- With the recent memos NBC news leaked — wow, good on you NBC — I’m getting a little frightened for the future of the USA. The President has taken the War on Terror ball from the last guy and he is running with it without looking back or stopping for nothing. When he hands it off to a more than likely more conservative successor in 2016 I fear we will continue down the rabbit hole to oblivion. Oblivion looking like a mild, subtle, and polite police state.
- 2013 could be one of the best years for science fiction films we’ve seen in some time. The ones I’m most excited for:
Neill Blomkamp‘s second feature film behind the brilliant “District 9″, called Elysium. The overall concept of the film: 2159, overpopulated and most likely trashed Earth, the well-to-do living in a massive glorious orbiting space station society (called “Elysium”), the less than fortunate living on the surface, an ex-Con who has a chance to bring about equality back to the human race. The fact that Jodie Foster is going to be the pseudo villain, in an anti-immigrant authoritarion role aboard the station, is enough to get me to the theater on this one. Throw in the fact that this is Blomkamp we’re talking here, who’s use of CG is so subtle, who’s art direction is so grimy, this film could turn out to be eerily plausible. And I would not be surprised if he throws in some modern day rhetoric to make it feel all the more real.
The highly anticipated (for me at least) Gravity. Alfonso Cuaron‘s first movie since 2006′s “Children of Men“, which is a great flick. The story is quite simple really: two astronauts (Sandra Bullok and George Clooney) get caught-up in the destruction (accidental, most likely) of something similar to our International Space Station, the film depicts their attempts to get back on Earth safely. Now, I think this was scrapped, but rumor had it the movie was going to be one long take. Which would be insane. I have read more recently though — from fairly reputable sources — that it’s looking like the movie will be composed of a select handful of long takes. That alone has my interest peaked, Cuaron’s shot at the end of “Men” was spectacular.
In terms of discussing the influence of film on American society and the alarmingly frequent and horrifically violent acts perpetrated by Americans on other Americans, we have recently heard, AGAIN, two specific films called out and scapegoated, American Psycho and Natural Born Killers; despite the field day that these so-called “film critics” could have had with movies actually from this decade like Killers, from 2010 (oops, that’s an Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl romantic comedy). Taking a closer look at both American Psycho and Natural Born Killers, it becomes clear how weak both movies are when called out as examples of media “aired like propaganda loops on ‘Splatterdays’ and every day.”
- Considering I received an oh-so subtle death threat on Facebook the other day, it’s no surprise many users are taking hiatuses from the service right now, and will continue to in the year 2013 (it’s looking like). It was December 2012 when the data of a PEW survey was taken, finding that 61% of users were backing off from the social networking site. I think election hangover might have something to do with this. Although study subjects’ top two claims were “gave it up for lent” and “too much drama”. I actually do not agree with this idea though that on Facebook we can’t talk about deep philosophical issues. Sure, it gets tedious. But that’s because of the quality of discussion, not the discussion itself. People don’t listen to each other and they don’t think critically. Sure, I generally use Facebook to share music I like with my friends, or keep people updated on the status of my family… but it can be more than that. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it could be the 21st Century town square. Where someone presents an idea, then the rest of the public comments on it, likes or dislikes it. But no one is civil anymore. In fact, mostly what you get is 20-somethings lashing out against their family about how terrible they’ve been to them publicly. I know, this happened on my feed (not surprisingly) around December 2012.
We’ve written a few times about a patent trolling operation called Personal Audio. Like so many patent trolling companies, whose actually behind it is something of a mystery, but it does have an empty office in East Texas that no one ever goes to. It sued Apple and others claiming that it held patents on the concept of “playlists” and actually scored some victories. Amazingly, it sued Apple multiple times over the same patent, arguing that small changes to its products were new violations.
“It started with an interesting disease, I guess. I started writing it in film school, which means I took eight years to write it, on and off. I was sick with the flu, and I had this fever dream. I was obsessing over the physical nature of my illness, and how I had something in my body that had come from someone else’s body, and how that was a weirdly intimate thing, if you think about it that way.
