wanna go see this movie? I’m not in any way endorsing Rick Perry, but this is one heck of a political ad! And did you catch how he’s putting a light twist on Obama’s “change” tactic from ‘08?
Category Archives: Movies
Things Disney Has Taught Me (Part VI)
beautiful female fit models… 5ft 7in-5ft 8in [tall], size 4 or 6, no bigger or smaller. Age 18-25…, have a lean dancer body [and] have real breasts.
Constructed Reality
My only complaint about WordPress is that I can’t track how people are finding this site. I can see what phrase they searched and ended up here, but that is the extent of the info.
Over on the old site, which is still running, my sitemeter has recently been active with people searching for information on “constructed reality” – more specifically, movies, tv shows, and other media containing examples of constructed reality. Several of these searches have come from Canadian school districts so I figured I’d post this to help, in case they find their way to this site again.
Theory
The idea of constructed social reality has grown out of several communication theories. The first thing I was taught in my Communication Theory class at the U was,
Communication is a symbolic/relational process whereby social reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed.
The symbolic process is:
- Rule-governed, interpretive activity.
- Process of assigning meaning and intention to the acts of others.
Social Reality is:
- Sum total of communicative acts within it.
- Persons both produce and are shaped by their communicative activity.
There are certain assumptions:
- Symbolic production of reality
- Reality is not given but supplied
- Symbolic maintenance (repair and transformation) of reality
The basic idea is that human language is symbolic. Humans have the cognitive capacity to take a symbol and assign meaning to it. That symbol holds no inherent value outside of the meaning assigned to it.
Example: One of my favorite professors, Norm Elliott, loved using this example:
- Red grapes make the best wine.
- He pulled a red hot poker out of the fire.
- I like my steaks red in the middle.
- She’s a tall woman with red hair.
- When Elliott noticed his fly was open during lecture, his face turned red.
The word “red” is made up of three symbols, “r”, “e”, “d,” and together they form another symbol, the word “red.” But the word “red” has no inherent value until we assign it meaning, and as you can see in the above example, the word “red” can mean at least five different things, or express five different thoughts.
So it is with the rest of our world. Yes, there is physical reality but even our understanding of physical reality is symbolic. A rainstorm is a physical reality. If it’s raining, it’s raining. Though the meaning may differ between people – a ruined day for a hiker or water for the farmer’s crops.
The easiest theory to study would be George Herbert Mead’s Symbolic Interactionism. Mead’s main theory is that we interact with objects based on the meaning that we’ve assigned to them. This applies to objects – guns for example – and people – homosexuals; race relations. What meaning(s) has your life experience created for a specific person/object?
I highly recommend A First Look at Communication Theory, by Em Griffin, or go to his website.
Media
As for media containing constructed reality, all media contains constructed reality. A great film on the subject is “Ordinary People.”
You can easily take this basic idea and quickly expand it. Are you in favor of or against Obamacare? Why or why not? What experiences have shaped your world view on the subject? Are you willing to understand the other side (I didn’t say agree with it)? What is your opinion on gun-owner rights and why? Are you a hoplophobe and if so, why?
Things Disney Has Taught Me (Part II)
If you outlaw spinning wheels, only evil witches will have spinning wheels.
Things Disney Has Taught Me (Part 1 of a series)
A jealous female can be tricked into anything.
- Captain James Hook
MST3K
In high school I was introduced to Mystery Science Theater 3000 and my life was permanently changed for the better. From the fountain of truth, Wikipedia, we learn:
Mystery Science Theater 3000, often abbreviated MST3K, is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999.
The series features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a space station by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, initially (but not especially limited to) science fiction B-movies. To keep sane, the man and his robots provide a running commentary on each film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking (or “riffing”) their way through each reel in the style of a movie-theater peanut gallery. Each film is presented with a superimposition of the man and robots’ silhouettes along the bottom of the screen.
