It is funny that after the second time I saw this film I have the urge to write another blog post. The previous post was a more general look at how the concept of deity is being secularised and that the wealthy elite of our world are being turned into gods, however after seeing this film a second time I suddenly realised that not only are there a lot of references to the UFO phenomena of the 1980s, but also a lot of references to Christianity. The movie in effect turns it into a cult religion that worships aliens.
Don Juan in Hell – George Bernard Shaw’s Man & Superman
As I have said on my numerous reviews on Goodreads (and elsewhere), a play is meant to be watched, not read, and it can be very difficult to truly appreciate a play unless you watch it performed. The problem is that you rarely see many plays performed by playwrights of the past (unless that playwright is Shakespeare – he is still very popular). This means that it was going to be difficult, if not impossible, to actually see any of Shaw’s works. However, imagine my delight when I jumped onto the website of the Palace Nova Brighton Bay and discovered that they were showing a production of Shaw’s Man & Superman that was recently staged in London. While I have seen movie adaptations of couple of his plays (The Devil’s Disciple and Caeser and Cleopatra – both of which have now been removed from Youtube due to copyright violations), I have yet, until now, seen one of his plays performed. Of all the plays that they could have chosen they selected a relatively obscure one.
Jupiter Ascending – The evolution of the secular gods
Years ago, when I was in university, I had this desire to not so much review movies, but to critically analyse concepts that I picked up while watching them. I guess it had a lot to do with me studying English Literature and the realisation that I could take the same ideas and apply them to Hollywood movies. Okay, you may be wandering what one could possibly get out of Terminator II, but I have actually written a review and posted it on IMDB. However, that was back in the days before IMDB ever existed, so using my SMUG (Student Machine Users Group) account I created a basic webpage to catalogue my thoughts. Mind you, I doubt that website still exists, and even if it does it is floating somewhere deep in the web, cut off from the rest of the internet. A few years later a friend at church directed me to the website Hollywood Jesus which tries to get Christian meaning from Hollywood movies (while in many cases is not all that hard to do, it does depend on the movie: I doubt you are going to get any Christian meaning out of Debbie Does Dallas).
Shakespeare’s As You Like It – The Original Four Weddings
I have had a rather odd relationship with this particular play. I first read it during university and it really didn’t appeal to me, especially since the lecturer that we had seemed to be obsessed with sex. At the time I really didn’t like the idea of sexualising Shakespeare; until I realised that Shakespeare is actually really, really dirty (though due to the language most of the references simply go over our head). However, it wasn’t until one of my friend’s put on a production of this play that I suddenly understood what was going on, and that my lecturer was only outlining what many of the academics had been saying for quite some time. Still, it is certainly not one of my favourite plays, and many of the elements that appear in As You Like It also appear in his other plays.
Dark Star Safari Part 3 – The Southern Reaches
Mozambique – Scars of war To me, Mozambique was just another one of those markings that appear on Google Maps, however it wasn’t until Theroux mentioned… Read more “Dark Star Safari Part 3 – The Southern Reaches”
Dark Star Safari Part 2 – Into the Centre
The term failed states was thrown around regularly by politicians in the lead up to the Iraq War: the term generally applying to those states that the… Read more “Dark Star Safari Part 2 – Into the Centre”
Dark Star Safari Part 1 – The Dusty North
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I will encounter a book that I simply cannot wait until I finish it before I start sharing my thoughts. Usually… Read more “Dark Star Safari Part 1 – The Dusty North”
the Rijksmuseum – Amsterdam’s Louvre pt 1
I guess the problem when it comes to the Rijksmuseum is that I didn’t actually walk through it in any particular order, and never really noticed whether there was any particular order until long after I left. However, I should mention that the museum itself is huge. Well, not quite as big as the Louvre (which happens to be the biggest museum in the world) but it is still pretty massive. We didn’t actually get to explore all of the Rijksmuseum either, though I’d say that we saw about 90% of the place, and the rest of the 10% we simply rushed through trying to find the way to get to where we wanted to go.
Julius Caeser – Bestriding the World
Well, it seems that I simply cannot get away from watching Shakesperian plays, even if the production is, in my opinion, somewhat sub-par. I am starting to understand why a friend of my really hates going to Australian theatre. Okay, being a regular attendee at theatres of Broadway, and regularly traveling to the United States to go to Shakespeare festivals probably does that to you, and while I have never been to the States, I have been to London, and seen performances in the West End and at the Globe and honestly, these more modern adaptations are really starting to get to me.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall – The Alienation of Success
I find it really bizarre that a film that the producers really didn’t like, and was described by one of the writers as ‘too depressing’ and by the director as ‘the longest student film ever made’ has become a cult classic, won 2 BAFTA Awards, and has received a combined user rating of 8 on IMDB. However, I probably shouldn’t consider it all that surprising since the film that we as kids voted as ‘the worst film ever made’ was Plan 9 From Outer Space (though that only receives a combined user rating of 4 on IMDB, and I personally have yet to even watch it – still, it is considered a cult classic, particularly since it has a combined user rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 66% with the premise that it is so bad it is actually really good). Anyway, I have already written a review (of Pink Floyd The Wall, not Plan 9 from Outer Space), though IMDB does not give me huge amounts of room to be able to really explore this film, so I will do it here.
Art & Literature with the Sarkologist 