The Inside Job of Corruption

The film Inside Job was a little confusing due to the fact that I knew very little about politics or really anything about the economical crisis that the nation was in. The recession that had swept this nation had affected nearly every home, including mine. Being kept in the dark about the seriousness of the situation, my parents had done their best with what they had been given, only cutting back on what was not needed, such as eating out or buying new clothes. The horror of the hand-me-down phase in my angst teen years appeared to rock my world, until I realized that many of my friends were in the same situation. I learned back in high school that the US has been in a recession for quite some time, and that we have over a 16 trillion dollar debt, something that won't be paid back in our lifetime, if ever. The Inside Job provided an outlook that still shocked me: we're in far deeper than I had thought. The lying scoundrels sitting in the White House were ready to take all that was "theirs," or so Charles Ferguson claimed, the film's director. Whether or not that this is true, or if they want to actually try to help get the nation out of its debt, is not the way that Ferguson wanted viewers to see it as. Ferguson clearly made the goverment as the evil devil that is controlling our lives. We, as middle to lower class citizens, have no say as to what is going on, other than the fact that we vote for these monsters into office. They are the ones profitting off of our misfortunes. We give more and more money in the form of taxes, trying to survive in this cruel world, and these government officials plunder it. They then take it all and do whatever they want with it, becoming some of the richest men alive. It makes me sick to think that our federal government is so corrupted.

This movie is claimed to be used to educate us, if not also infuriating us into action.

Naqoyqatsi: Life as War

Before watching this film, I had heard rumors that it was a non-speaking, music-oriented film about the destruction of humanity by technology. After watching it,  I had discovered so much more than that. It was hard to focus all my attention on the film, for an hour and half of straight listening to music while strange, sometimes distorted or ominous pictures flash across the screen can be tedious, I was able to grasp a little about what I thought the director was trying to produce. It's not so much about the downfall of humans by technology, but about how humans have evolved over time, and how they've learned how to destroy themselves. It's a part of life, though. We use our resources to live and to die. Wars happen, births happen, it's all part of the circle of life.

The music by Philip Glass provided an emotional scene to the film. It enabled the viewer to feel the hardships, highlights, and/or importance of each major event. Many times the music, and the computer generated images, reminded me of the flight scenes in the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can. In that film, every time Leonardo DiCaprio fled from the FBI, jumping from one job to the next, leading a huge trail of check fraud, John Williams had a fantastic arrangement of music, such as this. He managed to keep the viewer feeling the tension of how something was about to happen, whether good or bad. Glass did the same. His music tied together the pictures of how people brought about their own downfall, while keeping the emotional sense of excitement for what was to come. I kind of enjoyed the film, even though it was a little too long for my taste.

Here's more music from Philip Glass, from the film The Hours:

Death By Plastic

 

After watching Werner Boote's documentary, Plastic Planet, I was a little confused about how Boote wanted to retaliate against the plastic companies. Boote travels around the world to discover and spread the word about the inevitable side effects that plastic has on people's health, such as cancer, enlarged breasts, sterility, allergies, or even death. Most people have many plastic belongings in their homes, even lower class people in third world countries. Gaining the adverse health effects is scarily common in the world. The release of harmful materials into the food chain can also affect the surrounding ecosystem. Boote discusses how plastic is filling up the oceans and fish are consuming it more, thinking it's kale. One strange point in the film is that the adverse effects on the sexual organs in fish are showing up in humans. The toxins from the plastic are getting into the bloodstream of humans and making people sterile, changing our futures. I knew in the past that the fumes of plastics were harmful, but I never realized that its not just decomposing plastic that releases these fumes. Just by drinking out of a plastic bottle, you can inhale the harmful toxins. It takes 200 years for plastic to decompose. So with this in mind, and Boote's constant harranguing consumers about the side effects of plastic, what does he expect us to do? He goes straight to the source many times and finds out about bioplastics, which are not as harmful to the environment, but costs a lot more to make. I just don't understand what he wants from us, because there is no way that a whole world will stop buying plastics or producing it. There are sometimes substitutes, but there's never clear answers. Boote's retaliation seems like a losing battle to me.