November 23, 2005

• WEDNESDAY MOVIE

  Equilibrium (2002)

  This film is a few years old, not sure how I missed it at the time, but ranks right up there with any Life in the Grim Future flicks I’ve seen. Human beings have decided (and made it a punishable offence by death to transgress) to outlaw feelings. This is accomplished by major brainwashing but also by injecting some kind of drug into the neck with a little gun each morning. The idea is that feelings caused war and various other bad outcomes so the solution is this rigidly enforced status quo scenario. Of course, the irony is that to regulate all this there must be soldiers and the elite of the elite of the soldiers are called “clerics.” They are highly trained with weapons and their task is to root out resistance and “intuit” when people are feeling illegally.Christian Bale is a cleric whose own wife has been executed. One morning he accidentally breaks the vial his dose of the drug comes in and this begins his own return to feeling. Once he has started down this road he cannot turn back, especially when he begins to meet members of the resistance. The plot moves along quickly, rest of the cast is good (especially Taye Diggs who becomes his new partner). But the best part is the choreographed sequences of Bale kicking butt. This guy kicks major butt. Wearing stylish black or white silk suit costumes he slashes and shoots his way through battles like some kind of inspired dervish. Christian Bale has been a most interesting actor since he began his career way back at age of 13 in Empire of the Sun. Just this past year or so he made The Machinist and Batman Begins – how divergent are those! You never hear much about his personal life but I’ll share he is Welsh, has 3 older sisters, a wife named Sibi Blazic, and a one-year-old daughter. His star is rising.
  

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  Deep Thought: “Probably one of the worst things about being a genie in a magic lamp is a little thing called “lamp stench.”
  Today I am grateful for: Bird beaks
  Guess the Movie: “Short people have long faces, and long people have short faces. Big people have little humor, and little people have no humor at all.” Answer: Singin’ in the Rain, 1952. Winner: tearsign.
  Hillary, You’re Not Listening
  by Jeff Cohen
  “Part of my job is being a good listener,” Hillary Clinton wrote, in the first line of her letter received today. As a New Yorker, I’m represented by Hillary in the U.S. Senate. Along with her two-page fundraising letter, I received a four-page “2005 Critical National Issues Survey.”
  But something was missing — something Hillary obviously doesn’t want to hear about: IRAQ. Nowhere in the letter or the questionnaire was that four-letter word. (Rest of article here.)

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