The Comfort of Lies

Remember The Matrix? Great film, right? Well, it is as long as you pretend the two followups don't exist. Once you embrace the entire trilogy as one story, it kinda sucks. Okay, more than kinda. But, you know, it's okay to pretend; it's only a movie.

But let's explore that idea a little more.
And, you know, if you haven't seen The Matrix... Well, you'll just have to try and keep up, because I'm not explaining the movie in this post.

As you know, Neo has to make a choice, the choice between Reality and the fabricated world of the Matrix. One is real; one is a lie. The choice is symbolized by the two pills pictured above, the red pill or the blue pill. Of course, we all know which choice Neo is going to make, because the movie would be over if he were to choose to stay in the Matrix. Besides, it's the choice we all tell ourselves that we would make. Of course we would choose to forsake the lie!

But, man, Reality really sucks. (Much like the reality of the subsequent two films.)

Which brings us to Cypher. Cypher, having lived in the real world for quite a while, decides he doesn't like it. He decides he would rather live in a comfortable lie than continue to struggle through Reality. Remember, Reality sucks.

So Cypher cuts a deal with the machines and betrays his friends so that he can re-enter the lie, the Matrix.

The general reaction from the audience at the time was one of bafflement. How could he choose to go back into the Matrix knowing it was a lie? How could he?! But, you know, he tells us all the reasons as he's making the deal. He misses the... comfort... of it. The taste of food (rather than protein mush), the feel of the sun and the wind (rather than the blotted out sky), the ease of living as opposed to the constant life-threatening struggle that was Reality.

And, man, I empathize. Reality sucks, especially this current reality where we (in the United States) live on the teetering edge of authoritarianism and fascism. I get why so many people are choosing to believe the lies Trump pushes. It gives them comfort. It's their blue pill. If they can just believe in Trump enough, they can pretend he's not a racist douche bag and, if he's not a racist douche bag, then they, also, are not racist douche bags. And no one wants to be a racist douche bag. I mean, heck, even the white supremacist Nazi assholes try to pretend that they're not racist douche bags; that's why they go with all the "white pride" shit instead. But they're only fooling themselves.

To be fair, it's not like those on the Left aren't sucking on their own blue pills by continually talking about how we've forgotten the "white working class." This, also, is an appeal to racism and white supremacy. "C'mon white people, we're on your side." Seriously, no one forgot the white working class. In all seriousness, the white working class is doing just fine. The white working class, no matter how they feel about it, is still doing better than people of color. Any color. We need to stop talking about the "white working class" and how they feel left behind or whatever bullshit they want to call their racism. All they're really saying is, "We're worried our superior position is in jeopardy." And everyone else is trying to make them feel better about it while people of color are still getting the shit end of the stick.

Let me give you a practical example of the systemic racism in the system:
As I'm writing this, hurricane Irma is losing power, but the damage has already been done. There are about 45 known deaths to the storm and much of Florida is without power at the moment. Of course, just prior to Irma was Harvey. Harvey is responsible for 70 deaths and major flooding in Texas. These two storms caused huge amounts of destruction and have dominated the news for weeks.

However, in the midst of this, Mexico suffered the worst earthquake its had in a century, leaving around 100 dead. The media barely mentioned it and isn't talking about it anymore. And the news hasn't even mentioned that 2017 has been a harsh year for monsoons (hurricanes) in south Asia. The worst year in decades. So far, there have been almost 1300 confirmed deaths due to these storms and over 40 million people affected, including the destruction of more than 700,000 homes and a massive loss of crops due to flooding which is likely to cause food shortages. But, hey, they're not white, so, you know, big deal.

Right?

Look, I'm not diminishing what's happened to people in Houston and in Florida and in the Caribbean. What has happened has been horrible, but it doesn't make it less horrible to remember that other people are suffering, too. Except that, for some people, it does make it less horrible, because, to them, having bought into the Lie, they believe it's Us against Them, anything that happens to Them is okay because they deserve it. Or, maybe, not quite deserve it, but they don't deserve the special protection that white people ought to have from these kinds of events so, somehow, when it happens to white people, it's more tragic. Like when the Greeks only wrote tragedies about nobility because it wasn't tragedy if it happened to the common man.

But we're all common men.

The Lie is that we're not. The Lie is that it's Us (whites) against them (people of any other skin color).

Let me put it another way, to paraphrase Yoda:

My ally is the Truth, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, binds. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Truth flow around you. Here, between you, me, the brown person, and the black, yes, even between all others and the white.

The Truth, what Reality really is, is the we are all us.

We are all us.

(And I didn't even mention the blue pill of climate change denial.)

Swimming On Stranger Tides

My kids started swimming lessons this week. It's been bad for blogging. More bad than I would have expected. I mean, generally speaking, I don't get a lot of anything productive accomplished in the mornings, anyway, because my daughter spends that time of the day doing her best to drive everyone in  the house crazy, because none of her friends are available to play. This, in itself, is a mystery to me. I was like my daughter at her age. As soon as the sun was up, I was out the door. Unless there were cartoons, but that was only on Saturday. My daughter is the same. Her friends, however, don't seem to share that same enthusiasm for playing and must only go outside once they are forced out by their guardians like baby birds being pushed out of the nest. At any rate, I was sort of assuming that going to swimming lessons with the kids would just be using that unproductive time in  the mornings in other ways, but, no, not really... It just hasn't seemed to work out that way.

