That said, we live in a country full of many developmental levels of consciousness, each championing an important aspect of being a human inside of culture.

In my ideal world, our leaders would have access to the greatest depth of consciousness available to the culture of their time and place. Consciousness is a series of russian dolls, each evolution transcending and including what came before it. I can take my daughter’s perspective, she cannot yet take mine.

The deeper one’s consciousness, the more perspectives it has access to, and the more of reality available to make the challenging choices of leadership.

Joe Biden wasn’t my first choice, and as someone deeply aware of the uneven ways human beings develop, I know there will a lot of decisions he makes and policies he sets that I will be disappointed in and disagree with. I don’t even think he has the greatest depth of consciousness available in our world right now, the one truly needed to move American forward – but I do believe he has enough complexity and awareness to hold and stabilize so we can survive until those leaders take over. My hope is he runs the ultimate 1 term swan song of the boomers, using the power and influence he has accrued to set up the structures to pass the torch to the next administration (whether left or right, I do not care – just more EVOLVED)

So I’m voting for Joe because I believe that if tonight’s debate was a simple open forum centered around the question – “What truth does your opponent and the people they represent get right?” – that Joe Biden could speak to the experience and beliefs of far more Americans than Donald Trump could. I believe he can see more perspectives than our current President can, and thus make more informed decisions that better represent the best policies for the maximum number of Americas.

I don’t believe that Donald Trump can see me. I also don’t believe he’s evil. I just think he’s out of his depth and doesn’t have the consciousness required to lead a country of our complexity. He can’t see wide enough, or far enough. His perspective doesn’t include people like me in his definition of America, those of us in the “democrat states”. He can’t see me for the patriot I am. He’s never had the constraints needed to develop the creativity and empathy needed to lead us. When you can just throw money at things to get what you want all life, it doesn’t appear to build much character. Selfishly, I cannot see past this man championing the Affordable Care Act to be overturned less than 50 days from now with NO PLAN to replace. That hodgepodge healthcare plan is the only reason my family isn’t medically bankrupt this year and the only reason I feel comfortable running MY OWN BUSINESS while I have a family. Our conservative party is stuck, and until it grows into something more good, true, and beautiful, our country is doomed. It has no incentive to grow right now, only to be in stasis and maintain.

I’m an entrepreneur, I’m an artist, and I celebrate personal responsibility and diversity. I believe in business and politics as the primary ways to enact spirit in the world. Politics and government are the agreements we chose to play by – no one should have to live any worse than this, and those that thrive in our country should have to pour energy back into the very structures that allowed them to do so. Business is then the engine for raising us all up within those agreements.

Growth and depth of consciousness is often driven by circumstances out of our control. Every day I look out and see people getting increasingly angry with each other, which I firmly believe is sourced underneath by an even more tremendous sense of grief.

Grief that the world that was is over. Grief that we’ve let our infrastructure and institutions rot from lack of maintenance. Grief that we’re no longer a country of vision for what could be, but instead obsessed with some fictional fantasy of eden that occurred in the past. Grief that over 200k people have died, businesses have shuttered, and our economy is collapsing outside of the stock market. Grief that good and evil is no longer a binary we can rely on, but that instead we must negotiate the complexities of depth vs span and better vs worse.

Grief that we no longer have an American identity that is strong enough to wrap around any race, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, political ideology, or class structure. Grief that our WE is gone.

I believe Joe Biden knows grief and I believe our country will be having waves of it for a long time and our next leader must be comfortable being in that pain with us. Not turning away from it, but speaking to it honestly and without closing or deflecting.

I also believe it is a government’s job to be RESPONSIVE to the people. And I believe a Biden government will be more responsive to more Americans than the Trump administration.

I care deeply about men, and work with them every day of my life right now – and while this is only my experience, I see Donald Trump as the epitome of a masculinity that’s had its day: My way or the highway, power OVER vs power to, image over interiors, compassion is a weakness. I absolutely believe we need fierce leaders, but that the fiercer the leader the larger their heart must be. Deflecting blame and name-calling are the old way. Healthy evolved masculine leadership takes responsibility – even for the problems it did not cause itself. It takes responsibility for the culture and attitude of communication it promotes. It holds a standard that invites others to RISE into. I do not see that standard held by our President. I see someone unable to stay focused, unable to govern, and unable to call us forth to our better selves.

Joe Biden’s heart has been broken, and is something I can feel. Something that I trust. I don’t need him to speak perfectly or govern perfectly. I need him to hold the space, fill the room with the right people, and stop our country from shattering to pieces.

There is no country trying to hold together such a diversity of perspectives, cultures, and consciousness as America. If we can’t figure out how to work together, humanity is doomed.

And finally, let me name and own a deep judgment I have. I think choosing not to vote is abdicating your leadership and liberty and collapsing all of reality into both-siderism flatland. If you are willing to run for office yourself, then I support you in not voting. Otherwise, you are offloading your responsibility and telling someone else to “figure it out”.

The alternative I often hear is a wish for the entire system to collapse. The only examples of that I know of in history come with tremendous suffering and agony for many many many people. Our democratic experiment is unique in that the founders baked into the system itself the means to iterate and evolve it SO the very suffering and pain of a complete reboot could be avoided.

Even if you vote differently than me, please just VOTE and then demand action for a better world and hold our leaders accountable. Let’s get creative and explore what’s truly possible.

Feel free to add your thoughts about the goodness, truth, and beauty you see your candidate championing and embodying below.

AGREEMENT: No grade-school name-calling or making each other wrong or evil. Invite someone into your world instead.

      

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Had the pleasure of seeing this in 65mm on the Egyptian Theater screen in Hollywood, and I loved every minute of it. Wide frames, long takes, real slices of life. Felt like an Italian neorealist movie made with all the modern tech. The mise-en-scene and enormity of the real life scenes with actual extras was breathtaking.

Annihilation

Emotionally this one didn’t quite stick with me but it was an interesting, original, and highly original film. I love good sci-fi like this that swings for the fences. Most of my problems with it probably stem from adaptations from the book and the challenge of taking the depth of novels and bringing them onscreen.

The acting was great, the effects were phenomenal, and I’m so stoked I saw this on a big screen.

If Beale Street Could Talk

I love Barry Jenkins as a filmmaker, and was touched and haunted by this film. Slow, intimate, and deliberate, it has was of the most earnest lovemaking scenes put to screen. Lyrical and poetic, with stunning cinematography and a simply INCREDIBLE score.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Mr. Rogers was a type of good created from a developmental stage that has gone awry. He stood for the best of traditional American values while stretching in the ways he could into the progressive values of humanism in his time. It’s so rare our heroes don’t have dark underbellies of shadow, and this was a man that lived to love and lived for children. This documentary was like a salve for the soul.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout

A real action movie with real stunts that goes for the fantastic without overlying on crappy CGI and hyper editing and shakey camera work. Tom Cruise deserves an Oscar for the way for his physicality in this film. I love a good plotted big budget action movie that isn’t just made in a computer.

The Florida Project

Technically came out in 2017, but I saw it in early 2018. A beautiful slice of life into some what it takes for kids and families to survive in America. A wonderfully written exploration of the underbelly of the Disney magic. This is a movie about what happens just outside the kingdom for normal people.

Black Panther

Pretty burnt out on comic book movies but this was fresh, original, and contained a compelling vision for the philosopher king type government. This would have sucked had they not given it to Ryan Coogler, who infused it with real culture, hurt, values, and the best damn villain Marvel has had yet….because he wasn’t really a villain.

Sorry to Bother You

A bonkers movie, I had no fucking clue where it would go and just ate up the dripping and biting yarn told by Boots Riley about consumerism and white privilege.

Honorable Mentions

Leave No Trace and Crazy Rich Asians

      

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Check it out below!

VIDEO

AUDIO ONLY

      

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A Ghost Story

Just about the most original movie I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a slow, methodical, ambient burn, that continued to seep into me weeks after seeing it. It’s absolutely a state changer, and has some of the best long takes made in the last decade. You’ll love it or hate it. I loved it!

Get Out

Absolutely should have won best picture for 2017, kind of a crime it didn’t. Jordan Peele’s direction in this film is masterful – incredible that this was one of this first long form projects. The acting, script, pacing, timing, mise-en-scene, they’re all exceptional. It’s creepy, funny, and illuminating.

mother!

This one nearly made my wife sick, beware it is an assault! It’s violet, dark, and shocking, like many of Aronofsky’s finest films. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is stunning as she’s in basically every shot of the film. The directing and cinematography is incredible, slowly turning up the heat and claustrophobia of this twisted adventure.

Phantom Thread

P.T. Anderson knocks it out of the park. A divisive ending, but one I thought was twisted and perfect in all the right ways. The score, costumes, performances, and cinematography are all exceptional, and it’s one of those lovely films that shines such a deep light on a specific moment and time that it truly feels timeless. Cinema needs more films of this caliber by top tier directors!

Blade Runner 2049

This should have been a disaster in every way. Sequels like this almost NEVER justify their existence, and this seemed like a long shot. Roger Deakins and Denis Villeneuve are a stellar combination, and make a film that’s both timeless and modern. Against all odds, this film has everything going for it, but falls just short of being a masterpiece in my book because of it’s very muddled ending – it can’t decide who’s story this is and flips near the end in a way that really sucks out all the meaning and felt very flat.

Logan

The movie Xmen fans have been waiting for since 2000 – Wolverine unleashed in full r-rated glory. A great example of why the best super hero movies continue to thrive – the super hero archetype is now being dropped into genre films, allowing for much richer and varied stories to be told. This doomed cowboy tale hits enough notes right that the terrible exposition and plotting almost doesn’t matter.

Honorable Mentions

Atomic Blonde

Extraordinarily violet – extraordinarily watchable. This is how you do real action with real weight and consequences. Some of the sequences in this are straight up exhausting to watch in the best way. Charlize Theron is in her prime here.

War for the Planet of the Apes

A fitting end to a powerful trilogy. The first 2 films were way better than they really needed to be as big budget summer tentpoles, and this one follows suit. Not quite as strong in the end, things feel a little confined in the major third act sequence. Tremendous acting all around though, and heart breaking in all the right ways.

The Last Jedi

You can’t say it was another clone like so many did with The Force Awakens! That said, the more time has passed with this one the less I really like it. A few amazing sequences, but really misses a few key pieces in my mind, with no real connection between the two biggest Jedi’s we’re excited to see meet. The “stubborn” lead female character is her character arc trope continues, and I’m not really sure what our central character learns in this story. Some very undefined and muddled force powers lead up to a climatic moment that should be a stunner and leaves most people confused and scratching their heads as it just wasn’t set up to make sense.

      

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This is totally partially true, and something I can mostly agree with.  However, like the law of attraction, being in the moment, or any of the wonderful teachings that have broached into the world of general platitudes, it can have a dark side.

“I’m a successful artist so I’m only going to surround myself with other artists more successful than me!”

“Now that I make over 500k a year, I’m only hanging out with other people “of money”.

“I only feel comfortable being around other’s that believe in multiculturalism.”

You are absolutely the “average” of the five people you mostly surround yourself with.

However, you are also the “average” of the five people you don’t.

Such as people that have different spiritual beliefs than you, are from different economic classes or cultural backgrounds than you, never left that hometown you grew up in, or don’t give a shit how successful you are.

