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| quote: | Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
Regarding meta-textuality, I'm not sure if you're referring to the last example I made about Battleship, but I have to consider its genre context to clearly explain why it's interesting. In other words, it's similar to what Russian formalists called estrangement or defamiliarization: a certain tactic a text employs to "make the content of the story seem unfamiliar."
Battleship portrays a conflict that is based on misunderstanding and the problem of "reading the opponent" becomes a major part of the film. You could say that some important aspects of the original board game are used here to a defamiliarizing effect - to make us watch an "alien invasion film" in a slightly different way. Also, Battleship repeatedly goes out of its way to point out similarities between both sides of the battle to further problematize a "good & evil" distinction that is usually typical for blockbuster movies. Aliens don't destroy all humans, just those wielding a potentially dangerous weapons (showing signs of some kind of "humanity"), and one of the marines is a black crippled veteran with robotic legs - essentially a half-alien. These are some interesting things (observed on a textual level) in an otherwise average film, though hardly such a disaster some make it out to be.
Anyway, the main reason why I mentioned it was to illustrate that films like these are never "just action/eye-candy", not to praise it as an unacknowledged masterpiece.
I'm quite sure you just made use of this opportunity to describe how Dredd is such a great film (which is fine), but I'm fully aware of what you're saying. Formal virtuosity/originality is why I love films like Speed Racer - they may not offer much when it comes to symbolic or subtextual value, but they're such an entertaining and stimulating watch because of their use of cinematic language including narration as a process. |
Jesus H fucking christ. you need to get out more. Either that or you are one of the most subtle trolls I have ever seen in the c0r.
Doing in-depth critical analysis of utterly thoughtless and incredibly badly executed movies such as Battleshit is an amazing waste of TA server space.
I have been in meetings with studio producers, scriptwriters and screenplay adapters - I promise you, not one tenth of the thought you constantly infer is to their "masterpieces" exists. If you heard the language they use to develop films you would have a complete intellectual implosion, and that all you posturing about the depth of these sublime narrations on our condition are simply your own tragically misguided musings to make sense of the debris in front of you, masquerading as a film. It would be fine if you were discussing thoughtful slices of world cinema, or dissecting Fellini, but you're not. You're trying to (pseudo)intellectualize dross as bad as battleship.
Sadly, shit, is just sometimes, shit. It's not a refection on our cyclic system of life and it's parallels to our our fleeting existence while suggesting a narrative of how seriously we take our temporary vessels. It's just a shit that smells of last nights pizza.
Reminds me of this:
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