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October 29, 2012

Movie Review: Cloud Atlas-- Superb Movie with Strong Political Values Message

By Rob Kall

Cloud Atlas is an extraordinary, revolutionary movie, the best one I've seen since Avatar, a truly different approach to movie-making. And the message it sends could make the right wing hate it, so don't be surprised to see really negative reviews. Some will be based on politics. Strictly entertainment-wise, it had me literally sitting on and gripping the edge of my seat.

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Cloud Atlas is an extraordinary, revolutionary movie, the best one I've seen since Avatar, a truly different approach to movie-making.   And the message it sends could make the right wing hate it, so don't be surprised to see really negative reviews. Some will be based on politics.

Strictly entertainment-wise, it had me literally sitting on and gripping the edge of my seat. I can't tell you how many times I literally found myself leaning forward, tightly holding on to the front of the seat.  I'd scoot back in my seat and a little later, find myself again at the edge of the seat. 

I went with my two sons, 22 an 28. The 22 year old said it was better than Avatar. Avatar was and still is my favorite all-time movie. But this one comes close. It's definitely one I want to see again. 

It's not surprising that this movie takes risks, with the screenplay and directing involving the Wachowskis who wrote and directed the Matrix and V for Vendetta. The movie is based on the book with the same title, by David Mitchell.

The movie is worth viewing just to see its vision of what the future looks like in a corporate state-- horrifying yet oh so possible. I don't want to make this review a spoiler, but imagine a world where corporations start controlling you from insemination-- cloning you to live a life of total servitude-- truly slavery designed at the genome level. There's a great quote in the movie, that I don't think spoils the movie.
"I was not genomed to alter reality," the clone says.  "No revolutionary ever was," the leader of the resistance to the corporate state replies.

If you're a right winger-- you should see it so you see what the world you're voting for will become. If you're a progressive or liberal, this movie will reinforce your values and terrify you. The hopeful message it sends is that kindness and small acts can make a difference that can change the world. 

Even without the message, this movie is brilliant. Each of the main actors (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, David Keith, Susan Sarandon) plays four to eight different roles-- almost every actor playing both men and women, good guys and bad guys. That is very cool and frankly, I didn't even recognize some of them in some of the roles. One role by Tom Hanks, totally eluded me. I was shocked. 

Cloud Atlas will definitely be nominated for multiple Oscars in categories like costume and make-up, cinematography, at the least and probably best script. It is a fast paced collection of stories occurring over a 600 year period, showing slavers hundreds of years ago and slavers hundreds of years from now, in an era on the verge of apocalypse, when global warming has done immense damage to "civilization."

Cloud Atlas is a unique new way to do a movie. Sometimes these work. Sometimes you go innovative movies to see experiments, like Memento or Magnolia. I liked Memento, as a novel experience. I hated Magnolia. I love this film and the genre it has created. I can't wait to see what it inspires.

Don't miss this movie. It may be having a slow start, dollar-wise, but it has not rolled out yet to all theaters-- it was only shown in less than 2100. It is a must see work of art and a cultural phenomenon that you have not experienced. 

Here are a few more good quotes from the flick:

"Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. I feel like something important has happened to me." 
"All boundaries are conventions, national ones, too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so."
"No matter what you do it wouldn't amount to anything but a single drop in an ocean! "What is an ocean, but a multitude of single drops!
"If I care to imagine heaven I imagine a door opening"
"Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present"and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."


Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.


Check out his platform at RobKall.com


He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity


He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com


more detailed bio:


Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.


Rob Kall Wikipedia Page


Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel


Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel


Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.


Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.


To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.


For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.


Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..


To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.


Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.


His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.


Join the conversation:


On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution


and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation





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