Month: August 2006

Definitions of Film Theory and Criticism

From Biology by Campbell the 5th Ed. page 426 “The colloquial use of “theory” comes close to what scientists mean by a “hypothesis.” Campbell defines a hypothesis on page 14 as being “…a tennative answer to some question – an explanation or trial.” So a film theory could be understood as a potential explanation for what a film does. Unlike scientific theories they are grounded more in dogma and tradition but like scientific theories they must be justified by a rigid methodology of observation and analysis of facts.

Criticism is finding the proper context to judge a work of art and then applying the expectations
that come with that context to arrive at a judgement about how well the artist has fulfilled these
expectations.

” . . . or we could take my car. Gosh!”

A few months ago (back in April when it was apt) I posted about a whimsical cartoon I saw as a child and had recently found. The Cartoon is called To Spring and the guys over at RE-Frederator have just now posted it so if you want to see a pretty cool old timey toon check it out. It isn’t important that Summer is coming to an end and the Fall is beginning, the cartoon is about the cycle of Nature with Elves. Anyway it eases the pain.

While reading through the film junk blog I encountered a link to this article by Chuck Klosterman for Esquire Titled: The “Snakes on a Plane” Problem. The Article makes some good points about participatory filmmaking, the internet, and all that. I’m not sure what to make of the snakes movie. Certainly it could be a sign of the times now that Sci-Fi Channel is finally spending money to make cool stuff like Amazing Screw-On Head, Eureka, and Battlestar Galactica (Edward James Olmos EJO is awesome!) the era of Sci-Fi Channel Original movie badness might be overtaken by extra bad Hollywood crap. I think in terms of the irony factor Klosterman hit the nail on the head. If you make a movie to be bad and it is badly made then it won’t be funny at all. This is why some satire works and some doesn’t. Also if you make a movie to be sincerely scary or whatever (serious) and it is a failure at that then it can be funny (good). An example of this situation can be found in analyzing the Leprechaun franchise. The first one tried to be scary and even though it was idiotic, it was funny as all hell. By the second one the makers seemed to be in on the joke and it wasn’t as good. Then by the third one he’s in Vegas and there is some medallion thing and he seems to have forgotten all about his precious gold. In IV he’s in space! Great so he’s immortal and in his long life he’s managed to get out there into the mix of alien politics and space marines. Then for V he’s “in the hood” and for V2 he’s “back in the hood” presumably these are meant to be prequels to IV or perhaps fall outside of the regular cannon material and do not take place in the Leprachuniverse. I haven’t seen the last two Lep flicks maybe they’ve figured out how to do satire right but I’d imagine they are just something awful in that non-ironic sort of way.

I was sent this stylus top 100 music videos link awhile ago. There are a few good ones in what is an otherwise odd mix of hip hop videos and well regular “pop”. I enjoyed the Kid 606, the Pulp This is Hardcore, and New Order (generally all the 80’s videos are cool). It makes me sad that all the cool channels on TV have completely lost or forsaken what made them cool in the first place. MTV used to be cool in the 90’s, this is not just my nostalgia talking either. I’ve recently found old tapes I had of Liquid Television, The Maxx, and video countdowns (back when they played videos) and I’ve found it all to be quite enjoyable. I don’t know maybe what with computers, the internet, and DVDs we don’t need TV anymore. I guess that’s a fair point but I wonder what teens and pre-teens have to check out these days? Sure many of the cool directors of music videos have gone on to do some great movies but I wonder what will happen to this next MTV generation where Jackass is the best thing going? I just hope that esoteric, creative, and cool stuff does flourish and gain popular audience on the net such that we can eventually have a resurgence of cool stuff with sharp style and good tunes on the airwaves for regular people. Of course that assumes that the internet doesn’t get bogged down by restrictions.