Popularity and Wealth and Happiness

I feel sad when I ponder the Hollywood types, as I imagine them receiving enormous wealth and popularity, and yet discovering that they have not found happiness. I've heard countless stories of people compromising their morals, and thus degrading their souls, in an effort to reach a goal they think will bring them happiness. The cruel joke is that, en route, they give up that which could make them happy.

I would love to be wealthy. But not at that cost.

Review: Goya's Ghosts

Gains: +4
I love period pieces. This film is set during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. I am inclined to add a point to the movie as a result. Javier Bardem portrays his excellent character-acting ability. Natalie Portman does emotional acting very well, even though she does not seem to have the ability to speak with an accent. The plot bobbed and weaved tantalizingly throughout the movie and did well maintaining viewer interest. Though the subject matter was dark, the movie actually had an element of restraint when dealing with the darker images.

Losses: -6
Having said that, there still were a lot of bad elements in the movie. Nudity and violence seemed to be part of the time period. Though neither was glorified and restraint seemed to be the rule, this film still had strong elements of both. While the acting was generally strong, the mix of accents was a terrible distraction. Javier has a perfect Spanish accent to go with the Spain setting (probably because he is a Spanish actor). The Queen of Spain also uses a Spanish accent. However, the King of Spain, played by Randy Quaid, has an American accent. Natalie Portman has several variations of an American accent. Stellan Skarsgard, who played Goya, had his typical not quite Scandinavian accent. Overall, the mix was quite humorous and ridiculous.

So the movie takes you further and further into a dark plot, one filled with twists and horrible situations. A character goes insane, another is executed, another is a prostitute, many are killed in war, and just when you need a ray of sunshine, the movie ends. It seemed that they ran out of film in the camera or a major actor died or something tragic happened on the set, but alas no, they just forgot to write an ending. As soon as the credits rolled, I listed 4 things they could have done to give it a decent ending. They did none of them. So, with no point to the whole plot, the most easy straw to grasp at is that the movie was just a slam against the Catholic church, which of course is obviously full of evil people with evil purposes. Everyone "knows" the Catholics never did anything to help the world. In a movie where most of the characters had both good and bad points, couldn't the writer and director have included something to that affect for the Catholic church as a whole? At best, the writers were negligent. At worst, they were subtley malicious.

Final Judgement: -2

Treat this movie like it has leprosy (not the good kind). Even though the acting is really good, no actor can overcome a bad script ending. Even as I write this, I'm thinking that it was almost worth watching because Javier Bardem's acting was so good. If he hadn't been in the movie, it would have been totally worthless. I wholeheartedly recommend that you watch something else, like ants running about on a windowsill. That would be more worth your time.

Psalm 1

(an original psalm)

Defend me, O Lord, with your right hand.
Let not my enemies slander me.
Let not their heels crush or spurn me.
Raise your powerful voice;
declare your word against them.
Let me not be put to shame,
for unjust words fester in my soul.
Speak to them the truth of their trespasses;
and forgive when they humble themselves.
Lift your scepter;
let me speak.
Forgive me, O Lord, for my attitudes.
Open my ears to hear your voice once more.

Hanna sleeptalks, etc.

Worse than that, she actually acts exactly as if she's awake.

Last night, when I went to our bedroom, she was very asleep. Until I bumped the bed. Then she looked at me with surprisingly awake eyes and asked me if I was going to bed. In a bit, I said.

About 45 minutes later, I laid down in bed. She popped awake, sat up, and leaned over and kissed me - while looking wide awake.

Then I read a book for 30 minutes. Hanna rolled over and the light disturbed her. She opened her eyes, grabbed the front portion of my book, and bonked me in the nose with it. I said, Weirdo. Then she leaned over and stared hard at the cover of the book to see what I was reading. She already knew that.

All this happened. Yet when I questioned her about it this morning, she had no recollection of any of it. Silly person.

What I've Needed From My Dad.

For those of you who don't know, I am currently ostracized from my family. That may not be the correct word, given that it's kind of self-initiated. My dad would definitely argue that he and mom are open anytime to some kind of restitution. Of course, this is silly, because they want ME to come to THEM.

The truth is that they leveled a judgement against me, then spent 8 months trying to guilt trip me into accepting their wrong perspective. They also tried to use guilt as the coating to make me swallow the bitter pill of their rejection without fighting back. Fat chance. I'm not to blame here, I didn't start it, and I cannot just let their shameful false accusations stand without defending myself.

I have two choices:

1. I could accept dealing with my family and allowing them to feel they are justified to "confront" me on issues which are none of their business, while allowing them, in order to manufacture evidence for their case, to belittle my contributions to the family.

