My Friday Night Watching the Movie "Unfaithful"

I did something interesting on Friday. I didn’t bring lunch in, but rather than go out at lunch to get food, I decided to just not buy anything and instead drink powdered tea. My mother has been to an Asian supermarket and has purchased powdered tea that comes in satchels. The powdered tea comes from Korea (from a business named Damtuh) and is made of ingredients like black beans, soybeans, and rice. Rather than going hungry, I found that I was able to keep myself quite full and get through the day. In the afternoon I also had two bananas and an almond latte. I left work right at five and went to the gym. I am thinking of measuring what I do in the gym so that I can track my progress. I am hoping this will motivate me more.

When I got home on Friday I had a big dinner of cauliflower, mashed potatoes, oranges, avocado, carrots, and potato. After this I drank two cups of green smoothie (a blend of green leafy vegetables, Earth Protein, and a banana). Then I had high-protein hot chocolate, which is pretty much just a chocolate flavoured protein shake mixed with soymilk and boiling water. I prefer warm beverages to cold beverages, so I like to drink my protein hot (in a mug rather than in a shaker bottle).

Given it was Friday night, I finished watching a movie on Netflix called Unfaithful. I enjoyed watching this movie considerably, and it was close to home for me because of the adultery and divorce between my parents. What I thought was interesting was that the couple in this movie tried very hard to shield their child from the adultery, to protect the child, but my parents didn’t do that. They pretty much tried to get me to choose sides, and then I was asked to bail them out because they were in debt. I followed them because I used to look up to my parents and respected them, but in hindsight I realize I was exploited and used. Basically what happened was my father took money out from the family home using a home equity line of credit, and he used this money to fund his womanizing and to start a family with a new woman, and then when everything was discovered, my brother and I were the ones who paid off the loan. All this shattered any faith or trust I had not only in my family but also in anyone. I simply don’t trust anyone, and I have now walled myself off from everyone. I don’t want or need friends or family. I will never get married, never have children, and I will do everything in my power to eliminate dependency, debt, commitment, obligation, and duty. The objective of my life is to continually increase my freedom by increasing dividend income, and I will use this dividend income to shield myself from the world and do what I want to do rather than conform to society, which wants me to be a slave so that, understandably, I can make money for businesses so they can pay dividends to their shareholders.

There are many things in my life that have traumatized me, and it’s easy to just dismiss my problems as first world problems, but these problems are still real to me, and any problem can be rationalized away by comparing it to an even worse problem. A problem is still a problem, even if it’s less of a problem than some other problem.

It's also easy to dismiss my problems by saying that I should just man up and take responsibility for myself rather than blame my parents, and I have done that. I don't blame my parents. I don't blame anyone for the atrocities they commit. I simply react and protect myself. I am taking action to wall myself off from society and become an urban hermit who is funded and protected by dividend income.

When I think about it, I like my life. I have Netflix now, and I am starting to watch movies now rather than just watch YouTube, and I have noticed how much movies socialize you into a conventional way of life. For example, while watching Unfaithful, I was attracted to marriage because it looked like the marriage that the couple in the movie had was very nice. However, this would not have been apparent had I watched YouTube because YouTube is brilliant at sniffing out what you’re interested in and suggesting you watch it, and I am simply not interested in relationships.

My plan is to either share accommodation with others and then block them out of my life as much as possible or to live alone. If I feel lonely, I can easily get some friends on Meetup or even Tinder, but if I meet a girl on Tinder I just want to be friends with her. I have tried using Tinder while travelling solo overseas and it works fine, and it even works where I live now as well, although lately I have just gotten tired of socializing, so I uninstalled the Tinder app and then installed Netflix instead. I’d rather spend a Friday night watching a good film than going out. The pleasure from watching a good film is so much better than going out. Going out is quite boring. Most girls out there are boring, and I think it’s because they are spoilt because there are so many men out there willing to entertain women just so they can have sex with them, and so women expect men to bring to the table a certain level of entertainment and for their efforts women will reward the man with sexual favours. But I don’t care about sex with a woman because, if I wanted sex, I can just go to a registered brothel, and there are plenty of registered brothels here in Victoria Australia. Going out with women is also expensive, and there is an expectation by the lady that the man pays for everything just to signal to her that he is rich, which is important for women because they want to marry rich men and take their money. Not all women are like this, but enough are.

