Sometimes you realize that movies just don't matter.

N

nothing

Carbonite Member
Right now is one of those times. I'm having a really hard time with this one. It's going to be hard to go to work today and make movies.

My deepest sympathies and condolences to those in Colorado.
 
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I'd say that on the contrary, movies are a wonderful form of escapism that can greatly help people deal and cope with difficult situations of any magnitude. Movies have such great power to gently nudge a viewer into considering a point of view they might not entertain normally. They can take us somewhere we want to go but would never experience without them. They can help to reveal our brightest characteristics and at the same time, our darkest fears.
 
Last night's events do make it hard to see things in the same light. It almost feels like "one of our own" have been attacked, as we in the movie community feel connected to the tragic incidents in our shared love and passion for movies. And now these awful events are going to be used as a springboard for political mudslinging and bulls--ting. F--k James Holmes. F--k the media, too. Villains should only be famous in the movies.

http://badassdigest.com/2012/07/20/go-see-a-movie-in-a-theater-this-weekend/

-JMT
 
I am getting older and am disabled, so I have been thinking a lot about what matters.

First, children if you have them of course. They represent how much we care about life, and an investment in the future.

That does not mean that is the only way to find value. In the past, our impact on the future was limited to our genetic or physical impact on a small group of people - family, children, tribe.

Now we can connect to the future - through evoloution - via many other methods. Via books, images, stories, propagated through the internet or other ways, around the world and into the future.

By telling important stories to the best of our ability, through whatever medium we have chosen - writing, photography, video; either through fiction or documentary - we share the stories that are important to us, and that we think may help others to understand, and possibly to live a better life.

The way we access the right brain, part of what Jung called the "collective unconcious", is through story and image.

I used to live in Colorado, about 50 miles south of Aurora. Tough days. Find what is important. Sorry.

Cheers!
Michael
 
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Snazzy Flapper said:
I'd say that on the contrary, movies are a wonderful form of escapism that can greatly help people deal and cope with difficult situations of any magnitude. Movies have such great power to gently nudge a viewer into considering a point of view they might not entertain normally. They can take us somewhere we want to go but would never experience without them. They can help to reveal our brightest characteristics and at the same time, our darkest fears.
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+1.
 
mico said:
Great post unadog. Best post i've read in along while.
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Thank you mico.

I'm glad that read OK and made sense.

I have a degree in Philosophy, and have been thinking quite a bit about where we find meaning, especially as we get older and inevitably suffer set backs.

I really do believe in the importance of telling stories as a means of "teaching", sharing, or expressing what we find important. That is the heritage we have from the past, as far back as the oral tradition.

It is important to all of us that we feel we are making a contribution beyond just working for a paycheck. I am not too sure how to express that though, or share that perception without sounding somewhat artificial and hollow.

Best,
Michael
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Storytelling has done more for humanity than any psycho can undo. Keep on keepin' on.
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I so agree.

My very best hopes and sympathies go out to all of the victims and their families. It is heartbreaking to read about the victims.

So much lost.

Personally, I feel the best way to honor them is to do my very best to follow my heart. To live.
 
Of course all the news outlets will blame the movies (Should midnight screenings be banned etc) instead of talking about the poor state of care for people with mental disorders in this country. I'm sure there were warning signs...but they were likely ignored, or people were powerless to do something about it.
 
^ Yeah. What I keep telling people is that this is not about a movie. This guy was a time bomb. Had TDKR not been in theaters, this guy would have likely aligned under another banner and this would have happened at a different movie, church, university, restaurant, etc. Which guise he simply killed under was a matter of coincidence and circumstance. Not saying he didn't see anything appealing with the Joker's character, but should TDK never had existed he would have surfaced just the same under different circumstances. He was a time bomb; someone who needed help. Like they say in fight club: "On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

You can read the word survival as any certain event and apply it to him. In a universe without TDK, on the timeline of history, this guy was going to break down at some point. Which pop-culture or fictional influences he did it under was just a matter of what was around at the time of the mental break. Unfortunately for Nolan and those midnight fans, it was TDKR.
 
When these things happen people always jump the gun and blame it on this or that or whatever scapegoat they can find because they want easy answers, but once a clear portrait of the killer emerges its usually revealed they were a mentally disturbed individual with a deranged, non-political thought process and idiosyncratic reasons for doing what they did. This killer seems to be more a cipher than usual but I'm sure the truth will come out at some point. His mother didn't seem too surprised by the news so she must have known her son had some serious mental issues. Just a tragedy that nobody else was able to see them before he went off.
 
His nature was apparently so obvious to his mother that, when a ABC News reporter called, she said “You have the right person”
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From a Dark Theater, Tales of Protection and Loss:

Movie screen superheroes never die. But there were superheroes present in a darkened movie theater at Aurora Mall, and some of them did die, like Matthew Robert McQuinn, who threw his body in front of his longtime girlfriend, Samantha Yowler, shielding her from the bullets that took his life.

Mr. McQuinn, 27, was one of 12 people who were killed when a gunman opened fire at the theater early Friday, and like many of the other victims, he was young enough to have limitless possibilities ahead of him.

He and Ms. Yowler went to see the midnight premiere of the latest installment in the Batman series with her brother, Nick. He, too, lept to protect his sister and pull her from the theater to safety. And Jonathan Blunk, 26, a military veteran, died when he saved his girlfriend, Jansen Young.

Veronica Moser went to the movie with her mother. She was 6, too young to know much about Batman, too inexperienced to know that in the ferocious uncertainty of life, a movie theater could, without warning, become one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Veronica died on the operating table after being wounded during the shooting, her 15-year-old cousin, Katherine Young, said on Saturday.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/u...eater-heroes-in-life-and-in-death.html?ref=us
 
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