Monday, September 24, 2007
Two Movies Watched
I've heard there are some great movies out there. That's what people tell me anyway. And I wistfully reply that I'm horribly behind on movie watching. I never seem to have two hours to kill at a time. Which makes it quite amazing that I watched not one, but two movies this past weekend.
The first, recommended by a friend, was "Almost Famous," a sweet film about a 15-year-old wunderkind writer, William Miller, who is asked to write an article for Rolling Stone on an up-and-coming band called Stillwater. Frances McDormand plays the boy's mother, Elaine Miller. She's a stitch. "Don't do drugs" is her favorite piece of advice. It's priceless when she gives the what-for to the lead guitarist of the band at one point in the movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman fully inhabits the character Lester Bangs, who is a disaffected rock-n-roll writer serving as William's mentor. The film features several other well-known actors - Kate Hudson, Anna Paquin, Jimmy Fallon. Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand were nominated for Oscars for the film, and the movie won one for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. If you check it out, pay close attention to what the tour bus says while on tour, and then what is says after the airplane scene.
Okay, second film. This, too, was recommended by the same friend as above and we watched it at her house. It's called "Zeitgeist" and it should scare the shit out of any thinking person. "Zeitgeist" is labeled a documentary and it has an amateurish, made in a back bedroom quality, with lots of black and fuzzy screens backed by narration. Don't let that deter you from the message of the movie. Well, the many messages of the movie.
The first part starts with a discussion of religion, showing how the facets of Jesus' life actually showed up in many previous religions and were attributed to different gods. Another part deals with the Federal Reserve. Did you know that the Federal Reserve is a private bank? And that the U.S. government borrows its money from the Federal Reserve with interest? I didn't.
Another part looks at 9/11 and the investigation of this national tragedy. Several demolition experts appeared on the film and said that what happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the World Trade Center looked just like a planned demolition. The buildings - three of them, no less - would not have come down the way they did without this being a planned demolition. There was other evidence to support this, such as the many reports of an explosion in the basement of one of the towers prior to the planes hitting. Also, Building 7 was not struck by a plane at all, but it collapsed like the others did. (How did I miss the whole Building 7 story?)
The point of the movie, according to the website, is as follows:
" Zeitgeist was created as a non-profit filmiac expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the
population at large think they are."
The film's creator(s) (whoever he/she/they may be - it's not obvious from the website) also encourage people to do more research and figure things out for themselves, instead of following the powerful (or the movie) without question. It certainly has me thinking and eager to check out the facts presented. "Zeitgeist" can be downloaded from the website. Start exercising your brain's synapses.
The first, recommended by a friend, was "Almost Famous," a sweet film about a 15-year-old wunderkind writer, William Miller, who is asked to write an article for Rolling Stone on an up-and-coming band called Stillwater. Frances McDormand plays the boy's mother, Elaine Miller. She's a stitch. "Don't do drugs" is her favorite piece of advice. It's priceless when she gives the what-for to the lead guitarist of the band at one point in the movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman fully inhabits the character Lester Bangs, who is a disaffected rock-n-roll writer serving as William's mentor. The film features several other well-known actors - Kate Hudson, Anna Paquin, Jimmy Fallon. Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand were nominated for Oscars for the film, and the movie won one for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. If you check it out, pay close attention to what the tour bus says while on tour, and then what is says after the airplane scene.
Okay, second film. This, too, was recommended by the same friend as above and we watched it at her house. It's called "Zeitgeist" and it should scare the shit out of any thinking person. "Zeitgeist" is labeled a documentary and it has an amateurish, made in a back bedroom quality, with lots of black and fuzzy screens backed by narration. Don't let that deter you from the message of the movie. Well, the many messages of the movie.
The first part starts with a discussion of religion, showing how the facets of Jesus' life actually showed up in many previous religions and were attributed to different gods. Another part deals with the Federal Reserve. Did you know that the Federal Reserve is a private bank? And that the U.S. government borrows its money from the Federal Reserve with interest? I didn't.
Another part looks at 9/11 and the investigation of this national tragedy. Several demolition experts appeared on the film and said that what happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the World Trade Center looked just like a planned demolition. The buildings - three of them, no less - would not have come down the way they did without this being a planned demolition. There was other evidence to support this, such as the many reports of an explosion in the basement of one of the towers prior to the planes hitting. Also, Building 7 was not struck by a plane at all, but it collapsed like the others did. (How did I miss the whole Building 7 story?)
The point of the movie, according to the website, is as follows:
" Zeitgeist was created as a non-profit filmiac expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the
population at large think they are."
The film's creator(s) (whoever he/she/they may be - it's not obvious from the website) also encourage people to do more research and figure things out for themselves, instead of following the powerful (or the movie) without question. It certainly has me thinking and eager to check out the facts presented. "Zeitgeist" can be downloaded from the website. Start exercising your brain's synapses.
Labels: 911, almost famous, federal reserve, friend, movies, religion, rolling stone, world trade center, zeitgeist
