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September 01, 2005
Holden on today's movie matrix
Surveys of seasons past are usually a snooze, but Stephen Holden in the NY Times does a sweet mid-stream rundown of what's good in theaters right this very minute: "How much longer can we continue to live inside a bubble where Jennifer Aniston's broken heart and Tom Cruise's public meltdown compete with the war in Iraq, famine in Sudan and the catastrophe in New Orleans as headline news stories? Are the fame-seeking narcissists who swarm through reality television shows an accurate mirror of who we have become as a people? Or are they an illusion marketed by hucksters who cleverly play on a creeping self-disgust, then devise fresh new camouflage to mask that deepening sense of revulsion? The relationship of reality television to the rise of the documentary is another question to ponder. Did reality television prepare the way for the new popularity of the documentary? Or is the increasing popularity of documentaries a response to the Orwellian political climate?. 70 years ago T. S. Eliot observed in his poem "Burnt Norton," "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." "March of the Penguins," "Grizzly Man" and the 16 other summer movies discussed below (and listed alphabetically) may not solve the riddles of existence, but they offer glimpses into the real world beyond the matrix."
Posted by pride at September 1, 2005 03:31 PM
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