Brilliant Quote of the Day

“We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.”

Will Smith in an Interview with Parade

Review: The Reef

Roger Ebert once said that “a good movie is not what it’s about, it is how it is about it.” There are many shark and human vs. creature movies out there – some good, a lot of it mediocre and predictable. And then something like The Reef comes along.

Personally I don’t find sharks scary. They are predators and it is their nature to hunt for prey. That is not scary and it is silly to be scared of or hating on an animal that acts on instinct and whose nature is to be a predator. There is no volition and evil in the shark’s behavior. And the thing that in fact makes horror movie villains scary is the volition and perpetuation of evil. That is why zombies, vampires and psychos are scary. And that is why animals aren’t really.

I also understand that a lot of the fear about sharks is pop culture hype immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, where sharks, or the Great White to be precise, are portrayed as comic-book like, vengeful, villainous beasts out to get you.   The reality is more like that most sharks don’t even attack humans and when they do then it is because we encroached upon their habitat. Ultimately,  if you go out on the sea, swimming on a surfboard and looking like a delicious seal served on a platter, you can’t blame the shark for doing what comes natural and attack you.

So if you are trying to sell me a movie from the angle that there is a beastly shark involved that we all must run away from, I am the wrong audience. You don’t have to swim with sharks and if you are stupid enough to do, well then that is your fault. Don’t knock the shark.

The Aussie thriller The Reef understands this very premise and has, therefore, managed to create a truly scary and haunting experience without drifting into story-book mode. For the most.

The movie strands a group of friends in the middle of the ocean after they hit something that capsizes their boat. Subsequently, the protagonists are left with a difficult decision: stay on the overturned yacht, drifting further into the ocean or swim over ten miles due north until they hit land. What ensues after this setting of the stage is a frightening and terrifying journey of four people through the dark waters of the Australian ocean near the Great Barrier Reef.

The haunting sense of the unknown and that of an unrelenting menace create almost unbearable tension in this movie. Being adrift in the open ocean like that must be one of the most helpless and terrifying positions any human could find themselves in. You are completely vulnerable and exposed with no place to hide. You can’t even crawl up into a ball and hide away because it is the open water. That is extremely unsettling.

Watching all those scenes where these peoples’ legs are sort of dangling above the abyss surrounded by unknown creatures in the hostile Australian waters kept me at the edge of my seat at all times.

The idea of being confined in that dark water with miles of deep darkness and the unknown underneath you and having no escape route – no boat or rock or wall to hide under –  must be terrifying. Just writing it gives me goosebumps.

This movie does a great job at conveying that mood of the isolation and desperation but also the terror these people experience being adrift in the middle of the ocean.  There’s just something about the deep, dark, vast ocean (and what’s in it) that never fails to make the perfect setting for a truly unsettling horror film.

The great thing about The Reef is that it does not venture into gory shark-attack territory.  In fact, this movie works because, unlike Jaws – that feels like a Disney movie compared to this, by the way – this movie is one of the few great creature-features that focuses more on the situation and the horror the character experience rather than on the creature itself.

The directing and cinematography, right down to the soundtrack, further do an excellent job at conveying a sense of utter exposure and menace and there is no CGI but real Great White footage. Even the score in the opening credits gives you a preview of what to expect and sets the mood.

The underwater shots are menacing as well because much like the protagonist, you keep looking in horror into the darkness and its seemingly endless depths, scanning back and forth,  to see if you can make out any silhouettes. Since this is the deep ocean and the waters turbid, there is little visibility, further catapulting you into menacing depths surrounded by darkness.

Having said that, I don’t know if I, or anyone in their right mind, would have made that trip into the unknown like that. That is one of the things that irked me about this movie and gnawed at the believability. It didn’t seem realistic that these people really thought they could swim over ten miles in shark territory no less so save themselves. Then again, the other option would have been being drifted further into the sea and the boat sinking.

I hear the waters around Australia are home to some of the most exotic and strangest creatures. Some kind of a Cambrian effect. It is also home to some of the most poisonous and meanest sea life. Trying to swim over ten miles in that water is lunacy at best.

I also did not like the whole villainous shark/nemesis-who-can -track-them-through-the-ocean-like-a-bloodhound angle that this movie drifted toward the end. While most of the movie was not about that and we don’t encounter the shark until half-way through the movie, I thought inserting that formulaistic element into this otherwise truly menacing and terrifying movie took something away.  Animals aren’t mean or out to settle a score going so far as to chase you the last 10 feet to your destination while you are swimming for your life. That part seemed made up.

Other than that I thought this was one hell of a movie. Everything created the mood, even the soundtrack, and the cinematography was amazing. Good job Aussies.

Notes From the Out-of-Touch: Wiping Out $90,000 in Student Loans in 7 Months

“I am so accomplished. I had money and wealth and used it. Follow my lead”

Harvard MBA Joe Mihalic, in what is supposed to be an inspirational story for all Americans, especially in light of the current student loan crisis, has made headlines  – most notably in the magazine of the Mecca of Greed – Wall Street Journal – for having paid $90,000 in student loans in seven months.

