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CE4K?
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The Bloomsday Device
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"I was snagged by the “From the Producers of Close Encounters of the Third Kind” tag of The Last Mimzy, and the appearance of Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) in the presumed Dreyfuss-quest role. There is much homage here. Mandalas have replaced Devil’s Tower, Homeland Security has replaced the U.N., Wilson and Timothy Hutton split the Dreyfuss role in two: one the kooky, pierced, Pink Floyd-listenin’ renegade teacher with a heart of gold, the other the devoted absentee dad/lawyer with a heart of gold. Neither of them would ever jump on a spaceship and leave their family twistin’ in the wind, Spielberg. The true Dreyfuss-quest roles are those of the children, themselves. Big brother, little sister. The children are not merely changed by their encounter with the fourth dimension, they evolve because of it: super spidey senses, incredible comprehension of – and empathy for – other creatures, telepathy, telekinesis, etc. Adults are ... " [More]
Speak, Memory
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missing a film
"Mine is a supernatural thriller that happens on an airplane crossing the Atlantic. Some evil relic is being transported and the crew and passengers do some odd rituals to make the problem go away before they land. At some point a dog is "frozen to death" by the evil. At another point, a little girl's doll is sacrificed in her place (as if Pure Evil wouldn't know the difference.) " [More]
A Cinematic Trinity
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The Bloomsday Device
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"Raised a Catholic, I have been taught to split the concept of God into thirds -- Father, Son, Holy Ghost. I have often suspected some smoke and mirrors on this point, as if this trinitarian notion was specifically designed to mislead us, divert our attentions, confuse us into submission. I recall the lion tamer in Errol Morris' Fash, Cheap and Out of Control, who reveals why they seem to provoke their animals with the four legs of a chair: the lions can concentrate on only one leg at a time and will soon get confused and lie down.Nevertheless, there is something appealling about things trinitarian: disparate concepts synthesized into one. I never expected to find a cinematic trinity that would hold such sway over my views of film, but now that I have, I will run with it. I thank Spout for the opportunity to, well, spout.My Cinematic Trinity: magnolia, Network, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. These films are connected in ways you do not expect; mysterious ways.I begin ... " [More]
Tim Robbins Killed Howard Beale
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The Bloomsday Device
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"That statement is technically true: Robbins is the uncredited assassin who makes a martyr out of the “mad prophet of the airwaves” in front of a live studio audience, a fitting irony to end the greatest political/social satire of the 70’s. Blessed with a rat-a-tat screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky, Network ages quite well. Its foreboding messages about media and culture have all come true, and then some. There is Shakespearean beauty and tragedy in these cynical, foul-mouthed “Murrow’s boys” and their soulless infotainment replacements. Holden and Finch (Best Supporting Actor, post-humus) flail and howl to the bitter end. Dunaway (Best Actress) and Duvall are the venomous, fast-talking thieves in the temple of the news room. Beatrice Straight won an Oscar for only a few minutes screen time, articulating the rage of a wife betrayed. Ned Beatty (yes, that Ned Beatty) delivers a mind-bending Zarathustra moment as the man behind the curtain ... " [More]
CE3K: An Appreciation
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The Bloomsday Device
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"The profoundest fear of my childhood was aliens. Somehow, somewhere, I got the notion, as a small child, that strange lights in the sky meant I was in danger. Close Encounters emancipated me from that irrational, childish fear, and set the tone (five tones, actually) for a life changed by cinema. Spielberg set out to make a movie about UFO’s and Watergate, and he did so magnificently. Government conspiracies aside, CE3K resonates with an agenda that surely represents a high-point of movie studio money and individual vision. Like Welles before him, Spielberg spills his Jungian guts out, here: Devil’s Tower, a beacon metaphor for the collective unconscious – confused but ripe for evolution; a positively Zauberfloten score by John Williams; a cameo by Francois Truffaut, who was studying for a book he was writing on acting; Melinda Dillon, in her nightshirt and short-shorts, as vulnerable and imperiled as any screen heroine; Teri Garr, her tragicomic f ... " [More]
The Prologue/Epilogue
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The Bloomsday Device
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"One of the central mysteries of magnolia involves the three "unbelievable coincidence" tales that bracket the rest of the action. The film reveals to the audience these three bizarre stories in its prologue, suggesting that they will, somehow, inform us of a subtext for the plot to come: emotional breakdowns during a freak frog rain in the San Fernando Valley. But this has always been an unsatisfactory, if not dubious, explanation for the placement of the three coincidental tales. First, while a frog rain may be bizarre, it is not, strictly speaking, a coincidence. There is no meaningful or ironic intersection of events, unless you make some stretches, such as Dixon's "good Lord bring the rain in" rap or the myriad Exodus 8:2 references coinciding with the frog rain later that day. But those are really products of Anderson's narrative structure, and not integral to the tale of a frog rain, itself. We can say the same of similar coinciding events, such as Earl's death, Linda's foile ... " [More]