2. I could accept that they will never recognize any validity in my counter-arguments. I have to live with knowing that they have treated me unjustly and yet still blame me for our schism.

I've lived unhappily under Choice 1 for many years. I got tired of it, so I've moved on to Choice 2. Unfortunately, this means that anything but a distant relationship with them is impossible. Their motive is suspect. I cannot trust their words. It seems that, to them, blaming me is in their best interest.

Fine...whatever...but I cannot live around people who view me as they do. It's bad for my digestion.

What I've always needed from my dad since he dumped his load of crap in my lawn is for him to want to clean it up and show me he is working hard for my best interest as well as the family's. I will not be their scapegoat - their sacrificial lamb - any longer. Their problems are their own. When they become hungry for another victim, let them eat themselves for once.

Viva la ME!

Movie Review: Down With Love

Gains: +6
I have a fondness for good inuendo, and this movie was dripping with it. Every scene either built tension between the main characters or focused on inuendo or both. The acting was robust. Both Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger can pull off complicated roles. They even sing several duets for the soundtrack. The side characters had depth and personality. David Hyde Pierce was fantastic. The writing was tight and the dialogue was crisp. Not a word seemed wasted. The plot woos viewers with a mix of tension and humor. Since there are no real antagonists, the plot walks a tightrope between making Ewan's character likeable and detestable. I found myself rooting for him at times and against him at others.

Losses: -2
There is a major shift in the plot at one point. It was awkward. To cover it, Renee gives a extended uncut monologue (camera is on her for 1 or 2 minutes) without a break, which is funny in the way downshifting a car too early is funny. The engine grind sets your teeth on edge and you feel a nervous tingle in your spine. Also, the ending was not as amazing as the rest of the movie. I think the writing was so good that they wrote themselves into too tough a corner to wrap up neatly.

Final Judgement: +4

My thanks to Amber and Donald for stopping my trend of bad movies. I loved this movie. I'm not sure if it has rewatchability, but I'd be willing to try it again in half a year. If you're sensitive to sexual inuendo and find it more uncomfortable than funny, don't watch this movie and don't trust my judgement on it.

x4 modifier on Chance to Scare

It's a known fact that girls scare easy. Add to that the fact that Hosack girls are a little high strung and in their own worlds. Now add a closed room and a loud Gilmore Girls episode. It was a perfect storm.

I walked up to our study door, place my hand gently on the knob, and threw it open, while shouting, "What's going on here?"

You can imagine it; I call it total success. The looks and squeals were priceless.

Then, for good measure, I poured a little water on Joy's head, so she wouldn't be as homesick for Songkran. (By that time, Hanna and I already had our own water fight.)

God loves dogs

The age-old arguments about cats and dogs came into some kind of focus in my mind the other day. You see, I've been thinking dangerous thoughts about the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That led me to thinking about obedience to God.

I've been pondering this question: Is obedience stupid?

I've lived with dogs and a cat. Dogs do untold amounts of stupid tricks out of love for their owner (and of course a reward in the form of a snack). If trained properly, they obey. They can learn to do amazing feats. Eventually they learn to obey even without a treat; they obey by instinct.

Cats live their own lives. They do what they want. They too are capable of doing amazing feats, but they do it on their own for self reasons.

Many people hate dogs because, they say, dogs are stupid and cats are independent. Many other people love dogs because dogs are show more desire for your affection than cats do. (Of course, there are exceptions to these stereotypes. We are not addressing those exceptions here.)

So this leads me to think that God loves people who behave more like dogs. He would have preferred nobody would gain the knowledge of good and evil and become so painfully and awkwardly aware of their self-ness. He would have preferred, and still does prefer, less knowledgeable people responding in obedience. Of course, obedience could also lead to great feats and possibly great knowledge as well, just of a different sort - a sort that might seem silly or stupid to those of us who have lived since the Fall.

Movie Review: Becoming Jane

Gains: 0 points
Nothing stands out.

Losses: 1 point
I really wanted to enjoy two of my favorite actors - Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy - but I found them to be quite boring. I blame that on the script. It was dull and beyond predictable.

Final Judgement: -1

I have a hard time describing how I feel about this movie. By the end, I was ready to go anywhere and do anything else. My expectations were pretty high from the previews I saw. I think the movie wanted to have the depth of a Jane Austin novel, but in the attempt to mimic, it actually lost its charm.

On a weird note, Hanna actually enjoyed the movie. I can think of only one other movie that I didn't like but she loved: Mona Lisa Smile. So if you liked that movie, you might like this one.

