Affluenza

Dec 12, 2005 11:32

Finished Affluenza, by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss of the Australia Institute, over the weekend ( Read more... )

morality, economics, materialism, society, books, politics

Leave a comment

Comments 14

wintal December 12 2005, 05:50:57 UTC
On "A Scanner Darkly", it does look good - I really like the style of the footage, I think it suits the story well. It's probably the best Dick story I've read by a fair way too.

Reply

ataxi December 12 2005, 06:03:13 UTC
If it's as good as Bladerunner it'll be brilliant. I do consider that film to be one of the best ever made. But the trailer for ASD looks superb.

Reply

wintal December 12 2005, 08:29:52 UTC
The book is great. However, I'm not sure I like the animated feel of the trailer - guess it might grow on me. Other than that, there's not much in the trailer to judge the movie by. It's certainly not a great trailer.

Too bad this isn't out for another four months!

Mg

Reply

ataxi December 12 2005, 08:47:50 UTC
I disagree somewhat on the trailer, because I think the visual style alone makes it pretty decent (and seems to me to be really well suited to the novel). But it's definitely heavy on irrelevant hype ("everything you do is being RECORDED") and pretty light on choice cuts.

Reply


(The comment has been removed)

ataxi December 12 2005, 06:39:07 UTC
A Scanner Darkly has a really, really cool plot. The trailer doesn't do it justice, which makes me wonder if the movie will. But I like the look a great deal, and I'm happy with the casting.

(I worked out why Keanu - it's because he's the only one of those actors who could do plausible hippie facial hair. Cruise would look like it was glued on (think Last Samurai, ugh), Ford can't do it, nor Schwarzenegger, and it makes Affleck look like a sleazeball, not a peace loving dude. And facial hair is a necessity for this role ...)

Reply

utopos December 12 2005, 09:26:45 UTC
Watching Constantine for the second time made me notice that he can act subtle (Affleck, Cruise and Arnie don't know the meaning of the word, Ford can but doesn't get much opportunity).

Unfortunately (according to latest info) he's leaving the Hellblazer franchise, leaving it open to even greater casting abuses (Stuart Townsend would be the next logical step for the master torturers studio execs).

I'm not sure about the facial-hair theory of cinema...although it works when applied to actors popular in the 70's.

Reply

ataxi December 12 2005, 10:54:27 UTC
Ford's too old to play Bob Arctor anyway, realistically. He would've been OK, even good, back in the Han Solo days. In one sense I'm just glad it isn't someone like Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt - they lack something that Keanu has, a sort of "uncarved block" quality.

Stuart Townsend in the next Hellblazer movie would be a disaster. What a vacuum that guy is.

Reply


kadeton December 12 2005, 06:34:32 UTC
That sounds like an interesting book, I shall attempt to find a copy.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up