I feel like I've taken some hits for the team, in terms of movies, these past couple of weeks. I know - no one asked me to. Certainly, I didn't want to take any "hits," for anyone. I am highly avoidant of poignancy, as I've written. I go into the movies these days with fingers crossed that there will be no death. No death in the actual movie, or anywhere around me. I go in with fingers crossed and the small comfort that if there is a sneaky death in the movie, I can write about it. At least I can warn you. Some good will come out of my pain. (derisive snort right there, no?)
I'll paste in the tombstone rating guide at the bottom of these reviews, but you can also look here for the introduction of the system. Remember, I'm only reviewing movies that seem like they would have no death or overt poignancy in them. You want to see "The Adjustment Bureau," I will neither join you nor warn you.
Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun; an obscure foreign documentary I found on netflix. By the description, I was thinking it would be a good "this is what I am doing for god" kind of movie. However, it is also the kind of movie where you keep watching thinking maybe something will happen, and you don't want to miss it. Right. I am not writing reviews on whether the movie is "good" or not. Just on whether there is death. Yes. In Mr. Vig and the Nun, there is death. All the way at the end, so if you fall asleep before the end, you will actually miss it. For the death, which is done in a very understated way, but with a very sweet "goodbye letter" read out loud, this film gets a Two Tombstone rating, though it does break a rule inherent in the two tombstone description. So maybe call it a 2.5.
Paul. I wanted to like this movie. Simon Pegg has a special place in Matt's and my life, notably for Shaun of the Dead, which Matt told me was a comedy in order to get me to watch it. I did like this movie. Mostly. There were scenes where I could completely hear Matt's comments, were he there to make them. There were parts where I laughed (rather rare these days). There is one widowed reference, which you will pick up, but it's just a quick character development type line; a one-off. If you weren't widowed, you wouldn't have noticed.
About three quarters of the way through, I picked up a foreshadowing clue that had been laid down in an earlier part of the movie and started bracing for the death I now knew was coming. I guessed one character, and decided I would be okay with that particular character dying. And then - I was wrong. Not about the death, about which character. It's pretty graphic. And - it's a Simon Pegg movie. So it's also very silly. But as I sat there, watching this scene unfold, I heard myself shut down, not allow myself to be affected by it. I actually asked myself - "if I were a widow, would I find this scene disturbing?" And then - "right. I am a widow. And I am aware I have taken myself out of experiencing this death scene by imagining how it would be for a different widow. One who is closer to the actual event that widowed them." Clearly, I am only the widow I currently am, and I can tell you that by blocking out what I was actually seeing, and adding a bit of cynical scoffing, I was able to be emotionally unaffected by the scene in question. Of course, a non-death related line from a different character several scenes later had me sobbing, so what do I know. I'm giving this movie a Three Tombstone rating. Depending on how sensitive you're feeling, and how well you can distract yourself, you may or may not make it through just fine.
I so much wanted to give you all a solid recommendation for non-death-involving entertainment. I even watched David Attenborough's "Birds of the Gods," thinking that would be perfect. Only an hour (for short attention spans), some really neat nature stuff, and no one dies. Got through the whole entire thing, and no one died. Except. Just before the credits roll, there is a screen shot of one of the main "characters" in this documentary. With birth and death dates below the young smiling face. It wasn't one of the birds' faces, either. It simply ended what was a nice, relaxing, bird geek nature show with my thoughts turned once again towards death. Birds of the Gods: Two Tombstones. But a "soft" two; turn it off before the credits, and it gets a One.
I can't leave you with nothing, so I am reaching back into my own personal movie watching archives. When it was in the theaters, I saw The Switch, with Jason Bateman (I mean, he was in it. I didn't watch it with him). As far as I recall, this movie had absolutely no death in it. I think I would remember if it did. What I remember is laughing so hard I forgot I was widowed. I kept thinking it was just the kind of sweet, silly movie we would both really like. It was 3/4 of the way through before I remembered that I would not be going home to Matt, and that he would not ever see this movie, at least not corporeally. This is a prime example of why even the One Tombstone rating has its own disclaimer. Even when no one dies, I cannot guarantee you will not end up crying, or throwing up in the parking lot. But the fact that I went that long in a movie, any movie, without being fully aware of my reality - well, that is a really good sign. A solid One Tombstone for The Switch. That's the best I can give you, folks.
