Ten Years of Film Interpretation

In Metaphilm, and in these books . . .

Saturday, July 17, 2004

I, Robot

Speaking of Ebert, a great quote from his review of I, Robot: “As for the robots, they function like the giant insects in Starship Troopers, as video game targets. You can’t even be mad at them, since they’re only programs. Although, come to think of it, you can be mad at programs; Microsoft Word has inspired me to rage far beyond anything these robots engender.” Hear, hear. 

A Dear Byron Letter

Roger Ebert’s take on A Cinderella Story is couched in the form of an open letter to a teen-age boy. Apparently Mr. Ebert has untapped skill as a comedian. “Even when a critic dislikes a movie, if it’s a good review, it has enough information so you can figure out whether you’d like it, anyway. For example, this review is a splendid review because it lets you know you’d hate A Cinderella Story, and I am pretty much 100 percent sure that you would.”

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

…A Constant Struggle

Here’s the “more soon” from “Just A Movie” that we promised on June 10th--

IF… “The starting point for all students of media is to recognize that the most serious mistake that all literate cultures make is to regard Entertainment as non-political.”

THEN… movies that come out prior to national elections are particularly important.  To give Michael Moore the journalistic benefit of the doubt, you can check his facts yourself by cross-checking his citations.  And, does anyone remember Jacob Levich’s article published 11 days after 9/11 called “Happy New Year: It’s 1984”?  It’s worth reading again, not only because the third anniversary is coming soon, nor because it’s an election year, but also because this seems to be the starting point of another film called Orwell Rolls In His Grave.  These are contentious times, and contentious issues, and Metaphilm doesn’t take a political position—but we do suggest that film and politics really are related, and we concur with George Orwell’s assessment that, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” Here’s to the struggle.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Bleak?

The Arlo and Janis Sunday comic for 11 July 2004 has Arlo commenting that “Movies today seem so . . . mean!” and questioning how dark they’ve become lately. Discuss. Link should be good for a month or so. (Comics.com)