Apocalypto, M. Gibson

Here's the truth about Mel Gibson's latest epic APOCALYPTO.  I've so far read none of the reviews, so this is entirely my own, private experience viewing the quite long movie.

Like me, some viewers might get antzy and impatient in the beginning because it's unfamiliar, to me anyway, film story- telling. We're in the dark jungle, things aren't going too well and everyone is unsettled and angry. Poachers from a different ethnic (??) group or tribe are taking their food.  The "poachers" turn out to be from a people forming the beginnings of civilization. But not only are they poachers, they are rounding up slaves for ritual sacrifice. In these beginning scenes I was very struck by the quality and effects of the makeup. Oscar for makeup is a cinch. Ditto cinematography.

The story is an attempt to recreate PreColumbian Mayan Indian culture in what in now the Yucatan, Mexico. Remember the step pyramid in Yucatan (State), well that is featured as a locale in the movie. (Not actually shot in Mexico; Nearby I think I did read.) Never in my long life did I dream that human heads would be filmed rolled down those steps from the top, and the body dropped on a heap of literally thousands of headless, naked bodies out of which all the hearts had been ripped while still pumping. That's an actual, real life event, the 30,000 murdered by raw heart removal and all done with amazing speed. Anthropologists have determined how long that took. Much less than a day.

Full appreciation of the intent of the moviemaker might include the assumption that the beginning fertile jungle scenes might be a metaphor for the Garden of Eden into which snakes show up. Murderous snakes. But snakes forming the beginnings of civilization nevertheless.

Near the conclusion of the massacre scenes a few sacrificial humans escape and are hunted, and hunted hard and long as if the killers feared their own death if they failed to return every single slave.

The final shots of the movie are stunning. I was taken completely by surprise!

I can't reveal the ending in good conscience, yet, by not writing that down I can't give my interpretation of the entire movie.  So, I'll save that for some future Part Two.

The implications of the ending thrilled me as I have never before been thrilled at the movies.

Barry

If in your Comment you reveal the ending, I don't mind, it's  just that I can't do it.  Usually, BTW, I don't buy that SPOILER alert stuff, but this is different.

Oscars for Mel Gibson! I hope and pray. What guts!!

 

 

Unknown (Ha)

Unknown to me my eleven year old was paid $20 and given a small, very small, bird in a fairly large cage, both he and one of his friends, for helping a neighbor move into the house next door, a building owned by the neighbor's sister.

Everyone is asleep save me and the tiny bird. I assume the bird will get bigger. It responds to sweet talk; I think we're going to get along. I like the merry warbling. Nearby on the table is a new, small humidifier in the shape of a large frog. I guess you could say the household is going zoological.

Main Entry: zoo·log·i·cal

Function: adjective
Pronunciation: "zO-&-'lä-ji-k&l
Variants: also zoo·log·ic
/-jik/
1 : of, relating to, or occupied with zoology
2 : of, relating to, or affecting lower animals often as distinguished from humans
- zoo·log·i·cal·ly
/-ji-k(&-)le/ adverb

Would you say a cat is out? Wouldn't a cat peer at the tiny mite until it dropped from fright?

I thought I might have made up the word, but no, there it was in the AOL dictionary. People get offended when I supply dictionary samples; it's as if they thought I was being insufferably didactic, when all I'm doing is confessing my ignorance.

Although, obviously, Christmas has passed, I'm still belatedly sending presents and cards, or messages, to make up for holiday sloth. Do you figure a late Christmas present is better than none, or is forgetting inexcusable; not really forgetting , just sloth again. I sent a friend a bottle of wine and an opener to get the cork out. A fancy contraption reeking of power and wealth. His, not mine. Years ago his mother, probably breaking some kind of rule, told me soto voce that he'd bought the building he'd been living in. In a big rich city. Okay, so I sent coals to Newcastle.