Watching The Girlfriend Experience Using Money from Google Opinion Rewards

I have an app on my phone called Google Opinion Rewards. It asks me a bunch of questions maybe once every three days. Whenever I answer a question, it gives me about $0.50 worth of Google Play credit. I accumulated about $18 and decided yesterday to rent a movie to watch. After some careful consideration, I watched The Girlfriend Experience, directed by Steven Soderbergh.

I enjoyed watching this movie because I’m curious about the escort business, not because I want to be an escort but I imagine it would be nice to hire escorts not just for sex but also for companionship. In the movie, men would pay for a dinner date with escorts. The escorts are not just providing sexual services. They provide companionship and conversation. Most men like to have someone to talk to about their lives, so an escort provides psychologist services as well (or therapist).

New York escorts catering to men who work on Wall Street may charge a lot. I’d imagine a dinner date followed by sex would cost around $3000. While this seems expensive, it needs to be compared to the price of a wife, which I don’t think is cheap. Furthermore, escorts are found not just in New York but in cities all over the world, and escort in some cities may be cheaper.

It’s nice watching movies again. I haven’t watched movies in a while because I’ve been watching YouTube. Now that I have Google Opinion Rewards, I can effectively watch movies for free.

The Girlfriend Experience only received a 5.5/10 on IMDB, but I believe it was quite a good movie, one I would rate 9/10. I was quite engrossed by the movie, and I think the main actress Sasha Grey is really hot.

Why is Quickflix not on Google Play?

I have a Quickflix subscription and was going to stream Quickflix movies on my Android TV, but then I looked through Quickflix's devices and it looks like the Quickflix app is available on every single app store other than Google Play. Now I will have to keep borrowing DVDs from them. I'm tempted to just cancel my subscription and just stream over Google Play Movies. The only thing stopping me from streaming is the fact that DVDs from Quickflix are about $3 per movie, which is cheaper than most streaming movies from Google. Quickflix should understand that because Android runs on 80% of all smartphones and 55% of all tablets, they are missing out on a large number of customers by ignoring Android.

The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane

I've just watched The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, which I think is an excellent movie. It is about a thirteen year old girl named Rynn who is taught by her father to isolate herself from the world, that is, become a hermit, so that she can protect herself from the depravity of humankind. There is plenty for her to protect herself from, including pedophiles preying on her.

But at the same time, living a life of isolation leaves her feeling lonely, and in the movie she does fall in love.

This movie really connected with me because I have had similar feelings. I am really tired of how shallow, materialistic, hypocritical, and cruel people are, and I wish I can one day escape it all and become a hermit. At the same time, I am susceptible to loneliness.

It's tiring when you distance yourself from the world. There is so much lying and hiding. You feel you need to lie to survive.

Lilja 4-Ever

I just saw this movie, which was about underground sex trafficking. I'm feeling really sad now. Feel like there needs to be something I can do to help these girls.
Sexual slavery is really an example of capitalism at its worst. If the private sector had its way, sexual slavery would be rife. In order to limit sexual slavery, the freedoms of enterprise must be curbed so that they cannot enslave innocent young girls for their profit.

This is why government must intervene to set laws that protect human life, why government must fund police departments that investigate sex trafficking.
We can hope that public servants can be idealistic enough to create laws that protect the innocent and police also be idealistic or altruistic enough to implement these laws.

127 Hours

I started watching the DVD of 127 Hours a few days ago but stopped watching after twenty minutes in because my family had returned home and the house was too noisy for me to watch a movie. My initial thoughts were that this film did not seem that appealing.

I have watched the next 25 minutes of the movie but have switched off because the movie seems to be getting into a very gruesome part.
 
