Life of Pi...this is not a movie review, eh [Journolist]

The Life of Pi is in movie theatres and has made quite a splash with all of the usual suspects in the entertainment world who are lavishing praise on director Ang Lee's big screen adaptation of Yann Martel's 2001 fantasy adventure novel. Martel's novel turned movie is captured in rich 3-D and computer graphic imagery (CGI) effects that activate the senses in spectacular and shocking proportion. But beyond the spectacular and shocking cinematic aesthetics lies an interesting confluence of plot within a most clever theme trained on postmodernism. And if you don't know what postmodernism is... look it up as mom would say. And while you're at it, also check out nihilism for a twofer. Clearly you know I jest. It's just that my patience has been on the wearing side ever since running a Thanksgiving charity 5K race, backwards as it were, then tripping over a perfectly placed orange pylon and landing on my shoulder. Running backwards to tell others to speed up while tripping over something clearly marked....I just know there's a lesson in there somewhere to be found. So please excuse any coarseness of verbiage slopped within this here post on this fine smart military blog.

Speaking of Tony Blankley... I do miss Blankley. Not only his sharp wit and arc weld tour de force writing style. But I miss him for his ability to put up with John McLaughlin. McLaughlin's ability to carry on while attempting to shut his guests down is brilliant in a sort of styrofoam way. But if I mention John McLaughlin, I should also mention Jack Germond as we only got Tony B. in the Mc'round after the Germond vs. McLaughlin donnybrook. So good on Jack, I suppose. And if I mention Jack Germond, I would be remiss if I didn't mention SNL and Chris Farley.

So moving right along and getting back to Pi, what is going on in the film is deeper than what can be fully perceived in the immediate. And as is so often the case, those in the cinema seats take the bait with eyes, ears and mouths wide open. But as stated, the film is deeper than what can be fully perceived in the immediate and as such, I suspect it only fair to cut the average moviegoer some slack on the point. Perhaps some ingenious tech savvy entrepreneur could make an app for moviegoers to alert them of movies which are duplicitous and clever... The app could have a nice Sherlock Holmes icon with a magnifying glass... color coded of course to match other popular apps of our i-phonic age...like those of Keeping up with the Kardashians and TMZ. Just a thought. For we like to keep it real here to a fault.

The point in all of this if there is indeed one to be made is found in the flash and dash of our age where the anything goes postmodernism of it all has taken to pervading the culture to such a degree that you can now have objective minded folks so starved for any hint of ethical discourse that they will actively seek out and plant their flag in a film whose vision and so called genius is a kalidescope into the bizarre set in bold metaphor.... a pantheistic metaphor of plural gods, scriptures, creeds and paganism intertwined together in a super-blend of "it's all good" in 3-D and CGI.

Pi is a remarkable commentary in allegorical proportions of just how far advanced we have become in our ability to reach beyond and into a place of pluarality, for life's meaning, where everything is accepted as right and where there are no moral limitations and where everything is squared under the rubric of moral relativism... and the feel goodism of high fibre polythesim.

A new religion is being formed right in front of us... where the churches have no pews... just seats with cup-holders and big silver screens.

posted by Open Blogger at 06:45 PM

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