Another late gift idea I will implement later today - a risky idea based on not much - is to purchase for a modest sum two contraptions, one each for the younger boys, that look a bit like small camcorders, but are actually a flashlight and a radio that runs on movement and not batteries. Each has an antenna. Dunno about yours, but my younger boys dote on flashlights and use up expensive batteries something fierce. The presents might turn out to be an economy measure.  With the exception of the bottle of wine all the late-bought presents probably came from China. Without China I might not have had any Christmas at all.

Skip the newest treatment of The Nativity. It is inept. The actor playing Mary looks like she works on an asembly line in Detroit. That young woman knows too much.

The year 2007 rushes toward us. What calamities, what joys; what, just what is headed our way?!? I'd kinda just like to stay in 2006.

Barry 

 

 

Blurted Out

Private camaraderie in public as practiced by Journalers here, but not as far as I know on secret Blogs unavailable to public scrutiny, requires some trust (in human decency) as well as a certain daring. (Those lacking daring, an interest in public service.)

An un-named AOL-sanctioned group voted (when I read that word I immediaterly thought of various criminal conspiracies through history, ha ha ha) to disallow me to place my Link to this site on the Signature line of my AOL Writers message board posts. (Post=Entry). Their stated reason for selecting me for that special muzzling is that I write incendiary Entries. You've seen them burst into flames I'm sure. 

If anyone would like to comment (in any way you like) on this situation please leave a Comment here, or send an email, or smoke signal. No, I take that back: they are afraid, deadly afraid of fire, so no smoke please.

 

Barry 

 

 

 

Christmas and Churchgoing

Went to church (as opposed to Church) in the afternoon of Christmas Eve Day, a children's service, in Pasadena California, home of the Rose Parade, and the Rose Bowl football game. The service was held at All Saints Episcopal church, and we, the whole family, were invited by my daughter from a previous marriage, now 35, who has served as a Christian Missionary in Northern Alaska.  My daughter lives near San Francisco, about 600 miles up the coast.  She was visiting friends. It was a wonderful chance to be together, and I knew the children would enjoy the presence of so many other children.

In an almost silent huddle my daughter and I agreed that this particular church, huge and beautiful in its architecture, gave God billing over Jesus. I was on my very best behaviour, determined to give up my fault of finding fault. But some provocations break the sternest resolve. I still cannot for the life of me imagine what would get into the head of any Christian cleric to turn the Nativity into a broad comedy. The wise men given comic costumes just for the entertainment of children? Pratfalls and a whining Inn keeper fed up with wise men and shepherds showing up in the middle of the night disturbing the neighborhood? I can't remember any former Virgin at all. But she must have wandered across the stage at some point. Mary as an extra!???? I'm not sure if the child was delivered.  I swear, the only pregnant woman in the entire assemblage, hundreds of people, was my wife, huge at only six months.

This is the same church, I later hit upon, that is in trouble with Federal courts for failing to observe separation of Church and State. There is a threat that this very same church will be denied tax exempt status. All the parishioners looked oh so spiffy. I swear on the Bible my four year old, said something close to, "They (the all White congregation) are more handsome [his word!] than we are." The wall of White people actually made me too feel uncomfortable. The next day son Michael pointed to 'Curious George'(the Movie character) in a wall poster wearing a shirt and tie. People at church wore shirts and ties, some of them.

Pasadena became a posh place at the beginning of the 1900's and has remained lilly white every since. It was a summer vacation mecca for Chicago merchants. Too bad. The buildings have always outshone the people. Green and Green homes, architectual marvels of practicality, enduring construction and beauty ornament the city. But every time I go there, which is fairly frequently because I swim train at the aquatic center, I break out into a rash.

Odd. That's the only word for our Christmas, the social aspect of it anyway. The private Christmas was sheer heaven, praise the Lord.

Oh my God, how powerful it might have been if somewhere in the service a young person's voice could have spoken "Hail Holy Queen Mother of mercy, hail our light our sweetness and our hope......" (Do I have the words right Ally?)

