Things I've Been Taking In.

The Up Series: By chance I stumbled across this film in Netflix, I had really no idea of the history behind it, or any notion that it was a re-occurring series. Amy and I watched it Saturday, in a particularly open mood. It was shocking and touching to me to watch so much of a persons life course chart in such a short time span before me. The premise is that in 1964 21 children age 7, all from different economic circumstance were interviewed on the subject of their lives to come, their desires and dreams, their feelings about their situation, and just general chat. In addition their their daily lives were filmed, in an attempt I believe to show each person in their actual context. After the first film 7up, there were no plans to make it a series, but along the way, that changed, and 7 years later, 14up was filmed and released. Followed by an update every 7 years, leading till the current edition, and the only one I've seen 49up.
To see the obvious strain that 49 years of a life examined in such an odd public way was really food for thought. It made me think about how dishonest we can really be with ourselves. With no one coming around every 7 years and plainly stating facts of your place in life. The details we all tend to skip when someone asks us how we are, those embarrassing facts that somehow don't get mentioned, even to the people closest to us. My god, I wouldn't blog if they made me tell the entire truth, and I doubt many would either. And then you have the crux of the reality TV, documentary problem, being that in no way are these things the product of non-evasive observation. They directly effect and change the course of the thing they are attempting to document, and often times with out ever bothering to present just how much the effect of the camera, crew, contract, financial compensation, stature, fame, ego all have upon the subject. This was another aspect of 49up that I found fascinating was the fact that they did not shy away from speaking about resentment of the project, or the occasional pride in the project. This really is a remarkable work, I am surprised to have never been told of it. Consider yourselves told. Add it to your Queue. Hoagie, you were the only person with whom I've mentioned this, that had actually heard of them, further more you'd actually seen them, for future reference, lets try and pass this stuff on to people like me, folks are not out there talking about this stuff enough.

Idiocracy: This movie, made by Mike Judge, who brought you one of my favorites, "Office Space", and a couple television shows was another film I took in this weekend. I dropped the ball a bit here, as my brother Devin was dying to watch it with me, and I didn't manage to make that work. I should have seen it with him, it would have been fun. The movie is really a funny look at the way our culture is heading, and I can recommend it worth the watch, but it's not for everyone. The extreme ability to laugh at the shocking reality of our current social situation is a must, and trust me, not many of us have it. It's also not a greatly in depth satire, it's not going to tell you things that you don't know, and it's not going to tell them to you in any way you haven't feared, but to see it come to life on the screen will make you go OMG, everyone I know who isn't breading needs to start, because we got to balance out this whole Jackass, Fearfactor, Carl's Junior world we are starting to become at the hands of other peoples dumb children.

I was also going to say I saw "Little Miss Sunshine", and I guess I just did, but I have nothing really to add about the thing, just that you should see it if you haven't and I'm sure you planned to. It's a good movie.

Bye,
one more till 300