moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies: Guides To Life

Ethics + Logic = Justice

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 13:00:26 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Sang Hyun Cho from Pixabay

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

First comes ethics. You must have some guiding principle that helps you determine what is the more virtuous path, that is, what is the more decent, honorable, or noble thing to do. Without this guidance, there is confusion, chaos, and an inability to decide what is right and what is wrong. If you have no standards to help you figure this out, you are not morally ready to take on any kind of responsibility.

Then, in order to be effective and actually put an ethical principle into practice, you must apply logic and reason. No good or useful outcome can come from a course of action that is not grounded in reality or denies fundamental truths. Again, without an anchor to how the universe actually works, there is confusion, chaos, and an inability to see what is right or beneficial and what is wrong or harmful.

12 Angry Men (1957) is a drama directed by Sidney Lumet about twelve jurors who are tasked with rendering an unanimous verdict on a criminal case—premeditated murder in the first degree, which means the death penalty for the accused if they find him guilty.

Life Lesson: “Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.”
— George Iles (1852-1942)
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

But if you have an ethical principle guiding you, such as what Henry Fonda’s “Juror #8” character demonstrates in the 1957 courtroom drama, 12 Angry Men, and likewise have the ability to use logic and reason to come closer to understanding the truth of a situation, as the twelve men do in the movie, then you have created the necessary components needed to bring about justice.

Specifically, Juror #8 is intrinsically motivated to persuade his fellow jurors to examine the evidence carefully and thoughtfully in order to be fair to the defendant. He is steadfast in behaving in this virtuous manner even if it means that he stands alone, and even if he is viciously attacked by those who want him to conform to their judgement. His integrity, patience, and strength emanate from having clear ethical standards.

But that’s not enough. His only avenue to putting his ethical principles into practice is to use logic and reason to persuade the other jurors to question the arguments they heard during the trial and to think for themselves. Without his ability to break down the different pieces of evidence and examine them vigorously, his ethical stance would amount to little more than speechmaking.

Instead, this combination of ethics plus logic leads to a greater good—justice. And of course it must be so. If virtue isn’t a guiding force, then we would not seek justice. We would just let bad things happen, turn a blind eye, and be indifferent to injustice. At the same time, if there is no fidelity to reality, then our beliefs couldn’t result in the implementation of justice since it’s impossible to enact change in the real world while being misled by delusions.

So justice can only come about from a willingness to be fair—to hold ourselves to a high ethical standard that involves being open minded, free from prejudice, and with appropriate empathy—as well as an ability to accept the reality that is uncovered by using logic and reason.

The movie 12 Angry Men does a brilliant job of revealing this truth to us, hence it is worthy of being studied for the wisdom it contains, which includes an even deeper revelation about justice. It turns out that this movie is an application of an ancient Jewish law that deemed an unanimous guilty verdict as a sign that something has gone wrong in the process because without dissent, without doubt, there is no justice.

In other words, groupthink is not justice, mob rule is not justice, hence the Talmud ruled that if everyone agreed on someone’s guilt then the defendant would be acquitted since it indicated that the defendant was not given a rigorous enough defense and/or that the judges colluded to arrive at the verdict, which would be unjust.

The ethical principle underlying this law was to not punish an innocent person even if in the process a guilty person would go free. Of course the American legal system holds this same belief, but unlike this ancient law, the US requires an unanimous verdict in criminal trials as is shown in the movie.

The Unanimous Verdict According To The Talmud

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It’s rare to find a film that hues so closely to reality and with eloquent artistry educates us not only by holding a mirror up to us so we can see who we truly are, but also by showing us how the world we live in can work in a more ethical and just manner.

This is a great movie, brilliantly acted and written. It’s a masterpiece and a masterclass on justice and the importance of understanding reasonable doubt.

To watch it is to be enlightened and to appreciate the profound importance of dissent:

If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.

— Frederick Buechner

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Stop Fighting With Yourself

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 23 May 2023 13:00:37 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Md Abdul Rashid from Pixabay

One day while walking past a window you may notice a curious phenomenon: a bird repeatedly hitting the glass. Why does this happen? Apparently, the bird is likely a male who sees his own reflection as a rival bird trying to claim his territory. So obviously the only recourse is to fight this intruder—who of course turns out to be just himself—potentially causing self-harm. Likewise, you may have witnessed a curious, but easily frightened, cat who interacts with a harmless object only to overreact and create a path of destruction as a result.

You may be tempted to judge these behaviors negatively, perhaps you may call them simple-minded, or silly, or unnecessarily self-destructive. And you wouldn’t be wrong, except that if you look at your own past behavior objectively, there is a high chance that you’ve engaged in similar reactive actions. In fact, you may be able to notice that you’ve made yourself unhappy, made your life harder than it needed to be, and created more difficulty for yourself, all on your own.

There are a few movies with characters who develop this kind of self-awareness and find ways to change themselves for the better, and in so doing discover that life can be a lot easier and much more pleasant as a result. May they be inspirations to you:

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is a comedy written and directed by George Seaton, based on the story by Valentine Davies, about an elderly man, Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn), who believes he is Santa Claus and convinces many of the people he meets that he is.

Life Lesson: Believe in the goodness of other people.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) is a comedy written and directed by John Hughes about two very different men, uptight executive Neal Page (Steve Martin) and jovial salesman Del Griffith (John Candy), who embark on an accident-prone Thanksgiving journey together.

Life Lesson: “Don’t sweat the small stuff …and it’s all small stuff.”
— Richard Carlson
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Scrooged (1988) is a comedy directed by Richard Donner, adapted from Charles Dickens’ classic book, A Christmas Carol, about Frank Cross (Bill Murray), a cold-hearted TV executive who is given the chance to change his callous ways by three ghosts.

Life Lesson: “Put a little love in your heart, and the world will be a better place.”
— Jackie DeShannon
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Strictly Ballroom (1992) is a comedy co-written and directed by Baz Luhrmann about Fran (Tara Morice), a novice dancer who convinces Scott (Paul Mercurio), a ballroom champion, to be her partner for the Pan Pacific Grand Prix, and dance the steps their way, non-Federation, even though it means forfeiting a win.

Life Lesson: “Vivir con miedo es como vivir a medias.”
— A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Groundhog Day (1993) is a comedic fantasy co-written and directed by Harold Ramis about Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a self-centered grouch who repeatedly wakes up on the same day, February 2, until he learns to care about others.

Life Lesson: You will be a happier person if you take joy in the simple pleasures of life: books, music, learning, being kind to others.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

High Fidelity (2000) is a comedy directed by Stephen Frears based on the book by Nick Hornby about Rob Gordon (John Cusack), an insecure, immature, and selfish record store owner who looks for answers to his relationship problems by tracking down five previous ex-girlfriends.

Life Lesson: If you want to have a good relationship with someone, then don’t hold back. Give it all you’ve got.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

The hardest thing of course is actually changing your mindset or behavior so that you invite positivity, happiness, and good outcomes rather than their opposites into your life. In many movies this kind of change only happens after some extraordinary or magical intervention. Nevertheless, the movies themselves paint a clear path of how to do it: since others influence your level of contentment, get people to like you. How? Be nice. Is it so hard to look at other fellow beings as similar to you in the most basic and fundamental ways?

Yes, it is, because plenty of other people aren’t so nice, are they? But your happiness depends on being able to be at ease, to be in harmony with your surroundings, which includes lots of people. So you have to rise above and be the observer looking at yourself objectively from a distance as you would the territorial bird or the scaredy cat. The lessons are clear: Do not be afraid, do not be fearful, do not anticipate negativity, do not make things worse than they are by being defensive and carrying a chip on your shoulder all the time. Stop taking everything, including yourself, so seriously.

Relax, see others as possible allies, not enemies. Be open, embrace imperfection in others, forgive them their selfishness and ignorance, move on, laugh it off, look for workarounds, look for ways to care about others and show kindness to others, or at least be extremely polite. And be cheerful.

And change your mind about someone. It will do you a world of good, especially if that someone is you.

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Who Are You?

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 16 May 2023 13:00:36 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Luka Akure on Pixabay

Writer, director and producer John Hughes made some remarkable films, including Pretty in Pink (1986) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), both of which are treasures. One good but imperfect1 movie of his that also delves into the emotional lives of teenagers is The Breakfast Club (1985).

The Breakfast Club (1985) is a drama written and directed by John Hughes about a group of high school students who are sent to detention for breaking various school rules and learn that they share many of the same difficulties, including peer pressure, class discrimination, and family trauma.

Life Lesson: The categories you fit into aren’t your identity; you are still an individual who is able to choose.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

What’s striking about this movie is that the characters are real and natural, which is a testament not only to the writing, but also to the strength of the actors. This is no small feat. Most movies lack this kind of authenticity, and therefore make it difficult for audiences to relate to the protagonists. What’s even more impressive about The Breakfast Club is that this character development is done mostly through dialogue and in one room, much like a play. We get to learn about the kids, their backstories, their faults and strengths, at the same time that they are learning these things about each other. It’s a brilliant plot device.

But what do they and we really learn? This is the question at the core of the The Breakfast Club, which starts with the authoritarian Vice-Principal, Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason) asking them each to write a 1,000 word essay that describes “who you think you are.” His motivation may simply be to punish them, but when he gives out this assignment he tells them that “maybe you’ll learn something about yourself.” And indeed, this burned-out educator’s words turn out to be prophetic, because that is exactly what happens.

The movie opens with a song recorded by the Scottish rock band Simple Minds, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” that was inspired by a scene in the movie. And the lyrics give us a roadmap of what’s to come:

Won't you come see about me?
I'll be alone dancing, you know it baby.

Tell me your troubles and doubts,
Giving me everything inside and out.

The song continues to play softly in the background as Brian, one of the students being held in detention, reads:

Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see as as you want to see us.

This is one of the truths that is revealed in the movie. People see us how they want to see us, and we see others as we want to see them as well. In other words, we find ourselves being put and putting others into rigid categories that separate us. But if we, as the characters do in the movie, were to tell each other “our troubles and doubts” revealing “everything inside and out” what we’d find is that we aren’t that different from each other, and that the reason for the division is an illusion.

The kids in The Breakfast Club attack each other and they stand up for each other. They are from different cliques and reveal their hostility to one another in different ways, but when it comes to undermining the authority figure, Vice-Principal Vernon, they stick together, even refusing to rat out the bully who torments them all. It’s another representation of the “in-group” vs “out-group” categorization, with the movie hinting that Mr. Vernon was once like the rebellious kids he now resents.

So it turns out that all the characters are like part of a bickering but loyal to each other family, and isn’t it a family we all belong to? In the end, the reason John Hughes films work is because they are relatable, even if on the surface you may think you have nothing in common with a bunch of teenagers in detention at a high school in 1984.

But in these characters we see ourselves, and we see our shared humanity. We see the divisions and the difficulty—the obstacles that prevent us from getting along. And we see the beautiful uplifting, yet fleeting and fragile possibility of harmony—if we didn’t forget that we have more in common with each other than it seems.

The lyrics continue in the ending scene:

Will you recognize me?
Call my name or walk on by? [...]

Don't you forget about me,
As you walk on by.

Will you call my name,
When you walk away?

Or will you walk away?

It’s a touching reminder of what’s really at stake: our individual identities. Although we may belong to a particular group or groups and can easily be put into categories, we are nonetheless individuals capable of deciding who our friends are, as well as the kind of person we want to be. We always have that choice.

So, choose wisely.

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The Breakfast Club is imperfect because it contains some harmful messaging that includes romanticizing abusive relationships (Bender and Claire), promoting the idea that looks are more important than personality (Allison and Andrew), and that drug use is liberating. It’s disappointing that John Hughes created a movie where a young woman is viciously berated for most of it by an unapologetic vulgar bully whom she then falls in love with. Likewise, it is a bit strange that the nonconformist aloof girl is pretty easily persuaded to change her appearance and in so doing automatically becomes acceptable as girlfriend material, irrespective of her inner character. Lastly, the glorification of drug use, a problem that has led to the utter devastation of entire families due to addiction, is jarring, discordant, and unfortunate.

On Being Noble In Drama, Sci-Fi & Comedy Films

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 02 May 2023 13:00:49 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble

Maybe it’s not really that surprising that past movies influence future ones. It’s pretty obvious that film directors, like all of us, are influenced by the larger media environment. This is even more apparent when individual movies enter the zeitgeist and become part of the culture. After all, how could these classics not have some kind of impact on filmmakers?

But what may be a more interesting discovery is the idea that past movies may not only shape story, character, cinematography, but also the core message of newer films. Such is the case with the romantic drama Casablanca (1942), the sci-fi epic Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), and the parody Spaceballs (1987). These are three movies with essentially one shared Life Lesson.

