High Adventure

Last Week I was in New York, for the first time. It was a lot of fun. We were filming, but I don't really think I should upload any of the footage. You'll see it soon enough. We got home late Tuesday night.

Wednesday, I went to see Inception. It's not a perfect film, but a very strong one, and well worth it's box office take and your seeing.

The visuals are stunning. The acting us superb. Christopher Nolan undertook a tremendous world to try to explain during the duration of a feature length film, and both he and the viewer have to move quickly to keep pace. He's a talented story-teller, as evidenced by his previous work, but even still, this is stretching. With as intricate a world, the story may have lent itself better to a series (a la LOST).

All the same, it's stunning, and I will be seeing it again in theaters.

Nolan's films offer homage in the best fashion. It's clear where his inspiration came for a lot of his work, but it never feels like a rip-off. He alwasy frames his borrowed ideas and aesthetic in a new enough context that it feels original. Inception was clearly a heist film, with all the tropes of the genre. It's the last job, the final steal before our protagonist can set life straight and move on. He assembles the team. They outline an intricate plan, with precise roles and timing and objectives. But it's more than a heist movie.

Think of it like The Italian Job meets The Matrix meets Solaris. The New York Times has some other comparisons as well. The New York Times always has interesting supplemental material to the best movies.

Thursday I went to the Twilight Concert Series for the first time this summer. It's always a good time, and free, but I've been out of town up till this point. Beirut was playing.


If you're not familiar with their sound, it's distinctly gypsy. Funny to think of what these guys must have been like in high school. They play trumpet, accordian, and trombone, among others. I can't imagine they were the "in" crowd, yet here they were at the Twilight Concert Series, playing a packed show, with people cheering for them like rock stars. It was a lot of fun.


The album version may give you a better indication of their sound.


The below videos are from last Friday, July 23, 2010, on BYU Campus. It was much more chaotic and painful then you might expect, but very fun. Ladies and Gentlemen, the World's Biggest Water Balloon Fight.






Saturday, I went to a pond outside Alpine UT. It doesn't sound like much, but man-o-man, is it fun with the right equipment.
This isn't a video of me or my friends, but it's the same thing in the same place, and gives you a good idea.

That night we went to Fiesta Days in Spanish Fork. I didn't make it to the rodeo, but I did see the fireworks.

Last week, all I did was play. I need to work a lot during this coming week to make up for it.

The Grand Illusion

This is a great film. I watched it several times for my "French and Itialian Cinema" class, a course that frankly changed my college career. I wrote a paper about The Grand Illusion that I wish I could now find.

It's a Critic's Pick in the New York Times right now. Well worth watching their take. Watch all the way through to the end, I promise, you'll be glad you did. I laughed audibly.

The Critic's Pick: 'The Grand Illusion'

Dragon Hunter Online

Remember when I mentioned my friend Steve's movie Dragon Hunter? I just noticed it's on Hulu. Neat.



P.S. I haven't watched it yet. Certainly checking it out when I get home.

Auteurs

I like mashups. It's how pop-culture works today, and maybe always has.





If you can think of other variations on this theme, I'm anxious to hear about them.

A Litmus for Authenticity

I haven't written anything substantial in a long time. I'm a little afraid of that. Writing isn't like riding a bike, and in all honesty, I'm not entirely persuaded riding a bike is like riding a bike. Without practice and persistence in life, I think we each may simply melt into a puddle of loosely sentient flesh.

That being said, you may just as likely melt while watching this video.



From what I can gather, this group broadcasts on public access cable in central Florida.

The lack of sophistication reminds me oddly of Napoleon Dynamite. Their whole existence is anachronistic. I mean, if you had to guess, when might you place this broadcast on a timeline? They're also local, but without location. While P.T. Katt and M. Gormley are in Florida, they could as easily be in any rural minor American locale. The same is true of Jared and Jerusha Hess' most recent work, Gentlman Broncos.



Again, the characters are only vaguely aware of themselves. They lack the proverbial mirror to actually see themselves as others see them.

There is a character in Gentlemen Broncos who would be right at home on the "Uncharted Zone". Lonnie Donaho talks about "the industry" and his "feature films" shot on a home VHS camcorder. He might also get along well with the proprietor of this local outfit.

These men are AUTHENTICALLY poor performers in a way that I am entirely incapable of, in a way that I doubt can be duplicated by parody (Save by Jared Hess). I could not make something this bad if I tried. They'll never win awards or critical acclaim. They'd be lucky to come close to covering their costs, though they just might from gawkers paying money to see what is, by most accounts, an absolute train wreck. They seem to be entirely unaware of any developments in their field over the last twenty to thirty years. What's more, they are either OBLIVIOUS to or genuinely Do Not Care what people think of their work.

I can't tell if these are the most remarkable examples of hubris I've ever seen, or the complete absence. They don't presume to elevate their work over others, or even to compare. By all appearances they are doing this for their own enjoyment. If anybody else cares to watch, that's simply a bonus.

Hubris or not, regard for others work or none, these two groups present the most undeniable, clear cases of authenticity anywhere in media I know of. They are transparently bad, but you know it isn't a joke to them. Nobody would invest the time necessary to produce so much ostensibly unremarkable work. In being so transparent, they're also more true than almost any mainstream electronic culture. It's made by and for them and theirs. And that's tremendous.

Michel Gondry seems to understand this in a way many other filmmakers don't. It's reflected in his movies, and I love his movies.

NOT a Review: Why I won't be seeing "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"

If you ever read my blog, you know that I love movies and robots. The casual observer might think I'd be head-over-heels for the new Transformers movie. But I can't and won't.

Because I saw the first one.

Because it is universally hated by everybody who cares what they see, but widely accepted by those trying to kill $8 and a weekend night with nothing else at the box office.

