We watched What the [bleep] Do We Know? the other night.

How can I say this...

What the bleep?

I knew nothing about this movie going in other than vaguely thinking that a handful of acquaintances have recommend that I see it, though I don't recall who. Once watching it, the whole Marley Matlin thing was familiar to me (not that I'd seen it, but I suddenly recalled people discussing the weird Marley Matlin scenes). But I had no idea what the content of this movie was.

Now I know. Drivel. Complete drivel. Pseudoscience, misinformation, poor analogies, misrepresentation of actual science, unsubstantiated conjecture presented as fact, and a completely incoherent message. Somewhere in there were some mildly interesting philosophical questions, but they were completely subjugated by the overall hokum and cult/infomercial-like qualities.

I'd love to pick the film apart point by point, but I don't want to devote that much thought to it. I tried to pick one portion as an example, but it just lead me on a diatribe on the mess as a whole, so forget it. I'll just say this: If I were to buy in to the concept that we can unlock the power to consciously manipulate our existence and really see all quantum possibilities at once, would controlling my emotions so I could get a date really be my top priority? That's what got me the most, and made it feel SO cult/infomercial-like to me. They go off on the grandiose ideas, but in the end it's selling a self-help book.

I give it .5 Girthies out of 10. It only gets the .5 because the crazy Zsa-Zsa Gabor lady in the Sgt. Pepper's jacket made me laugh.

What the Bleep was brought to you by the Ramtha people. That's enough for me.

Meanwhile, last night I watched the 1936 Fritz Lang flick Fury, starring Spencer Tracy. I loved the movie, but I had one very weird moment watching it. The plot revolves around the lynching of a man who is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. In an early scene in the movie, one of the sheriff's deputies is hanging out at the town barber shop, talking about the arrest. One of the barbers (who will later become a part of the lynch mob) is talking about how he immigrated to America. Though I couldn't place the face, the voice was unmistakable. It was very odd to think of Gepetto as a member of a lynch mob...

OMG, they made a sequel to What the bleep. Yikes.

Actually, I recall reading (it may have beenan interview with one of the nine old men) that Christian Rub (voice of Gepetto) was actually a pretty unpleasant guy who thought the world of Adolf and was not at all the cuddly toymaker he played. I can't even begin to tell you where I read this, or how distorted my memory of it is, but there you are.

It will come as no surprise. I assume, that I loved What the Bleep.

We've discussed it here previously I believe. Needless to say, I wasn't one of the people who may have recommended it to you.

On the flight home the woman next to me was reading The Secret and keeping a journal as she read. Glimpses of what she was writing left me distraught for the human race. I so wanted to lean over to her and say to her that she was obviously doing it wrong since she almost certainly didn't mean to attract a coach seat on a completely full flight with a fat man in the seat next her and a crying baby three rows back.

I've skimmed some comments about What the Bleep on imdb. The people who either gloss over, or simply don't grasp, the glaring fallacies of the "physics" presented by the movie are one thing. But this comment...just...what movie did this person see?

I'll be manipulating quantum potentials with my conscious mind before you ever convince me that there was anything close to resembling good acting and "consistently vibrant and humorous" editing...unless by "humorous" he means laughingly bad. I've seen corporate ethics training videos with better production value than the Marley Matlin story line.

Maybe he was thinking of the Polish wedding scene from The Deer Hunter?

*snicker* Excerpt from JZ Knight's (crazy Zsa-Zsa Gabor lady who claims to channel the spirit of Ramtha) wikipedia entry.

Why is it that supernatural beings have such a fascination with people living in trailer parks?

Because they are the ones who can most benefit from the financial rewards such visitation includes.

I forget her name but when I was about 13 a protege of JZ Knight took up residence across the street from us. They had a giant teepee in their backyard and hosted many (reportedly expensive) retreats back there. Lots of cymbals and humming so the neighborhood started calling them the "humdingers."

Crazy, crazy people but they have been good for that neighborhood in some ways. They buy up neighboring properties as they become available and are good about maintenance. The neighborhood suspects that they were the ones who burned down the drug dealers on the corner. When I was up there I saw that they were running a kettle corn concession at the 4th of July festivities called Humdinger Kettle Korn so they have a sense of humor about the name. Of course, I can't help but think about the Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh and what his group eventually did to Antelope, Oregon.