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
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Magical Thinking
Biologist Richard Dawkins is getting a lot of press lately, primarily for his views on atheism. I was listening to an interview with him on MPR not long ago and he indicated that he feels that any child brought up solely in one religion is undergoing child abuse. I agree with this sentiment to a certain extent. I realize that people who are raising their children in one faith, and one faith only, are primarily doing so for what they feel are the most noble of reasons, however, unless these children are cloistered, they are going to rub shoulders with people of different faiths. If for no other reason than to avoid social insensitivity, children should learn a little something about other religions. On a more fundamental level, what if a kid doesn't fit with the faith of his/her parents? I was raised Catholic, which never matched my mindset. When I found Unitarian Universalism, I felt that I had come home spiritually.
Now that I've found a point of agreement with Richard Dawkins, let me spin into a point of disagreement with him and other atheists. Those who believe there is no god cannot seem to tolerate people who engage in magical thinking. It's all hard-edged, cold, complex, beautiful reality for them. The vast majority of us slip into magical thinking now and again, believing our prayers work; believing in ghosts, fairies, Big Foot & the Loch Ness monster; attributing unexplained phenomena to some mystical, mysterious force; believing that that force is God.
I'm rereading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, a book so full of magical thinking that I wouldn't be surprised if it turned into a raven and flapped away into the night. The beauty of magical thinking, which is as gorgeous and complex as our physical reality, is its ability to let us imagine the unimaginable. If we did not think that gods could fly, could we have ever figured out how to make humans do so? As an evolutionist might argue, we kept the ability for magical thinking over time because it is evolutionarily advantageous for our species. Let's not reject it out of hand because we think we know better now that we've evolved past the point of needing gods.
Now that I've found a point of agreement with Richard Dawkins, let me spin into a point of disagreement with him and other atheists. Those who believe there is no god cannot seem to tolerate people who engage in magical thinking. It's all hard-edged, cold, complex, beautiful reality for them. The vast majority of us slip into magical thinking now and again, believing our prayers work; believing in ghosts, fairies, Big Foot & the Loch Ness monster; attributing unexplained phenomena to some mystical, mysterious force; believing that that force is God.
I'm rereading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, a book so full of magical thinking that I wouldn't be surprised if it turned into a raven and flapped away into the night. The beauty of magical thinking, which is as gorgeous and complex as our physical reality, is its ability to let us imagine the unimaginable. If we did not think that gods could fly, could we have ever figured out how to make humans do so? As an evolutionist might argue, we kept the ability for magical thinking over time because it is evolutionarily advantageous for our species. Let's not reject it out of hand because we think we know better now that we've evolved past the point of needing gods.
Labels: american gods, evolution, god, magical thinking, neil gaiman, raven, religion, richard dawkins