Casablanca (1942) is a drama directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the play, Everybody Comes to Rick’s, about a married couple, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), who ask American businessman Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) for help in escaping the Nazis in Morocco.

Life Lesson: Sometimes a situation calls for you to be the noble hero.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) is a fantasy written and directed by George Lucas about a scrappy group of rebels, including Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), who team up to destroy the Death Star, a weapon powerful enough to obliterate a planet.

Life Lesson: Fight for something greater than yourself.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Spaceballs (1987) is a comedy co-written and directed by Mel Brooks about a father, King Roland (Dick Van Patten), who hires a mercenary, Lone Starr (Bill Pullman), and his sidekick, Barf (John Candy), to rescue his daughter, Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), from an invading force led by Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis).

Life Lesson: Doing good is its own reward.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

For a full analysis of how Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) is in many ways a re-imagination of the World War II drama Casablanca (1942), please see Bryan Young’s article “The Cinema Behind Star Wars: Casablanca” and Michael Heilemann’s article “The Origins Of Star Wars.” In sum, the heroes in these two films, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) appear to be cynical scoundrels who only look out for themselves, only to reveal in the end that they are more noble, more willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause, for love, than anyone else.

In addition to the Rick Blaine and Han Solo parallels discussed in the previous articles, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) share several similarities, too. In terms of imagery and characterization, for example, the female lead in Casablanca, Ilsa often wears white and is a fighter handy with a gun as is the female lead in Star Wars, Princess Leia. Both sport a white veil in iconic scenes, and both are the love interests of the heroes.

And of course, Spaceballs (1987) is a parody, mimicking for great gags as much of the visual imagery and characterization of Star Wars as possible, including Princess Leia’s white dress and her hairstyle, as well as Darth Vader’s dark helmet look, the Stormtroopers’ white uniform, a female version of the iconic humanoid protocol droid C-3PO, called Dot Matrix, voiced by comedian Joan Rivers, and the anti-hero mercenary modeled after Han Solo, aptly named Lone Starr (Bill Pullman), who has many of the same rogue personality traits.

But what really unites these three films is a fidelity to the idea that behaving in an honorable, virtuous, noble manner results in a greater good. All the main characters, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) put themselves in harm’s way and sacrifice something in order to help others: Rick Blaine by giving up his relationship with the woman he loves, Han Solo by risking his life to fight in a losing battle, and Lone Starr by not accepting the reward money he was promised for rescuing the princess. And yet, none of these acts lead to sad endings. On the contrary, all these movies end on upbeat notes, with the characters being recognized for their sacrifices, and with essentially the same message from Casablanca, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

In other words, what all three movies wind up saying is that you’re a better person for acting nobly, for you gain greater rewards as a result, primarily the knowledge of your integrity and capabilities, including your willingness to sacrifice yourself to help someone you love. This is a level of personal satisfaction and self-assurance that is long lasting and which no amount of wealth or creature comforts can bestow.

Now that is a valuable insight about life and living that you can take to the bank.

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The Life Manual In "Groundhog Day" (1993)

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 13:01:00 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

— Bertrand Russell

If you’ve ever wondered how we are supposed to live or what we should do to have a happy, fulfilling life, the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day has the answers. Sure, on the surface it may seem like a silly movie about a weatherman named Phil who covers Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog at the center of the February 2 Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania who according to tradition can predict whether there will be six more weeks of winter or not. But if you think juxtaposing two weathermen, one animal and one human, is a silly premise for a movie, well, isn’t life equally as silly? And that turns out to be one of the lessons demonstrated in what is a deeply meaningful movie with real affection for the audience, a true love of humanity, and a wish to deliver joy to others, which happens to be another of the great lessons found in this amazing movie about redemption.

Groundhog Day (1993) is a comedic fantasy co-written and directed by Harold Ramis about Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a self-centered grouch who repeatedly wakes up on the same day, February 2, until he learns to care about others.

Life Lesson: You will be a happier person if you take joy in the simple pleasures of life: books, music, learning, being kind to others.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

First, we are shown how NOT to be happy—being elitist, looking down on people, not joining in celebration with others, being egotistical, aloof, arrogant, snobbish, rude, condescending, self-centered, self-indulgent, and self-pitying are all the ingredients needed for a miserable life. In the movie we know that Phil Connors (Bill Murray), the weatherman, is unhappy because he embodies all the above qualities, which lead him to be unreasonably angry, always grouchy, mean to others, standoffish, antisocial, resentful, pessimistic, and a jerk full of disdain for everyone and everything.

We are also shown what things will not work to make us happy: being reckless, not thinking or being concerned about consequences, being gluttonous, egocentric, selfish or suicidal. All of these actually increase pain and suffering, not just for ourselves but for others, strangers and loved ones alike, and have a long tail of negative effects that compounds the unhappiness.

The real way to happiness according to Groundhog Day is found by embracing sincerity. Being honest with yourself allows you to see the genuineness in others, which allows you to learn to care about others, to have compassion, which leads to being able to show kindness and love to someone, which induces a feeling of wanting to help make others happy, including yourself, which leads to an appreciation for learning, for literature, for music, and the urge to make the most out of life, to take responsibility for yourself, which includes learning new skills, enjoying the present moment for what it is, and realizing that today is tomorrow.

Or, as Phil Connors puts it in the movie,

When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark, bereft of hope. Yet, we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people to Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

In other words, Groundhog Day teaches us that life is not a curse. It all depends on how you look at it, and you can have a fulfilling life full of meaning and purpose by being a better person who is a net positive force in your and others’ lives.

But, didn’t you always know that?

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The Wisest, Most Helpful, Movie Wisdom Posts

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:01:36 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Mabel Amber from Pixabay

Films that show how dedication, commitment, and focus work to achieve goals.
Look, Whatever You Want, You Can Get!
A List Of Movies That Show How To Make Your Dreams Come True
“If you can dream it, you can do it.”
— Walt Disney
Movies that epitomize virtue and inspire a more noble expression of the self.
Reaching The Divine Through Movies
Finding Transcendence On The Screen
“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
― Socrates
Learn about behaviors that lead to cruelty and how to cultivate compassion.
How To Be More Compassionate? Push Back.
Life Lessons From Movie Heroes
“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
― Seneca
Understand the real threat of losing one’s home that property taxes pose.
When A House Is A Tragic Character
A Tale Of Two Movies: "House of Sand and Fog" (2003) and "Up" (2009)
“If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”
— President Ronald Reagan
Explore the different definitions of love used in movies.
What Is Love?
The True Definition According To The Movies
“Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved.”
— Søren Kierkegaard
Films that show we can be happier with a simple change of perspective.
Change Your Perspective, And Change Your Life?
12 Movies To Help See Things Differently For A Healthier, Happier You
“You can change your experience of the world, which is the same as changing the world.”
— Professor George Saunders
Learn better communication from constructive conversations in movies.
Communication Insights From Movies
Tips From Five Films To Help You Communicate Better
“When all other means of communication fail, try words.”
—Anonymous
Movies that show examples of individuals finding success after failure.
There Is No Bad News; There Are Only Blessings In Disguise
5 Movies On Success After Failure
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
— Winston S. Churchill
Learn how to feel fulfilled and happy by finding what interests you.
Going Through An Existential Crisis?
Some Advice On Happiness From A Few Good Movies
“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
— Mark Twain
Films that share timeless, useful, and powerful life advice.
Six Films That Leave You Better Off
Life Lessons From Inspiring Documentaries
“Expose yourself to the best things that humans have done, and then try to bring those things into what you are doing.”
— Steve Jobs
What is known about life and the movies that demonstrate those truths.
A Summary Of The Best Life Lessons From Movies
Or, Everything “moviewise” Knows So Far
If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.
— Sir Isaac Newton

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Life Lessons From Movie Villains

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 14:01:16 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by OpenClipart from Pixabay

Behind every great man is a great villain.

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

The above quote can be interpreted in two ways. The first interpretation is that in order to excel and be great, one must be pushed along that path by a worthy opponent, a personal villain. This rings true since you need the coarseness of a stone to sharpen a knife. The other view is that we all are, or have the potential to become, villains ourselves. After all, even if we think of ourselves as good, famed screenwriter Christopher Vogler reminds us that "every villain is a hero of his or her own story." Whether we need villains in our lives to reach our potential, or are villains ourselves, understanding their portrayal in movies can help us gain better insight into ourselves.

One reason movie villains fascinate us is because they allow us to see a part of our hidden selves represented. Take, for example, the Grinch from How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), a character who is so annoyed by the overzealous, loud, and intrusive partying of the Whos of Whoville that he plots to steal every item used in their celebrations, including all the food, presents, and decorations. Although he is the villain, a mean-spirited grouch, we nevertheless understand his annoyance, and through him are able to live out a kind of forbidden fantasy.

And this vicarious expression of our less noble impulses is really the appeal of many villains. To quote director Guillermo del Toro, "villains are complex characters that allow us to explore the darker parts of ourselves." How many among us could resist the allure of living life like Lex Luthor, the ultra wealthy mastermind villain of Superman (1978), who pretty much is able to get anything he wants.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) is an animated fantasy co-directed by Chuck Jones, based on the Dr. Seuss book, about a grinch who tries to ruin the Christmas celebrations of the Whos of Whoville.

Life Lesson: Don’t be a grinch; partake in and enjoy the festivities around you.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Superman (1978) is a fantasy directed by Richard Donner, based on the comic book by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, about the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve), a superhero from the planet Krypton who tries to help humanity by fighting criminals like Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), while hiding his identity.

Life Lesson: “Integrity is your destiny; it is the light that guides your way.” — Plato
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

This craving for ultimate power and control over others is a recurring theme found in many villains, which makes sense since in real life most of us have very little sway over anyone else, and are in fact quite helpless. But a powerful character like Jafar, the scheming government official in Aladdin (1992) who plots to take the place of the sultan, allows us to have our frustration at being put second visualized.

Having our potential be limited by others and being powerless are common enough experiences that we intuitively understand the lure to the dark side that Anakin Skywalker feels when he is denied the rank of Jedi Master and believes he is being held back by his teachers in Revenge of the Sith (2005). Eventually, of course, he succumbs to his anger and becomes the monstrous Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies. These characters give representation to inner pain we may have felt, and validate actor Colin Farrell’s observation that “the most interesting villains are the ones who have a point.”

Aladdin (1992) is an animated fantasy based on the story from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights), co-written and co-directed by Ron Clements and John Musker about Aladdin, a petty thief (Scott Weinger) who finds a magic lamp and befriends the genie (Robin Williams) inside.

Life Lesson: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
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Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) is a fantasy written and directed by George Lucas about a scrappy group of rebels, including Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), who team up to destroy the Death Star, a weapon powerful enough to obliterate a planet.

Life Lesson: Fight for something greater than yourself.
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When villains reach their peak destructive powers, however, this allows us to have a cathartic release of our inner frustrations and secret wishes, while simultaneously being shown that this is not the way to be. Or, as director Joss Whedon put it, “villains are essential because they represent the obstacles we must overcome.” In the end, naturally, the villains always lose because the way toward peace and inner harmony is never found in hurting or ruling over others, since this just leads to more resentment, more hate, and more suffering for all.

Note also that this means you are not a hero when you look down on people so that you can pity them, particularly if you also hope to be crowned their savior. This is just another embodiment of the urge to rule over others. Patronizing, self-aggrandizing behavior that somehow gives you a bigger role than the “victims” you are “advocating” for or “protecting” is actually pretty harmful to everyone involved because it creates victims where there aren’t any and terrible “solutions” with profoundly negative unintended consequences because the “problems” are more imagined than real.

In these cases, it’s probably better to stop trying to be a hero. Be honest instead. Look at the world with humility, and look at people for who they are as sovereign individuals, not members of victim categories you’ve made up so you can lord over others. The truth is that the people you think are victims are likely in stronger positions and have access to more resources and help than you do. You can better help individuals by giving them the space and opportunity to find inner strength and self-reliance, rather than weaken them by making them dependent on you or on others. As Voltaire said, “it is not inequality which is the real misfortune; it is dependence.”

In the movies and in real life, only heroes guided by love, empathy, and respect for the autonomy and self-determination of others create true happiness for all. Villains, on the other hand, are obviously guided by the opposite impulses, by hate, spitefulness, and an indifference to the suffering of individuals that comes as a result of wanting to rule over them.

But at least in the movies, the villains are eventually justly defeated. By setting up a contrast in outcomes, movie villains then become even more valuable and enduring ethical guides for us.

Villains are simply victims whose stories haven't been told.