Spiritual cults, celebrity entourages, fascist regimes, warlord tribes – they’re all the dangerous result of homogenized perspectives. When everyone around you thinks the same as you, or has a vested interest in your success, it’s so much easier to veer off course and for general “shittiness” to be normalized. Countless atrocities, deaths, and abuses, both big and small, can come from such setups.

So yes, spend a lot of time around the five people that reflect who you and and who you want to be most dearly.

But also, spend time with five people that are the antithesis of all that – and can keep conflicting and contradictory information and perspectives flowing into your world and aren’t willing to call out destructive bullshit when they see it.

Evolution thrives on diversity, collisions and interactions.

Corruption thrives on stagnation, uniformity, and separateness.

Have your five, yes, but also have that tribe that will call out your shit and isn’t afraid to disagree with you and helps you continually relate your bubble of values to reality.

Build a team of allies, but don’t leave out your team of rivals.

      

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Inside Out

After the disney-sequalification of Pixar, and a few less than stellar movies, was totally over joyed to see this them roar back to form with this genius film. A suprisingly complex teaching in animated form, the personification of interiors and the relationship between emotions this movie climaxes in exploring was straight up brilliant.  Incredibly tight script, imaginative settings, and fun all around.  An incredible gift to the famillies of the world.

LOVE

Enter the Void stands as one of the most unique cinematic experiences I’ve had, and I couldn’t wait to see Gaspar Noé‘s latest film. As poetic as it is erotic, it’s definitely a challening film and was fascinating to see in 3D.  Easily some of the most viscerally real intimate scenes I’ve seen on film, wrapped in a store of some severely damaged masculine learning to open it’s heart.  Like many films I react strongly to, this one is low on the plot, but heavy on state.  I still think about the final scenes of this film often.

The Martian

Ridley Scott is BACK!  One of the best directors of all time returns to form in a tight adaptaion of the novel.  Incredibly engaging and found a way to make science inspiring and fun again on the big screen in a way that hasn’t happened since many Apollo 13 back in the day.  The groundedness of the novel really balanced well with Ridley’s precision directing, and I enjoyed the hell out of this.

Sicario

A beautiful, riveting film.  Exceptionally well crafted, with a tight script and wonder control of tone throughout. Still bummed Roger Deakins didn’t win for cinematography in this, as the texture and framing of this picture was a huge part of what impacted me.  Another film that masterfully generates a state, there are moments of cinematic beauty throughout this rather dark tale.  Emily Blunt cements herself as one of the finest actors around in a script that focuses on her as a human, and doesn’t just reduce her to an “on screen woman.”  An excellent example of the “it’s not what a story is about, but HOW it’s about it”.

CREED

I think Rocky movies are the equivalent to romantic comedies for me.  Achievement! Goals! Believe in Yourself! Perservere! Mastery!  This was a surprsingly great film for the “seventh” film in this franchise.  Ryan Coogler shows he’s the real deal with a fantastically directed film (that long take first fight, wow!), and subverts so many cinematic cliches while managing to keep the deep archetype of the Rocky mythos in tact. Great acting, great cinematography, great music, tons of fun to watch.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Easily the best “Summer” movie of last year, a non-stop blistering chase big ass action movie in the best of the mainstream sense – that was ALL about the need for the Feminine to arise and heal the ails of a badly damaged world.  Strong women abound in this movie, and as great a visual spectacle as one could want – powered by an incredible amount of practice effects that make it feel grounded in a way so many CGI films never feel like.  The plot is minimal, there’s dialogue but little of it matters, and yet the stakes of this world are obvious in the brilliant script.  Take note screenwriters at the complete lack of cheesy exposition dumps.  Everything we need to know is expressed through action, and it’s a hoot.

Ex Machina

I’m always aching for good sci-fi, and while this film turned out to be more thriller than sci-fi in my book, I loved it.  A master class on a mid to low budget genre piece, the confined setting felt totally organic to the story.  Taking the basic premise of artificial consciousness as a fact, the film turns to a dark thriller that’s fun from start to finish. Alex Garland wrote some of my favorite Danny Boyle films, and the fantastic adaptation of Never Let Me Go in 2010, and great to see his skill extended into directing. Definitely check it out.

Honorable Mentions

Room

Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay hold down the fort in this fantastic indie. Way more complex and interesting than I though it’d be, covering much of the really hard stuff that begins when most movies end.

Anomalisa

Charlie Kaufman filmed probably the most “realistic” sex scene I’ve ever seen, which is saying something since this film uses puppets.  Some deep somber themes and incredible craftmenship on display, but didn’t quite stick the landing to me.

Spotlight

The type of adult film that’s disappearing from modern cinema about a the type of reporting that’s disappearing in the world.  I remember when the news of this tale broke, but didn’t realize the depth of the disfunction.  I’m not sure how anyone could watch this movie and not be filled with rage, especially given how much of it is still happening and unfurling.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Sure, yes, it’s basically a note for note remake of A New Hope, but the fact that we got a big budget modern star wars movie that didn’t suck is AMAZING.  Has primed the new trilogy for great things, and what a find in Daisy Ridley, she was born for this film.  When John Williams score for the big chase in the beginning climaxed, I literally clapped in joy.  Star Wars is back!

The Revenant

A brutal movie all shot on location, the imagery of this film is unforgettable.  Iñárritu is one of the best working directors today.  An epic film on every level.

Biggest Disappointment:

Jupiter Ascending

An interesting failure. I wanted to like this so much, and give the Wachowski’s an A for effort in terms of trying to birthe original sci-fi into the world  Unfortuantely it was pretty much non-sensical junk.  The script just needed a lot more work, and can we move on from the “chosen one” stories already?!?!

      

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It strikes me, however, that other than this article, I’ve not really heard any discourse about the one underlying trait unifying the vast majority of all said tragedies: they’re perpetrated by men.

Exceptions absolutely exist, but overall it’s clear that so many of the horrible things that happen on our planet are because of dissociated and damaged masculine.

Whether screwing over the economy, murdering people based on religious ideology, starting a war under false pretenses, raping women, or abusing children, so many of the atrocities the masculine perpetrates comes from taking action to benefit the self at the expense of the other.

The need for the masculine to evolve in this moment in time is clear, and there are countless reasons as to why it’s in such a perilous state right now and how we can begin to change it.

For now, however, I want to focus on a single thing: how we value and define masculine leadership and power.

Traditional Masculine Power

Masculine power has traditionally been celebrated for its ability to distance itself from “others” – it’s ability to dissociate and dominate.  It’s rooted in a mindset in which power and security are a SCARCE resource that must be accrued at the expense of others.  Current Presidential nominee Donald Trump epitomizes this – power that comes from dominance, denigration, and division.

This old framework celebrates gut instincts, infallible self-confidence, lack of concern for other’s feelings, stockpiling money, and is measured in status by how much control over others one has. It’s based in insecurity and scarcity. Fluidity of perspective is seen as “flip flopping” and weak, and empathy isn’t even on the radar of being a desirable trait.

Evolved Masculine Power

Men and women need to support a more wholesome & evolved version of the masculine.  Imagine instead, us celebrating and valuing masculine power by its capacity to hold multiple perspectives when making decisions, willingness to be unsure, and ability to give its power away to others.  In this model, evolved masculine leadership seeks out new information and dissenting opinions while using its ability to empathize with others as a primary tool for making decisions.

This version of power exists in a healthy state of not-knowing: being in touch with its own feelings and perspective while also constantly seeking out more and more data to continually grow its perspective to include more when making decisions.

Anchoring itself in abundance, instead of insulating itself by stockpiling power-over others, it grows in status and value by its ability to EMPOWER others, ie by how much energy it allows to flow through itself into others to strength their autonomy. This masculine power is measured in status not by how much control it has over others, but by how much it shares its power-with others.

One of my favorite teachers, Robert Augustus Masters, defines power-with as so:

True masculine power is full-blooded power-with— power that strengthens both our autonomy and our togetherness, power that is both hard and soft, penetrating and fluid, finely focused and panoramic, power that aligns head, heart, and guts.

As a man who identifies with a masculine essence, I feel clearer than ever enacting this is part of my calling in this life and strive to embody power-with as one of the central compasses for my growth moving forward.

While unfortunately there is no easy way to ever fully stop pathological masculine activity, one easy step on the road to a healthier embodiment is by changing the types of masculine we idolize and value in the world. Masculine and feminine leaders alike can both help support this by vocally cherishing and celebrating this type of leadership when we see it. (our current President, while not perfect, is a pretty fantastic example).

Less power-over, more power-with.

Artwork from the Amazing Bryce Widom!

      

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I don’t remember if I was mailed an offer, or went online to seek one out, but that decision at 19 began a journey that has taken me 16 years to complete.  After that year, I started signing up for more and more cards, using them to pay for school supplies, a post college trip to Europe, food, pretty much everything. In the years since then, I mostly only paid minimum monthly payments, with a few stints here and there of paying down some chunks only to rack the debt up again when money was tight.  My total credit card debt never dropped below 6k, and peaked at 21k around 2013 after a few years where I was even using it to pay rent.  It wasn’t until last week, after nearly 2 years of aggresive payments, that I paid off my last credit card.

Meanwhile, in both the spring of 2007, and the spring of 2014, I used DEXA scanners to get my bodyfat and bone density scanned, both times clocking in around 35% body fat, just over the line into genuine obesity.  I dropped about half that body weight in 2007, and kept it off for a good while until moving to LA and completely dropping my exercise routine. It took 2014 and 2015 to lose that weight again.

More recently, I spent about 6 days last week back home where I grew up cleaning out the large suburban home my family moved into when I was in 5th grade.  Most everyone but my father moved out over a decade ago without ever fully moving out, and so nearly 25 years worth of stuff had accumulated that had never really been taken care of.  Dozens of trips to GoodWill and a full dumpster later, the house is finally clear and nearly ready to be put on the market.

All three of these vignettes I share because they have something in common – they’re forms of debt, meaning they were all areas of my life in which I owed something – money, exercise, cleaning, which in a sense are all just expressions of owed energy.

The thing about debt, of any sort, that I now get having recently “settled” up on these three areas of my life, relates strongly to the ideas I explored in the Paradox of Practice, namely that part of the unique pain of debt is that it rarely can be eliminated instantly.

It takes dedication of will and discipline OVER time to lose weight, pay off credit cards, or to simply clean a house that I’ve been avoiding, and that, can be a very difficult place to sit in emotionally, one that was often incredibly paralyzing and numbing to me.  To stare a balance sheet, and calculate “if I work x hours at y dollars an hour, it will take me years to pay everything off”, or if i lose 1 pound a week of body fat, it will take me half a year to get healthy!

There have been many times I got stuck in that analysis paralysis, which would often result in behaviors that would make matters even worse: eating cheap junk food, not checking my bank account, avoiding bills, avoiding going home, avoiding talking to family, etc.

Having come out the other side of these debts, it makes me realize how often this scenario is played out in the transformational world.  Be it a powerful meditative or psychedelic experience, a new book or strong workshop, or the discovery of finding one’s purpose in life – this dynamic plays out.

Ken Wilber describes it as the difference between waking up and growing up – the former meaning the awareness of what is, and the latter change over time.  Or to put in other terms of his, the difference between states (which can be instant) and stages (which develop over time).

Even more briefly, the idea that while awareness can be instant (I HAVE TO LOSE WEIGHT, I HAVE TO STOP SMOKING, I CAN’T TREAT PEOPLE LIKE THIS ANYMORE), change takes actual time (working out 3 times a week, skipping carbs, paying oneself first with every check, skipping starbucks, or scrubbing the dirty bathroom floor one tile grout at a time).

