Movies

How Screwed We Are / Movies — No Comments
26
Apr 10

Cat Food. I Hope You Like It.

At the urging of some of my more hip-to-the-financial-news friends, I watched the movie I.O.U.S.A. last night (available on Netflix on-demand), which explains in an entertaining and informative way what the national debt is, why it matters, and why we’re so incredibly screwed.

I hope you like cat food. Because that’s all you’ll be able to afford to eat when we retire. The baby boomers are gonna clean us out, folks.

You know that Social Security money that gets taken out of your paycheck, Gen X and Gen Yers? You ain’t never gonna see it again. Look up “Ponzi Scheme” in Wikipedia. That’s how Social Security operates.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: the U.S. government spends more than it earns (through taxes). That’s not a problem in the short-term, but it’s a big problem in the long-term. I won’t go into why, but let’s just say that other empires throughout history, among them Rome and England, were undone by their debt.

But you have to watch the movie to see why and just how hard we’re going to get our asses handed to us.

When I owned cats, I always thought that I would prefer Tender Vittles. The dry stuff looked like it would tear your mouth up worse than stale Cap’n Crunch, and the wet stuff was just plain gross. I hope they still make T.V. (I already have slang picked out) in 30 years.

Part of the problem is our government. If you’re an institution for the people by the people, when the people are addicted to debt, you’ve got a tricky situation.

No one wants to hear about cutting Social Security or Medicare, or on the other hand, raising taxes. We expect it all for nothing. We want big government benefits with small government taxes.

And the leaders running the country don’t have either the cojones or mojo to tell it like it is, and complex economic ideas need documentaries, not sound bytes, to be understood.

So what can we do? My suggestion is you invest what little nest egg you have left over from the recession and put it all into Nestlé, parent company of Purina. Because cat food is all you’ll be able to afford to feed yourself, and everyone will be buying it.

And if you live in Florida or New York City, make sure you buy some Ziplock bags. If you recall from Inconvenient Truth, we’ll be underwater and you won’t want your cat food to get wet.

Movies — No Comments
17
Apr 10

Watching 2012 in the Wake of Earthquakes and Eruptions

Let’s see. We’ve seen major earthquakes in Haiti, Baja Caifornia, Chile, an China in the past few months. Then we have this volcano, dormant for 200 years, erupting in Iceland shutting down travel and cargo in Europe.

What a great time to watch 2012, in which humanity gets nearly wiped out by geologic events.

Last night we popped in 2012 on BluRay. I highly recommend watching this movie, especially with friends who like to make fun absurdities in disaster flicks. 2012 is super-entertaining and hilarious, filled with very realistic-looking megadestruction, nail-biting but predictable escapes, character stereotypes, and a complete lack of subtlety in attempting to send a populist and brotherhood-of-man moral message. It’s perfect.

2012 is very much a new millenium movie, with emerging superpowers like India, Russia, and China having more of a presence than Western European countries. In what’s sure to delight the NAACP and piss off the white supremacists (but then again, what doesn’t annoy them), the ascendancy of African-Americans was reflected by a sympathetic black president and altruistic leading science advisor. There was also an unintentionally funny statement by a geologist, ‘The continent of Africa is rising!’

Particularly amusing were the lengthy, dramatic speeches given by various characters about the nature of our humanity at moments of extreme time-pressure. And even funnier were the moments of tender dialog by survivors of the complete destruction of the human race, including their families and presumably the majority of their Facebook friends.

New York’s destruction was notably absent. Perhaps the filmmakers thought it was okay to blow away Los Angeles and Vegas but seeing buildings fall in NYC would hit too close to home. Probably a good call.

In all, 2012 offers complete entertainment. You will not be bored. I’m not saying its the best movie, but its certainly a good time when watched with the right people.

Movies — No Comments
16
Mar 10

Blown Away by District 9

Last night we finally got around to watching District 9.  We put it in late, intending to only watch 30 minutes.  Mistake.  I went to bed hours past my bedtime.  I gotta be honest, this was probably the most original and creative movie I’ve seen since Adaptation or Memento. Keep in mind, too, even though I’m a software guy I’m not a sci-fi freak.

Let’s put all allegory or political message aside for a second. The premise of an alien mothership stranded over a city is a novel one.  Wikus van de Merwe, the human protagonist, is completely unusual (yet believable) and gives new meaning to the phrase ‘character transformation’.  The script was intricate, compelling, unpredictable, and heart-wrenching.

You know how in Star Wars or Star Trek when aliens talk it sounds like they’re speaking Chinese or Russian?  The alien language in District 9 is like nothing you’ve ever heard.  And the way humans talk about the creatures, referring to them as “prawns”, combined with pseudo media footage and documentary style interviews, lend a sense of natural believability to the film.  The realism adds to the intensity of the movie.

District 9 is not for the squeamish, and definitely not for kids.  Some of the scenes are disturbing both graphically and emotionally.  But it’s movie making at its finest and will stick with you for days.

NOTE:  Finally, great movies this year:  Avatar, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Up, This is It, Inglorious Basterds, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (most underrated film of 2009, by the way).  After a lackluster decade where movies like Crash, Chicago, Slumdog Millionaire, and No Country for Old Men won Oscars for Best Picture,  let’s hope Hollywood is back on track.

ANOTHER NOTE:  I suggest watching it with subtitles.  I couldn’t understand what the hell the South Africans were saying, even though it was English.