tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87389132156130038172024-02-22T16:59:21.805-05:00The Ugly ClubExpert film discussion from completely unqualified peopleUgly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-51337587417877921652016-11-21T12:47:00.001-05:002016-11-21T12:47:14.151-05:00Podcast Episode 86: Going to War Against Quantitative Analysis <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2SHoD3NBelC79brWRU18adpH_xz7VPbsqmjScnYy0n5nsQuNhC-8xOPDHmWjHQzIpB9MkU6pRIwzp3ComDDyS3IC-OUkU7ayZtYivo857k5UL9JCD3GprUo4iIzwZ00ac16OWJkYp7A4/s1600/Purge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2SHoD3NBelC79brWRU18adpH_xz7VPbsqmjScnYy0n5nsQuNhC-8xOPDHmWjHQzIpB9MkU6pRIwzp3ComDDyS3IC-OUkU7ayZtYivo857k5UL9JCD3GprUo4iIzwZ00ac16OWJkYp7A4/s640/Purge.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">We prepare for the coming apocalypse with <i>The Purge</i> trilogy! Pack your party bags, people, cause tonight's gonna be a large one.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_86_Going_to_War_Against_Quantitative_Analysis.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 86.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>The Late Bloomer </i>(2016), <i>Cop Car</i> (2015), <i>Imperium</i> (2016), <i>Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates</i> (2016), <i>The First Wives Club</i> (1996), <i>Arrival</i> (2016), <i>Hannibal </i>(2013 - 2015).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Song: "Congratulations Smack and Katy" by <a href="http://www.ratfe.net/" target="_blank">Reggie and the Full Effect</a></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-13399274261488978712016-11-18T23:45:00.001-05:002016-11-18T23:45:30.099-05:00Podcast Episode 85: I Just Have Hate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBjozvRNU_OqhFd0q8HLcorFheVA7D_ABoyQ7WHvEvaaXCPRpBDTOkbeITkMHoZ4u_6vZMMo0f-93IYFMc8_GTTul4YgOdCtsBUAUBalvXhVgMlCc_FUPkbRTSORRPAkdr28-obZfqm4/s1600/american_psycho_movie_poster_by_j1mmyj6zz-d33asaq.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBjozvRNU_OqhFd0q8HLcorFheVA7D_ABoyQ7WHvEvaaXCPRpBDTOkbeITkMHoZ4u_6vZMMo0f-93IYFMc8_GTTul4YgOdCtsBUAUBalvXhVgMlCc_FUPkbRTSORRPAkdr28-obZfqm4/s640/american_psycho_movie_poster_by_j1mmyj6zz-d33asaq.png" width="452" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">We commemorate the 2016 U.S. presidential election by watching <i>American Psycho.</i></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_85_I_Just_Have_Hate.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 85.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>Deadpool</i> (2016), <i>The Last King </i>(2016), <i>Bee Movie</i> (2007), <i>The Neverending Story</i> (1984), <i>The Neon Demon</i> (2016), <i>Pontypool </i>(2008), <i>Knock Knock </i>(2016), <i>Gods of Egypt </i>(2016), <i>The Toxic Avenger </i>Series (1984-2000), <i>The Smurfs and the Magic Flute </i>(1976), <i>Tickled </i>(2016).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Song: "Congratulations Smack and Katy" by <a href="http://www.ratfe.net/" target="_blank">Reggie and the Full Effect</a></span></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-5076886507707004992016-10-24T19:15:00.000-04:002016-10-24T19:16:02.323-04:00Podcast Episode 84: The Future is Very Moist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-t5SNMitHusP6VHOLUcptrd90w3Tj6jrIPmW5bWMik_pZ_48tBQHWdhG6uNuesX6_u3McXD0feYpM0zLkcYbI2i1k0A1frvul-3wjWJ38zeYUu_wA-FdUUNXy1fHGYuZlRlSm2uvru8/s1600/event_horizon_ver1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-t5SNMitHusP6VHOLUcptrd90w3Tj6jrIPmW5bWMik_pZ_48tBQHWdhG6uNuesX6_u3McXD0feYpM0zLkcYbI2i1k0A1frvul-3wjWJ38zeYUu_wA-FdUUNXy1fHGYuZlRlSm2uvru8/s400/event_horizon_ver1.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Let Sam Neil take you to the dark side in <i>Event Horizon</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_84_The_Future_is_Very_Moist.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 84.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>Late Phases </i>(2014), <i>Darling</i> (2015), <i>Swiss Army Man</i> (2016), <i>The Nice Guys </i>(2016), <i>Would You Rather </i>(2012), <i>Hell or High Water</i> (2016), <i>Pieces </i>(1982), <i>Zootopia</i> (2016).