ASK Musings

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Movies Archive

Friday

22

August 2008

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I.O.U.S.A.

Written by , Posted in Reviews

Last night I attended a great event. In theaters across the country, I.O.U.S.A. premiered with a special live broadcast of a panel discussion between some pretty interesting folks. If you saw Tropic Thunder last weekend, you might have seen the preview for the event.


It started with a brief intro by a CNBC host, then they showed the 90 minute documentary (no previews – appropriate, probably). After that there was an hour-long discussion broadcast into the theaters taking place live from Omaha, featuring Warren Buffet, Former US Comptroller Dave Walker, Peter Peterson, the head of the Cato institute (ugh) and the head of AARP (heh, and kind of ugh).


The movie is about not just the US national debt (9 trillion), but about the future obligations that lead us to really be in debt about 55 trillion. It’s amazing – the people who put it together did a really great job of describing fiscal and monetary policy in a way that people without an economics background can really grasp. They lay out the history of debt in the country, and the situation we’re in now. It’s really well done, and raises some interesting questions / points.


First off (and maybe everyone else knows this, but I didn’t), Social Security really isn’t the biggest problem. There are a few different ways to fix it, but even if we don’t touch it, people my age and younger can expect to get about 70% of what folks retiring now get. Not great, but certainly not as terrifying as it seems. The big problem, though, is because we’ve had a surplus, we’ve been taking from it to pay for other costs. Soon we won’t be able to do that.


Second, our debt is increasingly owned by foreign markets. At first I thought the filmmakers were going to get all isolationist and over-patriotic, but in reality they were pointing out that in the past nations (the US, actually) have used their controlling power in other nations’ debt (England, France) to influence political issues (Suez Canal). It’s a kind of freaky prospect.


Third, even if we stopped all military spending, it would still only account for about 3% of the problem. I’m not a fan of the war in Iraq, and I think I’ve been assuming it’s eating up more money than it is. 3% is a TON of money, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not the number I expected.


The panel discussion was really interesting. The moderator did at one point mention that AARP is often seen as the problem, and the AARP guy of course disagreed. Pete Peterson (he has a foundation, not sure what else he’s done) kept pointing out that special interests are an issue (ahem, AARP, I’m looking at you). The Comptroller was really interesting – he’s got some ideas and clearly is not happy with the way things are going. The Cato institute man of course was humorless and very conservative, pointing out that people need to stop expecting the government to insure them against every possible thing. Of course, if one can afford insurance for everything, they aren’t the problem. 


It was a great movie – I hope you get a chance to see it when it makes it to your town.

Tuesday

12

August 2008

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Dun, dun, da dun dun dun dun, dun dun da dun dun dun dun dun da dun dun dun (It’s the Olympic Theme!)

Written by , Posted in Reviews

Saturday I saw “The Wackness.” I wanted it to be better. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, you know? After, I did something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile – got my nose pierced again. In 2002 in L.A. I got it done, but it fell out in 2003 and the hole closed pretty quickly. I got it done in NYC, but then took it out for job interviews. I’ve been at my current job for three years, and a couple of other employees either have or have had facial piercings, so I figured it would be fine. It hurt a little, and is still sore when I clean it (ick, I know), but I’m so happy with how it looks. I missed it.

Saturday night a friend had a BBQ to celebrate her birthday. It was nice, although kind of odd, in that there was clearly some tension between a few people. But I got to spend time with good friends, so that’s all that matters.

I feel like everyone seems to think summer is winding down, but I have to say that I think it’s still going strong. The weather has been lovely lately, and tonight I got to hear a band at its first gig. NYC is good!

Thursday

29

May 2008

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COMMENTS

Singles

Written by , Posted in Reviews

Do you remember the movie Singles? I hadn’t thought of it recently, but then a site I regularly visit posted a review of it. It’s that movie with Bridget Fonda, Matt Dillon and Kyra Sedgewick, about 20-somethings in Seattle. I enjoy the movie because, in addition to beautifully capturing all that I love about my second home (Seattle), it also captures the reality of courtship better than I think most movies have since.


So much of it rings true. I certainly don’t want someone to declare their love for me on a billboard at a football game. That’s easy. But one big, grand gesture doesn’t show thoughtfulness. But unlocking your car door while you walk around the car to the driver’s side after unlocking his door?  That’s romantic.


