When at its best, cinema transports its audience to another time and place, freeing the throngs of weary cubicle-dwellers from the throes of their everyday existence. A film usually does this in one of two ways: by providing a penetrating look at our own world that is somehow more real than the reality it portrays, or by offering entry into a fantasy realm—a world of imagination recognizable by virtue of its being unrecognizable. The Cave of the Yellow Dog, a genre-blurring docudrama about a real family scratching out a traditional existence on the desolate plains of Mongolia, does both.
Entries posted by Les Beldo
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
Written & Directed by Mongolian Filmmaker Byambasuren Davaa
December 13th, 2007 · Written by Les Beldo · No Comments
→ No CommentsTags: Reviews · Film · Foreign · Indie · Mongolia
The Meaning of Life
September 3rd, 2007 · Written by Les Beldo · No Comments
Why are we here? What is our purpose? Mustn’t there be a point to this vast, remarkably complex drama being played out on this relatively tiny little speck in the cosmos? In short, what is the meaning of life?
By definition, there cannot be a more important question. Surprising, then, how little attention it receives. Most academics will scoff at attempts to approach the issue in a scholarly context. […]
→ No CommentsTags: Philosophy · Emotivism
An Objective Report
What's really happening in Iraq... and everywhere else.
July 4th, 2007 · Written by Les Beldo · No Comments
Three primates died today while traveling in a motorized vehicle in an arid region between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Although we can state nothing with absolute certainty, the three “humans” — basically hairless, cognitively advanced monkeys with a striking genetic similarity to the common chimpanzee — were most likely killed by some sort of explosive device as it incinerated the vehicle beneath them. Over six thousand miles away, another primate of the same species claimed that those killed were members of a group he called “The United States Army.” Upon further investigation, membership in this “army” is marked chiefly by clothing, as well as by certain behavioral traits. The exact purpose of the army’s presence in the region, called “Iraq” by some, is under fierce debate.
→ No CommentsTags: Nonfiction · Philosophy · Truth · War
Atheists Gravatus
A call to end the stigma.
May 3rd, 2007 · Written by Les Beldo · 6 Comments
“I am nothing,” she says, her eyes avoiding mine. In her face I see contradictory tinges of apathy and embarrassment, further complicating the interpretation of her already polysemous declaration. I am nothing. Maybe she thinks her life is a failure. Maybe she feels ineffectual in some specific regard. Or maybe she has accepted her relative unimportance in the vast cosmos. […]
→ 6 CommentsTags: Nonfiction · Philosophy · Atheism · Discrimination