Viewing Times

I have seen three different films in the past couple of days -- one about globalization, an older Michael Moore film about corporations and layoffs, and the Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy chatfest sequel Before Sunset

Life + Debt

I saw Life + Debt -- a movie about globalization and Jamaica -- it was very weird because I noticed very obvious parallels between it and Hawaii -- I think that if Hawaii ever was independent in the present day, they would likely face the same problems as Jamaica does in the globalized economy

Essentially, you have a small economy that is well suited to sustain its own food, labor, and other needs -- yet it must participate in the global economy -- so even though it could produce its own milk, beef, bananas, etc. -- all of these things are brought in so that big nations have another market to sell them in -- and the local economy gets crushed -- except for the fact that it is a tourist paradise -- seems almost surreal that a place can have so much luxury on one side of it, and have so much economic dysfunction because agriculture is dying out -- and there are very few jobs except for service jobs -- sad

Before Sunset

In two weeks I have seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset with SD -- where BSrise seemed to be a whole lot of chatting jackoff and one was struck that people do not talk that way or interact with each other with sentences as long as the Longines Symphonet -- Perhaps because we now have a context for the movie, BSset is more comfortable with having the chatting be a part of the story, drive the story, and ultimately define where the characters are NOW in their lives -- in many ways, this is a movie that 30-somethings would relate to very personally -- love, career, dreams, reality, sex, etc. -- the rush to live in the 20s gives way to life and it is both what was expected and what was not

BSset is almost a testament to the desperation of life -- looking always to the next horizon without living today -- a dialog on how desire really shapes how we live, act, are -- and how the absence of desire, consumption, romance, idealism is terrifying

It certainly is not as pretentious as the first movie -- in many ways it is the first darkly desperate slacker movie -- kind of a map check for where Gen X is on the road of life, even though on its face it is a romantic comedy

Michael Moore - The Big One

It is interesting to look at Michael Moore's work prior to his breakthrough Bowling for Columbine -- The Big One has many themes that came to roost in 2004 -- Filmed during the campaign of Clinton, Dole, Buchanan, and Perot, it shows many of the early signs of the growth of globalized corp America, the effects of moving jobs abroad, the loss of jobs, the rise of McJobs (actually this movie really takes Borders to task -- and knowing someone in my life, married with a kid, who relies primarily Bs for a check, it is sad to say that little has changed)

It really makes you think that okay, this movie was filmed in 1996 -- the apex of the Clinton boom years, the rise of the stock market, the dotcoms, etc. -- and yet the coming hangover had roots in that time -- and if anything, it seems like the hangover has worsened because of the economic approach of the Bush administration and government towards large corporations

Only makes me think how bad will it be 12 years after no marked corrections to deal with the human costs of this mad corporate dash to profits