Tag Archives: Movie

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff is a fascinating twenty minute documentary, written by environmentalist Anni Leonard and produced by Free Range Studios.

Annie starts off by throwing away her iPod in a trash can (really!) and asking if we have ever wondered where all the stuff we buy comes from and where it goes when we throw it out. Then, using a funny stand up script backed up by simple animation, she explains why the text book version that our stuff simply moves from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal doesn’t work: it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.

The 20 minute documentary is divided into seven sections or chapters, and you can watch it on the website or on YouTube (Introduction, Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, Disposal and Another Way). You can also download the movie, download an annotated script, and learn how to host a screening of the movie at your house party.

The chapter I was most interested in was, of course, the one on consumption –

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The Relentless Pursuit of Joy ‘Into the Wild’

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Into the Wild

Sean Penn’s ‘Into the Wild’ is a brilliant movie adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling book about the real-life (mis)adventures of Christopher McCandless.

I had been dying to watch ‘Into the Wild’ ever since I read about it in the April 2008 issue of David Report. So, I was delighted when GK brought over the DVD for our Saturday Night Movie Marathon session. It is such sweet serendipity that reaffirms my faith that the universe reaches out to give you whatever you ask for.

The movie itself is mind-blowing, especially in the context of my own experiment, and I went through an entire spectrum of emotions over its two and a half hour run.

Emile Hirsch is superb as Christopher, the idealistic, but troubled, twenty-something protagonist who, inspired by Tolstoy and Thoreau, decides to abandon his career and his family, give away his $24000 savings to charity and hitchhike to Alaska to live in the wilderness.

Christopher deals in extremes and evokes extreme reactions. It’s easier, therefore, to idolize him as enlightened or reject him as naive than to identify with him.

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Weekend #4: Three Movies and a Book

Monday, April 21st, 2008

The Saturday Night Movie Marathon turned out to be exactly what I needed after working all day on another big presentation.

To begin with, fewer people turned up — and, while twenty is perhaps the right number for a party — five works better for a movie marathon.

Then, GK turned up with a few DVDs of his own and we decided to leave aside my lineup of classic World War 2 movies and watch ‘Into the Wild’ instead.

I have been dying to watch ‘Into the Wild’ ever since I read about it in the April 2008 issue of David Report. So, as we settled down on my futon with two bottles of wine, a bottle of Johny Walker Black Label scotch, and miscellaneous munchies left over from my last big party, I was already high on the sweet serendipity of being able to watch it so soon after reading about it.

It’s a mind-blowing movie, especially in the context of my experiment, but the spectrum of emotions it triggered off in the next two and a half hours deserves another post.

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