Friday, August 29, 2008

a concoction of awesome

An oldie but a goodie: The Shining as a romantic comedy.


Sleepless in Seattle as a horror film (even the title works!).


And from Film Junk:
First off, in no way would I ever claim that filmmakers do not intend to inject messages and metaphors into their films. I think Cloverfield’s 9/11 imagery is fairly obvious and clearly intentional. HOWEVER, I must say that my eyes have rolled on numerous occasions during discussions of phallic imagery within slasher films. So when I came across these short Volkswagen ads on Slashfilm today, I was reminded of how horrible film school COULD’VE been if we’d focused more on theory. These ads manage to celebrate film as an art form that’s worth discussion and debate, yet takes the shit out of pretentious, over analytical film theorists. I truly believe you can connect ANYTHING to a film if you really tried, which is what annoys me about most academic film theorizing. How ’bout them apples? You can check out of few of the videos below.
As a student of film theory, I of course have the opposite view on this. I love that I can argue that war films are homoerotic and that HBO's True Blood show is a metaphor for homosexuality in the 90s. I love that Sex and the City is simultaneously feminist and misogynistic. I love that Toy Story is a metaphor for puberty and Mary Poppins is an exorcist... wait, what?



4 comments:

Goddessdster said...

This was a concoction of awesome!

And no (points down) I will not watch Mad Men. Sorry.

And your book reference of the day is: True Blood is based on a god-awful (read: wildly popular) series of vampire romance novels that read like bad fanfiction (not that I don't read fanfiction, but I read good fanfiction). The author is actually a bit disgusted by the idea of two men having sex (per a panel I saw her on), but finds human/vampire relations hott. Whatever.

Goddessdster said...

Oh and I wanted to add:
Do you read Simon's blog? (you know, we're friends, Simon and I, so we're on a first name basis LOL) He did a great bit comparing Cloverfield to Godzilla movies as part of National consciousness. It was so beautiful, I almost cried.

dying alone said...

1. You know, I'm a pretty big feminist when it comes to feminine representation (transgenders and transsexuals, included), but Mad Men actually covers the many representations of women in the 60s. In Season 1, the lead character, Don, only has affairs with strong-minded independent women, including a liberal beatnik artist. Don's secretary, Peggy, has been able to move up to a copywriter position without sleeping around, and the typical housewife Betty is now coming into her own as a woman and a human being. The guys are really the ones who look like jerks, and not since Battlestar Galactica have I seen such an interesting character-driven ensemble show. All of the characters are flawed in infinitely interesting ways.

2. I haven't read True Blood (I'd rather watch vampires than read about them because the metaphors are more appealing visually), but I like that the female isolates herself from the world because of her mind-reading capabilities and is then drawn to the vampire because she can't read his mind. Other than that, the show doesn't interest me... and I don't like the cast very much. Anna Paquin is a horrible actress and her romantic co-star looks 20 years older than her (she still looks like she's 12). But that is interesting about the author being homophobic, since the series writer, Alan Ball, is gay...

3. No, I don't read Pegg's blog. Where can I find it? National consciousness via Godzilla/monster-destroys-city sounds right up my alley!

Goddessdster said...

Moving backwards:
3. His myspace blog is the most current: http://blog.myspace.com/peggsterdotnet
But the easiest way to get to the blog I'm referring to is to go to www.peggster.net, click on "Simon's blog", and click on "Blog in Japan" (the site is in frames, so I can't get you the direct link). It's a long one and entertaining (they all are, and have only increased my crushiness), but you'll find what I'm referring to near the end. I was actually going to just cut and paste it into your comments, but I remembered how long it is, so there you are. Again, it was lovely and almost made me weep.

2. I thought Alan Ball was an interesting choice for the series, and I may check it out to see what he's done. And I'm not saying Charlaine Harris is homophobic, just that her protagonist interactions, and her personal interactions, at the mention of gay vampire sex lead me to believe she finds the idea of m/m sex gross. I only read the first book in the series and found it laughably bad, it is basically vampire erotica with a very naive protagonist I wanted to slap. And the writing sucks (pun intended).

1. I'm not boycotting Mad Men out of some feminist outrage (if such were the case, I would end up watching very little TV). I just watch too much TV and try to curb what new shows I get involved in. My comment was more of a "nope, not gonna do it, don't care how great it is, nuh-uh" than anything else.