Book Review - Positive Humanism

Bo Bennett's Positive Humanism

I just finished reading Bo Bennett's new book - Positive Humanism: A Primer .  I enjoyed it. It's a short read - just 32 pages in pdf form and consists of several short essays - that take us through the basics of Positive Humanism.

This is an academically oriented book. It is meant to be a sequel to Gerard Larue's The Way of Positive Humanism . What is Positive Humanism?  Is the focus of Humanism on all that is positive - how to live life better and be a better person and flourish - and a downplaying of the - what we are against approach that a lot of the modern Humanist movement seems to find itself stuck in.

Now, for a Humanist, like me, some of this was a bit redundant, known and obvious. I wouldn't necessarily call his version of Humanism, Positive Humanism as something separate from what I know Humanism to be - but at the same time, I understand why it might be necessary given the current movement's penchant to focus on - rights of non-belief - as if that is the sum total of what we Humanists are concerned about.

Back to the book, For someone new to the concept of Humanism, or who is coming out of the self-help and success guru world, or who - like the author, spent time as an angry atheist and is trying to rid themselves of their "anger" – this is a really good book and a really needed book.

I kind of wish I had read his bio (which is at the back) first as it would have made the rest of the book – and how he approached the subject make more sense. But again, that may be because I'm well versed in the subject and so understanding WHY Bo wrote this book and his background would have helped me appreciate his approach better.  His background by the way is self help guru turned self help skeptic turned angry atheist, turned social psychologist PhD, turned advocate for Positive Humanism, as a way to combat the many "success" myths that permeate the self help word..

As for the specific content. I liked how he laid out the scientific case for rationalism and morality without religion.  I also liked how he dealt with the problem of free will. This may seem esoteric - but it does matter to the practice of Humanism because if we don't have free will (and the scientific jury is still out on that), then how can we choose to be good.  His answer is - it doesn't matter if we have free will or not. I love that. That's kind of how I approach it to.

 However, his conclusion on the topic of free will left me feeling a little icky.  His conclusion is about how we are part of the causal chain for others.  We can change others.  This bothered me a bit because my own Humanist practice is so inward looking. Yeah – I’m dedicated to making the world a better place. But intentionally trying to change someone – that makes me uncomfortable. It seems disrespectful. I think of Humanism as a personal practice. That is what works for me. I share it because I think others could be helped by it as well. But they are free to chose a different path. Intentionally trying to change other people who don’t want to be changed bothers me. I got what he was saying. It's a way to deal with the free will problem and not devolve into victim blaming by taking an optimistic and positive and compassionate approach to people who believe and behave differently – but it still smacked of privilege and ego.

All in all - it's a good addition to the written world of Humanism. Now – if I can just talk him into turning his Many Myths of Success presentation into an online course for Humanist Learning System.

Best Bollywood Moments

Hindi movies have their own language and way of telling a story and there are some necessary elements of every movie - like the - I just realized I was in love fantasy dance sequence.  Here is a list of my favorite moments so far.

• Best product placement:  You may be wondering why this is first. Well, all these movies have paid product placement.  Some of it is really over the top and I've come to love the over the top obviousness  and silliness of the placements. These must be done intentionally to lighten the mood, so, here are two movies that do it particularly well. 
• Chennai Express: where an expensive Nokia Lumina phone is actively and openly discussed as part of the dialogue so that we are given the price, where you can buy it and what sorts of features it has. It is also thrown from a moving train where it lands face up so you can see - it's still working and not broken! And yeah - that's actually a plot point. Torwards the end, during the get your ass kicked for love final battle (and yes, that's a thing), Shahrukh is bloodied and thrown to the ground and his undershirt is completely covered in blood except for one spot near the neck which for some reason has the label of a really expensive shirt maker. This is made all the funnier when he says - don't underestimate the power of the common man. As if a common man could afford that undershirt.
• Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage - this ass kicking for love is brought to you by Coca Cola. 

