Joel's humanistic blog

Jim Lippard recently devoted an excellent post to a thorough takedown of Zeitgeist: The Movie , a weird, conspiracy theory-centered movie that's been spreading virally online (it can be viewed on Google Video in its entirety) for the past year. This is pretty pitiful even by the very low standards of CT movies like Loose Change or America: Freedom to Fascism (both of which Zeitgeist borrows directly and heavily from); as Lippard puts it, Zeitgeist is a "piece of pernicious nonsense" which is "almost entirely garbage, dependent on crackpot sources". Plus, it's heavily dependent on video and audio footage "borrowed" from other sources, and crude and cheap motion graphics, to fill out its running time. But I find it interesting, almost despite myself, for two reasons: 1: It juxtaposes conventional CT subject matter in its last two-thirds (about 9/11 and the Federal Reserve) with a first third about the origins of Christianity, which echoes ...

Earth Day may be unrivaled among holidays in the nobility of its sentiment, but when it comes to pop culture, its impact is somewhat lacking. Even Arbor Day has an associated Charlie Brown special , but Earth Day? Well, maybe not quite. Back in 1990, the holiday took quite a bite out of pop culture in a celebrity-packed video tribute produced and presented by Time Warner. When I found an old VHS copy of the special, the back cover blurb made it an imperative to check out: A fun-packed salute that makes a world of difference. The biggest stars of the '90s take on the biggest story of the '90s in this informative blend of entertainment and cause. Rich in comedy, song and reports on the state of the planet, The Earth Day Special captures the excitement and commitment of Earth Day 1990 — and shares tips everyone can use to help solve the most urgent crisis the world faces today. Mother Earth (Bette Midler) is ailing and it's up to folks in Anytown USA to help her recover. ...

On Sunday, February 24th, Turner Classic Movies will be airing Contact as part of this month's "31 Days of Oscar" , in which Academy Award-winning movies are showcased. Check out the TCM Movie Database entry for the film . Sean Axmaker provides an excellent overview of the film, from the production history to the issues and themes involved; Sagan is described as "one of the most effective spokesmen for the advancement of science and space exploration in the world", and the entry also includes a quote from Ann Druyan: "Carl's and my dream was to write something that would be a fictional representation of what contact would be like," explains Ann Druyan, Sagan's wife and collaborator. "But it would also have the tension inherent between religion and science, which was an area of philosophical and intellectual interest that riveted both of us." Each night's worth of movies is organized by a specific decade (all the way from the 192...

No, it's not a little-known spinoff of Cosmos based on Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's book of the same name , but a 1964 Soviet film by Sergei Parajanov that inspired the name of the Sagan/Druyan book! I know nothing else about the film (it's not even a documentary as one might think, but fiction), but it's Sagan-related enough to take note of here. Some quick links to stuff about the film: IMDB entry Amazon.com page New York Times DVD review Village Voice film review Time Out New York film review The L Magazine film review

This has been covered before on this blog , but since Martian Child is finally opening in theaters, I want to point out that Equal Time for Freethought 's interview with author David Gerrold is available, including a discussion of the novel of the same name that formed the basis for the film (as well as Gerrold's real-life childraising experience that formed the source for both).

Among bad movie fans, one particularly special favorite is the 1990 "best worst movie" Troll 2 . Without the typical features that bring attention to well-known bad movies — big-name stars, a large budget, a recent release date, a showing on Mystery Science Theater 3000 — but solely on the strength of sheer badness and massive filmmaking ineptitude, it's charmed its way into a cult following, a near-permanent space on the low end of the IMDB Bottom 100 (including occasional stints all the way down at the #1 spot), and a RiffTrax . And this summer, Troll 2 is being featured at an ongoing series of special theatrical screenings , featuring a newly rediscovered 35mm print, at cities across the United States! The next two are this weekend in Seattle, and new cities and dates are being announced. Plus, they will have a large proportion of the original cast in attendance, who are fully appreciative of the movie's badness and the strange following it's gained, who...

When Stephen Fischler and Joel Sucher's pair of 1980s documentaries Anarchism in America and Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists were released onto DVD last year, the home video availability, much like Bird and Shaffer's The Wobblies doc , led to a resurgence of interest in both movies. Some time afterwards, I noticed that while the former had an entry on the comprehensive Internet Movie Database , the latter did not. So about a week ago, I finally decided to try to make my way through the IMDB update process and submit it for inclusion in the database ... and it's paid off: Free Voice of Labor has a brand-new page on the IMDB ! (And yes, I should eventually post some thoughts on the actual content of both of Fischler and Sucher's movies ... there was a flurry of posts shortly after the DVD's release, and I felt like I was coming late to the party at the time. But yeah, they're recommended, and I wanted to get out this announcement now rather t...