Career goals, financial goals, relational goals, health goals, so many areas of life in which we all seek change are subject to this unavoidable tension.  Anywhere this tension exists, markets spring up trying to offer shortcuts or solutions, promising results without a commitment of time or energy – get rich quick schemes, the lottery, fat pills, electronic ab stimulators, build an online business over night, transformational weekend workshops – the marketing is everywhere and unavoidable.

That dichotomy between awareness and change is what makes debt, of whatever kind,  humbling. I can know what change needs to occur in any given moment, but I can’t actually change it in THAT moment.  Instead, I have to trust myself to make a series of right actions repeatedly over time, while also tolerating the discomfort of not being able to change the situation instantly. Much of my life I was unable to fully tolerate that discomfort, which caused me to respond in the only way I could at the time – numbing out to avoid feeling.

Having had massive shifts last week in two of the greatest debts of my life, I now find myself wondering what other debts I’ve been avoiding, and am seeking new moments of awareness that I will be forced to enact into change over time.

What debts do you owe in your life?

      

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Sitting with my reactivity the last days, I feel pretty clearly it’s just the simple urge to be right, to know that my perspective is more whole and complete then the one I’m reacting to.

Now I’m wondering, why do I give such a shit about being right? What does it matter if my political view, musical taste, or transformational path is better than this other one?

The answer, I’m afraid, is as cliche as they come: FEAR.

I want to be right, I now feel, because if I’m right, and things out there don’t go the way I wish, it’s the world’s fault. Not my own.  I am released from responsibility, and ironically feel more in control knowing there’s nothing I can do.

Feeling into the opposite feels far more challenging and scary.  What if I’m wrong?

In wrongness I feel less in control.

In wrongness I feel less safe.

Being wrong feels more dangerous, more uncomfortable, and more threatening.

It also feels more important.  How easy it would be for me to spend my time in a bubble of being right, only hearing that which aligns with what I know to be true.

Instead, I realize I want to take that urge to be right, take that certainty, and transmute it into further understanding of how things really are.

What if I’m missing something?
What might I not being seeing or understanding?
How am I wrong?

Please teach me!

      

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One, I notice I’m enjoying a particular sensation present in my experience. It’s one that I first really started to identify when Pearl Jam would announce the release date for a new album, and am currently experience in anticipation of the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The term that comes to mind as I sit with the sensation is pre-emergence, or the pleasure of knowing that something is about to emerge in culture that will hopefully bring me great joy.

Feeling into the arrival of Star Wars also reminds me of the much bigger emergence we’re mere months away from: accessible and effective Virtual Reality. Smartphones are possibly the only other device in the last decades that have had such a great impact. While many will be quick to dismiss VR as it will initially be used for gaming and entertainment, thinking of it as a platform is where the real electricity is. Technodelics, therapies, vacation, meeting and interactions, so much will be different in the post VR world that we’re literally months away from!

Two, it’s likely that this Star Wars will shatter all box office records in a way that I can’t imagine many films doing again in my lifetime. While Jaws was technically the first blockbuster film, Star Wars was really the first blockbuster that created a new world, culture, and “pocket” in the noosphere. With that as a base, and the fact that literally “generations” of folks have been raised on Star Wars via the original trilogy and prequel trilogy, I’m not sure there will be as “multi generational” a film event again in my lifetime. Particularly one that literally weaves in the fabric of time like this one will, bringing back original cast that have aged in very real and true ways that should bring some gravitas to their roles that digital aging never can, as well as invoking our own age and life story as we feel our previous experiences with them in our own timeline rip back to life with their presence on screen.

All that adds up to a film “event”, in what I hope is best possible version of what real mainstream blockbuster entertainment can provide: Social Cohesion.

As travel and communication technology “opened” up the world and cultures in ever more expansive ways in the last century, social cohesion, or shared reality and experiences, has failed to keep pace. Traditionally sourced in our tribes, religious traditions, or “values”, I’d argue we’re still at a point where new structures of cohesion have yet to fully emerge.

Big media events are one development I believe is filling that void. Many of the most impactful have been real world events, ie the Moon landing, Kennedy’s assassination, the fall of the Berlin wall, Obama’s election, etc. Even those, however, aren’t necessarily “global” events, just events the globe tunes into, and these days, more often than not, they’re tied into tragedy, not celebration. The closest thing to global broadcasts I can think of are the Olympics, which has globalism in it’s DNA, and the World Cup.

Beyond real world events, however, I think we’re really just beginning to see the emergence of global “art” events. While Hollywood blockbuster films tend to be american/euro english language oriented pieces of art, with the increasingly important emergence of global markets like China, even that is beginning to change. A step towards the right direction in terms of race and gender diversity, The Force Awakens will certainly be more inclusive than any Star Wars film thus far in history. That, added to the fact that it’s about fictional culture and events, I think gives it a power to be more globally unifying than dividing, no matter what your nationality, country of origin, religion, economic class, or belief system, I think many of people across the planet will feel the freedom to say “that’s cool!”!

While that in no way shape or form solves the many emerging global problems we face, it does provide a small bit of shared reality and cultural reference, that can act as a cohesion for us as a SPECIES. With every passing year, I imagine there’s fewer and fewer places one can go on the planet where you can utter the phrase “The Dark Side” and you WON’T be understood, which I find pretty awe-inspiring.

       

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As a techno-optimist, I feel the need to call bullshit.

There has never been a moment in the entire history of consciousness that there has been anywhere near this level of connection available in any given moment. Connection with intimate partners, family, members of our value’s based tribes, even strangers – it’s increasingly easy regardless of economic status and geography to stay connected with anyone we actually want to at any given time.

But, but, being glued to a phone is NOT relating, it’s NOT connecting you scream!

Well, it may not be for you, but consider that it might be for the person you’re around who’s doing it. If you’re out at dinner with someone, and they’re staring at their phone and not you and you’re getting agitated, take a moment. Pause. Connect with yourself. Feel into the other person, and maybe even acknowledge that they’re feeling more pull to a text message, or Facebook feed than they are to you in that moment, and take RESPONSIBILITY for the connection. Awareness itself IS a form of responsibility. What could you say, or do with this person to pull them deeper into the moment with you? How could YOU show up differently to change the situation?

In my experience people LOVE connection, almost more than anything else I’ve encountered. Who doesn’t love feeling someone’s attention and presence FULLY with YOU in that very moment? So if your friend, child, or spouse isn’t with you, consider that you’re maybe just not showing up enough to pull them into the moment with you, and adjust. Presence that you’re feeling disconnected from them, ask them what they’re excited about on their phone, really just ask them anything to get them relating deeper to you. Hell, maybe even share something powerful, vulnerable, or true about YOUR experience first to really get the ball rolling.

I get the frustration of feeling when someone is not with you, I really do. I’ve been on both sides of the equation before. As an introvert, I love tech and social media because it’s kind of like an “extroversion” for introverts, but I also have the self awareness to know that there is a spectrum of connection, and so much of what has emerged in the last few years is more towards the less embodied side of it.

A tweet to the masses isn’t as intimate as a text message which isn’t as intimate as a phone call which isn’t as intimate as a video chat which isn’t as intimate as being in the same room conversing with a person which isn’t as intimate as actually being connected to them and relating to them in the present moment. But just because the earlier things aren’t as intimate, doesn’t mean they aren’t a form of connection.

The exploded techno-sphere DEMANDS integrity, with each emerging wave of technology we’re having to learn to be MORE disciplined, MORE focused, MORE honest, and MORE connected.

So, easier said then done right? But how does one actually get better at connecting?

For me personally, the most effective and potent tools have come in the form of Authentic Relating. An evolved set of tools that emerged from a few different lineages and really became their own up in San Francisco, there are thankfully many opportunities to learn and practice some very foundational tools for connecting deeper in the moment with fellow beings.

If you’re in LA, join me personally at any the Authentic Los Angeles events I co-facilitate along with a rocking team of all star friends.

If you’re in San Francisco – AuthenticSF, in Austin – Authentic Revolution, New York – The Connection Movement, Boulder – The Integral Center (my former home!) or just google authentic relating plus your town.

And if you want to go REALLY deep, go on a deep dive and take the Authentic Relating Comprehensive, the newest offering from the Integral Center. Or go all in and learn to become a facilitator of authentic relating and jump into a T3 – Train the Trainer.

     

The concept that “all things will pass” and that “nothing lasts forever” has always been true. However the universe came into being, it’s pretty clear it’s vastly different now then it was then. Stars, planets, and galaxies have come and gone for the majority of time. Time has been the inevitable victor at every turn thus far in history, conquering everything that’s come in it’s path.

But now I ponder….is time/impermanence meeting its match?

While in a relatively fragile position right now, consciousness has so far been evolving in one direction: towards greater depth and complexity. Out of that evolving consciousness, I think the greatest interruption to the Kosmos has been Art & Technology. Two sides of the same thing – an attempt to defy impermanence.

Language, Writing, Music, Painting: our oldest forms of technology/art – and all direct attempts to circumvent impermanence. All tools to allow us to communicate through time, and pass knowledge, structures, and insight intact in a permanent way.

Now initially this was down more more symbolically – figurative ideas and concepts that have survived through the ages.

Then came the 19th century, and the first manifestations of Mechanical Reproduction.

Since that time mechanical reproduction has exploded exponentially, and doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon.

Consider that until the birth of audio recording, throughout all human history no one had ever heard exactly the same song. Even the most perfect classical performance or brilliant bard literally couldn’t ever play the same song the same way twice. Be it tempo, pitch, tuning of the instrument, in every piece there’s millions of variations to make each performance different.

Now consider that the 2 minutes and 32 seconds from February 11th, 1963 that are the Beatles recording of Twist and Shout and likely literally be replayed millions of times since then, and will probably continue being replayed for eternity.

Photos, videos, music, and other structures that can be translated into mechanical reproduction are fighting back against time. Standing defiantly against impermanence, and really only just beginning. The oncoming tidal wave of 3d printing and Virtual Reality will allow structures to survive in even more comprehensive and predictable ways.

That said, we’re still at a very fragile point in time, where all the cumulative depth and information of consciousness thus far could be wiped out by a simple asteroid, temperature shift, or who knows what other kind of catastrophe.

But around the corner, is the very real and distinct moment where information storage becomes possible at quantum levels, and humanity creates backups of our culture by settling other planets.

The biosphere celebrates diversity, chaos, and difference. The technosphere though, celebrates uniformity and replication.

While all signs would still point to time winning in the long run, it’s fun to see art and technology continually emerging in resistance.

     

As a man, I have the innate privilege of not being confronted with with the same biological clock as women. While advances in medical health are retiming that clock more and more every year, it’s definitely real, and definitely present for many of the women I know in my life.

While I know I don’t have limitless time in the biological sense, I don’t feel tremendous urgency there.

So I’ve been listening to and wondering what then that energy at the edge of my awareness is, and now more than ever think I know.

I have a purpose clock. I think we all do. Another heartbeat, growing louder and louder over time: Am I Gifting the world? Am I nudging this Kosmos closer to more goodness, truth, and beauty? What am I creating of impact?

As each day passes, the more I can feel the weight of how my decisions matter. I don’t have endless time, and creation takes time.

