Jason & April Ruggles

Stoned in Bangkok

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by Jason in Thailand

While perusing the local English language magazine the other day, I saw that Oliver Stone was going to speak at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Now I’m a foreigner and I guess that I’m kind of a correspondent (right? I mean, you’re reading this, right?) so I decided to go hear what he had to say.

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone, for those of you who don’t know, is a brilliant director.  That’s just my opinion of course.  His films have been nominated for 31 Oscars (wiki him here), with his controversial views often showing up in his movies. (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, JFK, Any Given Sunday, Alexander, and W. are just some of his films)

Anyway, you can read a summary of his speech here.  He said a bunch of crazy stuff… like I knew he would (uh, Hitler was a scapegoat? The war on drugs should be replaced with a war on TV?), but he also had a couple interesting observations that I thought worth noting:

Films give us a picture of how things can be.

Whether a movie shows a good future or bad, something from the past, etc. it represents what can be. “I won’t give up believing that movies can help express the best in us, to light candles in this darkness.” he said.

Movie themes are some of the best delivery methods for ideas.

Avatar

At one point, he called movies “guerrillas of the mind”, highlighting the movie Avatar and it’s underlying message of conservation and peace. “I hope that [Avatar] is crawling into the unconscious of the world,” he said.

A movie doesn’t have to preach at you to shape your worldview… something to think about.

As I was thinking about these ideas, I couldn’t help but think about the story of me as a movie. I know it’s not original, but still. If my life was a movie, what would be the theme?

Take a listen to this awesome song by Cool Hand Luke, called Cinematic.

How do you want the critics to rate the story of your life?

Tags: culture, movies, Oliver Stone