Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Bear market movies

During bull markets, the Hollywood movies are uplifting movies with happy endings. I just saw the new movie Knowing. It is a bear market movie. Roger Ebert gives it 4 stars, his top rating (with a spoiler):
"Knowing" is among the best science-fiction films I've seen -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome. ...

The plot involves the most fundamental of all philosophical debates: Is the universe deterministic or random? Is everything in some way preordained or does it happen by chance? If that questions sounds too abstract, wait until you see this film, which poses it in stark terms: What if we could know in advance when the Earth will end?
Yes, the world comes to an end. Everyone dies. The only ones who escape are 3 sinister space aliens and the 2 kids they kidnap.

The remarkable thing is that no one shows any interest in saving anyone. The atheist scientist and his Christian preacher father make no effort to survive. Most people spend their last hours looting. They are all morbid and depressed all the time, and completely fatalistic that horrible things are going to happen and there is nothing that they can do about it.

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