The Purge

I'm just a little bit difficult.

What do I mean by that?  

Well I often find myself in situations where somebody is telling me about how awesome this or that is and when they ask how I feel about it my feelings are usually lackluster.

Some may call this boring, a Debbie downer, a pain in the ass, or as previously mentioned difficult.

But it's not my fault!

I do not enjoy dancing no matter how much fun you may say that it is.
I will not enjoy a music concert even if its one of my favorite bands.
The thought of going up and doing some karaoke frightens me, and not in an exciting tower of terror (that's my obligatory Disney reference for this blog) kind of way.

By all means dance, see a concert, do those silly all of you jumping in the sky in unison, or taking pictures of your feet type photos but don't expect me to get excited about it.  

I could lie and say that i'm just as into it as you are but lying just aint me either.  You may say that i'm missing out but i'm not.  I'm perfectly content to just sit back in my little corner, sipping my wine while listening to you belt out your best William Hung impression to She Bangs.

Now what does this all have to do with the title of my blog?  Not much really.  I just like to go off onto some crazy long tangents to get to my point...if I ever get there.

But what i'm getting at is all of this also goes towards my taste in movies.  I've been trying to go see Star Trek for a few weeks now at many peoples urgings.  It's apparently a great movie that I will love.  But I know it won't be and it'll just lead to my trashing it the same way that I did the latest Iron Man.  

I'm constantly getting into conversations with people about movies that get them excited and I know I leave them unsatisfied with my total lack of enthusiasm.  I don't think I know of anybody out there that isn't excited about the new Superman coming out...except me.  

People eventually get frustrated and ask me what kind of movies I do like.  And the answer to that is of course good ones you simpletons!

Ya ok I don't actually think i'm as pretentious as that but it is really hard to nail down what exactly I do like.  But there is one type of movie that I will always see no matter how bad or good it looks.  And that's What IF? movies.

I like movies to take me out the realm of reality and transport me to what if scenarios that do not exist currently but have a semblance of possibility.  That's why i'm a sucker for horror movies.  90% of the time the horror movies end up being horrible but because so many of them lend itself to my made up What if? genre I will watch them.  And sometimes i'm rewarded with a gem like The Stand.

Well while trying to psych myself up to watching Star Trek I came across the brief synopsis to The Purge.  Basically it goes as follows:

It's the year 2022 and for one 12 hour period a year crimes are legal and all emergency services will be suspended.  

A great what if? scenario.  It seems highly unlikely that anything like this would ever happen but as the movie goes on you begin to wonder if that's really the case.  You see characters behaving in ways that remind you of people in real life and that really gets you thinking.

The reason in the film, for this purge, is that after a crippling quadruple dip recession America was dealing with pent up frustrations, hate and rage and needed a way to vent this out.  

This is basically the cathartic method.  A bullshit theory that Freud postulated would allow somebody to let out all their negative emotions and then become calm again.  Freud thought that by punching a pillow when you are angry you would get rid of that anger.  Actual research shows that it does the opposite and actually makes you want to keep punching that damn pillow to the point that your brain has to justify why it's hitting a harmless pillow so that you then begin believing that the pillow had it coming.

So does it seem far fetched that we may take this a bit further and even allow murder?  Well we've done it before.  Basically its scapegoating whereby a

"scapegoat is an individual, group, or country singled out for unmerited negative treatment or blame"

You would see alot of this in ancient times when a natural disaster occurs, or a serious of unfortunate circumstances would arise, and one person or group would be deemed the cause of the event and would then be sacrificed.  

Another example of this would be Jesus and his death somehow absolving us of our sins.  I still don't understand why Jesus dying absolves all of us of our crimes but I won't get any deeper into that here.

In modern times the Jewish population being blamed for the problems in Germany and subsequently targeted for eradication in would be an example. 

 And even simpler is the person who is chastised by a whole blackjack table for hitting on 17 because he has ruined the whole deck by not playing by the book.  For you people I say this.  Let me play my damn black jack how I want in peace!  If your planning on getting rich in a casino and really think my game play actually affects your outcome then your the one who should be chastised!  

But I digress...

Now where was I?  Oh right the movie!  As you see I've gone all philosophical and there's a reason for that.  This movie, while appearing simple, actually makes you ask yourself alot of the deeper questions.  Such as what is human nature and more importantly what am I capable of?

Well during the purge this movie follows one family, headed by Ethan Hawk (whom I love), while they try to shield themselves from the dangers outside, all the while trying to come to grips with their own views of what is right and wrong in the face of dire circumstances.

I'll say this.  I'm pretty sure i'm capable of doing nearly anything when it comes to protecting my family and ultimately I probably would have done the same thing as Ethan Hawks character.  Although I can also see myself doing so far more heinous things just to feed my family let alone keep them alive.

Now the writing in this film wasn't the greatest.  It wasn't bad it just wasn't great.  But that really didn't matter because it was so intense.  And the reason it was intense was because of the crazy build up of the film.  It hasn't been since the movie The Mist that I've felt myself at the edge of my seat, incredibly tense, with my heart rate elevated for far too long all because we knew it was only a matter of time before the impending doom would arrive.  And I mean literally at the edge of my seat.  When your that tense its tough to remain slouched and relaxed.  And I wasn't the only one.  A fellow moviegoer sitting a couple seats away from me was in the exact same position.  

Speaking of my heart rate.  I don't know if it was intentional but the young boy in the film had his own heart rate monitor to check on himself and that, coupled with the fantastic foreboding score, only made me more aware of the fact that my blood pressure was far too high.

Eventually that tension did build to a release and luckily that release was dealt with quickly because I hate overly drawn out fight scenes and the writing was a little weak so that you really kind of did see what was coming next.  Luckily the action scenes that they did have were actually kind of cool so you could overlook the simple writing.

Overall this movie had me thinking throughout the entire film.  I was transported to a scenario that I could put myself into and I left that movie wondering what is human nature, what is what and wrong, what am I capable of and most importantly what if?