Because of this hysterically bad clip. This is what the PR people released as a solid representation of the film, to whet your appetite. An RC car robot doing his best Joe Pesci impression. Somehow, I'm not really hungry for that.

Because Jordan couldn't even write a review (and his reveiw for "17 Again" was spot on.

I imagine the greatest entertainment value available from this movie is indirect; i.e. reading the hysterical reviews. <=NOTE: The last link has some offensive (but well deserved) comparison to a baser genre of film, if you take my meaning.

But most of all, because I don't want to support it.

The following was written by a friend of a friend.

"Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" and its predecessor, aside from being devoid of any substantive narrative quality, are pointlessly violent, meaninglessly vulgar, and shockingly sexed-up movies despicably marketed to children. Ads for the film run during virtually every commercial break on Nickelodeon. Burger King is featuring Transformers kids' meals. Advertisements for myriad toys feature bright-eyed, curly headed tots. It is even included on Nick Junior's "Flicks for Kids" list! All this in spite of the production's claims that the target demographic is older teenagers and adults. My nephews (ages 4, 7, and 9) knew the exact date the film would be released long before the slated date. And they watch "Sponge Bob" and "iCarly", not Spike, Adult Swim or even major networks like ABC and Fox. The youngster networks run ads that, conveniently, skip the pin-up-esque shot of Megan Fox straddling a motorcycle in barely-there shorts.

KidsInMind.com, an online resource for "ratings that work" rated the film as follows on a 10 points scale: Sex/Nudity-6, Violence/Gore-7, Profanity-5. Compare to other action films with clearly much older target demographics: "Terminator Salvation", "X-Men Origins", "The Dark Knight", "Iron Man", etc. Each one listed rated lower in both profanity and sexual content though were comparable in violence. "Transformers" was even rated on par in sexual content with "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", an inuendo-filled film, incidentally, marketed to adults. "Transformers" rated higher in sex/nudity than "Casino Royale". Reflect on that for a minute: a James Bond film ranks lower in sex/nudity than a film based on a Saturday morning cartoon!

I do not attack responsible and meaningful depictions of violence and sexuality or such use of profanity, but this film is irresponsible and superficial. Add the advertising of a more mature film to young children and you can tack on "exploitative" to the list of adjectives. This production does not deserve a contribution from you at the box office. Your admission ticket tells Bay and Spielberg that you think this is okay and you'll keep stuffing their pockets for being skeez bags.

So I'll never see it. Out of principle, I won't see it in the theater. And when the special effects glut is on a smaller screen home viewing, what's the point? Besides, I watched part of the first Transformers on a TV that displayed twice the regular frame rate. The special effects failed to be impressive at that picture clarity. It looked uncomfortably like a video game. No fun at that point.

Reviews and More: Coraline (in 3D), Star Trek, Terminator Salvation

I haven't done reviews in a while. Been busy. So I'll speed through these.

Coraline was fun, if a little awkward at times. Not entirely sure I'd want young kids to see it, and older kids would probably boycott, thinking it too juvenile. Henry Selick delivers an eerie atmosphere on par with the Nightmare Before Christmas. The visual appeal is great. It's colorful, dynamic, and geometric. If you're excited for a dark but playful nightmare world, check it out. The 3D even helps the film, instead of distracting.

Star Trek is a blast. It is. It's just plain, simple, action fun. J.J. Abrams knows what he is doing, as I've mentioned before. You don't have to know a thing about the Star Trek back-story or mythology. You don't even have to like sci-fi, because while this uses the tropes of a sci-fi, at it's heart it's an action flick (even action-comedy). It's good-looking people doing really cool stuff, with chase scenes, fights, explosions, kissing, and jokes. It's the bread and butter of a Hollywood film, and in this case, that isn't a bad thing.

Terminator Salvation was entertaining, but ultimately a letdown. Next time I won't get my hopes up when the director calls himself McG and has an ouvre consisting mainly of Charlie's Angels. There seemed to be no consideration for the style and feel of the previous films, especially the well-loved first two.

I will say this. While it lacked any pacing, buildup, or subtlety, it was a very impressive wrecked world. The effects were seamless, the sound was immersive, and the actors did an effective job with what they were given. I guess that's all it takes for mainstream reviewers to like it, too.



Speaking of Terminator, Angela pointed out an interesting article on why the Terminators make us so uncomfortable. The Uncanny Valley is a concept I've known for years now. Though it's a common query today, it's not a new idea. It never seems to lose my interest, either. It's at the heart of a surprising amount of great fiction, I think because it begs the question of identity.

That Uncanny Valley might have seemed like an impossible chasm for some film-makers (you listening, Zemeckis?), but it may have finally been crossed, and did it so fluidly that we hardly noticed.

The possibility of photorealism with even the human face plays right in with the trending cinéma vérité fictional narrative style showing up so often. We're in a post-reality-TV world, well on our way through the maturation of YouTube. We see films like the Bourne series, where shaky camerawork "immerses" the audience, where you feel the uncontrolled reality of the situation (though I feel that particular example was excessive and alienating).

You'll see more and more films not only using the documentary aesthetic, but the form as well. The Blair Witch project broke that ground, showing how effective the technique is. Their mockumentary on the Sci-Fi channel took me in as a sixteen-year-old, hook, line, and sinker. I've talked before about the "found footage" techniques used in Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead. It was even recently featured in a BYU Film project manned by a class that unfortunately didn't fit in to my schedule. Would have been great to be a part of that.

The style is becoming recursive, with doctored videos showing up on YouTube as though they were home videos. Here is a recent example that's floated around the Web.



The same form is used for an upcoming sci-fi picture presented by Peter Jackson.



