Life in Contemplation of Recently Viewed Movies

I would like to discuss the last three movies I've seen within the past week. Girlfriend Experience, Up and Revolutionary Road. I am reminded of a story I read about Natalie Portman, and how each time she read 'Diary of Anne Frank,' she was struck by something different in the story. So currently, I seem to be taking life purpose and relationship messages from everything I see/read, which means that I am continuing and maybe making some headway on this quarter-life crisis business. This post is probably going to be a spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen the movies, so proceed with caution.

The Girlfriend Experience is about a girl who is a highend callgirl who basically provides a sort of "girlfriend experience" to her callers. She goes on dates with them, listens to them talk, pretends to care, remembers their names, jobs, problems, etc. They don't even always have sex with her, she is sort of a paid companion. The point of the movie in my mind is that her life is empty; she is paid to be whatever these men want her to be, and as a result, has become sort of an empty shell of a person. Her opinions and tastes are those of her callers. She has become this empty companion that they want her to be. She lets her guard down to one of her callers and mistakes their exchange for something meaningful, but he was playing the game as much as she was, and it means nothing in the end. What I am taking away from this movie is that you cannot just be whomever another person wants or requires of you; you lose yourself if you do that. You have to be your own person, have your own interests, etc, otherwise you become meaningless, pointless, useless as a person, beyond any physical worth you may possess. She just became a body, a doll for these men to play with in the end. They wanted to play date with her. A robot could just as easily serve this purpose.

Up is about a man who lives a fulfilling, but outwardly unadventurous, life. He was happily married, but when his wife dies, he begins to regret that they never did the exciting things they had planned and dreamed about, so he sets about to do them in her memory. He is entrenched in the memory of her and things that remind him of her, and so is not really living any longer. On his travels, he learns that there is still living to be done, and that living relationships are more important than things. He also realizes that his wife would have wanted him to keep living and that she did not regret the course of their life, but thought of it as an adventure in itself. So this movie is about the importance of relationships with people (and animals) and not living in regret or in memories, but about living in the present. And that the accumulation of stuff will not replace these things or lead to any lasting happiness. That is not to say that memories are bad and should be forgotten, or that we should throw out all of our things, just that they shouldn't be everything. We should pursue our dreams/goals when we can, but not be bogged down with unhappiness if we cannot obtain what we think we want, and instead relish experiences we are having now.

Revolutionary Road is the most depressing of these movies, as you might guess. It is about a couple that meets and falls in love when they are young and full of ideals. The ideals are exciting and they are excited to have met each other because they share in these ideals when they think others don't understand. This is probably the basis for a lot of relationships, this mutual understanding. Life proceeds and things that initially did not bother them: moving to the suburbs, having kids :begins to wear on them and they are driven to adultery, fights, etc. They are living the dull lives that they had dreaded when they were younger. Kate Winslet's character becomes particularly unhappy and depending on which side of the issue you're on, 1) decides she wants to pursue her ideals, or 2) tries to relive the past. She takes up the mantra, "Why not?," nothing is stopping us, and wants to pick up and move to Paris, where they will live a wholly atypical lifestyle for the times, and be something special again. Stop selling out and pursue "life." Leo's character gets on board and they have a few happy months dreaming and planning and nearly carry out their plan, but Leo is becomes reengaged in the dull lifestyle they have started and is tempted back into the rat-race by recognition from the higher ups and promise of more money. Kate Winslet is deeply disillusioned by this turn of events and develops a hatred for the man that Leo has become. Her vision of him as a true, free-thinking man is lost forever. She ultimately decides that she must also play this game and acts as he wants her to, but she appears to die inside and attempts an abortion on herself, which ultimately leads to her actual death. So this movie is about youthful ideals and ambitions selling out (or growing up?), ultimately leading to acceptance and self-delusion (maturing?) about meaningless (realistic?) life circumstances. There is a dichotomy between a "crazy" mathematics PhD thinking their pursuit of ideals is noble and brave, and coworkers and neighbors who think they are immature and whimsical. There is a scene at the end that tells us that the creators of the movie are on the side of the ideals, as an older man who has sold out long ago expresses fond remembrance of the couple, even as his wife chastises them for being unrealistic. You can imagine that most people in the movie industry would support pursuing their dreams because they all did and made it!