For some, I think the purpose clock is closely aligned with their biological clock – literally bringing life into the world through children. I feel that will be true for me at some point in the future, but for me first comes artistic birth. The creation of stories and artifacts in the world.

I’ve avoided feeling this clock much of my life, there’s a certain tension, discomfort, and urgency to it when I really drop in – I don’t know how long I’ll be here, and there will likely never be a perfect time or perfect project to start.

There’s only one relief to that tension, and it can only be found in the now.

Create.

Don’t wait.

Come back and watch my first feature this time next year.

What’s your purpose clock telling you?

     

I’m down 40 pounds of body fat as of early last week, which I celebrate by writing this post.

It’s been a great and illuminating learning experience, namely because it’s really taught me the value of practice as a lifestyle.

I keep an exercise log I fill out as I go through my routines. At the end of each session, I scribble down a letter grade on how I felt overall.

Truth is over 80% of them were D’s and C’s. “Lethargic.” “Didn’t feel powerful.” “Ended early.”

Taken individually, most of my workouts were failures in the sense I didn’t perform at a level I felt was full out. I took off numerous days and sometimes weeks for back injuries.

But taken as a whole, the practice worked.

No single session mattered or changed my body.

Yet all that actually changed me was each individual session.

It’s the paradox of practice.

Change is most obvious with time and presence in the moment is all one can really do.

My lesson?

Fail with consistency and change will come.

Applying this to my art is the next great leap.

Live each day as if each rep was your last!

     

Noticing how much I was enjoying that aspect of the film, it really dawned on me how awesome and important robots are as a storytelling device in this moment in time, as they work as brilliant cinematic and narrative devices to teaching 2 incredibly cool concepts:

1. Consciousness develops over time
2. Consciousness is more than your body

There’s something magical about being robots being used as proxies to demonstrate and teach these two radically human things, in some ways more effectively than in stories with actual humans.

Consciousness develops over time

Piaget, Graves, Kegan, Stein, Maslow, Gilligan, Wilber (a personal favorite) – there has been, and continues to be an abundance of writing and research around the idea that consciousness itself is an evolving process and that it grows more complex and with a greater capacity for perspective taking over time.

Intuitively, I think most of us think of this as particularly being true when it comes to children. A child comes into the world non verbal, fused with the mother, and then over time an identity begins to emerge – via language, speech, writing, and a capacity to understand it’s own identity. Show a child a magic trick at 5 and it really IS magic. Show them again at a later age and while they might not know how it’s done, they do know it’s a trick.

The thing is, consciousness CONTINUES to evolve past childhood, all the way through adult life. While the research isn’t exactly clear what causes continued development into adulthood (environment, personal growth, tragedy, all of the above, etc) – the above researchers and writers can make a pretty damn good case that it DOES happen.

What’s this got to do with robots and movies? Well, one of the KEY ingredients in the evolution of consciousness is TIME, and time is a tricky thing to show onscreen. For me, part of what made Boyhood so magical and unique was the actual time that went into making it – a movie that is almost entirely about the evolving self of the lead character, Mason.

The thing is, just that slice of life took 12 years to make! The alternative onscreen is often using different actors, age enhancing makeup, etc, – which can definitely work but usually end up feeling a bit cheesy or inconsistent to me.

Enter the Robots

Now, here’s what makes robots such a great storytelling device for demonstrating the evolution of consciousness:

1. Their “bodies” don’t need to age the same way people’s do – no makeup/actor swapping/12 years needed
2. They can evolve faster than human in more compressed cinematic time

Not having to show a robot age, or worry about how it’s “externals” have changed allows the story to really focus on and highlight the internal changes.

Chappie, Johnny Five of Short Circuit, Frankenstein (an organic robot I’d argue), the T-100 in T2: Judgement Day, Data from Star Trek – One of the great pleasures of any story involving the birth of an “artificially created” consciousness is getting to see it LEARN on screen on in the pages of a story. It’s not the outsides that are changing, but the insides. Learning to become “more human”, learning to development an independent sense of identity – this is the great fun of experiencing stories about artificial intelligence.

For cinema specifically, AI/Robots work REALLY well for showing “learning” and growth because of how fast they can do it – a story can takes place over mere DAYS yet we can see an AI go from infantile to adolescent to adulthood in its consciousness, as is the case in Chappie. So the benefits are two fold – same body, and faster learning – both of which make it easier to tell a story onscreen.

Consciousness is more than your body

The concept of the soul is nothing new, and something I could argue most people in modern culture are aware of well before adolescence. However, it gets sticky and confusing (partly because we don’t actually know) how consciousness and the soul work. That said, there is an entire history of data across all major lineages of spiritual practice that pretty cross culturally and universally agree – there is something to “us” that exists beyond our bodies, and beyond our small concepts of self. In humans our interiors and exteriors co-evolve at the same time – but again with robots we can drop the exterior part and just focus on the interiors. When we can take the “exterior” doesn’t matter part for granted, suddenly it becomes much easier in stories to explore the how the “isness” of a character isn’t from their body, but from their consciousness – and in the robotic world that consciousness can move from body to body in a much simpler to understand fashion.

While this idea of soul/consciousness is probably nothing new to long term or serious practitioners, I think it’s just awesome to see it being explored in mainstream tales like Chappie – and for the right person possibly not exposed to it in their own life – what a groundbreaking concept!

We Are the Robots

Ironically, what’s so great about writing about ROBOTS is that it’s really just an opportunity to write about our humanness – which I’d argue is really the root of all great science fiction.

My life has personally been transformed and deepened from learning about the development of consciousness – and thus it’s something I’m totally committed to expressing in the work I put out in the world. Robots, and the exploration of artificial intelligence, are two of the key ways in which those concepts are currently descending into and manifesting in current culture – so fellow writers, please keep birthing new Chappie’s into the world!

     

Everything I want to do, everything I want to become, it’s here in LA. Walking over the stars in hollywood on a misty night last November, I remember falling in love with all of the people around me. Bros, skaters, plastics, hipsters, film geeks, burnouts, nerds like me, “these are my people” I thought. I’m not really hippie, but not really mainstream. I’m LA. It’s a mad dirty city infused with mountains and open space. It shouldn’t work, but it generally does.

It’s the most diverse town I’ve ever lived in – there’s is absolutely no “right” way to live here. It’s also the most challenging town I’ve ever lived in. Anything is possible here, but next to nothing “just happens” here. Serendipity here is a result of commitment. More than anywhere else I’ve lived, it requires strong intention to do anything, meet with friends for a drink, break into the business, going for a hike, whatever. That same energy, however, it also what makes it a town of dreamers. So many folks are going for “it”, whatever their it is: artist, healer, teacher, actor, musician, filmmaker. Not everyone will make it, but all are sure as hell trying.

It’s been a difficult transition since moving here. Nothing has happened as quickly as I’d have liked. I’m consistently feeling the places in myself where I still have so much growth to do. That said, 5 years in seeds are blossoming. Since moving here, I’ve finally made my first film I can call my own, stepped into a leadership position in the community dear to me, loved and been loved by another like I’d never been before, and become utterly clear on my purpose in life. While film will be the delivery format, my passion and purposes run deeper than that:

I’m here to help others feel more deeply while seeing new perspectives on themselves, our culture, and the universe.

Monday I deliver a very rough outline of my first real screenplay to my Men’s Group. My voice is emerging, and unsurprisingly all the things I find myself writing about are all the places of growth and gold in my own life. Writing, growing, and living are starting to feel one and the same for me.

I look forward to typing the words “it’s done” here by the end of this year. All it takes now is showing up, and having faith in the rest.

See you at the multiplex.

     

So, to continue my tradition from last year, here’s my favorite flicks of 2014:

Birdman

I was smiling pretty much the entire time I watched this movie. Manages to do the seemingly impossible, transmitted both the experiences only possible in film, while also conveying the power and energy of live theater. Top tier acting all around, and an incredible production that strung together countless long takes so there’s only one real “cut” in the movie. Form and Function relentlessly support each other in this film, from casting, to the production style, to the music, etc. Didn’t love the ending, but enjoyed the ride along the way.

Under the Skin

The film I’m most excited to see again, definitely the most distinct experience I had in the cinema this year, and the one that most strongly put me in a state that stuck with me long after leaving the theater. Abstract, weird, and challenging, I love how much this film earned it’s last scenes from my point of view. A brilliant example of how a film’s structure, shooting style, and editing can all combine to transmit the state experience of the main character.

Boyhood

Linklater is one of my favorite directors, and the one most directly that has learned to use time itself as a character in his films. I’d been reading about this for years and it was probably my most anticipated movie of the year. A remarkable achievement that was filmed over 12 years. Some parts of it work better than others, but overall I found it remarkably affecting and incredibly restrained. Linklater keeps the story simple, and doesn’t stretch his characters beyond what’s developmentally appropriate for them at the time. A perfect prequel to the Before Series, you can roughly go straight from this right into Before Sunrise and just pretend Jesse is Mason a few years later. Love it.

Edge of Tomorrow

A terrible title that didn’t exactly do gangbusters at the box office, but one of the only summer movies that wasn’t purely a sequel. While adapted from a book, it was the closest thing to an original summer movie we had this year. Tom Cruise gets a lot of hate, and he may be a little wacky, but he sure shows up for his roles. Possibly the first movie about video games (though not adapted from a video game) that doesn’t suck, it’s the action version of Groundhog Day and I found it tremendously fun. If all summer movies were this great, we’d be in good shape. Absolutely genius editing, never lingering on a sequence too long and brilliantly cutting forward in “time” at all the right moments. A wonderful lesson in how “genius” is often just lots of practice.

Gone Girl

Didn’t read the book, but loved the movie. Finger is a great director working at the absolute top of his game. A wonderfully constructed, shot, performed, and directed movie. It’s easy to overlook how brilliantly the film manages to change our “sympathies” for various characters as the movie progresses. Another great merging of form and function, the film’s critique of how malleable public opinion can easily be controlled by mass media, the film itself does a brilliant job of manipulating our sympathies as an audience the same way. Great soundtrack by Trent Reznor too.

Honorable Mentions:

Life Itself

Heartbreaking documentary covering the last days of Roger Ebert’s life, and one that strongly conveys how deeply passionate about cinema and culture in general he was.

Interstellar

Wanted it to be my favorite movie of the year, but ended up just being too clunky. Loved what it was about, but not how it was about it. Some truly painful dialogue, and far too much theme being spoken aloud. However, when it worked, it was big bold filmmaking at it’s finest. The docking sequence alone is a thing of beauty to behold in IMAX, a perfect example of when the film was working and the action of the film was representative of theme: the fate of all life coming down to one simple connection / act of procreation. However, despite a few other really strong moments like that overall it felt simply too “clinical” for me.

La Dolce Vita

Old movie, but saw it on the big screen for the first time and was definitely one of my favorite cinema experiences of the year.

Nightcrawler

Not a movie I’m likely to ever watch again, and certainly not a movie that was super realistic, but no matter. This was a film so certain of it’s tone and authorship that I found it to just sizzle and sparkle on screen. Intense, dark, and fun.

Guardians of the Galaxy

As fresh a “comic book” movie as we’re likely to get for a while, I it was a nice light romp that blended star wars and Indiana Jones in just the right ways. Light popcorn fare about the ‘fate’ of the galaxy for sure, but I had a lot of fun watching it and appreciated it’s “earth jokes” a bunch.

