Ah, a pretty good film about how a man topples an evil corporation that did its best to obscure, mask, and road block its opponents into a stalemate and eventually achieving its aims: paying little to the plaintiffs while continuing to market their obviously harmful product, because the amount of money coming into the CEOs overrules the money that would go into fixing said product into something safer. But, still, first and foremost this film is not about some...not really lawyer person doing the morally good thing and bringing down the company for the good of the planet.
He managed to turn his conversation with Karen Crowder at the end into a confession of nearly killing him and definitely killing his charge Arthur. It's all about revenge. George Clooney had no other motivation to bring down this company other than the fact that he suspected someone had killed Arthur. It only turned really, truly personal when they stupidly tried to kill him. Of course the evil henchmen screwed up. They always do!
Since I'm a media student, I'll go ahead and just focus on the technical aspects of the film, namely the story. Touched on above, I can't tell if the film would have been better if it was started right at the beginning of the trouble or if it hadn't shown us the future and double-backed. I mean, it does say "4 days earlier" not long after the car bomb and cars don't usually explode. Obviously, someone was trying to kill him. We don't even have to get halfway through the film before we can recognize the enemy as the evil company. Obviously the evil company attempted to kill him so that they could more effectively clean up the mess their rogue lawyer made.
I guess you could argue that it made for an enticing beginning, to draw the audience in and make them want to stay, but it's a film about lawyers! Everyone hates lawyers! It will eventually get pretty boring and...it was. It was a little boring. And a little annoying. I kinda wish the little boy hadn't factored in at all and I'm not sure what his purpose was anyway. Was the boy's fantasy book (geez, was it Realm & Conquerors?) really that important to the story? I was under the impression that Arthur, as crazy as he was, always had a tangible idea of what was going on with that company and he proved his genius, if not his recklessness, during that scene where he calls - I'm not even sure who. He called someone merely for the soul purpose of heckling the people obviously listening in on his phone calls - and shouted about the kind of choice language that people within the company should write to avoid incrimination in lawsuits, particularly this one.
Smart, crazy man.
But, it's pretty obvious by this time that since the company listened in on this particular conversation, that this lawyer is in fact doing his best to win the lawsuit for their clients. Well, that would ruin their reputation and they would lose too much money, so they decide to go ahead and kill the annoying flies that pester them.
So, you go to all that trouble to make sure Arthur dies in a suicide, and yet you sloppily attempt to kill George Clooney with a car bomb? Not only did it fail but, as I said above, cars just don't blow up! It would be rather obvious that someone rigged it to blow and since Clooney just cleared himself of his debtors...who else would want to kill him? Man, this company is not very subtle.
At any rate, it is still a decent movie. Not especially thought-provoking since the basic premise of man overcoming evil business has been done before. I kinda wish they had gone more into the nature aspect of the movie, where a business obviously ignored laws and inflicted harm not only on the environment but on human life. But the whole violation of nature and its destruction was more of an irrelevant detail than anything significant and the movie was focused far more on how evil businesses will do personal harm in their eagerness to escape prosecution and lawsuits.
Even so, I still prefer V for Vendetta. Bundles a nice package of food for thought with incredible imagery and plenty of action.
GoldBug
Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Cronon and Thoreau
Admittedly, at the time that I am writing this first paragraph, I am less than halfway through the reading on page 8, but in the danger of losing some of my early thoughts, I figured I would write as I read.
I do not understand the point Cronon is trying to get at. All right so, as I stated previously, I am less than halfway through the text but even so, I should already have a sense of what point he's trying to make and it's lost on me. So far, what he's saying is that the Wilderness did not used to be a tourist destination so...we should stop treating it like one? He hasn't really said just what exactly we should change about our approach to nature, only that it was usually used as a place of both spiritual conflict and renewal.