— Chris Colfer (actor)

You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

— Harvey Dent (The Dark Knight, 2008)

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Choose An Ordinary Or An Extraordinary Life?

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 14:01:19 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Clker Free from Pixabay

There is a pull one feels toward being better than average, toward standing out, achieving more than the usual, being remembered for having an impact. In other words, somehow as we go through life we get the message that we should be extraordinary, or at least work toward it. In a way this is natural and an organic result of the fact that people notice outliers. Whenever someone does something that is unusual, difficult, or impressive, a kind of frenzy manifests around that person. A stellar student is commended by the entire school; awards are given out in flamboyant ceremonies to high achievers; poems, songs, articles are written about accomplished, impactful individuals. How could we not then at some point think, why not me? Why shouldn’t I try to be one of these people whom everyone appears to know about and therefore seemingly has a more meaningful, interesting life?

Except that there is a dark side to this pursuit and many pitfalls. For one thing, being noticed by others potentially brings with it a loss of privacy and a barrage of unwanted attention that can include the mean-spirited, jealous judgements of others. For another, it is clear that the pressure to recreate a former glory, to stay on top, to be externally validated can bring about unhappiness. And there is one inescapable paradox, which is that you give up the possibility of having an ordinary life when you pursue an extraordinary one. The kind of time, commitment, and dedication to one task required to reach an exceptional level of achievement and recognition necessarily means living an unbalanced existence where other aspects of a fulfilling life are sacrificed. At least, this is the lesson we learn from the 2011 documentary, Bobby Fischer Against the World.

Bobby Fischer, 2011

Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011) is a documentary directed by Liz Garbus about the remarkable life of chess grandmaster, cold-war hero, and American fugitive Bobby Fischer.

Life Lesson: You give up having an ordinary life in pursuit of an extraordinary one.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

What’s so great about an ordinary, quiet life you ask? That’s like asking what’s so great about peace, harmony, tranquility. If you have it, you may take it for granted or not realize what a treasure it is to be able to go about your day in a calm manner, unconcerned about what others think of you, uninterested in trying to impress strangers. A quiet, ordinary, peaceful life seems like a better outcome for many celebrities who do in fact gain worldwide fame and leave a mark in the history books, only to walk the earth in anguished desperation, at all times seeking approval and renown from the easily distracted and the hard to please.

But what about Carpe Diem, seize the day? What about striving and living life to the fullest, sucking the marrow out of life? Does this not imply doing something big, something worthwhile? Is this not the lesson of Dead Poets Society (1989), that we should have truly extraordinary lives and not settle for ordinary, predetermined, structured lives, where we fall in line like everyone else, march to the same beat, and become just another cog in a large, uncaring machine?

Dead Poets Society (1989) is a drama directed by Peter Weir about a group of students at a private preparatory school, Welton Academy, where their unconventional English teacher, Mr. Keating (Robin Williams), encourages them to seek passion, be freethinkers, and fully express their identity and individuality.

Life Lesson: Carpe Diem — Seize the Day.
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On the surface it may seem like Dead Poets Society is saying something along the lines of achieve more, strive, seek, accomplish more. But Mr. Keating, a romantic, doesn’t mean it the way it may sound. He is talking to elite, driven students, who already have heard and internalized that message of shooting for the stars, striving for excellence, and making yourself and your family proud. Instead, Mr. Keating is trying to teach them something else. By extraordinary, he doesn’t mean to try to get accolades, to try to win prizes, or have a book written about you. Actually, he means to have a joyous life, to experience the wonder of the world, to seek passion and feel the range and depth of emotion available in your everyday, ordinary life through music, poetry, and personal human experiences. What he urges his students to do is to embrace living. This is what making the most of your life is about.

In the world of Mr. Keating, you can have an ordinary life lived in an extraordinary way, where you can pursue your passions with courage and conviction, as well as achieve a modest but rewarding level of success. And it turns out that this is more appealing than not being able to have an ordinary life at all. Nevertheless, the captivating idea of having crowds of people cheering you on, canonizing you, waiting with bated breath for your next move, interested in your life, and what you have to say, lingers. Fortunately for most of us, reaching this kind of acclaim is unlikely to happen, so the real question is not should you live an ordinary life or an extraordinary life, but rather, what will you do in your ordinary life to make it extraordinary?

Please make Mr. Keating proud.

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"Rocky" (1976), An American Treasure

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:01:35 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on “The Chart” newspaper from archive.org

Packed with comedy, perception, and sensitivity, “Rocky” is a sincere, rousing film that raises the spirits and gladdens the heart.

— Judith Crist, Saturday Review

The movie Rocky (1976) is a triumph. It’s incomparable and clearly, without exaggeration, one of the best movies ever made. It’s what you want movies to be, complete with a divine musical score by genius Bill Conti that includes the brilliant and rousing “Gonna Fly Now” theme song. Rocky represents the best of humanity. It’s an aspirational movie that pays tribute to the indomitable human spirit, and is a “charming, grimy, beautiful fairy tale,” as film critic John Simon stated.

You’ll love this movie, and its namesake. But exactly how does the titular Rocky Balboa become a heroic, mythical, likable, sympathetic, and endearing character? By committing to a valiant fight that requires limitless inner strength, valor, grit, and endurance while showing that power stems from the confidence gained as a result of living life in a principled, virtuous way. This is the kind of person who can never be bullied or cowed, who can never be defeated no matter the results of a match, because being authentic and having personal integrity and pride is what winning is all about.

Rocky (1976) is a drama directed by John G. Avildsen about an amateur Philadelphia boxer, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), who gets the chance to fight heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) as part of a publicity stunt.

Life Lesson: Push yourself to reach your full potential.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Have you considered depending on yourself for your happiness, instead of on others? Have you considered fighting for your own personal glory, doing things to elevate your self-worth in your eyes, making decisions that increase your self dignity, pushing yourself to achieve goals and proving to yourself that you can reach your potential? This is how Rocky Balboa finds happiness, and it’s the deeper lesson in the 1976 movie Rocky, which at its essense is the embodiment of the Grantland Rice adage, “it’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.”

Not enough attention or respect is given to this sentiment, but it really is about learning how to be happy, truly happy and satisfied, in life. If you focus on external signs of “winning,” on scoreboards, on strangers cheering for you, on others sending you a welcome wagon and clearing a path for you by giving you an opportunity that they didn’t have, then you’ll likely be disappointed because whatever is given can also be taken away. Going down this path is choosing to make yourself utterly dependent on others for your happiness, which can lead to feeling helpless and possibly resentful.

But there is another way. To feel everlasting happiness, you can learn to harness internal satisfaction: being proud of yourself and your achievements, feeling confident about your character and abilities, creating your own opportunities. What matters is not whether you win or lose, but "how you play the game” because it is something that can never be taken away by someone else, and can for the entirety of your life, make you feel good about yourself. Is this not what people really want from happiness? And by the way, wouldn’t the world be much better for everyone if more people behaved in more noble ways that increased the focus on self dignity and self worth rather than on external accolades and on defeating others?

Counting on other people, depending on others for your happiness, is a recipe for disaster. In the first place, people are busy with their own lives and quite naturally are self-interested and self-serving, sometimes to extremes. In fact, to preserve your happiness, you need to put boundaries up so that other people don’t trample you with their demands and needs. And interestingly, this is the core to increasing compassion in the world. We need to push back against behavior that unfairly impedes, hurts, or victimizes us or others because it’s the only way to stop unacceptable behavior. Once the boundaries are made clear, however, there is an increase in tranquility and comfort for all, which leads to being able to being more compassionate toward others. So, you have to stand up for yourself, and those who cannot defend themselves; otherwise the mistreatment will simply increase in both frequency and strength, which threatens everyone by normalizing abusive behaviors.

But the worst kind of self-defeating vulnerability is when you give people the power to decide your happiness based on their decisions, which will be self-serving, probably not rational, definitely never fully objective or, frankly, completely reasonable. So why would you put yourself in this position, particularly when you know everyone has biases, many of which are unlikely to work in your favor? You want other people to give YOU a chance when they likely would prefer to give their cronies, their family and friends, priority? You want strangers to give up their time and energy to help you when they’d likely only do so if it somehow helps them too? You want to take what someone else has built and use it for yourself? Look who’s being demanding and willing to trample on other people for personal gain.

Clearly this is no path toward happiness for anyone. But what can we really do to feel victorious and satisfied, to feel true fulfillment and real happiness?

Watch Rocky (1976). There’s no greater teacher for learning about the intrinsic happiness found by having self-respect and personal values than Rocky Balboa, who turns out to be a better human than most, by demonstrating the heroic, noble qualities of being good-hearted, brave, honest, dedicated, hard working, and conscientious. It is that sense of personal integrity, of personal accountability, that becomes a powerful source of confidence and inner strength. And this is what makes happiness self-sustaining and independent of other people, even when faced with adversity.

It all boils down to genuine authenticity. That’s why people like him, cheer for him, support him, and see him as victorious no matter what, which is also how he sees and feels about himself.

Think about it—and enjoy the spectacle!

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Taking Charge Of Your Health

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:01:09 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by NoName_13 on Pixabay

The first wealth is health.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you are among the fortunate ones who enjoy good health, then the last thing you want to do is take that for granted. Disease is a mystery and a misery. Hence, if you are a relatively healthy person, then everyday you should thank your body, thank your life, really get down on your knees and thank your good fortune for the opportunity to live another day pain free.

But if you are not currently enjoying optimal health and wellness, take heart, for the body’s resiliency and ability to heal itself is also a wonder. The truth is that as much as medicine and technology have advanced—and they have—everyone can take a proactive, mindful, conscientious approach toward reaching better health. And even in the case where the experts predict the worst, it is in fact possible to make a recovery. So never sell yourself short, never succumb to pessimism, and never give up on your body when it comes to health.

Here are a few movies—some are based on true stories, some are documentaries, some reveal our collected wisdom—that serve as reminders of a tenet of wellbeing: you are largely in charge of your own health, so do what you can to make it as good as possible.

The most basic first step of wellness is good nutrition, and that means prioritizing whole, unprocessed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables. The documentary Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (2010) explains the importance of micronutrients in the diet and the benefits of weight loss on health. After watching this movie, you’ll never confuse ultra processed, high sugar, high saturated fat products for food again.

Life Lesson: You will be healthier if your diet consists mostly of fresh fruits and vegetables. The foods highest in nutrients per calorie are: 1) green vegetables, 2) raw vegetables, 3) beans/legumes, 4) eggplant, mushrooms, 5) tomatoes, peppers, 6) fresh fruit. The most nutrient rich foods are: kale, collards, spinach and bok choy.

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Likewise, fresh air and exercise are vital to maintaining or improving your health. You can certainly bet that the answer to feeling better or functioning better is never going to be to not exercise or to stay indoors for a prolonged period of time! Even if you have some kind of injury, there are probably various forms of exercise that you can still undertake to strengthen or stretch the body parts that are not injured.

All you have to remember is the story of The Secret Garden (1993) and how Mary Lennox’s cousin Colin Craven, a bedridden, ill-humored shut-in, regained strength, joy, and vitality simply by spending some time working in a garden. Is it really a surprise that being sedentary and spending all your time indoors is not good for you physically or mentally? Don’t be like Colin. Be brave, be a little adventurous, and explore the outdoors more.

Life Lesson: Don’t let other people determine what you do with your life.

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As the above demonstrate, our health is basically a result of our environment, and one of the most common ways people fall ill is due to water contamination. This is why having access to clean potable water is key to good health, and why people like Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway Personal Transporter, developed Slingshot, a portable water purification system.

As the documentary SlingShot (2014) shows, innovation, technology, engineering, medicine, are all instrumental in fighting off disease. But the reality, at least so far, is that no tool or pill can help us if we don’t first help ourselves. Ultimately, we must take responsibility for making wise decisions about our bodies because every imaginable cure has its limitations, expense, and negative side effects. So don’t take unnecessary risks, be prudent, and educate yourself about the potential contaminants in your environment.

Life Lesson: “Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.” — Javier Pascual Salcedo

🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Of course don’t count out your own body’s abilities to help you. This is exactly the message of Anatomy of an Illness (1984), which is based on the true story of Norman Cousins, a journalist who when diagnosed with a debilitating illness, decided to take charge of his own healing by using a combination of unconventional treatments, including large doses of Vitamin C, self-induced bouts of laughter, and positive thinking. This movie highlights the importance of actively participating in and advocating for our own healthcare. It also illustrates the power of a positive attitude in the healing process.