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Songs: "Pistol Whipped at Chuck-E-Cheese" by Mike and </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 25.6px;">"Who Likes to Party?" by </span><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-84569451968843434352016-09-28T21:19:00.000-04:002016-09-28T21:19:58.087-04:00Podcast Episode 83: It's Very Sexual at the Beginning <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTz3YChQJnHiTegJPol9Q7ASC5YbVgVs0CXfDRp5gaWHVT0kRGvBAkwaaXR14OCHSstiRxDvzW0KFAn0rQKgOuFAUE05HF2QhndG6n9weIC7hydVgr05rwy14qPhyphenhyphenjX3mQQOrqoNEJ8JA/s1600/To-Wong-Foo-Thanks-For-Everything-Julie-Newmar-Gallery-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTz3YChQJnHiTegJPol9Q7ASC5YbVgVs0CXfDRp5gaWHVT0kRGvBAkwaaXR14OCHSstiRxDvzW0KFAn0rQKgOuFAUE05HF2QhndG6n9weIC7hydVgr05rwy14qPhyphenhyphenjX3mQQOrqoNEJ8JA/s640/To-Wong-Foo-Thanks-For-Everything-Julie-Newmar-Gallery-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">We watched <i>To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.</i> It was...a...drag.</span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_83_It_Gets_Very_Sexual_at_the_Beginning.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 83.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert </i>(1994), <i>The Revenant </i>(2015), <i>Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse </i>(2015), <i>The Tournament </i>(2009), <i>Keanu </i>(2016), <i>Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping </i>(2016), <i>Sisters </i>(2015), <i>Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made </i>(2016), <i>Street Kings</i> (2008), <i>The Wrestler</i> (2008).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Songs: "Pistol Whipped at Chuck-E-Cheese" by Mike and </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 25.6px;">"Who Likes to Party?" by </span><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-38592233077472883002016-09-19T12:00:00.000-04:002016-09-19T12:00:22.912-04:00Podcast Episode 82: Signs Commentary Track<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9TbgctKnwHyipLgq1Y3kpp1sJiQhyMoDA657rOoJwEDLTf2ucMzHAYlLiVfk0nPsrDsUL8eiRxBFZ3NH2hdngYH3fda7-JyAtrsMwNvq7LDfWM07mgK8i1vliDlK2Kn-YhE7iGAVbFg/s1600/signs_ver2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK9TbgctKnwHyipLgq1Y3kpp1sJiQhyMoDA657rOoJwEDLTf2ucMzHAYlLiVfk0nPsrDsUL8eiRxBFZ3NH2hdngYH3fda7-JyAtrsMwNvq7LDfWM07mgK8i1vliDlK2Kn-YhE7iGAVbFg/s640/signs_ver2.jpg" width="430" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Rob and Mike get their Shyamalan...on.</span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_82_Signs_Commentary_Track.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 82.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Songs: "Pistol Whipped at Chuck-E-Cheese" by Mike and </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 25.6px;">"Who Likes to Party?" by </span><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-79490639267627507592016-09-06T15:00:00.000-04:002016-09-06T15:00:14.029-04:00Podcast Episode 81: Take Her to the Bat Wash (Batman Forever)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjesdCDkFllZEoPgSlq_RcyU5yY3essPDmwZa2dQ1LaTqHhyphenhyphenAHaLAj_kSQUiZLL-Dk6Eep6YqIZevCZMly5kXHttzEcfLoLbnQ8vWBE1XTm5juugW6IEtlAd9gymPpd8bh8FcKNxwU_Mho/s1600/batman-forever-554e26d89d195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjesdCDkFllZEoPgSlq_RcyU5yY3essPDmwZa2dQ1LaTqHhyphenhyphenAHaLAj_kSQUiZLL-Dk6Eep6YqIZevCZMly5kXHttzEcfLoLbnQ8vWBE1XTm5juugW6IEtlAd9gymPpd8bh8FcKNxwU_Mho/s640/batman-forever-554e26d89d195.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Our first foray into Gotham is, of course, 1995's <i>Batman Forever.</i></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_81_Take_Her_to_the_Bat_Wash.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 81.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows </i>(2016), <i>Green Room </i>(2015), <i>Imperium </i>(2016), <i>Don't Breathe </i>(2016), <i>The Lobster </i>(2015), <i>Demolition </i>(2016), <i>High-Rise </i>(2015), <i>The Nice Guys </i>(2016).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Songs: "Pistol Whipped at Chuck-E-Cheese" by Mike and </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 25.6px;">"Who Likes to Party?" by </span><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></div>