This movie 127 Hours is the true story about a man who goes hiking in the canyons, falls, and then unluckily a large boulder crashes on his arm, trapping him. In order to save himself, he amputates his own arm and escapes.

I watched the movie up to the part when he looked like he was going to attempt to cut off his own arm, and when that looked like it was going to being, I switched off and decided not to watch. It just makes no sense for me to watch a movie that is essentially a torture movie.

Many critics love this movie, saying it is very realistic and painful to watch, but these reasons why the critics love the movie are the reasons why I hate to watch it.

The Parent Trap (1998)

I have finished watching The Parent Trap, starring a young Lindsay Lohan.

The movie is about two twin sisters who meet at a summer camp. One girl has a mother who lives in England and the other sister has a father who lives in a vineyard in California. Both these people used to be together in an intimate relationship but then separated. Both little girls want their parents to get back together again, so they hatch a plan to switch places and persuade their parents to meet again.

As an obstacle to the two getting together again, the man who owns a vineyard is engaged to be married to a golddigger woman.

Lindsay Lohan who plays both the sisters Annie and Halle was adorable as a teenager. But unfortunately the the Parent Trap can be too cliched and sterotypical. The golddigger publicist who does not like camping is one such stereotype that went too far. But nevertheless, this was a very cute movie and I would recommend it to others.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Yesterday I went to the cinemas with my mum to use up my Hoyts movie voucher, but unfortunately I forgot to bring the movie voucher with me and ended up having to spend cash on a movie. The movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, ended up being very good.

Because I went to the movies with my mum, I couldn't watch anything that was potentially embarrassing or inappropriate. Movies like Get Him to the Greek sounded too rude and I got the impression that it contained sex scenes. Prince of Persia turned out to be a perfect family movie. There was kissing and hugging but there were no outright sex scenes. The violence was clean, i.e. minimal blood and ungratuitous.

Downsides of Prince of Persia is that I think the editing seemed sloppy and there were just too many loud action scenes. Even something as simple as a person walking through a dungeon needs to have scenes involving ninja-like assasins jumping around and throwing knives. Often I felt like I needed a break from the loud action scenes and just listen to some simple dialogue.

The visual effects are stunning. Princess Tamina in the movie is incredibly beautiful, and we see a lot of her in the movie, so that's a thumbs up. When I was watching the movie, I had no idea who the actress was who played Princess Tamina--initially thinking it was Liv Tyler--but after googling the actress turned out to be Gemma Arterton.

Links:
Trailer - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Achieving James Bond Productivity

Yesterday was Saturday. I don't normally do work at home but next week I have some work that I need to get done, so I this weekend I had to do some work at home. Working at home is not ideal but the reality is that you are paid for the work you do, not the number of hours you are in the office.

Being a procrastinator, yesterday I didn't do any work at all. I was watching the James Bond film Quantum of Solace on my computer. While watching, I was surprised at how productive James Bond the character was compared to me. He had extremely difficult tasks to complete and every fifteen minutes a pack of bad guys come and try to kill him but using his fighting skills he manages to handle everything that gets in the way of him achieving his goals.

Even though most people's work is not as exciting as James Bond's work, there certainly are parallels. Most people are given projects by their managers and in order to achieve these projects there are obstacles and distractions. The worker needs to overcome these obstacles, ignore the distractions, and move forward bit-by-bit till the objectives are fulfilled.

Usually at work I am distracted by all sorts of things like non-work email. If I can simply try to be like Bond and destroy any obstacles or distractions in the same way the secret agents does it, I could be as productive as he is. For example, if I receive a non-work email I can simply opt to read it after I finish my work as oppose to halting my work to read the email. Whenever I am distracted while in work mode, I plan to simply freeze and think carefully about whether the distraction is urgent or work related. If it is neither urgent nor work related, I should push it aside and do it later or never do it at all.

I also notice while watching Quantum of Solace that Bond usually goes around and does little bits of work at a time. He collects small clues here and there, slowly revealing the big picture of the task he needs to fulfill. This is similar to many of the big projects that people receive. The project is so large that they don't really know where to start and don't know what to do. I find that simply just jumping in and doing something is better than doing nothing, even if what you are doing is small.