I don't even think the Wordsworth poem and the Thoreau passage he cited can possibly contribute to his argument because those are mountains. Yes, that is the Wilderness, but how many tourists actually make a habit of traversing mountains like Thoreau and Walden have? Not many. Most people, like John Muir - whom he is now citing - go to the forest and that is where most tourists find the awe and beauty. They can very likely see mountains or rocky hills in the distance but they are a healthy distance. Unless roads actually lead to the top, few people actually care to go beyond the forest.
(On Page 11). If Cronon wants pristine, truly untouched "Wilderness" he needs to watch Planet Earth, caves addition and see the segment on Leiturgia. Granted he could argue that it cannot be pristine since humans have wandered there, but after the BBC went down there to film their segment the cave was closed off to anymore human visitors. And the cave was only discovered in, I believe, 1988. So, it was open to likely the most seasoned cave explorers for 17 years before being closed off. I'm not sure you could get more pristine than that.
I have a feeling that if Thoreau could read Cronon today, his response - while not biting - would very likely seek to change just why people are attracted to "Wilderness." There is no denying that people are attracted to the Wilderness for escapism and possibly as an erasure to the past, but human civilization has always been volatile and viscous. There is, without a doubt, other reasons people seek the tranquility of the Wilderness.
Thoreau, based on his writings, sought out the Wilderness to, to a degree, be closer to God. He did in fact feel a spirituality in the land that he could not find in a church, considering his obvious disdain for organized religion. He also made a point of showing the simplicity of his life from living in the Wilderness, something that Cronon argues is part of this romantic view of Wilderness. BUT the systematic erasure of the past of the Indians is something I sincerely doubt most people thought of when taking a walk through the woods. Or at least that they fully supported and wanted the systematic erasure of the American past.
This is where I believe Cronon and Thoreau would in fact diverge on their ideas of Wilderness. Thoreau's time was much different to the comparatively modern Cronon and many people in the 1800s still had to work the land for their food. Maybe not everybody, but that is as a result of capitalism - specialization. Thoreau did try to live the land, by building his own house and trying to live in isolation. (Too bad he was just 2 miles out of town, or he would have a stronger case.)
Suffice it to say, there are people who have attempted to live out in the wilderness, hunting and making their own food even in this technologically advanced, modern world. But then...why criticize people for wishing to preserve nature simply because they have never had to work it? Is not retaining the Earth, whether we consider it pristine or not, enough to want to protect it to the best of our abilities?
Ah, I see, you're arguing that people need to let go of their foolhardy romantic notions so as to better preserve nature. Or so that it can be better preserved. Thoreau might argue that, in comparison to how people felt about the "Wilderness" back then, even today's romanticism is preferable than the uncaring desolation and consumption of the Earth's resources that pervaded society back then and certainly still to this day. Because, despite all that silly romanticism, the vast majority of Western Civilization still lives in suburbia and the cities.
Now the article has tailed off to bemoan the radical aspects of Environmentalism where people hold this fatalistic view that all humans should die in order to do the Earth no further harm. As much as a hindrance to environmentalism as the Tea Party is to politics right now, the moderates still make up the majority of the people and they will speak up before anything truly insane, like serving a poisonous Kool-Aid, will happen.
So, instead of being of the Earth-First crowd, Cronon is arguing more for the People-First crowd. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but the two should go hand in hand because without the environment, we cannot live. The only problem with both of these views is that human kind is so vast and, as aforementioned, volatile and viscous that we will never collaborate as a whole to save both people and the Earth. It will forever be touch and go. Certain people will be saved, but that anticipates the suffering of certain other people. Just as some areas of the world will be saved, while other areas are consumed in the name of progress and industrialization.
All in all, Cronon seems to be arguing against human nature. Which human nature is, in and of itself, hypocritical.
I do not understand the point Cronon is trying to get at. All right so, as I stated previously, I am less than halfway through the text but even so, I should already have a sense of what point he's trying to make and it's lost on me. So far, what he's saying is that the Wilderness did not used to be a tourist destination so...we should stop treating it like one? He hasn't really said just what exactly we should change about our approach to nature, only that it was usually used as a place of both spiritual conflict and renewal.
