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Normal People vs. The People vs. George Lucas

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 7, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Because we all know what happens when George Lucas gets his hands on a Storm Trooper. Or at least you South Park viewers do.


The 2009 Trailer. See The 2010 Trailer Below.

I have to admit that as much as I love film (and I DO love film, with a passion), there’s still a level of film fetishism that I don’t really grasp. Sure, I’ve watched Blade Runner over 200 times, but who in their right mind hasn’t? No, I have to draw the line at things like dressing up as a character from a film. At least when it’s not Halloween. Which is why I’ll never understand the legions of Star Wars Storm Troopers that convene on a regular basis, in full battle regalia, and at their own considerable expense. Or the people who maintain Wookieepedia. Or people that create web sites that tell you the best times to pee during a film. At the same time, I have to admire the dedication this kind of thing requires, especially in the case of the people behind a project like The People vs. George Lucas, the new documentary about the poor souls whose lives were destroyed by the numerous changes Lucas made to the original Star Wars Trilogy on re-release. The producers of the film put it this way: “The People vs. George Lucas explores the titanic struggle between a Godlike filmmaker and his legions of fans over the most popular franchise in movie history. At its core, PvsG is the examination of a high-profile, dysfunctional love story. George created this humongous and intricate sandbox for us to play in; but is he the sole owner of it, or does it now belong to the ages? And what happens to your role as a creator when your audience claims it owns your art? We basically looked at the conflicted dynamic between George and his fans from a cultural perspective, and asked ourselves those questions.” Although I’ve yet to see the film, I think a simpler assessment may be in order. Maybe it’s just a bunch of web-enabled misanthropic fanboys venting the rage that used to be confined to their smelly bedrooms, but which – thanks to the power of crowdsourcing – must now be endured by the entire world. I jest of course; it promises to be an amusing film, and makes its debut at SXSW 2010 the week of March 12. See the teasers above left and below. Read the rest of this entry »

ADD & Digital Indignation – Frontline’s Digital Nation & Web Video

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 31, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

I don’t know why I wrote this piece, you’ll only read 28% of it. And Frontline’s cool new show “Digital Nation” debuts against “Lost” on Tuesday, so you probably won’t watch it.


Digital Nation Debuts Tuesday On PBS

Given the fact that according to this article you’re only going to read at most 28% of this page, I wonder if I should write less so you’ll read the whole thing? That sounds like an attempt at a humorous paradox, but it’s actually not; the fact is that according to this chart from the same article, users spend only 4.4 seconds more on a web page for each additional 100 words. So I better get to the point. This week PBS is airing a special edition of Frontline called Digital Nation, which explores how the Internet, texting, blogging, social networking, and other aspects of the “digital lifestyle” are impacting our lives. This is a topic that’s been very much on my attention-deficient mind for a few years. Although there are few solid scientific studies on the topic, I believe that as well as whatever benefits we derive from the technologies in which we’ve immersed our lives, these same tools have also caused perceptible changes in attention span, basic courtesy, and memory for many people. You almost certainly have noticed that more and more often, you and your friends can recall a film or book, but can’t recall the director, actor, author, or a major character. And who hasn’t found themselves sitting in a group of people that seem more intent on proving they have to “be somewhere else” digitally by texting, phoning, or checking a web account of some kind. Given the word count of what I’m writing, I lost you 140 words ago, but if you find this topic of interest, you might also find this TechCrunch article about what we watch and how we watch it interesting. It highlights things like how in the early 50′s, 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, and how today that number has dropped to 5%, with other networks fairing about the same. Most of the remaining video content consumed is watched on the web, and in ways that may surprise you. This fact will almost certainly be relevant to the long-term viewership of Digital Nation; it debuts Tuesday directly opposite the season premiere of “Lost”. Read the rest of this entry »

Repo Man’s Bastard Spawn: Repo Chick & Repo Men

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 26, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Two new movies are being released that claim no connection to Repo Man, yet both are framing all their marketing around its cult brand. I’m Lookin for the Joke with a Microscope.