The trailer for District 9 plays out as though it were a documentary, with the only indication of fiction coming from the impossible premise. That same premise was used in a short film from the same director. District 9 is really an expansion of that short (seen below). I'm excited.



Of note is the fact that I can't think of a single major film in this style that didn't use some kind of ARG and/or viral marketing. Viral ARG is becoming more and more common, but is far from universal. It's the exception rather than the rule. However, when we see first person narratives, it's a must, a staple. The film form and the promotional techniques play together to draw the audience in, to have them not only watch, but experience the world of the film.

How is all this for some stream of consciousness?

I've got more to say on the matter. A lot more. But for now, I'll leave it as is.

Expect more on this and related topics soon.

Star Trek - Just a good, fun movie?

If you read this blog, you should know by now that I like that J.J. Abrams guy, and I like sci-fi, and I like movies.

So it should come as no surprise that I'm going with some friends to an advance screening of the new Star Trek movie. This should be good.

Early reviews are positive, though not everybody is happy with the outcome.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

The Hunt for Gollum,

NOTE: This post is link heavy, but I didn't want the font color to distract from the content. Hover over a word to see if there is a related link.

NPR ran an interesting piece yesterday. It's got a few notable angles.

The Lord of the Rings franchise has been wildly successful. Fans came from every demographic, flocking to theaters, to the web, and to the DVDs in their various iterations. It's been five and a half years since The Return of the King, the last of the trilogy, was released, and it's still a touchstone the industry tries to replicate (some with more taste than some [many] others).

Enter The Hunt for Gollum. The 40 minute featurette was written, directed, acted, and filmed by volunteer fans. Every aspect of pre-production, production, and post-production was coordinated and executed by people who simply loved Middle-earth and wanted to see another LOTR movie.

Fan fiction is notoriously...bad. There is a reason writers and filmmakers get paid to do what they do. They're very good at it. The average joe with his home video camera and PC (historically speaking) isn't. Even noble efforts lack the resources to put together high production value.

But The Hunt for Gollum crew seems to be a dedicated team. They took their time (two years) and scrapped together an impressive group of talent.

And from the looks of it, they deliver.

Trailer 2 - The Hunt For Gollum [2]
by HuntForGollum

True, it's not indiscernible from the Hollywood hits. But you can be sure many fans of the series, myself included, will be checking this out when it's released on May 3 (in HD, no less).

Such an impressive feat, using widely recognized media, begs the question:

Is this legal? Doesn't this constitute piracy? Aren't there copyright issues at play here? Intellectual property? brand hijacking? Wholesale theft!?

The lawyers can (and likely will) argue both ways.

An apologist might say, "It's fair use, nobody is making money!"

The prosecution may answer, "It's copyright infringement that devalues a developing property!"

New Line is far from done with the Ring series. Why stop when it's still making money? The Lord of the Rings' prequel The Hobbit is being adapted for a 2012 release, directed by Guillermo del Toro of Pan's Labyrinth fame. Expect ticket sales to be big.

This kind of conflict has been, and will continue to be, a growing problem. Intellectual Property laws are in bad need of reform, but more than that, business modelers need to understand the new paradigm that cheap technology presents.

Technology is cheap. No, really. You may think it's pricey to get the latest and the greatest gear, but compared to only a few years ago, when that gear didn't exist, it's cheap.

Anybody can get the tools to create media. Good tools. An HD camera and a computer with video editing software doesn't cost that much. In fact, I'm planning on purchasing some this week.

What that means is there is no barrier to entry. Anyone can do this (probably very poorly) for very little cash.

Take a look at YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, Flickr, etc. Everybody is a writer, videographer, and artist. Everyone is a celebrity.

And nothing (short of a time machine) can change that.

With that reality in mind, media producers need to leverage the anxious crowd. User-Generated Content will be vitally important to most media outlets if they want to survive (and thrive) in coming years. Some early adopters are already putting that strategy to play, and making a hefty profit.

It even works for established brands. One American film maker has directed only six feature films since 1971, but his properties have become so popular, copied, and parodied, that his net worth is $3.9 billion (with a b). His name is George Lucas.

So, what do we say? Sue The Hunt for Gollum crew? I don't know why. They're drawing more eyes to a valuable franchise, keeping interest alive till the next installment is released (as if the viewers of The hunt for Gollum won't also go see The Hobbit opening weekend). The makers don't have any money; they're not making any money. But if producers play their cards right, the crew will make money for the studios.

I don't think honey bees ever stop to realize who ultimately reaps the harvest, but it's never far from the beekeeper's mind.

Or maybe it's just a matter of perspective.

What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game to rule the Earth? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see the world from a plant's-eye view.

Final Paper for Comms 482: Mass Media and World Religions

Contact is one of my favorite movies, and has been since I first saw it. I read the book immediately after. It still gets me, every time..

If you actually read this (I doubt anybody will) then let me know what you think.