Series creator Hodgson originally played the stranded man, Joel Robinson, for six-and-a-half seasons. When Hodgson left in 1993, series head writer Michael J. Nelson replaced him as new victim Mike Nelson, and continued in the role for the rest of the show’s run.
During its eleven years, 198 episodes and one feature film, MST3K attained critical acclaim. The series won a Peabody Award in 1993, and was nominated for writing Emmys in 1994 and 1995, and nominated for a Cable ACE Award.
A few years ago, Mike Nelson started rifftrax.com. Following the same premise as MST3K,
RiffTrax are comedic MP3 tracks that you play in-sync with your favorite movies. Written and performed by the stars of the award-winning TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, RiffTrax brings the unique humor of “Satellite of Love” partners Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett to Hollywood’s hit movies.
Originally, rifftrax began with movies that were easy prey. However, their catalog has expanded greatly and no movie is safe. For a taste of what Mike is offering, check out the samples for Star Wars and if you really want to wet yourself, Twilight.
The Greatest of Our Generation?
I keep seeing trailers for the upcoming film Brothers, starring Toby Maguire, Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal. I really don’t have any interest in the film, but one of the trailers said something interesting – “Three of the greatest actors of our generation….”
That made me stop. Really? These three are some of the greatest of our (my) generation? Really? Are all of the actors of my generation that bad? Only one of the three of them has won a major award, Natalie Portman. And no, it wasn’t for her fascinating work in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.
An Open Letter
Dear Christopher Nolan,
Thank you for rebooting the Batman franchise. I have thoroughly enjoyed both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I know that you must frequently receive letters from fans with suggestions as to what you should do next in the Batman series. Too often these people believe that they have the best idea, and it turns out to be miscalculated and unrealistic.
I hope that you do not feel that this is another one of those letters from one of those people. I was sitting at home thinking about the possibilities of the third installment of the new Batman series and I asked myself one question: “Where can the series possibly go?” After considering all of the possible villains I had an idea. The third movie could involve Catwoman.
The first thing that needs to be done is casting the right actor to play Catwoman. She needs to be smart, sophisticated, elegant, glamorous, feisty, physical and sexy without being slutty. Unfortunately, there are few American actors who comes to mind that fill all of these requirements. One that does come to mind is Cate Blanchett. My only concern with Ms. Blanchett, however, is the believability that she is the one actually doing the fighting. But I feel comfortable with your directing that you can make it believable. Ms. Balanchett offers a more traditional Catwoman type figure.
If you’re looking outside the box, I propose casting Zhang Ziyi. With Catwoman’s diverse historical backgrounds and multiple reinventions in comic books and pop culture, I offer you a new take on a character whose flexibility is limitless. Her draw to Gotham can be revenge for the abduction of Lau by Batman, and his death at the hands of the Joker and other gangsters – thus making her half villain, half heroine, while explaining her ethnicity (maybe she is Lau’s sister?). Or, if you wanted, you could make her a member of the League of Shadows, who is seeking revenge for the death of Raz Al Gul, but feels conflicted at fighting one of her own.
Whether or not she becomes Bruce Wayne’s new love interest is not my concern. If you have any questions or would like to talk about my ideas, I can be reached at the following: ———–
Thank you,
Reese ———–
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Tammy and I decided that since we hadn’t been to a movie in what seems like years (and likely has been) that we’d get out last Friday and see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now that I’ve had a week to process it (no, it wasn’t a deep film but I’ve had a lot going on) I figured that I’d do a short write up.
If you’re looking for a deep, meaningful, plot-rich movie like Iron Man or The Dark Knight – you will not find it with Wolverine. If you are looking for a CGI-filled, violent action flick – you’ve found the right movie. At one hour and fourty minutes, it’s over just as it begins to get really good, but it delivers on what the film is supposed to be – an explanation of where Wolverine came from.
I enjoyed Liev Schreiber’s Sabertooth character much better than what was written for Tyler Mane in X-Men and X-Men 2. Schreiber’s character was much, much more cunning and evil than Mane’s doof sidekick.
