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Downsizing - film review

A two hour soporific production which is a cross between Gulliver's travels and Armageddon that tends to drift aimlessly with the help of star power.

Using Matt Damon as the poster boy literally is now getting old.  Hollywood realizing the material is sketchy at best uses a once popular face to peddle half witted and crazy movies to the unsuspecting audience.

Watching them as cheaply as possible as a good alternative.  So I rented this DVD last night and found that the tale was indeed mildly intriguing with some light moments but otherwise a drag with holes bigger than those in the ozone layer.  By the way the movie premise was about the latter as in the greenhouse gases emitted by us humans getting us closer to the day when gases escaping from the ice will melt Antarctica and lead to catastrophic floods.

Using some real data like Norway's food bunker where unique grain and sperm varieties are stored underground for a real life apocalypse the movie wanders for an entire two hours with no purpose.  The entire story board is about people opting to voluntarily shrink to less than 99% of their body mass and volume to then live in a world that is Truman Show like and having access to a variety of resources at their disposal - much more than they will ever need in their lifetimes.

The physics and economics and politics of the whole thing make no sense that is obvious.

Comedic moments are courtesy of a crazy neighbor that Matt moves next to in a town for small people.  The neighbor played by Christoph Waltz has some fun lines like - I am an asshole but we need them - else how will we get rid of all the shit? accompanying is what might pass for an anemic Calvin Klein model in the form of an Asian lady hitherto unknown playing the role of an emaciated Vietnamese with a peg leg.

On a side note I have been giving significant thought to what it might take to live a monastic lifestyle (of sorts) as I approach the curve where the child might find something to do at college.

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