21 grams and the Moment of Death

[synaesthesia]

This upcoming film is looking bad. I direct you to the trailer.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/21_grams.html

How can you take the tone seriously when it begins with the dead-pan assertion that every person looses 'exactly 21 grams the moment you die'.

What happens when you die piece by piece slipping unevently into the malfuction one after another, of your body and your brain/mind? Are the 21 grams cumulatively lost?


It is dishearting that enough people took this as being possible to take seriously for the movie to get made. Let's hope it's a flop.

[Starrman]

What happens when you die piece by piece slipping unevently into the malfuction one after another, of your body and your brain/mind? Are the 21 grams cumulatively lost?

There is no need to ask this question, as it has not been established that humans lose 21 grams of weight @ death. The entire question is a myth which began with an experiment in the 1900's on a few dying people and a few dying dogs. It has never been replicated or verified.

[Mr Manifesto]

A physician once placed dying patients upon a scale in order to measure the weight of the human soul (http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp)

(note, of course, that his experiment did not conclude that the human soul weighs 21 grams, whatever the physician might think)

[ASRomatifoso]

I am sure this movie does not purport to be an empiric examination of how much the soul weighs. I think it merely uses that experiment as a sort of metaphor, a literary lens, so to speak, through which to examine loss, grief, vengeance, etc. in the face of a loved one's death. Whether it will be good or not remains to be seen. However, I think it's a little unfair to judge it as if the epxeriment and theory are taken as scientific evidence by the people who made the film. I am certain they are not; I mean it's not a documentary about how much the soul weighs, if there is a soul, etc.

I am looking forward to seeing it. Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro are consistently good and it might be a great movie.

Speaking of that, anyone seen Intacto? A great movie certainly but if you want to apply your scientific/empiric standards to it, then you probably shouldn't see it.

[Nyarlathotep]

Unless the movie is purporting to be either a documentary or "Based on a true story" I don't have a problem with it. I don't have a problem with that sort of thing in the realm of fiction. Heck I love Star Trek and Star Trek is filled with FTL ships, and psychic aliens that speak perfect English, it doesn't bother me because I know it's fiction and no one claims otherwise. So if this movie is premised on the existance of a soul and that soul weighing 21 grams, and no one is claiming it is anything other than fiction, I don't have a problem with that either.

[ASRomatifoso]

I am sure this movie does not purport to be an empiric examination of how much the soul weighs. I think it merely uses that experiment as a sort of metaphor, a literary lens, so to speak, through which to examine loss, grief, vengeance, etc. in the face of a loved one's death. Whether it will be good or not remains to be seen. However, I think it's a little unfair to judge it as if the epxeriment and theory are taken as scientific evidence by the people who made the film. I am certain they are not; I mean it's not a documentary about how much the soul weighs, if there is a soul, etc.

I am looking forward to seeing it. Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro are consistently good and it might be a great movie.

Speaking of that, anyone seen Intacto? A great movie certainly but if you want to apply your scientific/empiric standards to it, then you probably shouldn't see it.

[Corey]

I agree that it doesn't look like a documentary claiming the 21 grams thing is a scientific fact or anything like that. Just a clever little line some writer worked into the script as some kind of metaphor for their story, based on some little tidbit they probably read somewhere. Note, the line is "They say we all lose 21 grams..." no "It's a scientific fact that...". "They" say a lot of things...a lot of stupid, but catchy sounding things. There's a few good actors, don't know who's directing or wrote it but it could be a good movie. Not everything that has a spiritual/supernatural/paranormal/sci-fi slant to it is automatically pitching woo woo as science fact to the masses. If it was a documentary based on the premise behind the title, maybe...but it's just a piece of entertainment.

[Cecil]

I believe the original claim was that we lost "about 3/4 of an ounce".

Coincidentally, 3/4 of an ounce is just about 21 grams.

