Category: TV & Movies
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Back to the Future: New Poor, New Slums
A strange part of the US real-estate boom is the housing construction boom. Across America, brand-new housing developments are sprouting up like kudzu vines, tearing down forests and farmland to build new housing as fast as possible. Behind this are many factors: immigration, ongoing white flight from the cities, the growth of suburban sprawl, the…
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Dreamgirls and the Self-Referential Musical
I saw Dreamgirls this weekend — it was great! I’ve been to my fair share of movies where the audience broke out into enthusiastic and spontaneous applause before, but they’ve almost always applauded some kind of triumphant action scene, never clapping and cheering for an individual performer. Which is to say that they are applauding…
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TV News is Vaudeville
On election night last week, we were channel surfing and comparing the coverage by the various networks. We ended up for a spell at Comedy Central, where Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert exchanged snappy banter with each other in a kind of parody of network news coverage. Surprisingly, there was a part of me that…
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Action Jackson
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in Art, Artificial Intelligence, Design, Images, Personal, Reviews, Science, Technology, TV & Movies, Web -
“Snakes on a Plane” is Hurting America
I toyed with the idea of going to see Snakes on a Plane last night in order to be able to write a negative review about it with more credibility. I even considered the idea of making it seem like I went to the theatre with the expectation that the movie would be fun, thus…
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A Movie Studio in Your Pocket
Stills from Nuovi Comizi d’Amore (New Love Meetings) by Marcello Mencarini and Barbara Seghezzi. Two Italian filmmakers, Marcello Mencarini and Barbara Seghezzi, have completed a feature-length movie shot entirely with a mobile phone. It’s an interview-centered documentary, which seems the ideal form for a mobile phone movie. Here’s what they have to say about the…
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Condescending Cultural Critique
When we evaluate movies, TV shows, and other media products that are intended to be seen by a large, mass audience, we often take two positions at the same time: What I really think of this What will Someone Else think of this? (where Someone Else is a social demographic different from your own) We…
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Battlestar Erratica
I definitely like the new Cylons better than the old ones, although I wonder where the big lizard-head guy went. Please forgive me as I geek out a little here, but… People are saying that Battlestar Galactica‘s plot is starting to show evidence of lacking any real long-term plan or direction. That is, they fear…