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Jimmy91
Reviews
Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle (2009)
Well Done Look Into the Future
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and thought the director did a wonderful job capturing the essence of the personalities. I wonder, did he intend to find them again 20 years later, or did the idea occur to him one day to go find the people he stumbled upon 20 years before?
These stories and interviews resonate withme strongly in part due to my growing up a child of a back-to-the-lander. I found the children's stories fascinating and could relate to all of them in some way. In particular, some of the frustrations of the athletic daughter (forget her name). As I myself grew and ventured off the "hill" to the land of electricity and day jobs, I wondered why some people choose to do without amenities that aren't bad for the earth or those in it. As I reach my mid 30's I look back with an appreciation for my youth but still with the knowledge I wouldn't "put my kids through that." My parents lived in a tent when my brother was born. A tiny tent. In Oregon in the winter. Forethought and planning anyone? And another thing- your kid is unhappy that he is teased at school because of his ill fitting dirty clothes and the adult's sage words of wisdom are "that's their problem, not yours."? It's a struggle when when the values of your parent(s) are at such odds with what is considered (and, let's be honest, if it's considered so it's as good as is to a poor kid who doesn't like being teased) normal.
The roots of my father's (Mom bailed when I was seven. She needed electricity) escape from society are simple enough: his CEO dad and Vietnam breathing down his neck, combined with a low tolerance for stress. But to paraphrase the daughter in the movie, you aren't the center of the universe anymore when you decide to have kids. Fortunately, as is evidenced in the film and as I myself experienced, there is an abundance of love.
I suppose now I fall somewhere in the middle mindset of the kids shown in the movie. The military son seems as foreign to me as anything, yet I myself will allow my kids new shoes, and make a point to be able to afford them. Because 20+ years later I still remember the embarrassment and pain. Yeah- maybe it's shallow, but when I look at pictures of my Dad's childhood he was decked out with a car, new surfboards and nice clothes. He has no idea. To each his own and perhaps with a different temperament I could have held up better under the watchful eye of the school gatekeepers. But in rural Oregon, different is bad.
I loved how the movie shows that life continues. The ferry gathering being a modern version perhaps of the initial 80's love in. Along with the marriage after 22 years. But we change. The communal kitchen next to Dad's place was gone by '85, along with every single other like minded soul. The Moses Lake man knows what I'm talking about. It's my Dad's sanctuary on the hill. Follow the dirt road a couple of miles to the pavement and you are surrounded by rural habit's like unemployment, meth and right wing conspiracies, not to mention right wing voters. How did that happen? Not everyone can eat and drink idealism. Eventually some folks WANT to sleep warm and will do what it takes to make it happen. You move to the jobs.
My biggest complaint of the movie is I was left wanting more. I wanted to hear the military son's perspective. I wanted to hear what the athletic daughter is doing with her life, and her sister. I wanted more characters from before and after. And are there any that look back and smile instead of and maybe aren't so sincere anymore? Were they left on the cutting room floor?
I hope to someday end up with the place on the hill and the 40 acres and the overwhelming garden with the tall fence to keep the deer out. I want to gaze into the forest and be scared of the silence. I LOVE it. But for me it may never be more than a weekend here and there. A place for nostalgia. For the back to nature experience. If I decided to move back to the land, which I someday may do, as I never feel truly at home in the city, it won't be Moses Lake or the like. It will be a small coastal town with retired artists. It will be nearby a college town with professor neighbors. It will be the mountain town where every few days over coffee I see my author friend on his laptop.
I would love to see a part two of this movie another 20 years from now. Where are they then? Where am I then? Where will you be then? This movie makes us wonder. Nice work!
