{"id":71,"date":"2015-09-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2015\/09\/12\/42movies-day-2-in-the-not-too-distant-future\/"},"modified":"2015-09-12T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T16:00:00","slug":"42movies-day-2-in-the-not-too-distant-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2015\/09\/12\/42movies-day-2-in-the-not-too-distant-future\/","title":{"rendered":"#42Movies, Day 2: In The Not Too Distant Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Out of all the science fiction movies I&#8217;ve seen, why would I choose these two?<\/p>\n<p><b>Children of Men (2006)<\/b><br \/>and<br \/><b>District 9 (2009)<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll explain after the trailers.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2VT2apoX90o?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/2VT2apoX90o\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/2VT2apoX90o<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DyLUwOcR5pk?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/DyLUwOcR5pk\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/DyLUwOcR5pk<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hotsheet.snout.org\/2015\/09\/42movies-day-1-star-power.html\">Yesterday<\/a> I talked about one of the reasons I love <i>Star Trek<\/i> more than <i>Star Wars<\/i>: because genre-wise, I&#8217;ve always been more drawn to science fiction than fantasy. I prefer imagining a somewhat-possible future to a totally-impossible secondary world.<\/p>\n<p>But why feature these two very recent, rather dystopian, and stylistically similar films? How could they possibly have influenced me much in just the last few years? Wasn&#8217;t I already &#8220;fully baked&#8221; as a human being by the time I saw these movies?<\/p>\n<p>Well, yes and no. I do believe that much of our personalities are shaped at an early age, which is why I avoid debating adults about anything substantial&mdash;I&#8217;m pretty sure I&#8217;m not going to change anybody&#8217;s mind about politics simply by talking at them. And though I believe I&#8217;m fairly open-minded, there are certain positions that I&#8217;m not likely to budge on, either. (For the record: Household pets are <i>people<\/i>. Corporations are <i>not<\/i>.)<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;m still learning new things, all the time, and I want to continue. The day I stop learning is the day I die. And those accumulated bits of learning can change my perspective gradually, like a pile of pennies overflowing a piggy bank.<\/p>\n<p><i>Children of Men<\/i> and <i>District 9<\/i> both focus on disadvantaged and oppressed populations, with glimpses of the ruling class, but the heart of each story is the powerless struggling against the powerful. I&#8217;ll be honest: I was pretty sheltered growing up, and I think that was by design; my parents wanted their children to grow up safe in the suburbs, with every possible advantage in life. I love them for wanting the best for my sister and me, but the consequence of growing up in our particular upper-middle-class Southern California society was not really understanding some of the worst things in life.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously watching a couple of movies didn&#8217;t change my worldview overnight. These two films are simply emblematic of something I&#8217;ve come to understand in recent years: that charity is not necessarily sympathy, and though it may be feel difficult to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/12\/05\/franchesca-ramsey-video-ally_n_6275680.html\">be an ally<\/a>, it&#8217;s more difficult to live with yourself knowing that you didn&#8217;t <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/muc7xqdHudI\">do the right thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/HotSheet\/CKL.jpg\" alt=\"Curtis\" title=\"Curtis\" border=\"0\" height=\"32\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Out of all the science fiction movies I&#8217;ve seen, why would I choose these two? Children of Men (2006)andDistrict 9 (2009) I&#8217;ll explain after the trailers. https:\/\/youtu.be\/2VT2apoX90o https:\/\/youtu.be\/DyLUwOcR5pk Yesterday I talked about one of the reasons I love Star Trek&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[46,13,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-42movies21days","category-movies","category-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}