Austin Craig
Dr. Quint Randle
Comms 482
04/22/09

From Skeptic to Evangelist: The Apologetics of Faith in the film Contact

Science fiction has almost always been the safe haven of outcasts, weirdos, and social dissidents. But whether that audience knows it or not, the genre has grown in popularity as (generic) conventions are adopted by more mainstream fare. Despite it's reputation for the outlandish, unbelievable, and often just silly, sci-fi will always be fertile grounds for broadly appealing and deeply meaningful material. At it's core, it's an outgrowth of Enlightenment ideas; that the natural world is a product of physical laws, and that the enlightened can learn virtually everything that is from observing the world with a logical, rational mind (CLARK 2005). By in large, the notion of some power or entity outside the natural system simply isn't grasping the size of the natural system. For most sci-fi, there is no truly supernatural, metaphysical, or divine. Some science fiction dealing directly with religion, either outright or in loosely veiled terms, makes the assumption pronounced rather than implicit, as in Frank Herbert's Dune series. But occasionally, a work comes along in the genre that defies the elitist convention, and explores religion and religiosity in earnest. Even noted theologian and scholar C.S. Lewis wrote a space trilogy featuring scientists and space explorers who mirror priests, angels, and demons (CLARK 2005). A more contemporary and recognizable example is the 1997 film Contact by Robert Zemeckis. Unlike the previously mentioned work, however, Contact originates with Carl Sagan, a popular astronomer and noted agnostic (HEAD 2006). Believers need not be defensive regarding Contact, however. The film is surprisingly apologetic toward religion. In fact, Contact presents academic science as a religion, complete with articles of faith, dogmas, and martyrs, and as fundamentally based on belief in unseen things as any of the Abrahamic creeds.

The film centers on Dr. Ellie Arroway, a gifted scientist searching for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Her mother died before Ellie can remember, and her father died unexpectedly when she was nine years old. Her penchant for reaching is shown in her precocious youth, searching for the furthest discernible signal on her CB radio. As an adult, her search for E.T. is ridiculed by the overwhelming majority of her peers, but Dr. Arroway's passion won't be subdued. The persistence pays off when a powerful interstellar signal is received, apparently proving that we are not alone, that our planet is not the only one harboring intelligent life.

Contact makes no pretense of its identity. It is science fiction with an eye toward religion. The science of Contact is clear. The filmmakers went to painstaking effort to portray a scenario that was entirely plausible. Ann Druyan, wife of Carl Sagan, co-author, and consultant on the film, said, “Carl's and my dream was to write something that would be a fictional representation of what contact would actually be like, that would convey something of the true grandeur of the universe” (DRUYAN 1997, emphasis added). The setting is primarily in real places, using real, even dated technology. The Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico was used by Ellie in Contact before losing funding, but was also used by the real life SETI initiative led by Carl Sagan for several years before it lost funding. The film even uses archival footage of President Bill Clinton, when he spoke following the discovery of supposed primitive Martian bacterial fossils on the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite in 1996 (DAY 1998).

The fiction of Contact is equally clear. The movie's namesake and center is the message received from an alien civilization. However, nothing whatsoever of this sort has ever even remotely happened. It would be, as Ellie says, the biggest discovery in “the history of history”.

The religion of Contact is almost as pervasive as the science. Palmer Joss (played by Matthew McConaughey) is a spiritualist and theologian, self described as “a man of the cloth...without the cloth” and characterized as “God's diplomat”. He is Ellie's love interest, and the movie's positive face of religious faith, just as Ellie is the image of a “good” scientist. They embody virtues we hold dear in fiction, virtues that enable societal advancement. These “substantive” virtues contrast what we see in the film's other characters, who are much more self serving (KUPFER 1999). They portray “bad” religion and science. After the alien message is decoded as instructions, blueprints for a machine, the first attempt to follow the instruction is thwarted by a religious extremist (a Christian suicide bomber from Panguitch, Utah, of all places). The ill-fated, would-be first interstellar traveler from Earth is David Drumlin, scientific aid to the U.S. President. Through the whole movie, he alternately derails, then overtakes Ellie's research. While Dr. Drumlin isn't ever framed as morally bad as the religious zealot is, he is shown as lacking the same faith that Ellie embodies. He demonstrates a lack of faith in scientific possibilities as well as humanity’s virtue, not unlike the religious extremist. Science and Religion are shown side by side as comparable quests for truth. Both have their faithful disciples and heretics (though the identity of each depends which camp the observer stands). Both are used for what others might see as Good or Evil purposes. Perhaps the surface conflict between the two approaches stems from their underlying similarity.

In Contact, we see the main character undergo a fundamental shift in her world view. She has always been a devout scientist, but maintained that science is objectively better than religion. That view may become a little less hard-lined after her voyage to the stars. Mike Alsford discusses in his book, What If? Religious Themes in Science Fiction, how frequently science fiction protagonists experience such a change. “Invariably, the catalyst that triggers the paradigm shift in these stories, a change from one world-view to another, is the introduction of an element which begins to break down the sense of order previously accepted by default” (ALSFORD 2000). The characters in these examples of sci-fi undergo a conversion of sorts. Near the end of the film, Dr. Arroway bears testimony as fervently as any evangelical missionary ever did. Her witness is challenged, and she is asked to concede that the whole voyage was a hallucination and the signal an elaborate hoax. To paraphrase her response would do the testimony injustice.
“Because I can't. I had an experience...I can't prove it, I can't even explain it. But everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me...a vision of the universe...that tells us undeniably how tiny and how insignificant and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something greater than ourselves, that we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility and that hope. That continues to be my wish.”
The scene is a turning of the tables. It recalls earlier in the film when Ellie challenges Palmer Joss’ faith, saying he may have emotionally needed such a religious experience, so he unwittingly fabricated one. She cites Occam’s razor, the principle that, all factors being equal, the simplest answer is the most likely. Now the same logic is returned to her. Before the journey, she is asked if such a traveler would have “faith” in those sending the message. She responds that she’d rather say a sense of adventure. The same question is posed after her journey, and the answer is entirely changed. She perfectly plays out what Stephen Clark explains in his essay, Science Fiction and Religion. While organized religion itself is often derided, “There is nonetheless a religious theme that seems to be widely endorsed by science fiction fans and writers; that humanity, if only it can mature, will give the world, the universe, significance” (CLARK 2005). The meaning she finds is a perfect analog to the religion she so readily dismissed earlier. The role reversal manifests itself also during her journey, when scientific objectivity escapes her; “some celestial event...no worlds to describe...they should have sent a poet. I had no idea...” (ZEMECKIS 1998).

