On reflection, testifying to the inner reality

“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” — Ricky Fitts

This year’s (2008’s) crop of Oscar nominated movies seemed to lack in the way of uplift: the Academy deemed the best movies for 2007 to be 1) No Country for Old Men (winner… but a complete downer, violent, too), 2) There Will Be Blood (Daniel Day Lewis plays a psycho oil baron with a father disorder), 3) Atonement (a love story, but with false accusations of rape), 4) Michael Clayton (depressing indictment of corporate man… and woman), 5) Juno (this is the cheerful one, and it’s about teenage pregnancy!). Continue reading →

The quintessential “trapped in the 1950s” story

Frank Wheeler: I want to feel things. Really feel them.
April Wheeler: Don’t you see? That’s the whole idea! You’ll be able to do what you should have been allowed to do seven years ago, you’ll have the time. For the first time in your life, you’ll have the time to find out what it is you actually want to do. And when you figure it out, you’ll have the time and the freedom, to start doing.
Frank Wheeler: This doesn’t seem very realistic.
April Wheeler: No, Frank. This is what’s unrealistic. It’s unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working year after year at a job he can’t stand. Coming home to a place he can’t stand, to a wife who’s equally unable to stand the same things. And you know what the worst part of it is? Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we’re special. That we’re superior to the whole thing. But we’re not. We’re just like everyone else! We bought into the same, ridiculous delusion. That we have to resign from life and settle down the moment we have children. And we’ve been punishing each other for it. Continue reading →