Stuff I didn’t get to see that may placed…

Whiplash, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, Inherent Vice

Biggest Disappointments

Transcendence

A movie about the singularity and uploading human consciousness? Count me in! Except it didn’t work at all for me. Didn’t care about the characters, nothing made sense in the plot, and it looked like it was shot in New Mexico for tax credits. Bummer.

     

Now, this is thrilling for me, as someone who’s been heavily into video games, cinema, and transformative practices for the last 15 years. In my mind, we’re very close to seeing the full emergence of what I’m calling Technodelics (I’m sure others have used this term, I first starting thinking about it during my SHARE dialogues last year when discussing one unique application I imagined for an upcoming short film I wrote). VR, out of body experiences, trips, computers, altered states, the metaverse – there’s a bunch of terminology that’s been emerging in the last 50 years that while maybe not obvious at first glance, illustrates the many ways in which the psychedelic/consciousness culture of the late 60s intersects with the still massive and growing computer cultures of the 80s and 90s. David Pescovitz gives a great overview of how just how closely related these two worlds are in his talk Just Say Know: A Cyberdelic History of the Future, where he outlines how the bay area and silicon valley in specific were the petri dish in which these two worlds collided. He uses the world Cyberdelic a bit different than how I imagine technodelic will be used, but they’re certainly closely related and definitely check the video out as it’s a great primer on the history of the two subcultures.

First Came Psychedelics

By this time in 2014, I think it’s safe to say that most people have heard of psychedelics, which are drugs that when consumed can often create non-ordinary states of consciousness. They’ve been around for as long as we have, but really burst into mainstream awareness during the late 60s counter culture movement. Psychedelics, whether LSD, Salvia, Ayahuasca, Cannabis, or any of the many other countless variations, alter our consciousness by changing the ways our brains process sensory information. The world outside is the same, but our perception of it changes. This is what often gives them their transformative capacities and that can often times help people break free of old patterns and ways of experiencing the world. Right now there’s a small but growing re-emergence of studies that are exploring the potential powerful effects of Psychedelics; be it LSD for anxiety or MDMA for PTSD, and the many more to come. However, for all their greatness, one issue with psychedelics, (which might also be considered a feature depending on your perspective), is how uncontrollable/unpredictable they are. The environment you take them in, the people you’re surrounded by, the food you ate the day before, all these things can impact the experience of the altered state and sometimes lead to “bad trips” that have been so often parodied in mainstream entertainment.

So what are Technodelics?

Technodelics are something else entirely. For simplicities sake, let’s just say there’s two major variables to any human experience – the sensorimotor data we receive from the outside world, and how our brain processes and perceives it. Psychedelics work primary by distorting the latter – you and I could both be in the exact same room looking at the same painting and be seeing completely different things when under the influence of psychedelics. Technodelics on the other hand, will focus on the other side of the equation – the inputs. So from my point of view, Technodelics are simply anything that can cause altered states of consciousness solely by means of external stimulation. Psychedelic experiences happen because of something changing within, Technodelic experiences happen because of something changing without.

Using this definition, it becomes clear that like psychedelics, technodelics are actually nothing new. Most of what we consider “art” should be considered technodelia – paintings, writing, poetry, movies, music – at their most basic level these things all enter into our consciousness in the same way – via sensorimotor input. Many of the first “altered” state experiences I had came from these traditional media forms – seeing a rock concert live, the awe of seeing dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, and even Beullering out looking at A Sunday on La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute in Chicago. In fact, for almost as far back as we can see into history people have been using technodelics as a way to share their experiences with the generations after them.

So what’s all this have to do with the Oculus and VR?

As I was noting, Psychedelic experiences can be so divergent because they are so impacted by the environment we take them in, the effect the substance has on our brain chemistry, and different consciousness of the person doing the activity. Technodelics, however, theoretically can have far LESS variables, particularly when deployed in platforms like the Occulus. They can have the same container/deployment mechanism (vr headset) on top of the content itself be perfectly replicable. Whether music, books, or particularly movies, we’re already pretty good at programming content that elicits specific responses in users – but beyond headphones and movie theaters we’ve never really been able to have complete control of the environment that our technodelia was consumed in.

VR headsets change that, and become the standardized delivery mechanism for programmed experiences that can cause altered states of consciousness. Video games, movies, and most likely porn will be some of the first major “applications” for VR headsets, all with slants towards entertainment. Beyond that, however, I truly believe we’ll start to see those interested in exploring consciousness start to program specific sensorimotor programs and experiences that will be able to lead to more predictable altered states of consciousness. Experiments are already being done that allow people to swap bodies with someone else, which inevitably shakes up our very idea of “self”.

First oculus rift experience, and with 3d sound to boot. I'm hooked. This is going to be huge. #vrla

A photo posted by Jason Lange (@thelanj) on Aug 8, 2014 at 7:49pm PDT

We know there is great power in empathy, or the ability to feel other’s experiences as if they were our own – and this new wave of VR technodelia is going to give us a platform for sharing entirely new types of experiences in completely safe and controlled ways. Jumping off a cliff, walking on mars, feeling what it’s like to be a different gender, or even wandering through a refugee camp exploring the aftermath of natural disasters – Technodelics give us a safe way to experience a multitude of things we might not otherwise. Those experiences are what I think are going to have profound impacts on humanity in ways we can’t quite yet predict.

As a filmmaker, the creation of replicable experiences is something I’ve already been interested in, and this oncoming way of technologies lights me up even more – they’re going to open the floodgates and expand the types of stories we can tell in ways never before possible.

So get ready, the technodelic age is upon us!

** Update **
Check out this fun interview I did with Vince Horn over @ Buddhist Geeks discussing the topic more in depth:

https://soundcloud.com/buddhistgeeks/technodelics-1

     

HER

A subject matter right up my alley, I had high hopes for this film but was floored. People scoff when they hear the premise, “a man falls in love with his phone”, but this film is so much more than that. A nuaced, thoughtful exploration of relationship, personal growth, healing, and the ways in which we relate to technology. This film had me from the first frame, let alone by the time we find out what is really happening to Samantha. Beating Depp/Pfiser to the punch! Beautifully shot, acted, and made, from start to finish. Please don’t think of it as a technology movie; it’s a relationship movie about transcending AND including.

12 Years a Slave

I can still barely believe I had never heard of Solomon Northrup’s story. Not a peep about this man in my entire K-College education, which makes this revelatory film all the more stunning. Yes it’s hard to sit though. And yes, you really should. A lesser film would have played it safe in typical Oscar straightforward narrative. Steve McQueen takes it a bit further, playing with the narrative structure and focusing on people above all else. There are three shots from this film that will stay with me always, truly powerful.

Gravity

It’s already had a wave of backlash because of it’s “thin story” and “weak science”, but if that’s what you leave the theater thinking about this film was not for you. One of the purest cinematic stories to hit theaters in the last few years, this film really had to be seen in 3D on the biggest screen you could find. If you waited to see it on netflix, shame on you, you’ll be getting a tenth of the experience. Stellar work by Sandra Bullock, and a marvelous example of how NOT flashing back can greatly intensify the narrative of a film. It’s clean, efficient, and meaningful writing at it’s best. A truly worthy follow up to Children of Men.

Before Midnight

I love this trilogy. I loved this film. Did not go where I expected it to and by doing so went so much deeper. Few films are able to put me into altered states, but each film in this trilogy rips me open from the moment they start. Such perfect examinations of the micro that the one can’t help but feel the macro throughout. Every word rings true, clearly born from years of open hearted experience by Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke. I’m already excited to rewatch these in a few years.

Upstream Color

If Primer was a stunning example of rigid form, Upstream Color is truly it’s match in formlessness. The plot is there – just in the background. I felt uncomfortable watching this movie, as at first I really struggled to get it, and “figure it out”. The moment I let go of that expectation, it came into light. This film is a feeling. A very unsettling feeling, but one that has stuck with me nearly 9 months later.

Oblivion

“Generic sci fi plot that’s just a mashup of better movies”. Much like when people complain about Avatar in that way, I find it a lame argument. Whatever. Parts of this movie really don’t work, but the other parts that do are pretty fabulous. I love love love the score by m83 for this film, and think the world really holds up. Better films may have come out, but this one has managed to stick with me and I look forward to watching it again one day, which I can say for very few films these days.

Honorable mentions:

Spring Breakers – Pretty mainstream for Harmony Korrine, but still unforgettable. Like Herzog before him, Korrine paints imagery that will stick with you for a very very long time. Makes The Wolf of Wall Street look like a shallow made for TV indictment of excess.

Prince Avalanche – So good to have David Gordon Green back, even with humor still in hand.

Grand Theft Auto V – No it’s not a movie, but it certainly had one of the most memorable characters of the year, and the production quality is definitely that of a hollywood movie.

All is Lost – Makes Gravity look like a Mamet talker. If that last shot had been more allegorical I might have been sold all the way.

Captain Phillips – Hanks knocks the last 10 minutes out of the park showing a raw state rarely if ever captured on cinema. This stuff usually happens after “cut”.

Inside Llewyn Davis – If it ain’t never been new, but it never gets old, it’s a folk song. Few films tackle failure as bluntly. I think us Americans are scared of this type of film.

Nebraska – The car talk is spot on.

Stuff I wanted to see but didn’t and may have made my list:

American Hustle, Blue is the Warmest Color, Frances Ha, Leviathan, Stories We Tell, In a World, Fruitvale Station, The Act of Killing, Blue Jasmine

Just didn’t work for me…BUMMER:

Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, Elysium, Thor 2, Ender’s Game, the horrid finale to Dexter

Your favorites? What stuck with you?

     

That’s not the correct line from Pearl Jam’s “Corduroy”, but for years I always thought it was and have settled on it being correct for me.

I actually don’t listen to Pearl Jam albums that much. During off season, months will usually pass in which I don’t put on a single record. In the back of my mind, I know how good they are and that they’ll always be there. So I start to take them for granted, and slowly start to forget.

Then, they’ll release an album. I love when they release albums, because its one of the few times in my life I can definitively say, ‘on this day my life will be changed forever’. Not changed in any major way, but in a measurable way. Now when I do listen to PJ, I can choose from X numbers of albums, one more than before!

• Ten I bought at Best Buy, in 8th grade. After borrowing a copy from a friend and falling in love with ALIVE (jeremy and even flow have never really come close in my mind, though Release is the best track on the album!)
• Vitalogy I got for Xmas in 8th grade.
• VS. I got around Easter in 8th grade – daughter had me hooked
• I got No Code when I was a sophomore. My mother and I went to the DMV to get my learners permit, and I stopped at Tower Records next door. I had been listening to “Who You Are” on repeat nearly the entire month before that back when people still bought discs of SINGLES!
• Yield I got in ‘98, when I was a Junior. I was working at CompUSA at the time, which closed at 9. Thus to get it that first day, I had to have my mom pick it up before she got me from work.
• Binaural was in 2000. I was in Southern California, that Urban wasteland of highways and roads. Jessica had to drive me to Best Buy to pick it up.
• Riot Act was fall of 2002. I got it at Streetlight Records on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, on my way to one of my very first staff meetings at the group home for teenagers with autism I ended up working at for almost 2 years.
• Pearl Jam [Self-Titled], I pre-ordered through the ten club. It technically arrived on April 29th, but I didn’t get it until the 30th when Mike Arens picked me up for the airport and we rolled back to Boulder.  No idea where I had taken a trip to.
• Backspacer I ordered through the fanclub and listened to for the first time in Gunbarrel, Colorado while waiting for my girlfriend to finish work so we could have a picnic.
• Lightning Bolt I pre-ordered from iTunes off my  iphone while sitting on a lake in wisconsin, completing the destruction of the music industry.

