Sunday, March 04, 2012

Watchin' movies on planes that could have been better except for dumb folk wisdom


or, "Dan gets mad at pop culture twice."

Limitless. Well, this one was actually not bad. It's fun. Guy finds drug that makes him mental Superman.
First: "You know how we only use 10% of our brain? This drug lets us use 100%." Can we stop this? It's just silly.
Second: the guy was a burnt out loser, but after he takes the drug, he tells his girlfriend "It's okay now. I'm back." She says "Who's back?" "I am." "That's not you. That's the drug." Can we stop this too? It's voodoo, tribal folk myths, the idea that you have some magic "life force" or identity, and when you take a drug, that magic life force leaves you and the drug possesses you. Reminds me of D.A.R.E.

In Time. This movie was actually awful. But such a good premise: in the future, time is the currency. When you turn 25, you stop aging, and instead you get a clock with one year on it; when it expires, you die. You can buy/sell/trade time. So the rich people live for thousands of years, and the poor people just try to scrape together enough time-currency to survive another day.
The problem: "We're not meant to live forever." This is kind of the bias behind the whole film, and it's never defended or discussed, it's just accepted as a given.

On the other hand, one movie that gets it right: Moneyball. Statistics work. Just like in the real world. But they don't magically predict the future 100% of the time, just on average. Again, just like the real world.

A movie I didn't get: Scarface. But then, I didn't get The Godfather either.
A movie that was pretty good, and god bless them for trying something different and pulling it off: The Artist.
A movie that's hella cute: My Neighbor Totoro. Also, I have a new answer for "if you had to get a pet, what would you get?"

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