::: metaphlog ::: phlagrant
Mon, Mar 19, 2007
Is Sandra Bullock the Cure for the Common Cold?
Dave White's compelling interpretation of the psychosomatic relationship between Sandra Bullock's films and the viewer's health.
Mon, Mar 12, 2007
This Is Not Happening
This Is Not Happening.
This Is Not Happening.
This Is Not Happening.
Sun, Jan 21, 2007
The Matrix Meets YouTube
"You think that's air that you're breathing?" Thanks, um, to Bob Gates for the link, we think.
Wed, Sep 20, 2006
This Comes Highly Recommended
This comes highly recommended, from several sources.
Mon, May 15, 2006
Da Vinci Code CleAVes You Wondering
From the "we can't help but wonder" department: notice the font similarities between the CLEAVE logo's use of the AV (designed 1998, launched 1999) and the movie graphics for The Da Vinci Code, using the same AV design in which the A and V are inversions of each other. The ancient correlation between the two is seen in the star of David, in which the upward-pointing triangle is the symbol of man, fire (sacrifice), smoke (prayer), and therefore mankind, while the downward pointing triangle is the symbol of woman, water, mercy (rain), and judgment (flood), and therefore the godhead. So presumably Man(kind) and God will get along just as soon as men and women get along... I wonder how long before ViAgra takes notice and changes their logo?
Wed, Mar 22, 2006
Another Calvin & Hobbes and Fight Club Connection
Thanks to Thomas Sowell for sending us the link to this one, which reconfirms our original conviction. In related news, we're extending the deadline and reupping the call for papers for Fight Club and Philosophy, due to the fact that we received far fewer submissions than promised. E-mail to submissions@metaphilm.com if you've got something you've always wanted to work on -- Chuck Palahniuk has agreed to write the intro, so hit us as hard as you can.
Tue, Feb 28, 2006
Sacred Profanity
No wonder they call it The Holy Land. A spoof ad from Holy Virals, found on Metacafe, makes a pitch for Israeli tourism by remaking the connection that Jesus Jeans made back in the 1970's. At the opening of the clip, notice the Metacafe logo font and "Are you bored?" tagline -- look familiar?
Fri, Jan 14, 2005
Matrix Ghosts
In cinema, what’s the line between “homage” and “plagiarism”? Today’s case study: The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell compared scene by scene.
Tue, Sep 14, 2004
Movies as political puppets
There’s a good piece in the Christian Science Monitor about the upcoming crop of overtly political films for the fall election season. “Past political movies have tended to be broader in aim. Bulworth, for example, is a satire about politics in general rather than a specific person. Or they focused on past events (All the President's Men, for instance) or on issues that are evergreens. By contrast, this year's crop of movies act as the movie equivalent of political cartoons, aimed to make a political point even as they entertain.” The record of South Park bodes well for Team America: World Police, but the rest of these sound a bit dubious.
Thu, May 20, 2004
The Gospel of Tomorrow
Sandy Starr at Spiked has an excellent discussion of The Day After Tomorrow as Green propaganda. Entertainment or science? “The answer you get from the filmmakers depends on whether they stand to gain publicity from a scientific debate about the film (in which case, it’s serious), or whether you’re taking them to task over the film’s scientific accuracy (in which case, it’s just entertainment). You have to hand it to the marketing department—the blurring of fact and fiction is an ingenious promotional technique.” Heads you win, tails I lose. “What purpose can raising ‘awareness’ of an unlikely or impossible scenario possibly serve, other than encouraging people to be more afraid than is rational? And why would scientists, of all people, wish to encourage such irrationality?”
Well Sandy, since you ask, it occurs to me that this is a reminder that much of environmentalism is, as Michael Crichton has argued recently, more religion than science. This movie is thus more than mere propaganda (boring). It is proselytizing (even more boring, not to mention hypocritical given the Passion hysteria). I’m all in favor of religion in movies, but let’s at least be honest about it. Truth in advertising? In this case let’s try starting with truth in science.
Mon, Mar 01, 2004
Oscar Night Projections
For two years in a row now (Nicole Kidman for The Hours and Charlize Theron for Monster) we've given Oscar gold to beautiful women who command $10 million per film only to dress them down as normal-to-plain old ugly-looking. What gives? Are there "really" no average-looking actresses who can act as sublimely as these high-priced beauties? Seems that a lot of money could be saved. Remember the outrage at not seeing Tom Cruise's real face in Vanilla Sky? Prosthetic ugliness for beautiful people keeps reminding me of the rich kids in school who were rich enough to dress in rags, while the rest of us tried to afford the clothes that would allow us to fit in. Is this trend the new snobbery? Anyone care to explain this in a Metaphilm piece for us?
Fri, Feb 20, 2004
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."
Fri, Feb 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.
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?
Tue, Feb 03, 2004
Bottoms Up
Ack! “In a surprising trend for sagging buttocks, several older A-list actors have dropped their drawers this season, including Jack Nicholson in Something’s Gotta Give, William H. Macy in The Cooler and Danny DeVito in Big Fish.” Somebody please make them stop—we’re still doing therapy after seeing far, far too much of Tim Blake Nelson in The Good Girl. (Fox News, 2 Feb 2004). Attention Hollywood Baby Boomers: aging is nothing to be ashamed of. Please just grow old gracefully.
Sat, Jan 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.
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