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<br />Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-30805947156243217352016-08-24T11:57:00.001-04:002016-08-24T11:57:47.806-04:00Podcast Episode 80: Bring Me the Monkey (The Libertine)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiHbRSYY0phe5Axs0Btwl09xnelst4OltB9u0biYOnqfS6szWRtdFgSv2hJXbHpbvwlzbwM7jRvGMEwgrkoTw0oRJABqZZcF-ps5WmG-XY_CmlrsGw4tPyvozuQjf0KC8W7xMnHoXyEms/s1600/johnny_depp_libertine_movie_poster_b_2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiHbRSYY0phe5Axs0Btwl09xnelst4OltB9u0biYOnqfS6szWRtdFgSv2hJXbHpbvwlzbwM7jRvGMEwgrkoTw0oRJABqZZcF-ps5WmG-XY_CmlrsGw4tPyvozuQjf0KC8W7xMnHoXyEms/s640/johnny_depp_libertine_movie_poster_b_2a.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Dildos! Syphilis! Johnny Depp! It's <i>The Libertine</i>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i></i></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_80_Bring_Me_the_Monkey_%28The_Libertine%29.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 80. </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>Star Trek Beyond</i> (2016), <i>The Visit </i>(2015)<i>, Suicide Squad </i>(2016)<i>, Chef </i>(2014)<i>, St. Vincent </i>(2014)<i>, Insomnia </i>(2002)<i>, Dennis the Menace </i>(1993)<i>, Terminator: Genisys </i>(2015)<i>, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice </i>(2016)<i>.</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Song: "Pistol Whipped at Chuck-E-Cheese" by Mike. He's responsible for that. Blame him.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-30308900624241733592016-08-15T15:00:00.000-04:002016-08-15T15:00:11.447-04:00Podcast Episode 79: I.G.I.L.I. (Black Snake Moan)<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8t1hx5o7HYA3aBv6EQDZ1QAh18KJedDgM-6IGaz-de_Afu1jbNsHgkYDQvMIzzaDvDQCC0yhK6HmV7qo1-_lcl7Ke584sHXMq644FzC27wN0Yq4HDBFrJgPKsNbG1kqVWUqQhEM7BJN0/s1600/MPW-25247.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8t1hx5o7HYA3aBv6EQDZ1QAh18KJedDgM-6IGaz-de_Afu1jbNsHgkYDQvMIzzaDvDQCC0yhK6HmV7qo1-_lcl7Ke584sHXMq644FzC27wN0Yq4HDBFrJgPKsNbG1kqVWUqQhEM7BJN0/s640/MPW-25247.jpg" width="428" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">It's all blues and whiskey as we look at Craig Brewer's underrated film <i>Black Snake Moan.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i></i></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_79_IGILI.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 79.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>Sausage Party </i>(2016), <i>Star Trek Beyond</i> (2016), <i>Me Him Her </i>(2015), <i>Midnight Special </i>(2016), <i>Chef</i> (2014), <i>Star Trek Into Darkness </i>(2013), <i>Locke </i>(2013), <i>Darling </i>(2015), <i>Magic Mike</i> (2012).</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Follow us on Twitter:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-44931119114666808742016-08-08T15:00:00.000-04:002016-08-08T15:00:12.695-04:00Podcast Episode 78: Looper Commentary Track<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhKdH3i1ILUai_rzqaVn7ZMVm6fg8HSOsYF8x3Aghk8NY-u9EEWQQ8d8LAdATG0zylsK76wkIkru_X5cF4yleNM2PI7EUk8mzbur-lZLRIrQxdFTW-wUIlg6gkCDxWDbKRgsYIKtspc38/s1600/Looper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhKdH3i1ILUai_rzqaVn7ZMVm6fg8HSOsYF8x3Aghk8NY-u9EEWQQ8d8LAdATG0zylsK76wkIkru_X5cF4yleNM2PI7EUk8mzbur-lZLRIrQxdFTW-wUIlg6gkCDxWDbKRgsYIKtspc38/s640/Looper.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Rob and Tim ride the blunderbuss.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_78_Looper_Commentary_Track.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 78.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Follow us on Twitter:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<br />Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-51066156268746122952016-08-01T15:00:00.000-04:002016-08-01T15:00:16.594-04:00Podcast Episode 77: Pointless Plastic: Resurgence <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0u9citicNwvO2yHaSnhqgbPZqWilIaMVcAzkr-hgAcyZko-VNhP5X8QZNxk62AGfxCV1yBhS_I401lOOTuOO_R92W1Yhp1rVACTR20wMrhaomhODSP_TeM5djicXavNgoOONjGv7mcXE/s1600/Schermata2010-03-12a182303.