Saw “The Flash” yesterday. Entertaining, if not stellar. I enjoyed Michael Keaton, who I liked pre-Batman for his Mr Mom and Johnny Dangerously comedy movies. He is a very good actor and brings a lot of gravitas to this film. The supergirl/woman? and General Zod stuff was a nice sub-plot, and there were a couple pointless but still fun cameos. Hard to look past Ezra Miller’s long string of legal troubles and cheer him on, but you can watch the movie and separate the character from the human playing it. If the movie was just about the Flash, I would probably not have had the interest to see it. The special effects are cheesy in many areas bc of the nature of “super fast” being hard to do FX for. That and trying to explain multiverse paths…well…I think the whole multiverse angle is played out in either Marvel or DC movies for a while. Worth a view, just for Keaton and the kryptonian stuff, imo.
More relevant to this thread:
I binge-watched Yellowstone the last couple weeks!
I had little interest in watching the main series, even though I liked 1883 and 1923 a lot, because they had more of that historical bent to them.
Why would I like a story about a guy whose family inherited land generation after generation. Way MORE land than any 1 family needs or a rancher needs. So no one else can use or visit or appreciate this land, except them??
This goes to a bit of a socialist streak I have, after capitalism reaches a certain point. Like I don’t understand people being worth more than $1B, for example. What is the point of $25b or $50b or $300b net worths…when they aren’t necessarily better human beings, or harder workers, etc…
This is no better than the nonsensical Queen/King of England. All that money, land, property, wealth…for what? Because of your bloodline? Huh?
So, anyway, I had no desire to “root” for the Kevin Costner lead character “John Dutton”. But it turns out my fears were a bit unfounded, as while Dutton may be a bit of the protagonist, he is certainly not being held up as a clear-cut nice guy who deserves everything.
At it’s heart, he is a misguided and ironic traditionalist, who weighs his dying promise to his own father (to not sell an inch of the land) over commonsense and the future good of his family and fellow Montanans.
I don’t want to spoil too much, so will instead say that in some ways the Duttons are akin to a mafia. But just like many will root for or “like” Sopranos because of the more human side they display with family or how they show in many ways they have the same concerns/flaws/feelings as regular people, if you are intellectually honest, you will realize there isn’t a lot to love about much of the family.
What you do feel is a bit of the nostalgia of old west bc of the horses and the stunning landscape of the ranch property.
The daughter, Beth, is an iconic tv character…worth watching the whole series just for what comes out of her mouth and her fierceness. Rip is pretty badass, but for some reason the aura dims whenever he takes off his hat…ha…just leave it on. Kayce and Monica and their son are the closest to being redeemable of the family, and that is mostly due to Monica’s connection with her native american roots. The son Jamie feels too much like a caricature…maybe that is fault of the actor or the writing…not sure.
I don’t care if others do, but I won’t get into a bunch of political rants on this subject, and I realize no culture is/was without flaws. But I will say this:
John Dutton thinks he is holding all this land for his family out of tradition and trying to keep the “old ways of doing things” intact, but he is speaking to only 120 years. The native americans came to those lands 10,000’s of years ago.
Dutton thinks using 100,000’s of acres to have cattle graze is a good use of that land. It is a contrived and outdated business. This is why I am so excited for cell-grown meat to eventually displace animal grazing. No one can use the darn land because you need cattle to eat on it. Then and only then, years later, can you eat the cattle. It is sooooooo inefficient it drives me nuts. It is akin to someone saying no one can use Lake Michigan because some family owns the rights and they bottle the water and sell it to make money, yet they only use the tiniest fraction of that water every year. C’mon…so dumb.
Why does the cowboy life feel so appealing on that show? Simple:
Human society as most of us know it is a manufactured construct. There is nothing evolutionary about humans sitting at desks all day, staring at computers, or the pure mental exertion needed to compete and thrive in a modern society. On the Dutton ranch, you just wake up, have coffee and breakfast, and go race the sunrise towards whatever tasks/chores you have to do that day. And you spend your day in a glorious landscape, one with nature, and you have the certainty and surety of knowing your place in life/society. That is beauty, to some extent, of a manual labor job vs white collar job. To an extent. Most folks working on paving asphalt for the roads in a county or state aren’t exactly living the same dream, right?
But I get that feeling. It goes back to the story of the guy fishing all day and laying in his hammock all day. A businessman approaches and explains how much better his life will be with more possessions and material goods and how he needs a job/career to do those things. And so the simple fisherman gives up his life and works a modern career for 30+ years, all in the hopes that he can…wait for it…retire so that he can lay around in a hammock and relax and fish at his leisure every day.
Alanis Morissette was right…it is ironic, I do think.
So to wrap up this meandering post, I will say that while I understand the cowboy way and the lure, that it is still a manufactured existence.
The native americans had it right all along. Again, I know they weren’t perfect. Talking about the ideal concept. Live off the land, be one with nature. They hunted and fished and gathered. maybe did some basic farming before migrating and repeating it all over again.
Season 5 midseason finale ends with a lot of things in disarray, and this is supposed to be last season of Yellowstone and Costner is apparently at odds with producers and who knows if/when final episodes are done. But I can tell you the ending I want; Turn half the ranch into indian reservation land (give it back to those that lived in harmony with it previously) and make the rest into a preserved/protected park that any human that wants to take in the views, can finally do so.
Dreamer