I don't even think the Wordsworth poem and the Thoreau passage he cited can possibly contribute to his argument because those are mountains. Yes, that is the Wilderness, but how many tourists actually make a habit of traversing mountains like Thoreau and Walden have? Not many. Most people, like John Muir - whom he is now citing - go to the forest and that is where most tourists find the awe and beauty. They can very likely see mountains or rocky hills in the distance but they are a healthy distance. Unless roads actually lead to the top, few people actually care to go beyond the forest.
(On Page 11). If Cronon wants pristine, truly untouched "Wilderness" he needs to watch Planet Earth, caves addition and see the segment on Leiturgia. Granted he could argue that it cannot be pristine since humans have wandered there, but after the BBC went down there to film their segment the cave was closed off to anymore human visitors. And the cave was only discovered in, I believe, 1988. So, it was open to likely the most seasoned cave explorers for 17 years before being closed off. I'm not sure you could get more pristine than that.
I have a feeling that if Thoreau could read Cronon today, his response - while not biting - would very likely seek to change just why people are attracted to "Wilderness." There is no denying that people are attracted to the Wilderness for escapism and possibly as an erasure to the past, but human civilization has always been volatile and viscous. There is, without a doubt, other reasons people seek the tranquility of the Wilderness.
Thoreau, based on his writings, sought out the Wilderness to, to a degree, be closer to God. He did in fact feel a spirituality in the land that he could not find in a church, considering his obvious disdain for organized religion. He also made a point of showing the simplicity of his life from living in the Wilderness, something that Cronon argues is part of this romantic view of Wilderness. BUT the systematic erasure of the past of the Indians is something I sincerely doubt most people thought of when taking a walk through the woods. Or at least that they fully supported and wanted the systematic erasure of the American past.
This is where I believe Cronon and Thoreau would in fact diverge on their ideas of Wilderness. Thoreau's time was much different to the comparatively modern Cronon and many people in the 1800s still had to work the land for their food. Maybe not everybody, but that is as a result of capitalism - specialization. Thoreau did try to live the land, by building his own house and trying to live in isolation. (Too bad he was just 2 miles out of town, or he would have a stronger case.)
Suffice it to say, there are people who have attempted to live out in the wilderness, hunting and making their own food even in this technologically advanced, modern world. But then...why criticize people for wishing to preserve nature simply because they have never had to work it? Is not retaining the Earth, whether we consider it pristine or not, enough to want to protect it to the best of our abilities?
Ah, I see, you're arguing that people need to let go of their foolhardy romantic notions so as to better preserve nature. Or so that it can be better preserved. Thoreau might argue that, in comparison to how people felt about the "Wilderness" back then, even today's romanticism is preferable than the uncaring desolation and consumption of the Earth's resources that pervaded society back then and certainly still to this day. Because, despite all that silly romanticism, the vast majority of Western Civilization still lives in suburbia and the cities.
Now the article has tailed off to bemoan the radical aspects of Environmentalism where people hold this fatalistic view that all humans should die in order to do the Earth no further harm. As much as a hindrance to environmentalism as the Tea Party is to politics right now, the moderates still make up the majority of the people and they will speak up before anything truly insane, like serving a poisonous Kool-Aid, will happen.
So, instead of being of the Earth-First crowd, Cronon is arguing more for the People-First crowd. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but the two should go hand in hand because without the environment, we cannot live. The only problem with both of these views is that human kind is so vast and, as aforementioned, volatile and viscous that we will never collaborate as a whole to save both people and the Earth. It will forever be touch and go. Certain people will be saved, but that anticipates the suffering of certain other people. Just as some areas of the world will be saved, while other areas are consumed in the name of progress and industrialization.
All in all, Cronon seems to be arguing against human nature. Which human nature is, in and of itself, hypocritical.
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