Film, media and art links
TV Tropes: a website to lose hours in.
Crazy Indian music video.
Having a great deal of fun with a poor bit of ad photoshopping by Victoria’s Secret.
Top 10 news stories you missed in 2009.
Engaging in online protests against Ireland’s blasphemy laws.
Paper arguing that movies encouraged a particular narrative of the economic crisis.
The Index against Censorship is in a bit of internal bother due to its self-censoring itself over the Danish cartoons. Muslim intimidation over such matters keeps happening because it works.
Nominating the top 10 movie scenes (not to be confused with the top 10 movies) of 2009.
US daytime TV has its first gay sex scene: schmaltzy music, candles and all.
Reason.tv on why the noughties were the worst decade ever. My favourite line:
Any time Dennis Kucinich is the voice of reason, you know you're really screwed.
How to write about Africa: a wonderful satire. Nigerian novelist TED talk on the danger of a single story. Another TED talk on the one-sided nature of media coverage of Africa.
Great review (with pics) of Dances with Smurfs (aka Avatar):
… because Cameron endows the blue people with English-speaking abilities, hot bodies, classically beautiful features, and the exact same family structure and benevolent rule as the greats of Western civ. It’s just so natural to love ‘em. They’re not ugly and they’re totally like us!
Enjoying the aesthetic beauty of Avatar:
James Cameron claims to have written this film fifteen years ago, which would put it squarely in the middle of the Ecstasy craze. All the glowing colors, peace, and love, that exists on Pandora certainly seems drug inspired.
Avatar as demonstrating the ubiquity of the faith instinct:
We live in an age in which it's the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion. If the Na'Vi were Roman Catholics, there would be boycotts and protests. Make the oversized Smurfs Rousseauian noble savages and everyone nods along, save for a few cranky right-wingers. …
What I find fascinating, and infuriating, is how the culture war debate is routinely described by antagonists on both sides as a conflict between the religious and the un-religious. The faith instinct manifests itself across the ideological spectrum, even if it masquerades as something else.
Say it sister:
The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. They may make great movies, write great books, and design beautiful things, they may have lots of noble humanitarian ideas and care, in the abstract, about all the right principles: equality under the law, for example. But in this case, they're just the white culture-class counterpart of hip-hop fans who stood by R. Kelly and Chris Brown and of sports fans who automatically support their favorite athletes when they're accused of beating their wives and raping hotel workers.
No wonder Middle America hates them.
BTW, this is from a feminist columnist in The Nation.
Virginia Postrel skewers the NYT’s freelancing incoherence:
Instead of focusing on inputs, the Times should focus its quality control on outputs: what actually appears in the paper. Drop the absurd ethics guidelines, hire freelancers who know their subjects and how to write about them, and disclose any potential conflicts so readers can make up their own minds. Think about delivering value to the reader rather than ritualistically adhering to journalistic guild customs. Alternatively, the Times could shrink the paper to include only that reporting whose costs it can cover out of its own budget and stop trying to free ride.
Crazy Indian music video.
Having a great deal of fun with a poor bit of ad photoshopping by Victoria’s Secret.
Top 10 news stories you missed in 2009.
Engaging in online protests against Ireland’s blasphemy laws.
Paper arguing that movies encouraged a particular narrative of the economic crisis.
The Index against Censorship is in a bit of internal bother due to its self-censoring itself over the Danish cartoons. Muslim intimidation over such matters keeps happening because it works.
Nominating the top 10 movie scenes (not to be confused with the top 10 movies) of 2009.
US daytime TV has its first gay sex scene: schmaltzy music, candles and all.
Reason.tv on why the noughties were the worst decade ever. My favourite line:
Any time Dennis Kucinich is the voice of reason, you know you're really screwed.
How to write about Africa: a wonderful satire. Nigerian novelist TED talk on the danger of a single story. Another TED talk on the one-sided nature of media coverage of Africa.
Great review (with pics) of Dances with Smurfs (aka Avatar):
… because Cameron endows the blue people with English-speaking abilities, hot bodies, classically beautiful features, and the exact same family structure and benevolent rule as the greats of Western civ. It’s just so natural to love ‘em. They’re not ugly and they’re totally like us!
Enjoying the aesthetic beauty of Avatar:
James Cameron claims to have written this film fifteen years ago, which would put it squarely in the middle of the Ecstasy craze. All the glowing colors, peace, and love, that exists on Pandora certainly seems drug inspired.
Avatar as demonstrating the ubiquity of the faith instinct:
We live in an age in which it's the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion. If the Na'Vi were Roman Catholics, there would be boycotts and protests. Make the oversized Smurfs Rousseauian noble savages and everyone nods along, save for a few cranky right-wingers. …
What I find fascinating, and infuriating, is how the culture war debate is routinely described by antagonists on both sides as a conflict between the religious and the un-religious. The faith instinct manifests itself across the ideological spectrum, even if it masquerades as something else.
Say it sister:
The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. They may make great movies, write great books, and design beautiful things, they may have lots of noble humanitarian ideas and care, in the abstract, about all the right principles: equality under the law, for example. But in this case, they're just the white culture-class counterpart of hip-hop fans who stood by R. Kelly and Chris Brown and of sports fans who automatically support their favorite athletes when they're accused of beating their wives and raping hotel workers.
No wonder Middle America hates them.
BTW, this is from a feminist columnist in The Nation.
Virginia Postrel skewers the NYT’s freelancing incoherence:
Instead of focusing on inputs, the Times should focus its quality control on outputs: what actually appears in the paper. Drop the absurd ethics guidelines, hire freelancers who know their subjects and how to write about them, and disclose any potential conflicts so readers can make up their own minds. Think about delivering value to the reader rather than ritualistically adhering to journalistic guild customs. Alternatively, the Times could shrink the paper to include only that reporting whose costs it can cover out of its own budget and stop trying to free ride.