I Wonder If You Wonder
Featured Posts
If you’re one of the, oh, twelve or so regular readers of this site, you may have noticed that the posts came to a screeching halt about a month ago. This is the reason why.
Weekly Roundup is a feature posted every Monday on I Wonder if You Wonder. It gives me a chance to react to the week’s industry news and to provide some quick thoughts about the films and TV shows I’ve been watching. (Plus it’ll give you some idea of the sheer amount of stuff I watch!) Let’s dive right in.
In this week’s Weekly Roundup: A look at the terror that lurks inside the minds of Hollywood movie execs, some TV news, a couple more season finale micro-reviews, and reactions to a couple of recent blockbuster films.
Weekly Roundup is a feature posted each weekend on I Wonder if You Wonder. It gives me a chance to react to the week’s industry news and to provide some quick thoughts about the films and TV shows I’ve been watching. (Plus it’ll give you some idea of the sheer amount of stuff I watch!) Let’s dive right in.
In this week’s article: Some major movie news from overseas, a couple of TV cast shake-ups, and another batch of season finale reactions. Plus, I get to use the phrases “Palme d’Or” and “Tall Slut No Panties” in the same article. Now isn’t that something worth reading?
Weekly Roundup is a feature posted each weekend on I Wonder if You Wonder. It gives me a chance to react to the week’s industry news and to provide some quick thoughts about the films and TV shows I’ve been watching. (Plus it’ll give you some idea of the sheer amount of stuff I watch!) Let’s dive right in.
Weekly Roundup is a feature posted each weekend on I Wonder if You Wonder. It gives me a chance to react to the week’s industry news and to provide some quick thoughts about the films and TV shows I’ve been watching. (Plus it’ll give you some idea of the sheer amount of stuff I watch!) Let’s dive right in.
I hate bright movies.
I’m not talking about movies that are hopeful or optimistic. I’m talking about lighting choices. I hate movies that are unnaturally well-lit.
Horror can be a strange animal. Perhaps more than any other genre, the history of horror is defined by periods of complete dominance by certain styles of horror, often to the exclusion of nearly all others. In the 1930s and 40s, Universal’s cycle of monster movies dominated the horror landscape, producing such classics as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and The Wolf Man (1941). The 1950s and 60s were dominated by horror/sci-fi hybrids like The Thing from Another World (1951), Godzilla (1954), and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). In the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, slasher movies and their seemingly endless sequels ruled the day, including the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and Scream (1996). In the 2000s, so-called “torture porn” came into vogue on the backs of films like Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), and The Collector (2009). And in the last few years, “found-footage” horror has found its niche following the success of films like Paranormal Activity (2007) and Cloverfield (2008).
The 1980s were a simpler time. Back then, girls just wanted to have fun, a man could unironically rock out to Toto’s “Africa” without fear of judgment, and TV sitcoms gleefully ignored anything that was controversial (or, y’know, funny).
And, with few exceptions, there was only one version of every movie you love.
I can safely say that I’ve never analyzed a 22-minute sitcom as closely as I am about to, but there’s a first time for everything.
With The Big Bang Theory on a brief hiatus due to NCAA basketball, it’s worth taking a look at its most recent episode, “The Weekend Vortex.”
Listmania is a weekly feature on I Wonder If You Wonder. Last week, I wrote about films 10 through 6 on my list of the greatest noir films of all time. This week: the Top 5.
Listmania is a weekly feature on I Wonder If You Wonder. This week’s focus: film noir.
Like a lot of film students and critics, I have mixed feelings about ranking movies. For people who write about films for a living, an interesting film – even one of dubious quality – is infinitely preferable to a great one that isn’t particularly attention-grabbing. Art is inherently subjective, so there seems to be little point in coldly comparing two works of art based only on the nebulous criteria of personal preference.
Here’s my defense of why of why I’m doing it anyway. If you’ve read my article about film consumption and cultural currency, you know that I love lists. Aside from the benefits of lists that I explore in that article (mostly based around the status of films as an indicator of social status), I also just happen to really like movies a lot. I’m passionate about them. They dominate my thoughts a goodly portion of the day. As a result of this, I frequently compare movies in my mind: how does the theme of this one compare with that one? Are there commonalities in how they’re shot, or do they look completely different? Why does this one feel like a punch in the gut while that one was like a cool breeze? When I rank movies, I don’t do it from a place of meanness or a desire to see certain films elevated over others – I do it out of a love of the cinema.
Let me put it another way. What’s my favorite thing in the world to do? Watch movies. What’s my second favorite thing to do? Argue about movies. And there’s nothing like a list to get people arguing.
With that said, let’s get to some lists.
If you’ve read Part I of this article, you’re already familiar with the 6 companies that exert a disproportionately great influence over the contemporary media landscape: Comcast, Disney, National Amusements, News Corporation, Sony, and Time Warner. I encourage you to take another look at the lists of important corporate assets that I included alongside the description of each company, because in order to understand the inherent dangers of media consolidation it’s first necessary to understand how these companies are structured.
Imagine that you’re 12 years old. You live in New York City with your parents, and you’ve got a pretty good life. You’re a good student and an avid reader – when you were a few years younger, your favorite book was Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s tale Where the Wild Things Are, and now you’re just getting into C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Your favorite movies are the Ice Age and Night at the Museum series, and your parents take you to see every one of them in the theater. Glee is your favorite TV show; you don’t get all of the jokes, but you love the music and listen to the cast’s recordings in your room all the time. And you love video games – you’re always checking out GameSpy.com and IGN.com for the latest tips and tricks.
As I’ve written about extensively in previous articles, I’m a total media addict. While this addiction usually manifests itself in the movies and TV shows I watch, I also try to keep up to date with other aspects of pop culture, including music. I go out of my way to listen to as wide a variety of music as possible, including just about any song or album that reaches a certain level of popular success. If a song hits Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, pretty soon it’ll wind up on my iPod, and within a few days I’ll know all of its lyrics by heart. That’s just the nature of my obsessive personality.
Latest Post
10 Thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises, Part I
The Dark Knight Rises opened this week, and it’s already thrilling audiences and dividing critics. Here are 10 thoughts on Hollywood’s latest movie phenomenon.
Continue reading »