I was just putting together some iTunes playlists. This is apparently how I entertain myself these days. Also, I'm probably getting an iPod. So I'm kicking playlist ideas around.
I found myself putting a lot of songs from Vanilla Sky into the lists. That's not too strange, since it's one of my favorite movies. I was struck with a little inspiration and I googled for the tab for a song. Came across some reviews of the movie.
I knew that most people didn't get into it. But a lot of people were saying that it is total crap.
I really think it's a very simple movie disguised as a confusing, complicated one. Which throws some people off. They think that it's too complicated yet explains itself too much. Some people have told me that they didn't like that there was an explanation at the end. To which I answer, you missed the point of the movie.
One hint: existentialism.
Incidentally, I've noticed that a lot of people who don't like Vanilla Sky also don't like Fight Club. I think part of it is that both movies show the audience something they aren't necessarily comfortable seeing. Though I think Vanilla Sky is a little sneakier about it.
Maybe some people just don't identify and therefore don't get it. Which is fine. I don't know if it's a good thing that I identify with the characters in these movies or not. I suppose it's kind of scary. But then again, I identify with The Big Lebowski too. So maybe I shouldn't read too much into any of this.
Sometimes I really wish I got a business degree instead of philosophy and english. Seriously.|||109539588319252177|||Vanilla Sky
Scooter|||Vanilla Sky is an ok movie, but the problem with it for me is that it seemed like such a blatant rip off of Philip K. Dick. If you haven't read Ubik, you should, there are some differences, but they're awfully similar, at least in theme. Little know fact: one of the premier experts on Philip K. Dick lives in Minnesota, Larry Sutin, a Hamline Professor. He wrote biographies of both Dick and Aleister Crowley. When he was writing the one on PKD, he actually went through the entire rambling 6' high stack of paper PKD claims he received directly from Heaven (at least if I remember correctly, that's the story). Joe|||Actually, I think it's pretty hard to do anything sci-fi without ripping PKD off. That's like saying that any given “cyberpunk” author has ripped off William Gibson (who was heavily influenced by PKD, as far as I can tell).My favorite quote by PKD (paraphrased): "Reality is that which, when you ignore it, doesn't go away."
And it's actually a remake of a rip-off—Abre los Ojos (also starring Penélope Cruz).
And yeah, PKD was an interesting guy. Valis isn't entirely non-autobiographical. The protagonist's name is a reworking of the author's (Horselover Fat / Phillip Dick — Horselover by way of greek, I think, and Fat by way of German). I think that the whole “pink laser” thing was really experienced by PKD.
I had a prof once who complained that American Beauty was a rip–off of Tobias Wolff's “Bullet in the Brain”. Again, I can see that, but I guess it doesn't change the way I see things.
One could also say that Vanilla Sky / Ojos is a rip–off of Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress too (an excellent short story, by the way). So is, for that matter, The Matrix. And all of these can be said to be ripping off the ideas of Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, etc. And Whitehead said that European philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. Who, in turn, based his ideas on those of Socrates and the pre-Socratics.
I guess I prefer to say “inspired by”.
Haven't read Ubik yet though. I'll have to pick it up.
Scooter|||But I do like Fight Club.