[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Movies

[W. J.]

I've been waiting for the chance to rake in some recommendations for great MOVIES I haven't yet seen.
   
  And, beyond that, I'm compiling a humongous database of all the movies I HAVE recently seen on DVD (that I can remember), so that I can rate them and flush out my list of the best of the best of the best.
   
  Beyond that, I'm especially looking for candidates for a new movie 'course' I'm building on the 'cinema of transformation.' In other words, RS-1 without the seminar papers. Or maybe 'secular RS-1 for unbelievers.' Or maybe (gasp!) 'RS-1 Lite.'

  For example, I'm considering Kurasawa's Ikiru, which for years I didn't even want to see. But when I finally forced myself to check it out, what a revelation! The protagonist, a bureaucrat in a meaningless do-nothing pass-the-buck government job, gets a terminal diagnosis and decides to use his few remaining months to pour out his life to get something done to relieve a neighborhood eysore by turning a toxic cesspool into a playground. And he dies alone swinging on the playground swing, but he's remembered as a saint and hero for finally breaking the government logjam that prevented compassionate outreach to a community that nobody cared about.
   
  So, where in this story would you point to a "life transformed"? Or to what in the old days we used to call "effulgence"? And where have you witnessed transformation in somebody's life?
   
  Please send me other great movie ideas, and if you care to, send them to the whole list.
   
  Marshall Jones
  synergi at yahoo.com
   
  And if you get to Frisco, you're welcome to come to my screening room where we'll be having depth discussion of these, plus free popcorn.
   
  
LAURELCG at aol.com wrote:
  Dear Colleagues,

I've wanted to write about the movie Blood Diamond ever since I saw it. I 
debated with myself about renting the DVD because I'm attempting to maintain 
peace and non-violence in my own thinking, and am avoiding violence in what I 
watch. But after seeing it, as painful and violent as it is, I am glad to have 
seen a story of redemption, and think it could be a good new RS-1 movie. The 
lines I would recall (though not perfectly) in a movie conversation would be: 
"Do you think there are bad people and good people?" (spoken by the good 
mission teacher, nearest thing to Miss Miller in this work.) Leo's character (a 
very "bad" person) answers, "I think there are just people." The good teacher 
replies, "You're right. Bad people can do very good things given the right 
circumstances."

The memory of the scene in which the African father talks his M-16-toting son 
into going home with him still brings tears to my eyes. What a wonderful 
picture of fatherhood (and husbanding.) If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.

I love the special features on some DVD's. They can add a lot to my 
understanding. The director's comment on Blood Diamond, that the real treasure is the 
boy, not the diamond, transformed my thinking.

The other movie I wanted to comment on is "Wag the Dog." I know it's old, 
but our Tibetan Buddhist teacher recommended it to us this month, so I dutifully 
rented it. The teacher wanted us to be reminded of how the media can be 
manipulated to influence our thinking. The movie is still funny and horrifying 
and truth-telling. Again, the DVD special features are priceless, with one that 
traces the history of how the media influenced and was influenced by politics 
and economics in the 20th century, and the movies that told that story (such 
as "The Manchurian Candidate.")

Blessings,
Jann McGuire


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