Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes, and clips and puts it all in perspective.
If you are open to The True Memoirs of an International Assassin changing your life, it's certainly possible. Don't just watch it. Breathe it in.
Most people who watch this movie are tired from a long day and will turn on Netflix in hopes of seeing something mindless while drifting off to sleep. And this movie will appear on your screen and you will say “Ah hah! This looks like something I can watch while dying inside.”
But does it have to be? Sure, the movie looks both formulaic and dated before it's even arrived on our illustrious laptops. And it feels like some Netflix executive said, “How about a contemporary version of Romancing the Stone?” And someone else said, “I got an idea, instead of Kathleen Turner let's get Kevin James.” And then someone added, “And instead of Michael Douglas as the love interest, let's find some attractive woman who doesn't talk that much.”
Fine. Be cynical if you want. But instead of seeing The True Memoirs of an International Assassin as mindless, see it as mindful. Find your bliss as you watch Kevin James step on a rake or lose his pants or whatever.
Take the opportunity to use the walking fart jokes on your screen as focal point, like a gold watching swinging back and forth, so you can relax deep into your mind and find your inner self, your base self, your center. And see if you can't find it within you to feel the miracle of your own breathing. And perhaps your mind will drift towards stray thoughts: Is life so bad? I mean, I'm sitting here watching a movie called The True Memoirs of an International Assassin. And that means I have something to sit on. I have friends. I have a family. I don't know where my next paycheck is coming from, I'm trying to exercise more but I don't always have the time, my sleep apnea machine isn't working out very well, but for now, for this very moment, I'm grateful for what I do have. Also, it seems like the plants and payoffs of this Kevin James movie are quite obvious to anyone who has seen just one other movie before, but that's not important. What's important is to experience the moment, your feelings, good or bad, are just feelings. Your breath. Concentrate on the breath. You feel that?
We did it.