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Don't You Just Love It!

I watched a documentary on how Paul Dirac proved how something comes from nothing and then how the Big Bang's ultimate creation of difference is all due to the vacuum fluctuations affecting the initial explosion. Then I happened to be reading about the Lamed Wufniks, the 36 Righteous people of Jewish mythology, whose existence proves to God that Humanity is worth keeping. If they learn of their own purpose, they'll immediately die and someone else will take their place; but that's unlikely because they're too humble to ever believe they could be one of the Righteous in the first place. At the end of the day, which is crazier! Science and religion. Wonderful stuff!

Intimations of Mortality

I was nearing the end of Jonathan Carroll's 'Outside the Dog Museum', all the while listening to music, when something written triggered off an overwhelming recognition of death. Whether it was thoughts of Japan, worries about my parents, or friends, all coming together, the starkness shocked me. I have managed feelings of my own mortality in the past, but its sheer certainty, its total antithesis to my now, flooded me. I had a brief moment of panic. The corners of the room looked precious to me. Then I remembered that long expanse of time before there was a me and that longer expanse after. So I'd be shut off. So what! Was it the pain I 'might' feel at death? I've felt pain before. Death get your fucking barb out of me this minute, you stinking fucker. No, there's nothing to worry about really, though a wave of sorry nostalgia succeeded that initial wave as I thought again of my parents, my healthy brothers, grand kids. And then the adagio from Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto started. (I live in a time when I can hear this.) Without a word of a lie, I smiled.

The Adjustment Bureau

What would you do if you got to peek behind 'reality' and see what's really going on? And what if the plan for the universe didn't quite harmonise with your own? Matt Damon's David Norris must deal with these very questions in 'The Adjustment Bureau', George Nolfi's directorial debut.
Philip K. Dick's original story, 'Adjustment Team', is no masterpiece. As a fan of his work, even I have to admit it's a pretty weak story. It is also one based on a stolen premise. The original, and far, far superior story on which Dick bases his tale, is 'Yesterday Was Monday' by the vastly underrated Theodore Sturgeon. So I have no qualms with Nolfi (scriptwriter of 'The Bourne Supremacy' and 'Ocean's Twelve') taking large liberties with Dick's story. And he does, to largely beneficial effect. To the timeworn theme of free will and determinism, he brings a refreshing sense of importance; it is practically the whole point of the film. (Nolfi is a former student of philosophy, throwing up his PhD to tackle Hollywood.) He also fashions what has to be the most romantic movie of the year.
Matt Damon, giving a winning performance, has the world at his feet. Although he loses his initial attempt at election to the senate, it is clear success is just around the corner. And then he accidentally meets the woman of his dreams, Elise (Emily Blunt in another winning role). The fact that the whole universe is against this relationship doesn't stop him jeopardising his career, his sanity, even his life to pursue a woman he barely knows. If this seems a little crazy, it is, and if the story seems absurd, it is very, very absurd. But in the face of such old-fashioned and well-realised romance, who cares?
'The Adjustment Bureau' is being marketed as some sort of sci-fi Bourne movie. It is not. Firstly it is more theology (albeit cod theology) than science fiction, and secondly, despite Damon's presence, it is a much more meditative than the Bourne blockbusters. This is a fantasy love story, in the tradition of 'Somewhere in Time' or 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. Absurd or not, how can you resist?
I couldn't.