Zemeckis uses not only religious rhetoric throughout the film, but accompanying religious imagery. When Ellie is escorted to the second machine, she wears what can only be described as armor, a strange precaution for a space traveler. She is followed by two Japanese men, ostensibly technicians, but they appear almost as guards. She stands in as Joan of Ark, a fellow visionary and martyr for her cause, to be escorted to the fires of her doom and exaltation. She fills an archetypal role, as the strong woman. Similarly, Palmer Joss gives Ellie a pocket compass that ultimately saves her, at least from severe injury. The image of a compass is used by Freemasons and other ancient religious orders (GILKES 2004). It is pointed out by Palmer Joss after Ellie objects to the Christian Coalition demanding to know where the aliens stand on God, that she did in fact find a literal booming voice from the sky, just as any number of Biblical prophets. Ellie even offers an unwitting prayer of sorts after her father dies. On her CB radio, she calls out to the void for the only parent she has ever known. “Dad, come back.” The climax comes later, when she meets the alien as her father in their constructed ideal setting, her personal heaven. He explains to her a plan, and how those from all creation have grown to knowledge and become exalted as he is. Time ceases to hold meaning there, but the significance of her experience can't even be fully expressed by her afterward.

Contact intertwines so many religious symbols and dialog so densely, that to catch them all would require a careful scene by scene analysis. Yet the story is fluid enough and outside any traditional religious context that it could draw in religiously skeptical audiences. It may even be veiled enough to draw in, and change, people as skeptical and doubting as Ellie herself was until her converting interstellar (and spiritual) journey. As an audience, we take that journey too, and come away with greater a faith in science, god, humanity, or all of those and more.


Works Cited

Alsford, Mike. What If? Religious Themes in Science Fiction. London. Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., 2000

Clark, Stephen R.L. “Science Fiction and Religion.” A Companion to Science Fiction. Malden: Blackwell Ltd., 2005. 96-97.

Contact. Dir. Robert Zemeckis. Perf. Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. DVD. Warner Home Video, 1998.

Druyan, Ann. “About the production.”Contact Production Notes. 1997. Warner Brothers. 21 Apr. 2009 .

Gilkes, Peter. Masonic ritual :Spoilt for Choice. 2004 Masonic Quarterly Magazine (10). 21 Apr. 2009

Head, Tom. Conversations with Carl Sagan. Skeptic 13 (1), pp.32-38 Univ. of Mississippi Press 2006.

Horsfield, Peter, Mary E. Hess, and Adan M. Medrano. Belief in Media. Burlington: Ashgate Company. 2004.

Johnson, Robert K. Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000

Kupfer, Joseph H. Visions of Virtue in Popular Film Boulder: Westview P, 1999

Marsh, Clive. Theology Goes to the Moview; An introduction to critical Christian thinking. New York: Routledge, 2007.

McClain, Carl. Morals and the Movies. Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1970.

Sagan, Carl. Contact: a novel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985

I've been repeating that stuff...

I saw "Of Mice and Men" a few weeks ago. A simple, amazing film, and one of the first books I remember reading that really moved me.

That being said, this...THIS is hysterical. A little something to hold you over till finals are over.



"You GOTTA TELL ME These Things!"

Believe it or not, this scenario actually crossed my mind as a child. It's not unlike the Truman Show complex. I never thought the people around me were actors, but I did wonder if they weren't coddling to me. WHAT IF...What if I am mentally handicapped, and I don't know it? I mean, nobody ever just tells a mentally challenged person outright that they're challenged, right? What if I'm just an idiot ("Do people think I'm an idiot!?") and I just don't know it? Nobody would ever say a word, and I'd never be the wiser.

I finally concluded that my ability to grasp this hypothetical situation pretty well precluded it being a reality.

Would you call that "Napoleonic" or "Hessian"?

I'm still pretty upset about this.

I slept in this morning. The alarm went off, I turned it off, and fell off, back into sleep. Finals are approaching, and the strain is taking it's toll. I've got five papers to write, two tests to prepare for, and a presentation to give. Also, I'm still working at BYU Weekly and completing my internship at ABC 4. I'm pretty tired most of the time. So I should have known this might happen.

I missed the first 45 minutes of Jared and Jerusha Hess speaking to a film class, and thought I'd only hear about ten minutes after I got there. I wanted to record it and post it online here, but didn't because I thought I'd missed the whole thing.

They talked for another 90 minutes, patiently answering all the student questions. There couldn't have been more than 15 of us there.

They talked about their movies (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, and the upcoming Gentleman Broncos, which I hear is very good).

It was interesting to contrast them to other speakers who have come to BYU. I heard Richard Dutcher speak a couple years ago. Kurt Hale came to speak to a class of mine recently (again, didn't record it, sorry). Including the Hess duo, they all have very different philosophies on filmmaking.

Dutcher seemed very committed to the integrity of his craft, but did it at the expense of everything else, alienating his audience with graphic content and seeming self-aggrandizement. He ultimately left the LDS Church, I assume partly because he felt it conflicted with what he wanted to do in film. He lives and works just down the street from me. I see him on his porch sometimes.
NOTE: Big assumption on my part there, so forgive me, Richard, if I'm way off base. It wouldn't be the first time I'd ticked off a local filmmaker.

