Big Screens and the Teen Scene

My hometown did not offer teenagers much to do, so we often watched the same picture three nights in a row. We learned, from years of watching every movie that came through town, that there was occasionally something besides fleeting amusement to be found.

Storytelling, and particularly popular film, in this modern era, have done their best to warn us of the shapes of things to come.

It took a mere two and a half weeks for the events in “The China Syndrome” to come to pass in the near meltdown of Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, but we did not stand up then like we should have. Now, toxic nuclear byproducts have fouled the ocean and even come blowing to your hometown a result of negligence and corruption by the energy companies and the governments whom we have invested with the responsibility to watch over them. (click here to read full article)

Apocalypse? Revolution? Paradigm Shift?

The study of modern alienation on which Antonioni focused his lens in the 50’s and 60’s is generations deep now in the cinema, energized by global terrorism, industrial greed, and the abrupt crash of our eco-system. (click to see entire article)

Hope in a Handbasket

BILLY-“You know, unbelievers liked to make fun, but I ask you, believers and unbelievers alike, what more literal proof of a bona-fide hell does anyone need? As we live and breathe, the flaming bowels of the under world, swell with fires in which you, me and Mother Nature are slowly roasting.” (click to read entire article)

Stories Tell the Truth About Lies

Lies do not stand for truth. They do not change the facts. Lies are like gas, invisible, but among the most obvious things in the world. The air we breathe contains a variety of gases but a body requires oxygen. Truth is everywhere mingled with lies, but our survival depends on truth. We can tell pretty quickly when we’re breathing something else. (click here to read entire article)

The Official Story – Loading the Time Capsule of History

Just as no photographic image can encompass the total picture, no official, or their story can claim to have done all the necessary listening and thinking for us. We must fill in the missing gaps with our own story and the stories of those around us, particularly those with whom we differ most. Good listening requires at least a momentary suspension of prejudice.

Heaven and Hell

It was too long. So is hell. I looked around at the audience. No one was breathing. The movie theater felt like a Petri dish. (click to read full article).

Psychedelic Cinema

These days “outside the box” is a commonplace term for innovative thinking and drugs are by no means the only way to achieve it. Moviemakers keep on paving the way in popular culture. Whether or not you ever ingested hallucinogens, we have all experienced them through their influence in music, movies, fashion, advertising, games and so on. (click here to read full article)

Point of View

If every story combines three essential elements, plot, character and point of view, we must realize that the creators of these social websites that we are supplying with our character and plot are supplying the point of view.