1. "12 Years a Slave". I recently saw this movie with my 18 year old son. There has been very little advertising on this film and has only been playing at select theaters at the time of this writing. I would assume the marketing will be gearing this film for Academy Award material. I would also suspect the subject matter of this film may be resulting in advertisers shying away to some extent. Anyway, a great film with wonderful performances all around. This is not an easy film to watch as it deals with the brutal and realistic portrayal of slavery in our country. Some of the reviews I have read, compared it on the level of Schindler's List. I would agree with that and would add The Passion of the Christ to that comparison list. It is amazing the brutality that human beings are capable of through our history and this movie is no different. I won't go into the plot but will only highly recommend it for mature adults. If you have a mature teenager, I would say 16 years or older could handle the material. There is violence and some nudity, but of the "non-erotic" variety.
2. "I am". An entirely different type of film released in 2010, which is billed as a documentary and recently watched it on Netflix. This is a film by Tom Shadyack who at one time directed comedy films such as Liar, Liar and Ace Ventura. A near death experience caused him to take a hard look at humanity and this film is the fruit of that project. He is basically trying to answer two questions.
1. What is wrong with the world?
2. How can we fix it?
I think he does a very good job and getting a handle on these questions. No easy fixes of course but he certainly backs up his results with actions of his own. There were 2 main ideas which stuck with me.
1. We are all connected in our humanity.
2. If we desire, or want more than our basic needs and requirements for living, it is considered a mental illness. In the wake of the recent black Friday, I would say we have a problem.
Chew on that for awhile.
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