So afterwards, I was trying to think about a character who might see disease as an intimate thing. I thought a celebrity-obsessed fan might reasonably want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of feeling physically connected to her in some way. And then it developed into a metaphor, which I thought was an interesting way of discussing that culture.”
- Seriously, Lars von Trier’s newest film is called “Nymphomaniac“? I swear, that guy just lives to push people’s buttons. Which is awesome. I still haven’t seen “Antichrist”… and to be honest I’m a little frightened by the disturbing imagery within. I mean, I’m sure I wouldn’t be fainting or anything like that (as has been reported); but I’m not so sure about my psychological tolerance for self-mutilation of the worst kind. I did however really, really like “Melancholia”, part two of his “Depression Trilogy” (“Antichrist” being part one). Maybe I’ll give this new one a watch at some point.
- Robin Hanson over at Overcoming Bias posted an excellent little piece about why certain movies do better than others, the relationship between consuming fiction and our lives, and the status of known achievement:
“There’s an apt old curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Which highlights the fact that while we like stories with drama, we don’t actually want drama in our lives. If you ignore the very end, and the fact that the characters are very high status artists, Amour is quite realistic and by far the drama most likely to actually be experienced by many of you. Which is why most folks don’t like it, because they don’t actually want to see realistic ordinary drama.
Amour is about a women who gets sick and then dies. I was stuck by the fact that what most bothered her and her husband were the insults to her pride. They could mostly handle the pain, the drudgery, and the loss of opportunity. But the loss of status, oh that stung.“
- Alfonso Cuaron‘s first film since 2006′s brilliant Children of Men has finally set a release date: October 4th, 2013. While this may seem like eons away it really isn’t too far to go considering it’ll have been seven years since “Children”. The movie stars Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts attempting to return to Earth. I’m a sucker for high concept, intelligent sci-fi flicks, so I’m counting this as one of my most anticipated releases of the year. Not to mention Cuaron’s spectacular direction… he’s certainly got an eye for it. The movie is called Gravity.
- Similarly, Shane Caruth‘s first film since the brilliant Primer (2004) is also set for release this year, it’s called Upstream Color. Primer is confusing, no doubt, but it’s one of the best science fiction films of the 2000s and one of the best time travel films of all time. And — it could be argued — the complexities of the film serve a purpose, in putting the viewer in the shoes of the characters. Synopses for “Upstream” have been vague to say the least. The IMDB description reads: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.“ The obvious wrench in there is “ageless organism”. Hmm.
When I was in Chicago I went to the art institute with my wife, I didn’t go there the last time I was in the city. Anyways they had a special exhibit there featuring the work of one Steve McQueen. No, not that one. This McQueen is from London, now living in Amsterdam. He’s probably most famous for his second major film, Shame. The Michael Fassbender movie from 2011. He also won the Camera d’Or at Canne for his first feature film in 2008. But he’s been making art for a long time. He’s a film artist mostly. So much of the exhibit was reels played on loops. There were a couple different makeshift theaters constructed for some shorts. We watched chunks of two, and the entirety of another. He’s definitely got his own style, but it’s hard to describe. The page for his exhibit in Chicago reads:
Most of McQueen’s oeuvre—including his gallery-based installations as well as feature films—evidences a potent, at times oblique, political consciousness. Many works address specific social and historical moments in ways that seemingly emerge from documentary or journalistic impulses. Other films are more abstract, their meanings shaped by allegory or metaphor. McQueen always communicates directly to viewers through what one writer termed “the medium of aesthetic affect.”
When I looked further into him, I found he shot a feature this summer to be released in 2013 tackling slavery. The cast is unreal: Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Giamatti, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men, Serenity, etc), and on and on. As hard as it may be to watch, the film reportedly will be hyper-realistic. Almost journalistic, like his shorts. Paul Giamatti spoke about the project with Collider, explaining that McQueen did not want to sugar coat it at all, that he wanted to present it as is. Very matter of factly. The movie is a true story, based on the memoirs of one Solomon Northup. A New York musician who is conned by a couple gentleman offering him a job playing fiddle, they then sold him into slavery. He was in the slave trade for 12 years before returning home, most of which was spent in Louisiana.
