Watching Movies of Life - the Movie Meditation
These descriptions of certain emotional states of mind are intended to encourage us to watch specific aspects of our life as if they were a movie. A five star movie in this list is not rated necessarily as a highly entertaining, mainstream movie. Instead, a good movie suggested here may more accurately reflect the drama of life in all its facets -- the shadow of an emotion as well as its positive side. Find out what moves you and learn to simply let it be. Meditation is watching, unidentified and non-judging.
T -- The Conscious Savior
The shadow side
Being cowardly, sleepy and sly, being a peeping tom, watching secretly from the back, not being able to sleep, living like a zombie, looking for adrenalin shocks to wake up, looking for turn-ons to relax, enjoying sexual turn-ons, having stage fright, looking for extreme situations, the good against the bad
The light side
Being totally awake and alert, having an extraordinary awareness, being brave and courageous in danger, being capable of dealing with emergency situations, saving others, to do all one can do to help, responding with awareness, being conscious.
Movies with these themes
The Good Girl
The film starts with narration about the life of Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston), a sad and lonely 30-year-old woman living in a dusty Texas town in the middle of nowhere. She works at the local Retail Rodeo (a seedy version of Wal-Mart), with Cheryl (Zooey Deschanel), a cynical young girl who inserts subliminal profanities in announcements to the sleepwalking customers; Gwen (Deborah Rush), the overly peppy, older woman who works with Justine in the cosmetics department; and Corny (Mike White), the Bible-obsessed security guard.
Justine's home life is no better. She returns home every night to her dim-witted husband Phil (John C. Reilly), a house painter who spends more time getting high and drunk on the couch with his best friend Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson) than doing any work. Justine's life is mundane, and while she plans with Phil to have a baby to improve things, she feels trapped, and there seems to be no sign of escape...
Fight Club
The narrator (Edward Norton) is an automobile company employee who travels to accident sites to perform product recall cost appraisals. His doctor refuses to write a prescription for his insomnia and instead suggests that he visit a support group for testicular cancer victims in order to appreciate real suffering. By attending the group, the narrator feels distraught at the condition of these ill fated people and breaks down. He is then able to sleep soundly and subsequently fakes more illnesses so he can attend other support groups in order to get out his pent up emotions through crying. The narrator's routine is disrupted when he begins to notice another impostor, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), at the same meetings and his insomnia returns.
During a flight for a business trip, the narrator meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who makes and sells soap. The narrator arrives home to find his apartment has been destroyed by an explosion. He calls Tyler and meets him at a bar. Tyler agrees to let the narrator stay at his home on the condition that the narrator hits him. The narrator complies and the two end up enjoying a fist fight outside the bar. The narrator moves into Tyler's dilapidated house and the two return to the bar, where they have another fight in the parking lot. After attracting a crowd, they establish a 'fight club' in the bar's basement...
Coyote Ugly
Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo), leaves her hometown and her father Bill Sanford (John Goodman) to pursue her dreams in New York City. When leaving town to become a songwriter, she signs an autograph, which is pinned on the wall of the pizza place where she worked. The wall has many other autographs signed by the rest of the small town employees that left town hoping to make it big.
Violet tries unsuccessfully, dozens of times, to get her demo tape noticed by the studios. With only a few dollars left in her pocket, she goes to an all-night diner and notices some girls flaunting the hundreds of dollars in tips they earned. After inquiring, she finds out that they work at a trendy bar named Coyote Ugly. She finds her way to the bar and convinces the barowner Lil (Maria Bello) to hire her because she looks like a kindergarten teacher who the childish bar patrons will come to see. After starting her job, she quickly discovers she must learn the ropes of singing, dancing, and performing wild acts before a rowdy crowd...
Studio 54
The film centers around Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe), a young man from Jersey City, New Jersey who is handsome enough to become a bartender at Studio 54. While working at the club, Shane befriends Anita Randazzo (Salma Hayek), an aspiring singer, and her husband Greg (Breckin Meyer). As Shane gets sucked into the hard-partying scene at Studio 54, and as his life spirals downward, so does Studio 54. The DVD release features some additional and alternate scenes that were not included in the theatrical release. The director's cut runs one hour and 45 minutes, 45 minutes of which are not in the studio's DVD release.
Angel Eyes
The film opens on an accident scene on a wet rainy night in Chicago. Sharon Pogue (Jennifer Lopez) is a police officer at the scene and she is holding the hand of one of the victims and pleading that he hold on, not to give up and help is on the way.
Flash forward a year into Sharon's life. She seems very bitter and angry. We learn that she is estranged from her family for having her father Carl (Victor Argo) arrested for beating her mother Josephine (Sonia Braga). Her father and brother, Larry Sr. (Jeremy Sisto) have found it hard to forgive her, making it hard for her, since her family was/is somewhat close knit.
Meanwhile, a man named Catch (Jim Caviezel) wanders the streets of Chicago in a Zombie-like trance, doing good deeds, trying to help anybody he meets. He turns car lights off, he tells a young woman in his apartment building that she left her keys in the door...
Remark
Although the movie list is inspired by Tibetan Pulsing typologies on the human mind, it does not claim to be completely accurate in its assessment.
Latest
Read about the transforming power of man's sexuality when experienced with an attitude of surrender...
Breathe in, breathe out, but let it be love coming in, going out...