District 9

This post contains spoilers.

I watched District 9 yesterday. It was a good movie. If I had to give criticisms I would say that I didn’t really appreciate the gore. I also thought the ending where the hero sacrifices himself to help someone is quite clichéd and very similar to the ending of Blood Diamond. I was also not happy with some of the unanswered questions such as what eventually happened to the hero. I do not like it when moviemakers deliberately leave questions unanswered in order to make a film mysterious.

The Prestige of Darkness

I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet. I will see it soon. I have read a lot about it, and most people who saw it seem to agree that it is good. Their reasons, however, are interesting. Many say that The Dark Knight is dark, gritty, and brooding. It seems as if any film that is violent, dark, somber, serious, and cynical about human nature, is lauded by critics.

I have read somewhere that so-called erotica is just a name for pornography that is tweaked for upper class consumption. Erotica allows individuals to indulge in pornography without feeling guilty that what they are consumed is sinful.

The same might apply for violent movies. Many serious critics disapprove of the gratuitous violence and gore in teen slasher movies like House of Wax. However, many of these critics praise violent movies like Road to Perdition and Mystic River (both good movies, by the way). These dark, gritty, and brooding films popping up all of a sudden are like the erotica of violence.

Behind Enemy Lines (2001)

I've watched the movie Behind Enemy Lines. This movie stars Owen Wilson who normally plays in comedy movies. This is very much a serious movie. Owen plays a US fighter pilot who is bored with his job. He believes that nothing much ever happens during war. He wishes he could be involved in more action, saying that most soldiers join the army or air force so they could "punch a Nazi in the face." Owen's character gets what he wishes for when he breaks regulations and flies into a no-fly zone.

Behind Enemy Lines is a very enjoyable movie. The action scenes and special effects are quite impressive. This movie is filled with gunfire. Viewers are treated to stunts involving explosions as well as nice slow-motion effects at one point.

If I had to give a criticism of the movie it would be the fact that this film would never convince anyone that it's a true story. It's hard to believe Owen could dodge so many bullets at the end. I didn't really think I understood what it really is like to be a fighter pilot. The montages and loud music seems to give a false impression of the reality of warfare.

Behind Enemy Lines is about the Bosnian War. Before watching the movie I admit I was very ignorant about this war. After watching the movie I researched it on the Internet. I think this movie is good if it encourages other people to learn about the Bosnian War, which unfortunately involves genocide, including mass rapes of Bosniak women and girls by Serbian soldiers. Serbian soldiers even killed fellow Serbians who refused to participate in the slaughter of Bosniaks, which is similar to how Nazi soldiers treated those Germans who refused to kill Jews or tried to hide them.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

It's been a long time coming, but Indiana Jones 4, better known as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will come out very soon. As a result, the TVs have been playing the original Indiana Jones movies.

Today I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Many fans say this is the poorest of the three Indiana movies. That may be, but in my opinion Temple of Doom is a great movie.

Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana escaped from Shanghai and arrives in an Indian village where he discovers an underground cult that has stolen sacred rocks. This underground cult engages in ritual torture and child slavery. The movie is definitely violent while also being a family movie. I remember watching this movie as a child and being extremely scared with the infamous heart ripping scene.

Another problem I had with this movie is the annoying woman who is a dumb blonde stereotype.

The Most Hated Family in America

I have just watched The Most Hated Family in America on TV. It was a very interesting documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church, a group of Christians who believe that God hates homosexuals and that God hates America and wants to kill American soldiers in Iraq because America supports homosexuals. These people by far the strangest people I have ever seen, and their message is very provocative, much more so than religions like Scientology. The ADL describes Westboro Baptist Church as a racist and anti-Semite cult.