Now, back to what really matters. It’s not even the albums that make me love this band, it’s the live shows.  Growing up outside of Chicago spoiled me a bit, as Eddie grew up there as well and all the chicago shows I saw in the 90’s were always just a little bit special – rare songs, longer setlists, and the extra energy of playing for a town one of their own had grown up in.  When I started seeing them outside Illinois in my college days, I realized they actually carried that energy to EVERY show.  The magic of experiencing those shows, across many different cities and towns, is what has REALLY stuck with me.

No two shows are ever alike. No setlist is ever the same. Their catalogue is so huge there’s no way it could be. Songs are always played differently, the band always sounds differently, the energy of the room is always unique, my seats are always different, daughter/betterman usually have unique tags, and you never know who’ll they’ll cover or what famous rockstar will show up on stage with them.

Yet, every Pearl Jam show is also exactly the same. I know the structure of the show and what it will be like: eddie drinking a bottle of wine, length generally between 2-3 hours, 3 sets, last one always ends with a rocking cover (usually Baba or RITFW), and then Yellow Ledbetter, and me walking out in a daze. State experience indeed.

Everytime I go to a Pearl Jam show, I’m a completely different person. Years go by between Pearl Jam tours, and often months between shows. I’ve seen them at Soldier Field with Steve when I was hardly pubescent……..Madison Square Garden with Matt in New York……St. Louis with Lorne………Indianapolis with Seth/Pete…………….San Francisco on Halloween with liz, shawn, and mark……..Ed at the Tibetin Freedon concert closing out high school……….acoustic with ben harper at the Bridge School Benefit……..Santa Barbara for the re-unification of Temple of the Dog after driving 6 hours straight with Matt, and of course, the United Center with Kelly, United Center shows with Alan & Matt, last week’s weather delayed Wrigley show, and my first LA show this fall.

Every time I go to a show, I’m re-living those concerts, those moments. I am those moments, I am inhabit all those selves at once: I’m Jason at a Pearl Jam show, having the best time in my life.

But I’m also not. I’m different. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. I’ve deepened my awareness since, and hopefully cultivated myself into a better human being. I have new memories, new pains, new regrets, new stresses, new joys. I even look different physically.

Then suddenly, when those lights go down, that all falls away. I fall away. I’m living that same moment I’ve lived a thousand times before. It IS the same moment as all those times before. I simply Am. That’s the thing about Pearl Jam shows for me, when I’m there, I feel it, I get it. All those meditations and practices make sense. I just AM. I settle in to rocking out. The moment that lasts forever and never goes away……never changes……..the past, the present, and the future…….are ALL just one big pearl jam show.

So yeah, while I technically have the lyrics to the song wrong, they work for me. And that’s the beauty of art, and music, and anything out there creative. We make these works are own because they become parts of our lives, and the best artists embrace that, and even though they’ve played their hits THOUSANDS of times, the bands that last find a way to play each song like they’d never had a chance to before.

Everything has changed, absolutely nothing’s changed. Impermanence and Permanence. Maybe you get it, maybe you don’t. Either way, I hope you have something in your life that affects you in similar ways.

My PJology – 25 shows and counting!

View PJology in a larger map

     

I’m happy to say that it did not disappoint, though it wasn’t quite what I had expected. I’ll spoil nothing after the amazing and utterly perfect cliffhanger that ended Before Sunset, which played off two of the greatest lines of dialogue ever uttered in film. Needless to say Celine and Jesse are both alive and we get the joy of again spending some time with them together, and the culmination of that time ties back in very moving ways to the two films that came before. While just a short slice of their lives, the film gives a perfect crystalization of where they’re each at and what’s been happening for them – I instantly felt like I knew exactly what the last 9 years had been like in their worlds. The perfect ebb and flow of their conversations that started in Before Sunrise and was perfected in Before Sunset continues in Midnight, as beat to beat there’s always what’s being said and what’s actually being felt, which rarely but occasionally do line up.

My screening was followed by a fantastic Q&A with co-writer and director Richard Linklater, who’s been one of my favorite filmmakers for quite some time. The most fascinating thing I learned from his discussion was that basically none of the entire trilogy involved improv. In fact, they rather slavishly worked from scripts down to the specific word and gesture, which is no small feat considering the amount of long takes and full conversations that make up the films.

What strikes me most about the series is how it’s actually very specific while being absolutely universal at the same time. Every line of dialogue is in some shape or fashion born from the life experiences of the writers or people they knew, which in my mind has a lot to do with why things often feel so real. Oddly enough, it’s the very specificity of the moments, and the real feelings of vulnerability, trust, love, doubt, and love they explore that end up creating situations utterly universal in how they portray the various up and downs of relationship and the passing of time and growing old.

I’m not exactly sure what it is about this style that works so well for me (beyond the brilliant performances by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy), but think it has to do with that magic thing that happens when a practice has been done so deeply it simply begins to emerge in each moment. In the same way that someone in martial arts practices performing the most basic forms and moves over and over until the motions are built into the very fabric of their being, I think the process Linklater puts his actors through in this series does much the same. In his Q&A he talked about how he’d drive Ethan and Julie crazy forcing them to do each scene over and over and over again, until they simple knew it at such a deep level that they weren’t even acting anymore – no searching for the words, no awkward pauses, each sentence was just there. The epitome of practicing the form until it literally disappear – their performances seem utterly effortless and spontaneous even though that’s exactly NOT the case!

Now, beyond the extraordinary writing and performances themselves, I’ve been thinking a lot about the real “magic” of this series: time. Just as the meticulously scripted dialogue seems utterly natural and spontaneous on screen, and just as the incredible specificity of that dialogue and drama ends up being totally universal, I think there’s real magic in how the heightened and constricted time periods of these films represent the entire totality of the characters lives outside these vignettes.

Cinema itself is a sort of “heightened” time-space: roughly 2 hours of very specific individual moments linked together by carefully choosing which pieces to cut out in between. In my mind, the best of these cinematic narratives are also holographic, with each individual story often being a facsimile of the deepest and most important moments of our entire lives. The Before Trilogy is no exception, as each film ends up representing so much more then we see and is in fact a refraction of the time that’s happened in the years before and after each meet-up with Celine and Jesse. The intentional exploration and attempt to give perspective to both those gaps in time, and the heightened moments onscreen are really the core of what make this series so genius.

None of this is territory that hasn’t been already explored by other films – the joyful real time conversation of My Dinner With Andre (one of my all time favorites), the long wandering nights in Rome of La Dolce Vita, or even Bergman following up his exquisite Scenes from a Marriage nearly 32 years later with the sequel Saraband, but I think the Before series might be the first that does all of that explicitly and intentionally.  The series highlights the gaps of time that pass between films (9 actual years) for both the characters AND the viewers more than any other series so far. (save for UP documentary series).

Playing with the very real time that has passed in viewing audiences lives was once more or less solely the provence of television. Flashbacks, clip shows, season finales – the extended nature of multiple broadcast seasons had this built in, not always in an intentional way but still there none the less. The Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld, and Friends all had fairly renowned last episodes that were as much a celebration of how long the shows had been part of our lives as they were some sort of actual completion to a dramatic narrative.  They were also very traditional episodic shows in the sense that they were all part of a broadcast era where one could never guarantee that a viewer had seen all the episodes – it wasn’t particularly easy for someone to catch up or see a show if they missed it and at best a show might hit syndication years after it’s original broadcast. Thus while some shows had some development over time the vast majority fell into the “something crazy happens but by the end of the episode everything is more or less back to where it started” narrative style or the completely self contained serials stories of shows like Law & Order.  

By the early 2000s, however, this started to radically change. Multiple cable channels, DVD season box sets, online streaming, and even the king, bitorrent itself, meant a viewer never had to really miss an episode of their favorite shows, and multi episode narrative arcs (X-Files was definitely an early pioneer of this) started to become more and more prevalent in televised dramas. Plots became more complex,  time and events happen off screen, and the number of narrative threads and character arcs increased.  HBO particularly took up the torch in this regard, with Six Feet Under, OZ, The Wire, and The Sopranos taking multi character long arced narrative’s to an entire level. (Six Feet Under in particular struck me as one show where the writer’s really took advantage and played upon breaking the 4th wall and very consciously tapped into viewer’s senses of time in their own lives – driving the brilliant closing montage of the entire series.)

When reviewing La Dolce Vita for the second time for his Great Movie series, Roger Ebert rather poignantly said “Movies do not change, but their viewers do.”, referencing how his feelings towards the characters and situations of that brilliant film evolved and changed upon each additional viewing as he grew older and changed in his own life. The Before trilogy plays with that idea on multiple levels, as each film ties back into the previous ones in sometimes charming and often unexpected ways that actually deconstruct and question the very narratives we form for ourselves and whether people ever really do change.

When I first saw Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, I was immediately most drawn to the latter, and I think it’s precisely because of how intrinsically this passing of time is embedded into the continued story of Celine & Jesse. These films are built for repeat viewing after long stretches of time, as not only have the characters evolved and changed, but the actors and we the audience have as well. Watching the films and returning to them at various points in our lives reminds us, much like great songs or powerful smells often do, of both who we were and where we were at in our own lives when we viewed them in days gone past. That nostalgic re-watching / linking to our own history is the very same magic that I think causes us to so often stay deeply connected to the films, books, and music we’re exposed to in our early childhood years and adolescence. They have more meaning because they’ve been with us longer.

By purposefully taking their time in between the films (none of the sequels were ever really planned, but rather emerged when Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke all naturally felt they were in new phases of their lives) they’re able to cover and deal with new and different problems that really do only emerge with time. Consequently, just as a time-lapse let’s us appreciate and see patterns in the world we might not otherwise, the Before films act as time-capsules allow us to see the changes in not only the fictional characters on screen (both physically and emotionally), but in ourselves as well.

From the beginning, Richard Linklater’s films have played with these different vignettes of time: the last days of high school, the expansive time of dreams, and in what might be his most fascinating project, the upcoming film he’s been making on and off for the last 7 years following the life of a young both as he makes his way through elementary, middle and high school. Rather brilliantly he reportedly cast a young actor many years ago and began filming a story for a few days each year, so we’ll literally see both the character and actor growing up onscreen before our eyes in the context of his new dramatic tale.

Back to Celine and Jesse, I hope very dearly that I’ll get to grow old checking in with them every 9 years so, remembering how my very own life has unfolded each and everytime I watch them onscreen.

In relationships, people, and even movies themselves there is the dream and there is reality; in the cinematic magic that is the Before Trilogy those things truly become one and the same.

Do yourself a favor this Memorial Day weekend: grab a loved one and in night one walk the streets of Vienna in Before Sunrise, then in night two take an afternoon stroll through Paris in Before Sunset, and finally in night three head off to the theaters and spend a magical day on the Peloponnese peninsula in the south of Greece in Before Midnight. You’ll laugh, cry, curse at, and fall in love with one of the most endearing cinematic couples of all time.

And then, most important of all, do it again in a couple of years and while digesting the trilogy all over again take the time to remember that very magically weekend you saw all three films together.

