Friday, December 16, 2016

Rebirth: Suffering high school again? (video)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; STXmovies.com



I'm through with high school. Having suffered it once, I never want to have to suffer it again. Rebirth -- as imagined in the form of "reincarnation" where I get to come back but this time more beautiful, having learned lessons, evolved, less awkward, a second chance to avoid all the mistakes from the first time around -- is not that way for most of us.

Forget grammar, tell me it's not happening!
We will not be getting a chance to be human anytime soon, unless we tragically lost our opportunity due to some sudden and unforeseen unfair circumstance. A Tibetan lama might so influence things as to come back as a tulku to continue in these circumstances on this planet.

But there are many human planets and countless realities sorted into 31 planes of existence that it is a sign of a poverty of imagination to think that we will come back to circumstances like this. What if we did? Wouldn't it be excruciating, hellish, insufferable? 

This is unbearable, insufferable, impossible!
Wouldn't we continually be finding ourselves on The Edge of Seventeen, rich, white, privileged, unaware of how extraordinarily fortunate our (karmic) circumstances were compared to others and having very little knowledge of how to make them this way again in the future? Where will the Dharma be when you need it in the future?
Sitting cross-legged with an iPhone and junk food like all teens do. (International dates)
.
Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) and Krista Haley Lu Richardson) are inseparable best friends attempting to navigate high school together...until Nadine discovers that her super popular older brother and Krista have been secretly dating behind her back. They soon realize that there is a fine line between best friends and worst enemies. But that's not Nadine's biggest problem. High school is! And where's God (like the one in Persepolis) in all this? Is s/he even paying attention? Just look at this haircut!

The Edge of Seventeen


God, god damn it, are you even up there?
is a new coming-of-age movie in the vein of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club -- an honest, candid, sexual, often hilarious look at what it’s like to grow up as a young female in today’s modern world.
 
Everyone knows that growing up is hard, and life is no easier for high school junior Nadine, who is already at peak awkwardness when her all-star older brother Darian (Blake Jenner) starts dating her best friend Krista.
 
Life is a slurpee: so suck it!
All at once, Nadine feels more alone than ever, until the unexpected friendship of a thoughtful boy (Hayden Szeto) gives her a glimmer of hope that things just might not be so terrible after all.

The film also stars Kyra Sedgwick as Nadine’s well-meaning but completely ineffective mother, and Woody Harrelson as Nadine’s history teacher, mentor, and reluctant sounding board.

The Edge of Seventeen marks the feature directorial debut of writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, and it is produced by Academy Award® winner James L. Brooks -- the filmmaker behind big-screen, character-driven classics such as Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, Big, Say Anything, The Simpsons, Jerry Maguire, and As Good as It Gets. More
 

No comments: