Flight

I'll be honest with you, I wasn't exactly sure where this movie was headed, especially near the end when I wanted to climb through the screen and punch everyone onscreen.  I had to watch the movie trailer for this movie over and over during the Christmas season, because it was playing on the display TVs in the store where I worked, so that plus the fact that I love Denzel Washington prompted me to buy this movie as soon as it came out on DVD, but after I put it in, I became confused.  the story seemed to jump a little in the beginning, between Denzel Washington's pilot who was the main character of the film and some woman who wasn't really identified much, so I was confused, but I trusted the movie to sort things out, and it eventually did (up until the climax when I began to have those previously mentioned violent/homicidal feelings towards the characters and their asinine actions).

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I was conflicted about the ending for a bit, because honestly, whether the pilot was drunk or not, the fucking plane fell the hell apart and fell out of the sky, and he landed it while only killing a few people whereas none of the other pilots who attempted similar simulated situations could even manage to save one person on board  so while for purposes of the character's personal life I wanted him to get sober, I didn't think he should be held responsible for the damn engine practically falling out of the plane, but after letting it sit a bit in my mind, I'm ok with the movie ending the way that it did because I think he did the right thing for the right reasons.  He couldn't let Trina take the fall for his actions, whether he was an amazing pilot or not, and I really respect that and respect what he did.  I still think the people who, you know, caused a plane that was falling apart to be allowed to fly should be held responsible too, and I hope that happened as well, but I was really glad the main character got his life together in the end.

This movie was worth buying and I'm glad I finally got to see it.

This is what Love in Action Looks Like

WARNING: This review might be triggering for someone who has had bad experiences with ex-gay therapy.  Proceed with caution and be safe.

Damn that's a mouthful of a movie title.  But the movie itself, at just a little over an hour, is a good documentary that doesn't overstay its welcome.  The synopsis of the movie is this: In 2005, a teen was told by his parents that he was being sent to a camp that seeks to use "reparative therapy" to help people overcome their homosexuality.  He posted a bulletin on his Myspace page (remember Myspace?) telling his friends he was apprehensive about this experience, and his friends did some research, found the location of the camp, and then stood outside every day with protest signs and bullhorns for his entire 8 week stay, shouting messages of support to all the teens inside the camp who might not exactly want to be there.

I have a hard time being objective on this issue, where objectivity is defined as not having an opinion (at least that's how most people seem to define it when they leave me snotty comments telling me that I'm not objective) because of my own experiences with reparative therapy.  When I was seventeen, I was pretty messed up, and due to a lot of various situations, I ended up in a residential treatment program that focused on "reparative therapy" using "aversion therapy" techniques to help teens recognize the sins in their lives and avoid these sins in the future by controlling their sinful urges and behavior.  Homosexuality, or rather same sex attractions, were included on the list of sinful behaviors that this program sought to treat, along with drug and alcohol addiction.  What followed after I entered the program were some of the most harrowing months of my life, as I went through the program once, got released, and then totally lost it and wound up back in the program again.  Technically, I wasn't "forced" to go into the program, I chose to go in, but the issue of "choice" is muddled when you are in foster care and you're told that if you don't complete this program, you will be released from foster care and have to find your own place to live.  Have you ever lived on the street?  It's cold out there.

My concept of these "reparative therapy" programs doesn't seem to be the same as anyone else's, especially since there are so many different types of these programs, and I'm told that a lot of them aren't as bad as the one I attended.  The aspect of my particular program that sets it apart is its focus on "aversion therapy," which is therapy that serves to make an activity so unpleasant that it triggers a fearful response that makes a person avoid that behavior in the future.  In other words, trying to make someone associate behavior with bad things so they'll avoid the behavior.  For alcoholics, "aversion therapy" can include taking drugs that make it so that they vomit whenever they consume alcohol, so in the future they will choose to avoid alcohol because they associate it with getting sick.

For the program that I was in, without getting too graphic, "aversion therapy" for same sex attractions included forcing us to sit with our hands folded as if in prayer while we watched slideshows of photos with same sex couples together, and squeezing our hands together tighter with each image shown, so that our hands ached by the end of the exercise, with the result that we associated seeing such pictures with feeling pain.  We were also forced to split up into opposite sex pairs and the girls were forced to lie on the floor and the boys were forced to lie on top of us and we had to make eye contact and lie there for a predetermined amount of time until they let us get up.  If we broke eye contact, we had to start over.  The guy on top of me kept crying, and every time he'd blink and I'd start crying too, since I'm a sympathetic crier, and we'd have to start over every time.  I have no idea how long it took for us to pass this exercise.  It seemed like hours.  I learned to have a poker face and not show emotion.  It helped me get by.