The Tombstone Rating System for the Recently Bereaved* :
*Dan came up with the name
Five Tombstones: Really. Unless you are concerned you've become completely cold and unfeeling, and therefore need to test if you still have a heart to break, skip this movie. It is loaded with just too much.
Four tombstones: Some difficult and poignant scenes, death is a major theme, and you wouldn't know that from watching the previews; see it if you are feeling strong and stable, or at a weekday matinee where you can sob freely.
Three tombstones: While death may not be the whole idea, there are some scenes that are, or could be, quite difficult, depending on your personal experience. You could fast forward through them, but you might miss some key storylines. A Three Tombstone rating is sort of a gray area - could be fine, could knock you over the edge.
Two tombstones: there's death, or dying, but it's either over quickly, or it happens to a minor character and no one cries. Reasonably safe. (see my previous review of the King's Speech)
One tombstone: the movie is free from all overt death imagery. Not saying you won't find a trigger in the movie somewhere, but no one actually dies, and no one nearly dies.
________________________________________________________
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
there is a path
Heart, you are lost; but there's a path
From the lover to the soul, secret
But visible. Worlds blaze round you –
Don't shrink: the path is secret, but yours.
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
-------------------------
I have been to the beach where I yelled really vulgar obscenities at god. And then apologized. And then cried. And then just told god I need a purpose to be here. A purpose that means something to me, an actual one, not a tacked-on busywork purpose that some other person thinks would be just great. Just saying that, I felt better. Who knows why.
I don't think having a purpose is the same as having a "reason" for living this. No "reason" is going to make this right. There is no grand hurrah, no time when I will say "oh, well then, clearly I had something to do that could not have been done without sudden accidental death going on, so as long as there's a reason, everything is alright." I just know that waking up and breathing around aimlessly in a day, any day, with nothing that means anything to me - that's not life, for me.
Done at the beach, I got in the car with the tired out dog, turned on the radio to hear the end of a talk show wherein the speaker said, "so he had this really great thing, this real mountain top experience, and then he slammed into really not so good experience, and the path was gone, he suffered, and then here, in the story, he was recommissioned by god." I liked it. No idea what that could possibly mean at all, for me, to be recommissioned. And certainly, I don't feel any "recommissioning" going on. I feel like I need to make disclaimers to the universe - You recommission me into something stupid and I will not be happy.
In really bad moments, I feel like hope in being recommissioned is flaky fantasy, unrealistic, and unlikely. Like I have been thrown so backwards that I can't possibly hope to have life of the quality and goodness I had; there is no continuation from here. But I can't be here without that hope that something - something real - will be here for me, not instead, but while. I have to look for it, or listen for it. Believe myself that I will be recommissioned. That there will be a path, true for me, secret but visible.
______________________________
ps - commission : mid-14c., "authority entrusted to someone," from L. commissionem (nom. commissio) "delegation of business," noun of action from pp. stem of committere (see commit). Meaning "body of persons charged with authority" is from late 15c. Recommission: "back, again" + commission. .
______________________________
From the lover to the soul, secret
But visible. Worlds blaze round you –
Don't shrink: the path is secret, but yours.
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
-------------------------
I have been to the beach where I yelled really vulgar obscenities at god. And then apologized. And then cried. And then just told god I need a purpose to be here. A purpose that means something to me, an actual one, not a tacked-on busywork purpose that some other person thinks would be just great. Just saying that, I felt better. Who knows why.
I don't think having a purpose is the same as having a "reason" for living this. No "reason" is going to make this right. There is no grand hurrah, no time when I will say "oh, well then, clearly I had something to do that could not have been done without sudden accidental death going on, so as long as there's a reason, everything is alright." I just know that waking up and breathing around aimlessly in a day, any day, with nothing that means anything to me - that's not life, for me.