• Best title dance sequence: Dhoom 2 with Hrithik Roshan 

I also really love Bodyguard's title dance sequence. It's just Salman Khan pec pumping to the beat. And yes, it is supposed to be funny - this movie is a romantic comedy.

• Best – I just fell in love fantasy dance sequence. Perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of bollywood movies is the I just fell in love fantasy dance sequence. Westerners don't always understand why suddenly we are in Kashmir or Paris dancing. It's a fantasy. The character has just realized they are in love and then they have a fantasy of them and their beloved. What they fantasize tells you quite a bit about their character - so it's actually important to character development. To understand what's happening, you have to have some understanding of the movie that the character is imaginging themselves to be the hero or heroine of. One of the best plays on this is Darr De Disco from Om Shanti Om - where the character is a shallow actor who insist his character (who is deaf, mute and without arms and legs) should have a fantasy dance that is a disco number - the pain of disco - it's hysterical). Anyway - I have 3 fantasy dance sequences I love!
• 3 idiots - Kareena Kapoor starts seeing Aamir everywhere and has fantasies of being in a Yash Chopra wedding and of being the heroine in Sawaariya. Which basically means - she's a romantic looking for a love marriage. The song is called Zoobi Doobi
• 
  
• Rowdy Rathore  - Akshay Kumar - a) he's a beautiful dancer. But he's also playing a petty thief. His, I just realized I'm in love fantasy is that he is Amitabh Bachchan in any of his classic movies. So - he imagines himself to be a hero in a romance. When he hits the Amitabh dance move - he totally nails it. This is funny, provides great character development and is a wonderful homage to Amitabh all at the same time.
• Yeh Dillagi again, with Akshay - this is a remake of Sabrina - and the sequence where he realizes he's in love is wonderful - the dancing is great too. Remember, he's fantasizing all of this standing outside her house. It's a great homage to Dancing in the rain as well.

• Best dance in the rain – While we are in the rain - let's look at Sridevi from Mr. India. This pretty much sets the standard for the dancing in a wet sari dance sequences

• Best Song – Saawariya

• Best use of song for exposition? – Om Shanti Om - basically - they are using the music launch for a movie to expose a crime committed - so you get the entire recap of the movie so far in this sequence. It's pretty cool and a great song as well. 

• Best choreography with children? – Aamir Dhoom 3 - can't find a clip - but trust me - Aamir is great when he dances with kids. 

• Best cameo(s)  – Om Shanti Om - pretty much everyone famous in Bollywood at the time is in this - it's supposed to be an after party for an awards night.  Plus - my son loves this song.

• Best end credits – Makkhi - which is about a man who reincarnates as a fly seeking revenge. The best part of this is that the flies do lots of famous dance numbers and moves.

• Best – I can totally kick your ass sequence Rajnikanth in Chandramurkhi. It's what he's good at.

• Best ass kicking for love: Hrithik Roshan in Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage - I don't know if it's the angles he is filmed falling with blood flying in slow motion or what - but I thought this was really funny. 

• Best car crash - Dhoom 3 - it really was a thing of beauty - though the choreographed junkyard cars in Ra-One was good - but it's the only part of Ra-One worth seeing. 

Chennai Express – Hindi movie /Tamil movie review

I saw Chennai Express when it opened in August 2013.  It is now available for rental in most places. It’s a very funny movie and the audience howled with laughter throughout. The thing is, to understand half of the jokes, you have to have seen Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge . To understand the other half of the jokes, you have to understand both Hindi and Tamil – because there are a lot of jokes about language confusion. Fortunately, I was sitting next to an Indian who helped me understand the jokes I missed.

But if you speak neither Hindi nor Tamil, this movie is still highly enjoyable. Just, make sure to see Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge first because this movie is essentially a remake of that movie. My bollywood friends didn’t see it that way, but it basically has the same plot sooooooo, I'm not sure why they didn't make the connection. Especially given that the introduction of our two lovers is exactly the same and uses the same exact music for comic effect, and for really really obvious foreshadowing, and again, did I mention that  the plot is basically the same.

