If I ruled the world I would enforce a “Gorilla Wednesday” law whereby everybody would have to go to/from their place of work wearing a gorilla suit on Wednesdays.
Just think how much better off the world would be if everyone had to wear a gorilla suit on Wednesdays
-and at no extra cost!!!
I’ve talked of Happiness here and here. One of the reasons is because I’ve been writing some lyrics for songs with my friend John Poland and we recently entered a song -called SIMPLY HAPPY- for Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest.
You might recall I previously mentioned our adventures in making the video, well now you can experience some of the mayhem of that day for yourself. Spare a thought for poor Mrs. Rumm operating the bubble machine with her sore back (slowly getting better thanksforasking) in the midst of all this chaos.
We hope you enjoy and experience a little bit of happiness for these three minutes.
SIMPLY HAPPY by John Poland & Stanley Rumm
NOTE: You need to click the ‘UP ARROW’ type thingy on the bottom right of the video and select “HQ” to view it in high quality. The standard view is unwatchable.
Feel free to comment here, but it would be appreciated if you could click the video and rate & respond in youtube itself.
Happiness is a hard-sell because Happiness is a self-generated emotion.
It can’t be forced onto another person the way more negative traits like Fear, Sadness, Greed, Regret, Inadequacy, etc. can.
Everybody has their own ideas of Happiness -a roomful of books, lots of money, a large family, quiet time with nobody around, God, oblivion, job security, Summer holidays, etc.
But you only have to mention DEATH and your entire audience is united in Fear. Stick a few murders on the pot and you have a guaranteed audience of headlighted-rabbits.
Death, like Sex, is an easy sell. Too easy in my view.
I think Happiness is mis-sold, overvalued and under-appreciated. I mean the emotion/ state-of-mind rather than the (excellent, though difficult-at-first) film by Todd Solodnz.
Happiness is difficult to do right -and almost impossible to maintain for very long. All’s it takes to rain on a day-long flotation of upbeat positivity is often a dismissive sigh, a shake of the head or an eyes-a-sky selfish shrug from a “friend” for it all to come crashing down.
I’ll give you an example of the birth and death of Happiness…
What’s that you say? You’ve been looking for a film site that actually discusses plots and characters and motives and reasons behind certain events and behind-the-scenes type stuff and debates opinions on movies in a mature & lighthearted way, without invoking Godard and Bunuel and DW Griffith, etc. too often (if at all)?
Well then I’m sure you’ve already come across TheFilmTalk.com, but if not here it is with my blessing and recommendation.
Podcasts ahoy. Jett Loe and Gareth Higgins are very listen-to-able. They don’t always get it right in my opinion (for instance they both seem to like Slumdog Millionaire, although I’m fairly sure at least one of them will come to his senses after the dizzying effects of the whilwind editing wears off), but in their favour they both know Ron Howard makes bland crowd-pleasing, childish movies at best -and is best ignored if at all possible.
Stanley Kubrick once said
“The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it’s simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.”
The saddest moment in Schindler’s List (for me) is when people are being herded onto a train and told to leave their luggage -It’ll be sent on later. Then we see the luggage in a big heap being rifled-through/ burnt. That scene had me in tears -or as good as.
So is this the mark of a masterpiece? Something that can make a grown man cry? Onions do that to me all the time, but I still don’t stop chopping them to pieces and nobody thinks any less of me for doing so.
For me, Schindler’s List is like Barney.
Ok, I admit it -I read the book and this film has little resemblence to it, but I’m really not one of those people who go around complaining that the movie is not as good as the book. I knew going in that it was different to “Q and A“. That didn’t bother me. I was looking forward to seeing the story being fixed in fact. The book had its faults, but really the only problems were to do with the “last act”. Besides the ending, the book was great. If they had filmed the book and fixed the ending it would have been a slower film, but it would have had class and it would have been brilliant. They could have introduced some alternative plotlines to speed it up somewhat, which wouldn’t have changed the tone, if they really felt they needed to. They didn’t.
Fluffy clouds and fuzzy bunnies joined me in song and merriment as I led the parade through thronged ticker-taped streets, when all at once I was violently awakened by little satnav shouting “Daddy wake up! Today is the day you’re getting your tooth out!”
I had forgotten about it. Young Lucy’s feminine senses in date-management have thankfully (or not as the case may be) kicked into full swing. Last Wednesday she told me “this time next week you’ll be having your tooth out.” I had forgotten then too.
There are a few untouchable givens in the world of film
1. Schindler’s List is a masterpiece (which I disagree with too, but that’s not the point I’m coming to so let’s not go there just now).
2. You can’t criticise dire movies by the likes of Michael (“Armageddon”) Bay and Roland (“Independence Day” -which was actually quite good for the first hour or so) Emmerich because you are told “it’s just a piece of bubblegum -not meant to be taken seriously -leave the brain at the door”. My point on that is, how can anyone say whether they’re any good if their brains had been checked-in at the desk like shoes at a bowling alley?
3. Ridley Scott is a great director.
It’s number three I’d like to address here.
I was listening to some music the other day when my daughter, Lucy, came in. “Who’s that?” she enquired. I told her it was Neil Young.
“Neil Young?” she asked dramatically with mock surprise, “I thought it was Neil Old.”