From: (No Email available)

Date: 2004-08-22 00:53:33

Comment:

First I'd like to pass on some comments from my girlfriend:

"They say there's no good or bad, but if they caught me torturing little puppies, I bet they wouldn't hesitate to tell me I was being real bad!"

"The wedding scene was self-indulgent film-making that looked like a cereal commercial!"

This movie just opened in Denver to quite a buzz, but I had no idea I was being sucked into a New Age recruiting mechanism.  On a certain level it's fascinating that New Agers have taken this leap to legitimize their philosophy.  And my direct experience of the flick alternated between mild entertaining to moderate annoyance.  But intellectually I found it mostly useless and would largely concur with the first respondent to the review, who was mostly spot on.  Except I would agree with the mild criticism offered that perhaps "desperate" is a bit strong.  There's evidently a human need to make sense of the world, so why judge it as desperate?  But those who claimed that that respondent must be sad are ridiculous.  There's no need to be saddened by the reality that there is no external "purpose" to our existence.  You're only exhibiting your own addiction (ha-ha!) to the need for such meaning when you get so defensive when someone challenges your belief system!  Most pathetic of all are the respondents who  said well at least it's better than really stupid movies like Rambo and such.  I dunno, maybe you're young and have seen nothing but stupid movies all your lives, but to me that's like saying one shouldn't criticize the overcooked celery because at least it's better than the cardboard I usually eat!

Sigh.  Look, new age philosophy has good and bad points to my mind, but this movie essentially sucked because it was essentially a propaganda and recruitment film for a marginally worthwhile (and as my girlfriend points out, potentially harmful by denying morality) POV based disengenuously on what the first respondent accurately pointed out is a very weak combination of psuedo-science and trendy social concerns.

But hey, if you get a kick out of it, fine.  As I said, I thought it had its mildly entertaining moments.  And who couldn't wish for a cranky, depressed woman to get out of her bad karma-induced rut?  (Though I suspect she'll soon be back at the shrink's office begging for more pills to replace the ones she tossed out through the basketball net!  And BTW, I bet that token black kid could whip her ass!!) But all in all, I wish we'd gone to see Bugs at the Imax instead!