Done at the beach, I got in the car with the tired out dog, turned on the radio to hear the end of a talk show wherein the speaker said, "so he had this really great thing, this real mountain top experience, and then he slammed into really not so good experience, and the path was gone, he suffered, and then here, in the story, he was recommissioned by god." I liked it. No idea what that could possibly mean at all, for me, to be recommissioned. And certainly, I don't feel any "recommissioning" going on. I feel like I need to make disclaimers to the universe - You recommission me into something stupid and I will not be happy.
In really bad moments, I feel like hope in being recommissioned is flaky fantasy, unrealistic, and unlikely. Like I have been thrown so backwards that I can't possibly hope to have life of the quality and goodness I had; there is no continuation from here. But I can't be here without that hope that something - something real - will be here for me, not instead, but while. I have to look for it, or listen for it. Believe myself that I will be recommissioned. That there will be a path, true for me, secret but visible.
______________________________
ps - commission : mid-14c., "authority entrusted to someone," from L. commissionem (nom. commissio) "delegation of business," noun of action from pp. stem of committere (see commit). Meaning "body of persons charged with authority" is from late 15c. Recommission: "back, again" + commission. .
______________________________
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
dissonance.
It's because I'm lying. It's because instead of being direct and truthful (and thereby hurting someone), I am managing the lie, ignoring my truth, and becoming a grumpy, false, anxious, unsettled, and uber super avoidant being. Who then feels like she needs a shower after a phone call, just to wipe off the grossness I have caused in myself. Interpersonal relationships feel like such crap right now because I have not been direct or honest. Because I have let things build up, because I have let myself fester. Because I am lying. It would be gentler to say I am "pretending." I am trying to over-ride what is true for me, because I feel bad, because I feel like I should want to be friends with people that I just really do not. And then I feel like a jerk, both for not wanting to be friends and for lying about it.
Can I just say I am SO TIRED of feeling like a ball of awkward badness everywhere? So tired of feeling the huge chasm between my before life and this life, where in the before life, I was direct and honest and so at ease, and the places I had that far more than offset the smaller places I still struggled with incorrect friendships and things that did not work. Now, however, there is only the dissonance, and no home and no place that is not full of effort and awkwardness and I am so so so very tired of this. All of it. Being me, being not the me I was, for a jillion different reasons I don't feel like going in to now, and you have heard me say before.
I am tired of wrestling with myself, being mad at myself for not wanting to tell sweet, kind, giving, good hearted people that I don't enjoy their company and would much rather just stop pretending that I have any interest in wanting to be friends. I would love to be direct and kind and truthful, and truthfully, I am not. It's not a kindness to lie. Instead, I ignore phone calls, do not call back until I think I will most likely get voicemail. You know, all the things you do when you are managing the fact that you are going against what is true because, right now, it is easier than telling the truth. How can you possibly say to someone, "it's not personal," when in fact, it is. Just not the judgment kind of personal. It's the "I am not enjoying this friendship, though we look good, in some ways, on paper."
But can I also just please say, in my own defense, that NO ONE IS MATT. I take tiny little brave steps of being direct and honest with things I know someone will not love to hear, and get the absolutely wrong response of placating, minimizing defensiveness that makes me not want to bother even making an attempt to see over my own personal avoidant tendencies to do the right thing. And enough of those, real or imagined, makes me not make any effort at all when there is an "opportunity" to do so. Small things that, while difficult, would be long over by now, build up and fester. The dissonance and awkwardness rubs off, then, on new situations where I might actually like a person I meet, and I become self-conscious and weird, and that feeds the whole "no more people, ever" feeling in me. I am so f-ing sick of challenges to every part of my interpersonal being. That may possibly be an over-statement, but I don't care. I am tired of feeling broken and different, and that every single interaction is so hard and dis-satisfying. I wasn't that. And I want to go home.
