Broken Flowers

More like broken movie... what is this, some ADHD test for the insane? Every shot in this deadly film was static, silent and way, way too long. It's movies like this that make me glad I don't sink ten bucks up front just because Bill Murray was good in his last movie. Yeah, he's got that deadpan look down pat. It looks like his whole face was dipped in Botox. Any small facial expression would have been appreciated in this bore fest.

He meanders aimlessly from one very slow, quiet old girlfriend to the next even slower, quieter ones looking for meaning and a child he never met, who may be looking for him. It's a good concept, but one I'll never be awake enough to see fulfilled in this movie (and I use that term loosely). Music, a pan, anything. I'm now watching some close up take ten seconds to zoom in on Bill sleeping in a plane. Fascinating stuff. What, is this a student film? Maybe that's why there's no director's commentary, or any commentary, or any movement.

As with In Her Shoes and the trendy hook of shoes running throughout.... this one has... you got it... broken flowers. I'm sure they represent something deep and meaningful about life, boring lives, lives that are slow and boring. Yes, now I think I understand what the director is trying to say. Stop, slow down, smell the broken flowers. Life is painful and disconnected and my boring film is so much better. OK, got it.

Seeds

Seeds
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

Each seed starts out tiny
And grows its form intact
Circle after circle
Growing outward, some retract

Expanding ripples touch
Forming patterns bigger
Some swirl into others
Forming newer figures

Each grows to its destiny
The shape stays somewhat static
The ways they come together though
You can't predict the pattern

Grown up to their boundaries
Till they blend, merge and change
There's a window of time
For things to be arranged

Is the same true of people?
Do we ever really change?
Or just ride the waves of others
Until we realize we're not the same?

Do we see to the core of others?
Do we understand their needs?
Do we ever see who they really are...
Or just colored circles around their seeds?

In Her Shoes

Songs that are designed to become big pop hits must have a hook. I guess it's the same for films. In this sentimental big budget comedy with Oscar darling Toni Collette and the ever bankable Cameron Diaz, the hook is shoes. If you don't pick up on that from the title, there's the closet containing countless pairs and of course the big line for the trailer; clothes never look good, food makes you fat, but shoes always fit... or something like that.

It's the story of two sisters dealing with the legacy of a mother who committed suicide in a single car accident when they were small children. I really started relating to the film at this point because I'm familiar with a real life incident like this and I do wonder about the kids and how they grow up wondering about the "crash" that killed their mother. It's hard enough to lose a parent but these two girls had to grow up surrounded by the lie that their mother was killed accidentally when in reality she was mentally ill and committed suicide. Even in progressive towns today, there is still great denial and shame and whispering. If one dies of a physical disease, it's one thing, but we still attach great stigma to mental illness.

What's also interesting is how different these sisters are (yes, they have only their SHOE size in common). Diaz is dumb and dyslexic, Toni is the plain, studious lawyer. But, although Toni is very functional, she can't really connect with Mister Right and carries great pain. The sisters do discover some truth and connection along the way.

There's no commentary track and Shirley MacLaine sleepwalks through this, but, I guess it's worth a pick on Netflix.

Carlos Castaneda: Enigma of a Sorcerer

This DVD takes a look at the best-selling, controversial author who sold over eight million books in seventeen languages. He wrote, ostensibly, about his experiences with a Sonoran Nualle, holy man, named Don Juan Matus. Carlos is portrays himself in the books as the hapless, hallucinogenic drug imbibing, student trying to understand the magical powers Don Juan uses to make plants come to life and other miracles in these "reports", which earned him a PhD from UCLA in 1970.

It was, in fact, the pedigree of UCLA, with forward written by the Anthropology Department Chair, that gave the books legitimacy. Just as Timothy Leary used his status as a Harvard professor to give hallucinogens credentials, Castaneda parlays his student status into the type of love, power and attention he wanted. Like Leary, he wanted to impart knowledge of the nature of reality. From many of the reports in the DVD, he really did believe his own story.