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0u9citicNwvO2yHaSnhqgbPZqWilIaMVcAzkr-hgAcyZko-VNhP5X8QZNxk62AGfxCV1yBhS_I401lOOTuOO_R92W1Yhp1rVACTR20wMrhaomhODSP_TeM5djicXavNgoOONjGv7mcXE/s640/Schermata2010-03-12a182303.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">We share our latest DVD and Blu-ray purchases!</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode77_Pointless_Plastic_Resurgence.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 77.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Discussed on this episode: <i>Black Mass </i>(2015), <i>Breathless </i>(1960), <i>Clueless</i> (1995), <i>Top Five </i>(2014), <i>Burden of Dreams </i>(1982), <i>Mulholland Dr. </i>(2001), <i>Zodiac </i>(2007), <i>In a Lonely Place </i>(1950), <i>Point Break </i>(1991), <i>Chinatown </i>(1974), <i>Zootopia </i>(2016), <i>Bone Tomahawk </i>(2015), <i>Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory </i>(1971), <i>The Tim Burton Collection </i>(1985-2005).</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-75562027969141100382016-07-25T15:00:00.000-04:002016-07-25T18:13:15.245-04:00Episode 76: Ruining Your Adulthood (Ghostbusters 2016)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByP1IlbI-9_Mcnp4Q2t5dVcwQTA" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLdgHANPleg_IeqvfCLsrZhIk6-fkFr4eMHhqqSvuHu5Dpczef7bDMJw3WOGRP_5mN0237BHxPjxPfLyAof-HXvH85g0pmvRg4U0Ut8hSvRRvdJo-ID1-nEd_hucQ1752uTrxTl721TnM/s640/ghostbusters-2016-movie-poster.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" target="_blank">@sarhenrythe8th</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" target="_blank">@vitogulla</a> had some alone time with #<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-yZXw" target="_blank">Ghostbusters</a>. No one left satisfied. </span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByP1IlbI-9_Mcnp4Q2t5dVcwQTA" target="_blank">here </a>to listen to Episode 76.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Follow us on Twitter:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-36282702017769246632016-07-20T12:00:00.000-04:002016-07-20T12:00:11.201-04:00Review: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Ultimate Edition<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">
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<a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/07/review-batman-v-superman-dawn-of.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFiwfMD1xk6kZ5dKh3e0EatNbrApH3-xM6cJMFEC1408QTf1hP7KCrdfDEGyTEC_9w3B8XH7kQ2krUEi9Iv65_igyoKfSaSJe2oSj_ZdyvTJ9UhlxNlH7UujaAMFcdTlKLUUV1sGFPROg/s640/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">@vitogulla</span></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"> takes a look at #BatmanvSuperman #UltimateEdition</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For Vito’s review of the theatrical cut, click <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/04/dissenting-opinions-batman-v-superman.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">here</span></a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Recently, Walt Hickey over at FiveThirtyEight, published an article entitled, “<a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ghostbusters-is-a-perfect-example-of-how-internet-ratings-are-broken/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Ghostbusters is A Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken</span></a>.” It was his conclusion I found most discouraging and the title of the article. While I agree with his point that online reviews and review aggregators are “inconsistent, easily manipulated and probably not worth half the stock we put in them,” it is not the rating system that is broken but ourselves. We don’t view film as an art-form (or any art for that matter): Instead, <a href="http://www.apple.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">it serves as a way to confirm our own conception of reality</span></a> and <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/07/ghostbusters-and-over-politicization-of.