Wednesday, February 25, 2004
The Passion over the Passion
Steve Beard’s Thunderstruck blog is the definitive place to find links to articles of all sorts on The Passion of the Christ. Beard comments for himself: “The Passion is the Sunday school flannel board lesson for a generation that grew up on violent video games, skipped church, and stood in line to watch Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Volume 1.” There you are.
Also, don’t miss Roger Ebert’s extremely well done review: “I prefer to evaluate a film on the basis of what it intends to do, not on what I think it should have done.” He puts things in perspective.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Woody Allen, pretentious—or?
A new Bleat gives me an opportunity to raise the issue of Woody Allen movies. Some readers want interpretations, but we’ve not gotten any submissions on them, and I’m not going to write one. So perhaps this rant (which sounds good to me; haven’t seen many Allen films) will inspire somebody to come to the defense of the auteur. “Late Friday I watched Interiors, which I don’t think I’d seen since 1978; . . . I came away [then] thinking what an artist Woody Allen was. What a genius! What piercing insight into the human condition! What a load of pretentious rubbish! I think now.” And: “In Allen’s films, art is a creed, a belief system, a religion full of sermons and dirges. If ever Art alights on a tinkerbell emotion like glee or delight, it’s always presented as a freeze-dried object . . . Butterflies on pins” (lileks.com, 23 Feb 2004). Of course, Mr. Lileks has also undergone a philosophical transformation over the past several years; is ideological agreement a prerequisite to enjoying Woody Allen? Discuss among yourselves.
Monday, February 23, 2004
Red and Blue Movies?
Get Religion, the nifty new religion journalism blog from Terry Mattingly and Doug LeBlanc, asks a question about movie distribution paralleling political or cultural divisions in light of reports that Bertolucci’s new The Dreamers is targeting urban sites. “Is this reference to ‘more conservative’ zones and theaters the flip side of the much-discussed decision by Mel Gibson and his Icon company to steer copies of The Passion of the Christ toward more culturally conservative parts of the map (think Dallas suburbs) and away from more culturally liberal sectors (think Manhattan)?” The whole red v. blue division is dubious, but there are some good questions asked in this post, particularly about the way these items are covered in mainstream media outlets.
Friday, February 20, 2004
So That’s Where Pink Floyd Got The Idea
We’ve always wondered why Roger Waters psychologically equated The Wall with the feminine, and especially with the figure of an overly protective smothering mother. Here’s one very solid clue from 1971, eight years prior to Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock-opera:
PSYCHIATRIST: No, I suppose not. How do you feel about your mother?
INSERT—STOCK: A giant steel ball on a demolition crane crashes into a brick wall collapsing it with much noise and dust.
From the script for, you guessed it, Harold and Maude. Now that’s intertextuality!
It’s Movieoke Night!
"As long as you’re not afraid to make a fool of yourself, it becomes a really communal experience.” Currently, Movieoke is only available in a basement below a New York City pizza parlor. But how long before this new form of cultural sampling becomes a must-have home-entertainment system?
Lights! Camera! Being!
The oh-so clever Cambridge Professor Simon Blackburn offers compelling suggestions for why Martin Heidegger’s philosophy would make good cinema. But wait a minute, you already knew this, didn’t you? Kudos to Metaphilm’s Tom C. Smith for being two years ahead of Blackburn’s cinematic synthesis. Further proof of “Amateur Theory.”
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Let Sundance Say “Amen!”
Patton Dodd has a typically thoughtful piece on religion at the recent Sundance Film Festival. He suggests that Sundance is the answer to the question, “Where you can find a see a quiet film about a floating Buddhist monastery, an affecting documentary about a Pentecostal church in Washington D.C.’s mean streets, and an ear-shattering socialistic gay porn flick . . . all in the same weekend?” (The Revealer, 18 Feb 2004). Interesting in particular is the response of the audiences and the questions not asked.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Free Billy!
In honor of finally getting Linux loaded and functional on the wife’s laptop, a link to a Daily Static comic that spoofs the Free Willy poster: ”Free Billy: How far would you go to view code? . . . The most rousing hacker adventure since The Net. . . . A Script Kiddie. A 3-Ton Source File. Code you could never imagine. Comments you will never forget” (UserFriendly.org). Gotta love parodies.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
21 Grams
This article includes coverage of Amores Perros, as well: “In what can only be interpreted as an explicit echo of their first picture, Iñárritu and Arriaga again use a car wreck as the unifying narrative event in their new film, 21 Grams. This time, however, they take a new, more entwined tack with their characters—creating tensions within their social worlds and forcing them together.” Of note: “(incidentally, Iñárritu’s portrayal in these scenes of evangelical Christian belief and its potentially transforming intensity are among the most believable and least patronizing anywhere on film).” (Matt Hermann, “Life Doesn’t Go On,” Newtopia Magazine, Feb/Mar 2004).
Friday, February 13, 2004
A Little Close to the Bone…
"As a result, film studies majors are to bear the perpetual burden of explaining the difference between film studies and film production to every person that asks about their schooling and to what practical occupation it can be applied.
Occupational Outlook
Well, um . . . let’s see . . .
The study of films and their historical contexts, cultural impacts/influences and philosophical components can be described as
a labor of love.”
Does this sound familiar?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