Barry

 

 

The Holidays Hanakkah & Christmas

Documentaries on TV (Discovery Channel - Health) about childbirth have gripped my pregnant wife all morning. The last one was a pip!: an adorable boy, age 12, brother of two younger boys, has been diagnosed with a blood disorder which requires for remedy a bone marrow transplant. (Please don't hold me responsible for medical accuracy here, my Entry is about the spirit, not the body.)

To solve this malady the parents have cheerfully and fearfully opted to immediately have another baby and use some of that baby's blood, should it perfectly match, by injecting it into that baby's much older brother. We didn't have to wait nine months, thanks to film editing, ha ha.  But, the parents did have to wait, and wait, and wait. Their bravery in the face of the daily decline of their immensely lovable and appreciative twelve year old who has gotten thinner, and has stopped growing, was gripping.

The transplant worked. The oldest and the youngest in closeup kissing and hugging sure were moving even though the poor infant didn't, couldn't yet hug or kiss back.

I noticed that the parents wore commonplace religious icons, and if I'd been more observant I'd have seen more of the same in their Southern USA home.  I noticed how adult and non-gooey emotional both parents behaved on-camera during their long ordeal.  I noticed they were equals. The producers couldn't possibly have 'cast' better, more believable 'actors.' Sometimes real people on camera cannot behave naturally, not even in a crisis, so crippled do they become from stage fright.  I wonder if attending religious ceremonies, regardless of denominations, over a lifetime imparts an ease while being observed? In any case, both parents were deeply committed to the sacrifices they undertook to save their twelve year old son, and their demeanor on-camera was most moving and inspiring.  The Producer, CBS, probably paid some of their expenses, but nevertheless we are enormously grateful to those 'actors' for allowing us to watch their ordeal. 

After the TV show I read someone's message on an AOL message board declaring that all religion is myth.

I think that person needs a 'bone marrow transplant.' Would that shore up a sagging spirit?  Some of us may need the arduousness of parenting so as to fully enjoy and appreciate the thills of being alive on this beautiful planet.

God Bless. 

Barry

 

Childhood

Nearly everyone has an opinion about the raising of children, who should have children, who shouldn't have children, how old one should be to bring up children, how many children a couple should have, whether same sex couples can successfully raise children, whether or not population growth can or should be regulated, and most vociferously of all whether it is okay to kill children in utero.

Does all that opinionating taken in a lump seem just a tad idle considering that in Africa presently there are millions of children not cared for because their parents died of a sexually tranmitted virus? I feel for Madonna suffering criticism for daring to adopt an African child without first gaining universal approval for doing so.

In short, I smell - our nation reeks of it in fact - self-righteous pontificating on a grand scale. Has partial birth abortion really truly taken place in America on a large scale? Please tell me it isn't so. It is so isn't it? Americans, the selfish barbarians, always seeing to their comfort while madly opinionating about what the rest of the world is up to.  A sign of America's decaying society is the almost total absence of foreign art - novels, movies, painting, music and dance, to cite just a few, circulating in our culture. How long is it since you last saw a foreign movie?!  Hmmmm? Yet, we are so greedy to look good in the arts we stole art treasures from Italy, and only recently gave them back. We suck.  ELIZABETH the two part history drama from England played repeatedly here on television and that was nice; I'm consoled knowing that it will be shown on college campuses here as part of History lecture classes.

Children are probably taken better care of in Japan than they are in America. They are certainly disciplined to greater effect than children are disciplined here in America. Japanese children are taught math earlier and longer and more rigorously than they are in America. As a result, Japanese autos shine magnificently on our flooded- with-foreign-vehicle freeways and highways and city streets. Ford, wanting some of the action, became principal investor in the Japanese auto company, Mazda!

We oughtta start over. We could begin by redesigning our school systems.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas

Christmas spirit, to be candid, seems light years away from my actual true state right now. I don't want anything for Christmas, I want something for March, a healthy, uncomplicated delivery of our baby. The only present I've bought so far is a blood sugar testing device for the mother (the mother of Dwight) whose Ob-Gyn Doc is on the alert for possible runaway blood sugar. These days, in contrast to earlier days, baby doctors test for everything under the sun. Drug empires must pay sums for stats re healthy deliveries. I think of baby deliveries all over the world, deliveries in 'Mangers' benign and poisonous, and feel floods of gratitude for favors received.