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">allows us to bask in the glory of our own confirmation bias</span></a>. That problem doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, unfortunately, but last night, I was reminded of how much we’re all missing out on when willfully ignore the artistry of film because it doesn’t conform to our own impositions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">After work, I had the opportunity to watch <i>Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Ultimate Edition</i>, and I can say definitively that this is the definitive cut. The most interesting thing about it, at least for me, is how much character exploration had been left on the editing room floor as entire plot threads were excised, presumably to allow for more showings per day. This is particularly striking since Zack Snyder is so often derided for handling characters poorly, but if anything, this version of the film seems to put such “common sense” in serious doubt. (It’s something that I noticed in the <i>Dawn of The Dead</i> director’s cut as well.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Upon this second viewing, I was able notice something much neglected in the many reviews I have read in the past and recently, and something I must admit I missed myself in my first viewing. The themes of rage/impotence, fathers/sons are both still there, but two much bigger ones emerged: dreams (particularly of one’s father) and gods/men. These two nicely tie into the two former themes much more than I originally recognized. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For one, the occurrence and reoccurrence of dreams seems to be ever-present. The opening sequence, where Bruce’s parents die and he falls into the cave lifted up by the bats, is a dream. Bruce visiting his parents’s graves is a dream. The “Knightmare” sequence in the desert is a dream—as is the dream within that dream. Clark’s meeting with his father on the mountain is a dream. The same might be said about Lex’s quest to rid the world of Superman. This is one of those things that I just failed to put together the first time around, and it works in tandem with the fathers/sons theme heavily featured throughout the film. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">There is also major fleshing out of Kahina Ziri storyline, who only had a brief scene with Senator Finch early on. Ziri acts as the catalyst for Clark, through a television report on the Senate hearing, to begin his investigation of Batman. Clark uses his press credentials to investigate her, then later Cesar Santos, the man with the bat-brand over his collarbone. These scenes allow for Clark to work out his crisis of conscience and ultimately serve as the reason that he dismantles the batmobile in the first place. Moments of doubt like these bring more life to Superman and are particularly instructive of its god/men theme, for it heightens the humanism behind <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/03/review-batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Snyder’s perceived misanthropy</span></a>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In the case of Lex Luthor, he can’t accept that “God exists,” because to his mind god is a contradiction. If God is all powerful, as Luthor puts it, then he cannot be all good; if God is all good, then he cannot be all power. His goal has a perverted logic to it, but should we take turn for the twisted, we might just join him. What Luthor can’t accept is that Superman acts unilaterally, that he <i>is</i> truly benevolent. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And this kind of thinking infects Bruce Wayne as well, who sees Superman as a threat to humanity, even denying Superman the classification of a man during their big brawl, stating, “You were never a god. You weren’t even a man.” Most telling is when Terrio, the screenwriter, cribs from <i>The Dark Knight Returns</i> almost verbatim: “I bet your parents taught you that you mean something; that you're here for a reason. My parents taught me a different lesson, dying in a gutter for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to.” But as the much bemoaned “save Martha” line demonstrates, it serves as Batman’s epiphany, a moment of recognition, that Superman <i>is</i> a man—something that Bruce Wayne, after twenty years in Gotham has forgotten. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This hard edged Batman hopes, like Lex Luthor does, that “if [he] keeps everything the same, maybe [his father will] come back.” But to force the world to stay the same is Batman’s (Luthor’s) tragic flaw, and as a result, it caused Batman to become judge, jury, and executioner—a man for whom the law does not apply but enforces it like a god himself. Ironically, it during the promised title fight that on a column appears, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes,” a quote from Juenval, which means, “Who watches the watchmen?” That question, it would seem, is the central guiding purpose of the film, one which was heavily buried in the theatrical release. Even General Amajagh, the African Warlord from the beginning of the film, claims that no one can be neutral. And that is certainly true for Superman, since his attachment to humanity—and the world—will always be through his one true love, Lois Lane. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Furthermore, in my second viewing, I was reminded of just talented Zack Snyder really is. The film is full of references, from using some of the lyrics of “Everytime We Say Goodbye” as dialogue in an ironic twist to an allusion to Gustave Dore's <i>The Fall of the Rebel Angels</i>. Not to mention, even scenes that I would have cut, like the police officers watching the Gotham v. Metropolis football game, still serve to foreshadow the title bout at the film’s center. He’s a lot smarter than I think most people give him credit for. He understands textual unity, how to convey a theme, and is even willing to experiment with form and structure (to various degrees of success). He’s a highly ambitious filmmaker who genuinely seems to be interested in making <i>movies</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This isn’t to say the film is perfect. By no means is everything fixed with this extended cut: The film still has two third acts, some pacing issues, and suffers from the needless insertion of Wonder Woman (whose musical motif is amazing by the way). But frankly, these are no bigger problems than your standard cookie-cutter Marvel film either. However, <i>Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice</i>—and I can’t stress this enough—has actual <i>vision</i>: It’s unique and bold in an time when most films are derivative and timid</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> The uncut version of the film is superior in a lot of ways, and it highlights how, really, this movie could have very easily been a great film instead of just a very good one. Now, of course, the question is how long will it take for everyone else to stop fighting to realize this? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Ultimate Edition </i>is currently available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Batman-Superman-Ultimate-Theatrical-UltraViolet/dp/B01DEBC7Q6"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital download</span></a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the Ugly Club Podcast. He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You find his fiction on the web in </i><a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/"><span style="color: #042eee; line-height: normal;"><i>Pithead Chapel</i></span></a><i>, </i><a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/"><span style="color: #042eee; line-height: normal;"><i>Mulberry Fork Review</i></span></a><i>, and </i><a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/"><span style="color: #042eee; line-height: normal;"><i>The Big Click</i></span></a><i>, and you can follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla"><span style="color: #042eee; line-height: normal;"><i>@vitogulla</i></span></a><i>. </i></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-12586405142417004502016-07-18T15:00:00.000-04:002016-07-25T14:21:00.768-04:00Podcast Episode 75: Spirk (Star Trek)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKAKAKz63-dMIzdtg8JmyPCowjeDiCKQu8nkldQt68czT07D9losENqNhGY_oqxxMLgQvGD_OeDXhTO04QwfOxa1BU-IEJLdMAoPREc0MrEoeoZm2jhbx1P5of_4Y8QDIbnjRWIsIAUo/s1600/star_trek_2009_wallpaper_by_delusionzofgrandeur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKAKAKz63-dMIzdtg8JmyPCowjeDiCKQu8nkldQt68czT07D9losENqNhGY_oqxxMLgQvGD_OeDXhTO04QwfOxa1BU-IEJLdMAoPREc0MrEoeoZm2jhbx1P5of_4Y8QDIbnjRWIsIAUo/s640/star_trek_2009_wallpaper_by_delusionzofgrandeur.