However, surprisingly, swimming lessons have been good for Brother's Keeper. That, also, is interesting. I need a pretty quiet space for writing. The TV can't be on. Music can't be playing. The kids can't be making noise. That includes noise from video games. Basically, if I'm trying to write, they need to be somewhere else. Or reading. And even though I'd like to, I can't make them read 4-6 hours a day. Not to waste the time I'm sitting around while they have lessons, though, I take a notebook with me. And a book. Maybe it's because the chaos there isn't specifically directed at me. Maybe it's because the tables are at the back away from  the pool. Whatever it is, the chaos is sort of like TV fuzz, and I've been getting a fairly good amount of work done on the new manuscript while I sit around and they flop in the water. Or, maybe, it's just that I've had this stuff buzzing around in my head since February, and it's just ready to get out.

There was also a movie. I've been getting some one-on-one time in with the kids by taking each of them to a movie they pick out. Of course, it's not really that simple, because it all started over some drama with my daughter about her not getting to go see a movie she didn't want to go see. Yes, you read that right. She did not want to see a particular movie. She was given the option of seeing the movie, anyway, and declined. She became upset that  one of her brothers got to see it with me. Yes, I deal with that kind of thing every day. The oldest child chose to see X-Men: First Class (which I reviewed here). The daughter chose Judy Moody (You may, now, notice that I did not review this one. Yes, there is absolutely nothing to say about it. Neither good enough nor bad enough to really say anything.) The middle child chose Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Not because he really wanted to see that movie in particular but because none of the movies he wants to see are out yet, and it was the one he most wanted to see of what's available.

I feel a little bad for taking him to it, at this point, because he would have liked X-Men a lot more. But I had no way of knowing.

Pirates 4 is a lot like Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer; however, because it's such a big deal (as opposed to Judy, which you're not likely to even know about unless you have a, what do you call it now, a pre-tween girl in your house), I'll give you the scoop. Even though it is coming rather late.

There are two main issues with this newest installment of the Pirates franchise. The first one, I'm just going to gloss over, because I actually have an upcoming post dealing with this issue as it's not a problem specific to this movie but a growing trend, not just in movies but in, well, everything written coming out these days.

Pirates is a long movie. Too long. And, yet, not long enough. The writers wrote this long, rambling script with lots of extra stuff in it. Stuff that, really, has nothing to do with the actual plot. I'm assuming it has an actual plot, although I'm not convinced the writers had agreed on one specific one. At some point, they realized it was too long. Cuts needed to be made. Instead of carving out the non-essential elements, they just chopped off the first third of the movie, leaving something that was still too long but without any kind of foundation. At least, that's what it felt like.

For instance, the movie opens with Mr. Gibbs on trial. He's being tried as Jack Sparrow. How did he come to be on trial and why do they think he's Jack? We don't know. And we don't get to know. Of course, Jack is there to rescue him. Gibbs is surprised to see Jack, because Jack had nothing to do with why he's on trial, Jack just happened to hear about it and decided to rescue his old friend. Because, you know, Jack is prone to thinking about other people before himself. During all of the action revolving around the rescue, we find out we're already in the midst of the story, "I hear you've been looking for the Fountain of Youth." "Why, yes. Yes, I am." Something close to that, at any rate. And there we are in the middle of the story without any of the reasons for it. Of course, in the end, the "story" isn't even the story, because, well, as I said, the writers didn't know which story they were telling. The rescue of Gibbs and Jack's escape is the best part of the movie, though, and that, actually, has nothing to do with any story. It's just a bit of fun. Think car chase with no cars.

There's also a completely non-essential sub-plot, or, maybe, it is the plot, between a missionary and a mermaid. I think they were probably trying to recapture the romance between Swan and Turner from the previous movies, but, in truth, they are who the previous movies are about, so it worked. This movie, Jack is the main character, and we have no reason to care about the missionary and the mermaid, so we don't.

I could go on about the plot issues. For instance, there's the inclusion of the Spanish, who are there as no more than a deus ex machina device except not. There's Blackbeard. Why? I don't really know. Theoretically, he's important to the plot, but, unfortunately, he's also unnecessary. Anyway...

The other central issue to the movie is that the actors, over all, don't give the parts any life. It felt like watching a dress rehearsal. Hmm... no, not a dress rehearsal, a last run through of the dialogue while in costume. Oh, there are moments, but not enough of them. Johnny Depp even falls flat for much of the movie, but it may just be that the script kept trying to force him out of character. Like rescuing Gibbs when he was getting nothing out of it. Geoffrey Rush almost pulls off Barbossa, but he, also, is frequently out of character because of the script. It's like the writers had a basket of characters that they plugged in whether they should have been there or not. Well, actually, they had characters they needed to put into the movie and stuck them into the best places possible even if they didn't quite fit.

The biggest disappointment was Ian McShane. If I had never seen Deadwood, I probably wouldn't have given him a second thought; however, I have seen Deadwood, so I know what he's capable of. His rendition of Blackbeard was not it. Flat as a cardboard cut out. If they hadn't told us in the movie that Blackbeard was supposed to be scary and evil, I never would have known. And don't get me started on the cheesy scenes of him and his sword that they put in just for the 3d effects even though they didn't do anything for the actual story (no, I didn't see it in 3d, so they were doubly wasted on me).

The biggest surprise was Penelope Cruz. That may be because I was expecting absolutely nothing more than a piece of eye candy from her, but she was actually decent. As decent as the script allowed, at any rate.

Oh, and they stuck Keith Richards in just so he could be in the movie. Sort of like the random old guy that wanders through and says "Beware...!" the whatever and then is gone. Yeah, that was his bit.

What it comes down to is that I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone. At least, not for seeing it in the theater. It's probably worth a rental, but it has nothing to make it worth seeing at the theater. Not unless you just want to pay the 3d price in order to see a few swords and ropes flying out of the screen at you.