Grumpiness

I don't know why, but starting Monday around noon, I became horribly, antisocially grumpy. I'm doing my best to cope. If even the slightest thing goes wrong for me, my inner grump takes over, starts to pout or rant, and basically throws a tantrum. I am doing a pretty good job keeping it interalized at this point, especially when I want to throw things (physical things, not tantrums).

A good life

I continue to be amazed by all the awesome things in my life. In fact, I have so much free time and many enjoyable activities to fill it with, that I don't even really have time to do everything I enjoy.

I'm breaking it down, which is a favorite mental, statistical exercise of mine, into 5 primary activity categories: spiritual, physical, and relational activities are the main ones. Then I have mental activities like reading and writing. Then I have gaming activities--especially video games.

Each of these categories has many subcategories. My time is limited, especially when I add sleep and work to the mix. So my goal has become how to combine different primary activities. So my video gaming "small group" at church takes care of 3, as does my Ping Pong-ing. Playing disc golf takes care of 2. Walking my dog takes care of 2.

I'm stuck with so many great things in life--pity me.

My Default Personhood Scale

I have recently discovered something about myself. I've discovered that, generally, my default belief is that everyone has specific motives when dealing with other people -- specifically of fair play, communication, and intelligent self-interest. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but we'll just deal with these for the moment.

You can see already there is a problem. Communication is more of a tool. Fair play is more of a social grace. And intelligent self-interest is a "self" goal. So, I'm comparing and contrasting very different things. But they are strongly related in my mind. So if you are confused at any point, please ask, and I will try to explain.

Let's define the terms in terms of how I term the terms. Fair play means "equitable or impartial treatment", but for me it also has a chivalrous undertone marked by honor, fairness, generosity, and kindliness. Communication refers to every form of communication: verbal, physical, emotional, tonal, and word choice. Self-interest refers to the ability of someone to see what they want and do whatever it takes to get it: a form of selfishness. This is not what I mean. I add the word "intelligent" to "self-interest" to refer specifically to the ability to select the good things in life and do whatever it takes to get those. (For instance, someone who wants unmarital sex could make plans to obtain that goal; but that someone may also desire to get into heaven, a path which, when walked, doesn't lead to infidelity or degredation of the body.) Intelligent self-interest refers to proper goal selection, then doing whatever it takes to reach those goals.

You have probably already noted that many times these aspects are mutually exclusive or completely parallel or entirely unrelated to each other. Sometimes communication is overrulled by intelligent self-interest. Sometimes fair play requires you to be too honest. Sometimes you have to give up your self-interest in order to be fair, or to maintian intelligent self-interest you have to sacrifice fairness and communication. I see it as a circle graph, with each aspect touching and influencing the others to some degree.

When I first meet you, I label you according to which of the above three rules you use in your dealings with people. When I add Time to these ingredients, I begin to see what level of importance you place on each of these three pegs. This tells me a lot about your "personhood".

Generally, this is the measure I use to understand someone, and from there to build my respect or distrust for someone's motives. I will deal with motive on my next post.

Movie Review: The Butterfly Effect

I will begin to review movies which I have recently seen, and perhaps you will get to know me a bit better. My rating system is entirely my own. All movie scores begin at 0 points (being neutral) before gains and losses are factored in. I'm going for as close to 0 as I feel I can, to keep the scoring more syncronized

Gains: 2 points
The Butterfly Effect has a fascinating plot, with pretty good acting. I can say that I enjoy watching Ashton Kutcher in anything. Amy Smart is also very good. The pacing and script were also worthy of mention.

Losses: 5 points
The writing, while it reaches my overall expectations, has way too much negative content. Cursing was overabundant (I get the point, now can you spare my ears?). Random nudity occurs in a couple places. Several times there was ample opportunity but it was avoided; however other times, the viewer receives a quick flash. Too much violence was shown. In a dark movie, you can gain points for tastefulness. I like dark movies that have good sense in what they show and what they merely imply. They did not do enough to censor themselves. Also, the movie felt downright malicious in its graphic nature -- even spiritually evil by the end. It was kind of disturbing.

Final Judgement: -3

Did the producers get what they wanted out of the movie? I think so. Did the dark elements contribute to the storyline? Yes, they did. The problem was that there was so much evilness and no redeeming qualities. Even the hero has to be evil to get a good resolution. They could have toned the "rawness" of the movie down a bit to make their movie more palpable to a larger audience. The movie was a blockbuster idea wrapped in filth. If they had cleaned it up a bit, I think it could have been awesome.