(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

Yesterday, invigorated by a chilly, salty, delicious swim in the waves of Newburyport, I saw “The Island,” which is precisely the kind of sci-fi that yours truly likes, as discussed previously vis-à-vis “Paycheck,” which was Kind of Like That too.

So, right, I like 2D, space-age-type sci-fi, which is essentially a genre-fied ethics problem of the Two Twins Who Gets The Kidney variety. I actually appreciate the blandness of the Ben Afflecks of the world in such enterprises, anything else makes me scream “too much character development!” at the screen. I mean, Scarlett Johannson is perfectly suited for a role of a clone of a CK mode, it’s not a Cate Blanchett vehicle, that would be, like, sushi pizza or something.

Also my reaction to seeing films like these is to run them through my progresso-meter. It’s like buyblue.org IN MY MIND and if I pay $10 to see a film at a multiplex, I WILL extract a progressive reading, even if I have to be a Steve-Martin-in-Little-Shop-of-Horrors type dentist to do it.

Not that that was difficult with The Island. It was All About Humanity and how Slavery Is Bad, that particular subtext drop-kicked into text by the Special Ops leader character, and let me just say that when, at the end, when he suddenly busts out with his character-growth moment of “my father was in a rebellion and my brother and I were BRANDED with this SCORPION” it was finally clear to me why the cinematography was all about showing him as XTRABLACK, you know what I mean, in Hollywood visual semiotics of race it’s the XTRABLACK of, like, “Tears of the Sun” character actors who deliver Heart-of-Darknessy lines before being either Killed or Rescued (but both with dignity) where gender is switched for race in the scopophilic gaze or whatever for the mainstream audience that needs to understand that the character is Really Black, rather than Just Happens To Be Black, because then they can go “aaaaaah” when Branding by Scorpion revelations happen. Or as theophile put it, “I felt like I was in 7th Heaven, here is a professional killer, who murders people without ethical qualms, who is, all of a sudden, through an insane plot twist, is a Good Character because as a Black Person he inherently understands the Badness of Slavery and Slavery is Bad.” (I may be paraphrasing, but it is ttlly indeed the wtf 7th Heaven logic of Oh, You Are With The Lost Boys of Sudan? You Are In Good Hands then).

The other thing was, I had a very mixed reaction to the visual semiotics of the film, the fetishized XTRABLACK notwithstanding. The Godwin violation at the end was as gratuitous as it was inevitable, I suppose as the agnates got Logans-Crammed into the suddenly and inexplicably appearing “gas chamber,” but what really bothered me was the scene where the Matrixed ripening agnates are killed off. So, was it just me, or was that scene an explicit visual reference to partial-birth abortion, what with the injection of what I think was sodium chloride-type solution and the rupture of the “amniotic sack”? Is the whole movie a dig against stem-cell research? Also, the potentially ethically interesting meeting between Clone Ewan and Original Ewan is flattened, as if by a steamroller, by the Smarmy Evilness of Original Ewan, whose health is due to suffer not from Tragic Things like diabetis or cancer, but from Hepatitis, because he is Promiscuous. Oh, Michael Bay, my progresso-meter needle is hovering around “puritan,” if I were in a bad mood, I’d add up “sanctity of life” and the abortion/Holocaust imagery to some serious subliminal fundie shenanigans.

But then, again, I was appalled by “Saved” on the grounds of thinking it to be a Trojan Horse.

So I dunno.


and thus, "Bladerunner" remains the defending champion of Hollywood Doing Artificial Humanity, with its nonnon-like dolls and meteorological ennui and Rutger Hauer, about to kill either Harrison Ford or himself, enunciating "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

Comments

[pirat-ponton.livejournal.com]

were you being facetious when you mention "godwin violation" or do you grant that "law" credence?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

well, insofar as it's a "law" I think it's like a law of physics or sociology, that is, a sum-up of observations, rather than a prescriptive statement. I think it is true that the longer the argument proceeds, the larger the likelyhood that the two sides will become agitated and polarized, and the argument will devolve from a constructive engagement to strawman attacks, and what's more strawman than Hitler? Obviously that's not true of every argument, but I think it does describe a common trajectory. So in the sense that I thin kit's an apt observation of a tendency I grant it credence.

