Lucky Number sLeven

It's a very clever, well written character piece. Some of the reviews I've read have compared it to Pulp Fiction; Sleven doesn't have the action, it's much more of a pure character piece with the action there to help unfold and reveal the characters. The twist wasn't too blatantly telegraphed, but that didn't matter too much, as it was well executed.*

This has to be one of those films that everyone in it did it for next-to-nothing type of pay--which for them is still more than I take home in an entire year, but it's all relative anyway.

The only bother was listening to Sir Ben Kingsly sound like Peter Faulk. Not that I think that is what he was aiming toward, but the comparison is inevitable. Once you see the movie, you'll understand.


*EDIT: no, the pun wasn't intentional, which makes it all the more amusing, I think

and you thought you were depressed

Schopenhauer was a real wet blanket. He rejected existentialism, religion, and the nationalism that was running rampant throughout Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He made Nietzsche look positively giddy by comparison with stuff like this:

"Every epic and dramatic poem can only represent a struggle, an effort, a fight for happiness; never enduring and complete happiness itself. It conducts its heroes through a thousand dangers and difficulties to the goal; as soon as this is reached it hastens to let the curtain fall; for now there would remain nothing for it to do but to show that the glittering goal in which the hero expected to find happiness had only disappointed him, and that after its attainment he was not better off than before."

I'm almost surprised to not have found "down, not across" anywhere in his words of wisdom. He comes close in his attitude though:

"It is clear that as our walking is admittedly nothing but constantly-prevented falling, so the life in our bodies is nothing but a constantly-prevented dying, and ever postponed death."

He completely rejected religion as "metaphysics for the masses" and had he known the term, I believe he would have called it a cop-out. He also rejected Kant's position that religious faith was a question beyond science.

However, he's not a completely miserable person; consider:

"Men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man is contributes more to his happiness than what he has."

He also had a lot of nice things to say about the Arts, particularly Music, that it was "the copy of the Will itself."

So the next time you are feeling down, remember our poor soul Schopenhauer. He was without parent, wife or child, belong to no social group, church, political party and basically considered life to be a grandiose putting-off of the inevitable. And with no MP3 player or iPod, didn't have that constant solace of music available to him on demand. And then be thankful that you're not him.

There but for the Grace of God go I, indeed.