Part the First: Being a capsule review of Horton Hears a Who.
Which should be subtitled "How to send mixed messages and further confuse and bore our youth."
Horton Hears a Who was a passable family movie. Clean and not nearly as dark or strange as the previous two Seuss film translations. It recruits significant acting talent for the voices, and has a clever script.
It's problems start when it immediately begins to get bogged down in message. And the main problem with this is they are often conflicting messages. It's new-age-y liberal messaged mixed with traditional conservative messages. What seemingly attempts to be balanced just seems confused and top-heavy.
Here are the messages in the movie, as I saw them (Anna thinks I was overanalyzing it):
1. A person is a person, no matter how small. (A wonderful argument against abortion.)
2. Homeschoolers are stupid; walling themselves in out of willful ignorance. (Demonstrated by the central "villain", a kangaroo who "pouch-schools" her young one.)
3. Adults are generally oblivious and mindlessly follow mob-mentality. (Ok, can't really find a HUGE fault in this argument, but I felt like the movie just took it too far.)
4. Just because you can't see God doesn't mean he's not there; and He's be (A rare pro-deity message from Hollywood.)
5. Bad guys, no matter how villainous they seem all through the movie, only need to hear the voices of a tiny village to suddenly become weeping, hugging, eye-opened teddy bears. (I miss the times when children's movies dealt in absolutes. It is easier for a child to relate to the characters and understand the central theme when there are defined character parameters.)
Ultimately the overload of message in the movie distracted from what little humor there was, and left me a little more cynical about animated family movies in general. They've just gotten way too political and politically correct to be fun anymore.
Part the Second: Being an exposition of my muddled thoughts over the past 24 hours.
It's pretty simple. I don't like myself that much.
There are so many people out there on Xanga spouting dramatic, emo garbage about themselves and everyone else, and I hate to join the fray, but my head is so muddled about it all, maybe it will help...
I just feel like such a failure. About everything, really. It's not a matter of feeling like I don't have what everyone else has, or wishing I could be like something else. It's more isolated than that. It's more of a general feeling that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I used to know. And those things still get me all excited, and I love thinking about them. But it seems like I'm not moving any closer to those things, and if anything I'm moving away.
Add to that the fact that I want to provide a nice, comfortable living for my wife and future family, but I know that we can never be happy if I'm providing it by doing something I don't enjoy, or don't feel like I should be doing.
It's very confusing, disheartening and de-motivating. I miss feeling like I have direction and purpose. I felt that way when I was in L.A.. And it really had nothing to do with being in L.A.; more to do with doing something I loved.
I just don't know what I love anymore. There are so many things I know I would like doing, but it seems like I am never able to.
All of this stuff brings me into a generally depressed, resentful, sluggish, unhappy, unpleasant, uncommitted frame of mind, which inevitably causes self-loathing. And the cycle goes around again.
It's distressing, and again, I know what I sound like, but it doesn't change the fact that it's been the source of constant headache (literally and figuratively) for some time, and it's not getting any better.
I need a vacation. Someplace to clear my head.
Or put it in order.
Or something.
Which should be subtitled "How to send mixed messages and further confuse and bore our youth."
Horton Hears a Who was a passable family movie. Clean and not nearly as dark or strange as the previous two Seuss film translations. It recruits significant acting talent for the voices, and has a clever script.
It's problems start when it immediately begins to get bogged down in message. And the main problem with this is they are often conflicting messages. It's new-age-y liberal messaged mixed with traditional conservative messages. What seemingly attempts to be balanced just seems confused and top-heavy.
Here are the messages in the movie, as I saw them (Anna thinks I was overanalyzing it):
1. A person is a person, no matter how small. (A wonderful argument against abortion.)
2. Homeschoolers are stupid; walling themselves in out of willful ignorance. (Demonstrated by the central "villain", a kangaroo who "pouch-schools" her young one.)
3. Adults are generally oblivious and mindlessly follow mob-mentality. (Ok, can't really find a HUGE fault in this argument, but I felt like the movie just took it too far.)
4. Just because you can't see God doesn't mean he's not there; and He's be (A rare pro-deity message from Hollywood.)
5. Bad guys, no matter how villainous they seem all through the movie, only need to hear the voices of a tiny village to suddenly become weeping, hugging, eye-opened teddy bears. (I miss the times when children's movies dealt in absolutes. It is easier for a child to relate to the characters and understand the central theme when there are defined character parameters.)
Ultimately the overload of message in the movie distracted from what little humor there was, and left me a little more cynical about animated family movies in general. They've just gotten way too political and politically correct to be fun anymore.
Part the Second: Being an exposition of my muddled thoughts over the past 24 hours.
It's pretty simple. I don't like myself that much.
There are so many people out there on Xanga spouting dramatic, emo garbage about themselves and everyone else, and I hate to join the fray, but my head is so muddled about it all, maybe it will help...
I just feel like such a failure. About everything, really. It's not a matter of feeling like I don't have what everyone else has, or wishing I could be like something else. It's more isolated than that. It's more of a general feeling that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I used to know. And those things still get me all excited, and I love thinking about them. But it seems like I'm not moving any closer to those things, and if anything I'm moving away.
Add to that the fact that I want to provide a nice, comfortable living for my wife and future family, but I know that we can never be happy if I'm providing it by doing something I don't enjoy, or don't feel like I should be doing.
It's very confusing, disheartening and de-motivating. I miss feeling like I have direction and purpose. I felt that way when I was in L.A.. And it really had nothing to do with being in L.A.; more to do with doing something I loved.
I just don't know what I love anymore. There are so many things I know I would like doing, but it seems like I am never able to.
All of this stuff brings me into a generally depressed, resentful, sluggish, unhappy, unpleasant, uncommitted frame of mind, which inevitably causes self-loathing. And the cycle goes around again.
It's distressing, and again, I know what I sound like, but it doesn't change the fact that it's been the source of constant headache (literally and figuratively) for some time, and it's not getting any better.
I need a vacation. Someplace to clear my head.
Or put it in order.
Or something.
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