The Day The Earth Stood Stymied

TDTESS
(The Day The Earth Stood Stymied)

review 1
Well, I hardly know where to begin. Was it the writing?
The direction? The Acting or the lack there of. Thank God for Kathy Bates. Speaking of ... was it the fact that she was far outshining the alleged star that some part of the 20th Century machine had a secret meeting with wardrobe and said: “make sure You fit her with a really bad wig”. I’m just astounded by the depth of badness this film has achieved. And not like it would be fun to watch again bad, i.e. ‘Plan 9 from outer space’, but bad as in when it’s released to TV, I would rather watch an infomercial.

review 2
I don’t want to thwart the studios attempts to make some money off this to help pay for the ridiculous special effects. By all means go and see for Yourself. The best bit of acting from Keanuu came when he was trying to drink water. I know it must have taken allot out of him. As a suggestion for his next role he should consider
remaking the TV series Kung Fu. Forgive them Robert Wise, they know not what the heck they’re doing and have not learned from the master of his craft.

review 3
I should have known it was going to be bad from the get when within 10 minutes of starting my sons and I turned it into a live science fiction theatre 3000. While filing out of the theatre We were discussing the highlights and favorite scenes. We all agreed that when Keanuu got the tuna sandwich and then when into the bathroom and collapsed, someone called out, ‘bad tuna’. That was pretty funny. So maybe I take it back. Maybe this movie does deserve a second viewing. Only this time, asap, We’ll give it the full SciFi 3000 treatment it deserves.

review 4
As a consolation for fans of the original movie I can tell You this was NOT a remake. This was an entirely different movie. They just slapped a few scenes in there that were similar. Lifted a few character names but by no means the character. They certainly left the old message intact by developing a script that had more in common with Al Gore’s ‘an Inconvenient truth’ and outright stole the title, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Come to think of it, I can’t help but wonder if they had to go in and re-shoot the last scene because someone must have pointed out that at no point during the movie did anything actually stand still.

Well at least they justified steeling the title but there still refuses to be any explicable reason why everything came to a stop other than the movie was over and everybody turned to eachother and said: “is that it?” Like one of those movies You keep watching, hoping it will offer one good reason to Your wallet yet invariably feeling You fell victim to a clever bamboozle.

I would think that the makers of the original should sue but they’re the same people. All I can tell You is, You keep going to the same place for pizza cause they make the best. Then one day the pizza maker leaves and You know the difference, and it ain’t no good, not much unlike this sorry excuse for a movie.

review 5
Within a millisecond of the first credit showing my son spoke out loud: “that was the worst movie I’ve ever sat through”. We also went to see Dee Snyder’s ‘StrangeLand’. Not that that was good, but it was better. The entire way home I kept trying to put into words where the production went awry. He was obviously in shock. He kept interrupting my train of thought with “that was the worst movie I’ve ever sat through” as though he were permanently scarred. Upon arrival home he said: “I wanna watch the old one right away so I can get this one out of my head”.

review 6
My heart was so into it. Like any good love affair gone by the way, perhaps my expectations were too high. The entire ordeal of this screenplay can easily be summed up in the first miss strokes of the brush. As the audience braces for certain destruction from a deep space impact there is just as suddenly, no money shot, no pay off. Baited and Waiting for the big impact and then it never came. In the midst of making love my lover passed out. Quite the disappointment.

I won’t be calling again any time soon.

note: Stymied = a situation or problem presenting such difficulties as to discourage or defeat any attempt to deal with or resolve it.

Tao 55

Tao Te Ching chapter 55

He who is in harmony with the Tao is like a newborn child. Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak, but its grip is powerful.
It can scream its head off all day, yet never becomes hoarse, so complete is its harmony.

The Master’s power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire.
He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed.
He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old.
_______________________________________________________
personal note:
Expectation, which is synonymous with desire, is the father of disappointment
and disappointment gives birth to death in the form of a withered spirit.

We should act without an expectation of results.
Results are often outside of our control. Expecting certain results surrenders our power to others
and thus drains our energy and ages our spirit.
Whenever we feel that our “spirits are down” we can trace that feeling to some form of underlying disappointment
that has arisen from some unmet expectation. We are in the grip of a desire for life to be other than it is.

This chapter doesn’t teach us to live without effort, but to allow the things of life around us to come and go without a desire for them to be other
than they are at that moment. As had been said many times here, the ebb and flow of life at that moment cannot be other than it is at that
moment, so any desire for it to be otherwise will bring disappointment and a diminished spirit.

Living in harmony with life as it is – is a source of power.