All-in-all, I’ll give it a 6 out of 10.
Late Reaction
OK, so readers of this site know that I’m a huge Utah football fan. You also know that Utah stomped BYU this year, on their way to a BCS victory over Alabama. Well, I just had this video forwarded to me. It shows a frustrated Adolf Hitler, as an avid BYU fan, venting after the BYU loss to Utah. Enjoy!
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Tammy and I have been on an “old movie” kick lately. We’ve been watching some Rock Hudson/Doris Day flicks and there have been plenty of Carry Grant and musicals floating around too.
Well, we decided to continue our little run by borrowing “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” from the library. I wish that we had not taken the time to watch it.
I’d heard so many things about how this was a fun, entertaining movie. Well, I didn’t have fun and I was only slightly entertained. Most of the time I wanted to reach through the screen and slap Audrey Hepburn. The dialogue was weak, the photography was average and, while Audrey was impressive, George Peppard was, well, soft.
Have any of you seen this movie? If so, what were your impressions? Please, be honest. I promise that we’ll still be friends, whatever your opinion.
Dr. Zhivago
I’d always wanted to see Dr. Zhivago. Part of the interest came from my fascination in younger years with the Soviet Union. The rest of my interest came from the fact that I lived in a former Soviet State, Ukraine, for two years of my life. Granted, I was there on religious service but that didn’t stop me from learning as much as I could about the history that the people that I was meeting had lived.
I remember speaking with a woman when I was in Rivne. She was born and raised in Siberia and wanted badly to move home. She and her husband had moved to Rivne, Ukraine, just before the fall of the Soviet Union. She related to me what she went through when Gorbachev announced Perestroika.
In Russian, Perestroika means to rebuild. When Valya heard Gorbachev’s announcement of “rebuilding” she turned to her husband and said, “What are we rebuilding? What is broken?” The Soviet Government had hidden the truth so well from their own people that “social chaos reigned for several years,” according to Valya.
Back to Dr. Zhivago. Not long after Tammy and I were married we obtained a copy of the movie from her father. Tammy told me that it was about three hours long and that she didn’t really want to watch it but decided to because of my pleading.
When the movie started I was very confused. For some reason, the Dr., or so I presumed the character to be, was packed in on a train. Suddenly the train stopped and he was removed by Bolsheviks. As the movie continued I found myself unable to follow the plot. I had no idea that Lara was his mistress and didn’t know what happened to his wife. Any why was he staying in a house full of snow? About an hour and ten minutes into the film, Dr. Zhivago had a heart attack and died. Then the movie moved forward in time and some Soviet military guy was talking to this young Russian girl and trying to convince her that Dr. Zhivago was her father.
The movie ended.
I looked at my wife and said, “that was one of the most horrible movies I’ve ever seen! Who’s that girl, and why did the movie jump ahead to the 1960′s? Why didn’t we see Zhivago’s wife? How did you know that Lara was his mistress, that doesn’t make sense…” And so on and so forth. My wife started asking bizarre questions and saying strange things. “That girl is the same one from the beginning of the movie. You saw Zhivago’s wife and son in the beginning and the frozen snow house, that is the same country house they lived in before the revolution.”
“What beginning,” I ask? “The movie started randomly with him on a train!” That’s when we realized what had happened – we had put the two sided disk into the DVD player on the wrong side. When the movie started, Tammy already knew the back story and didn’t notice that we’d started half way through the film. I, having never seen the three hour flick, was clueless and decided to stay quiet and try to figure out the plot.
We’ve now been married for almost three years and I still have not seen Dr. Zhivago all the way through. We still laugh about what happened and I’m still convinced that she knew we’d started in the middle and didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to watch it. One of these days, I’ll finish Dr. Zhivago – by watching the first two hours.
A Walk To Remember
I love that my wife cries every time we watch this movie. And truth be told, she probably always will. But that is what happens when movies stir our emotions. That is what makes film such a powerful medium.