I've never heard conjectures about any possible embarrassment experienced by Mary and Joseph when there was no space for them found in the Inn. Today's modern mother would have a hissy fit worrying about possible infection from the bovine company. You could say Mary and Joseph were the ultimate expecting couple. He didn't grouse about all the possible 'fathers,' secure in his faith in his own Father In Heaven.

You know, whoever, who-all, wrote the New Testament must, absolutely MUST have had help from 'Above' with the writing.  Such writing!  Holy inkwell is that stuff well-written!

Barry 

 

 

 

Footware

My current favorite footware - for California even in winter - is what Might in some places be called 'slippers' or sandals, or thongs.

Main Entry: thong

Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'tho [ng]
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English thwong; akin to Old Norse thvengr thong
1 : a strip especially of leather or hide
2 : a sandal held on the foot by a thong fitting between the toes and connected to a strap across the top or around the sides of the foot

Yeah, like that. I started wearing them for walking from the swimming pool changing room to my lane. The cement walkway is often made rough to prevent falls by children running. That footware obviates sox and sure simplifies getting footware on and off. trouble is many kinds and styles are made so poorlythe thong quickly breaks after a couple of weeks. Finally I found the 'thongs' of my dreams: they are colored red, white and green, the colors of the Mexican flag, and along the outside of the canvas "strap" across the front of the foot is printed nicely "MEXICO." That suited me fine: I retired in Mexico for nearly five years and returned to California when our children needed to go to school.

The other day in the men's room at McDonalds I was accosted, and was nearly forced into fisticuffs by an elderly, well dressed Mexican man who accused me of stepping on his country, and, besides, the 'shoes/sandals/thongs' I was wearing, plus my feet, were dirty. I ended up screaming at him over and over to "Grow up."

Lest you think this is a most unlikely, atypical McDonalds confrontation, let me briefly recount another event, far, far more serious, that happened a couple of weeks ago in a children's public playground not much more than a hundred yards as the crow flies from that men's room. My son, aged eleven, witnessed with his very own eyes a man shot to death in broad daylight. I've never seen anyone killed. I served in Korea in time of war, and while I saw bodies, I never actually saw anyone murdered, killed, or rubbed out. I hated that my son had to see that. And I'm frightened that he was not more upset: is he growing up in a world where murder happens? So what??

I'll save the sermon. But our world, everyone's world, is not safe.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

Fatherhood

Online I've repeatedly been called names for siring a child at my age. If I could remember the names of the older gents in the Bible who became fathers I'd reply, but I can't remember for sure. Abraham couldn't have been young when God tested him. I plan to bring up the subject next time I'm at confession: Saint Mary's in East LA near one of the swimming pools I frequent: Father John. He's the good priest who said he wears street clothes on the bus so he won't get dunned for a donation; He's the cleric who gives communion once a year to those not technically eligible.

 

I'm reading Father Greeley's fine novel THE PRIESTLY SINS (2004) about the molestation scandals. Odd to be reading it at exactly the same time the LA Times has daily, long items about the millions still to be paid out to victims. The LA Diocese has "billions," (literally) says the TIMES, but still the Church fears it must sell off some property.  Insurance companies are refusing to pay all, or even most.  Greeley's novel (2004) begins with a courtroom scene in which an informant is being discredited, or rather discredit is being attempted. The point, I believe, in the greater narrative, is that in the beginning the Church went strenously into denial. A nun, now elderly, still a nun, was molested (raped) when she was very young, has just won millions in court, and yet still accuses the Los Angeles chief cleric, Rev. Mahoney (Cardinal?) of continuing to cover up. What a mess! God help us, amen.               

 

Merry Christmas!!!!     (Already?)

Any more news of the US Congress attempting to ban Christmas?                                    

 

Barry