[a_unique_person]

Just look at Sharlaman (sp?). The sixth sense was great, the rest of his films atrocious. We will just have to wait and see.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Just look at Sharlaman (sp?). The sixth sense was great, the rest of his films atrocious. We will just have to wait and see.

Shyamalan? Ugh. You lost me already.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Shyamalan? Ugh. You lost me already.

Have you seen the sixth sense?

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Have you seen the sixth sense?

I'm with you. Sixth Sense was awesome. Unbreakable was unpalatable. I'm too scared to go near the crop circle flick. The Bad Astronomer couldn't poor enough crap on it.

[jj]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
I'm too scared to go near the crop circle flick. The Bad Astronomer couldn't poor enough crap on it.

I saw it on an airplane.

For some reasons, aliens who can fly across interstellar space, have reactionless drives, etc, can't navigate without crop circles, and can't figure out how to make either raincoats or umbrellas.

Oh, and despite the fact that they have organic tissues, water kills them. Or was it saltwater? No matter, absurd is absurd.

[HarryKeogh]

Originally posted by jj
Oh, and despite the fact that they have organic tissues, water kills them. Or was it saltwater? No matter, absurd is absurd.

saltwater killed the aliens in Alien Nation
regular old water killed the aliens in Signs.
both movies sucked balls.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by HarryKeogh


saltwater killed the aliens in Alien Nation
regular old water killed the aliens in Signs.
both movies sucked balls.

Saltwater also killed the evil alien plants in "Day of the Triffids" That movie sucked balls as well, I think a pattern is emerging.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Have you seen the sixth sense?

Yes I have. I liked it, though I thought "Stir of Echoes" (which was a movie along similar lines that came out at the same time but minus the agressively cute kid), ws much better. Everything he has done since then should be studied as treatment for insomnia. I think 'Sixth Sense' was a fluke.

[HarryKeogh]

ok, regarding the sixth sense...i loved it.

my friend saw it separately. towards the end he guessed the surprise ending and leaned towards his girlfriend and said "i bet bruce willis' character is really dead"

y'know, congrats on figuring it out but keep it to yourself. that was totally selfish. ruined a great surprise for his friend.

can we all agree that is such a jerky move?

i would have killed him (and not spoken to his corpse for days).

[a_unique_person]

Death would have been appropriate.

The best example of two films that address a similar 'woo-woo' type topic and come off as excellent and woeful are "Truly, Madly, Deeply" and "Ghost". I have only seen the first, as all the reviews told me that Ghost was pitiful, but my experience has taught me that when the overwhelming number or reviews say a film is pathetic, then it is.

Both films were about a lover who dies and the interaction with the surviving girl friend. "Truly, Madly, Deeply" was great. My wife was in tears at the end of it. Humorous, but not schmaltzy.

[Garrette]

Sixth Sense was awesome, and I agree all other Shyamalan flicks are horrible.

My shame in Sixth Sense is that I was sharp enough to figure out there would be a twist, but I didn't guess it. I guess every variation possible, but not the actual one.

I saw Stir of Echoes after Sixth Sense and didn't care for it as much, possibly because I was comparing it to the first. Surprised me, though, as I generally like Kevin Bacon.

Same thing happened with The Others (Nicole Kidman). If it had come out a year before Sixth Sense, I probably would have loved it. As it was, it seemed merely an acceptable copy with a very predictable twist.

Ah, well.

---

21 grams, eh? What if we exorcise?

[Suddenly]

Originally posted by HarryKeogh


saltwater killed the aliens in Alien Nation
regular old water killed the aliens in Signs.
both movies sucked balls.

What a terrible haiku. I guess the word "alien" plays merry havoc with a 5-7-5 syllabic structure.

[hgc]

I saw this over the weekend. What a great movie. It reminded me of "In the Cut," except that it didn't suck. I recommend it to anyone and everyone (except for small children).

The director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also made the "Amores perros," is a real talent. I can't wait to see more of his movies.