     

There’s a lot of problems with this film, only one of which is the HFR. Narratively, it’s a bit of a mess. I was wary when Peter Jackson announced his two films were becoming three. For LOTR, it made sense, three books, three movies! But to take the single book of the Hobbit and make it into three films? Absurd, I thought. And I was right. While Jackson is drawing on appendices and other writings of Tolkien to flesh out the three film arc, the simple problem remains that the material just isn’t really there, and not just lengthwise. The Hobbit is far more of a children’s book, and narratively the stakes just aren’t as high. Now, my biggest problem is how Jackson looks to be dealing with that. Instead of making a lighter hearted movie, he quickly attempts to start bringing in some of the stakes from the LOTR trilogy into this trilogy. It sort of works, but mostly doesn’t. The Hobbit just isn’t the same beast. Bilbo goes on his journey mostly by choice, and so he can have an adventure! Frodo, on the other hand, goes on his because there’s basically no one else that can do it! It’s against his will in fact, which is much more dramatic.  Trying to elevate the narrative of The Hobbit to the epic status of LOTR was a mistake.

Now, excessive problems aside, here’s the problem with the 3d and HFR in my mind. Off the bat, I’m neither a particularly against nor for 3d. Seeing AVATAR in 3D was one of my favorite cinematic experiences of all time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 3D in Life of PI this year. But would I have been crushed if I hadn’t seen either movie like that? No, and the why of that has much to do with my feelings towards HFR.

In my mind the process of going to the movies is forgetting yourself, and identifying with the characters on screen. It’s a process of entering that world, not tjat world entering ours. The HFR 48 FPS of The Hobbit did not make it easier for me to go into middle earth. It felt more like middle earth coming into my life. The same applies to the 3d. If it’s failing to suck me “into” the world, it has become a barrier to me entering into the screen world. I felt that both the 3D and HFR in this case ended up being the latter: barriers to entry, never letting me forget that I was watching a movie. And without the forgetting, it’s much harder to be identifying.

That being said, I know my perspective is HEAVILY culturally influenced. EVERYONE that has grown up in the US since the advent of television has been culturally conditioned to associate 24FPS 35mm film with high quality, and 60i video to be television (more real in some senses). There’s nothing particularly special about 24 FPS other than it’s roughly the rate at which Persistence of Vision in the human eye works “well enough”.

So there’s a few things going on that make The Hobbit troublesome. First off, high frames rates immediately make us think of Soap Operas. The first hour of the Hobbit will be JARRING to you if you see it in HFR. The second hour and a half are much better, as Jackson has noted in interviews. Your brain will adjust to a great extent. But still, everything is BUTTERY smooth, which is just very different from the more dreamy motion of 24.

Now, on top of the 3D and HFR, there’s also the fact that these films were all shot 100% digital on RED Epic Cinema cameras. The LOTR, while in the end a digitally effects laden film, was still shot on traditional 35mm. The Hobbit has NONE of the subtle film grain of 35, and as good as RED Epics are, the highlights just look like terrible blown out video at 48 FPS.  Then on top of that all, to get 48 FPS the shutter angle of the camera has to be different, and shorter.  So there’s no blur on motion, the whole thing is like Saving Private Ryan which doesn’t benefit a FANTASY movie in my mind.  Fantasy isn’t supposed to be real, that’s why it’s fantasy.

So in the Hobbit we have CRYSTAL clear images moving with twice the smoothness of traditional film. There’s literally TWICE as much information coming into your eyeball every second, and the clarity of that information is sharp beyond 35mm, which in the end is the biggest problem.

While I have no facts to back it up, I’d be willing to bet that if you analyzed a human brain while it watches 24fps that it would be very different from one watching 48fps.  I think it’s because of the “just enough” nature of 24fps. Since there’s more blanks to be filled, I have a hunch that the brain actually has to do more “work” than when watching higher frame rates.  It’s more actively engaged even though film going is a passive process. During the action sequences, 48 FPS is actually too much information in my opinion. It’s a LOT of data to sort, so instead of my brain having to work harder, it just gets overwhelmed. Then, on top of that, there’s the 3d which is completely unnatural for the human eye (focusing on a single plane while tricking it into thinking there’s depth).  End result is that I never felt like I was in middle earth.

In summary, for me  the Hobbit in 3D HFR 48 attempts to bring the shire into my world, not me into the world of middle earth.  Go see it in 24fps non 3D.

     

Those wishing to hold national office in these United States will find it increasingly useless to argue for normal, to attempt to play one minority against the next, to turn pluralities against the feared “other” of gays, or blacks, or immigrants, or, incredibly in this election cycle, our very wives and lovers and daughters, fellow citizens who demand to control their own bodies.

Regardless of what happens with his second term, Barack Obama’s great victory has already been won: We are all the other now, in some sense.

A brilliant post by David Simon about what he feels was truly groundbreaking about last week’s election: the disintegration of “normal” as more and more voices begin to come into play in the US political process. Go read it, then come back.

The idea of “the other” has always fascinated me, and it comes as no surprise to me that breakdowns of last week’s voting show that on the whole, the denser the population of an area the more liberal that area tends to vote.

Why? Simple in my mind, the more people you’re around, the less you fear the other. Being exposed to a variety of perspectives different from your own, and realizing each and every person behind them is a human being is about as big a catalyst for growth as I can think of. As “the other” becomes known, they become human, they become relatable to, and they become real. It’s easy to be a dick when you’re anonymous, Youtube is proof of that. But when you actually see others, and are actually seen by them, understanding emerges. It may not be agreement, there’s plenty of people whom I know and deeply disagree with, but I can at the very least begin to understand where they’re coming from, and once I have an idea of where someone is coming from, it’s much easier to see them as human beings.

So what’s all this have to do with film? Easy.  PERSPECTIVES.  I believe in perspectives, more perspectives = better informed decisions.  That’s what being liberal means to me.

It’s also why I love cinema– because of its amazing ability to give viewers NEW perspectives: on themselves, on others, on the world around, and on those feats of imagination that only exist in celluloid. Not only that, but it’s able to package and deliver those new perspectives in an EMOTIONAL context.

The corner stone of modern hollywood cinema, the CLOSE UP is one of the best delivery mechanisms for emotional perspectives that I think we’ve found yet. We’re literally wired to feel in ourselves what we see in others.  In most day to day life we have to buffer than resonance, and dampen it to survive.  We walk by the homeless person on the street, ignore the shouting match between our neighbors, and don’t blink an eye when a parent scolds their child.  Some of that is our biological wiring – strangers can be danger!  But in the movie theater, we’re safe.  We can drop all that.  We can fully merge with the other up there on the screen.  Our self is forgotten, even if temporarily, and we become our Self and experience things we never would otherwise.  That’s profound to me.  And literally millions of us are already doing it, everyday.  It works best with a really big screen, in a specially dedicated space that’s nice and dark and gets a bunch of selves together in the same place in the same moment (the theatrical experiences still matters!).   It makes “the other” into US, one scene at a time.

• Create a character the audience can identify with.
• Put that character through the full range of human experience, the good, the bad, the godly, the seedy, whatever.
• The audience, if even only in a way that is a sliver as powerful as the “real” thing,  gets to experience that perspective without ever having done it, been there, or suffered through it.  Wisdom can be transmitted without the harm.

Movies let us practice being human.

ACTION!

     

That’s Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos talking to his investors about one of the KEY advantages tech companies have over traditional media studios in the evolving film and television markets.

For a few years now I’ve been thinking that the real value of Netflix isn’t the content library per say, but the exhausting amount of specific data Netflix has on what its actual customers like and watch.  With one of the most famous recommendation algorithms around, Netflix has always encouraged users to rate movies since they first began shipping DVDs in the late 90s.  Since re-shifting their focus to streaming, they’ve also been able to collect even more default data – ie what shows and movies you started and whether or not you finished them, regardless of ratings.

As they shift into content production and with such vast knowledge of their users, Netflix can make FAR more intelligent and informed decisions about what to make than just about any company (save for Amazon) out there.  Compared to the traditional studios that have absolutely no feedback loops with their customers other than tickets sold and DVDs rented, Netflix is years ahead of the curve.  When Netflix now chooses to make a show or movie, they don’t have to GUESS what their customers want and don’t have to base their decisions off the hunch of programming executives.  Instead, they can see, DOWN TO THE ZIPCODE, what genre of shows and starring what actors their customers are already watching.  If they see that 10% of their customers devour Arrested Development’s 2 seasons in their entirety, it’s a no brainer for them to make season 3 – and at a budget that takes into account the actual numbers they can expect to see.

When I compare this to Warner Bros, Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and the rest, it seems to me they’re in big trouble.  The single biggest cost for most “big hollywood” movies these days is marketing, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars for movies, and there’s little to NO actual data for how much a difference all those ads make.  They can pour all the money they want into Dark Shadows, Battleship, or John Carter – and if audiences aren’t interested they FLOP.

The traditional studios are at a MAJOR disadvantage on this technological side, mostly because they’ve resisted the transition to digital delivery for so long, meaning outside companies like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon have been able to gain a significant foothold in the emerging market.  They’ve built an infrastructure that can connect the data of what people are watching with the teams that are deciding what is being made.  While Ultraviolet was a bold attempt to reclaim some of this lost ground, it’s frankly just too little, too late.  As Amazon and Netflix continue their march towards original content creation, I’d suggest the studios find a way to partner up – and fast.

And if I was Netflix right now?  Embrace your opposite – I’d open a series of small cinema cafes in all the major cities to act as communal centers for cinema lovers.  I’d constantly be programming a diverse selection of screenings of classics, second runs, and indie movies that draw SPECIFICALLY from what the customers in that zip code like.  Got an abundance of people that LOVE Firefly living in Chicago…screen the whole series over the course of a month!  Have a coffee shop / bar attached so people stay and chat afterwards, and hang out to talk cinema there even when they aren’t see a movie.  Cinemaphiles LOVE going to the movies.  A home theater system still cannot replace the value of an audience sitting in a dark room together, seeing a picture projected larger then life.  Fill up all those empty Borders and Circuit City stores and bring some culture and art back to communities.  You’ve got the DATA to pretty much guarantee a healthy crowd at ANY screening in any major city, USE IT!  I’d go!

     

“No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.” – Roger Ebert

     

What is it about these films that fascinates so many? Obviously there’s the economics of the films, adapting properties based on long standing comic series means there’s already a prebuilt audience the material, so no matter how poorly the films are made someone will show up to see them.

What’s fascinating for me, however, is what the genre allows for narratively so much more explicitly than other films. It’s often said that comic books have in some ways become the “myths” of our times, and in many ways I believe they are. Telling stories full of moral lessons, challenge, and teeming with metaphors about personality, society, psychology, and so on, which is very fertile territory for telling action packed dramatic stories that are perfect for the cinematic big screen.

More specifically, the super hero genre does one thing in specific I find particularly fascinating, which involves the relationship between interiors and exteriors, or in Ken Wilber’s integral speak, the left hand quadrants and the right hand quadrants. In brief, I’d argue that basically all the most critically (and audience) acclaimed super hero movies manage to do one thing, and that’s to use the “super” hero power to eliminate “exteriors” from being main challenge/sticking point for the hero.

What on earth do I mean? Basically than in a world of normal people, the super hero emerges with a trait, skill, or ability and makes him nearly untouchable by the ordinary. Superman, the green lantern, ironman, the xmen, the hulk, spiderman….all down the line the super hero is basically no longer in danger from common threats and life and death situations. That’s what makes them super! Nearly every origin story across the line delves into this at some point, as our super hero is mastering/learning his or her powers, we get to seem them basically completely owning any threat that come their way.