What was striking is just how nice and friendly many of the girls and children seem. At the end when the teenage girl tells us how she tries to spread the Word of God but only received hatred and abuse from others, she seemed to be sad. The guy doing the documentary, Louis Theroux, was trying to suggest to her that spreading hateful messages to others makes others hateful back to them and that it is her fault for being hateful to others. But in a way I admire these people because they truly are being true to themselves rather than just conforming to what other people expect. When Louis keeps asking the women whether they want to get married, have boyfriends, date, and so on, he is trying to persuade them to conform to the culture of mainstream society.

Jeepers Creepers II (2003)

I watched Jeepers Creepers II on TV last night. The film is about a group of students on a bus heading home from a sports game. While heading home, the tire on their bus blows up. They realize the tire didn't blow up for no reason, that someone sabotaged the bus. The monster in this movie then attacks them.

I've watched the first Jeepers Creepers. I think the sequel is better than the original. Some moments in the sequel are rather scary. The monster, a cross between Freddy Kreuger and Alien, is innovative.

Some of the characters are very annoying. Most of the students are homophobic. The girl who keeps telling everyone that the monster will eventually kill them all is annoying. The bus driver is also annoying. The reason why these two characters are annoying is because I just can't imagine anyone acting the way they acted.

One of the good points of this movie is that you don't know who the lead character is and it's difficult to predict who will die next.

To conclude, Jeepers Creepers II is a fairly good movie. It's a reasonable and clean horror movie for the whole family.

Review of The Village (2004)

This review contains spoilers. Watch the movie first before reading this.

The Village is about a group of people who isolate themselves, similar to the Amish. They have been told that there are creatures around them. Fear grips the community when dead animals are found all around them and they hear noises coming from the woods.

We later learn this is not the case at all. The monsters that surround the village are fake. Everything is an elaborate hoax perpetuated by the elders designed to keep the villagers from leaving. It is done to keep the villagers' way of life alive, to protect their culture.

I didn't watch this movie in the cinema where it was perfectly quiet or on DVD where I could read subtitles, but instead I watched it on TV, so sometimes it was difficult to hear the actors talk. In most if not all Shyamalan films, characters tend to talk very quietly, often whispering. This I don't think is a problem if there is enough silence in the room.

This is not a horror movie like House of Wax where we are served endless blood, gore, and homicides, all delivered with sudden music swells during moments of silence to shock the audience. I thought the mood was creepy and throughout the film there was a mild feeling of anxiety, but no masked killer will appear from nowhere to make you jump in your seat and there will be no over-the-top torture scenes to make you cringe like in Hostel.

One member of IMDB, bartond57, gave what I believe is a very good commentary on the film: "I felt is was a story about the power of myth, and how far people will go, even for good reasons, to perpetuate their myth. Innocence is a topic as well. How does one keep people innocent and trusting in a evil, sinful, world. And how far should someone go to 'protect' one's innocence? I grew up in a conservative religious subculture. This movie speaks to that experience. In the end, the decision by the elders was to continue their myth, regardless of the circumstances. I found this disappointing, but how true is it today with many religions? Religion can be a good thing, but it is always a struggle to know how much 'innocence' should be protected. How sheltered should we be? But even in the movie, the evil they were trying to run from (murders) took place in their own edenic setting. In other words, we can't run away from human nature. It is part of the human condition."

I feel the same way. The movie says a lot about how much of a role deception plays in keeping communities together. It reminds me of what Plato said about the Noble Lie, how the survival of a population relies on grand myths. People need to believe in ideas greater and more significant than their own individual selves or else they will descend into nihilism, which leads to chaos and a breakdown of society. These ideas are still popular in modern times with people like Strauss and even with today's politicians like Wolfowitz, who envisioned a role for America as a noble hero that fights injustice and spreads democracy on a world scale.

Review of Pretty Woman (1990)

Pretty Woman is about a street prostitute who one day meets a rich man driving in a Lotus. Originally the man plans to use the woman but as the story progresses they fall in love.

When the street prostitute goes into nice hotels, her clothes, her behavior, etc is out of place. The two cultures collide. What I found repetitive about the movie is how it goes on and on about these differences. She doesn't know how to tip, she doesn't know how to dress, and so on. I got the message early on, but the movie had to keep giving me more and more examples of how she was different.