This is, in huge part, why vows of silence and the monastic life are so appealing to me (I mean, other than the whole god thing). No more trying to pretend I am "like" other people. No more virulent dissonance. No small talk. No "movie nights" with people I'm not yet comfortable with, trying to not lose my mind. No more having to quietly assess whether or not someone can handle my being direct without reacting in such a way that it turns me off of ever trying. Please, no more seeing only how awkward and not well I am doing, no more having that be the hugest reflection I get in this world. Okay? I want to go home. I want to go home, where I am known and loved, and nothing needs to be translated. Where hard and difficult things are received and discussed in ways that make the difficult easy.
I want to be where I feel confident in the goodness I do and the skills that I have. I want to go back to where I felt confident in myself, and the way I am in this world. There is none of that right now, not with anyone, and not anywhere. Of course I feel like a massive ball of awkwardness. My "choosiness" in friendships feels like it is thrown into huge, vast, stark relief, with no goodness to balance it out. In the absence of my own solidity, every little flicker takes on magnificent proportions. I need some serious opportunities of goodness. Some engagement where the natural calm goodness of me comes out, for me. So I can see it. So I can remember who I was.
Man, I want to go home.
Can I just say I am SO TIRED of feeling like a ball of awkward badness everywhere? So tired of feeling the huge chasm between my before life and this life, where in the before life, I was direct and honest and so at ease, and the places I had that far more than offset the smaller places I still struggled with incorrect friendships and things that did not work. Now, however, there is only the dissonance, and no home and no place that is not full of effort and awkwardness and I am so so so very tired of this. All of it. Being me, being not the me I was, for a jillion different reasons I don't feel like going in to now, and you have heard me say before.
I am tired of wrestling with myself, being mad at myself for not wanting to tell sweet, kind, giving, good hearted people that I don't enjoy their company and would much rather just stop pretending that I have any interest in wanting to be friends. I would love to be direct and kind and truthful, and truthfully, I am not. It's not a kindness to lie. Instead, I ignore phone calls, do not call back until I think I will most likely get voicemail. You know, all the things you do when you are managing the fact that you are going against what is true because, right now, it is easier than telling the truth. How can you possibly say to someone, "it's not personal," when in fact, it is. Just not the judgment kind of personal. It's the "I am not enjoying this friendship, though we look good, in some ways, on paper."
But can I also just please say, in my own defense, that NO ONE IS MATT. I take tiny little brave steps of being direct and honest with things I know someone will not love to hear, and get the absolutely wrong response of placating, minimizing defensiveness that makes me not want to bother even making an attempt to see over my own personal avoidant tendencies to do the right thing. And enough of those, real or imagined, makes me not make any effort at all when there is an "opportunity" to do so. Small things that, while difficult, would be long over by now, build up and fester. The dissonance and awkwardness rubs off, then, on new situations where I might actually like a person I meet, and I become self-conscious and weird, and that feeds the whole "no more people, ever" feeling in me. I am so f-ing sick of challenges to every part of my interpersonal being. That may possibly be an over-statement, but I don't care. I am tired of feeling broken and different, and that every single interaction is so hard and dis-satisfying. I wasn't that. And I want to go home.
This is, in huge part, why vows of silence and the monastic life are so appealing to me (I mean, other than the whole god thing). No more trying to pretend I am "like" other people. No more virulent dissonance. No small talk. No "movie nights" with people I'm not yet comfortable with, trying to not lose my mind. No more having to quietly assess whether or not someone can handle my being direct without reacting in such a way that it turns me off of ever trying. Please, no more seeing only how awkward and not well I am doing, no more having that be the hugest reflection I get in this world. Okay? I want to go home. I want to go home, where I am known and loved, and nothing needs to be translated. Where hard and difficult things are received and discussed in ways that make the difficult easy.
I want to be where I feel confident in the goodness I do and the skills that I have. I want to go back to where I felt confident in myself, and the way I am in this world. There is none of that right now, not with anyone, and not anywhere. Of course I feel like a massive ball of awkwardness. My "choosiness" in friendships feels like it is thrown into huge, vast, stark relief, with no goodness to balance it out. In the absence of my own solidity, every little flicker takes on magnificent proportions. I need some serious opportunities of goodness. Some engagement where the natural calm goodness of me comes out, for me. So I can see it. So I can remember who I was.
