"I Am Legend" (Will Smith) ** SPOILERS **
** Warning, possible spoilers ahead (my thoughts related to the movie and not details about the movie itself.) **
So anyone who knows me knows that I do NOT see violent movies. Not "normal" violence, not horror, and certainly not psychological thrillers, which I consider the worst for my active imagination which finds root most deeply when I am sleeping (or supposed to be) and my defenses are low.
I am not saying that Will Smith's "I Am Legend" is not a great movie. I trust him more than any other movie star I know (although I admit that I didn't see "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and "Pursuit of Happyness," misspelling and all, were only sufferable due to his amiable presence). However, "I Am Legend," is the stuff of nightmares-- likely my own.
As person to person violence becomes normative on television, in the news, and in various other modes of "entertainment," and as we come to realize that we truly do hold the capacity to destroy humanity in our lifetime through nuclear war, viruses, and environmental destruction, our blackest nightmare scenarios transition from big bangs and loud noises to true manifestations of fear.
The apocalypse reality not of the earth and humanity's destruction but of sole survival, of absolute loneliness, of vile emotional disfigurement, of loss of love-- these are our new concerns when we think of the end of life in the world.
As our appetite for the awful develops, American movies now are finally starting to channel the blackest Japanese horror films, which know our deepest and most sensitive fears, as well as their direct access channels.
----
It also didn't help that we've been talking recently about the effects of nuclear and chemical weaponry on our small little land. Iran hits first and knocks out 200,000- 800,000 people in the first drop (all traces of the articles I was reading have disappeared from Israeli news sources... strange) and then chemical weapons from Syria take out the rest of us.
We don't have proper bomb shelters in the south the way we did in the North and there is no elevation like in Haifa or Jerusalem. (Chemical gases are heavier than air, so you stand the best chance of reducing your exposure by getting to a high place.)
Call me melancholy-- although I don't consider myself to be-- but these are some of the thoughts on our mind these days.
-----
Not a very Christmasy post. Wouldn't you rather I'd have gone out for Chinese food and seen a comedy with friends? An interesting turn of events.
So anyone who knows me knows that I do NOT see violent movies. Not "normal" violence, not horror, and certainly not psychological thrillers, which I consider the worst for my active imagination which finds root most deeply when I am sleeping (or supposed to be) and my defenses are low.
I am not saying that Will Smith's "I Am Legend" is not a great movie. I trust him more than any other movie star I know (although I admit that I didn't see "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and "Pursuit of Happyness," misspelling and all, were only sufferable due to his amiable presence). However, "I Am Legend," is the stuff of nightmares-- likely my own.
As person to person violence becomes normative on television, in the news, and in various other modes of "entertainment," and as we come to realize that we truly do hold the capacity to destroy humanity in our lifetime through nuclear war, viruses, and environmental destruction, our blackest nightmare scenarios transition from big bangs and loud noises to true manifestations of fear.
The apocalypse reality not of the earth and humanity's destruction but of sole survival, of absolute loneliness, of vile emotional disfigurement, of loss of love-- these are our new concerns when we think of the end of life in the world.
As our appetite for the awful develops, American movies now are finally starting to channel the blackest Japanese horror films, which know our deepest and most sensitive fears, as well as their direct access channels.
----
It also didn't help that we've been talking recently about the effects of nuclear and chemical weaponry on our small little land. Iran hits first and knocks out 200,000- 800,000 people in the first drop (all traces of the articles I was reading have disappeared from Israeli news sources... strange) and then chemical weapons from Syria take out the rest of us.
We don't have proper bomb shelters in the south the way we did in the North and there is no elevation like in Haifa or Jerusalem. (Chemical gases are heavier than air, so you stand the best chance of reducing your exposure by getting to a high place.)
Call me melancholy-- although I don't consider myself to be-- but these are some of the thoughts on our mind these days.
-----
Not a very Christmasy post. Wouldn't you rather I'd have gone out for Chinese food and seen a comedy with friends? An interesting turn of events.