Not only was the ending of this movie predictable but it also made me cringe because what the man did was so embarrassing.

All in all, this movie is a encyclopedia of stereotypes, a movie that glamorizes the patriarchal worldview that rich men in fast cars will make any woman's problems disappear with the signing of a marriage certificate.

Review of The Transporter (2002)

The Transporter is about a man named Frank whose job it is to transport things. He lives his life by following rules designed to get him out of trouble. It is clear early on that many of his clients are criminals. However, he is professional and does not pass moral judgment.

One day however he breaks one of his rules. He looks inside a package in the trunk of his car to find a woman named Lai. By breaking his rules, he spirals into trouble.

It's interesting to see people torn between professional conduct and moral conduct, as it is a decision we all have to make, and different people will make different decisions.

As a criticism, the movie's fight sequences seem too choreographed. Frank's fighting style is not smooth and flowing but rigid and sequential.

The damsel in distress Lai is very attractive, and sometimes I wonder whether this sends the message that only beautiful women deserve to be saved.

The movie concerns smuggling of people from Japan to Europe, presumably France. At the end we learn that the refugees seem to respond to Japanese. Since refugees tend to flee from poor and unfree countries to rich and free country, what just doesn't seem right is why Japanese people would be smuggled to Europe. Japan's per capita GDP is higher than most European countries' per capita GDP.

This movie comes from Luc Besson the maker of The Professional, one of the best movies I've seen. In fact The Professional and The Transporter are two very similar movies. While The Transporter is about a professional transporter who falls in love with a woman he is supposed to transport, The Professional is about a professional assassin who falls in love with a 12-year-old girl.

Criticism of DVD by Mail

I have subscribed to Quickflix, which is a DVD rental program in which you select the DVDs you want through the Internet and Quickflix send it to you via mail (see How it Works). When you've watch the DVD, you return it back via mail as well and then when Quickflix gets its DVDs back it sends you more from the list you made.

I have three criticisms of this. The first is that putting DVDs in the mail isn't that much of an improvement over returning DVDs to the video store. You still have to drive to the post box and that is an inconvenience. In my case, the nearest post box with a car park nearby is in a shopping center and in this shopping center there is already a video store. It therefore makes no difference whether I return a DVD at a video store or a post box because the two are right next to each other. What would be an improvement is having a delivery person personally go to your house and pick up the DVDs, which you leave outside the front door. Of course, if this were to happen then the DVDs would be more expensive to cover the wages of the delivery driver, and I doubt many customers will want to pay more. When I return or get DVDs I simply drop by the video store or post box on the way to uni or from uni to home.

The second criticism is that DVD by mail forces you to watch the movie quickly. When customers pay for gym membership they usually prefer to pay one flat fee and use the equipment as much as they choose. E.g. they're rather pay $20 per month instead of $1 per minute. The reason why this is the case is because many customers don't want to think that the clock is ticking and that they have to be conscious how much time they are taking. They just want to take their time and not worry that their lazy behavior is costing them more. The problem with DVD by mail is that when you get the DVD you have to watch it quickly and return it. If you don't watch it quickly and return it as soon as possible then since you are paying by the month (e.g. $30 a month) then you won't watch many DVDs per month which is not cost efficient in terms of trying to get the most DVDs for the amount you pay. The clock is ticking. When you go to the video store, usually you have one week to watch the movie. If you return the DVDs early you get no benefits at all, so this makes you feel relaxed because one week is usually a long time. Some movies are overnight rentals but most I get have to be returned in a week.

The third criticism I will give is just one I have recently thought of. Other providers may be different but I am talking about Quickflix in particular here. I want to say that it is expensive. Looking at its subscription plans and prices, although it is kind of cheap depending on how fast you watch the movies, it doesn't beat Network Video's $1 DVD hire on Tuesdays. However, one of the problems with Network Video's $1 DVD hire on Tuesdays is that usually when I want to watch my favorite movies I find it's all taken. At least with Quickflix I can put it on a queue and they find it for me instead of me having to find it myself.