Little House on the Prairie: The Legacy (1982)
I love this episode- a great example of timeless behavior
This episode of LHOTP is great. In the scheme of things I am relatively young, but I still wonder on a regular basis about my 'immortality'. Part of my motivation for creating (music, animation, written word) is to be remembered for something. I know competition is fierce and even some great talented artists are quickly forgotten, but the thought of one or two people discovering me when I'm long gone (whether it be family or strangers) is motivating. So goes Charles saga in this fantastic episode... except that we, being the viewers, can look at Charles while he was struggling with his being remembered ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS ago! I love it! I understand! I know what you mean! I've going through that too! In the end we are led to feel Charles understands that his family will be his legacy and that no material object could ever compete with that. I disagree with this premise. I believe that Charles becomes resigned to the fact that their truly is no legacy, or at least that your 'legacy' is pointless. That we can love and create and believe and speak and write and get excited and that none of it matters. In the end we rot and disappear and have no connection to anything because we no longer exist. We can paint the unforgettable painting and sing the timeless song and build the quality table that is possessed by the same family for 6 generations, but in the end, whether people love it, hate it, or never know about it it doesn't matter. For we are gone. It is indifferent to our nonexistence. In this episode Charles has a revelation on camera about his family. What Charles is hiding is that on the inside he knows..... nothing matters to anybody for all time.
I should also mention briefly this episode contains a scene which I adore in this wonderful television series: Charles' off the hook temper. You go Charles! Kick some booty!
The Shepherd of the Hills (1941)
life isn't fair
man i may be young in 2006 but sometimes i wish i was young in 1941 because Betty Field is so so beautiful and i wonder what she would have been like to know well and to talk to and to discuss the world with why is life so mind numbing the way time moves and passes and cruises and saunters and ignores and slithers and compensates and reacts and promises and lies and creates and breaks and takes and gives and whispers and yells and how certain things but certain things and no things but everything.
Anyway, Betty Field , makes me crazy when u watch this movie..... but at this point I've only seen her behave incredibly and with great intention for emotion.... incredible.
Scarred (2005)
my kind of horror movie: funny, suspenseful, entertaining, cheesy
The movie Scarred was the perfect choice for the mood I was in. It had all the elements of my favorite genre, the horror movie. Well, almost all. There was no sex or even any t and a shots! That's all right.
The family went into the woods. The park ranger tells them a 'legend' about this little girl who got her face cut off, who still lives out in the woods and who wants to be pretty. Haha there was all these ridiculous scenes of the cut off face girl (henceforth known as cofg) running through the woods like a wild animal. So there are these two hot babes: a family friend and a sister. The family friend likes the brother! It was awesome because it reminded me of fantasies I used to have where for some odd reason this really hot babe likes you and your camping and stuff. I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the woods, so maybe that's why it struck such a nerve as well. When there was a hottie at the local campground look out! Then the sister is horny too, so she goes to the rangers cabin and he's this totally normal young guy who is stoked that this babe is there and he's telling a story and she shuts him up by kissing him! Of course, havoc ensues when cofg starts terrorizing and they split up like 20 times like cliché morons. But about horror movie clichés.. I like most of them, so it was awesome. Then they make it through the night and think they're all right only to be sorely disappointed of course. There was this phenomenal scene of the cofg cutting off the face of one of the girls. I was all "NOOOOO!" because she was the girl I most related to and would want to hook up with if I lived in the woods. The hottie who liked the dorky brother! Haha there was a great scene they cut out of the movie (extras) of these 3 hiker dudes in the woods and one of em has to pee so he's peeing by this creek and he sees a hot babes back washing herself and he's all "yeah" because she's naked (but still no t or a!). He's all stoked and then she turns around and it's cofg! He's all "AHH!" Cofg doesn't talk or anything because she grew up in the woods with the animals. She does lots of growling and stuff though. Tons of growling! Overall the movie was very entertaining, and it had many moments of fright. I spent much of the movie looking around my house afraid of the dark. Besides the t and a missing, probably my only other complaint would be that the acting was really really bad. Not as bad as that movie Darkwatch, but bad enough to be occasionally distracting.
This is the kind of horror movie that can be hard to find for me. Basically, I rent by the cover because it seems no one else, or none I can find, knows what I look for in a horror movie. SUre, I love a quality high budget horror if it's done well, but I also love the movies that are cheesy and entertaining. I can't trust the ratings here on IMDb because the general public doesn't seem to like the cheesy movies I dig. Renting by cover alone is a risky affair. I do get some terrible movies ie: boring. I just rented Death Tunnel. Don't bother. Boring. Same with Cry Wolf. That one took itself too seriously.
Where are the lists of horror movies that have classics like Sleepaway Camp, Bleeders, and Troll 2? Now those are some masterpieces! Don't rent Scarred if you can't handle cheesy scripts and cheesy acting. Rent it if you like to laugh at the unintentional and are scared by old stand-bye techniques.