What is the plot? 

Boy and girl meet on a train and they fall in love. Unfortunately, the girl is engaged to a bad ass guy who is completely wrong for her. Boy has to go to the middle of nowhere rural India and fight the bad ass guy to win the girl.  Or, at least that was the plot of Dilwale. Filmed in 1995 by Aditya Chopra. Shahrukh was still young then, only 30 years old. He was still capable of playing a teenager in love.

SRK is now 48 and he needs to stop playing teenagers. The problem is he’s not a very good dramatic actor. What he does well is puppy love and comedy and it’s kind of unseemly for a middle aged guy to be in puppy love. Which is where Chennai Express comes in.

In Chennai Express, SRK basically gets to redo Dilwaye Dulhania but as a 40 year old who has never had a girlfriend and has never been married (because he grandparents never approved), which means he can play someone near his age and yet still get to fall in love on screen – which is what all us SRK fans want to see.

This remake is silly, but it works precisely because it can be a love story standing on it’s own and a remake of a classic and an homage to SRK’s career and a send up of his entire comedic career, with elements of a Rajnikanth movie (Tamil language star) all at the same time . Which is why we were all laughing so hard throughout this movie.

This movie is directed by Rohit Shetty, who I’m not a huge fan of. He’s an action director, but his movies tend to lack humanism, so while I am entertained, I’m also a little annoyed by the morality of it all. I liked this one because Rohit was constrained by SRK romance rules, which require a strict adherence to certain moral codes, which is why our hero has to fight for the girl at the end.. The other thing Rohit in did well in this movie was constrain SRK’s tendency to overact. I realized that part of the problem is that other directors linger on his close ups and if you cut away sooner, it’s not as cringe worthy. So good job Rohit.

At the beginning, SRK’s character’s grandpa dies leaving him free to finally go to Goa with his guy friends to meet some ladies. Unfortunately, his grandma wants him to spread his ashes south in the waters between Tamil and Sri Lanka – the complete opposite side of the country. SRK decides to head south to appease his grandma and then get off at the first exit and then head north to meet his pals in Goa. As he is getting off the train, a girl is running – to the music from Dilwale Dulhania and he helps her get on, just as in the original. Then as he is getting off, a fat guy is running, to the same music. Happens 3 more times. It just gets funnier and funner. By the time he gets everyone on, he can’t get off and he is stuck. And, it turns out that the girl was running away from the big thugs and he is now stuck as is she. And the setting for the reluctant romance is begun.

There are several really funny devices that keep our reluctant couple together long enough for them to fall in love, like they have to pretend to get engaged so that he isn't killed by her criminal boss of a father. He is hidden to wait for a morning train out, but it turns out he was hidden on a boat run by smugglers that is caught and he is brought back to the town where people want to kill him for being engaged to a girl engaged to someone else. You get the idea.

What I liked.

Our heroine is kick ass. At no point is she helpless.  SRK is really in his element and quite funny in this movie.  The songs are fun, but not memorable, so, the music didn’t really stick with me in the same way that the music in Dilwale does. Mostly what I remember music wise is the reuse of famous songs from other SRK movies. The final fight is well done, even though the product placement elements of it are over the top funny. Like at one point SRK is completely covered in blood, except for the label on his undershirt, which is clean and cleverly placed for us to see it. And for some reason during the fight scene, you hear the sound of the TARDIS. I was half expecting The Doctor to show up. Alas, he didn't, but SRK prevails and gets the girl and everyone is happy, including her ex fiance who never wanted to stand between her and true love anyway.

Conclusion:

This is a very funny movie. But to enjoy it fully and to understand what the film makers were doing, you really do need to see Dilwale Dulhania first.

