I’d also add A Clockwork Orange, Brazil (long director’s cut only), and Aguirre: The Wrath of God for the darker side of things. Also the ‘other’ Fearless (the Jeff Bridges movie).

Probably sounds nutty, but I can’t think of any other way to explain it.

I think it does require a shift, and sometimes it seems that I actually feel some turbulence in the top front part of the head when thinking new Bobble thoughts.

Along with what Bob has been discussing the last few days, I think that the God sense is something that you do have to actually … um… welcome into your mind. In geek-speak-programmer lingo, it’s almost like an object that has to be manually instantiated as a parent-object, and after having done so, you find you have access to wider more integrated properties and access into your life and life in general, than you did before accessing it.

A poster at the old site noted “Sounds like youre describing people who know everything and understand nothing. Chomsky and his ideas are a perfect example. Stunning intellect without the wisdom of your average high school janitor.” and I think that’s very true… these people just don’t have access to a wider integration of life, ideas and spirit, and it stunts their grasp and growth.

Crud, late for work… new project & lingering cold is really cutting into my One Cosmos time, feels like I can’t quite get a full breath.

I’m betting that the next big breakthrough in psychology/philosophy will come from someone really knowledgable in philosophy, neuroscience, Object Oriented Programming & relational database theory – I’m betting Polanyi (sp?) & Bion would have had many “Ooh! That’s just like [insert insight here]” moments with software.

Now I’m REALLY late.

sigh.

A big 10-4! You’re the first person I’ve ‘met’ who had the same reaction to it as I did, especially the Moon scene.

For another off the wall entry, I nominate “A Knight’s Tale”, one of Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany’s (as a fast talking Geoffrey Chaucer) first movies… it does a lot of goofy modern music (well, 70’s, 80’s) with jousting & courtly dancing… but it works.

The overarching point is the main charachters determination to “change his stars” from being a squire to a Knight, and the integrity that that requires he recognize within himself and maintain between friends, love, sport and character. Doesn’t really have any “Full MOON rising” momens, but the overall experience of seeing someone do what is right, and triumphing BECAUSE of that – always gives me a charge.

Sr. Dilys just came home from a 21-hour day, reported running interference after a young lawyer who was
(1) clueless about the work at hand;
(2) impermeable to new information;
(3) emotionally unintelligent so that energy was openly devoted mostly to justifying the mistakes as “right.”

A pragmatic, honest school janitor would have looked like Enlighenment Itself in contrast to that.

Poor, hypertrophied D.

As to movies:
–Karakter: life requires what it requires. Shortcuts not available.
–Tampopo: what constitutes “help”
–Barton Fink: don’t be naive and underestimate the archetypes
Monsoon Wedding: except for a PC/child-abuse-vengeance piece, the dazzle of life. Live it!
–Dersu Uzala: each is who he is

I recommended Howl’s Moving Castle, because of the underlying ideas – especially, the question: What would you do to have a friend? There’s also the interesting issue of the Witch’s curses, which she is able to bestow but not remove. Which I guess says something about the power to curse. There’s also the cool idea of ‘being larger inside than on the outside’ that the castle itself eminates. Of course, I think that same thing is true of all of the characters, and the castle is certainly a character.

I would re-recommend the Kurasawa film recommended earlier, not because I have seen it, but because my mother, who was watching his stuff, couldn’t help but tell me about that movie. I hear he has a lot of excellent films.

I would also say that Shymalan’s films are worth seeing, mostly because Night knows how to connect with the deeper (I guess?) parts of our consciousness. What symbolizes danger, evil, freedom, etc. Lady in the Water was a little odd, but I think forces you to be like a child to actually watch it, which is great. And prophesying by reading cereal box labels? Hilarious.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is a movie I recently watched again and was completely in awe by the end. I was especially struck by how Chow Yun Fat’s character (very much a God figure) relentlessly pursues Zhang Ziyi’s character, trying to teach her, to transform her, to help her transcend. This in spite of her constant attempts to attack, escape or otherwise reject every one of his attempts. She believes that she doesn’t need him, that she has already achieved perfection without his help. There are so many themes dealing with our rejection of God, His pursuit of us in spite of our rebellion, the necessity of sacrifice, and the nature of sin running through this movie, it is definitely worth at least one viewing. The fact that the cinematography is absolutely stunning doesn’t hurt either.

O Brother Where Art Thou draws a lot of its strength from The Odyssey, which is is based on, so it’s pretty much a given that it is a great story about a journey of transformation, sacrifice, and redemption.

Memento just creeps me out every time I watch it. It deals with the essential frailty of what we call consciousness and life, the little systems that we come up with to try to make that fact manageable. The scary part comes in as the movie shows how readily we will willfully exploit the weaknesses of our own self-understanding, push a wedge into the chinks of our own rather feeble armor. Perhaps best viewed as a study in the hopelessness of trying to live a purely horizontal life with no Absolute reference toward which to orient ourselves.

Others that come to mind, but I haven’t watched recently enough to expound on:

Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Rushmore
Tombstone
12 Monkeys