X-Message-Number: 18190
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 20:05:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: that rather annoying movie

Those who have not yet seen Vanilla Sky may wish to skip this post.

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I live 50 miles from the nearest movie theater. This helps to put movies
in perspective. You really expect a substantial reward for driving 50
miles. In this case, all I got was another embarrassing attempt by
Hollywood to be Significant.

Like anyone else who has tried to present cryonics to the public in
general and journalists in particular, I have listened to my share of
rather unintelligent questions. One of those recurring questions has been,
"Could your brain keep working while you're frozen? Could you have
dreams?"

So here is the entire basis for this very silly movie. It is one
unintelligent question, writ large, for 2 hours 20 minutes.

But let us consider how the movie may affect cryonics. My answer is: It
will have only two effects, neither of them helpful.

1. Many people will believe that a dog really has been frozen and revived.
This will significantly devalue the news value in the future when a mammal
really is resuscitated.

2. Many people will believe that you can, in fact, dream during a long
period of cryopreservation. This will result in a lot of wasted time for
those of us who have to explain cryonics to the general public. Moreover,
people will be reluctant to believe us when we say, "It's impossible."

In addition, potential clients will be quite disappointed when they find
that the offices of cryonics organizations do not live up to the sumptuous
Hollywood version.

As for the possible effect on membership growth: The protagonist in the
movie is extremely wealthy, and he is cryopreserved after he sustains
severe injuries in a car accident and kills himself. This is of course
inaccurate (what about the autopsy?) but more to the point, it perpetuates
(in fact, hardens) the misconception that cryonics is "for them, not me."
I have always seen this as the primary barrier to selling cryonics. Many
people are willing to believe that it may work, but they don't see
_themselves_ doing it. What we need is a movie that shows an "ordinary"
person doing it. But that would not be a Hollywood vehicle.

I was pleased to see the "look and feel" of cryonics presented in the
movie, in the brief clips of a wrapped body being lowered into a steaming
box. Of course clips of this type have already appeared in TV
documentaries.

Now a few questions for those who have seen the movie:

1. Does anyone understand the title? What does Monet have to do with
anything in the film?
2. Why does Tom Cruise stop shaving half way through?
3. How does the initial sequence relate to anything? Supposedly at this
point he has not entered his Lucid Dreaming cycle. So why is this initial
dream relevant? Why does he drive a Ferrari in the dream? Because Ferrari
paid for product placement?
4. Is the resemblance of the older male cryonicist Fred Chamberlain purely
coincidental?
5. Is the resemblance of the red-haired female cryonicist in the New York
headquarters to Linda Chamberlain purely coincidental?

Finally, memo to Tom Cruise:

One embarrassing episode of similated sex, endless closeups of your face,
and a woman who says "I swallowed your come, that means something to me!"
can't distract from the fact that in this remarkably verbose 2-hour
20-minute film, almost nothing happens. Plus, personally, I really hate
movies where you know, halfway through, that a large part of the action is
"just a dream." The writer needs a very rich imagination to make that work
(as in Lewis Carroll). Unfortunately, imagination has never been plentiful
among Hollywood script writers.

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