But, unlike Leary, and more like Steve Glass, the subject of Shattered Glass, the National Review writer who made up his stories, or, more recently, Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces who had to go mea culpa on Oprah... Carlos made it all up. There is no Don Juan.

To me, it's like saying there's no Santa Claus. I mean, I took an entire course on this guy in college. I read all his books, many times, thought about them and what his exchanges with Don Juan meant. Yes, we all had to consider the notion that these far out stories were made up, but, you want to believe there is some proof for what we all know is true.

Someone on the DVD discusses the idea that, like Santa Claus, it almost doesn't matter if Don Juan was a real man. He is a "fictive reality", meaning, so many people understand the concept of this individual it sort of creates it's own reality. No, no. This guy was more like the David Koresh/Jim Jones/Charles Mansons, it's not about enlightenment. It's about ego, and feeling the thrill of minions of women to fuck, women who truly love and believe in them. It's exploitation and that's what Carlos Castaneda was about.

Like the worst of the users of this world, the Jerry Falwells and Jim Bakers, he used good solid spiritual concepts to lure in his victims. They were "new age" concepts, instead of traditional bible stuff, but, it's basically the same thing. Taking truth and beauty and twisting it to your own gain, living a life surrounded, ultimately, by pain and lies. You should hear what all these people who closely surrounded Carlos in his little Sorcerers Circle say about him, "what a relief it was, when he died!".

I want to end on something positive, which is one of the biggest lessons of the books. Even if they were lies, and that's pretty much proven in the DVD by a guy who traced Carlos' writings along with other things being published at the time, the concepts are valid and here's one I've lived by. Don Juan tells us that death is always over our shoulder. Each day we need to keep somewhere in the back of our minds that we must use our time well because our life could end at any time.

If today were your last day, could you really say you've lead your life freely, honestly and without fear? Or have you made a million little compromises and told a million little lies and towed the line and did what you were supposed to, assuming you'll have plenty of time at the end to do what you really love, be with someone you really love, be who you really are?

In2Movies

Can't these guys at Warners, much less Microsoft, come up with one original idea? Warners new fake P2P movie download service, In2Movies, stole my whole concept here. I just had to go grabbing up the blogspot domains, and now I do indeed have: In2Movies,In2Music and N2Movies.

You get the picture... I think I nabbed up a few similar names. But, I've been using this concept of being into stuff, or in2 stuff, or N2, or Nto.... for a long time.

When I googled IntoFilm, it actually came up with tons of stuff on the little sister website, to this one, IntoFilm. I found out that Intervision, IntoFilm and IntoTune are all traded on Blog Shares, some blog stock exchange thing that I didn't even sign up for... and I'm trading up! Now that I'm actually directing my readers there, I hope to see my stock price spike! My little blog has had over 20,000 hits in the little over a year of it's existence and all the linkage is starting to pay off as I write for more and more websites and work with more and more internet companies. More to come on that.

Havoc

Anne Hathaway trades in her Princess Diaries image for what I'm going to call Crash for kids. Crash showed the relationship between adults of different races in LA today. Havoc takes this to the teens, adds a cohesive plot and even more sobering ramifications to consider. The excellent Hathaway takes us to the heart and soul of a disaffected Pacific Palisades teen, showing the workaholic and alcoholic parents, the blow jobs for the wannabe boyfriend, the desire for anything that feels real and the ability to put it all in perspective for herself and protect herself.

Every social force is more apparent when you look at it through the eyes of the young people. We see an entire culture of white high schoolers more gansta than the east side teens. When 50 Cent was asked about the fact that most of his albums are sold to white suburban kids he replied, "Those kids want the boogeyman, they want to be scared and they're willing to pay $18.99 to do it". It really makes you wonder who's buying into the bling image.

The parents are interested in their own upscale image and protecting their kids, but, hey, these poor rebellious kids have no war to protest, at least not one they're being drafted for so, got to rebel against something, or at least make it look like you are. Was college protest ever serious, or do white kids just pose, as they do in this movie? They go downtown like it's some kind of reality show attraction... but then find that, in some ways, the hispanic community, rife as it is with poverty and drugs, is actually very family oriented... something they lack.