Musing

11C/52F, cloudy & clearing; long walk back after dropping the car off for servicing to begin a day of work & catching up on reading – play will wait till tomorrow

as I might have expected, yesterday’s musing drew lots of thoughtful comments – thanks; also huge thanks to CC for taking me out to lunch yesterday – a birthday treat – bringing along JR which made it sweeter still – thank you both

I love movies; I love serious movies, funny movies, thought provoking movies; I even like occasional chick flicks, kid flicks, silly flicks, sick flicks & slapstick flicks

I love new movies, old movies, great movies & clever movies & epic films & IMAX films

while ‘we still have Tara’ provides me with far less joyful memories than ‘birnie num num’ or ‘we’re burnin’ daylight pilgrim’, which has nothing to do with critique of Margaret Mitchell or praise for Peter Sellers or the pride of Laguna Beach - each offered great reflection for their times much of which is still entertaining today

I avoid horror & sci-fi; suspension of disbelief does not work for me there at all

I have watched those gag-me items disinterested as they are surreal constructs to create unrealistic scenarios; on occasion I’ve been dragged to one only to exhibit my worst anti-social behaviour of mocking the movie, mocking the lousy story constructs or mocking the person who made me go which usually ruins an evening & certainly leaves me absolutely alone for breakfast the next day

I don’t want to go

I never saw Schindler's List, I avoided Malcolm X .. . etc. etc. - it was not about watching history; it was about going to watch something I had read a lot about, felt well informed about only to go watch it on the big screen @ $8-10 a pop, so I could leave feeling horrible . . not my idea of entertainment or enlightenment

the only Oliver Stone movie I ever watched (loved it) was JFK, mostly because it was about a subject that enthralled me as an adolescent & leaves me curious still about who really orchestrated it all & how could so many law enforcement people be such bumbling fools . . . or maybe it was more about the legacies of Honey Fitz (vote early & vote often) or Joe Kennedy

otherwise, these deep serious enlightening dramatic portrayals of horrors of our times – often done to great & wide acclaim – do not interest me

they are close but not pure portrayals of what actually happened; tweaked to help us best enjoy our overpriced popcorn & watered down drinks – as we sit on the edge of our seats admiring Hollywood heartthrobs or just speculating ‘how much weight did Nicholas Cage actually lose?’ in order to play that part

World Trade Center is not just a movie or a memory of carnage or where a building used to be or the only place that can be called a grave for so many

it was a great place; it was an engineering & construction marvel

it was easy to get to, easy to find & impossible to get away from by cab on a Saturday or Sunday

I visited it a number of times on trips to NYC

who could not go?

who could not marvel at the engineering feat in the heart of the financial district?

who could not marvel at the view across the Atlantic from there or the view down to ‘tiny buildings’ a mere 60 or 80 floors?

I don’t want to go

this 9/11 movie portraying the true story of survival & heroism of very few very real people is laudable & reviews indicate it is one of Stone’s best works – Oscar nominee material no doubt, but I don’t want to go

it is Saturday – I want to go to a good movie, I want to have a good time, I want to have my brain & my funny bone tickled a lot

it is not that we have been bombarded with more media coverage than any human ought to withstand on the World Trade Center attack; I loved that building, I walked on its rooftop catwalk on two occasions, pressed my face against the floor to ceiling glass on the 110th floor; as a commercial real estate guy, visiting that spectacular place was for me like a trip to Mecca is for a Muslim; how’s that for counterpoint?

I’ve watched great documentaries on the life of Martin Luther King, the lives of kings & of Rodney King; our pop culture / info-media content control influenced lives might be the cause; I seek out things where I want information, crave information, need information

on this subject, I have way too much already

it is Saturday, I want to go to a movie . .

but not that one, I don’t want to go

it has nothing to do with current chaos in the middle east, banning carry-on for flights or recent arrested terror plots

it has nothing to do with what happened, why it happened

while so much that is true is far more entertaining than screen writers develop these days, sometimes I just want to be entertained while I am enlightened

I want something smart, I want something clever; I want great acting & insightful film making

I want every quality THAT film probably has to offer, but I don’t want to go

I DO want to go to a movie tonight, just not that one

does anyone want to join me for a movie tonight?

RSVP

Mark

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