I'm not telling you any of this to shock you, I'm simply trying to explain why it irritates me when people say that I'm not "objective" about this issue.  Of course I'm not "objective" about a practice that has caused such harm in my life.  I think these therapy programs are harmful, and that this harm can last long after the program ends.  I know for myself, it's been thirteen years since I went through this program, and I still have a hard time making eye contact with people, especially during intimate situations like kissing or sex.  I still can't hold hands with someone (even someone of the opposite sex) with our fingers entwined because it makes me freak out.  Even when these programs aren't as scary as the one I attended (and I haven't told you half of what went on in there, believe me) I believe that telling a teenager that feelings of love are sinful can be harmful.  The last thing I'd ever want my kid to feel is ashamed, and I don't get why someone would want to make their kid feel ashamed of having romantic feelings for someone.  That can really mess with someone's head and have far-reaching repercussions.

I'm telling you all this because I want you to understand the background I carry with me whenever I watch a movie like this.  I don't really like the term "baggage" because it implies something that a person is willingly carrying that could be discarded at any moment if the person choose to let go of it.  This is my background, it happened to me, and it's a part of me just like all the good experiences that have happened in my life are a part of me as well.  It has shaped my life and my opinions, and that's the way it is.  Yes, I'm predisposed to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the idea of parents sending their kid to a therapy program to try and cure the kid of being gay.  This doesn't mean I don't understand why a parent might do such a thing.  Parents who genuinely think that homosexuality is a set of sinful behaviors that can condemn a person to hell might be terrified that this could happen to their child.  They don't want their kid to go to hell, so they try to fix the problem and help their kids.  I get that.  Just because I don't agree doesn't mean that I can't empathize and understand why a parent would send their kid to a therapy program like this.

This movie takes the view that this kind of therapy is wrong and harmful, but it doesn't blast everyone who believes in such therapy as evil.  It might be a little more one-sided than other movies, but it has a short running time, and it doesn't present as much information on either side as it could.  The (fictional) movie "Save Me" presents more of both sides, though it, too, comes to the conclusion that these "ex-gay therapy" programs aren't the best idea.  This movie gives a lot of interviews with a lot of interactive elements, such as having the blog entries typed onscreen as we watch.  That was enjoyable and helped engage me in the story. I liked this movie overall, thought it ended on a positive note, and wouldn't mind watching it again.

Serenity

I love this movie.  My friend bought it for me on DVD for my birthday back in 2007, and I watched it back then with her, and it blew us both away.  It's got a lot of action but it's also good at tackling deeper issues.  I hear a lot of people didn't like this movie, and they piss and moan about it, particularly because many people think you can't understand this movie unless you've watched the show "Firefly" first (which was canceled after only one season and which shows what happens before the events of this movie).  I know this is a bullshit claim, however, because I've never watched "Firefly" and I understand "Serenity" perfectly.  I'm sure that watching "Firefly" would give me depth of knowledge and background, but it's definitely not a requirement for understanding this movie.  I submit that most people would get this movie if they watched it, because the principles it discusses are relevant even if it is fiction.  The government thinks it can improve people by meddling into their lives?  That doesn't happen today?  The government isn't above killing undesirables in order to preserve the "peace"?  Where have I seen that before?  The quote River says; "Old men covered in blood.  they're drowning in it, but it never touches them"?  Doesn't that sound like some "old men" I could name who are responsible for many deaths even though blood technically never touched their hands?  Listen, I think this movie is worth watching.  It hasn't lost any of its power in the years since I first saw it.  If you don't like it, fine, but don't hand me a line of BS about how no one "really understands" it unless they watched the TV show first, so the movie is "worthless."  This movie is FAR from worthless.  Jerks.

Gentleman's Agreement

I saw this movie when I was 8 years old and I didn't understand it exactly.  I got the basic concept, but I didn't understand the central conflict between the reporter and his fiancee until I watched the movie again last night (that's due to a benefit of 23 more years worth of experience, I suspect).  this movie is kind of talky but well worth watching.  It has parallels even today in people who consider themselves not prejudiced but who sit by and allow prejudice to continue without speaking out against it.