Life Lesson: Physician, heal thyself. — Proverb

🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

In a similar vein, the movie Awakenings (1990), which is based on the true story of neurologist Oliver Wolf Sacks, who used an experimental drug to help catatonic patients, is really about the restorative capacity and tenacity of the mind and body. Awakenings is a testimony to the healing potential that we all have, and it allows us to believe that even the severely incapacitated, such as those affected by encephalitis lethargica, can make remarkable recoveries given the right care.

This extraordinary and important movie ends with a beautiful speech that is a tribute to our inner “doctor,” as Norman Cousins might say:

The human spirit is more powerful than any drug, and that is what needs to be nourished with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter. This is what we’ve forgotten, the simplest things. — Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams)

Life Lesson: The simplest things in life bring about meaning, purpose, and happiness.

🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Please take care of yourself, so you can be free to enjoy more life for many years and decades to come. And never forget that you can always take charge of your own health and well-being. Most importantly, remember that with the right mindset, persistence, and care, you can overcome even the most serious of health challenges.

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Want More People To Like You?

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 14:00:48 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Two Nicolas Cage movies and two Bill Murray movies show us how to win friends and be loved by others.

Life Lesson: Let go of old resentments—you’ll feel better.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

To begin with, it is important to identify potential personality issues that may be limiting your reach. Perhaps you are the type of person who is introspective and observant, like the Nicolas Cage characters in the movies Moonstruck (1987) and The Family Man (2000), both of whom spend a lot of time deeply focused on their own thoughts and feelings:

I remember I used to walk to work and I had a warm bialy in my hand and hot cup of coffee from Dean & Deluca, crisp feeling of the Wall Street Journal, smell of leather from my briefcase. I used to be so sure about everything, confident. I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted, and then one morning I woke up and suddenly it was all different.

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          — Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) in The Family Man (2000)

What is life? … They say ‘bread is life.’ And, and I bake bread, bread, bread, and I sweat, and shovel this stinking dough in and out of this hot hole in the wall and, and I should be SO happy, huh, sweetie?

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          — Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage) in Moonstruck (1987)

While these are fine qualities, unless you constructively share your opinions and interests with others, people generally are not going to take an interest in you, nor will they be inclined to approach someone who is brooding in a corner. In fact, too much self-consciousness and quiet rumination will likely leave you out on the sidelines, which is how these characters initially feel.

Life Lesson: The choices you make have a lasting effect on the rest of your life.
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Or, perhaps you are the type of person who is fiercely independent and self-assured, like the Bill Murray characters in Scrooged (1988) and Groundhog Day (1993), both of whom are self-confident loners. While these are great attributes, unless you share your joys and struggles with others, people are not going to be able to connect with you. In fact, too much aloofness will likely leave you feeling sidelined and excluded, which is how these two characters behave initially.

Oh, my gosh. Does that suck! […] I am the youngest president in the history of television for a reason. I know the people. […] Now, if I were in charge, and I am, perhaps I can help you. Here’s the kind of thing I would have done…

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          — Frank Cross (Bill Murray) in Scrooged (1988)

Come on, ALL the long distance lines are down? What about the satellite? Is it snowing in space? Don't you have some kind of a line that you keep open for emergencies or for celebrities? I'm both. I'm a celebrity in an emergency. Can you patch me through on that line please?

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          — Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day (1993)

The characteristics above have one very important and consequential effect, which is that they increase the risk of isolating yourself from others in meaningful ways, with the ultimate result being that most people won’t get the chance to like you, simply because they won’t be able to know or understand you. So therein lies the problem.

So how do you get more people to like you? It’s simply a matter of turning your gaze outward, of sharing your thoughts, effectively communicating your emotions, and, most significantly, caring about others, about their thoughts, their emotions, their observations, their beliefs.

Life Lesson: “Put a little love in your heart, and the world will be a better place.”
— Jackie DeShannon
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It is a kindness to ask people about themselves because it shows that you feel they have value, that they are unique and worth knowing more about. Hence it’s no surprise that people will then find you likable and pleasant since in a short amount of time you could make them feel validated and give them some comfort and joy. Yes, to create all this good, all it takes is showing a sincere interest in another person.

The truth is that you can find happiness no matter where you are or who you are with, which is the ultimate message in all four of these movies. In every single one, the situation does not change, only the characters’ attitudes do, and this makes all the difference between feeling bitterness, resentment, anger, hostility on the one hand, and peace, happiness, harmony, love on the other.

And it really boils down to the fact that they all learned to care about someone else. In other words, they turned their gaze outward, showed an interest in another person, and found joy in building those relationships.

Life Lesson: You will be a happier person if you take joy in the simple pleasures of life: books, music, learning, being kind to others.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

As it turns out, the capacity to make any interaction warm, fun, playful, and enjoyable is within you. It takes some practice, but all it really amounts to is asking someone, even a stranger, a genuine question and being delighted by their answer.

Try it today! You may change your life (and another one’s) for the better.

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The Educational Value Of Movies

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 14:00:55 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Nikolay Georgiev on Pixabay

When your "education" limits your imagination it's called indoctrination. Those who cannot think for themselves are truly lost. Education should be a rewarding experience which allows you to think, imagine, question, doubt and solve problems.

— Richard Feynman

Something many people may not appreciate about movies is how much of an academic education one can get from them. This site, “moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies,” is an attempt at gathering wisdom, real practical truth, about life, about us, and about the universe. But beyond that, there are facts that some may only discover because they were mentioned in a movie. In other words, movies can inspire curiosity about real historical or scientific events, like the Apollo missions, and in so doing serve as teachers, great teachers, in fact. That spark, that light that makes someone seek more information is one of the greatest gifts a person can give another. And many movies gracefully deliver it for us all wrapped up in an intriguing story with stunning visuals and a soundtrack. How is that for a master class?

Life Lesson: It takes a lot of hard work to make a miracle happen.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Moreover, these eye-opening nuggets of amazing findings can come from the unlikeliest of movies. Yes, Apollo 13 (1995) is an entry level introduction to NASA, to President Richard Nixon, to space travel, to understanding the orbit of the moon. It’s easy to see why one would be intellectually inspired by this movie, and it legitimately could be shown in full in any classroom or lecture hall anywhere around the world. It’s that educational.

Life Lesson: Life is a series of ups and downs.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

On the other hand, 24 Hour Party People (2002) is a fictionalized account about music promoter Tony Wilson, who was at the center of the drug-fueled rave music of the 1970’s -1990’s. It’s a gritty, bizarre movie about people behaving badly, but there is something beautiful in it. There is something precious and lovely, and that is the truth. This movie, like Apollo 13, is really about us. It’s about how our lives are a series of highs and lows, and some people have extreme highs only to have debilitating lows—famous musicians and influential CEOs come to mind. And we’ve always known that about life, but it’s never been verbalized as beautifully as is done in 24 Hour Party People:

I’m Boethius, author of The Consolation of Philosophy. It’s my belief that history is a wheel. “Inconstancy is my very essence,” says the wheel. “Rise up on my spokes if you like, but don’t complain when you’re cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away.

So who is this philosopher? His story is even more cinematic and grander. He is Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, and we should all read his writings. When revelation comes neatly bundled in a book written 1,500 years ago, one should at the very least take a few hours of our lives to thumb through it, right? Why? Didn’t you ever think that there was something more to life, that there was a purpose for all the suffering we have to endure, that it should mean something, that it should come to something? If you have, then perhaps you have arrived at the same conclusion as Boethius, that we are here to learn. Wisdom, reason, logic, the truth will save us.

Since men want happiness, and since happiness is in itself divinity, then it follows that men in the pursuit of happiness are actually in the pursuit of divinity. But as in their efforts to pursue justice they become just, and in the pursuit of wisdom they become wise, this logic would lead us to conclude that in the pursuit of divinity they would become gods. — Boethius (Book III)

So here’s your chance. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life. Look deeply into the abyss. What do you see? Tell us, please. Maybe make a movie out of it, please.

We don’t know what we haven’t yet learned, and we need guides (e.g. “Great Movies Based On Books,” “Great Fantasy Movies Based On Books”).

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A Journey Through Great Travel Films

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 14:01:26 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Jan Alexander on Pixabay

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

― Marcel Proust

If you look for ways to feel miserable, you will find them. But you can just as easily find ways to feel happy and satisfied. Sometimes many aspects of living feel like drudgery because much of what we have to do can only really be described as tedious. Paying taxes, is one such example. The horror of filling out any form is painful enough, but to be forced to work to pay taxes under threats from a government that demands you calculate how much money it can take from your paycheck—and will punish you if you get it wrong—is Kafkaesque indeed. This is the kind of stuff that could send a person into an existential crisis, particularly if both work-life and home-life are filled with too many endless, repetitive, boring, and seemingly pointless tasks running on a Sisyphean loop. Seriously, don’t we have the technology so the government can just directly take money out of our paychecks and let us be?

So what do movies have to say about getting out of a rut and regaining the joy for life amidst the very real struggle to survive? The answer is to take a trip. When Joe, who is a poor sap trapped in the cogwheel of an uncaring company that makes him feel sick all the time finds out that he only has a few months to live due to a terminal illness, he asks his doctor what he should do. The doctor responds, “Well, if you have any savings, you might think about taking a trip. A vacation. […] You have some time left Mr. Banks. You have some life left. My advice to you is: live it well.” This is from the 1990 movie Joe Versus the Volcano, which also has this beautiful quote, “My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”

And there you have it. The secret to getting out of a rut and regaining your joy for life is to take a different perspective and make sure that you let yourself, in your heart, truly feel grateful for your life, as Joe Banks does in a scene when he looks on as the moon rises over the sea:

Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life. I forgot—how big. Thank you. Thank you for my life.

Interestingly, taking a trip, packing a bag and going somewhere different, sort of automatically sets you up for both of these things. The movies are not wrong about that. But why is that? Well, because traveling is a hassle, but it’s also powerfully eye-opening—and there’s nothing more fun for the human brain than novelty. Or, as a store clerk tells Joe, “You travel the world, you’re away from home, perhaps away from your family, all you have to depend on is yourself, and your luggage.”

In other words, taking a trip is an invigorating physical and mental challenge, as well as a rewarding enriching experience. All you have to do is make the best of it—of the discomforts, the unfamiliarity, the crowds of people, the dysregulation—so that you can take in life with a new set of eyes and then feel, when you finally come home, that it is wonderful.

This same theme is repeated in the following movies:

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Life Lesson: You already have what you are looking for.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Life Lesson: We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we are happy because we laugh.
— William James
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
The Out of Towners (1999)
Life Lesson: It’s never too late to make a positive change.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
Back to the Future (1985)
Life Lesson: Learn to persevere—if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
Life Lesson: To live your life well, do what you’re afraid to do.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Life Lesson: The abc’s of how to live: Be adventurous, brave, creative, devoted—and employed.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

And it can even be found in the animated Disney classic, Lady and the Tramp (1955), which has these memorable lines:

Look again, Pidge. Look, there’s a great big hunk of world down there with no fence around it. Where two dogs can find adventure and excitement. And beyond those distant hills, who knows what wonderful experiences? And it’s all ours for the taking, Pidge. It’s all ours. […] Oh, come on, kid. Start building some memories.

Life Lesson: Life is an adventure.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

So please, let yourself feel more alive and start planning a trip. It doesn’t have to be long; it doesn’t have to be far. But if you need to feel brave, remember what Joe’s wife, Patricia, tells him, “Nobody knows anything. We’ll take this leap and we’ll see. We’ll jump and we’ll see. That’s life.”

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How To Be More Compassionate? Push Back.

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 13:01:22 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by OpenClipart-Vectors and Kjrstie on Pixabay

All cruelty springs from weakness.

― Seneca

Compassion is a powerful emotion that motivates people to relieve the suffering of others. B.F. Skinner, famed psychologist known for behaviorism—which is an understanding of human behavior as simply the result of what is reinforced by the environment—made the following observation about it:

“There are five great classical examples of mistreatment: the care of old people, old folks homes; the care of small children who have been deserted by their parents, orphans and that sort of thing; prisoners; psychotics and retardeds. Now why have these always been classical examples of mistreatment? Not because compassionate people were not involved there, but there wasn’t—these people cannot counter-control. They can’t do anything against those who were working with them. Old people are too old, children are too small and too little, prisoners are there under armed control and they are—unless they manage to get some guns somewhere. Psychotics and retardeds are unable to escape from or counter-control. And under these conditions the most compassionate person deteriorates and becomes careless, then callous, and then cruel. This has happened again and again and again. Now, there’s no help for this in trying to find compassionate people. You put them in a system they’ll deteriorate and they’ll become less compassionate. What you want are the counter-controlling effects. You want to make sure the treatment of one kind is condoned. The treatment of another kind is opposed.”

