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From director J.J. Abrams comes the next installment in the Star Trek saga, Star Trek Into Darkness. See it at Cinemark theaters now and pre-order on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, and the Exclusive Starfleet Phaser Gift Set. Shop Star Trek Into Darkness and more in the Star Trek Store. Learn more |
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- Behind-the-scenes documentary
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The movie opens up with a hostage scene being played out in a residential neighborhood, with cops everywhere. A reporter arrives on the scene only to have the cops try and give him the bum's rush. While the cops are distracted by the reporter, the perpetrator leaves the scene in a sports utitlty vehicle, but not before crashing into and totalling the reporter's car. A mysterious stranger materializes and hands the reporter the keys to a new jaguar, saying that he is giving it to him, no strings attached, since he seems to have run into a little car trouble.
The movie then cuts to a scene four months earlier. The viewer is taken to a seventh grade class room where, in a wonderful scene, student, Trevor McKinney, played by Haley Joel Osment, takes his teacher's assignment of doing something that could potentially change the world to heart. His teacher, an intelligent and controlled man, played by Kevin Spacey, whose burn scarred face masks the scars on his heart, gives out this assignment cavalierly, not really expecting that any of his students will come up with something of real note.
It turns out that Trevor, intelligent and introspective, comes up with an idea whereby he performs a potentially life changing good deed for each of three people. They in turn each do the same for three people. He calls his idea "pay it forward". It is your basic pyramid scheme with a twist. Some of the things he does will tug at your heart strings. Some of them will tickle your funny bone. One thing is for sure, unless you are made of stone, you will be moved.
Meanwhile Trevor's stressed out mom, played by Helen Hunt, is a single parent, holding down two jobs. An alcoholic in the throes of a recovery, she does the best that she can. Split from Trevor's dad, himself an alcoholic who used to batter her, she is struggling to keep on even keel. When Trevor's execution of his teacher's assignment results in what appears to be a potentially life threatening situation, it causes his mom to hit the roof and go to the school, where she confronts the baffled teacher.
Ultimately, Trevor's mom and his teacher are brought together, through the contrivance of Trevor. What initially seemed impossible, becomes a reality, and a relationship blossoms. It turns out that they have more in common than was initially thought. Meanwhile, Trevor's plan is catching on, and a number of wonderful scenes in the film illustrate this.
What happens in this film will, at times, thrill and delight you. At other times, what happens will surely move you to tears. Some may call the movie manipulative and schmaltzy. It is simply just an old fashioned tearjerker.
If making the world a better place for everyone is important to you, then definitely watching this movie is something you would like to do.
The idea is to help three people in need and when they ask you what do you want in return, all you have to do is tell them that they will not want to do it. Of course, this is reverse psychology and the more you say they will not want to do it, the more they will want to do it. When they pester you for an answer, you then tell them that they have to helped three other people in return. This strategy is called "Pay It Forward". The word Forward meaning instead of paying back the favour to the person who helped you (who has been helped before by others)they will find three other people to return the favour. They do not have to do it, but they will definitely want to do it, because they have been helped unselfishly and it truly is a pleasure to help without asking for any reward in return.
That I believe is the message of this movie. To be touched by someone who has helped you without asking anything in return, because the helper has also been touched by someone who helped him without asking for anything in return, and it goes on ad infinitum.
Is it really an attempt to create utopia? I believe that inside everyone, there is goodness, even in the most hardened heart, and we can unlock this beautiful person when we touch him, when we helped him when he is at a vulnerable point in his life, when he/she was truly crying out for help. 9/11 and the tsunami has shown that humanity is ready to emabrace this idea to alleviate pain and suffering and helped one another.
It is not about giving people fishes and making them dependent on us, it is also about teaching them how to fish for themselves. That is not the issue, the issue is doing something for others without any ulterior motive, because nobody is going to monitor you if you do not continue the idea of helping three people. There is something appealing about doing it out of a pure desire to help without asking for anything in return, simply because you have been on the receiving side before and you somehow have faith that the person that you have touched, is going to continue touching others, lighting one heart after another.
Remember, what goes around comes around. We reap what we sow.
Others compare this formula with pyramid selling or multi level marketing. Although the multiplying effect is similar, Pay it Forward is not similar in intent to pyramid or multi levelmarketing. There is no intention to benefit when one pays it forward.
Three cheers for Pay It Forward and three cheers for the movie Pay It Forward.
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