I don't dance like Cyd Charisse. But women identify with me. And while men desire Cyd Charisse, they'd take me home to meet Mom. — June Allyson As the Legs fansite reminds us, today is the birthday of Cyd Charisse, who danced in some of the greatest classic musicals like Singin' in the Rain , The Band Wagon , and Silk Stockings . Last month, the site had a form to send birthday messages, which would then be printed out and mailed to Cyd herself; the site now has the update: "Thank you to all those who sent birthday wishes to Cyd throughout the month of February! The letter has been sent. If I get a reply, I will post it here."

Since its debut in the early days of the Web in 1997, Lawrence Knapp's Page of Fu Manchu has been the definitive Internet resource about Sax Rohmer's classic villain, charting Fu's influence, incarnations, and imitators. The site has just posted some screen captures I made of Fu Manchu's "cameo" in the Warner Bros. cartoon Have You Got Any Castles (1938) (thanks to ReFrederator for posting a nice print of the public domain cartoon online), as well as expanding its description of the appearance. Way back in 2001, I also contributed to the site's list of "clones" of Fu Manchu, the Fu-in-all-but-name in question being Iskandar from Jack Williamson's science fiction fantasy The Wizard of Life (1934).

Today, Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer's 1979 documentary about the legendary radical union Industrial Workers of the World , titled simply The Wobblies after the IWW's nickname, is being released on DVD. Last November, I saw the film at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (it was sweet to see a leftist documentary in a "real" movie theater). The film successfully captures the spirit of the IWW; the energy and avoidance of a static "talking-heads" feel is all the more remarkable given the limitations and age of the material available. The interviewees from the original era of the IWW in the early 1900s were by that time in their 80s and 90s, yet vividly conveyed their many-decades-old memories. The use of original documents and archival footage from the dawn of motion pictures was equally effective, conveying the social turmoil of the time, and the nature of work (such as a memorable shot of gigantic trees that dwarf the workers cutting them down). A p...

Today is the 25th anniversary to the day of the release of one of my favorite movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark . Another Indy fan has posted a detailed analysis of one of the many aspects that make it great: the spunky heroine Marion Ravenwood. UPDATE: While doing blog maintenance, I found out that the blog I linked to, That Little Round-Headed Boy ("Happiness is a warm blog"), has disappeared. Here's a quote of part of the post that gives a flavor of what's missing: [I]n the pairing of Indy and Marion, you have cinema alchemy, the Nick and Nora Charles of archaeology and high adventure. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK really isn't an action movie, per se. It's also one of the great romantic comedies. At the very least, it's a Howard Hawks-style adventure romance, in which the bickering way the characters keep hashing over their past history is just as important as the MacGuffin they are chasing. And Karen Allen's Marion is crucial to that. She helps define...

Danny Mydlack's excellent documentary Voices from the New American Schoolhouse about Fairhaven School (which I was fortunate enough to see at its premiere at AERO 's conference last year) got a boost of publicity last week when award-winning science fiction writer and all-round cool guy Cory Doctorow featured it on his popular blog Boing Boing . Given that Boing Boing is #1 on Technorati's listing of the Net's most-linked-to blogs , this certainly showed it off to a lot of people who don't follow alternative education. Right from the title of the post, "Documentary on radical free school - inspiring", it's clear that Doctorow is going to emphasize rather than downplay the departure from the status quo of schooling, even using the term "free school" (which some avoid who consider it passe in an aging-hippie way). Moreover, he refers to his own history of attending a free school that was started during the heyday of the movement in the ...

A much-awaited film series has begun this week: the return of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's series about the wide-ranging intersection of animation and music, Cartoon Musicals ! This is a dream come true for animation buffs: the series features some truly rare and offbeat stuff, and curator Greg Ford shows his excellent taste and vast, insightful knowledge of the medium. The first part of the series, back in August, already set a high bar. A Disney compilation showcased the early Silly Symphonies with their imaginative world-building -- the best one showing the rivalry in a music world between lands of classical and jazz music -- and the wild graphic inventiveness of some of the more experimental segments from compilation pictures like Three Caballeros , Make Mine Music , and Melody Time -- the best being "All the Cats Join In" from Make Mine Music , which I recognized as largely animated by Fred Moore's, since the wild joy of the dancing teens in the cartoo...

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Toy Story , rounding out a decade of feature films from Pixar. I literally grew up alongside computer graphics; Tron was released, on July 9, 1982, just a month before I was born; also, the adolescence and adulthood of the medium parallel my own. I remember missing Toy Story during its original theatrical run (remember how back then, it was promoted as a "Disney" rather than a "Pixar" film?), instead seeing Jumanji (what a load of crapola that was) while Toy Story was playing on a different screen of the same theater. However, I didn't miss the revolution for long: I've looked forward to each new release since Monsters, Inc. 's wickedly clever trailer in which the characters wind up in outer Mongolia instead of outer Magnolia (oh, the pain-of-anticipation of seeing that one a full year before the release of the film itself). Pixar has moved from one artistic triumph to another, barely missing a bea...