Review of Little Children (2006)

This review contains spoilers. Watch the movie first before reading it.

After directing In The Bedroom, Todd Field now turns his attention to Little Children, a movie about adultery between housewife Sarah and law graduate Brad. Each is already married and each has a child. Sarah has a little girl and Brad has a little boy. The story not only looks at this adulterous relationship but also looks at a pedophile who has been released into the neighborhood.

Sarah, a former university student who has a masters in English literature, speaks about the book Madame Bovary with friends. She says the book is about a woman who is trapped and rebels against the establishment. I have never read Madame Bovary but I think what is happening in the film is supposed to mirror what happened in the novel. Sarah is tired of her dull life and decides to break free by having sex with another man. Her husband even cheats on her but in a much more bizarre way as you'll see if you watch the movie. While Sarah has the affair with Brad it is clear that her daughter suffers. While Brad has the affair it is clear that the suspicious wife also suffers. What this tells me is that although you can rebel against social norms, by pursuing what it is you want you can also hurt other people. At the end, both Brad and Sarah decide not to continue with the affair and the narrator says that although people make mistakes and although people have bad pasts, it's the future that matters.

Running side by side with the story of adultery is the experience of a pedophile named Ronald. The pedophile in this story is not depicted as some monster but just as an ordinary person (for most parts of the movie, at least). An ex-policeman named Larry has started a hate group that harasses Ronald. They go around spreading fliers, telling everyone that a pedophile is living among them. This creates a moral panic and as this moral panic is stirring throughout the community even Brad and Sarah conform to social norms and start fearing the evil pedophile. Larry is no saint himself. He accidentally killed a kid in a mall and, as the story progresses, he ends up killing Ronald's mother.

One of the things I noticed in the film is the hypocrisy of characters. Although Sarah is quick to judge and put down the pedophile at first because his perversion conflicts with social norms, her adultery too conflicts with social norms. This suggests that people may while conforming to social norms also rebel against it at the same time.

One of the points I made before was how Sarah and Brad had the opportunity to right the wrongs. They were convinced that an affair was right but then decided against it. At the end, Ronald castrates himself, signaling a desire to conform to social norms. Larry, who once said that perverts like Ronald should be castrated, tries to help Ronald by getting him to a hospital. So by hating pedophiles Larry at the beginning was upholding social norms and towards the end by helping the pedophile he is rebelling against it. This sequence differs from the experiences of Brad, Sarah, and Ronald who all rebel first and then end up conforming. But Larry's hatred of Larry could be interpreted as anti-social as many in the community start to tire of his extremism. He starts off as a man of hatred and turns into a man of compassion. Interpreted this way, Larry too starts off rebelling but in the end conforms.

So what I got from the movie is the following: There is a conflict between the individual will and the will of society. Due to our psychological limitations we both rebel against social norms as well as uphold it, and the cognitive dissonance that results from this paradox can lead to tragic consequences.

The movie is adapted from a book and with the translation from book to film came changes. In the book, the pedophile Ronald does not castrate himself but rather admits to the murder of a little girl. This was apparently removed from the film so the audience could have more sympathy with the character. I suspect Todd the director was trying to portray Ronald as less rebellious than he actually was and this completely goes against the spirit of Madame Bovary who believed in rallying against the establishment. The director then really gave this film a conservative makeover whereas the original novel was a lot more realist in theme.

Kate Winslet plays as Sarah in this movie. Kate has played in many lesser-known movies after the blockbuster Titanic. Many of these post-Titanic films are films I have seen recently, such as Finding Neverland (not bad) and Quills (excellent).

All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot. I've been thinking about it for a long time but haven't fully understood everything. I suspect the director may have botched the job and changed the story too much during translation from book to film. By trying to make the story appealing to a cinema audience he may have destroyed any thematic consistency. Many people I speak to say the movie is just a satire on suburbia and marriage and that's it. (The sterility of suburbia: isn't that just so clichéd now?) According to them, this movie is about the imperfections in all of us. But all this suggests that there is an objective good and bad. What if perfection is imperfect or imperfection is perfect?