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 4 Oct 2009 @ 20:24
Bright Star
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
John Keats More >
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 25 Apr 2007 @ 21:33
The famous line from the movie Fields of Dream, "If you build it, he will come" was voted as the #39 movie quote by the American Film Institute.
Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice in his corn field tell him, "If you build it, he will come." He interprets this message as an instruction to build a baseball field on his farm, upon which appear the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series. When the voices continue, Ray seeks out a reclusive author to help him understand the meaning of the messages and the purpose for his field.
Sometimes, though, just building something and expecting that "it" would all happen on its own and that the relevant people would come and play/work in your field and that "various teams would just pick their own mission and go to work" (sic) is just wishful thinking, isn't it? It might just take a little bit more than that---make that "a lot more" sometimes, depending on external circumstances and what kind of a ball game one is aiming for.
Sometimes external circumstances are with you, and sometimes they are against you. But sometimes, well, sometimes those circumstances, they are not just simply "external" at all, are they?
The Gaels have a saying for this, "Tús maith, leath na hoibre," and so do the Koreans, "시작이 반이다.": . . . . .starting is half the task.
Do or do not---there is no try. More >
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 10 Apr 2007 @ 01:49
Carol's immune system is compromised by an "environmental illness," an all-encompassing allergy to chemicals that has baffled the medical establishment and gained the moniker "20th Century Disease." Helpless, she turns to a self-help organization that leads to greater isolation from the real outside world.
(...)
Conventional cinematic cues that usually tell viewers how to respond are avoided. Safe breaks the Hollywood mold by not using close-ups and other audience-controlling devices. The film minimizes manipulation, letting the viewers make up their own minds through subjective perceptions. Haynes refuses to judge his characters or subject them to the ridicule to which a mainstream film would resort.
Indeed, the film's subtlety was mistaken by some viewers as endorsement of dubious fads, as if promoting New Age philosophies and places like Wrenwood, the "Wellness Center." In actuality, the film is critical of New Age therapies, perceiving them as a trap no better than the mindless materialism that defined Carol's life. Arguably, the film is more of an indictment of New Age medicine than of California's bourgeois lifestyle. The chilling conclusion shows how Carol's self-imposed exile is carried to an extreme. Standing in front of a mirror, with a blank expression on her face, Carol says repeatedly, "I like you."
---Emanuel Levy
A complete truly excellent review by Emanuel Levy of this quite remarkable movie can be accessed here.
Emanuel Levy is the author of Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film (NYU Press, paperback 2001).
The movie, such as it is, is one of those that leaves a great deal of room for interpretation. No easy answer here, and it will keep most viewers thinking back and again about some of the questions it raises and some of its protagonists long after watching it. More >
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 22 Mar 2007 @ 01:23
Civil libertarians have expressed concern that mind-reading technology may fit into a trend of pre-emptive security measures in which authorities could take action against individuals before they commit a crime. More >
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28 Aug 2009 @ 01:34