So ya know, all those people bitching about how Tarentino is just using the backdrop to tell a revenge spaghetti Western can go and see this movie this year too. There’s your art-house counter-part. The problem is I’m sure a lot of people will not. I think part of this is people look at Tarentino and for them he’s their artsy filmmaker. But that’s a problem. Cause he isn’t Michael Haneke, and Pulp Fiction is not The White Ribbon. So it’s a catch-22. Tarentino’s take on such a difficult part of our history isn’t examining things well enough for you, it’s just gun play and fake blood, but then again you also don’t watch real art-house, independent movies. That’s as oblique as it gets for you. Know what I’m saying?
- So Disney bought Star Wars. If you don’t know. Which is… meh. I mean, I’m not like a huge Star Wars fanboy or anything so I don’t have to strong of feelings either way. I do, like 80% of humans, love the old Star Wars movies; and I do, like 85% of humans, hate the new ones. From what I’m reading from people who know a lot about this stuff, there are novels that act as the official “post-Original Trilogy” story. Something to do with Han and Leia’s kids, Luke running a new Jedi order, and the resurgence of the Empire and the Sith. This could be decent I suppose. The problem with the new ones — and I’m sure this has been written about extensively — is the fear of treading new ground. This notion that they had to fall back on the old ones to be good. You can see that in everything from the bizarre and wacky coincidences written into the story, the way the ships are designed, even the way Palatine was scarred to look like a shitty Halloween costume of himself in Jedi. As long as they don’t do any of that, and focus on a new story, new characters, new designs, they should be alright I hope.
[But hey, I'm one of like 3 million assholes writing my opinions on the Internet about this so what the fuck do I know?]
- William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer is being turned into a film as we speak. Little is known about the project. The IMDB page is empty, to say the least. Liam Neeson’s name is on the cast, which may or may not be true, but sounds awesome. If you don’t know about the novel it’s one of the best science fiction novels of all-time. It started the genre we call “cyberpunk”. It also featured characters “jacking into” the Internet which was obviously directly lifted for The Matrix movies. Anyways, here’s a new poster (the first):
I have the impression that this is the opinion the government wants to impose on people, their way of opposing the situation. I think that when a person goes somewhere, she reflects, she thinks about where she is going and why, because she is using her time and energy. It’s a conscious choice. I don’t go to a demonstration because it’s cool. It isn’t at all cool to go to demonstrations today. The forces of order are nearby. They can beat you up. The demonstration on May 6th proved that. Nowadays, many people find themselves behind bars solely because they went to a public demonstration.
If I mentally transpose the words “entertaining” and “sport,” Dylan’s sentiment gets close to what I’m trying to express (and what I want to feel, but can’t). There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am. It makes me unconsciously think of them as extensions of myself. And I wonder if this is more problematic than I want to accept. Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone?
- The Trouble With The Mask. Great op-Ed on the inherent problems with the new Joker in Batman and featuring a brilliant Bukowski quote.
- Wally Pfister — the regular cinematographer for Chris Nolan – is working on his directorial debut. Supposedly it’ll be some sort of plausible science fiction type deal, reportedly titled “Transcendence”. Johnny Depp will be playing the lead. Christopher Waltz will likely get a supporting role. Naomi Repace will likely be getting a supporting role. These are all good things. Oh, also at the link he’s ragging on the framing of many of the shots in Avengers. Which on its own is interesting to read about (coming from a cinematographer); I had noticed some of the crooked angles for no reason upon first viewing, not sure if that’s Whedon or his DP.
The Orionid meteor shower — one of the year’s most spectacular natural light shows — is upon us. This weekend, Earth will plow through a dense stream of celestial debris given off by Halley’s Comet. These fragments of Halley will collide with the planet’s atmosphere at speeds approaching 150,000 miles per hour, setting the night ablaze as they streak and explode across the pre-dawn skies of Saturday, October 20th and Sunday, October 21st.
