BEFORE: The result of flipping a large part of my list around, since I apparently had blocks of films arranged chronologically, is that I now get to watch certain stars get younger as I dive backwards into their filmographies. I watched Catherine Zeta-Jones get younger over three films, now it's Sean Connery's turn. He was 70 when "Entrapment" was released, and 62 when tonight's film came out. Tomorrow he'll be younger still, like Benjamin Button.
THE PLOT: An eccentric scientist working for a large drug company is working on a research project in the Amazon jungle. When his new research assistant turns out to be a "mere woman," he rejects her help.
AFTER: Last night I discussed the "quaint" notion of the Y2K bug - there was another notion that was spread around in the 1990's, and that was that something in the Amazon rainforest contained the cure for cancer. Probably someone said at one point that a plant or animal there COULD supply a cure, and then the next person repeated this, only without the word COULD.
It's funny how some of these activist messages take on a life of their own - like I remember in the 1980's and 90's we were supposed to speak out against Apartheid, rock stars weren't supposed to play Sun City, and we had to get used to the fact that some people were both here and queer. You think the recent boycotts against Chick-Fil-A, Target and Hobby Lobby are a big deal? Back in the day, we couldn't order from Domino's Pizza because the company supposedly was anti-abortion, we couldn't drink Coors beer because they were "anti-gay", we couldn't wear Nike sneakers because of unfair global labor conditions, and we certainly couldn't eat at McDonald's because they were "destroying the rain forests". I was never sure if it was because they supported tearing down the forests to make more cattle land, or if it was because they were still using styrofoam, which wasn't recyclable. (Look, there were many good reasons to not eat at McDonald's, you could probably come up with 5 or 6 before you even got to the styrofoam...)
I always argued with my college roommates, saying that it did no good to boycott Mickey D's (or whoever...) unless you also TOLD someone at the company why you weren't eating there. They had no figures available on how much business they COULD be doing if twenty-somethings weren't eating there. But time moves on, and after you spend some time enacting social change, you might find that your own personal boycott only lasts until they bring back the McRib sandwich. That's only natural.
But I digress. My point is that when someone tells you something's wrong with the world, you need to consider the source. If someone tells you that the rainforest could hold the cancer cure, think about who benefits from that rumor spreading around. Could be it was started by someone who just wanted to raise awareness and stop deforestation, and it's not based on any medical or scientific research at all. Anyway, I suspect that the statement is based on faulty logic. True, there are many species of plants and animals in the rainforest that have not been catalogued. But just because you WANT one of them to contain a cancer cure, that doesn't mean that one of them WILL.
And if you want to stop deforestation or you feel that the rainforest is a resource we can't afford to lose, then by all means, say exactly that. Don't use all of the cancer patients or potential cancer patients in the world just to leverage my sympathy and support. We're coming off of a season where people, for some unfathomable reason, want to put trees in their houses and decorate them, even in the middle of a big city. Dirty, pitch-dripping, needle-dropping trees are trucked in from upstate and plopped into people's living rooms, I just don't get it. And when I see them not selling in a vacant lot, or piled up on the sidewalk after the holiday's over, it seems quite sad. But then I remember that trees are a renewable resource, and most of these pines were probably grown on tree farms just for this purpose. And we now have mulching programs, so it's not as wasteful as it used to be. The companies that make paper products, and Christmas trees, eventually realize that it does them no good to use up all the trees.
Look through your spam mail folder these days, and along with news of male enhancement drugs and offers from Nigerian princes, you'll probably see a few messages about the powers of the Acai berry, or other natural wonders containing anti-oxidants or cancer-fighting drugs. Again, consider the source. A typical example is the graviola, a "legendary healing tree" from the Amazon rainforest. (I got this from Snopes.com, where I check out all my urban legends.) Allegedly the National Cancer Institute first realized the "anti-cancer activity" of graviola leaves in 1976, and later studies found that chemicals in them were effective in destroying cells that had survived chemotherapy treatments. Great news, except that as a natural product, the chemicals couldn't be patented, and therefore the big pharmaceutical companies couldn't profit from it, and were unable to synthesize the chemicals so that they could be patented.
Is this true? Damned if I know - it probably just makes a good, ironic (and therefore truth-ish) story. It's so easy to assume that a corporation won't do the right thing unless it can also turn a profit. But this does tie in with tonight's film, in which a scientist is trying to determine what it is about a particular plant that makes it so effective against tumors. Now it makes more sense, because if he can isolate the right chemical, the company he works for can synthesize it, and therefore patent and market it.
Putting that aside, why does Hollywood feel the need to turn every film into a romance? Why can't a film just be about scientists in the jungle who are looking for a cure, and who maintain their professionalism the whole time, and manage to keep their personal feelings out of things? I resent the implication that people aren't going to watch a movie unless there's a romantic relationship in it somewhere.
Also starring Lorraine Bracco, Jose Wilker.
RATING: 4 out of 10 ziplines
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