Hale is an active member of the LDS Church, even a member of a BYU Bishopric. He is far less concerned with the "artistic integrity" of his work than Dutcher. It is purely monetary, simply a business. Dutcher said as much of Hale, in obvious frustration that, for the few LDS filmmakers there are, they didn't all take seriously the craft of film. Hale's approach is so businesslike that I'm sure his most recent work would upset some of his first great fans. Mormons are known for their conservatism in virtually everything, especially media consumption. It's not doctrine to avoid rated R movies, but it might as well be for a wide swath of the faithful. So, with most active LDS avoiding graphic content, it's interesting that Hale seems to have no qualms with creating it. Lately he has been working in Zombie movies (of which, yes, I am a bit of fan, academically) and slasher films. He doesn't shrink from the gore of both genres and the inevitable frisky teens known from the latter. He does this, is comfortable with it, recognizes many people see a conflict, and openly states that he sees none.

The Hess's were different altogether. They clearly have priorities above money and artistic integrity, but seem to get both just fine. When Fox pushed to cast Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in Gentleman Broncos, Jared simply said no. The studio offered an $18 million budget, but retained some creative control. Instead, the Hess's renegotiated, and were offered $10 million less, while maintaining the casting and final cut rights. They took it. The budget cut didn't seem to matter to them. They made Napoleon Dynamite on a $400 thousand budget, and that worked okay. Why should they worry about this?

It was great hearing from them. They do what they love, are successful, and a happy family, parents of two. I was glad to see that. They did it.

So thanks, Jared and Jerusha. Sorry I came in late, but I'm really glad I came anyway. And really, thanks Richard and Kurt, too. Always helpful to see a variety. I hope we all get to talk again some day soon.

Individual

I wonder if there is any such thing as true originality. My suspicion is that it's all just impressive synthesis.
I love what mixing techniques can do, in photography and anything, really.
Tilt-Shift-Time-Lapse. Reminds me of bullet-time-lapse.


Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I attended a film lecture today for International Cinema. There were four people there, not including the host and the lecturer. We watched Central Station (English title), a stirring film I would recommend to everyone. I hope to see it again some day.

I appreciate film and other art that recognize how awful life can be, but choose hope deliberately. That kind of art does us all a great good. I hope to be able to produce that feeling in others with what I do in life.

Sundance '09

I know I'm late on this. I don't much care.

I went with some friends this year, just went without much of a plan. And it worked out, amazingly enough.

We saw Paper Heart, with Michael Cera (of Arrested Development fame) and Charlyne Yi. When the presenter stood to introduce the film, he said the Sundance screeners had a hard time defining which genre this would fit in. Strange, it seemed to me, that people with such extensive experience would have a hard time with that. They must know every genre, sub-genre, and cult niche there is. But after seeing Paper Heart, that problem made more sense.

The story centers around Charlyne Yi (played by Charlyne Yi) on her search for love. Not for herself, mind you, just love anywhere. She doubts it's very existence. So Charlyne and the film crew goon the road to see if they can locate actual, true love.

A variety of people are interviewed, from a divorcee, to aged grandparents, to a gay couple in New York, to children on the playground. The interviews are genuine and genuinely entertaining. Their authenticity is warming, capturing the unscripted heart of each subject. A good documentary does that.

But, this isn't any documentary. In fact, it might not be a documentary at all, depending on the stricness of your definition. On the road, Charlyne meets Michael Cera (played by Michael Cera), and romance buds. Charlyne, ever the skeptic, might be turned by Michael's soft spoken wit.

But this part is scripted.

So, documentary? Drama? Comedy? It is very funny, for sure. This is one of the strangest blendings since Shaun of the Dead, a romantic zombie comedy (rom-zom-com, for those in the know). What do we call Paper Heart, then? A Docu-dramedy?

Whatever you call it, you'll love it. It was a good movie, on a subject everybody knows in one way or another. You'll be happy you saw it.

The second viewing was a little more challenging. We saw William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. Kunstler was maybe the most controversial attorney of the second half of the 20th century. His clientel ranged from now renowned civil rights pioneers to known terrorists, from openly persecuted American Indians to incorrigible hippies. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his choice of cases, though later on in his career, he tended toward higher profile defendants.

Part of what made the film interesting was not only the subject, but the perspective. The biopic was written, directed, and edited by Kunstlers daughters, Emily and Sarah Kunstler. The duo prove an able pair. They know the subject well, and included many home videos. They also had the advantage of countless documents and archival footage of their father at rallys, on marches, and in media interviews.

Kunstler vacillates between hero and monster. He never pauses for long, and you're never sure where he is headed. Probably the most stirring part of this sometimes poignant documentary is a speech he makes near the end. It's simply footage of Kunstler speaking at a rally. He explains that legality is not the end all of right and wrong. Six million jJews killed during the holocaust. Legal. Jesus lifted on a cross to die. Legal.

In short, it was fascinating.

But part of the fun of Sundance, of course, is the convergence of so many film makers. We weren't disappointed this year.

Charlyne.

Director Nicholas Jasenovec, actor Michael Cera, actor Jake M. Johnson, who played Nicholas Jasenovec in the movie (I know, it's confusing), Charlyne, and...some other guy.



D. Smith got this shot, and thinks it's too sharp a portrait to be believable. No, really, he's a real celebrity, folks.

The crew behind William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe.

Looks like a nice guy, right? Maybe he is, but he's also a bit of a loon. Every time the mic was in front of him, he would start pushing for abortion and Communism. One of Kunstler's former clients, arrested for burning the American flag outside the Republican National Convention in 1980. Hated, hated Reagan. Funny, because we were sitting on the second row, and I was wearing my Ronald Reagan tee shirt. No joke.

Emily and Sarah Kunstler

Oscar

Good job Hollywood! Give yourselves a big pat on the back! Oh wait...you are...right now.

I'm watching the Academy Awards. It's fun, it is, despite some uninspired musical medleys. But I wonder if film makers take themselves too seriously. Seems like sheer self-aggrandizement. When it comes down to it, they're entertainers, and some of them are making a real bid at being opinion leaders.

