Fear of the Door
This clever French animation involves a fellow with a terrible fear of a door. Clever and worthwhile.
Roger Ebert’s journey
Roger Ebert is still reviewing movies, despite too many surgeries to count. Check out this beautifully written profile piece by Chris Jones at Esquire.
The type of damage caused by media violence
Media Education Foundation has released a new video: The Mean World. This documentary studies the work of communications scholar George Gerbner, who carefully studied media violence for four decades. What is the effect of media violence? It doesn't seem to make most of those who watch it engage in violent acts. Rather, viewing repeated acts of violence is "likely to make us more scared of violence being done to us." Gerbner's team repeatedly determined that "commercial media have eclipsed religion, art, oral traditions, and the family as the great story-telling engine of our time." As Gerbner noted, a small handful of commercial conglomerates have global marketing formula that are imposed on the people in Hollywood [who are told] put in more action. Cut out complicated solutions. Apply this formula because it travels well in the global market. These are formulas that need no translation, that are image-driven, that speak action in any language . . . and the leading element of this formula is violence." This tidal wave of highly choreographed violence is unprecedented, and it is being pumped into every home. Most children now see 8,000 murders by the end of elementary school. Gerber holds that this violence is so dangerous because it has become routine.
How you say it . . .
How you say it matters, which is beautifully illustrated by this five-minute film, which was the short story winner from the 2008 Cannes Festival.
Pics or it didn’t happen!
I was mulling around the Lincoln Park Zoo today with a friend when a man stepped on me. He was filming a Siberian tiger with a high-end digital video camera, which he held on an expensive mounting. He was fidgeting with all of the camera's features, backing up to get the perfect shot, and he stepped all over my feet. The foot-stomping didn't bother me so much as the man's intent focus on something other than his present surroundings. A beautiful creature stood before him, but his attention was directed at the camera and the filming of the tiger more than it was the tiger itself.
Not much later, something similar occurred in the Tropical Birds House. As I was watching the bleeding-heart pigeons, a man, family in tow, came around the corner with a massive video camera. He also had it placed on an expensive mount. Obliviously, he nudged forward until his lens nearly leaned on the display's glass. He fiddled and fidgeted. He zoomed on the critters for a moment, and left.
"Do you think he'll ever watch that footage?" my friend asked.
"No," I guessed. Without much thought I noted, "It isn't about the footage. He probably just bought that camera, and is filming because he wants to play with it."
"So the actual footage is useless," he observed in return.
I intuited that the man's camera was a new purchase because I've done the exact same thing with a fresh 'toy'.