Into the Wild - A Movie Dialogue

Into the Wild is the true story of Christopher McCandless, an Emory Univeristy graduate who became fed up with society, traveled the country without any money, and made a trip to Alaska. As with all of my reviews, this one has spoilers.

Throughout the movie, I struggled with the idea of whether it is wise to go out and discover the "truth" in the wilderness all alone. The idea of isolation is a glorified concept ever since Thoreau and his experience at Walden Pond. Our culture is fascinated with the self-sufficent individual. My reaction to the individuality of our culture has been just the opposite. I long to share my life with people. I have always thought that God was experienced more in community than in a beautiful meadow alone. This movie made me question that. Would it be good for me to go and experience God all alone for forty days like Jesus did? Should I? It was a real wrestling match. Maybe in the end the healthy life is a combination of both isolation with God and a shared life with others.

At other times throughout the film, I envied Christopher and the community he experienced while traveling the nation without any money. Part of me wants that life. At times I was ready to sell everything and hit the road. I want to share my life with others and have a good time just like he did. It seems like money, selfishness, and material goods get in the way of doing that. The poor seem to have better community than the rich. If I have to become poor to experience life more fully, then that is what I want to do. Then I struggled with the idea of my children. I do not want them to grow up poor. Deep in my core, there is apparently a clinging to the belief that money is essential to happiness or I would be fine with raising my children without much money and material possessions. This movie revealed that about me, and I just do not know what to do.

In the end, Christopher began to die. The movie makes it look like he was poisoned from eating poisonous seeds. Apparently, outdoors men that know about nature and the area he was in do not know if that is the real story. He might have just been dying of starvation and thought it was the result of the seeds. Whatever the reason, Christopher was dying alone in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Before he died, the movie and his writings seem to show that he began to understand what life was all about. It took going into Alaska, living by himself for over 100 days, and dying to figure it out.  May we be able to learn the real meaning of life in time to enjoy it.

He inscribed in his book, "Happiness is only real when shared." This is a complete reversal of his previous thought, "You're wrong if you think the joy of life comes from human relationships." It was only when he was faced with death that he made the decision to forgive his parents, throw away his made up name, and take back his real name. There in that "magic bus," Christopher learned to forgive. He heeded the words of the old man that wanted to adopt him: "When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines on you."

This movie made me long for community, to share my life with people and get to know them. I know that when I go to work tomorrow, I will strive to be what I should be every day. I will try to listen to people who need to share their hurts, wishes, excitement, or any other thing. I will look for ways to help those around me. What a tremendous story. I am blessed to have watched it. I am sad that Christopher died.

Happiness is only real when shared. Let us share life.

Entertaining: 3/5
Inspiring: 5/5
Ethical Thinking: 5/5

Obama the Celebrity - Is Celebrity a Negative?

The McCain campaign released a television attack ad against Obama yesterday focusing on three issues: Obama's celebrity, his refusal to support offshore drilling, and that he will raise taxes. The funny thing about this attack ad is that it was all true although he twisted them without intelligently dealing with. The other interesting thing is that these "attacks" are all viewed as positives by Obama supporters.

The McCain camp wants me to link Obama's celebrity with the irresponsible celebrities like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears who are partiers, alcoholics, and a terrible parent, but the case just does not stand. When I see Obama's celebrity, I think charisma. Obama's just a politician, yet he has somehow become celebrity. Something about his person and his message of change has connected with the American people and the people around the world. That is the only reason he, as a complete underdog, was able to go against the Clinton political machine and win. McCain asks in the commercial if Obama is ready to lead, but if the savviness with which he has ran his campaign and the event-making machine with which he has garnished media attention transfers into the way he operates the presidency, he will be able to get the American people behind him to bring about change in Washington.

The Republicans like to say that Obama is all fluff, but anyone can go to his website and read all of his stances on various issues. He is not all fluff. One does not have to be fluff to connect to the American people. In the end, I do not think it is fluffiness that the Republicans dislike about Obama, it's those stances on the issue that they disagree with. In regards to the various attacks, I will be quoting from his website.

As for his stance on taxes, Obama says that "he will reverse most of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers." His tax policy highlights the government making spending cuts if they make tax cuts or tax increases to pay for new proposed programs. This is called PAYGO in political lingo, which means the government pays for its decisions as it makes them. He also proposes to "cut pork barrel spending," "make government spending more accountable and efficient," "end wasteful government spending," "end tax haven abuse," and "close special interest corporate loopholes." He explains these stances more thoroughly on his website. That sounds like a good tax plan to me. McCain says that Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and that sounds fiscally responsible to me at this time.