This mastery is invetibly folowed by the emergence and presencing of the super villain. The hero, having gained this extraordinary power, needs to struggle in some way or another to make the movie interesting. What’s the best way to make a hero struggle? Make them face off against someone that is as powerful, or particularly more powerful than them, the “bigger suit” as my friend likes to call it. Bigger Suit also sometimes manifests as Multiple Suits as well, so instead of one bady, we can to see the protangonist facing off against tons of them.

As soon as the bigger suit has emerged, the brillance (and conservatism) of most super hero movies immediately emerges. The story is no longer one about exteriors, and instead shifts to being a story of interiors. Our protagonist is no longer SUPER because of his or her power, as the villain either matches/exceeds that power or has found a way to nullify it. What now makes our hero super is their INTERIORS: character, will, and ability to endure suffering. The best super hero movies, (and arguably many of the best action movies), invetibly hit that “interior will” shot, our protagonist is using every power she or he has, and it’s not enough. Whether locked in a physical confrontation, mental/psychic one, or magical/energetic one, our character’s external powers have met their match and all hope seems to be lost. Then bam, the magical happens. It turns out that what our hero has that the villain doesn’t is an internal trait, not and external one. Something worth fighting for, love for another, care for their country, whatever it is our hero has nearly been destroyed but then battered and beated, and often screaming in the process, our hero gets in touch with that interior trait and turns the tide. Batman, it turns out, is particularly fascinating because he is solely a hero of will, he has zero super powers and is driven entirely off the sheer power of his will and discipline to be exceptional.

This “interior power” or will, comes from what’s called the Upper Left quadrant in integral speak, and is deeply tied with what tends to dominate conservatism in the US: the belief that a persons achievements in life comes from their internal discpline and will, not their external circumstances. In fact, it’s also a very core strain of americanism itself, the belief that anyone can go from “rags to riches” with another perservance and hard work. Narrative struggles that deal with interior states, IE, self doubt, worry, or any thoughts or beliefs that occur within someone that can’t be seen on the outside, are often tough to both off cinematically. Interiors are traditionally the territory dominated by novels and traditional stories, as in that medium we’re able to dive into our characters heads and read and know their thoughts first hand. Movies, however, are an artform of exteriors. Outside of flashbacks, dream sequences, and usually cheesy voice over, we never really have access to a characters inner thoughts, thus often making it harder to tell tales where interior shifts are the main plot points. The super hero genre someone cuts around this problem, by using the “super power” as an external signifying for the internal states. Superman punches harder, Cyclops lasers stronger, and the hulk smashes more as their interior state changes. Their outsides are powered by their insides quite simply. Captain America may have been injected with a super serum, but that’s not what makes him super. His determinism, optimism, and sheer refusal to give up are what make him extraodinary and what really give his powers their power. (sadly a concept that wasn’t really explored enough in the feature film, one of the main reason I thought it failed cinematically). In spiderman speak, the entire heroes philosphy is boiled down to “with great power comes great responsiblity”, a responsiblity that only those with strong willed and virtous interiors can harness. One of my few gripes with The Avengers in fact mainly revolves around the lack of a satisfying “all hope is lost” moment for the team. They’re never really in threat of losing except for a very short sequence in which iron man is overwhelmed, the hulk is pummeled by aircraft artillery, hawkeye runs out of arrows, and thor/captain america just stop fighting for a moment. The interior shift moment gets almost entirely transplanting onto Iron Man, as he finally embodies Captain America’s finest interior quality and decides to stop the nuke knowing very well it’ll likely end his life.

On another note, another fascinating example of interiors and exteriors as explored by super heros also came out of The Avengers. I’ve always been a Hulk fan, and gew up watching the show and often obsessing over the character. Consequently I was thrilled to see how damn right they finally got him in his third movie appearance in 9 years. What I found particularly fascinating was the way in which I think Joss Whedon interpreted the character. Traditionally, the hulk has manifested whenever Bruce Banner loses his temper, or control. He gets angry and destroys everything around him, and was pretty much the case in the previous films. The Avengers, however, started playing with this trope early on, as we see Bruce taunting the Black Widow with his faux anger when she comes to recruit him, and he has a general sense of humour about his entire situation when he’s on the SHIELD Aircraft.

*SPOILERS*
Now, while it didn’t translate perfectly to the screen, it’s clear that as soon as we meet Bruce he’s more or less learned to control his outbreaks to a certain degree. Loki charms him on the ship using the staffs powers, which apparently explains his uncontrollable rage outbreak on the carrier.

What I find fascinating about Whedon’s interpretation of the character is his move away from Banner “controlling” his anger. We here plenty of jokes from other heroes guessing how Bruce is keeping a “level” head, be it pilates, bags of weed, meditation, etc etc…all things in pop culture that are generally seen as ways to avoid anger. Whedon, however, explores entirely original hulk material in my opinion by going the OTHER way…instead of making it so Bruce is avoiding his anger, we later learn he’s able to control the hulk because he’s “always angry”. Now, off that bat that doesn’t make too much sense, but when read next to the scene betwen Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and Tony’s admission that his defective heart is actually the source of his armor, and interesting take on the hulk begins to emerge. The Hulk itself is Bruce Banners ARMOR, it’s what protects him. In which case, the entire idea of the hulk is shifted from being something to avoid, but to something that Banner can embrace. As many great teachers of spirtual wisdom can attest, (Robert August Masters being my favorite), there’s actually a stark difference between ANGER and AGRESSION. Anger itself is nothing but emotional energy, almost always released when one feels threatened or in danger, be in physically, emotionally, or even spirtually. In many senses, anger is simply a BOUNDRY, a construct around our ego to keep us safe. When we feel threated, we feel the energy of “anger”, alarming us to wake up to the moment and be conscious of what’s happening.

Aggression, on the other hand, is the destructive external manifestation of anger, most often involving lashing out on others. Anger, simply is, it’s not a choice, agression, on the other hand, is reactive choice to anger. We can’t choose not to be angry, but we can choose not to be agressive, which is exactly what I think Whedon NAILS in this version of the hulk. Whedon’s already on the record saying they had to cut Bruce Banner’s “aha” moment that he has after crashing into the building and before going to New York. Now, I can only guess as to what it was, but I would like to think based on the above clues that Bruce realized the more he EMBRACED the Hulk, and appreciated the fact this creature was in fact his armor than shows up when he’s in danger, the more he could control it. Instead of fighting against the Hulk (an act of agression), he could simply realize the Hulk is just a boundary, and manifests when Banner is threatened. By embracing his anger / Hulk, Banner can remain conscious enough to not be aggressive.

Now I don’t know about you, but for me it was simply AMAZING to see a mainstream popcorn movie based on 60 year old comics tackle as deep a concept as the difference between ANGER and AGRESSION using the metaphor of the hulk is pretty damned amazing. For me this is where real conscious filmmaking is at. For those that want to see it, the deeper layers are there. For those that don’t, they get to see HULK SMASH, and that’s a win for everyone.

     

Something about the physicalness of puppets and animatronics, the fact that they’re real, flawed, and subject to all the same laws of existence in the  universe that we are gives them one magical trait in my mind, they’re LOVEABLE.

Myself, and I’m guessing others, can literally fall in LOVE with a puppet or animatronic. When I think back to some of the creations of my youth, I still get filled with a giddy buzz of joy about their existence  or a deep fear that if I walked into a dark warehouse and the Queen Alien was standing in the shadows part of my would be scared.

Puppets have the advantage that they actually exist in time and space…you can meet them, take photos with them, and yes, if so inclined do the dirtiest of deeds to them

CGI characters, on the other hand, are just bits and bites on a computer than we can only see through mediated screens. (I have no doubt this will change in the near future, but for now it’s true). Gollum is the closest I’ve seen in a film to this day, most likely because at least his actions, movement, and voice existed in time in space, just not his surface representation. But other than that, I have a hard time naming any other CGI creature of the last twenty years that  I love or fear as much as Falcor, Ludo, ET, Gizmo, a Dalek, Kermit, Jack Skellington, Yoda, Ewoks, King Kong, the t-rex, bruce the shark, the queen alien, or even a Rodent of Unusual Size.

So until that days comes when I myself can interface with bits and bytes, and literally f*ck them, I think we’ll continue seeing endless strings of CGI creations that are instantly forgettable and inherently unloveable.

     

I saw HUGO a few weeks ago and thought it was astoundingly OK, and found myself very puzzled as to who exactly its intended audience was. Early chases and slapstick comedy seemed to indicate it was a movie for kids, but a fairly slow moving plot and strong focus on cinematic nostalgia made it seem to me to be a movie about children, not for children.

Martin Scorsese is an extraordinarily gifted director. He’s made a deep mark on the history of cinema, and is clearly a deep lover of the medium himself.  Totally respect him and his work, but I must admit I felt a bit like an alien after seeing HUGO, I just didn’t get why everyone loved it so much.  It was very well made at a technical level (though best Visual Effects?  Really?) but felt flat for me over all, especially compared to The Artist.

I had a hell of a lot more fun seeing The Artist than I did Hugo.

Why?

For me it simply boils down to the difference between talking ABOUT an experience, and actually having an experience. Hugo was all the former for me, while The Artist exemplified the latter.

For me, the most engaging portions of Hugo were the flashbacks of Meliers creating his films. The rest I found mostly dull and boring, often substituting “telling us” why cinema is a magical/delightful/waking dream, instead of actually giving us the experience of that.

Conversely, I could hardly conceal my giggles of joy watching The Artist. A conventional plot, no doubt, but one that was quite appropriate for the form in which the story was told. And how delightful a form it is!

In many ways, silent films are the purest form of the medium that exists, relying on nothing but visuals and editing to engage us in the telling of their stories.  The Artist did that in spades, with simple visual gags that brought warm fuzzies to every inch of my heart.

By now the line is far beyond cliche for anyone that’s studied anything about screenwriting, but in this case I think it’s very true, in movies you strive to “show, don’t tell”.  Why have a character deliver a wooden line when it can simply be expressed visually? Films are a visual medium in the end after all.

HUGO is a story that tells us we should be in awe of the magic of cinema and never forget the early roots it grew from. It tells us to feel that, though for me personally, watching it I was mostly bored and never actually felt it. It was about nostalgia, but for me it failed to create it.

The Artist, however, actually showed me the magic of cinema and how much we owe to the early pioneers of the form. Watching it I felt delight, awe, and so much appreciation for the craft I hold so dear.  No elaborate special effects needed and no stunning 3d or virtual set extensions.  Just a straightforward succession of images that strung together a story I cared about.  That’s all cinema is in the end, and in that simplicity even in today’s day and age you can still give someone a memorable experience.

Importantly, much like any valuable experience, it’s not enough to tell people why it should be valued. “You should appreciate silent films cuz they were the first movies”, that’s pretty much the message I got from Hugo, yet

In fact, it’s pretty hard to do and why I think most “conscious” or “message” oriented films are such crap. Instead, the focus should be on actually giving people a valuable emotional experience of whatever you’re trying to convey. The best movies have a “felt body” experience to them, the shudder of awe, or pain, or simple delight as we witness what’s unfolding on screen.  For me, I had those experiences in spades watching The Artist.  I fell in love with the power of silent cinema again.