Peliculas

I went to see "The Incredibles" and was greatly disappointed in the film. I kept wondering throughout the film how much Hollywood has gradually eviscerated and denuded the cinematic experience. Movies are no longer about acting or even a reasonable plot line. Instead, we are forced to accept strange simulacrums of reality. Most cinema today is nothing more than an elaborate hoax and a ruse. We are now asked to suspend our judgment and imagine ourselves to be computer images. We no longer are asked to empathize with anything natural since movies are just magic shows. We’ve tossed out the book and no longer worry about holding a mirror up to nature. It seems as if language and acting are carefully separated from the product. The only act of imitation here is a dull rendering of comic book reality.

We are no longer asked to explore the darkness of the human experience. Instead we have nothing but formulaic paeans to blandness. We avoid the human condition and don’t want anything real to intrude in our lives. Instead, we sit in the movie house and are asked to become part of a massive marketing scheme. We have removed catharsis from our narratives and supplanted it with the act of consumption. Quickly the images on the screen will be holiday products. In a few weeks, the stores will be filled with carefully tested hunks of plastic junk. They were made months ago under horrific labor conditions. Then these products were packaged and shipped to our shores. They arrived just in time to land at the largest big box retailer near you.

We buy and consume. A l of us are ensnared in the clutches of those who control the infernal satanic mills. Writers have been warning us about this particular folly since the 19^th century. Yet nothing will change – the mills will keep churning out useless pieces of junk to fill our landfills. Our only escape from this alienation from ourselves, community and nature is to buy more pieces of useless junk. Meanwhile, enormous sheets of ice are falling into the ocean as a result of this idiotic human activity. And the beat goes on…..