an existential comedy?

[miriam_e]

I just may have a new favorite movie: I ♥ Huckabees

Who would have thought that anybody could make a light, quirky comedy about the deepest philosophical questions? Is there any meaning to existence? What is infinity? Is everything interconnected? What is the nature of good and evil? What should we do about it?

The weirdest thing is that it does so without attempting any spirituality or appeal to shonky religious dogma or pretentiousness, while being buoyed up all the way through with light-hearted whimsy.

What a lovely piece of work.

(If you get the DVD make sure you listen to the director's commentary for further insights. It's worth it.)

Comments

Re: don't listen to them-they didn't get it

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

what the bleep do we know

Yeesh. I'm ashamed to admit I watched that rubbish.

It starts off well enough but rapidly decends into the ranting of a new-ager cult. The science in it starts off speculative and progresses through crackpot to end up somewhere in the vicinity of total fantasy.

The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!%3F) on the film is a worthwhile read.

If the film mentioned here is anything like "...Bleep...", I'll run, not walk, in any other direction.

Re: don't listen to them-they didn't get it

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I'll let you know what I think when I get to it. It worries me that the science might be suspect though, because I consider myself a science geek.

Don't worry, Huckabees doesn't have any bad science. It is an exercise in philosophy, but without pretension -- a very unusual thing to do, and precisely what I love about it. Philosophy should be fun.

Re: don't listen to them-they didn't get it

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

Philosophy should be fun

Heh. I started a Grad. Dip. in Philosophy once. It was so dry, humourless and BORING that I dropped out. It sucked all the fun out of life.