In the plane I watched the TIFF movie Mostly Sunny, which is a Canadian film about Canadian Sarnia-born porn film actress who has become an Indian Bollywood sensation. Appears the Indians are over 1 billion people but don’t believe that people have sex or talk about it. But the male population seems to like the fact that a Bollywood actress can be seen at youporn for your fantasies doing all sorts of nasty things! The film talks about her life, moving to California and her relationship with parents, brother and community. It can be a difficult transition to move from adult film to “normal” society and relationships. This film explores this, and how this “living in the moment” person can look ahead to handling interesting and troubling questions about the choices that she has made.
(There is a Netflix documentary called After Porn and it also addresses these issues and the broken people that can be left, as well as those who who are already broken headed into the adult film business). In short one can never run away from their past.
Also on Netflix I watched the animated Spirit, a horse based story with Maaaaatt Damon (voicing the horse, well overdubbing really) and Bryan Adams doing the music. This is a female childhood favourite, with the horses and scenery of the Wild West, but beyond that it is is a flimsy story. Horse was free. Horse is curious about humans. Horse then fights to be free, Done. I do not need to this again.
Also on Netflix I did catch For the Love of Spock, which was directed by his son Adam. It held my attention for the icon and a little bit more about his life. There are some good things to know and if you are a Trekkie, it is likely mandatory viewing, whatever I might say. Not sure what the tie in for Big Bang Theory is, but they made it along with other celebrity cameos to talk about Leonard Nimoy. (The Bilbo Baggins song would have made The Hobbit more watchable!)
Finally I rented Ben Hur with the idea that I wanted to see what they had changed to the original (to me) Charleton Heston classic film that also had won Best Picture previously. This one did not. Now I know why. I even sat through the Extras to see about the making of this film. There is a lot of “this is why we did this….and here is the book which was the source material, and not the previous film”. Fair enough. The book had actually been made into a film and production before to much success BEFORE Chuck ever rode a chariot. Still, his is a Jesus story and moreso than the Heston film. Jesus in the original was a pair of hands and a mystery, helping out Judah every now and then. This film goes further, and further than I would have liked which becomes its fatal flaw, and why I suspect the people didn’t come to the theatre. The secondary reason was the chariot race, which was more CGI and had horses doing what I just didn’t believe. No horses of course were injured in the film, but of course since much of their footage resided in pixels only. That primary reason for people to stay away is that, like the playgrounds of old, the former film had good vs evil. The bad guy treating the Ben Hur family (Masala) poorly and Judah finding an improbable way to get his revenge. The ultimate revenge was on the chariot race field. This movie doesn’t leave you as satisfied. Everyone gets a medal for participation, and no one is left out. Jesus ultimately has the final say in the last feel good moments of this film. It’s a let down. It’s disappointing to me. What next? Khan in Star Trek being brought back into the rhelm of just a “misunderstood guy who just needed a hug and compassion”? If this is a Ben Hur for the times, then I will gladly jump into a Delorean and find my way back to 1959 with Chuck at the reins.
Mondays With Robbie 