As countercultural post art-punk film lovers in the 80′s, my unjustifiably snobbish friends and I weren’t too taken with Repo Man on its release. We felt that punk that called itself punk was nothing more than a cartoon of rebellion, so a movie with a soundtrack featuring Black Flag and the Circle Jerks just didn’t fly with us. I came to my senses a few years later when I re-watched the film during the heyday of indy film in the late 80′s and early 90′s, and although I haven’t seen it in a while, it remains on my mental list of cult favorites. Which is part of why I’m tremendously amused with the buzz surrounding the release of both Repo Chick and Repo Men! (YouTube trailer links) this year. If you haven’t followed the story around the release of the films, it goes something like this: Repo Man director Alex Cox was busy developing “Repo Chick”, which he emphatically stated in early press was not a sequel to Repo Man. With movie studios being the litigation-fueled monsters that they are, Universal Pictures (which has rights to Repo Man) sent Cox a cease-and-desist, pulled a film they had shelved since 2008 called “Repossession Mambo” from the vaults, and rechristened it “Repo Men!” for release this year, almost concurrent with Repo Chick. Universal’s strategy is both fitting and ironic in a time of auto-industry bailouts and mortgage foreclosures, and adds an amusing media backdrop for the release of both films, which probably couldn’t have less in common. Repo Chick was produced by David Lynch, and was shot on green-screen with Red HD cameras. It’s been called a “farcical anti-golf parody”, and if the trailers are any indication, looks like it’ll be brilliantly campy. Repo Men, on the other hand, is a rather expensive looking action/adventure flick in which Jude Law plays a repo man who works for a company that reposseses your body organs when you miss a payment. Personally, I’m looking forward to both. I just hope Universal doesn’t manage to repo the rights to Cox’s non-sequel while cashing in on the name with their own “non-sequel”. Cox has an interesting spin on the whole story on his blog, which is impossible to link to directly, so we’ve included it below, along with trailers for both films.

Read the rest of this entry »

Inception The Movie: Your Mind Is The Scene Of The Crime

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 17, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

The trailers for Christopher Nolan’s new movie Inception are out, as is an online game. Plot details are still thin, but with the director of Memento and Dark Night at the helm, who’s worried?

I almost never get wet-my-pants excited about upcoming film releases, especially anticipated blockbusters, but I’m making an exception in the case of Inception, the new film directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight). Aside from the trailers (see below), the only details about Inception so far consist of the tagline “Your mind is the scene of the crime“, the pitch “In a world where entering dreams is possible, a single idea from the human mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset“, and some random thoughts about the film from Chris Nolan in this LA Times piece. Anything else right now is pure conjecture (which they’ve done a lot of over at Screen Rant ), except for the alleged scoop on the plot at (WARNING: Spoilers, assuming they’re right) InContention.com. Personally, I don’t care about all this speculation, anybody who can make a film like Memento and then later actually make me LOVE a Batman movie has my unqualified trust. Inception is slated for a July 2010 release, and the early virals are in motion; the Inception movie site has a link to a game at Your Mind Is The Scene Of The Crime. We have a mini-preview of the game with screen grabs for your amusement below, but only played as far as the first level, so who knows where the game leads? Try it and let us know. For now, we’ll wait and watch for more marketing teasers. Trailer and game details below. Read the rest of this entry »

Avatar, Suicide & Racism: So This Blue Guy Walks Into A Bar…

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 12, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

There’s a lot of debate about Avatar and racism, but the film is dangerous in other ways. It might make you suicidal, and you might even get SHOT.


Yo. Why he gotta be blue?

I made a deal with a friend a few months ago that we wouldn’t see Avatar without each other. Of course, people being people and all, she went ahead and saw it without me. I still haven’t seen it. But you know what? I’m starting to think I won’t need to. A similar thing happened to me with both “The Piano” and “The Crying Game”. I waited patiently for them to hit the theaters, didn’t go see them the first couple of weeks after release, and by then was afraid to see them for fear of being tragically disappointed after the frenzied press and word of mouth build-up. Fortunately, the press about the film’s impact has been entertaining enough in itself. First of all, the obvious debate about whether it’s racist? OF COURSE it’s racist. James Cameron (a rich white man) first found success with Terminator, a continuing story about enslaved beings that seek emancipation and in each movie get beaten back down by their oppressors. Why would he walk away from his cash cow? If you haven’t followed the debate, this MSNBC piece gives a good gloss over, but for a deeper look, this Psychology Today piece points out that the film also reinforces sexual stereotypes and leans heavily on the messiah angle as well. And from a more political standpoint, while some are quick to point out that Avatar is real and that Pandora is located in Central and South America and Africa, others suggest that China’s moviegoers rally to it as a story about private property, not race. None of this should be surprising; it’s qualities like this that give a film resonance. Yes. We live in a world where one race dominates commerce, and will do anything to gratify its greed. If you didn’t know this, maybe you should go read a book like Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. What is probably more intriguing about the film is the pyschological impact it’s having on fans. William Gibson was one of the first to describe how lifeless one would feel after a virtual experience in his cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer, but did you know that there really are thousands of people who are depressed and pondering suicide after seeing Avatar because of this effect? The support forum is called Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible if you’re one of them. And there’s not only the tragic psychological effects, apparently seeing Avatar can get you shot.  Read the rest of this entry »

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