— Token Economy: Behaviorism Applied (McGraw-Hill Films, 1972)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) is a drama directed by Robert Aldrich, based on the novel by Henry Farrell, about Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis), a former child-star who torments her disabled older sister, Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford), out of jealousy and spite.

Life Lesson: Don’t let someone else have absolute power over you.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

The key takeaway here is that a compassionate person can become “careless, then callous, and then cruel” if they are given absolute power over others. And haven’t we seen this before? It’s one of the main themes in “Movies That Are Frightening.” It’s also probably something you’ve personally experienced. Perhaps you’ve been at the receiving end of a mean and surly unionized government worker who can never really be fired from the job—that taxpayers are forced to fund—no matter how badly, inhumanely, disrespectfully, and lacking in dignity said workers treat those needing their assistance, for example, at the Department of Motor Vehicles, or at the Post Office, or at a Veterans Affairs hospital, or in a public school, and perhaps even, unfortunately, by the first responders to emergencies.

The stories of abuse of the elderly, of children, of prisoners, of the disabled, and even of animals—are endless, and as Skinner noted, happen “again and again and again.” The movie What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) masterfully dramatizes this kind of abuse by caretakers and gives voice to it, “You wouldn’t be able to do these awful things to me if I weren’t still in this [wheel]chair,” says Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford) to her sister Jane (Bette Davis), who responds “But you are, Blanche. You are in that chair!” However, there is a way to protect the vulnerable, to protect ourselves, to protect our loved ones—and these horrible, sad stories hint at it: we need accountability, transparency, and consequences for the mistreatment of others, or in B.F. Skinner’s words, we need “counter-controls.”

But these are structural requirements that have to be implemented at the system/company/government level. So how do we protect ourselves and our loved ones when these measures have not been implemented or are ignored? The answer, according to my reading of Skinner, is to push back. Healthy adults are not generally the victims of these types of abuse because a healthy person asks for help, finds allies and resources, learns ways to bypass trouble, and is confident enough to ask to see the manager, the boss, the person who is ultimately responsible in order to file a complaint, a grievance, a lawsuit etc. In other words, a healthy person knows that we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect—and fights to maintain them.

But if you don’t know how to do this, or can’t quite envision yourself doing it, here are a few brilliant movies with characters who stand up for themselves and/or for others. Your mileage may vary, but the real point of these films is to to empower you, to show you that you can fight back too, and to encourage you to see it as your duty to make a stink because it may help those who are more vulnerable and can’t speak for themselves. And, most importantly, it may be the only way to stop abuse, which means that it may be the most compassionate thing you can do.

All About Eve (1950) is a drama written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz about the maneuverings of a young aspiring actress, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), to get close to an established stage actress, Margo Channing (Bette Davis), and her circle of powerful friends that includes director Bill Simpson (Gary Merrill), playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife Karen (Celeste Holm).

Life Lesson: Sometimes showing a flash of anger can protect you from further harm.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Robin Hood (1973) is an animated fantasy directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, based on the English folklore legend, about Robin Hood (Brian Bedford), a fox who steals from the rich ruling class to give money back to the poor, heavily taxed, working class.

Life Lesson: “Taxation is theft.” —Murray Rothbard
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Superman (1978) is a fantasy directed by Richard Donner, based on the comic book by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, about the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve), a superhero from the planet Krypton who tries to help humanity by fighting criminals like Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), while hiding his identity.

Life Lesson: “Integrity is your destiny; it is the light that guides your way.” — Plato
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) is a romantic drama written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson about Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), a man who grew-up being bullied by his sisters and is still tormented by them as an adult until a series of events, that includes falling in love, leads him to stand up for himself like never before.

Life Lesson: Everyone needs someone to love who will love them back.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Penguins of Madagascar (2014) is an animated fantasy co-written and co-directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith about the heroic adventures of four penguins – Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (Conrad Vernon) and Private (Christopher Knights) – as they battle Dave (John Malkovich), an enraged octopus.

Life Lesson: Be courageous when others need help.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

It takes courage to push back. It’s a risk to fight back. But as TV therapist Dr. Phil famously said,

We teach people how to treat us.
You shape others' behavior when you teach them what they can get away with and what they cannot.
Figure out what you are doing to reinforce, elicit or allow that treatment.
The resolve to be treated with dignity and respect must be uncompromising.

Also, if you want to be a compassionate person, or remain a compassionate person, don’t take any jobs where there isn’t enough accountability, where transparency is lacking, and where there aren’t clear and immediate consequences for the mistreatment of others. Let a responsible party know about any instances where someone is not treated with the utmost dignity and respect—anonymously as a whistleblower if you have to—and leave. Transforming into a person who becomes careless, then callous, and then cruel is not worth a paycheck. This behavior will seep into everyday interactions, even with your loved ones. It’s poison.

There are other jobs where you can increase your level of compassion, and these usually are ones where you deal with people as individuals rather than as nameless numbers. This is because humans, in general, feel more compassion for one individual than they do for a group of many people, since this can quickly become overwhelming and stressful. Hence, it’s necessary to avoid overcrowded situations. In fact, learn to be fierce and ask that the numbers of people being put into groups be reduced. Let someone who has to take responsibility know, and if there is responsiveness then stay so that you can be the countermeasure for those who can’t defend themselves.

This is being a hero. This is what Superman—“here to fight for truth and justice, and the American way”—taught us. And this is another way in which we can increase kindness and peace in the world.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

— Leonardo Da Vinci

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When A House Is A Tragic Character

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 13:01:06 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Oscar on Pixabay

It began with a newspaper article of a woman who was evicted from her house for failure to pay back taxes she said she didn't owe. The house was repossessed. They evicted her, sold it off and then discovered they had the wrong house. This happens a lot.

— Andre Dubus III, Author of the novel, House of Sand and Fog

Movies can be invaluable wellsprings of knowledge, and none more so as when they put to screen stories based on real life events. Many of these are tragedies, and thus can serve as cautionary examples offering to illustrate the dangers that may befall us so that we can take heed and try, as best we can, to avoid being another nameless victim. Of the many horrors and injustices that we may be unlucky enough to encounter are those involving abuse of government power. From repressive regimes that restrict human rights and trample on human dignity to manifest incompetence that likewise results in tremendous and avoidable human suffering, the potential of government to cause catastrophic problems is significant.

House of Sand and Fog (2003) is a drama co-written and directed by Vadim Perelman, based on the book by Andre Dubus III, about Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), a California woman who loses her house because of a mistake by the local government office, and then fights to get it back from the Iranian immigrant family that bought it from the county.

Life Lesson: "Every thing you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way." — Franz Kafka
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

The movie House of Sand and Fog (2003) tells such a tale. It intertwines two stories of government abuse. One that caused a family to flee the violent upheavals and restructuring of society caused by the authoritarian government of Iran, and another that has caused many across “the land of the free,” the United States, to likewise become homeless refugees in their own land. Because this is such a shock, because it is so unbelievable, we have to start with the true, verifiable stories first.

The country of Iran at one point had a democratically elected government, but through a series of tragic events including a coup and a violent revolution, it is as of this writing, a country where human rights are severely limited and general daily life brutally constrained entirely as a result of government laws and regulations. It’s a country with a government so inhumane that a woman, Mahsa Amini, was beaten to death by the morality police for not wearing the appropriate dress, the mandatory hijab, that covers the head, neck, arms and legs, and where pet owners are arrested for walking their dogs in parks, which is not allowed to “protect the safety of the public.” Iran uses executions and lengthy prison sentences to punish nonviolent crimes and minor offenses while also encouraging open discrimination against whole groups of people, including all women.

The Unites States, meanwhile, has a constitution that delineates a number of inalienable rights, yet, many of these rights, e.g. the right to act in self-defense, the right to own private property, the right to free speech etc. are constantly being attacked and threatened, and some of the main culprits responsible for this decimation of rights are the local governments. Specifically, the regulations and taxes imposed by local governments have led many American citizens to unjustly lose their family homes, in their entirety, without redress, without compensation, without humanity. Property taxes, which amount to paying a sales tax to the government in perpetuity, is unlike any other tax levied on people, and the result is that we don’t actually own our homes in the United States, we’re just paying rent to the local lords and are at their mercy like feudal peasants from the Middle Ages.

House of Sand and Fog brings these two stories to a head. An immigrant Iranian family trying to rebuild their lives lost due to the terrible oppression of the government, is pitted against a California woman whose life is similarly uprooted by an uncaring and inhumane local government that mistakenly charged her for taxes she did not owe then auctioned off her house, which the Iranian family bought, before she could get help. Lest you think the local American government unjustly and unfairly taking away your house is the fictional part—it’s not—and it happens all the time in the USA:

Left With Nothing (The Washington Post, September 8, 2013)
How The Elderly Lose Their Rights (The New Yorker, October 2, 2017)
A Property Tax Money Machine Crushes Families (Bloomberg, December 20, 2021)

People in the USA have lost their homes for failing to pay $136, $44.79, even just $6.30 in property taxes. A 90-year-old woman almost lost her house for failing to pay $0.06, six cents, in property taxes, thus making a slogan of the Libertarian Party empirically true, “taxation is theft.” If one day something like this can just happen to you, everything you’ve built taken from you, leaving you homeless, how is this materially different than living in a country like Iran? It’s enough to leave you thinking that if it weren’t for government interference, people could have beautiful lives. And it makes the words of Republican President Ronald Reagan, spoken in his inaugural address, ring ever more true in our ears:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

Up (2009) is an animated fantasy co-written and co-directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson about an elderly widower, Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner), who moves his house with the help of a young boy, Russell (Jordan Nagai), to South America, in order to fulfill a lifelong wish he shared with his wife Ellie.

Life Lesson: Caring for living beings is more meaningful than caring for material possessions.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

But there is something more than tragedy in this story. The movie reveals an ultimate truth that makes House of Sand and Fog worth watching, and amazingly it’s something that it shares with another incredible movie, Pixar’s Up (2009), which is a story about a man who is forced to leave his home by a court order and decides to fly his house, via balloon, to another country instead. In both of these movies houses are characters, important beings that induce action, purpose, and give meaning to the protagonists. And we embrace that, we believe that, because it’s probably an innate territorial urge we have to claim a little plot of earth as our own. We all want, and need, a home. We want our treasured possessions to be protected, and most of us will fight to defend them from theft.

And yet, in the midst of this battle of who is the rightful owner of the house of sand and fog—the woman who is a victim of an incompetent government that took her house unfairly, or the family who is a victim of a cruel government that forced them to leave the lives they had—something happens that clarifies everything. Like in the movie Up, we come to understand, deeply, and thoroughly that of the things we value, the material possessions, our pride, appearances, reputation—none of it really matters in the face of death. It is as Steve Jobs said:

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

The movie House of Sand and Fog is not for those who are inclined to ask, “where is the justice?” They will be disappointed because in this life perhaps the truth is that we can only hope that the injustices we face aren’t fatal, that we can accept our loses, and that we can rebuild somehow, because no one ever said that life was fair. And it isn’t. But one thing is clear: only our loved ones matter, and nothing, not even a house with an infinite view of the sea, can ever come close to being as important.

So please don’t take love for granted, but do find out what your government is up to and see what you can do to limit its power—for all of our sakes.

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Fake It Till You Make It!

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 13:00:24 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by OpenClipart-Vectors and Mohamed Hassan on Pixabay

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

—Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Perhaps you have experienced the awkwardness of trying something new. And perhaps you have also learned that many things need a period of adjustment in order for them to feel natural or comfortable.

Do you remember the first time you had to shake hands with someone like an adult and not a kid? Did it feel strange? Or, do you remember the first time you had to give a work presentation and know that people were relying on you for your expertise? Did that feel odd? It makes sense if those things were a bit unsettling because anything that takes us out of the familiar is going to cause that awkward feeling, what some people may even call “impostor syndrome.” But it’s probably completely reasonable to feel strange, or to not know how one is supposed to feel, or to feel a bit phony when incorporating a new behavior or a new activity.

However, we can’t grow without trying new things or without feeling the discomfort that comes from taking risks. And we can’t adjust to a new behavior if we don’t keep repeating it. Eventually, shaking hands with people feels perfectly natural, and if your job requires it, giving presentations is just something you do and it becomes completely normal. The simple truth is that sometimes you have to “fake it till you make it,” or as psychologist Amy Cuddy puts it, “fake it till you become it.”

The characters in movies who pretend to be someone they are not are usually endearing because we understand or empathize with their motivation to do so. Here are a few movies where pretending eventually leads to reward:

The School of Rock (2003) is a comedy directed by Richard Linklater about Dewey Finn (Jack Black), a lazy, self-centered, amateur musician who impersonates a teacher, Ned Schneebly (Mike White), and enlists his students to compete in a Battle of the Bands.

