Community

"When whites fantasize about becoming other races, it’s only fun if they can blithely ignore the fundamental experience of being an oppressed racial group. Which is that you are oppressed, and nobody will let you be a leader of anything."

—

It feels good to know that Analee Newitz, who I loved to read as a teenager, really is effing awesome.

# When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?

(via an article in today’s Times about the many critical responses to the movie.)

"I’m not saying there is anything wrong with liking The Notebook, but there’s kind of something wrong with liking The Notebook, you know? I mean, this movie is actual garbage. It doesn’t pluck at your heartstrings so much as it barfs on your diarrhea-strings."

—

I laughed hysterically through the entire synopsis.

#The Notebook - The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time

"A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it."

— The Economist (via mudd up, peterwknox, solipsism)

Gary Hustwit - the man behind Helvetica - is now smitten with design and getting ready to release Objectified, a film on industrial design. This is all old news, but now there’s a trailer.  (via kottke)

"Were there invisible quotation marks about my Creationism article? Of course there were. How could you be expected to see them? In a sense, I didn’t want you to. I wrote it straight. The quotation marks would have been supplied by the instincts of the ironic reader. The classic model is Jonathan Swift’s famous essay, “A Modest Proposal."

— I know he’s in ill health and all, but this is the wrong-headed and pompous Roger Ebert whose film reviews so often make me livid. Kottke’s love for him had me reconsidering, but this brings me back to eath.

Criterion trying to strike balances in bringing 35mm into HD →

This is a fascinating topic. Check out the first comment to see what a flaming pile of poo Gizmodo is, though.

I love Sergei Eisenstein for his ability to understand how we react to cinema. It’s an insight that helped him develop montage and some of the greatest works of film. But I can’t say I enjoyed watching The Battleship Potemkin, despite its high regard. The ‘Odessa Steps’ scene, however, is arguably the most influential moment in all of cinematic history, and will make you shiver 82 years on - what genius.

"Norbit,” Eddie Murphy’s current movie, may be the most recent example of a black man putting on a dress and playing the fat, ignorant, loud, brown-skinned black woman as an object of ridicule and revulsion, you can bet it won’t be the last."

— Danny Glover spoke at Tufts last night and I asked him about this - why do prominent actors of color take these parts? He talked about how simply having black actors at the forefront lent diversity to the marketplace. I think he’s got a point, but I think the damage that some of this stuff does can’t be overstated. Read: WIMN’s Voices: Imus Protest! Unruly-Haired Hater

Ego shelter from the imminent storm

On a night when an ever-more snarky and headstrong Jon Stewart could not say the right thing (no matter how many times he referenced Judaism - four), surely the most awkward moment of them all was the double-fisted sermonizing ‘gainst film bootlegging from AMPAS President Sid Ganis and the next presenter, Jake Gyllenhal.

The industry is hurting these days, and it’s because they’re working with a fundamentally broken model. The oft-mentioned bloated ticket prices here in New York ($10.75 with few discounts) isn’t even much of a shock to a consumers nationwide who are often paying $9.00 just to get a seat in the state-of-the-art stadium style theatre, replete with an increasing number of regular old commercials and fewer amenities than ever before.

The president of that other NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners, told the New York Times last summer that he didn’t “view [the three-month slump in ticket sales] as a structural problem.” That’s the kind of self-reassurance that, like Ganis’ unveiled diatribe tonight, will have the same positive sorts of results as Macbeth’s casual confidence that the surrounding forest should never rise up to his hillside castle.

I’ve got to tell you something, kindly industry CEOs, there’s some vermin in them thar’ hills, and they’re coming to get you - it’s called technology, it’s called end-user satisfaction, and it’s called adapting to the times. When a family can throw down a (relatively) sane sum for their own Dolby 5.1 system, a few dollars a month for Netflix, and make their own popcorn, they’re not going play into your hands.

iTunes just passed a billion songs not because they have especially worthy DRM, but because they’ve found a model that works. People don’t want to rent content, they want to own. Consumers need to be satisfied with the treatment they’re receiving if they’re ever going back to the theatre. I’m a cinephile of the boldest and most dated stripes, and although this year held some stellar films and performances, I’m waiting for DVD not because I fail to recognize the value of the theatrical experience - I go to every revival I can - but because my needs are no longer the primary concern; the sponsors and vendors are grappling for every last penny and minute of airtime and I’m not taking it.

Catch up and play ball, else those forests will most certainly be coming alive with your greatest of fears.