The all seeing eye

I wonder what will become of the movie industry when it is realized that regardless how good an actor is, having several different actors ranging in age from adolescence to adulthood depict a single character in the plot doesn't fair so well in the resemblance department. It's difficult for me to sit thru a film and watch huge gaps in time, either in flashbacks or in progressive story structure, and not wonder 'who was the casting director that blotched this movie?' This is me being critical. I also wonder at times, while sitting thru a two hour movie, how in hell the writer ever managed to fit into his story such a perfect viewing position for his audience. That train of thought, however, usually ends in the assumption that the story is either a spy flick, or filmed using micro technology of miniature cameras hoisted onto trained houseflies.

I can't help but build my own story. It's like that day I constantly talk about (in 2005) when I saw an old lover from my high school days and I didn't recognize her. I've had this obsession of anticipation of her return so that I might ask her if she really is her. So, every Wednesday when I go to work, I apply a special cologne I bought to commemorate the day. Obsession.

The movie: Obsessed. I had a hard time believing how carefully the writer was to eliminate any possibility that his audience would fill in the gaps of the affair. As a matter of fact, when I watched the trailers for this movie, I knew that Derek had been messing around on the side. It's hard not to come to that conclusion.

The scene I found disturbing, which I believe sets me apart from the norm, is when Sharon and Derek have a fight. As I stand by Derek in his decisions to handle minor work related issues on his own without confiding in his wife, I become perplexed at how little trust this marriage contains. The movie starts off with a montage of the perfect couple, a marriage made in heaven, and yet it's Derek who is at fault for saving his wife the trouble of making her feel jealous. It's here that I backtrack the movie in my mind to find a loophole in the steps Derek took to eradicate the problem at work. There is none.

Derek plays the humbled executive who honestly believes himself to be an asshole, unless he only describes himself this way to attractive ladies to forewarn them of oncoming trouble if they get too close. I fully relate to that. It is derived from a lack of self esteem. If a beautiful woman were to seduce me, I would melt. So, to guard against something like this ever happening, for instance if I were happily married to a woman I would never dream of cheating on, then I would make myself out to be ugly to people.

I fear this movie Obsessed might be a government conspiracy to brainwash people like Derek and I into believing that "an honest man is always in trouble". In the words of Henry Fool, "You see? They have to bludgeon a man into obscurity before they'll acknowledge his genius."

Next, I went to see Bright star. I had always felt partial to John Keats' poetry when I read Isabella, or the pot of basil. I found a seat way at the top to one side of the theatre. This movie found me blubbering in convulsions much the same way Fanny Brawne can't bring herself to breathe as she taps at her chest as though begging for a knife to plunge into her heart. I don't claim to be poetic, although my life would be much easier explained if I were, but this movie is not one of those 3-act structure films that set up the sad part for a unified water–works reaction. No, my eyes simpy began to irrigate my cheeks whenever I heard passages read aloud from some of John Keats work.

BRIGHT STAR! WOULD I WERE STEADFAST AS THOU ART
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
   Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
   Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
   Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
   Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
   Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
   Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender–taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.