Life Lesson: Do what you love because you love it. Even if you are not very good at it, you can find a way to fit it into your life.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

This movie is the quintessential “fake it till you make it” story. It’s about a guy who pretends to be a teacher and because of that becomes one of the best teachers his students have ever had. It seems that there are many jobs that officially have a number of hurdles one must pass through to be admitted into the field, but which drains the passion right out of the candidates. Sometimes, then, an amateur produces better results than a professional.

Air Guitar Nation (2006) is a documentary directed by Alexandra Lipsitz about the first U.S.A. competitors, C-Diddy (David S. Jung) and Björn Türoque (Dan Crane), entering the World Air Guitar Championship in Oulu, Finland, which has been held since 1996.

Life Lesson: Follow your passion even if others disapprove or don’t understand it. They will come around when you demonstrate skill.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Playing air guitar may be the ultimate expression of make-believe, and being able to do so on stage in front of an audience and rock out because of it is quite literally living the dream. What a great reminder to enjoy life like a child. And not surprisingly, putting yourself in a position where you are doing something new, learning something new, can move you into that mindset.

Tropic Thunder (2008) is a comedy co-written and directed by Ben Stiller about Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), an insecure actor playing the lead character in a badly made Vietnam War movie based on a book by Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte).

Life Lesson: Know who you are.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Actors of course must necessarily role-play and pretend. Obviously this is a skill that is honed by many years of practice, but the ability to embody the flexible mindset of an actor can be very useful in real life since we truly do have to maneuver a variety of environments and situations that require us to act differently. And what better way to practice a new behavior or personality than by studying and taking on a character from a great movie?

I Ain’t Scared of You: A Tribute to Bernie Mac (2011) is a humorous documentary directed by Robert Small about comedian and award winning TV/film actor, Bernie Mac, a man who embodied rugged individualism and achieved the quintessential American Dream despite numerous obstacles and personal tragedies.

Life Lesson: Love yourself enough to be the person you want to become.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Imagine being a regular person with a regular job and having a regular family. How does such a person become a performer, a celebrity, a creator? To start a career as a standup comic, a regular person one day has to decide to get on stage in front of a crowd and just do it. This act truly embodies “fake it till you become it,” and it’s very illuminating to watch a documentary like this that takes you on that journey.

You must be the person you have never had the courage to be. Gradually, you will discover that you are that person, but until you can see this clearly, you must pretend and invent.

― Paulo Coelho

The individuals in the movies above serve as models of how we can go about trying a new behavior. And they also serve as reminders to be kind to ourselves as we’re going through an awkward stage while attempting something unfamiliar—which takes a good amount of courage and self-confidence in and of itself. We have to act as if we are the person we need to be, which will feel odd at first, but eventually, if given enough practice, we do become this new version of ourselves. So while you’re going through the awkward stage, don’t see it as phony, see it as growing.

But remember: never lie to yourself.

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A Summary Of The Best Life Lessons From Movies

moviewise 🎟 — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 13:01:07 GMT

Image of Stockholm Public Library by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Pexels on Pixabay

If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.

— Sir Isaac Newton

Before we begin, I first want to point out that it’s hard to feel confident about what you think you know—at least, if you are not an ideologue who feels absolute certainty because you want to, or must, believe something is true. In that case, it’s very easy to be confident, or overconfident even, in what you think you know. This is not to suggest that being an ideologue is wrong. It may very well be that a person’s strong belief is an accurate and helpful description of reality. How can we know for sure that it’s not?

But for people who lack an ideology that guides them to believe with certainty, it’s actually pretty hard to feel that sense of knowing something without having even the slightest shadow of a doubt creep in to question it. After all, what’s true today may not be found to be true in the future. Haven’t you noticed this? Haven’t you ever changed your mind on something based on new information?

I’d like to think that being open to questioning what you think you know is an advanced stage of being because it allows you to grow, to learn, and to value truth and reality above lies and self deception. And if this is true, then not feeling too confident about what you think you know is a good thing. But, like astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

You’ve got to have some anchor, something that you feel is true knowledge, true wisdom, that will outlast at least the duration of your lifetime, lest you float in confusion and indecision all day long.

In that spirit, I offer you a list of things that as far as I know are true, and the great movies that support them:

1) Cause And Effect Is A Force Of Nature

If you put effort into something, you’ll get better at doing it, and it will result in something good, or at least in something tangible. If you do nothing, you get nothing in return. If you halfheartedly try, then you’ll get mixed results. There is no magic involved. It’s simply the case that everything in the universe responds to Issac Newton’s third law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When you cause something to happen, there will be an effect, and if your energy is constructively directed, there will be a reward.

First Position (2011)

First Position (2011) is a documentary by director Bess Kargman about ballet students training for and competing in the Youth America Grand Prix, where winners can get full scholarships and job contracts.

Life Lesson: To become the best, push yourself harder than the rest.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

*****************************************

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) is a documentary directed by David Gelb about Jiro Ono, an 85-year-old restaurateur who is a Shokunin, an expert craftsman who strives for perfection and feels great fulfillment and joy from yearning to improve bit by bit.

Life Lesson: “Find a job you enjoy doing,
and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Mark Twain
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

2) Bonds Are Important, Powerful, And Helpful

Having your own family is a source of stability and strength that will help you achieve your goals. Don’t believe the lie that making connections with others, spending time with them, interferes with your dreams. Love is profoundly motivating, and you will accomplish more if you have the security found in the bonds that you have formed.

The Family Man (2000)

The Family Man (2000) is a drama directed by Brett Ratner about Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage), a very successful and wealthy investment broker who gets a glimpse into the life he might have had had he made the decision to stay with his girlfriend, Kate Reynolds (Téa Leoni), thirteen years before, instead of remaining a bachelor.

Life Lesson: The choices you make have a lasting effect on the rest of your life.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

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50 First Dates (2004)

50 First Dates (2004) is a comedy directed by Peter Segal about Henry (Adam Sandler), a man who never wanted a long term relationship with a woman until he falls in love with Lucy (Drew Barrymore), a woman with anterograde amnesia who forgets who he is every morning.

Life Lesson: Loving someone will not keep you from your ambitions;
it will help you reach them.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

3) You Can Choose To Be Happy

You can wallow, but that’s not much fun for you or anyone around you. The other option is to get over your troubles as quickly as possible and keep going. It simply works better to remain positive, to see the beauty in nature, and to let go of negative emotions stemming from the crippling pull of the past. Let go, move on, and look for the silver linings. It is a decision you can make.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) is a comedy co-directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly about Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), a Hollywood superstar who falls in love with a dancer, Kathy Delden (Debbie Reynolds), which he tries to hide from his jealous onscreen partner Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen).

Life Lesson: Make the best of every situation.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

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Matilda (1996)

Matilda (1996) is a fantasy based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, and directed by Danny DeVito, about a girl who is driven to seek vengeance against her tormentors at home and at school, and develops psychokinetic powers to do so.

Life Lesson: “You make your own happiness.” —Tony Robbins
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

4) Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

This is ancient wisdom, “mens sana in corpore sano.” The mind is part of the body, and it’s not too difficult to understand what makes a healthy body: exercise, nutrition, sleep—which are all, in turn, prerequisites for a healthy mind. Stress doesn’t help, but you’ll be better able to handle problems, difficulties, and misfortunes if you remain committed to treating your body respectfully by taking care of it as you would the most precious possession you have. After all, as Count Rugen says to Prince Humperdinck, in the The Princess Bride (1987), “if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.”

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (2010)

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (2010) is a documentary by directors Joe Cross and Kurt Engfehr about two men, Joe Cross and Phil Riverstone, who undertake a nutrition program to lose weight that consists in large part of consuming juiced fruits and vegetables.

Life Lesson: You will be healthier if your diet consists mostly of fresh fruits and vegetables. The foods highest in nutrients per calorie are: 1) green vegetables, 2) raw vegetables, 3) beans/legumes, 4) eggplant, mushrooms, 5) tomatoes, peppers, 6) fresh fruit. The most nutrient rich foods are: kale, collards, spinach and bok choy.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

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Happy (2011)

Happy (2011) is a documentary by director Roko Belic about research studies on happiness, which features Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who explains his theory of Flow, what athletes call “being in the zone,” a state of fulfillment during demanding physical activity.

Life Lesson: People find happiness when they are: engaging in play, having new experiences, feeling connected to a community through friends and family, doing things that are meaningful (helpful), and appreciating what they have.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

5) Life Is A Gift, So Be Grateful

Look, simply put, you’re among the most fortunate ones. You’re beyond lucky to be alive. No matter what sadness encroaches upon you, another day awaits. And one day you’ll forget, quite magically, whatever current struggles beset you, so why not short-circuit this path and embrace life as it is, all the time, and be grateful—deeply and sincerely grateful—for the chance to find some enjoyment and happiness in it.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Wizard of Oz (1939) is a fantasy co-directed by Victor Fleming, based on the book by L. Frank Baum, about Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), a farm girl from Kansas who travels to Oz, a strange city where she meets many unusual characters.

Life Lesson: You already have what you are looking for.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

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It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) is a fantasy directed by Frank Capra about a kindly bank executive, George Bailey (James Stewart), who always tried to help others, even at the cost of his own dreams and ambitions, until a financial setback plummets him to despair when he realizes that he is worth more dead than alive, but a stranger, Clarence (Henry Travers), helps him see how valuable his life is by showing him what it would have been like had he never been born.

Life Lesson: Be grateful for your life; it beats the alternative.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Obviously, there are many more miles before we sleep, and lots more to learn, but this is a good start.

Onward we go!

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Dramas That Show Patience Is A Virtue

moviewise 🎟 — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 13:01:01 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay

All actions have consequences. There are no free rides. Nothing, nothing at all, is free from ramifications. Because of this, doesn’t if follow that some deliberate thoughtful meditation ought precede any action you take? But what typically keeps you from carefully considering your choices? What pushes you to make hasty decisions, unconsidered and unexplored? Could it be impatience?

One of the wonders of life is that we can learn from our own past experiences as well as from others’. For example, if you notice a pattern where a good number of people experience a negative effect from an action they took, then it is pretty reasonable to assume that you won’t escape their same sad fate.

In other words, it is wise to try to not diminish or ignore potential negative outcomes simply because you don’t think anything bad will happen to you. If there is a risk, if you are doing something unusual or dangerous, then pause—seriously take a long pause—to consider if the risk is worth taking and how you might feel if something bad happens, or if making a different choice might significantly lessen the risk and still give you most of what you want. Regret is a terrible torment. Don’t set yourself up to experience the pain of remorse.

On the other hand, there is no sense in beating yourself up for making a mistake, either! We can’t be held up to some perfect standard where we never make the wrong choice. We’re always learning in life, so we must make room for failure. Nevertheless, we can be guided by cautionary tales and take to heart the fact that, even in cases where things happen to us seemingly beyond our control, ALL actions that we take will have consequences. We just have to remember this when making decisions.

Hence, there is a clear Life Lesson that can be derived from this observation, this unavoidable fact of nature where cause and effect rules, and that is that the real enemy of thoughtful deliberation and rational decision-making is impatience.

To wit: Become a patient person, and you’ll make better decisions.

Here are a few movies demonstrating the power and the benefits of patience:

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Maltese Falcon (1941) is a film noir drama written and directed by John Huston, based on the book by Samuel Dashiell Hammett, about Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), a San Francisco private detective whose business partner is murdered soon after he takes the case of Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor), a woman who is not who she claims to be.

Life Lesson: “Do your duty, and a little more, and the future will take care of itself.”
— Andrew Carnegie
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Private detective Sam Spade uses patience to find his business partner’s murderer. He methodically sets out to find all the missing pieces, expertly gathers them, and then waits until everything is set to make his move. Being patient is what allows him to ignore distractions and temptations that would have otherwise sidelined him. Imagine how different things might have turned out had jumped at the first chance he got only to find that he didn’t have strong enough evidence. Patience gives you focus.

The Karate Kid (1984)

The Karate Kid (1984) is a drama directed by John G. Avildsen about Daniel (Ralph Macchio), a newcomer to a high school where he is bullied, which prompts him to seek the teachings of Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), an elderly Japanese martial arts master.

Life Lesson: Learn to defend yourself in a way that should gain the respect of your opponents.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Teenage Daniel is taught by his Karate teacher, Mr. Miyagi, that mastering new skills requires patience and dedication. One of the most impactful scenes in this movie is when the teacher reveals that all the seemingly menial tasks he assigned, like painting a fence, sanding the floor, washing and waxing cars, were all meant to train the mind and body for Karate. Imagine how useless these lessons would have been had Daniel been more impatient and given up on his training. Patience allows learning.

