Thursday, April 23, 2009
Watchmen
Semiotic Superheroes
On the verge of a new kind of visual storytelling.
Semiotic Superheroes
On the verge of a new kind of visual storytelling.
Stegasaurus!
Some heavy spade-work into the magick of the classic noir.
The Three Versions of Batman
Have the Nolan Brothers been reading Borges?
The Matrix, American Beauty, and Fight Club as Retellings of Pink Floyd’s The Wall
A Sneak Preview from You Do Not Talk About Fight Club: I Am Jack’s Completely Unauthorized Essay Collection
Revolution as a Gala Dinner and a Game
A close, detailed viewing and extended discussion of the context, plot, and themes of Bertolucci’s controversial masterwork.
A Mental Toolbox for Interpreting a Lynch Film
Twelve tools that can be helpful for appreciating any David Lynch film are offered with specific reference to Inland Empire.
Pilgrim’s Progress
We can find hopeful advice about the American Dream in what an elderly man doesn’t say.
You Do Not Talk About Fight Club: I Am Jack’s Completely Unauthorized Essay Collection. A new collection edited by Metaphilm publisher Read Mercer Schuchardt with a foreword by Chuck Palahniuk. Paperback, 224 pages, from Benbella Books. Click here for a sneak preview . . .
Former advertising man Michael Bay returns with this summer’s big hit, and possibly the most artistic movie ever filmed. Eight years ago, Metaphilm launched with a piece on Michael Bay’s artistic style in Pearl Harbor, little realizing it was an advertisement for a yet-to-be-released political thriller.
Someone with way too much time on their hands… like someone else we know.
From the “You can take the boy out of Fight Club, but you can’t take the Fight Club out of the boy” department.
Ira Glass discloses the mysteries of good storytelling.
We’ve alluded to and written about this before, but here is the BBC News magazine’s Rumeana Jahangir on the original economic interpretation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 vision, brought to the masses through the 1939 Judy Garland film, and brought to the world’s understanding in 1964 by high school teacher Henry Littlefield: “The Tin Woodman represents the industrial worker, the Scarecrow is the farmer and the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan.” - proof that high school teachers still have something to teach us. If you want the full blown postmodern critique, check out The Hang’d Man’s (aka the WWWiz) interpretation from our most wizardly Oz interpretation.
Overedited but interesting: “screen tests” with Rosario Dawson, Rinko Kikuchi, Katie Holmes and others. My favorite piece of Kikuchi’s wisdom: “Happiness is when the book I am reading is really good.” That’s a movie actor saying that.
We told you this already about Fight Club and The Matrix
The Curious Case of Forrest Gump
Eagle Eye On The Gaza Strip
Robert McKee Explains Synecdoche, NY
My History of Violence
A Movie On Your Phone? Get Real.
Indiana Jones and the Deadly Blather
Kaufman Strikes Again
Politics as Cinema, 2008
Quantifying The Analysis of Dukes of Hazard
Another Disney Sex Movie?
By the Ladies For the Ladies
‘X-Files’ Movie Tanks at Box Office
If Joe Eszterhas Can Do It…
The Rabbit Hole Gets Deeper
The “Real” Cinematic Geneaology of the Bat-Man
How to Analyze Classic Literature
Life was supposed to be a film
The Dark Knight
Wall-E