Artist and film-maker, Hito Steyerl, asks us to stand shoulder to shoulder with our digital equivalents. Digital images are Things (like you and me) - a plethora of compressed, corrupted representations pushed and pulled through increasingly policed and capitalised information networks. If 80% of all internet traffic^* is SPAM - a liberated excess withdrawn^** from accepted channels of communication - perhaps it is in The Poor Image we find our closest kin? [more inside]
posted by 0bvious on Feb 16, 2012 - 5 comments

After 40 years in development hell, the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged opens in theaters on April 15. Official site with trailer. (previously).
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 11, 2011 - 331 comments

Waggish would be one of the choicest blogs around if he updated more, but I suppose I can settle for what there is. If you've never read it, you'll know how good it is when I tell you about a few of the coolest posts: an inquest on "left-brained" literature, a short review of John Williams' Stoner, an appreciation of the great Shohei Imamura and three part coverage of the ultimate film, Béla Tarr's Sátántangó.
posted by colinmarshall on Oct 19, 2008 - 23 comments

Why do we spend so many precious hours of our lives watching films? What is it about cinema that it should occupy a place of such prominence in our lives? And why do we even need movies? It is as though we are trying to fill a gap in our lives - a void, an emptiness within ourselves. So to even begin on the path of our Truth Quest, we have to see the broader picture of how film correlates to life, and life to film. To find this higher perspective, it is helpful to look towards the other arts, as well as philosophy.
Cinema Seekers: Searching for truth in cinema and in life. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 21, 2008 - 26 comments

Metaphilm is the place to come for insights on (mostly) contemporary films, be they the interesting Punch-Drunk Love as postfeminist male's narrative and Nietzsche and the Meaning of Noir or the not-quite-so-interesting-but-certainly-interesting Identity as primer on Jacques Lacan. Once you've gotten past all the ph-instead-of-f spelling and exhausted the archives, be sure to play around with the Movie Mapper to find what scenes in film have taken place where. (two Metaphilm essays previously discussed here and here.)
posted by shakespeherian on Dec 18, 2006 - 67 comments

The Man With The Magnétoscope.
"How marvelous to be able to look at what you cannot see... cinema, like Christianity, is not founded on historical truth. It supplies us with a story and says: Believe — believe come what may."
Jean Luc Godard's 'Histoire(s) du Cinéma' at UCLA.
posted by matteo on Feb 7, 2006 - 8 comments

Is there no spoon? The Warner Bros Matrix site is home to a series of scholarly essays inspired by the film (last updated 3/20/03). I mean, sure, the film offers some "whoa dude" moments regarding technology, perception, and vinyl pants, but I was surprised to find it an interesting launching point for discussions about freedom, heaven, and Plato's Cave as well. Being a philosophy layman, I can't vouch for their quality with any authority, but if you know the movies inside and out, as I apparently do (god help me) you might find the essays interesting.*
_{*for the next 15 agonizing days, anyway}
posted by scarabic on Apr 30, 2003 - 36 comments

waking life is a wonderful film, both for its amazing animation and its uncommon attempt to bring the mind-body problem to the screen. Curiously, I found this film far more engaging than most of the other films I've seen that use the 'false reality' mechanism. Should more films bring their philosophical subject matters directly into question, instead of relegating it to sub-text?
posted by kaibutsu on Jul 13, 2002 - 71 comments