I suppose there isn't any group more apt for this kind of celebration. Actors, writers, directors, people whose stated profession is theatricality. And all the glitz and glam broadcast to the world, no less.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'd love to get one of those statues some day.

Finals

One term paper down, a couple more and a couple tests to go.

To hold you over till I can start blogging again, here is the paper I wrote analyzing and comparing WALL•E and *batteries not included.

Lovable Little Tin Men

The permutations of science fiction are almost as many as the branches of actual scientific study. There are experiments gone wrong, time travel, alternate history , post apocalyptical, cyber-punk, steam-punk, hard, soft, and the tried and true space adventure, just to name a few. These sub-genres intersect and overlap with themselves and other genres altogether, and they’ll continue to do so until their conventions are entirely absorbed by fresher forms. I’ll be discussing and analyzing a specific subset in the sci-fi realm, but isn’t found on the shelf of the sci-fi isle in your local video rental store. While the uncanny, inhuman, slimy space alien may be the norm for much of sci-fi, I’ll be looking at the family friendly lovable little robot who could, found in both WALL•E and *batteries not included.

Pixar’s WALL•E follows the diminutive sole survivor from a fleet of clean-up robots, meant to make the world livable again after hyper-consumerism leaves the landscape a trash laden wasteland. His role is made clear to us very early on, with opening shots of the towering trash heaps, and our protagonist dutifully rolling around, compacting all the detritus. But this worn rust box is surprisingly likable. He exhibits curiosity, playfulness, and kindness. He collects whatever interests him from the piles left by Earth’s former inhabitants, things as quirky as sporks, lawn gnomes, and Rubik’s cubes. He sings and dances to Hello Dolly! on VHS cassette. He has a panic when he thinks he’s literally run over his one and only friend in the world, his cockroach sidekick. He even shows some romanticism before the romantic interest is even introduced, as he gazes longingly at the stars. He is, in fact, everything a good person would aim to be.

In 1987 a similar set of characters were introduced. Steven Spielberg produced *batteries not included, but it was a then unknown screen writer who provided one of the most tangible real-world links to the 2008 hit WALL•E. Brad Bird must have some affinity for robots. With almost half of his writing credits featuring a remarkable robot somewhere in the story, it shouldn’t be surprising to see his name in the writing credits of *batteries not included. WALL•E was written and directed by Andrew Stanton, but Bird’s The Incredibles came out only a few short years before from the very same studio.

*batteries not included centers around a decaying apartment complex in New York City. The tenants are few, most having been bribed or otherwise coerced into moving. Those left include an aged couple. The husband manages a diner on the ground floor. His wife’s dementia makes it all the more difficult for him maintain his own sanity. There is also a retired and mostly mute heavyweight boxer, a poor artist, and a single mother-to-be. By themselves, they seem only a minor obstacle for a big time real estate developer and his hired thugs, who plan to erect a series of skyscrapers in the very same spot. It’s only a matter of days before their brick home (and whole world) is leveled to make way for modern glass and steel obelisks.

Then drops from the sky, with no explanation, two of the most unlikely saviors. In true deus ex machina fashion, two tiny alien robots come to start a family and save the defenseless of New York. They manage to scare away the thugs, enliven the almost defeated tenants, and ultimately rebuild the entire structure from rubble. Throughout all this, they teach the tenants (and the audience) a thing or two about family, children, and love.

Wait, family, children, and love? We are talking about space alien robots, right?

What separates *batteries not included and WALL•E from their contemporaries in sci-fi is their family centered nature. They are more than simply family friendly films, though they certainly lack any offensive content. Each is a family centered film thematically, despite having as the central character what on the surface would seem the least lovable, least human thing imaginable; a cold hunk of metal.

First things first, how is a little piece of almost mute metal so likable? Nobody in reality has any particular love for their toaster, why should we care for a trash-compactor on wheels? Or why should we care about flying saucers outside of an academic interest? Normally, we wouldn’t. But animators and special effects artists have done an effective job of approximating the most lovable thing around, children and babies. Our robots mimic their behavior, with each robot moving dynamically and sometimes unpredictably, with lights adding to their movement, and most importantly, by having expressive eyes. When you put eyes on that toaster, you have the beginnings of a Disney classic, evidenced by The Brave Little Toaster, also from 1987.

For these characters, the eyes are less for them to see than for us to see them. Scott McCloud argues in Understanding Comics that we as humans not only see ourselves in everything around us, but we often can’t help but see ourselves. This is undeniably the situation whenever something has what we perceive as eyes. Whether it’s an electrical outlet or a potato, it instantly becomes recognizable as an individual entity once it has eyes.

A Yiddish proverb says the eyes are the mirror of the soul. The character designers of *batteries not included and WALL•E must have taken this to heart. Andrew Stanton said his inspiration for the look of WALL•E came when he was at a baseball game, and noticed that the binoculars he was holding seemed almost like a pair of big melancholy eyes. WALL•E‘s eyes are actually the only thing that constitute his face. The same can be said for his love interest EvE. In fact, almost all of the likable robots in WALL•E have discernable eyes. The more expressive they are, the more lovable the character is. If the character is someone we should be wary of, they will have only one eye, like AUTO or GO-4, or no eyes, like SECUR-T. In *batteries not included, the eyes are the only thing that make the saucers distinguishable as entities rather than vessels. They open and close with mechanical eyelids and change colors to show change in mood. Again, the eyes aren’t part of the face, they are the face, and our mirror to the soul on what would otherwise be totally soulless.
The importance of the eyes is also evident near the climax of each film. When WALL•E is damaged by the collapsing pillar on the Lido Deck, the damage is most clear on his left eye. When Carlos swings an ax at the small saucer in *batteries not included, he hits it, not on the back, not underneath, but right on the eye. Something dead is necessarily something soulless, and if the film maker wants to communicate a life-threat to these mechanical characters, he has to destroy their eyes, our mirror to the soul. But don’t worry, they get repaired. These are family films, after all.

