Curiouser and Curiouser! on film-and-digital-cinema http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic film-and-digital-cinema Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb The Corporation Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:18:39 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001045/">The Corporation</a>. Several people have mentioned the new documentary "<a href="http://www.thecorporation.tv" target="_blank">The Corporation</a>". It was screened at the 2003 Vancouver International Film Festival. It is premiering in a few theatres in Candada around now. Read the <a href="http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8248&reviewer=1&highlight=the+corporation" target="_blank">review</a>, it is very cool.<blockquote><i>A lot of documentaries get a rise out of their audience. Some even invoke social change, or at the least some serious reflection upon our place in the world. But I can safely say I've never seen an audience so moved, en masse, to explore actual social activism on a grand scale as the audience who watched this three hour masterwork. The first standing ovation I've seen delivered at the Vancouver Film Festival was not only deserved, but also very long, and what followed the screening overshadowed even that outpouring of emotion.<br><br>The Corporation could never have been made in the USA. It took a Canadian team to put this work together, and it'll take far more than legal threats and intimidation to kill it. An almost three hour look at the past, present and future of corporations as a business entity, you'd be forgiven for rolling your eyes and giving the thing a miss if you only had a loose synopsis to go on.<br><br>But where this documentary matters is in the details - the nasty, disgusting, gory details of what the corporation has done to this world, what it's doing today, and what we can expect it to do tomorrow if we don't get our freaking act together.<br><br>The extreme right 'love it or leave it' crowd are no doubt already starting to yell "Lefty propaganda," but this isn't an Anti-Bush attack on all things capitalist. This isn't hippy rhetoric or new age spin or a call to the communes. It isn't hoity toity technospeak or boring talking-head PBS filler. What The Corporation is, is a healthy dose of well-researched, deeply explored, stunning information that can not possibly leave you, as an audience member, in any condition but stunned, dismayed, and outraged.<br><br>Maybe you know it all already. If you're like me, you read the papers, you know who's buying who and that the unstoppable bulldozer of globalization is hurting a lot of people. If you're like me, you're disgusted that TV news has become a wrestling match to decide which party has the best 'spin', and you might have even learned enough about global politics to be sick to death of what you're seeing in the world today.<br><br>But The Corporation will teach you things you never dreamed of. it will change you. It will ruin your day, but give you reason to get up in the morning - determined to make change.</i></blockquote>I can't wait to see it, and I hope it somehow manages to get wide distribution, even in the U.S. I have no doubt it will play in the theatres here in France. Even Noam Chomsky shows in regular theatres here. <br><br>And for the record, I think corporations should be banned ASAP. Not business, not free enterprise, not groups of people doing things together, but the corporation as an artificial legal person. [<a href="http://ming.tv/">Ming the Mechanic</a>]</blockquote> <p>I'm with Fleming on this. Corporations should not have the legal status of people. They especially shouldn't have the protections without the responsibilities. If a corporations conscience is it's shareholders then, as we have learned, we are all in big trouble.</p> <p>After watching a number of long mass market pics over the last few years I have made a pact with myself not to go watch over long films (i.e. longer than about 1hr40m). I broke it to go see LOTR III and heartily regreted it. So few films are worth the discomfort and fewer yet justify 3 hours of my time. But I think i'd go see this.</p> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001806.html iHuman Fri, 06 Aug 2004 16:14:19 +0100 Going to see <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/">iRobot</a> this evening with my Dad. I remember enjoying Asimov's robot stories when I read them, many years ago, but my hopes aren't high that the film will capture any of that. I do hope it will be <i>enjoyable</i> though.<br> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002427.html Sonny steals the show Fri, 06 Aug 2004 20:20:17 +0100 Back from iRobot.&nbsp; My capsule review: A film with a plot, watchable, good looking robots.&nbsp; I enjoyed it.<br> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002428.html