Sunday, January 31, 2021

Videodrome (1983)

Everybody likes movies that predict the future, and sci-fi directors have a knack for it. The details may be a little fuzzy, but David Cronenberg’s broad strokes paint a bold picture of anarchic content creation and distribution, which some critics say is the Internet. That’s a stretch. I would say that Videodrome predicted some parts of Internet culture, but to its original audience it was just another romp through Cronenbergian delusion.

No, Videodrome is not the Internet. It’s the future, and the future is the past. Nostalgia lets us live in the moment because we can pin that moment down to a fixed point in time and space. This moment, this vision of the future, is as classic as they come.

[Read more…]

Monday, January 11, 2021

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

The message of Fahrenheit 451 is that the end of books is the end of philosophy. If this movie is any indication, cinema plays an equal role in dumbing everyone down. Just as characters in the film are manipulated by news broadcasts, reality programs, and sports, the audience is lulled into a sense of mundane, everyday occurrence.

The director was not able to create a feeling of urgency, making totalitarian censorship look like your local trash service. In this way, the film encourages literacy, urging people to read the book rather than watch the mediocre movie adaptation.

[Read more…]