[lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

  • From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 20:17:23 -0400 (GMT-04:00)

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Oct 18, 2004 1:57 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions


Le 17 oct. 04, =E0 23:36, Ursula Stange a =E9crit :

M.C. I'd suggest Waking Life, Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless=20=

mind, Inside John Malcovich, My Dinner with Andr=E9, Sliding Doors



A.A.  When I watched the Matrix, my philistine self saw a high tech 
bang-bang-shoot-em-up-love-will-save-us action fillm.  In thinking back on it, 
the images were ostensibly generated by computer and projected somehow into 
people's minds.  Okay, I'll buy it, brain in a vat.  The original Manchurian 
Candidate had a variation on the same theme.  Korean War POW's are brainwashed 
with sophisticated techniques to believe they are somewhere else and are in 
fact controlled by outside forces.  Frank Sinatra fights to save the vets, as 
do the Matricians who fight against the evil computer.  My problem is that I 
think both movies are more about the indomitable human spirit than Cartesian 
what if-ness.  In both movies, the ol brain in the head prevails.  I go by the 
maxim that if it's peddled as philosophy for mass appeal, then the movie mostly 
likely stinks.  But then I'm a self-diagnosed non-recovering philistine.

I did like John Malcovich, with the different layers of reality (if I recall) 
and will put the others on my Netflix list.  


Andy




> <snip>
>
> Working on multiple choice at the moment. The question I wrote just=20
> now:
>
> Plotinus declared that the purpose of life was
> a. for the soul to reunite with =91the One=94
> b. to find tranquility and mental ease
> c. to get as much pleasure as possible
> d. to forge a meaning of life for yourself
> e. to follow the prime directive

M.C. And the answer is........?
>
Michael Chase
(goya@xxxxxxxxxxx)
CNRS UPR 76
7, rue Guy Moquet
Villejuif 94801
France

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