Saturday, January 31, 2004
Disney’s PR Office Gloating…
Ever wonder about AP press releases like this one? It’s heart-tugging, warm, heroic and oh yeah, has a subtle corporate plug inserted right at the very end. Is this just really great luck for Disney, Pixar, and the Finding Nemo movie, or is something fishy going on? If the fish in the story had died, would this have been news? And just how does a fire alarm shatter a fish bowl in the first place? And in case you need reassurance, remember that, “News bearing the AP logotype can be counted on to be accurate, balanced and informed.” Then again, maybe this explains it.
Friday, January 30, 2004
Ikea-Phobia and Fight Club
Is Fight Club the root of all “corporations-are-the-root-of-all-evil” rhetoric, or are you just another Rebel Consumer?
The Word, According to John
S. T. Karnick has a review of the film The Gospel of John (“the film takes on the style of an A&E biographical documentary”) that includes a perceptive retrospective of other treatments of the Gospel in film as well as other movies with notably biblical themes. “It’s interesting that the most timeless and unchanging narratives of the Western world—the accounts of human history recorded in the Bible—have also been among those most thoroughly affected by social and cinematic fashions.” (National Review, 30 Jan 2004). Good stuff.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Metropolitan and Mansfield Park
Must be one of them “meme” things. Two articles in one season comparing Jane Austen to director Whit Stillman. First is a focal piece on Stillman in City Journal: “In fact, the spirit of Jane Austen, Audrey’s favorite novelist, animates Metropolitan. Austen understands profoundly that manners are a kind of morals. She extols conventions that make civilized society possible. Stillman adopts not just her estimation of society but also her novelistic conventions, even down to the plot device of handwritten letters. His characters speak with a wit and articulateness that echo Austen’s seamless irony” (Julia Magnet, “A Great Conservative Filmmaker,” City Journal, Winter 2004). Then comes a great piece on the seriously misunderstood Mansfield Park: “In Whit Stillman’s intriguingly Austenesque film, Metropolitan, Tom Townsend . . . is astonished when Audrey Rouget . . . reveals that she enjoys Mansfield Park. Everyone knows, Tom says, that Mansfield Park is the worst novel Jane Austen wrote, and nobody likes the book’s heroine, Fanny Price. Audrey, the moral center of the film and very much a Fanny Price character herself, protests simply, ‘I like Fanny Price.’” (Peter J. Leithart, “Jane Austen, Public Theologian,” First Things, January 2004). That probably explains why there’s a mixed reaction to Stillman. Too countercultural.
Did Big Fish Kill Spalding Gray?
Spalding Gray has gone missing, and according to this story, the last film he saw was Big Fish, which his wife speculates “gave him permission” to do that which he’d been contemplating and attempting for many months prior.
Monday, January 26, 2004
Loving the Hulk
I just ran across an interview with the late novelist Walker Percy (author of The Moviegoer) where he affirms that his favorite television program was The Incredible Hulk: “It united two great literary traditions: rotation (hitting the road, dropping out, adventures) and the good monster (Beauty’s beast), who is also Lancelot.” (Doubletake Magazine)
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Special Effects Become Mannerist
What happens when special effects go from looking real to looking cool?
Friday, January 23, 2004
A List of Philosophical Films
The University of Tennessee at Martin has a list of 150 films with religious or philosophical themes (and short blurbs with their takes on the themes). Elsewhere on that site are discussion questions for assorted films. Helpful list? Did they miss anything?
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
The Shawshank Redemption
Andre Mouchard notes the transition of The Shawshank Redemption from flop to cult favorite. “The film version of the Stephen King story about a banker who maintains his humanity during an unjust and very long stint in prison is, 10 years after its release, rentable, buyable, channel-surfable proof of the existence of a new category of art—the ubiquitous cult movie. . . . Just as toddlers might fall in love with a movie like Monsters, Inc. and watch it dozens of times, grown-ups find comfort in seeing and reseeing movies like Shawshank.” (“Shawshank Redeemed,” Orange County Register, 19 Jan 2004, free registration required)
