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.
U -- Functional Clarity
The shadow side
Being confused and arrogant, irreconcilable, cold, clinical, rejection of everything that is soft and receptive, organizing and managing everything, the dominant woman and mother, homosexuality in reaction, having a prejudiced image of womanhood, projection of own ideas on others, "it is your fault that I am in this situation", not being able to see
The light side
Being clear and receptive, being cool and cleansing like water, cleaning out the dirt, being clean and asthetic, technological and productive, looking at oneself as as one is, meditation is cleaning the mirror
Movies with these themes
Reign Over Me
Reign Over Me is about how two old friends who fell out of touch are re-united in post-9/11 New York City.
The story begins at sunrise, a lone man named Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) rides the empty New York streets on a motorized scooter, headphones on his ears and expressionless face; weaving through light traffic and in his own little world.
Cut to Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle), a dentist with a beautiful wife (Jada Pinkett Smith), and two devoted daughters. Yet he feels inert and empty — a bystander in his own life, too often dominated by his partners, his receptionist, and his family. He is also facing sexual harassment charges filed by an obsessed patient, Donna Remar (Saffron Burrows). He inappropriately seeks advice from a therapist that works in his building, Dr. Angela Oakhurst (Liv Tyler), referring to his situation as that of a "friend's"..
The Birdcage
Val Goldman (Futterman) and Barbara Keeley (Flockhart) are engaged to be married, and have decided to have their families meet. Val's father, Armand Goldman (Williams), owns The Birdcage, a South Beach gay club. His lover is Albert (Lane), who appears regularly as "Starina," the show's star drag queen. Barbara's father, however, is ultraconservative Republican Ohio Senator Kevin Keeley (Hackman), co-founder of the right-wing "Coalition for Moral Order" and up for re-election this year.
Fearing their reaction if they learn the truth about Val's parents, Barbara tells her parents that Armand is a cultural attaché to Greece, that Albert is both a woman and a housewife, and that they divide their time between Greece and Florida; she also changes the family's last name from Goldman to Coleman to hide their Jewish background...
City of Angels
In Los Angeles, Seth (Nicolas Cage) is one of many Angels who watch over humans and protect them in unseen ways. The movie portrays angels in a somewhat traditional role without referencing a specific faith. Seth's main responsibility is to appear to those who are close to death and guide them to the next life. As part of this task, Seth and one of his fellow angels, Cassiel (Andre Braugher), like to ask people what their favorite thing in life was. But despite their daily encounters with humans and their ways, they appear to have trouble understanding human beings.
While waiting to escort to the other world a man who will not survive heart surgery, Seth is impressed by the vigorous efforts of the surgeon, Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan) to save the ill-fated man's life and her sincere anguish at her failure to do so. (The man is in fact standing with Seth watching Maggie try to save him.) Seth soon becomes fascinated with Maggie and decides to become visible to her despite his obvious inability to give her many convincing details about himself, such as what he does for a living or even his last name. Despite this, they develop a friendship which soon turns to mutual attraction, although Maggie is already involved with one of her colleagues at the hospital...
The Waterboy
Adam Sandler plays Bobby Boucher (pronounced "Boo-SHAY"), a socially inept (but also intelligent), stuttering, water boy with anger issues due to constant teasing and his mother's (Kathy Bates) excessive sheltering. He was the water boy for the fictitious University of Louisiana Cougars (a name and mascot bearing a strong resemblance to the Louisiana State University Tigers) for the past 18 years (he joined sometime around the 1980-81 season), but the players tormented him, and the team's head coach, Coach Red Beaulieu, (Jerry Reed) fired him for disrupting his team's practices. His attempt to become the new waterboy of his favorite wrestler, Captain Insano (Paul Wight, aka The Big Show), fails because he reveals that he is in fact 31 years old. As a result, Captain Insano and the TV presenter laugh and Bobby hangs up before they can answer...
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.
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