Posts filed under “Film”
Roger Ebert:
“The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. ‘Wouldn’t you say,’ she asked, ‘that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?’
No, I said, I wouldn’t say that.
‘But what about Basketball Diaries?’ she asked. ‘Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?’
The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. ‘Events like this,’ I said, ‘if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.‘
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of ‘explaining’ them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1.
The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.”
Roger Ebert, 1942-2013
Category: Film, Financial Press, Psychology
Roger Ebert: “The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. ‘Wouldn’t you say,’ she asked, ‘that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?’ No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. ‘But what about Basketball…Read More
Category: Film, Financial Press, Psychology
In honor of the funkiest Oscar speech last night, here are the film deaths of Quentin Tarantino: Next Movie Hat tip Daily Infographic
Category: Digital Media, Film, Weekend
The Godfather Collection, Coppola Restoration [Blu-ray] $20 I missed this while traveling last week — it was as low as $17.99 — but its all 3 Godfather movies on Blu Ray for $20, fer crying out loud. THE GODFATHER THE GODFATHER PART II THE GODFATHER PART III Plus these additional features: Featurette: “The Masterpiece That…Read More
Flying home today, I recalled something someone sent me — a list of the funniest comedies of all time, with the number 1 flick . . . Caddyshack.
Now, for those of you not of a certain age, who may not have seen Caddyshack, it is an amusing little film filmed with memorable quotes and an insane, hilarious performance by Bill Murray. But funniest movie comedy of all time? It’s not even in the top 10.
Which raises an interesting question: What are the all time funniest films?
No rules (like last time) — the only requirements: 1) Funny and 2) Movie.
I’ll get you started with a list that I am sure I rearrange easily into other orders:
50. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
49. Rat Race
48. Life of Brian
47. When Harry Met Sally
46. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
45. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
44. Clueless
43. Airplane!
42. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
41. Naked Gun
Acclaimed photographer James Balog was once a skeptic about climate change. But through his Extreme Ice Survey, he discovers undeniable evidence of our changing planet. In Chasing Ice, Balog deploys revolutionary time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains…Read More