8 Mile (2002)

8 Mile (2002) is a dark drama directed by Curtis Hanson about Jimmy ‘B-Rabbit’ Smith (Eminem), a Detroit factory worker struggling to become a professional rapper while living in a trailer with his alcoholic mother Stephanie (Kim Basinger) and baby sister Lily (Chloe Greenfield).

Life Lesson: Own the moment; seize the opportunity.
Don’t wait for someone to rescue you.
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Rapper Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith is ready when opportunity presents itself because for years he patiently worked on his craft to prepare himself. Throughout the movie we see him working on the lyrics of his music, writing bits down on scraps of paper while on the bus heading to work, or at home in a corner by dim light. Imagine an alternate reality where he gives up and doesn’t develop his craft because of an entitled belief that he should have already achieved success. Patience gives you room to grow.

Moneyball (2011)

Moneyball (2011) is a drama directed by Bennett Miller, based on the book by Michael Lewis, about Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), the Oakland Athletics’ general manager who used statistical analysis to assemble a competitive baseball team on a limited budget.

Life Lesson: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

Billy Beane very patiently and deliberately sets out to find another way to assemble a competitive baseball team on a limited budget. His patience allows him to accept both that a) failure is part of the learning process, and that b) the investment in time that it takes to run an experiment and test new things is needed. Imagine if he had given up at the first sign of trouble, or given up because testing seemed to take too long. Patience leads to discovery.

To sum up, as a mantra, remember that patience is a virtue.

Patience gives you focus.
Patience allows learning.
Patience gives you room to grow.
Patience leads to discovery.

Since all actions have consequences, patience is needed to train your mind so that it can help you make decisions that result in better outcomes. But don’t beat yourself up if you’re still learning this skill. Above all, please remember to be patient with yourself.

All of this is to simply say that if you are patient, you will make things easier for yourself. But you can still practice patience in how you deal with any negative repercussions from an earlier impulsive decision.

Be well. Be prudent. Use patience to guide you to the better choice.

And remember, everything is going to be fine.

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Are You “Socially Mad” Or “Capably Glad”?

moviewise 🎟 — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:01:34 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from “It’s ALL (owl) Good Times”

If we deconstruct storytelling to its simplest form, we find that characters tend to fall into either of two camps. On one side are negative, resentful, bitter, envious, spiteful, angry characters—let’s call them the “Socially Mad”—and on the other side are their opposite: positive, optimistic, grateful, cheerful, confident, happy characters—let’s call them the “Capably Glad,” of which SpongeBob, Ferris Bueller, Wayne Campbell (Wayne’s World), Cinderella, Baloo (The Jungle Book), Pee-Wee Herman, Del Griffith (Planes, Trains and Automobiles), and Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) are prime exemplars.

Additionally, many movies portray characters whose journeys take them from the “Socially Mad” side toward the “Capably Glad” side, thus showing a clear and sharp contrast between these groups in terms of personalities, relationships, and outcomes. Two of the most archetypical characters to have such a transformation are Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge from a Christmas Carol, and Dr. Seuss’s Grinch from How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Variations of these two characters are found in a number of movies:

Moonstruck (1987): Ronny Cammareri
Scrooged (1988): Frank Cross
Groundhog Day (1993): Phil Connors
The Secret Garden (1993): Mary Lennox
High Fidelity (2000): Rob Gordon

It’s probably not a coincidence that many holiday movies tend to focus on reminding viewers to share in and contribute joy to the world, to have goodwill towards others, and to be filled with the holiday spirit, which includes gratitude for one’s life and optimism about the upcoming new year. And of course many of the life lessons found in popular and enduring movies are basically guidelines about how to stop being “Socially Mad” and start being one of the “Capably Glad”:

But ultimately wisdom needs to be applied in real life in order to gain any benefit, and it turns out that this dichotomy, this contrast between the “Socially Mad” and the “Capably Glad” applies not just to characters found in movies, but to ordinary people as well. Hence, watching a documentary about a real person is a good way to put to the test how these two drastically different perspectives shape outcomes.

For this analysis, we’ll be looking at the documentary Dear Mr. Watterson (2013). I chose this movie because Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite comic strip, and I don’t think that enough people know about it, which is a tragedy and one that is entirely Mr. Watterson’s doing.

Dear Mr. Watterson (2013) is a documentary directed by Joel Allen Schroeder about his love and appreciation for the newspaper comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, created by Bill Watterson.

Life Lesson: “Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”
— L.M. Montgomery
- 🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)

The documentary is made by a fan, Joel Allen Schroeder, and it ends with a feel-good sentiment that Calvin and Hobbes lives on in its pure form in libraries and family bookshelves. But I wanted to write about Calvin and Hobbes, about Mr. Watterson, because I don’t believe that this is the truth.

When I was growing up, yes, public libraries had a section for comics, and the books I found there included Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, The Far Side, Dilbert, etc. Now the comics section at my local public library is all Manga, and kids today are interested in playing Minecraft and other video games, not in reading the funnies.

At my county’s online library, which serves 15 cities and about 2 million people, Calvin and Hobbes books are not available to borrow in digital ebook form, but thousands of Manga are (about 2,400) as well as hundreds of Minecraft and video game inspired ebooks. Of course part of this disappearance of the old is natural; it’s part of generational change, and it’s unavoidable. Nevertheless, some characters do endure through the generations: Mickey Mouse, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Barbie, Dilbert, Garfield.

In fact, the only comic strips that I grew up reading that are available in digital form today through my local library are Scott Adam’s Dilbert, with about 40 ebooks, and Jim Davis’ Garfield, with about 140 ebooks. What the documentary tried to say about Calvin and Hobbes is in fact true of Dilbert and Garfield. They endure in libraries and family bookshelves, and there is one very good reason why.

Unintentionally then, these three talented, impactful cartoonists, Bill Watterson on the left and Scott Adams and Jim Davis on the right, illustrate the different outcomes that can result entirely from choosing either the “Socially Mad” mindset or the “Capably Glad” mindset to guide you.

Let me explain by going back to the beginning:

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip that was printed everyday in newspapers across the USA for ten years, from 1985 to 1995. It’s above all funny and imaginative, but it also touches on philosophical questions, offers gentle commentary about society, and delightfully illuminates human relationships. As Joe Wos, Executive Director of ToonSeum in Pittsburgh, PA says in the documentary,

This will change your life.
It’s so hard to just sum it up other than to say, this is every one of us.

Calvin and Hobbes was wildly popular and beloved by its fans. And then, unlike comic strips like Peanuts that continue in reruns (1950 - current), or that continue with substitute cartoonists like Hägar the Horrible, (1973 - current) and Beetle Bailey (1950 - current), Calvin and Hobbes just stopped being printed—some might say out of spite—because that is what its creator Bill Watterson wanted.

If true, then Bill Watterson destroyed the reach of his creation without much consideration to its fans, or potential fans, or the industry that allowed him this unique and amazing avenue to make a very comfortable living. And if true, then Bill Watterson is a real-life representation of the “Socially Mad” side of the ledger.

Fortunately, he has written about his reasons for this. You can read for yourself his essay in his anthology, as well as words from a speech he gave in 1989 at the Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State University and the commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College in 1990.

Bill Watterson Commencement Speech

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Here I will try my best to succinctly put forth his arguments to the best of my abilities using his words:

Comic strips are “at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate. […] Cartoon merchandising is a $12 billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably want[s] a piece of that pie. […] The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things.” […] “[Newspaper] syndicates (publishers, distributors) are only too happy to sell out the comic (artist/writer) for a quick buck” and “some very good (comic) strips” have been “cheapened” and “corrupted” by licensing that uses the comic strip characters to sell t-shirts, plush toys, boxer shorts and the like. This hurts the audience’s relationship to the characters. Merchandizing can even change the characters, the art, the creator, and the creator’s vision. It can distract the artist from the work, thus preventing the art from being the best possible. Watterson believes that products, or merchandizing, can’t reflect the “nuances” of comics and do not “fit with the spirit or message” of his comic strip. For example, products like greeting cards would distort his characters because they may have them saying or doing something that is out of character. “Everything I want to say I can say in the comic” and “[Calvin and Hobbes] was designed for this [comic strip] medium. It should stay in this medium.”

In order to better understand Mr. Watterson’s sentiments of artistic purity, I’ve attempted to put the above into a philosophical framework, which can be summarized thusly, “art before commerce.”

I believe that Watterson is arguing that art is a pure expression of life, of the emotional center that unites humanity. Therefore, he believes that trinkets, that is, licensing art to sell t-shirts, mugs, greeting cards, toys etc., is a corruption of that expression of art, of the message and meaning it is trying to convey. Moreover, I think Watterson would agree with some of the people interviewed in the documentary, like cartoonist Stephan Pastis of Pearls Before Swine, that a cartoonist letting a corporation use their comic strip characters as spokespeople is selling out or exploiting the trust built with the audience, and it’s false, untrustworthy, and inauthentic. To apply it more broadly, I think that Watterson is arguing that commercialism can only diminish art by weakening its principles, its core meaning and message, in order to appease to the most base instincts of greed, profit, ownership, and materialism. Art is not things. Art is something that rises above us at a spiritual level, and cannot be found in factory made products.

Excrement!—like Mr. Keating says in the movie Dead Poets Society. This is what I think of Mr. Watterson’s thesis. Art is very much things, objects, and to allow artists the means to create more art, they would be wise to sell at least some of their works to others. Watterson himself sold his comic strip to the syndicates he so maligns, which helped him to develop Calvin and Hobbes and did all the promotion and distribution on his behalf, which in turn helped him to sell his books, that is, things, objects to willing customers. It is buyers, usually relatively wealthy buyers, who have made possible the preservation and amplification of art, be it painting, sculpture, photography, literature, or the performing arts like opera and ballet. Art is not necessary for survival, so people struggling to meet their basic needs in terms of food and shelter are not really the ones buying and promoting art, so if a cheap reproduction of a painting or drawing is made available in postcard, t-shirt, mug or magnet form and this brings people comfort, who are you to look down on them for trying to bring some joy into their lives? Isn’t this pleasure at least part of the spiritual benefit obtained through art? But Watterson sneers at this, revealing the elitist attitude that lies at the core of his distaste, “I didn’t like the idea of using this hard-won, precious job to peddle a bunch if trinkets.” In other words, he saw the commerce part of the job as beneath him and never thought for a moment about all the people whose livelihoods depend on commerce, or the fans who would enjoy these “trinkets.” Not to mention the fact that one can sell objects and ideas simultaneously. Indeed, the “trinkets” can symbolically take on and encompass a larger meaning. The existence of Calvin and Hobbes merchandize would not necessarily detract from the books. As a matter of fact, the merchandize could enhance the relationships and messages established in the books.

Moreover, the artist has no control over how an audience will view, interpret, or regard a work of art. The idea that Watterson believes that Calvin and Hobbes can only truly be appreciated and understood in comic strip form suggest a uniformity of thought that doesn’t happen. It’s unrealistic. Readers can and will differ on the interpretation, meaning, and significance of the characters, their stories, and their interactions even if restricted to one medium, and they will take this very same understanding and apply it to the “trinkets” they acquire that reproduce enough of the sentiment to appeal to them in some way. In fact, Watterson lost more control by not licensing because of the proliferation of unlicensed Calvin and Hobbes merchandize that is available, e.g. Calvin car decals. Even if a company uses comic strip characters to advertise products, it doesn’t mean that people will just mindlessly buy things, and the truth is that a company that is willing to pay a well-regarded cartoonist for the rights to use cartoon characters probably has a good product that fans of the comic may very well appreciate being introduced to and purchasing. To attempt to control people’s thoughts, interpretations, and reactions, as Watterson suggests is his intention by limiting the comic to the printed page only, is an arrogant, elitist, authoritarian and ugly instinct, and one that flies in the face of loftier notions of art as a way for people, both artists and their audiences, to have and promote freedom of expression and freedom of thought.

This bitterness against commercialism sounds a lot more like an excuse to deny the “greedy” newspaper syndicates their share of profits that according to the documentary may have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars from Calvin and Hobbes licensing revenue. Watterson’s own words make clear that he felt pressured and took offense at the syndicates who wanted him to agree to a licensing agreement. So it all just comes down to spite, and like any negative emotion, you wind up hurting yourself and innocent people even more than those who you direct your anger towards. But just imagine for a moment if newspaper syndicates were put into a better financial footing because of an infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars into their industry in the 1990s? Wouldn’t this have allowed for an expansion of the comic pages? Wouldn’t it have allowed for more comic strip artists to get the opportunity to be published and syndicated like Bill Watterson did? Instead, the deterioration of the newspaper industry has led to even further shrinkage of the comic pages and even fewer opportunities for artists. Did this never occur to you, Mr. Watterson?

