Zero Dark Thirty Or 50 Shades Of Awesome

I simply appreciate when a moviemaker does not push his or her political agenda down my throat ~

Jessica Chastain being awesome

When I think of movies I think of unforgettable masterpieces I later relate to whatever was happening to me when I first watched it and what kind of “message” (for lack of a better term) I took from it, whether or not the director, writer, producer etc. made the decision consciously or not to embed the movie with any philosophical seeds or moral lessons per se. However, I usually find myself trying not too read too much into anything, after all, it's just a movie. I especially contain myself from preaching the message I took from the movie since the experience of understanding a film should belong to the viewer. Always.

I heard that some moviegoers and critics had decided to see a lot of pro-torture propaganda in the latest Kathryn Bigelow flick. Some even said this movie would not be a major Academy contender because of the somewhat “negative” message, which prompted the question: are these people insane!?

I instantly felt I needed to see this one, as fast as I possibly could, to try to understand why in the world anybody in their right minds would make any kind of movie supporting torture in this day and age.

Boy, were these folks wrong!

What I realized by watching this film is that these critics were not only “reading too much into it”; they were experiencing a crisis of perception. Really. When a movie maker states in the very beginning of the film that the following story is based on nothing but first-hand accounts of facts, all you really have to do – as a viewer – is to take the filmmaker’s word and go with it. Clear up your mind, bro - you may learn a thing or two about the perks of not being so uptight about every freaking thing you consume.

With that being said, let’s talk about the movie:

This is a no-brainer, for me at least. Zero Dark Thirty is a great example of what simple story telling, straight-to-the-point execution and poignant performances can do to an audience. Yes, you guessed it, films like that make people think. In spite of the lack of any character development, this movie accomplished what Argo also did in 2012: it was politically neutral.

In a time when Hollywood has shown its teeth by ferociously sticking with the Obama supporting majority, one would have guessed that most movies being pushed into production would end up being one-dimensional, politically speaking, but that hasn’t been the case with Zero Dark Thirty and Argo.

Although I must say I’m impressed, I’m not exactly convinced people understand the importance of this film’s neutrality. When Bigelow and Mark Boel decided to recount the “greatest manhunt in history” without picking sides, they did us all a favor by exposing the process in which the so-called independent intelligence agency arm of the United States government operated and how it continued to operate in spite of any “change” D.C. saw throughout the period the movie portrays.

They chose to let us understand that, promises are only words when uttered by politicians and that we are better off not letting our emotional chunk take over when we are looking at facts and not some cheesy soap that has been running now for way too long.

When an artist, be him or her a musician, a painter, a photographer or a filmmaker, decides to simply recreate the facts of the period in which they live without picking sides, they are making a strong and significant statement, they are allowing the viewer the pleasure and full responsibility of understanding their art (and history) their own way and not letting politics (machinations, maneuvering, opportunism, which are all definitions of politics) set the tone.

Don’t get me wrong: I like discussing politics. Current political affairs are a constant in my social exchanges but I do appreciate when a moviemaker does not push his or her political agenda down my throat. I like to think for myself and trust those who feel the same way.

Now, when it comes to what I personally took from this movie, I must say I learned a thing or two about not overestimating obstacles, enemies etc. Yes, I did learn by watching Zero Dark Thirty that, the solution to the problem was simple and it was obvious but those in power decided to, wait for it… read too much into it (!) and ended up making the manhunt a much more complicated puzzle than it truly was.

SPOILER ALERT: At some point of the movie, the big guy wants “tangible proof, like a picture or something” of the big ol’bearded terrorist in order to act. Having detailed info concerning an unknown male with a wife and kids in constant contact with bin Laden’s main message carrier hiding in a fortress without ever using a phone wasn’t enough! END OF SPOILER.

Well, I guess humans will always want to complicate matters, especially when it comes to seeing more subliminal messages in movies about governmental agencies than they should. ~

So I'm 28 ~

So I'm 28 years of age.

I was born exactly 28 years ago and what strikes me as the most astonishing of accomplishments is that:

One, I didn't get to be the rock star I thought I would eventually become and

Two, I didn't get to die during my 27th year of existence at the prime of my game...

Living is a weird thing, it takes so much time to get it and then it takes even more time to let it go. By the time you're gone, you forgot you cared but by the time you've realized you care, you find you care so much, it hurts to show...

I guess that's all I have to say about me, really. You see, I deal with myself constantly and to be honest, I'm just as fun as staring at brick walls when all you care for is the ocean.

angles of alice (horrible, I know)

To penetrate pig-thick skin

Why is it that having a hobby is healthy and being mildly obsessed with a band, a movie star or a literature character harmful?

Humans have a funny way to categorize everything and make sure that, whatever it is that is placed above or beneath previously traced lines, is crushed back to exist within limits or expelled forcefully through the use of real-world politics.

Yes, I used the word politics.

Because politics is exactly what one may find meticulously defined in the contents of a dictionary: power struggle, machinations, maneuvering and finally opportunism. Part of the reason why I hate politics so much is how aware I am of its influence and how incredibly sensible I am about its effect on people.

Politics push everybody to think like everybody and I have no patience regarding those individuals who won’t let me be an individual. To constantly feel pressure to make a good impression because, believe it or not, I might offend Joe and Jack over there when they finally find out my radical and poetic visions regarding my own self and my own preferences when it comes to whatever do not match theirs.