So we’ve established that our characters have eyes, and thus, a soul. What does a film maker do with that? It seems they tell stories about family, children, and love, with our rust-bucket protagonists facilitating the examples.

From the moment WALL•E lays eyes on EVE, we can tell it’s love at first sight. He dotes on her and pridelessly pursues her affection in return. His devotion takes him to outer space when she is retrieved, and there we find more examples of family and love, WALL•E playing both leading man and matchmaker. He accidentally knocks John off his hover-chair, and makes a new friend. He unintentionally jolts myopic Mary from her encompassing display. It’s WALL•E’s chance meeting with these two that lends itself to their chance meeting later on, when they both notice WALL•E and EVE “dancing” outside the ship, itself a form of courtship. They accidentally touch hands, reminiscent of WALL•E’s hope to hold EVE’s hand. It’s the beginning of courtship, leading to marriage, leading to family.

Later on when AUTO tilts the ship in an attempt to maintain control from the captain, we see the “big baby” population helplessly sliding across the deck, too fat to stand, unable to right themselves. When actual babies start to slide from the nursery down toward the obese pile, it’s John and Mary who save them, with Mary shouting, “John, get ready to have some kids!” We see here again a progression, from a pair to a family, even if it is only suggested.

The imagery is even more explicit in *batteries not included. The robots themselves bear offspring, with every stage displayed, from mating through pregnancy to birth. Along with them, we’re shown their human counterpart, with Marisa clearly pregnant, her boyfriend away, and a new suitor recently made available when his girlfriend leaves. That Mason and Marisa will be together at the end of the film is a foregone conclusion as soon as they are on screen together.

Along with identifying each machine as an individual with a heart and soul, these films take care to establish gender roles. There is little doubt that WALL•E is a boy. While he isn’t some hulking imposing figure, he is utilitarian, dirty, boxy, and mechanical. EVE is as much formed as a female as WALL•E is male. She is graceful, curved, clean, and with almost ethereal qualities. Her technological superiority doesn’t supersede WALL•E’s male role, either. It’s an effective comic element that the “girl” robot is to much more capable than the “boy”. Any child could identify the male and female here without any hesitation. For the grown-ups, if there were any confusion left, we see WALL•E’s courtship (with EVE in stasis) as he shields her from the elements, takes her on a leisurely float down a (toxic) stream, builds her “sculpture” portrait, and takes the initiative to hold her hand. In the DVD commentary for WALL•E, Andrew Stanton discusses the gender differentiation in the film. He mentions a Peter Gabriel concert he attended where the stage was shown as a dichotomy, with one end representing masculinity, the other femininity. One side had boxy shapes, the other curved forms. Incidentally, it’s Gabriel who composed and performed the song for the closing credits of WALL•E, offering the denouement and epilogue as we see, in motion graphic chronology, civilization rebuilt, flowing through the major art movements from history.

Gender roles are equally defined in *batteries not included. We witness the birth of mechanical offspring straight from the mother machine. And in very similar fashion to WALL•E, we see Mason painting a (nude) portrait of (clothed) Marisa.

An interesting addition to the focus on couples, children, and family is the attention paid to nostalgia, remembrance, and home. WALL•E is the ultimate scavenger. He has for himself a home entirely made up of found items. Most of his collection seems to be admittedly useless, at least to him. Spoons, forks, and at least one spork aren’t much good to a solar powered robot. Neither are lawn gnomes or novelties like a Rubick’s cube. But it’s the collection of these tangible, seemingly useless things that contributes to WALL•E’s likableness. We are much more fond of him in his cobbled together hovel than we are of the squeaky clean, always new environment onboard the Axiom. His sense of nostalgia for a culture he was never even part of endears him to us. Even the Captain of the Axiom recognizes the importance of remembering origins. “Out there is our Home, HOME, Auto, and it’s in trouble”. Ultimately, it’s WALL•E who reminds and restores humanity to Earth. He fulfils for us a primal longing to return to our origins, our home.

The same attitude is clear in *batteries not included. The primary conflict is between the tenants of a lone decades old apartment, all of the contemporary structures destroyed by urban “progress”. After the hired goons from the developer break a prized relic from each tenant, it’s the robots who restore them, old things good as new. It’s the first indication to the people there that something strange is happening in their apartment building. Harry, who speaks only in TV ad catch-phrases, was the human freight train, a once great heavyweight champ. Time has not been kind to him, leaving him alone and forgotten by the changed world while he has stayed the same. When the diner on the ground floor is destroyed, it seems to take Frank Riley to his breaking point. This is where he was born, where he grew up, where he raised his family. But when the diner is fixed by the robots, not only is his spirit renewed, but business begins again. Customers come to the once abandoned eatery. We see even more focus on remembering and nostalgia when we consider that Frank’s wife Faye Riley has dementia. In her mind, it’s always the mid 1950’s, her son will always be a rebellious youth, and the landscape will never change. She is incapable, at least mentally, of leaving “home”. It’s the providential involvement of “the little guys”, as she calls the robots, that makes her happy delusion almost real.

Through WALL•E and *batteries not included, we cathartically experience the same regeneration as the characters affected by these minute mechanical messiahs. We leave feeling whole, with a restored sense of familial love and home. It may seem a strange coupling to include sci-fi elements, so at home with horror and the uncanny, right in the middle of a family film. But the payoff proves the formula, and like Faye Riley says in *batteries not included, “We’re a family again” when we enjoy such films with our own families.