Ten Things I Learned While Watching INTO THE WILD:

1. I am able to stay awake through a maximum of seventeen flashback sequences, 42 glimpses of the landscape, and nearly 100 long pauses per movie.

2. The problem with our commercialized, desensitized culture is its dispiriting lack of human truth, and its obsession with material goods and dysfunctional relationships. This problem can be remedied, however, by trekking out alone into the Alaskan wilderness, living inside an abandoned bus (that apparently dropped out of the sky, since there are no roads), eating squirrels you kill yourself, swimming naked in arctic streams, and reading lots of bad poetry by dead Europeans.

3. Snow is pretty.

4. Snow on mountaintops is prettier. It makes Emile Hirsch get all teary-eyed at the beauty and wonder of it all.

5. Emile Hirsch can get teary-eyed at just about anything. He is also prone to holding his arms outstretched to invoke Christ imagery. Because he's Jesus, see.

6. Young, white, heterosexual American men can burn all their money, illegally kayak down canyon rivers, illegally cross the Mexican border, destroy their automobile, and avoid all adult responsibility without suffering repercussions of any kind. Because when they do it, it's sexy.

7. Contrary to the lessons we learned in Werner Herzog's film Grizzly Man, large bears will not always eat irritating hippie man-children. Damn shame.

8. Vince Vaughn is in this movie. He plays a simple country farmer from South Dakota. Try to stop laughing.

9. Even with less than two minutes of screen time, Marcia Gay Harden can still find countless ways to overact.

10. When making a dinner salad out of berries and twigs found in the forest, make damn sure you know what you're doing.