Couch Potato PickingsOn Channel 4 this afternoon at 4pmI initially chose this film because it’s about money, and we’re all worrying about that these days now that we’re waking up to the inevitability of a bleak economic future.Yes, I deliberately picked this film because it seemingly offers the perfect 97 minutes of escapism. Right now we don’t have much money, but I considered that it would surely be fun to watch a man inheriting loads of it with the promise of even more if he can squander the first $30million.But will it be fun? In preparation I had planned to play my own Brewster’s Millions game, devising a list of how I’d fritter away all those dollars. But as soon as I started thinking about it, I began to feel rather sickened.Far from offering a slice of fun and frivolous escapism, picking this film today has actually provided much food for thought.You see, it’s forced me to acknowledge my dire knowledge of economics, and because of that I’ve been driven to sit through a crash course on the current situation, delivered by American scientist Chris Martenson, available online here. According to Martenson, our lives will change drastically within the next 20 years, and, if we don’t take action now, we’ll struggle to cope with those changes.Think about it, for the past few years all across the world we’ve been squandering money, just like Montgomery Brewster, and our governments have been bailing us out with even more money and we’ve been taking it for granted. If you look at it this way, what’s the point playing the Brewster’s Millions game, we’ve been playing it for real, as illustrated in this spoof:And now, having grown accustomed to squandering so much, we’ve spent it all and we’re about to find ourselves back at square one with nothing to show for it except the clothes on our backs.Hmm, perhaps this movie doesn’t offer such escapist entertainment after all.ShareThis