Anyway, the review puts it much more eloquently, so I’ll just link to it here.

Friday

18

April 2008

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COMMENTS

Friday night’s alright for watching movies – Wristcutters: A Love Story

Written by , Posted in Reviews

It’s a movie with the cute kid from ‘Saved’ (Patrick Fugit), Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, a Bussey kid and Will Arnett.


Seriously.


What, you need more?


Zia (Patrick) cleans his room, and then kills himself. Which sends him to a purgatory where everything looks like the drive south on interstate 5 near the grapevine. He has to get a job (Kamikaze Pizza – heh), lives with a roommate played by someone who was once on ER, and goes to a pool hall nightly, where he meets his Russian friend, whose whole family is actually there after individual suicides.


Zia finds out his ex girlfriend killed herself, so he sets out with his Russian friend to find her. Along the way they pick up Mikal (Shannyn) and road trip ‘east’. That takes you to about 20 minutes in – the rest I’ll let reveal itself.


It’s an interesting premise – what if killing yourself really just made everything worse? Only not even bad, just sort of depressing and bleak and tiring? No one can smile, and there aren’t stars. But there’s still TV, and people still have sex. It’s like the way some people think life is, only because they’re making it that way for themselves.


I’m going to recommend this one, because it does touch on some pretty interesting themes, it’s well written, and the ending, while possibly predictable, rings true to me.


Oh, and yeah, Tom Waits is in it.  Which is reason enough for me to see anything.

Tuesday

7

August 2007

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COMMENTS

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Written by , Posted in Adventures, Reviews

I’ve been bumped up to the advanced acting class. Woo. I’m going on auditions, and even had a call back. It’s fun and kind of weird. I sometimes get nervous, but then I remember that I’m lucky in that my whole livelihood isn’t at stake. I have a great job that pays pretty well, and I have a boss who recently told me she wants to support the acting thing, so if I get cast in things we can work around it. That’s beyond rare. So I really do just treat each audition like a rehearsal. If I screw it up, I screw it up. It’s not the end of the world. And if I get a callback or, some day, a part? That’s pretty cool.
 

I don’t know about you, but I go in Netflix spurts, where I’ll not watch any of my movies for a couple of months, and then watch one or two a day for like two weeks. I’m going through the latter, and have just seen some pretty sweet documentaries. I finally saw Jesus Camp, a documentary about evangelical and pentecostal children. CREEPY. I don’t have kids, and none of my close friends have kids, so I haven’t seen, up close, how pliable children really are. And they are so genuine. This one poor girl was talking about dancing for god, and how she shouldn’t dance for the flesh. The heck? I’m conflicted – at least these parents seem to care about their kids. But oh my, the damage they could be doing. How does it help for a kid to think in some of these ways?

 

I also just finished two other documentaries – This Film is Not Yet Rated and Maxed Out. The former is about the MPAA, and puts forth some interesting ideas (note to the sensitive – don’t watch it with your parents; the nudity is off the charts, since they show a lot of what has made movies get an NC-17 rating). I didn’t think it was necessarily a good film, but it was very interesting to see the history, the censorship, and, as it seems is often the case, the delusion of those in power.   

 

Maxed Out was a bit better done, I think, and really drove home the interesting points about consumer debt. This is another place where I get conflicted. On the one hand, why aren’t people smarter about their money? And why should the collective we have to bail you out? But on the other hand, I don’t want to be the person, or be surrounded by the person, who doesn’t have compassion for the people who make some bad decisions. Does making a bad decision, or even a string of them, mean someone should be screwed forever? Should they kill themselves out of shame or desperation? Two of the people profiled were mothers of young adults who took the campus credit card bait and ended up killing themselves because they couldn’t see a way out. I do push for personal responsibility. I just wish that applied to the companies that offer credit cards to kids with no income or people who clearly already have loads of debt. And that is why I’ll never be able to be a pure capitalist – I don’t think that the market will sort everything out to a way that is satisfactory to my ideas of right and wrong.

 

Also? Totally made me want to set a stricter budget and save up.   had a great vacation this year, and I want to be able to travel more, but also . . . yeah. I should really think about the fact that I’m not so likely to win the lottery (especially since I don’t play).

 

Finally, has anyone seen “Taboo” on National Geographic channel?  Oh man. It is crazy.