Scene from the movie:

I could not find a version of this with subtitles. Basically, they are communicating via song. They are famous songs from other SRK movies that everyone knows, but they are changing the lyrics so that they girl can explain the situation she is in to SRK without the Tamil speaking thugs knowing what they are saying.  The Tamil thugs go into Chitta Chitta - which is also famous, but from a Akshay Kumar movie.

The juxtaposition of famous love songs with lyrics switched out for dialogue like - meet me in the bathroom and bring your phone is really really really funny.

R. Rajkumar – Hindi movie review

Just saw R... Rajkumar. It delivers everything you expect it to deliver from the previews.  Shahid is adorable and wonderful. Sonakshi is wonderful and beautiful and fierce. And Sonu Sood is a) incredibly handsome and b) too handsome and beautifully handsome to be the evil villain he plays. He does a great job, but his handsomeness was a bit distracting for me.

Dancing

This movie is written, directed and choreographed by Prabhu Deva, so the dancing is amazing and technical. If you are a dancer, watch this movie. Seriously. Some of the stuff Shahid was doing is nothing short of amazing and of course Prabhu has a cameo in one of the songs (Gandi Beat).  It was nice to see that Prabhu is capable of dialing it back when he needs to as the “we both just realized we are in love fantasy dance sequence” was low key, and beautiful without all the complex technical moves of the other numbers.

Action

Speaking of choreography, this is an action flick. And some of the fight sequences are beautifully choreographed as well. Most of them are jump cut so the flow doesn’t allow you to see extended sequences and they could very easily just film individual action shots and cut them together. But there is a fight scene in the middle of the movie where Shahid is fighting 60 guys (again, Hindi Masala action flick – accept it for what it is), and we get a long sequence of uncut moves that are really well done.

The final battle between Shahid and Sonu is in sepia tone – to give it more gravitas. It’s hokey, but it also works. They may have chosen that to hide flaws in Shahid’s make up because at this point his character had been stabbed twice, beat up and buried alive before heading into the final battle, so... he had a lot of fake blood on him and it might not have looked right in regular color. Anyway, the sepia is a nice effect. The battle itself reminded me a bit of the final battle in the 3rd Musashi movie except without the swords. They rush at each other. Fight a bit. Rush at each other and eventually, Shahid, after nearly dying 3 times in the battle manages to land a punch to the throat and they just stand there. For a long while. And no – I’m not giving anything away – obviously Shahid was going to win this battle – duh. Anyway, I thought it was a nice touch and used the main elements that everyone remembers from the final Musashi battle well.

Technical Details

As for what I didn’t really like. Some of the editing was really odd and distracting. One of the first expository scenes is jump cut with odd angles of the faces talking, ending with extreme close ups. It didn’t really add to the emotions of the scene and I found it really distracting. It was like reading a comic book actually and that might have been what they were going for, but I found it distracting and annoying, especially since I was trying to read subtitles.

The other odd choice was that just before the final battle where our two antagonists are sizing each other up and talking tough, there was a jiggling earthquake effect on the film. They had done this earlier for comic effect and that worked. But here, again, it was distracting and didn’t really add to the scene. Those were the only two moments where the editing was distracted. The rest of the movie was well done.
The love story was ok – I have mixed feelings about the first half since it involved Shahid stalking Sonakshi and having been a victim of a stalking, it didn’t sit well with me. And yes, I realize that is an element of Indian courtship, but I don’t normally get that sort of reaction from other movies where this “following” happens. Normally, I think – ahhh. But I did react badly here so I think they missed the mark. It wasn’t romantic to me. Even with Shahid’s adorableness, it was upsetting. Once the girl falls in love, I was ok – but up until that point, it was a bit creepy to me. Although, you know she is going to eventually figure it out that Shahid is the guy that rescued her at the beginning of the movie, what he was doing, wasn’t ok.

Sonu Sood is really handsome

My conclusion

If you like rough action masala – this movie is great. If you like amazing dancing. This movie is really great. Love story? Meh.  Really handsome actor – Oh YEAH!  Sonu!!!!  Music – fun.  Worth seeing? Probably.