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The Film Habit #42 - March 23, 2005 For those of you keeping score, yesterday I encountered near death experience number three. Or maybe it would be better to say near death experience number three encountered me. Having in the past two weeks already been creamed in a car-totaling wreck, and almost intentionally run down by a crazed, hat-wearing redneck, this week I stumbled upon the most dangerous life hazard… the sudden highway stopper. At least this time I wasn’t on my way to The Jacket.
Worse, I was on my way to see Miss Congeniality 2, not a movie you want to die for. I was happily plowing through the worst stretch of highway in Dallas (For you other locals, 635 & 75 aka Auto-Hell) behind a large SUV. The shocking thing is that we were going over 50, a rarity on this stretch of Dallas road during rush hour. Suddenly the SUV veers violently off the road to go bounding down a 15 foot embankment and land on the service road below. In front of him, was a small car who’d independently decided that now, during rush hour, on one of the busiest pieces of pavement in Texas, it might be a good time to stop and have a bite of sandwich. I braked, I veered, I stopped next to him on the shoulder, missing another car creaming incident by inches. He drove on happily, blissfully unaware. I sat for five minutes attempting to rediscover breathing. Three weeks, three near fatalities, all en route to movies. Sorry folks, this critiquing gig is getting too dangerous. Forget rising Dallas crime, Dallas motoring is wildly out of hand. Internet piracy seems more attractive by the minute. At least this is Film Habit #42. That means something’s going right. Dig the HHG connect. I’m such a geek. me to get a funeral invite. God Bless IMAX  As a resident of the American South for 27 out of the 28 years of my life and a childhood “Dukes of Hazzard” fan, let me start this by saying the following: I’m really sick of us Southerners making ourselves look like ass-clowns. Get it together people. For every episode of “Boston Legal” that portrays us all as gun-toting, mustache twirling, murdering dim-wits, there’s a real life story like this one that makes us every bit as stupid as James Spader portrays us. Maybe it’s time I moved up north.
Here’s the long and short of it: IMAX theaters in several southern cities (Texas is listed specifically, so no doubt this includes my IMAX theater here in Dallas.) have opted not to show a film on volcanoes on the grounds that it references the theory of evolution. Cited are concerns that movie-goers might be offended, or worse still actually learn something. The South’s education reputation didn’t occur by accident after all. Now granted, I don’t spend a lot of time watching The Discovery Channel, but when was the last time you saw a nature program that didn’t reference evolution? They’re absolutely RIFE with it, perhaps because they’re put together by smart people known as “scientists” instead of evangelical, money-hungry preachers. Scientists you see are this weird cult of folks who worship this guy named Einstein and believe in crazy things like scientific method as a way for unraveling the mysteries of the Earth. They also feel pretty confident that we all got here by a process known as evolution. Fun fact… the Pope agrees.  To be honest, I’m not sure what I believe on the subject, but that’s irrelevant to the discussion. Whether evolution is the real deal or not, this is a move that’s completely out of wack. I support the rights of these individual theater owners to run whichever movies they want. I believe in that, it’s a private business and they’re in it to make money. Fine. But has the Bible belt really become so desperately oppressive that legitimate science no longer has a place in movie theaters? That’s a frightening thought. It stinks of knee-jerk reaction. Are people actually out there protesting this? I know a lot of fundamentalist creationists (I do after all live in Texas) and they spend more time watching the Discovery Channel than anyone I know (Animals screwing is less morally offensive than people). They’re used to wading through evolution references… why would it suddenly bother them? It’s as if electing a president on moral grounds has suddenly empowered an entire small subset of psychotically religious people to go out and start forcing their beliefs on the rest of the populace… or has it? At least that seems like what these theater owners are afraid of. To me, the fear seems unfounded.