He accomplished this by getting a second job (in his case, landscaping), forgoing all restaurant dining (even McDonald’s), selling all unnecessary items around the house — and getting a flask.

Yes, a flask. Genius decided that one of the best and most effective ways to save money in this world is carrying your own booze around in a flask to bars rather than ordering drinks and shelling out $50 everytime.

Instead of the movies, he took dates out hiking, or for bagels and coffee. He ate protein bars packed from home and walked several miles to the city, to save a few bucks on transportation, during a trip to Michigan. He got two roommates to rent out his house. Mihalic also took steps that financial advisers typically say are a no-no: He liquidated his individual retirement account, drawing a tax penalty, and stopped contributing to his 401(k), even though his employer offers a matching contribution

Oh and yeah, did I mentioned one minor detail? The guy makes six figures working for Dell, Inc. As in $ 100,000 and above.

And therein lies the rub in this story of “inspiration” because pointing out the obvious,  namely that having wealth makes it easier to reduce debt, is neither inspirational nor newsworthy.

So thanks Wall Street wizards and thanks to this guy. He did not go to Harvard for nothin’.

No Kids, no wife, no health-care bills making six figure income and able to pay off debt. Reminds one of wrinkle cream commercials starring a twenty year old.

Fact is, you can’t pay off 90 grand in student loans taking a flask to the bar and selling household junk on ebay and saving a few bucks on a bus pass every day. This is utterly ridiculous and insulting to the whole movement aimed at keeping student loans and interest rates in check and affordable.

While the frugality tips are good, the point of the student debt  crisis is not Harvard Business School grads with six-figure incomes trying  to pay down student loans by “slumming” it for a while.  It’s people from middle-to bottom-tier schools with  no jobs, or very little income, drowning in $100k or similar amount of debt with high interest rates.

With a six figure income, this guy is already six steps ahead of most students buried in debt; students who don’t have jobs and if they do have a job, they are lucky to be making 35k and rent a room somewhere or move back to live with their parents.

Beside the six figure income, the other major factor in his “accomplishment”  is that he has a sizable amount of assets to slash his debt. According to his website, his after tax (i.e net) income was $85,000 per year. He immediately used around  $27,500 in cash plus $14,000 from stocks, and $9,500 from his IRA.  He also stated that his monthly entertainment expenses were $1,300… x 7 months= $9,100! He got two roommates bringing in $5,950 over seven  months. He sold a bicycle for $900 and a motorcycle and his second vehicle for another $9,500. A also received a tax refund of almost $1,900. A work bonus of almost $14,000 and  don’t forget that he was already paying $1,050+ each month to his  loans so there’s almost $7,400 already. He banked $4,000 from stopping his 401k. He got a raise for $2,300 over 7 months.

That alone is over $106,000 available to him in either assets or funds that he was already receiving without even delving into his regular monthly expenses,  i.e mortgage, utilities, cell phone, etc.

How in the world any of this is any kind of accomplishment that is news worthy is beyond me. I don’t need the WSJ telling me that having money greatly helps reducing your debt and improving your life.

Paying Off Student Loan Debt is Not Just a Matter of Discipline 

This is not an inspirational story, it is a harrowing tale of a privileged man using his considerable financial resources to pay off his debt. The reality for over 90% of students coming out of colleges and grad schools, however, is more like they are buried in student loans at high interest rates and have either no job or a job that barely pays for the necessities, such as room and board and basic bills, much less for astronomically high student loans.

In other words, Mihalic’s situation is neither typical nor representative of the situation of college and grad school graduates in this country and it certainly does not provide a realistic template with which to to approach the student loan crisis.

When you come out of college or grad school and make around 40k – and if you are lucky maybe your employer also throws in a health plan  – and after you paid your taxes and for your basic needs, there is not much room left to work with. And that is the issue. Mihalic had a lot of room to shuffle money around; he had options: top benefits, bonuses and promotions oh and yeah a six figure salary. The majority of grads don’t.

A young person having recently graduated from an institute of higher education should not have to suffer and subdue themselves with some minimum-wage paying slow death at all costs just to pay off student loans issued to them under draconian rates and conditions.

The point is to reform student loans and make college affordable so that people aren’t burdened and buried in debt just for getting an education.

Making it look like the problem was one of personal discipline alone as opposed to structural is what truly irks me about the press surrounding this guy’s alleged “accomplishment” because all it does is put a bandage  – a very expensive one – on the issue saying “Hey kids, stop whining about student loans. Do what this guy did (never mind most of you cannot) and you will be fine.”

When you don’t have any or much money, you don’t have many options. That is, after all, what is so great about money: options. Mihalic, on the other hand, had options and he used those options to adjust his life such that it was possible for him to pay off his student loan debt quickly. Many graduates in his place don’t have these kinds of options.

File that under yet another rich privileged dude doing what all rich, privileged dudes would do in his place: spend his money to be better off.

This country has taken the notion of finding ever newer and more creative ways to make fools out of people and insulting their intelligence to new heights.