David Lynch Documentary on Meditation

If you haven't heard by now, Director David Lynch is making a documentary based on the life and work of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who passed away in February 2008). The Maharishi taught Trancendental Meditation (aka TM) and was one of the first gurus from India to travel to the west. He was known as The Beatles' guru.

There are many videos online but this makes the most sense to me.



Here's David Lynch speaking to students at a Maharishi University. The yogi spent his life teaching meditation and setting up centers of education to incorporate it.



Mr. Lynch now has a foundation devoted to teaching TM to at-risk-youth (DavidLynchFoundation), which is endorsed by many celebrities, including Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Their goal is to teach a million kids how to meditate to lower stress levels, increase a sense of well being and raise concentration. Here's comprehensive press conference video (about 70 min)if you want to learn more.

It turns out that Donovan has joined Lynch's goal to teach TM to a million children and is heading up the musical wing. This clip is a couple of years old but gives a little window into the subtle way meditative awareness opens us to deeper levels of experience and creativity.



David Lynch's documentary on the life and message of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi goes into production next month in India. The film promises to be fascinating.

The Sixth Sense Redefined

I had not actually intended this post but came across this video in my research today and was so amazed by it I wanted to share it. Please exercise a bit of patience as the speaker/inventor in this video, Pranav Mistry, is from India and (for us westerners) his "accent" is a bit hard to hear. However, if you will make that small effort I think you will find this one of the most amazing discoveries of recent times.



Hollywood, are you listening?

2012: Time for Change

Roland Emmerich's latest blockbuster 2012 may wow the public with special effects and a cinematic experience you can't get on the small screen but there's another film on the horizon that eschews the exploitative, end-times fear it promotes. That, in itself, may spell doomsday for this thoughtful non-fiction piece but only time will tell. 2012: A Time For Change is a speculative documentary produced by Curious Pictures and directed by Emmy nominated Joao Amorim.

According to the website, "the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method." It features interviews with anthropologists, physicists and celebrites like Sting, Ellen Page and Gilberto Gil.

Pinchbeck's idea of 2012 is that there is a new age dawning in the evolution of mankind and the Mayan's, Hopi and others have known about it for millenia. This lines up with esoteric Hindu thought, Buckminster Fuller's POV, the popular concepts of The Law of Attraction and books like Ekhart Tolle's "A New Earth".

Joao Amorim on Vimeo.

Amorin (who is also the director/animator of the online animated series Postmodern Times) created this video/interview with Pinchbeck to illustrate his version of what's happening cosmologically right now.



Can't help noticing the sort of retro 60s/Timothy Leary feel. That is, of course, another very hot trend so this may be more interesting to more people than may first be apparent. FYI, Woody Harrelson's character in Roland Emmerich's picture (the long-haired prophet of comical proportions) is said to be a caricature of Daniel Pinchbeck. Interesting.

Virgin Galactic & Moon Town

Sir Richard Branson chats about the imminent unveiling of his first Virgin Galactic ship, which debuts in the Mojave December 7, and possible hotels in space. What a visionary! It also gives some reality to a story idea I have about the colonization of the moon. Great timing what with NASA's recent discovery of water there.



I got so excited about this today, I did a little research and landed on the European Space Agency site, which then took me to a YouTube portal which invites the public to ask the ISS commander Frank de Winne any question you like about space exploration. My video equipment remains primitive, but I was able to ask a video question to assist me in writing my story. He hasn't had time to answer me yet (and there's no guarantee he will) but I've included the ESA trailer/invitation here. We live in an exciting time, no?

Fantastic Mr. Fox

UPDATE 11/15/09 - Mega budget disaster film 2012 in massive worldwide release and dominating the box office in spite of bad buzz and script. Fantastic Mr. Fox, on the other hand, is only out in 2 theatres in NYC and 2 in LA but getting great reviews and high per-screen averages ($65,000 per screen). So out of the gate it's not a fair fight but Fox looks like a winner in the long run.

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Another stop-motion picture, Fantastic Mr.Fox, (based on a children's book by Roald Dahl) opens today in the U.S. Amazing. Just a year ago only Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks (and Fox for The Simpsons Movie & their Ice Age franchise) but this year there are no less than 20 animated features vying for an Oscar.

Part of this trend has to do with the phenomenal box office return of the big three but others have obviously (finally) grasped the perennial nature of the medium (recyclable every 7 years into perpetuity)and the cross-marketing potential (t-shirts, toys, DVDs, dolls, etc).

Of course this doesn't mean all 20 films are GOOD. Animation is a peculiar animal. Slapping animation over a live-action style script will not produce the box-office results these late-comers are after. Character-based story is king in animation, which is why basing one on a popular children's book is the #1 method. But also adaptations work best when the action remains rooted in pantomime.

Perhaps even more significant, as if that weren't enough, are the technological changes that are pioneering our industry. Compupter generated images (CGI) and 3D and stop-motion combined with a palette of special effects make the "animated film" one of the most creative and interesting to watch. Yesterday, NPR gave director Wes Anderson's new movie a big thumbs up...



Keep your eye on this one. It's likely to surprise at the box office.
Fantastic Mr. Fox opens wide on Thanksgiving.

A&E Going with "Jacksons" Reality Show

"The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty" will be a six-part mini-series that begins airing on A & E December 13 @9/8 central. Not sure how to feel about this move. But I've always wanted to learn "The Moonwalk". And guess what, here's how...

MTV Shows

My question is, why can't they let This is It be, you know, it? Michael's rehearsal film has already made motion picture history as the highest grossing concert film of all time. Here are the numbers, as of November 9, 2009. It's also the #1 album in America and in 16 other countries.



And I guess the answer is, with numbers like that, Hollywood can't resist milking it for more. Maybe they're right. I'm just saying...watching the Jackson dynasty, post Michael, isn't something I want to see.

Twenty Years... After The Fall

There is almost nothing left of the Berlin Wall. AFTER THE FALL, a documentary produced in 2008, is a portrait of Berlin that recounts the story of the creation and disappearance of the most absurd of constructions: the Berlin Wall.

A compelling, well-balanced look at a fractured culture finding its way back to wholeness. It's beautifully shot and edited and punctuated by audio and visual dissonance. Some of the metaphors don't quite work but overall the filmmaker successfully gives us a body of conflicting perspectives that collectively resemble the recovery of a singular soul.



Happy anniversary Berlin.