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Sunday, August 7, 2022

Receipts

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My favourite childhood babysitter was the TV, and like many Gen X kids, it was also my only babysitter. Alone a lot, TV/film characters became family. One of those characters was Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the film that made her a star: Halloween. In a strange way, she watched me every Halloween that film was telecast. Even after that first viewing, I wondered and worried about Laurie Strode, and it made me a life-long fan of Jamie Lee Curtis. So when she popped up in my favourite film so far this yearthe fascinating and chaotic Everything Everywhere all at OnceI was even more riveted. 

In an early scene in that film, her character, IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdra, says this to her client, the film's lead, about the financial information before her: "Now you may only see a pile of boring forms and numbers, but I see a story." I believe this is the core of the film, a story waiting to be uncovered in the shoe box of loose receipts that is our current lives.  

It's hard work to sort through those receipts, isn't it? And yet, if we don some "googly eyes" we might just gain some perspective and clarity about the dominant forcesthose "everything bagels" in our lives. We've been experiencing intensified disorder for a decade now. We are inundated with negative voices vying for our clicks and likes. People weaponize flags and honk to breed skepticism, to destabilize, to divide. Cynicism is like a new religion. This film reminds me to put my energy into who and what matters in life, to tear down less and create more.

Sure, I'm just one guy, so what can I do? Even the film acknowledges, "we are all small and stupid." Yet is also proposes that "seeing the good side of things" is "strategic, and necessary." Check those receipts, my friendslike this innovative film, maybe there's another story, a better one. 

4 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

I want to see this movie too! CBC Radio was raving about it awhile back when it first came out, especially about Michelle Yeoh's performance. I didn't know Jamie Lee Curtis was in it too -- bonus! Did you see her in "Knives Out"? She was fab in that too.

DB Stewart said...

I did. She sure was.

Pixie said...

I still haven't seen the movie but I shall make more of an effort. I love Jamie Lee Curtis. We all have our stories to tell and apparently our reciepts tell a story too, which makes a lot of sense. Follow the money.

Anonymous said...

37paddington:
Now I shall have to see this film. So much food for thought here. Our poor chaotic world. I like your hopefulness though, your sense that all is not lost. Thank you.

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