Man, I want to go home.
Awkward in a hundred ways, clumsy in a thousand, still, I go on.
- Yueh-Shan
----------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, March 19, 2011
spring training.
It's pretty out. Nice sunset. 70 degrees yesterday, snow and 32 today. Both our beehives died, I discovered yesterday. It upset me more deeply than you'd think. Without you here. The bees all frozen in place, like a photograph of a perfectly normal day in the world of bees, the cluster spread out, each bee doing their job, their wings still outstretched, still fuzzy, still perfect. They were alive a few weeks ago. Now they are not. Alive, and then dead. Like you.
Boris and I walked. We took the switchback path up the hill where you used to run, straight up, bisecting the pavement. You were a wonder to watch, my love, strong and powerful. I should be still running my old route through our neighborhood, becoming a runner, day by day. Disappointed and bummed out that you are faster and stronger with absolutely no effort at all. You should be coaching me on my push-up style, while hanging, one-armed, from the chin up bar. I should be spurred on by your crazy metabolism and natural form. I should still get to watch you move.
It is Saturday. Your friends are probably playing poker. You should be there, feeding them your secret recipe ribs. The same ribs I fed them at your memorial, where your friends did not mingle with our family, where weird Joan let her weird son ramble on and on through the microphone about freak storms and tsunamis, how hot he thinks his mother is, and how you shouldn't ever let anyone drown. He kept on until I realized no one was going to stop him for me, so I had Dean pull the plug on the power strip, and weird son rambled on into relative silence as your father walked away. Later, I did cartwheels alone in the rain, while everyone huddled inside the barn, listening to Bob Dylan, ignoring the same weird son and his rant about rainbows.
I looked it up because I had lost count: 88 weeks ago tonight, you were playing poker, calling me from the road on the way home to see if I am still awake, telling me about the hands you won, and how you split the pot. I had been running every day for 22 days, and you'd told me you were proud of me. In the words of a movie that tender widows should not see, "the night would have been ordinary, even commonplace, if not for the morning that it preceded."
I started running again yesterday, starting from zero, at the couch end of couch-to-5k. It was nice. I was proud of myself. I did not end with stretches and push-ups in the living room as I used to, with you being quietly proud of me for being so proud of myself. I'm no longer training to keep up with you on the trail, to be stronger and faster and more fit to keep up with our life, to extend our hikes and make for crazier climbs. Not training to look better, as I was before, though you always told me you thought I was beautiful.
Now it is just me, staring up at the sky, asking if you saw me running, if you know that I am trying, that I am taking care of this meat suit I still live inside. Trying to not make this worse by letting this physical form go soft and unyielding and stiff. I am trying my love. With our bees, and our dog, and our switchback paths, I am trying. I wish you were here with me, living our ordinary life.
____________________________________________________________
Boris and I walked. We took the switchback path up the hill where you used to run, straight up, bisecting the pavement. You were a wonder to watch, my love, strong and powerful. I should be still running my old route through our neighborhood, becoming a runner, day by day. Disappointed and bummed out that you are faster and stronger with absolutely no effort at all. You should be coaching me on my push-up style, while hanging, one-armed, from the chin up bar. I should be spurred on by your crazy metabolism and natural form. I should still get to watch you move.
It is Saturday. Your friends are probably playing poker. You should be there, feeding them your secret recipe ribs. The same ribs I fed them at your memorial, where your friends did not mingle with our family, where weird Joan let her weird son ramble on and on through the microphone about freak storms and tsunamis, how hot he thinks his mother is, and how you shouldn't ever let anyone drown. He kept on until I realized no one was going to stop him for me, so I had Dean pull the plug on the power strip, and weird son rambled on into relative silence as your father walked away. Later, I did cartwheels alone in the rain, while everyone huddled inside the barn, listening to Bob Dylan, ignoring the same weird son and his rant about rainbows.