‘Whatever’ is too much of an issue to deal with because taboo is a much easier thing to fight over than, I don’t know, anything that is truly important. Because the idea of fighting, after all, is overrated and blown out of proportions, which leaves nothing to the imagination and everything to the shallow. To fight over something is a luxury item that is truly available for all.

The one thing we have in common: the capacity to argue over nothing.

When one argues my “opinion” (note how I placed opinion between quotation marks) offends them or outrages them or makes me less of the human I obviously am, I puke a little inside my mouth but before feeling sick, I feel fine.

I, in the end, know better while the pig that spits on my face knows only how to be… a pig. That’s true politics, to point the finger at somebody for having some ludicrous idea and mock him or her for expressing thoughts in a very inoffensive manner. To create the idea in others that a harmless someone is not worth any attention and to do so forcefully, through the use of a detrimental and abusive approach… now that is politics.

Wow. A post that started as a rebellious way of telling the world I do not like to hide what I feel that finished with a rant about real-world politics… We haven’t changed much since Columbus ‘came across’ the Americas and I guess evolution is nothing but a faint notion of idealized humanity that mankind is simply not able to wrap its collective mind around… and never will.

A poem that should have been more

You raise your voice and you

Speak –

some clap.

You fear they’ll take over

As if a cloud

Could cover up the skies forever or

The rain

Could wash up the Kamešnica

Away from this land

That is yours and that is also

Theirs

For that is land for all,

For those who seek to live

Like animals instinctively do 

and just like we

also happen 

To do

Like a child

You run and hide under your bed,

Like a child running loose

Without the presence of a sensible soul

You get your hands on the first heavy and

sharp thing you find

And you aim 

At this imminent threat,

The made-up ghost

You raise your voice

And your cup

You drink as if there were no Tomorrows

No days to live as one

Like the humans we all happen to be

Like one

Full of flaws but still perfect

For being

You kill

As if a heart were worth a sack of stones

‘For those, those I threaten

have killed my own!’

In the past

The remote past,

But the past, one may reason

Doesn’t run back

To the present

With foamy mouths and

Empty stomachs

To collect installments

On old dues

The past is not aware of

The pain or shame

One of your own

Has endured

So do not reenact the theatre

Of a war that is not yours to fight

Be it with kindness

Or awareness,

Learn to relearn.

Note that putting the gun down

Is all one will be remembered for

In the end

Put your gun down, boy

I want to feel the kindness

Dripping from the scent of the memory

I’ll take with me to my grave:

The picture of your deep, grayish and

piercing

Blue eyes

Being kind.

I want to cherish you

As much

As I cherish

The ones you have hated

For far too long now

And for no good reason

At all

Stavite svoje oružje dole.

It’s all you have to do,

Oružje na terenu.

~~~

Pristine and despair

On a day like this

Days like that make sense

In a moment of pristine

And a moment of despair

It’s true, dear, and so true

Those days now seem

Not fair

A reality I seldom embrace for I’ve

Just learned

The right side of my brain is

Twisted and torn

Never playing games, never

Combining strengths

While the rest of the world struggles

To find reasoning

In make-believe separation, could it be that

It’s our brain’s fault?

Yes and I

See,

The ocean won’t leave the shore but

Shores will no longer shore be when

Ocean swiftly covers it all or will it

Be

That fire will blanket with its

Reputable and wide hands the four corners of this

World of parsimony or

Will it be that men

Finally will

Covet everything there is, the skies, and milky ways

Oceans of unsinkable stars and black holes hanging sideways

Until all that could belong to a heavenly notion is nothing

But

Another one of men’s acquisitions

For the fighter in me wants to

Conquer the fighter in you and

Fighting eye for an eye is old

News

Fighting tooth for a gallon of milk, well

That’s more like it. ~

home is you

strange to think
that
what I know
to be true
so deeply
is what everyone
uses
against me

they point out
how crazy I am
or have become
with time
so far away
from all of that
which once meant
home

to me

but what i leave out
is that
home was never
what home meant
but the feeling
i pursue
that lives within
and can only be
wild and free
once I feel I'm away
from home

where another
type of home
breeds
more of the same
old thing
folks used to call
love

or
serenity

I call you

you are home
the whole of what
i've always known
and others
always seemed so eager
to shun away

as if what truly moves us
should be an item
to be locked away
where all things shame
likes to claim
as their pride and joy

not I

home
is
you and you
alone.

for bill

I know

There’s something inside of you

A little rock of knowledge

They never really cared to

Love

A brick of understanding

Too heavy

For anyone else to carry

Too bright to be

Just part

Of the foundations

Of any given monument

Unless you build

Your temple of importance

In a place where the soil glows

More than that of which

Shines bright

By the crowning of

A full day

In the end of the road

You travel

The bright glimpse of that

Star

That happens to be the center

Of everything

We know

What is it that turned into

The thing we care the most and

Can’t quite put a finger on?

The countless hours of traffic

Of frustrating work

We give away to

Those

Members of a society

So useless, and yet

They think they rule

The world,

Who don’t really

Bother

To mind our prickly presence

Here and there

And acknowledge our importance

Everywhere

I know

This life isn’t worth it

And you said it

But you said something else

Life is

All there is

For it’s one

After millions of them

Have allowed such clarity

In

An imagination

Playtime

Ground zero

For wonder

I get it

I really do

But all I really cared for

Was for you to know

I get it and that I

Really do

There’s nothing else

But a growing fear

In my heart

No one will ever

Feel you

Like I do

And to that I say

Yeah,

Oh no!

Someone turn this light

Low

I’m about

To take flight

And you know

How it goes

I can go high, but

I might end up going

Really,

Really low.