Angus Retro Review - An Atypical Teen Movie for the Quiet Normal Teen

Angus couldn’t be made as a wide release today, and it might have slipped away without the fanfare that it receives in this post. But that’s its true strength. Angus is something special in every sense of the word. While it’s a small story, the tale being told touches on universal concerns and strikes a powerful note for all that are traveling on its wavelength. The film is a small story about a minor triumph for a minor character. It’s quiet and shy, not a film that jumps out at you at your local Redbox, and that's the point of what makes it great. 

Goodbye Blockbuster

With the ultimate shutdown of Blockbuster Video, we lose another vanguard in our group consumer culture. This is a truly sad day for media junkies everywhere, and one more reminder that our culture is changing in ways that go beyond sets of doors closing and overhead lights fading for the last time.

Check out UI journalism teacher adds video game narrative writing course to Fall 2012 curriculum - The Daily Iowan

Check out UI journalism teacher adds video game narrative writing course to Fall 2012 curriculum - The Daily Iowan

Scapegoating, Holy Terror, and Catching Hell

This week brought the premiere of two mass media products that serve to enlighten how the past decade has created a very ugly society. The documentary Catching Hell and graphic novel Holy Terror come from people that are masters of their craft: Alex Gibney (Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Taxi to the Dark Side – all masterful documentaries) and Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, Sin City, where hyperbole and control mix elegantly), respectively. However, what we’re looking at today is not the author, but rather the very artifact of people that cannot let go. By talking about scapegoats and creating a donkey on which people can pin the fears, despair and anger of a certain situation, we feel collectively better about ourselves.

And that’s messed up on several levels.

The Stagnation of Popular Culture By Intellectual Property

Have we reached the end of popular culture?

I’m not being facetious here, and I’m not (just) trying to do this for hits. I’m asking a simple question: What’s REALLY changed in popular culture in the past decade? And is anything honestly POPULAR at this point? I’m not so sure that our culture has moved to a point of differentiation from the films and products of a decade ago beyond surface aesthetics, and it saddens me to state this.

Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle

I can't recommend this man's writing enough. If you haven't seen it already, sit down with some pen and paper and watch this video. Note that his ideas have changed and become a large part of the culture, but this was pretty revolutionary in 1967.

Summer Movie Series - American Graffiti

“High School is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of” – Kurt Vonnegut