The worst thing about this is the message it sends to the folks making these sorts of movies. If you want your movie shown, leave out anything that isn’t in the Bible. Maybe work in some references to God. Throw in A few shots of a bearded guy shooting stars out of his ass. Better make that beard thicker, wouldn’t want him to be confused as female. Alanis Morrisette is right out. Maybe the Lucas-like fellow could even ask to borrow a starship. God does that sort of thing you know. This mess reflects poorly on normal, mainstream Christians, and as usual reflects poorly on the justifiably maligned Deep South. We deserve the stereotypes. Might as well kick back in your rocking chair and suck on a corn-cob pipe brothers. Religion is well and good but please, keep it to yourself. You’re making the whole region look like bullshit. God bless Texas? me to buy teeth. Letters From Close Enough to the Edge to See the View But Not So Close That There is Danger of Falling Off  Guided by the spirit of the small Asian woman to your left (who I really need to replace with something more snazzy), I answer reader mail. It’s new, it’s innovative, and no doubt this idea will be ripped off by thousands of copycats, like that hack David Letterman. your comments to have them read on the… er answered here. Let’s see what you folks have to say this week: Clifford: Review: Miss Congeniality 2 - Best.review.ever. Josh: Worst. Movie. Recently. Thanks! Gayle: Good morning, Mr. Tyler. In my search for Phantom of the Opera merchandise, I found your website (what a neat site, by the way!). The first stop was on the page where you had sponsored a contest with unbelievably wonderful POTO goodies; unfortunately, the contest is over and I do not have, or know where to find, a time machine to try for the prizes. :-) My question, however, is where (besides ebay) would I be able to find any or all of the nifty prize items you awarded (the "masquerade scene" fans are especially cool)? My 16-year-old daughter is a huge POTO addict--listening to the soundtrack non-stop; watching the movie trailers over and over; and counting the days, hours, and minutes until the DVD release of the movie in May. I imagine you are probably very busy with many things, so any information you can share with me in the way of finding some of the same type of POTO items you display on your site would be very much appreciated. Thank you!! Josh: Thanks for your kind words meant to butter me up. But, the prizes are gone and I’m not running a warehouse. I was serious about the time machine. I’ve got a time machine actually if you want to buy it. No warranty though. David: For the Supervillain in all of us (and thanks to John Rogers' blog for pointing me to this): here Josh: This bears a strange resemblance to my Cinema Blend marketing strategy. I haven’t quite worked out how destroying the planet will help me dominate the internet, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Crystal: "The trailer is an almost too straight translation of the comic, with bland black and white digital shots sewn with occasional teases of color." You yourself commented that this film is based on Frank Miller's Graphic Novel by the same name. Considering he is Co-Director why is it suprising that they are using that style in the film? That IS the style in the comic books. Furthermore, many comic readers or in this case "graphic novel" readers tend to be unhappy with comic-to-theater pieces because they stray far from the original story and visuals. The key word here is VISUALS. These are novels with pictures. To stray completely away from these visuals is almost an insult. The fact that Rodriguez quit the guild in order to give Frank Miller credit is admirable. He wants this film to be a true to the graphic novel. That is the ENTIRE point. So no, sir, they did are not "doing it just because it looks pretty," they are doing it because it's true to the genre that it is derived from. I believe that you are just stating these things because you personally don't enjoy the style. Perhaps you should have looked at these graphic novels before commenting. And if you did, perhaps you should have clarified that the style was just not your cup of tea. Have a nice day Josh: Lucky for us, all the many graphic novel readers out there combined don’t have enough buying power to fill a thimble. Otherwise our movies would be all VISUALS and no freaking point. Speaking of points, did you have one? I’m still looking for it. Devin @ CHUD: That UNLEASHED poster was sent to us with the understanding that it would be ours exclusively until Wednesday. I don't know why it went up on the official site already, but those are the facts. Thanks. Josh: Thanks for clarifying. I thought there was a possibility it might be something like that, which is why I made it a point not to mention CHUD by name in a derogatory way here. I'm sure you can understand how it would look odd. Just so you know, it looks like ImpAwards.com has had it up since Tuesday! I've actually had something similar happen to us before, something sent to us by a rep as "exclusive"... when it is nothing of the sort. Best of luck to you guys. Clifford: RE: Film Habit #41 Regarding the email from Basil where he mentions that his computer can't take screenshots (presumably of the star wars sith trailer), you might want to pass on this possible solution. When it comes to accelerating video playback, graphics acceleration, as supported by Windows 95 through XP, involves offloading the work of drawing each frame to the video card. Basically, Windows draws a box inside the video window of a specific, unique color not generally used. It is often an extremely dark purple that is almost black. The video card is given the specific RGB value of this color and is told to basically write video data directly on top of that color on the screen, thereby bypassing the operating system's image processing and display units. The video data goes directly to the monitor signal itself, offering huge speed benefits and leaving the processor to handle the video decoding process (generally.) When you take a screenshot in Windows, you are taking a shot of what is present in the Windows' supported video buffer, which is bypassed by the video card when displaying video. Therefore, you end up with a blank dark purple box instead of a video image. You can, however, defeat this without harming your system. You just have to remember to change it back once you're done taking screenshots. 1) Right-click your desktop wallpaper and choose Properties 2) Click the Settings tab 3) Click Advanced 4) In Windows XP, click the Troubleshoot tab and drag the Hardware Acceleration slider ALL the way to the left and click Apply. Now try taking your screenshot. When you're finished, change the slider back to where it was. Voila! Josh: We’re not just a movie site, we’re full service tech support. Thanks Cliff for email number 2. Hey! Do you like writing for mildly successful movie websites with no guarantee that you’ll ever be paid? Are you over 18? You’re in luck. CinemaBlend.com is looking for writers just like you. If you think you can capture the signature Cinema Blend style as a critic and/or BNN reporter send me an with a few samples and we’ll talk. |
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