Revoloution

"Revoloution" has been called "visceral" and "moving" by TimeOut NY, but Jeannette Catsoulist of The New York Times has chosen to mock the movie rather than focus on what it's really doing: forcing people to confront their issues. Maybe she has a few of her own to confront. I'm just saying. ...Don't we all?

Because this movie isn't about the usual stuff.

This movie is about a street kid who transforms his life. This movie is about coming to terms with your inner demons and troubled pasts. This movie is perfect for teenagers to see. This movie is a chance to make your life matter, for once. This movie is about clarity. This movie is about owning the choices you've made and seeing that they're just choices and therefore you can make new choices at any time. This movie is about subverting the dominant structures that privilege the dollar over the community. This movie is about love. This movie is about joy. This movie is about living, I mean, really ...living.

Try it. It's free.

How often do we take time out to really contemplate who we are? What we are made of? What defines us and develops our character? I can admit I really never thought a lot about those kinds of things, but "Revoloution" got me thinking about my past, my life, and how I have been defined.

As a film in and of itself, the movie was pretty darn good, but as a tool or "trigger" to get those juices flowing about our lives...Marvelous.

I urge you to view this production not as a piece of entertainment, but as something more. Something that might help you realize what characterizes you. What got you here, and what made you You.

'Revoloution' is a beautifully paced film that hooks you from the opening scene and never bogs down in New Age cheesiness but hews closer to the Buddhist mandate of seeing things as they are and doing what has to be done. It reminded me of my first experience with yogurt: I thought I would be put off by the experience and ended up happily surprised.

There are plenty of things for the serious film fan to savor: 'Rocky' references and re-workings (including music by Bill Conti, a cameo by Burt Young, and the whole 'Rocky' of the soul vibe), lively camera work (including some great shots of NYC locales), and engaging and believable performances.

This film offers a realistic lens, one that allows any viewer to become the main character "LOU". In becoming LOU we are able to leave our very self involved and to some extent selfish lives to communicate and experience life on a different level a more compelling/compassionate level... Life is the greatest story that we will ever have.... Bret Carr's authentic writing reveals our direct connection to the natural world and reminds us that we are not so much born into this world as grown out of it. Bret Carr examines these fundamental questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the nature of the world around me? "Outside us we face a world that is profoundly alien to us in the sense that what is outside "me" is not me, and this sets up a fundamental sensation of hostility and estrangement between ourselves and the so-called external world." (Watts) I believe that this film challenges the hegemony of a certain genre of films. Films today are not made to enlighten instead they are only created to generate a certain profit and to create a quick comedic or action fix for its viewer.

No matter how well meaning his "message" is - this film is a terribly made trainwreck - awful acting, lame camera work - I do not know why Carr agreed to try and pull off a stutter - he is lousy at it. You watch the extras on the DVD and the way he has a camera follow him around - he just soaks it up - he loves being the center of attention. He is a bad actor - he reminds me of another arrogant filmmaker - Eric Schaffer. Some how Carr has had this film shown at city Youth Centers and New Age churches - where damaged people looking for reinforcement and attention themselves babble on about how the film touched them and maybe it did - but as a film itself it is choppy, predictable and sappy.