I am not sure if I have ever done a movie review on this blog, but I will make it clear that I really love movies. This weekend my wife and I took in four of them that really made an impression. No promises that I will have a chance to write them all up seperately. But in order they were: Take Shelter, starring the incomparable Michael Shannen; We Bought A Zoo; The Cabin in the Woods; and The Ides of March. I did not plan it, but each one really demonstrates in its own way many of the themes I have written about for real life.
First off, I have always felt that film is a combination of folklore and propaganda, so the messages sent by Hollywood are always mixed. It is a reflection of the many different inputs that go into producing a movie. Conservative studio executives, investors, producers, and so on tug in one direction; and progressively-minded creative types pull in another.
A pile of steaming poo like Red Scorpion glares out as obvious propaganda with almost no redeeming value. But most movies contain themes that seek to control and liberate the average person's mind. Sometimes the simultaneous pushes and pulls make a kind of convoluted sense, but other times the activation of frames of competition and cooperation wash each other out. These are not the only frames to be sure, trust and betrayal, hope and pessimism, and the pros and cons of "experts" often play out on the silver screen. Someone or something controlling, and someone(s) being controlled.
Stay tuned, this could get interesting.
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