It should be clear by now from my other movie reviews that I will take any movie and relate it to spirituality and the workplace. With that in mind, let’s begin.

Miami Vice. I’ve probably seen every episode of the TV show twice, so the theme and plot have been drilled into my head. Here’s the plot of every episode (and of the movie): Crockett and Tubbs are cocky detectives in Miami. They go undercover. Breasts. They fall in love. Ass. Someone dies (often many someones). They use their boats.

But here’s the spirituality and the workplace issue: compartmentalization. Episode after episode, and throughout the movie, we see how Crockett and Tubbs can’t really compartmentalize their work. They try to keep their personal relationships separate from their work relationships, but it just doesn’t work. Their love lives involve their work lives; their friendships often involve the people they are investigating. Compartmentalization doesn’t work, but that doesn’t stop them from trying.

Dead Man. A job offer brings a man by the name of William Blake to the American West. But not William Blake, the poet. Well, maybe not. It’s not entirely clear. In any case, Blake arrives too late in a mining town, the job offer has been rescinded and his job given to someone else. And thus begins his journey (You should have heard that in a very Joseph Campbell-like voice). The journey is one of deconstruction, where everything he believes is important is taken away until he floats out to sea and dies. In all honesty, this is one of the best films I’ve ever seen in my life. It is shot in black and white; it’s laden with symbols and is complex and dramatic and wrenching.

Here’s the key spirituality and the workplace issue: Don’t play with guns. Kidding. If you saw the movie, you might snicker because you could not possible have seen more guns in a movie. Actually, this is a fabulous example of how one failed opportunity can lead to the discovery of the wildness inside yourself and outside yourself.

Box of Moon Light. Al Fountain is a tightass electrical engineer who drives his employees crazy. Then one day he plucks a white hair from his head and the world starts to move backwards. Not all at once, just occasionally. This little time warp leads to him bumming around the woods in half a trailer owned by The Kid and swimming naked and doing some drugs. He has a right good time.

Here’s the key spirituality and workplace issue: Box of Moon Light is all about doing the opposite of your daily routine, no matter how upsetting it is initially, and no matter how pleasurable it ends up being…it’s about being able to go back to your routine too.

This concludes my weeks worth of Netflix rentals. Adieu.