Category: Medias

It’s fine. The production is nice and the selected passages are properly inspiring. Chopra is a fine reader and the Indian music is atmospheric. I don’t know much about Hinduism, but I presume this combines best passages out of the Bhagavad Gita and Rig Veda with a dash of explanatory text.

But I can’t shake the feeling that this is just a basic offering. Mix a few ingredients that feel truthy across all cultures, coat it with woo, and sell it to America.

I’d be more charitable if this three hour production was marketed as an introductory taste of Hinduism, but I was put off by its inflated self-importance. I don’t care for a program that dilutes spirituality and sells it as more than a mere starting point.

As a pan-theistic atheist who is skeptical of all forms of systematic formal religious structures, I am the prime target audience. Slap on an ancient spiritual sheen and I’m intrigued. But I also spent my teenage years as a Reformed Baptist steeped in the intellectual cathedral of Calvin. Don’t pretend you got more unless you’re bringing it.

I got sucked into this video while brushing my teeth, before realizing it was 45 minutes long. I went to sleep late that night.

It was fun to watch the guys take ridiculous risks and challenge each other. There’s all the vicarious thrills you’d expect from a Parkour YouTube video.

Beyond the stunts, the charm was in watching the guys enjoy each other’s company. Who knows if the mutual affection is true, but they made it work on camera.

It reminds me of the late 2000’s before UFC transitioned into a mainstream sports league. Back then, the fighters made a show of respect to each other, which created a screen camaraderie that intensified my enjoyment of the matches.

Unfortunately, I might be out of step with popular culture since the UFC’s heel turn with outlandish promotions has made them a billion dollar business. I get how the physical brutality of football or MMA leads to war analogies, but we need to cut that shit out.

When it comes to games, we ought to think of our competitors as “partners”. In joining the challenge, the players are committing to a constrained set of rules striving towards a mutually agreed upon goal. Unlike the endless slog of reality, a game is a measure of marginal advantage with a set end point.

We need to stop mixing the (potentially high stakes) infinite struggle of life with the (relatively meaningless) competition of these finite games.

If we do, maybe we’ll enjoy each others’ company as we play together.

When I moved to Vegas, I attended to the Lohan School of Shaolin for almost a year until my daughter arrived to fundamentally rearrange our lives.

I was primarily studying Tai Chi, but I got to know the Kung Fu guys, even dabbling a bit in sparring.

A couple years ago, I slid into a YouTube rabbit hole and came across several videos that included the Arhats. I had watched their earlier work when they were starting up, and it was impressive to see their progression.

This is the path of Kung Fu (功夫) — to work hard and maybe (or not) succeed.

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It’s odd watching a video when you know the stunt actors. The dramatic actors are naturally the focus of the film but one’s eye is immediately drawn to the individuals that you know. So I’m rooting for those guys as they get slaughtered by the protagonists. Unsettling.

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Even though the short only has two actors, the behind the scenes video shows a large team is involved throughout the process. Normally, my mind quietly ignores the background crew, but you can’t when you’re personally acquainted with each person. It’s a good reminder of the massive effort behind each of these productions that are indiscriminately published on YouTube.

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As I finally publish this post, things are a bit quiet on the social media front, but I ran into one of the Lohan teachers and was told things are going well. The films are flashy, but the foundation is the school and the temple. Everything comes from training the mind, heart, and body.

What a strange little kid’s show.

The characters aren’t particularly likable, but they aren’t hate-able either.

The chick is kind of cute, but the egg is kind of gross.

They are memorable — overeager and lazy.

And it’s fun to watch the humans overact.

Their journey covers a lot of ground.

An amusing (and certainly distorted) peek into another culture.

We’ll watch season 2, if we still have Netflix when it comes out.

Oh and shoutout to the 1000 year old eggs!

An hour of horrific life choices followed by twenty-five minutes of consequences with a miraculous rescue in the last five minutes. Happy it worked out for the couple, but I remember why I’ve never liked this movie.

The fact this movie is so popular makes me wonder if dominant American culture is just more optimistic than those with Asian cultural backgrounds. It felt hollow without consequences (aside from Ursula’s fate)

Maybe that’s why I’ve always been too timid to contemplate life as an entrepreneur? I don’t think folks would accuse me of having an abundance of moxie.

But dammit, Disney knows how to make song and dance numbers like nobody else! You go Sebastian!

• Shocked (not shocked) that Disney+ used a single scene with cigars as an excuse to move this movie to the parent’s (ad-supported) page.
• The king is an abusive boss.
• Love that they named the cat Lucifer. Different time then!
• Strange propaganda film for Chinese foot binding.
• Biddidy bobbidy boo!
• Amazing animation. I didn’t realize that the technique was cemented by this time. The craft of Cinderella and Bambi hold up to anything made today.
• The backgrounds at the dance are mid-mod sumptuous.

Disney has a formula that works. It can get old, but they know what they’re doing.

Years ago, I had low expectations when I first watched this film. It easily cleared that bar.

Last week I came in with fond memories of first watch. It still easily cleared expectations, though I must admit to being biased for any film that extols the virtues of a cast iron frying pan.

Unlike many Disney films, Tangled doesn’t have a truly surreal standout musical moment, though the showtune at the Snuggly Duckling is awesome.

Also not to be missed is Rapunzel’s wildly fluctuating internal turmoil when she first touches grass.

Yet another classic Disney princess movie. No prince this time, but it’s got lush tropics, a demigod with animated tattoos, and a psychotic crab.

I wonder what a Pacific Islander thinks about the laundering of their culture for popular consumption. On my end, I’ve become more forgiving of appropriation of Chinese culture as mass media has become more diverse.

Maybe I’ve wearied of all the watching-over-your-shoulder critical theory overthinking of the past decade.

I just want to enjoy my time out.

In any case, Disney slammed their formula, with the nice twist of having a brown skinned world at the center of this movie.

When it isn’t featuring a psychotic crab in black light!

I came across this cult classic anime through a YouTube review. A few minutes in, I stopped the review to watch the two-hour film over three sessions.

If you want wild animation covering fast cars, a dude with a massive pompadour, cute girls, all manners of aliens, mechs, and crazy bionic monsters, you got it.

If you want a coherent story, you got it too! Just not very deep. A dude races a fast TransAm while hitting on a competitor as his mechanic deals with the mob.

As an almost entirely hand drawn film, it’s a love letter to a bygone era. It feels more comfortable in the late nineties than in the late-aughts. But with a production value that’s out the roof!

The surreal moments of slow-mo speed as the cars stretch in anticipation of the nitro hitting the engine are pure art. And I love the bold black shadow work throughout the film — it feels like Frank Miller’s comic finally made it to the big screen (I’ve never had the stomach to watch his Sin City movie).

The beauty of a cult classic as a commercial failure in the theater is that it’s now available on several free streaming platforms.

For the price of sitting through a few ads, you can’t go wrong (as long as you’re not expecting anything contemplative).

Another supremely crafted Pixar special.

I’m not sold on the company in Emeryville dealing with internal matters. (I wasn’t hot on Inside Out either.)

But it was cool to have Jazz at the center of the movie.

And those quantum line Jerry’s in the other world were a helluva lot of fun. As I watch more animated films, I crave these I love these moments of visual absurdity. It’s not the best ROI, but a few moments of Jerry can redeem the rest of the time spent in a formulaic feature length film.

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I’m going to start a concerted push on here with my “Notes on My Consumption”. I don’t consume nearly as many books and movies as it might seem. I just decided to stop being so precious about these notes and flush out my three year back log!