Two for Tuesday
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Category Archives: Video
Saturday Matinee: Starship Troopers
Paul Verhoeven and Edward Neumeier, the writer/director team behind the original Robocop returned a decade later with an equally satirical vision mocking while paying homage to propagandistic and militaristic Hollywood tropes: “Starship Troopers” (2007). The story follows a new recruit and his circle of friends as they go through training and onto the battlefield in a war against hostile aliens. It’s a story told countless times before and since but rarely with as much self-awareness and overtly fetishized fascism.
Watch the full film here.
Two for Tuesday
Saturday Matinee: Terminal City Ricochet
From Alternative Tentacles:
Welcome to Terminal City-one of only five livable places left on Earth.
Telegenic Mayor Ross Glimore (Peter Breck, The Big Valley, Shock Corridor), is king of all media, and rules as a virtual dictator. To maintain his grip on power he must stage an election, and for that he needs fresh fear. Enter Alex Stevens (Mark Bennett), a fed-up, cynical newspaper delivery boy who happens to witness Glimore run over one of his own supporters in his car, and leave the scene of the accident.
Glimore and his Rove-wellian henchman Bruce Coddle (Jello Biafra) hatch a plot to brand Alex “the #1 terrorist threat” (based on his connection to rock’n’roll music which, along with meat, is banned) to cow Terminal City into submission and steal another tabloid election.
Alex flees underground, where he stumbles into a resistance movement led in part by his newfound friend Beatrice (Lisa Brown), and a fugitive brain-damaged goalie from the Glimore-owned hockey team, unforgettably portrayed by two-time Genie Award® winner Germaine Houde (Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Les bons Débarras 1980, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Un Zoo la Nuit 1987).
Alex finds himself caught up in a plot to bring Glimore down, with the not-so-secret police (D.O.A.’s Joe Keithley and pro-wrestling legend Gene Kiniski) hot on the trail.
Two for Tuesday
Charlie Kaufman on Zombie Ants, Mind Control, and Consumerist Culture
By The Unknown
Source: High Existence
Charlie Kaufman has one of the most inventive and original minds in Hollywood. That’s probably why he has eluded mainstream success.
Mr. Kaufman is perhaps best known for writing the modern classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for which he was awarded an Oscar for best original screenplay. He’s also the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Anomalisa, and the writer-director of the little-known but brilliant Synecdoche, New York, which Roger Ebert named the “best film of the decade” (2000-2010).
In the words of fellow writer Jeremy Brock:
One of the few screenwriters to transcend his profession, Charlie Kaufman is responsible for some of the most unique, daring, and inventive screenplays in contemporary cinema. […] His films deal with identity, mortality, relationships, and the meaning or purpose of life. They are metaphysical, self-reflexive, hyper-aware, often using surrealist conceits to explore our fundamental anxieties. It is in this tradition of finding new, startling, and funny ways of exploring human psychology that Charlie Kaufman sits comfortably amongst the world’s greatest living writers.
Fans love him. Critics adore him. Mainstream audiences… ignore him.
And that’s a shame.
In a world filled with sequels, prequels, remakes, and reboots, creativity is dying in Hollywood.Worse than dying, I’d argue that creativity is being tied up, beaten, tortured, mocked, murdered, then thrown in a gutter and pissed on.
You could argue that I’m cynical.
You could also argue that I’m tired of being patronized by the regurgitated garbage Hollywood pukes up and tries to spoon feed us. We all know the difference between food and vomit, and Hollywood’s been steadily feeding us barf for the last ten years while distracting us with silly airplane noises like we’re babies.
But I’m getting sidetracked.
This isn’t about my personal disdain for Hollywood; this is about Charlie Kaufman’s views on consumerism, and Charlie Kaufman is much more polite, intelligent, and eloquent than I am.
I stumbled across a speech Charlie Kaufman delivered at a BAFTA lecture in 2011 and absolutely loved it.
Mr. Kaufman was supposed to deliver a speech about screenwriting, but gave the audience much more. The full speech covers a broad range of topics, but I spliced together a few of my favorites — Zombie Ants, Mind Control, and Consumerist Culture — and created the video below.
Watch and listen as Charlie Kaufman dissects and diagnoses the fallacies of our present-day culture, but rather than react with juvenile indignation (as I did in my brief rant earlier), he responds with poignant words of heartbroken yet hopeful wisdom.
Enjoy!
Saturday Matinee: The Red Elvis
“The Red Elvis” (2007) is a German documentary directed by Leopold Grün about the life and legacy of Colorado-born singer Dean Reed who, after a promotional tour in Chile, fell in love with the culture and became involved in anti-imperialist politics around the world. Through archival footage and interviews the film explores Reed’s unique personal and professional journey which was tragically cut short by his mysterious death in 1986 at age 47. Some of the circumstances surrounding Dean Reed’s death suggest it may be more complicated than the narrative presented in the film.
After the Crash 