I looked it up because I had lost count: 88 weeks ago tonight, you were playing poker, calling me from the road on the way home to see if I am still awake, telling me about the hands you won, and how you split the pot. I had been running every day for 22 days, and you'd told me you were proud of me. In the words of a movie that tender widows should not see, "the night would have been ordinary, even commonplace, if not for the morning that it preceded."
I started running again yesterday, starting from zero, at the couch end of couch-to-5k. It was nice. I was proud of myself. I did not end with stretches and push-ups in the living room as I used to, with you being quietly proud of me for being so proud of myself. I'm no longer training to keep up with you on the trail, to be stronger and faster and more fit to keep up with our life, to extend our hikes and make for crazier climbs. Not training to look better, as I was before, though you always told me you thought I was beautiful.
Now it is just me, staring up at the sky, asking if you saw me running, if you know that I am trying, that I am taking care of this meat suit I still live inside. Trying to not make this worse by letting this physical form go soft and unyielding and stiff. I am trying my love. With our bees, and our dog, and our switchback paths, I am trying. I wish you were here with me, living our ordinary life.
____________________________________________________________
Thursday, March 10, 2011
latest movies.
Good lord, why do I keep trying to "entertain" myself. I have watched three movies in that last couple of weeks. Two out of three had unexpected deaths in them. I freaking HATE the movies. This time, however, instead of making me cry, I just felt irritated. Is it not possible to make a movie without someone dying? Is it like required or something? WTH people (and by people, I mean movie making people in general). I would like to be entertained, not traumatized, or caught off guard by your big screen death issues. I would like a little warning before I make the effort to "take my mind off of things."
Ahem. As a public, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, service for the widowed, I now give you...
The Tombstone Rating System for the Recently Bereaved* :
*Dan came up with the name
Five Tombstones: Really. Unless you are concerned you've become completely cold and unfeeling, and therefore need to test if you still have a heart to break, skip this movie. It is loaded with just too much.
Four tombstones: Some difficult and poignant scenes, death is a major theme, and you wouldn't know that from watching the previews; see it if you are feeling strong and stable, or at a weekday matinee where you can sob freely.
Three tombstones: While death may not be the whole idea, there are some scenes that are, or could be, quite difficult, depending on your personal experience. You could fast forward through them, but you might miss some key storylines. A Three Tombstone rating is sort of a gray area - could be fine, could knock you over the edge.
Two tombstones: there's death, or dying, but it's either over quickly, or it happens to a minor character and no one cries. Reasonably safe. (see my previous review of the King's Speech)
One tombstone: the movie is free from all overt death imagery. Not saying you won't find a trigger in the movie somewhere, but no one actually dies, and no one nearly dies.
__________________________________________________________________
I'm only posting movie warnings for those movies that you wouldn't expect to have random death in them, and yet - they do. If you want to purposely watch movies loaded with poignancy, by all means - rent, um, I don't know - I don't watch those movies anymore. I know enough to not do that to myself. It's these movies that aren't supposed to be all deathy that really get me. There are enough grief landmines in this world without getting hit by one when you are trying to be entertained. I'll try not to give too much of the story away while still giving you a decent heads-up, if you'd like one.
My three most recent movies:
MegaMind. I figured animated super-hero movies would be safe. No. There is accidental/on-purpose death, with accompanying long, sad "goodbyes I didn't get to say." Tombstone rating? A three, because while it's animated and rather goofy, the sheer annoyance I felt at the unexpected Long Sad Goodbyes spoken to a photograph, plus another element I won't reveal, boosted it up from a two.
Coco Before Chanel. I liked this movie. 3/4 of this movie. Just about the time things were getting good for our young Coco, I said outloud, "Oh. He's going to die. Next scene. Just watch." Sure enough. Accidental death. It was not over-done, nor overly dramatic. Again, I was more irritated than anything else. You can fast forward through a couple of minutes, but by then, the emotional damage is done. Thankfully, most of the movie is over by then. I give it a One tombstone for the first 3/4, a Three tombstone rating once the obvious next developments become obvious.
