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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 »

2010 The Year Is Bound To Be Better Than 2010 The Movie

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 1, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, January 1st, 2010

But don’t let that stop you from watching it as you nurse your hangover on the sofa.

Since one of America’s traditional New Year’s Day pastimes is vegetating on the sofa and watching really bad movies as you recover from a brutal night of partying, this New Year, consider tracking down a copy of 2010, the movie. Sure, you can watch the world end in 2012 in 2010 (March 2nd, to be precise), but why not watch a world begin when a movie ends now? Those last few sentences will make total sense if you watch the movie. I experienced a profound disappointment when 2001 rolled around, and we weren’t using e-ink to read magazines or riding Pan Am shuttles to an orbiting Hilton as depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I’ve since adjusted. But I was a little curious as to how the movie 2010 had depicted the future. To their credit, they got a couple of things right (mostly by avoiding showing many everyday devices) but in other ways they were way off. Yes, Jupiter’s moon Europa may have life, and governments still lie and cheat and manipulate scientists’ gullibility, but in the film they still have the US and Russia in a cold war, teetering on the edge of nuclear conflict because of a blockade on Honduras. Who’d have guessed that just five years after the movie was made, the Berlin Wall would come down, and an era of Glasnost would begin? The everyday technology they *did show in the film was a little hit or miss in terms of accuracy. The laptop Roy Scheider’s character uses on the beach isn’t too far off, but the only desktop monitors in the film look sort of like bulky 70′s TV’s that have been restyled by Apple (which is, in fact, probably what they are). The arrival of a thinking, talking computer is still years away in real life (except our artificial intelligence program here on Dissociated Press) so it was perhaps appropriate that the one in the film is the size of an antique china buffet. And it was a little preposterous that the scientist in the movie rebooted the original HAL 9000 in minutes; I’ve spent longer waiting for XP to boot after a crash! All in all, the film is a mixed bag, with some decent acting, scripting, and shooting (although the cinematography looks almost childish in comparison to Kubrick’s 2001) that suffers a bit from 80′s overtones. The counterpart computer to HAL, for instance, is a girl named SAL; scientist Heywood Floyd’s house has dolphins swimming around in indoor pools, and there’s an overall feeling of having borrowed props from the Alien set. But this is just the perfect thing to watch on the sofa with a screaming hangover! Read the rest of this entry »

The Black Candle – An Award Winning Film About Kwanzaa

[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 26, 2009 by admin in Holidays

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

Directed by author and filmmaker M.K. Asante Jr, and narrated by Maya Angelou

Last year I shared that I had decided to stop belittling Kwanzaa for being a made-up holiday, which I had been doing for years mostly because I was completely ignorant of what it was really all about, beyond the parts that were all too easy to poke fun at. This sentiment seems to be gathering some press here and there; this Slate piece by Melonyce McAfee, for instance, describes firsthand the positive part Kwanzaa played in at least one person’s upbringing. If you’re as ignorant as I was about the details of the holiday, you can of course hit Wikipedia, but I’m personally looking forward to watching The Black Candle, an award-winning documentary directed by author and filmmaker M.K. Asante Jr., and narrated by Maya Angelou. It’s available on DVD, but it also is making its TV debut on TVOne on Saturday December 26. If – like me – you’re in the Detroit area, there are also special free screenings on the 26th, 27th and 29th at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. If you’re elsewhere in the country, find a screening here. The official trailer is below, and there’s an extended unofficial nine minute preview on YouTube. Read the rest of this entry »

Why Did Wilhelm Scream? He Found Out Alan Smithee Was Dead

[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 22, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Most people go to the movies to WATCH them. Some of us go to HEAR them. A look at some movie trivia you may or may not have heard.


The tools of a Foley Artist

If you’re a film buff, you’ve probably heard of the Wilhelm, and if you’re not, you’ve almost certainly heard it. For those who aren’t familiar with the now legendary film sound effect and insider joke, Wikipedia has a thorough history of the Wilhelm with a sound sample, and some nut has created a fairly comprehensive collection of the scenes in which it’s been used in this YouTube clip. It’s interesting that such an absurdly out of place sound can be used so pervasively without being noticed, but that without hundreds of other sounds, even the most visually compelling film is rendered lifeless. George Lucas definitely understood the value of sound; imagine Star Wars without the triumphant music, the distinctly different sounds of the empire vs rebel fighter crafts, the lightsaber, or the voices of Chewbacca and R2D2. The owners of the patented Godzilla Roar also understand the value of sound, they’ll sue the pants off of anyone who seems to infringe. And for several decades, “eerie” meant theremin. But otherwise, one of the most impactful aspects of film goes unacknowledged, with peculiar language to go along with its mysterious subculture. That background noise of people talking? It’s called – depending on the context – “walla”, “rhubarb”, or “snazzum”. Snazzum is a special kind of walla; it’s gibberish spoken by a specific extra Read the rest of this entry »

Hollywood’s 3D Conspiracy

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on November 4, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

It’s actually pretty two-dimensional. They want your money. They want their profits back.

As I sat at a friend of a friend’s house the other evening watching a torrented “DVD rip” of the new Star Trek movie two weeks before its release date, it struck me that there’s a bit of irony in the fact that Disney is using a remake of “A Christmas Carol” to help roll out the film industy’s latest flailing attempt to save its way of life – the 3D movie. At a time in US history that teeters on the edge of being Dickensian, to take a story that is typically viewed as an indictment of nineteenth century industrial capitalism and use it as part of a platform that is meant to help Hollywood regain control of its media and its profits is either a master stroke or incredibly foolish. They’re going to have to do something though, I may have been watching a copy of a DVD release a couple of weeks early, but Star Trek was available as a torrent while the film was still in theaters. Hollywood’s been warming you up with 3D re-releases of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the acid test will be James Cameron’s Avatar, set for release around the holidays, and touted as the spearhead of the new assault of 3D in theaters. If you haven’t pieced this all together yet, Hollywood’s idea is to offer something in theaters you won’t be able to take home later. Will it work? I personally don’t think so; I agree to some degree with the thinking of people like Chris Anderson, who’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price points up the fact that pop media has little value in itself, but is a great way to build customer engagement. I mean, a pop song is 99 cents on iTunes, and Star Trek is free at my friend’s house. Why would I pay even more to watch a movie in an already overpriced theater? I’m not alone in this thinking, this mom’s reaction highlights Hollywood’s ongoing disconnect. In my opinion, the greed will eventually kill them. They literally own our brains already by virtue of how media like Toy Story saturates our existence and generates ancillary sales, but it’s not enough. They still want cash up front. Sorry Hollywood, my life is already in 3D. That’s precisely why I go to a movie or play; to invest a little imagination and get away from things. Read the rest of this entry »

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