming, and a bit of a goof, centering the audience's attention even when he's off screen. Terrific score from Williams (the main theme, yes, but the Ark theme too, so frightening, powerful, and, well, Hebrew!) Paul Freeman as Belloq, a nasty but fascinated central villain that acts as a great foil for Indy, with this undercurrent of almost friendly, respecting competition, even as they try to kill each other. Great chemistry between Indy and Marion. No CGI. Dashes of humour and sadism throughout. That 'swordfight'. A relentlessly charged, relevant, well paced second half that doesn't let up one bit: setpiece after setpiece. The 'bad dates' scene. Toht - a perfect blend of bottomless slime and pure evil. A gritty visual image that lends the flick some edge. Most of all: a tremendous and spiritually frightening finale that sees God's angels making an appearance of palpable dread.
CON: A slow first half with one scene too much exposition, but necessary to get the film going.
OVERALL: Everything that has been said about this is true. A-.
CON: A slow first half with one scene too much exposition, but necessary to get the film going.
OVERALL: Everything that has been said about this is true. A-.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Set Point 14.
This can't work, can it? What if something incredibly bad happens and the assured isn't assured at all? What will they think? What is all this?
Actually this isn't ringing true anymore either.
Actually this isn't ringing true anymore either.
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Set Point 16 - Discouragement
This is too difficult. What if everyone else is right and this is all fake? This could just be a giant cult. Am I really changing my life by doing this? It seems too easy, where's the heavy lifting, the sacrifice? It can't be this easy. 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I should just throw in the towel and accept this thing is going to take me out. They were right all along, surely. This is real bad news. I don't know who to trust anymore. At least I don't feel paralyzing rage at this point. I'm sorry, school, my folks, my friends, this is too hard. My thinking is too sloppy.
Friday, 10 December 2010
Set Point 18 - Revenge
Perhaps if I hurt the people who are better off than me, I'll improve and feel better in myself. How would they want to suffer? I'll punish them nice and hard. Stab and twist so they feel every last drop of pain. Bastards took me from everything I was!
actually... I don't feel that bad now.
actually... I don't feel that bad now.
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