[pirat-ponton.livejournal.com]

it may very well have been apt in the movie but you describe, but in general I don't think drawing parallels between certain things and the so-called 3^rd reich necessarily negates one's argument (especially if they do indeed share things in common)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

what you said is correct, but also is a logically flawed way to argue against Godwin's Law/Rule/Whatever, because Godwin's Law, as I understand it, states that as ANY argument proceeds and escalates, the LIKELYHOOD of the GRATUIOTOUS invocation of Hitler/3rd Reich increases. In some cases the comparison is valid, like The Rise of Fascism 7 points & America today, but when people say Abortion is like the Holocaust! And Rock-n-Roll singers say they don't care about morality, well HITLER didn't care about morality eiher OR invoking the Holocaust for emotional manipulation when arguing about Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians, all of this rings Godwin's Alarms for me. Sometimes there are similarities. More often it is a cheap rhetorical tactic designed to disarm the opposition through likening their argument to The Ultimate Evi. I am not sure I understand what about the concept bothers you.

[pirat-ponton.livejournal.com]

I am not sure I understand what about the concept bothers you.

I now understand that it was my own ignorance:

The law states that:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (i.e. certainty).

There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In addition, it is considered poor form to invoke the law explicitly. Godwin's law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many people understand Godwin's law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law)

so, I wasn't the only one to misunderstand this - but my understanding was still incomplete (and still my fault)

so, thanks for the education (thank you too wikipedia)!!!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

just out of curiosity, what did you think it was?

[pirat-ponton.livejournal.com]

I previously thought godwin's so-called "law" stated that any reference to hitler/nazis automatically invalidated the user's entire argument (a concept that never made sense to me, considering the fact that we are supposed to learn from history, not ignore it)

Re: unrelated

[atallvlad.livejournal.com]

That part of Bladerunner always sends chills up and down my spine. The plot to Island sounds familiar (the parts you described at least) but I can't remember if the movie I am thinking of is the same one. My memory is a little hazy in regards to movies atm, since I haven't seen anything in English for months. Anyway, dramatic finales involving the destruction of the evil clones should have it's own label. It seems to be a common solution. Overdone.

Re: unrelated

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

it does! What's the address of the place? I will mapquest my way there.

from Rachel

[rachelkb.livejournal.com]

Nica, I feel like I need a thesaurus to navigate your lj, but I shall get used to it...email me at sugarantho at yahoo.com for that info and hope you had a safe and easy return trip.

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

i'm confused. you start by saying that "the island" is precisely the kind of science fiction movie that you like, and then procede to describe all of the flaws you saw in it. are you genuinely recommending it, or sarcastically recommending it?

thank you for your recommendation of "the march of the penguins." i saw it a few weeks ago after your recommendation. since then there have been lots of commercials for it (usually featuring the walking hatchlings).

my recommended recently released movie is "hustle & flow", which i haven't seen you mention so i'm guessing you haven't seen. i give it lots of points for (at least apparent) honesty. among other things, it is one of the few movies i've seen lately that allowed physically ugly people (mainly the "johns" characters) to be seen. (it reminds me of the Simpsons episode in which a tv producer says to a casting director "get me some ugly people". when the casting director returns with Mo the bartender, the tv producer says "no, no. i want 'tv ugly', not 'ugly ugly'." of course, if h&f makes a fair amount of money, then the writer/director will make another movie with hollywood money, and the producers will ban "ugliness" (i.e., ordinariness) from it.) it's also pretty enjoyable for the characters, the scenes, the interaction. the filmmaker was on the radio this past week talking about how he was asked by some money people (advertisers, distributers?) to describe what previous movies his movie was comparable to, and he said that he told them "the commitments", which i think is a pretty good comparison. (btw, he said this was considered unacceptable because there were no people who are black in "the commitments.") both movies are about people who don't like the way their life is now, and who come up with ways to try to change it, with the help of people around them and new people they meet.