Ten Years of Film Interpretation

In Metaphilm, and in these books . . .

Monday, July 28, 2008

The Dark Knight

‘"The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.’ Mystery novelist Andrew Klavan, “What Bush and Batman Have in Common,” The Wall Street Journal. 

Monday, July 07, 2008

Wall-E

“I don’t know if they meant it this way all along or what, but WALL•E plays like a living, glowing embodiment of the marriage of Disney and Pixar, like their inaugural project. . . . And on another level, one starts to wonder whether the concept of a love story between a hopelessly sexy and futuristic piece of technology and a decrepit but nostalgically lovable relic of the past might be meant to depict something more contemporary: the fusion of the barely-remembered legacy of Walt with the all-too-dominant ascendancy of the House of Steve.” (Brian Tiemann, Peeve Farm)

Spirited Away

“A brief outline of some basic perspectives of the Shinto world view will provide an overall framework for understanding the film and various incidents and characters in it.” (‘Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film “Spirited Away"’ by James W. Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, Journal of Religion and Film, 2004)