There is a difference in Up and Revolutionary Road in how youthful dreams are dealt with. In Up, the characters live happy lives, even though they are not as exciting as they imagined when they are young. In Revolutionary Road, however, the characters fight against the current circumstances and are ultimately unhappy when they do not pursue their dreams. And to reconcile this difference, I will suggest that... the characters in Up were not lying to themselves about how to be happy, and the Leo character was. The Up couple was true to themselves in their circumstance, whereas Leo and Kate were trying to lie about being happy. So stop with the self-denial, I guess, and discover a way to be happy with your circumstance and make it work for you.

So, to recap, these movies all express, in different ways, the importance of being yourself and pursuing your interests in order to be content now. That solely trying to please others is ultimately self-destructive and requires a large amount of self-denial. That true human relationships can only be had through true communication of things that matter, as opposed to trite daily occurrences. That allowing yourself to dream, and to care, is important in life, although the actual pursuit of dreams is not necessarily the path to happiness. And that there are always adventures out there, if you look for them.

Or something. ;)

.... Crucifixion is kind of a gross word

AND it gets even grosser when you read about it and the various ways you can nails the hands/arms up. Different locations for the insertions of nails and angles, etc. And the we turn to the actual way people die when they are fucking nailed or tied to a pole, which could take hours to days, apparently. Gross. And EW, sometimes they broke the legs to hasten death, especially if the arms were tied directly overhead. And then the remains were usually left to decay on the cross, although there has been ONE archaeological finding of a crucified body. The nail found in his heel bone had olive wood fragments on it, which means that he was crucified AT EYE LEVEL because olive trees are not very tall!!!! GROSS. Oh god, there are other gross parts about how there was a piece of wood holding the nail on his foot, so he couldn't SLIDE HIS FOOT OFF THE HEAD OF THE NAIL.

The wikipedia article also says there is crucifixion imagery in Final Fantasys 7, 8 & 10, but I don't remember anything like that in 7, the only one I actually finished.

AND.... The reason why I am even thinking about this in the first place is that I have been listening to the Jesus Christ Superstar movie soundtrack for the past couple days. Of course, I should be reading journal articles about Type 3 Secretion in gram-negative bacteria, but...



My two favorite songs are "Heaven on their Minds" and "Gethsemane," like, by far, but I figure JC Superstar is a classic. Dude, those ladies know how to dance. AND I love Judas' voice. Man, Andrew Lloyd Webber was a freaking genius. Also, here is a strange 2000 version of "Heaven on Their Minds" that sort of reminds me of daytime soap operas.

AND THEN!!!! Ted Neely is touring in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR in a city near you, RIGHT NOW!!!! GO! Ted Neeley has been playing Jesus Christ longer than Jesus was alive.

And back to reality, where shit doesn't blow up all the time... Batman ROCKED

So, I saw the late late showing of Dark Knight last night, and it was SO amazing. I was so excited about it, I couldn't fall asleep for like a half hour even though it was 2 in the morning. There are so many good things about it!

On the spectrum of dorkitude, I'm really only moderate: I used to watch the cartoon when I was a kid, 'Batman Returns,' but never read any comic books really. Luckily, a lot of the cartoon series were fairly true to the comic books, I feel. Anyway, there were a lot of things I recognized and could see coming from watching the cartoon series. It was all made much better from the fact that I had read nothing about the movie beforehand.

***SPOILER***

Now, I'm not so much a fan that I remembered Two-face's real name, until the transformation had already started taking place. Then, I was like, Oo! Oo!, I know who that is! What really gave it away was when he was getting the gasoline on the one side of his face. Super exciting. Another nice part was when the motorcycle broke out of the batmobile. Awesome.

I think that people who are less familiar with Batman would have enjoyed this movie less. I spent a large part of my childhood watching this series. I also have this theory that the movies usual follow the cartoon series. A couple years ago, there was that futuristic Batman cartoon series that I can't remember the name of... I don't know the story behind it either, but that Commissioner Gordon's kid seems like a pretty good contender for being a new fresh Batman.

As far as villians go, I really think they could have ended the movie right when Harvey's transformation had started, and then they could have had a whole movie about him instead of killing him off. Instead, they kept the Joker. I mean, I would have watched the amazing Heath Ledger as the Joker again, but unfortunately, that's not an option. All I can say is, Catwoman, please?

Also, I have this strange idea that Batman and Catwoman were some of the first furries.

BTW, did I mention that I LOVE explosions?!