As for Obama's stance against offshore drilling, McCain is right in stating that Obama is against it. The commercial states that, but it does not go into Obama's thought out reason why. His reasoning is that the oil companies should start drilling with the land contracts that they already have. His website states: "The 68 million acres of stockpiled leases have the potential to produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil each day. This would nearly double total U.S. oil production. The Obama plan would force oil and gas companies to either produce or pay a fee on unused federal onshore and offshore leases they are stockpiling." I know that my grandparents signed a contract with an oil company for the oil under our farm around fifty years ago. The contract has no sunset clause, but the oil company has not began to drill. The oil companies would much rather profit from federal oil rather than drill for the oil they already have the right to drill. I say that we let the people's oil increase in value while the oil companies start to drill the oil they have the right to. Offshore drilling seems to just provide an easy out to explain away the gas prices when it is really insignificant. The oil companies need to build more refineries, drill the oil they already have access to, and start investing in energy from renewable sources.

Still being undecided, I know what Obama's message is: "Change we can believe in." I still really have no idea what McCain's message is. McCain used to be a candidate for change, but the "straight-talk express" isn't talking about change or his own message all that much anymore. I want change in Washington. McCain should have commercials focusing on the changes he wants to bring rather than resort to the traditional political attack ads that I hate. I really do not appreciate politicians dealing unfairly with other people's viewpoints rather than dealing intelligently with the issues.

The Dark Knight - A Movie Dialogue

The Dark Knight has smashed the records. It became the fastest movie to reach $200mil. It earned 158.4 mil on its first weekend, setting another record. A lot of people are seeing it, and then seeing it again. I won't be joining that list. As is the case in my movie writing, I will not be critiquing the acting or directing, just discussing the theme and prevailing thoughts of the movie. So there will be no drooling over the job done by Heath Ledger here.

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*Spoiler Warning

The movie is very scattered in developing a point. The name of the movie and the conversation at the end make the argument that a hero should be willing to be looked down upon in order to benefit the people he is trying to help. Batman was willing to be a "dark knight" rather than a knight in shining armor when he decided to take the fall for Two-Face's shift to evil. I would agree that a hero should not be concerned about how he is perceived, but I would not agree with the lie that Commissioner Gordon and Batman agreed to tell in order to let the people have hope. This point highlights my frustration with the movie, and American leadership in general. There is this general conception that the public is stupid and not able to handle the truth like those in leadership can. Left unchecked for a while, this view of leadership will lead to a lack of accountability, which in turn will lead to ever-increasing abuses of power. It is definitely not the characteristic of a hero, but that is why Batman is a dark hero.

After I left the movie, I felt that I just sat through a propaganda film trying to manipulate me into believing that it is okay to be violent to those that are unstable in this world. It was like an argument for American military involvment in any of the troublespots around the world because we always characterize the leaders in those places as unstable and impossible to negotiate with. Batman and others reiterated the point throughout the film that the Joker is the type of person that one can only resort to violence to get under control. The problem with taking this logic to its conclusion is that it would be done through impulse rather than some scientific criteria to define who is psychotic. Leadership, and the general public, would inevitably begin to loosely define what makes someone so crazy that he cannot be communicated with. Everyone that holds a different point of view would eventually be classified as a crazy person that needs to be brutalized into agreeing with us or restrained from being different. Soon we would have people fighting one another while both argue that the other is the type of person that can not be negotiated with. Actually, we might already have that. It is kind of like "just war" in that every side always makes an argument for why their view is just. In this scenario where we could use violence against the individual, or leader of a nation, who we perceive as being mentally off, everyone would make the argument that their foe is mentally off and a good example of someone that would only respond to violence.

Combine these first two points and we are left with a handbook on being a dictator. Christopher Nolan is the Machiavelli of our time.

Commissioner Gordon was almost a hero in the movie, but then he decided to go along with the lie to protect the citizens from losing hope from reality.

Two-Face was an example of falling when the cards don't go your way. When tragedy happened, he folded and used his disfigurement as an excuse to be the evil person that he always had inside of him. He was not strong enough to withstand difficult circumstances.

In the end, the only redeeming people in the whole movie were the citizens on the two boats who the joker tried to have kill each other; the criminals moreso than the regular citizens because the prisoner took the trigger away from the guard and threw it out of the window while the citizens decided to kill the prisoners. However, the logic behind the general public being the true hero was kind of strained because earlier they blamed the people for allowing the city to become the way it was. This view also does not go along with the idea that the public cannot handle the truth. The refusal to by the people to blow each other up was the redeeming moment in the movie, but the theme was not developed consistently or well.

I left the movie disgusted by the thoughts, but it was an entertaining flick and led to a good hour and a half discussion afterward about the themes. It inspired me to go kill that stupid guy that just won't agree with my points in my movie reviews because he is just irrational and not one that can be dealt with by reason.

Entertaining: 4/5
Inspiring: 1/5
Ethical Thinking: 5/5