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Last night, I watched David Lynch’s Dune. I like Lynch’s movies, and I loved the book (at least I did, when I read it 15 or so years ago), so I was doubly disappointed that the film turned into cheesy B movie somewhere in the first 1/2 hour. The plot was good; unfortunately the acting, dialog, effects, pacing, editing and music weren’t. However, there is one peach of a quote in the movie, which is my entire reason for writing this short review. Here it is:
A person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change, something inside us sleeps, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
I used this in one of my songs. But it’s worth quoting here.
Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. And this is where I think language came from.
I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another.
And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like, you know, “water.” We came up with a sound for that. Or “Saber-toothed tiger right behind you.” We came up with a sound for that.
But when it gets really interesting, I think, is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing.
What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love?
When I say “love,” the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and they say yes, they understand.
But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead, you know?
And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable.
And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we’ve connected, and we think that we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.
This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert “An Inconvenient Truth.”
After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists’ findings.
“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.”
Hardison’s e-mail to the School Board prompted board member David Larson to propose the moratorium Tuesday night.
Critic Joel Siegel made a scene as he left the screening of Kevin Smith’s movie. Smith’s response:
I mean, it’s Joel Siegel, for Christ’s sake. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said of the man, getting a bad review from Siegel is like a badge of honor. This is the guy who stole his mustachioed critic shtick from Gene Shalit years ago, and still refuses to give it back. This is a guy who seemingly prides himself on being “punny” - that is, he likes to add his own nyuk-nyuk wordplay into the reviews he writes/gives…
Check this shit out: roughly forty minutes into the flick, when Randal orders up the third act donkey show, Siegel bellowed to his fellow critics “Time to go!’’ and “This is the first movie I’ve walked out of in 30 fucking years!’’
Now, I don’t need Joel Siegel to suck my dick the way he apparently sucks M. Night’s, gushing over his flick before he’s even seen it; but shit, man - how about a little common fucking courtesy?
…
You never… NEVER disrupt a movie, simply because you don’t like it.
Cardinal rule of movie-going: shut your fucking mouth while the movie’s playing. They even ask you to do so in the pre-show run-up to every flick (”Cell phones and pagers off, no talking during the show”). This guy went beyond talking, even; he was making a spectacle of himself as he left. I’ve now spoken to three folks in attendance last night, and all have said that Siegel WANTED everyone to know how disgusted he was, and that he was leaving. If you want to share your displeasure with everyone, that’s fine, dude; just do it AFTER the movie, not during.