Saw this movie the other night. http://imdb.com/title/tt0075704/

It’s about reincarnation. I suddenly got interested in reincarnation after I read a piece by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (now called “Osho“) saying that he’d lived another life 700 years ago. Although I’m not a Rajneeshee, I enjoy reading and listening to Rajneesh’s talks. I generally agree with what he says about philosophy. He’s well read, and usually is reasoned and scientific. His talks are usually matter-of-fact, pretty straightforward, notwithstanding his reputation as a cult leader. So I was surprised to hear him go off on what I consider to be non-scientific, this reincarnation bit.

But after all Rajneesh is from India, and reincarnation is taken to be a fact by the hundreds of millions of people there. Audrey Rose shows film clips of masses of crowds in India. That’s one interesting thing about it- it attempts to gain credulity for reincarnation by reminding the viewer that hundreds of millions of people in India take reincarnation to be a fact.

What really got me about this movie is that it ends up saying the same thing that Rajneesh says in his talk. To be specific, the Rajneesh talk I’m referring to is “Why I Have Come!” in the book Dimensions Beyond the Known. Past life experiences can be traumatic, says Rajneesh. That’s the same thing that happens in this movie- the little girl’s past life’s death experience was traumatic- she died in a flaming car crash, and relives this death as a nightmare in her new reborn life. If you remember a previous life, you’ll also remember a previous death- and who wants to remember dying?

I’d heard so much about the Blair Witch Project, so when I finally saw it, it was a bit of a letdown. What’s the big deal anyway?

The most interesting thing about this movie is how popular it was. According to Wikipedia, “The film is arguably the most profitable film in history. With a budget of $22,000 and a worldwide gross of over $248 million, the film’s gross was more than 11,000 times its original budget.”

It was popular because it isn’t a big deal. There’s no special effects. There’s no soundtrack. There’s no twisty plot with a surprise kicker at the end. Some kids get lost in the woods and get scared.

It’s interesting because we’re numb to huge budgets, huge special effects, and intricate smart plots. The reason Blair Witch was so popular is the same reason The Bourne Ultimatum was so popular. I mean, The Bourne Ultimatum was so simple it was simply amazing. I could hardly believe I was watching a two hour chase scene with a fight in it. There wasn’t any plot. It was just Bourne chasing and being chased, with a fight in the middle. Yet, it grosses $441,161,071, according to Wikipedia. It outgrossed the previous two.

You could say the same thing about blogs and YouTube. We’re all tired of Big Media, and we’re looking for the online equivalent of The Blair Witch Project. A fat guy lip-synching “The Numa-Numa” song gets millions of hits. It has no production values, plot, expensive camera, none of that. The camera doesn’t move, so the guy even goes out of the frame briefly. I watched it. More than once. It’s funny! It’s gotten 8,294,836 views on Youtube. That doesn’t include the number of views it’s gotten on other sites; apparently it didn’t start on YouTube.