Kings of Pastry. Woo Hoo!!! A movie with absolutely no death in it whatsoever! For that, it gets the One Tombstone rating, which means that while no one dies, I'm still not going to guarantee is won't break your heart or set off a chain of memories. It just isn't going to do that overtly, on purpose, or by design. For a movie about spun sugar and cream puffs, it was surprisingly stressful, but kind of in a good way. The no-unexpected-deaths kind of way.
___________________________________________________________________
Tombstone Rating System copywright megan devine and dan cano, 2011.
Ahem. As a public, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, service for the widowed, I now give you...
The Tombstone Rating System for the Recently Bereaved* :
*Dan came up with the name
Five Tombstones: Really. Unless you are concerned you've become completely cold and unfeeling, and therefore need to test if you still have a heart to break, skip this movie. It is loaded with just too much.
Four tombstones: Some difficult and poignant scenes, death is a major theme, and you wouldn't know that from watching the previews; see it if you are feeling strong and stable, or at a weekday matinee where you can sob freely.
Three tombstones: While death may not be the whole idea, there are some scenes that are, or could be, quite difficult, depending on your personal experience. You could fast forward through them, but you might miss some key storylines. A Three Tombstone rating is sort of a gray area - could be fine, could knock you over the edge.
Two tombstones: there's death, or dying, but it's either over quickly, or it happens to a minor character and no one cries. Reasonably safe. (see my previous review of the King's Speech)
One tombstone: the movie is free from all overt death imagery. Not saying you won't find a trigger in the movie somewhere, but no one actually dies, and no one nearly dies.
__________________________________________________________________
I'm only posting movie warnings for those movies that you wouldn't expect to have random death in them, and yet - they do. If you want to purposely watch movies loaded with poignancy, by all means - rent, um, I don't know - I don't watch those movies anymore. I know enough to not do that to myself. It's these movies that aren't supposed to be all deathy that really get me. There are enough grief landmines in this world without getting hit by one when you are trying to be entertained. I'll try not to give too much of the story away while still giving you a decent heads-up, if you'd like one.
My three most recent movies:
MegaMind. I figured animated super-hero movies would be safe. No. There is accidental/on-purpose death, with accompanying long, sad "goodbyes I didn't get to say." Tombstone rating? A three, because while it's animated and rather goofy, the sheer annoyance I felt at the unexpected Long Sad Goodbyes spoken to a photograph, plus another element I won't reveal, boosted it up from a two.
Coco Before Chanel. I liked this movie. 3/4 of this movie. Just about the time things were getting good for our young Coco, I said outloud, "Oh. He's going to die. Next scene. Just watch." Sure enough. Accidental death. It was not over-done, nor overly dramatic. Again, I was more irritated than anything else. You can fast forward through a couple of minutes, but by then, the emotional damage is done. Thankfully, most of the movie is over by then. I give it a One tombstone for the first 3/4, a Three tombstone rating once the obvious next developments become obvious.
Kings of Pastry. Woo Hoo!!! A movie with absolutely no death in it whatsoever! For that, it gets the One Tombstone rating, which means that while no one dies, I'm still not going to guarantee is won't break your heart or set off a chain of memories. It just isn't going to do that overtly, on purpose, or by design. For a movie about spun sugar and cream puffs, it was surprisingly stressful, but kind of in a good way. The no-unexpected-deaths kind of way.
See, people who make movies? Death is not a requirement for decent cinema.
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Tombstone Rating System copywright megan devine and dan cano, 2011.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
sun.
If you are seeking, seek us with joy
For we live in the kingdom of joy.
Do not give your heart to anything else
But to the love of those who are clear joy,
Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.
For there are hopes: they are real, they exist -
Do not go in the direction of darkness -
I tell you: suns exist.
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(taking your word on that, my sufi friend.)
And in sun related news, I saw one little bee out for a cleansing flight, though she is unlikely to survive it. Heard bees buzzing in one hive, silence from another. 2 out of 3 are good bee signs. I put together a farm-related resume, and applied for a gardening job at a fancy restaurant-with-a-garden. Don't know that I can actually handle responsible employment, but I am proud of myself anyway. Sun is nice, even cold icy sun.
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