But there is also something else. Calvin is a naughty boy, much like Bart Simpson. They are both blonde little kids with spiky hair who get to terrorize others and say and do outrageous things under the cover of “being a kid,” or more precisely, the idea that “boys will be boys.” In a society where we are so constrained by what we can and cannot do, by all the rules implicit and explicit, and all the other stuff that doesn’t make any sense like sending kids to a factory-like school to be taught “units” by tired and uncreative teachers, Calvin and Bart Simpson are socially accepted pressure valves that allow us to quietly protest and rage against the oppressive constraints that don’t allow kids—or us—to challenge, to question, or even to be truly free to run around and play.

Watterson, of course, is Calvin, at least partly, and the refusal to agree to what his bosses wanted in terms of licensing is a demonstration of the rebellious spirit that energizes the comic strip. But at the end of the day, it is juvenile, shortsighted, and damaging. This is why becoming an adult is hard to do. Watterson made a decision that was rooted in pettiness:

I worked too long to get this job, and worked too hard once I got it, to let other people run away with my creation once it became successful.

And it is a decision more akin to a petulant temper tantrum from an entitled artist who didn’t have to do the hard work of marketing and selling himself—since he had the syndicate to do the “dirty” work—rather than a well-thought out and seriously considered position. Let me illuminate some of the things Bill Watterson didn’t take into account.

He was struggling to go back to an older paradigm in the same way I am. I want to go back to the library stacks like they used to be, and he wanted full page comics the way they were printed in the decades before his, when, not coincidentally, mass produced cheap “trinkets” were also a lot less common. But the forces of change—which are neither sinister nor intentional, they just are—prevent this. I can understand it, and hope you will too, but Mr. Watterson sure didn’t.

There is something compelling in what he is objecting to. It has the ring of authenticity and integrity, but it’s like raging against the dark, and ultimately it’s a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of reality. It reminds me of the word salad of some politicians when they speak. It sounds lofty and crowds cheer them, but what exactly is being said and what are the implications?

The mass market, where at one point a comic artist could reach millions of readers, was the daily newspaper. To ask professional cartoonists to give that up and put their work instead in “quality cartoon magazines” sold in bookstores and supermarkets, and to ask them to give up on the merchandizing potential as he insultingly did in his 1989 speech at the Festival of Cartoon Art, shows a kind of arrogant, self-righteous, naïveté that is utterly unhelpful and unproductive. Like a spoiled bratty child who takes his ball and goes home, Watterson never showed an appreciation or gratefulness for the rare chance he was uniquely given to earn hundreds of millions of dollars. It was an opportunity of a lifetime that he pissed away. And now, because of the collapse of the newspaper industry, no new comic strip character is likely to ever have the mass market impact that Calvin and Hobbes did.

The value of artistic work is in reaching people, not just for the opportunity to find a paying customer, it’s not just the commercial potential, but the opportunity to share with a larger audience the benefits, the joys, the insights, the truths, the beauty, the emotional power, and, in the case of some comic strips, the laughs they provide. To never consider the potential benefit to humanity, and only look through cynical eyes at the newspaper industry, and all business and commerce for that matter, is such a tragedy. It’s like spitting into a communal water well. It’s biting the hand that feeds you. And for what? To remember Calvin and Hobbes in the “proper” way?

What about the kid whose parents would never buy a comic magazine for them, but who could run across discarded newspapers in the recycling bin and read the funnies? Did you ever consider that Mr. Watterson? Did it never occur to you that “greedy” industries employ thousands and thousands of workers and provide valuable services to even more customers? Can you not see that in denying the syndicates profits that countless others were harmed, including potential artists, designers, readers, store owners, and the future of the comic strip art form itself?

How can you not see, or fully embrace, the potential of licensing and the good you could have done if you were given the opportunity to receive 40 million dollars or more per year? You could have bought land and built a nature preserve, or built a library, or created a foundation to provide opportunities to artists. Why would you turn all that real world impact to preserve the supposed purity of a cartoon, of what at the end of the day is a collection of drawings?

What a loss of foresight, of perspective, of imagination, of goodwill.

It’s a decision borne out of negativity, of cynism, resentment, and jealousy, of ugliness—and look at the result. Look at what happened. Look at the loss.

What a sad person one would have to be to be offended by a Garfield mug.

Not choosing to allow licensing of Calvin and Hobbes products and not allowing a reprint, rerun, or continuation of the comic strip by another cartoonist has hurt the long term legacy of the comic strip. People have forgotten. Merchandizing allows for the creation of new audiences. It allows new people to discover and share their interests, their joy, with others, and Watterson took all that away.

The day after Bill Watterson delivered his missive at the Festival of Cartoon Art to unsuspecting cartoonists, some of whom had been working professionally far longer than he, there was a response. Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey gave his rebuttal in a speech, which he began by saying, “I'm one of those old dinosaurs [Watterson] spoke of who draws one of those stupid strips,” which at that time he had been doing for 40 years.

“I love to see cartoon toys and t-shirts,” he continued.
“They add color, life, and good humor to the world.”

I agree with Mr. Walker, who also said that comic strips “add to the language of the country, comment on the foibles of society, and add to the fun of living.”

Add humor to the world. Add to the fun of living. I believe this is the way. This is the higher plane of existence, the higher ground. This is the apex of spirituality to me. Mort Walker also demonstrated gratitude in that speech, noting that he owed much of his early success to King Features Syndicate, which “advised me, encouraged me, and had salespeople out there selling for me.”

The ending of the article reporting on the Festival of Cartoon Art shows the contrast between a happy cheerful, confident person, Mort Walker—the “Capably Glad”—and Bill Watterson, the “Socially Mad” grump:

Walker and Watterson also had very different approaches to dealing with the public at the three-day festival. Walker agreed to numerous requests to do autographed sketches and pose for photos, while Watterson declined to give autographs and requested no photos and no taping of his remarks.

Watterson And Walker Differ On Comics

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On that day, who would you rather meet? Who would you rather be? Who do you think is happier?

Bill Watterson could have found a way—within the context of running a business that other people depended on for their livelihoods—to maintain the quality and integrity of any licensed product so that Calvin and Hobbes would continue to last and endure in the public consciousness to this day with a living legacy.

It’s just a shame that he couldn’t get himself to work out a business arrangement and adopt a better, more productive, more charitable mindset. How great things might have been for so many more people.

For me, this is a cautionary tale about the difficulty and the effort that it takes to get ourselves out from the “Socially Mad” mindset into the “Capably Glad” mindset. It’s not easy, but I have no doubt that everything would be a lot better for everyone if more people did.

Nevertheless we have to focus on and appreciate what we do have, which is some Calvin and Hobbes books in some public libraries, and in some bookstores. If you can find any of them, please give this comic strip a try. It’s very special and good.

Let’s go exploring!

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Movie Lists! | Guides To Life | Movie Therapy | Ready To Laugh | + Guest Posts | Comic

A Vow To Never Get Angry Again

moviewise 🎟 — Wed, 11 May 2022 13:00:44 GMT

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by NickyPe on Pixabay

Anger in movies is fun to watch.

And in many cases, an angry character is also funny, particularly when that character completely loses it, as Steve Martin’s businessman character, Neal, does in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) when he hollers, curses, and throws his things in a parking lot. YOU’RE MESSING WITH THE WRONG GUY!

And few scenes are as memorable as Nicolas Cage’s Ronny raging to his brother Johnny’s fiancee about his life in the movie Moonstruck (1987):

Loretta (Cher): That’s the bad blood between you and Johnny? …But that’s not Johnny’s fault.
Ronny: I don’t care! I ain’t no freaking monument to justice! I LOST MY HAND. I LOST MY BRIDE. JOHNNY HAS HIS HAND. JOHNNY HAS HIS BRIDE. YOU WANT ME TO TAKE MY HEARTBREAK, PUT IT AWAY, AND FORGET?!
Loretta: […] What’s the matter with you? I mean, you think you’re the only one who ever shed a tear?

Moonstruck (1987)

Or, consider the masterful Bill Murray playing seething TV executive Frank Cross in Scrooged (1988).

Frank: But that’s me! I’m a widow of business. It’s my life! I’ve chosen it! […] When I want a wife, I’m going to buy one. And she’s going to be devoted to me, to my wants and my needs. NOT LIKE YOU! Let’s face it, you treated me like dirt!

Scrooged (1988)

I love all of these movies because they are funny and brilliant, but also because they portray anger, which in polite society we are not allowed to display. Hence, movies allow us to have a kind of release by allowing us to vicariously experience behavior that we know we should not engage in because of the harm it could cause.

But there is something more important that these movies do, which is to show the path, the exact path, these enraged characters take that allows them to eventually let go of their anger completely. In the end, what these movies really demonstrate is that anger is a choice.

If you think about it, isn’t anger the most pointless of the emotions? It’s beastly, isn’t it? When people act in anger, they really are betraying the animal within, all “red in tooth and claw,” as poet Alfred Lord Tennyson put it.

Evolution: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (2001)...

Of course there is no denying that we are part of the animal kingdom, a primate, and even share about 50% of our genes with a banana! So we can’t be too hard on ourselves. After all, we’re related to every fierce predator, sneaky creature, and lower life form that has ever existed on planet Earth. So what do you want from us? What did you expect?

And yet, we are capable of so much more!

We have brains that, for the most part, we can control. We’re not just mindlessly going about our day being led astray by impulses that control us. We can learn ethics and have morals to guide our behavior so that we can always remember to never intentionally cause harm or discomfort to others.

We can have a say and make choices about what we experience and how we react. We can use our logic and reason to mitigate the effects of strong emotions in order to have better outcomes for ourselves and those around us.

It’s absolutely NOT easy,
but what if here and now we all vow to never get angry again?

Anger is a fleeting emotion that passes. With time, like everything bad, anger evaporates. The cause of the anger, that is, what caused you to get angry or the reason for having an angry reaction, will also be forgotten over time as well.

But what you do in anger, the actions you take in anger—that could haunt you for the rest of your life and, more importantly, cause more harm and more anger to propagate in the world.

Wouldn’t it be better then, to not let yourself feel anger ever again?

Instead of anger, how about shaping your thoughts so that you feel sadness for others instead? Or better yet, isn’t compassion—a feeling of sympathy and a desire to alleviate suffering—what is really being called for in those anger-inducing situations?

The rude, aggressive, demanding person who is wasting your time?
The entitled, dishonest, arrogant person who is undermining you?
The ignorant, misguided, bitter person who is trying to lead you astray?

Have pity on them all, for they have some need you cannot see that is causing them so much pain that all they can do is lash out.

Once you pinpoint who these people are then, as much as you can, stay away from them and anything that makes you angry. But if you can recognize that something small is making you angry, then try to change your thinking so that you see it as small, and react appropriately. Which is to say,

Don’t sweat the small stuff …and it’s all small stuff.

— Richard Carlson

Most things are not worth getting upset over, and they’re certainly not worth your precious time.

Time is really the issue here. We don’t have long lives, and tragically many of the people we love have even shorter lives than we because they are older, or more frail, or more unlucky.

So what good is anger in the grand scheme of things?

Oh, it’s not easy to let it go! Anger is one of our basic emotions. It rises up as a reaction to an event and it may be an instantaneous kind of reflex that we may not be able to fully control. But isn’t anger at its core really just a reaction to stress?

The secret to never getting angry again, then, may be to eliminate your stress.

As William Shakespeare once wrote in Julius Caesar,

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.

Be valiant. Be brave. Let go of fears, especially daily ones that obviously don’t come true. If you feel overwhelmed by stress, ask for help. Stay away from doomsayers. Surround yourself with peace and tranquility. And never assume or expect—which is even worse—that your plans will work out.

Just do the best you can, taking care of the living beings around you as the number one priority above all—and everything will be ok.

Nothing really matters, but the ones we love.

If we put more energy into taking care of those around us, instead of letting the news cycle induce us to anger—news that is mostly about strangers and events that we can’t control and that largely don’t affect us—then everything will be better for a lot more people.

We only have a limited number of heart beats left in this world, this good Earth. Don’t let stress, and the anger that it causes, steal another moment of your time.

Let it go, whatever is causing the anger. Things don’t always work out how you wanted them to, or how you planned them, but that’s not necessarily bad. Things have a way of working out anyway.

Above all, don’t ever take out your anger on the innocent who had nothing to do with what caused your anger—that’s the height of injustice.

Only our loved ones matter. Make the best of your time with them, and let compassion, for yourself and others, be how you react to stress from this moment on, until the end of time.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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