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">We boldly...go...to the final frontier...of, um. Screw it. We watched <i>Star Trek.</i></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_75_Spirk.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 75.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also discussed on this episode: <i>Dark Was the Night </i>(2014), <i>Ted 2 </i>(2015), <i>Moonwalkers </i>(2015), <i>An Honest Liar</i> (2014), <i>Welcome to Leith</i> (2015), <i>Fireworks (Hana-bi) </i>(1997), <i>Anomalisa </i>(2015), <i>Joy</i> (2015), <i>10 Cloverfield Ln. </i>(2016), <i>The Fundamentals of Caring </i>(2016).</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-27867520507252811152016-07-15T12:00:00.000-04:002016-07-18T03:18:18.140-04:00Ghostbusters and the Over-Politicization of Movies <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/07/ghostbusters-and-politicization-of.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbMJB79xkFX9xIRpU0sNzVkmsUQpU9hDL51MB9Ci7DdjMH_1czymrhaz2qquGkX714V0dO073q4fxANWVeHWVD7qMKDVGoZIktyniyCJ58043RDC72UmT_tRBaBs5yN9et-hXKfBQXvU/s640/slack-imgs.com.0.0.jpeg" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/07/ghostbusters-and-politicization-of.html" target="_blank">"How about you see the movie before you decide whether you hate us or not?"</a></td></tr>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">@vitogulla</span></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"> on criticism's decline </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Very few television shows have been able to arrest my attention like </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">The Wire</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">. Of course, I was like a decade late to the party, but it didn’t matter much to me as I brought it up as a topic of conversation with anyone and everyone. One of those people was my father. I gushed over the show, talking about how much I loved it. My father, however, didn’t share my enthusiasm and said he couldn’t watch it because it made you feel bad for the drug dealers, as if that might inspire viewers to take up the vocation for themselves. This idea is, of course, not new.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Over 2000 years ago, Plato, in his <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.mb.txt"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Republic</i></span></a>, casted out the poets from his utopian for their ability to corrupt young minds. In an ironic twist of fate, it was his mentor and teacher, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1656/1656-h/1656-h.htm" target="_blank">the philosopher Socrates, who was sentenced to death in ancient Athens for the same charge</a>. Plato’s view has, ever since, been a part of the discourse on the arts, from Augustine to the anti-theatre pamphlets of Restoration Drama to Marxist criticism and its brethren in, what Harold Bloom calls dismissively, the “<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.mb.txt"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">School of Resentment</span></a>.” Terry Eagleton, in his lecture “<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-20dZxUAfu0">The Death of Criticism?</a>,</span>” argues that criticism has always been composed of an aesthetic and ethical investigation of texts, and as Eagleton noted back in 2010, that ethical tradition has all but erased the analytic/rhetorical component. No where has this divide become so prominent than the current conversation surrounding <i>Ghostbusters</i>. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I'm tired of these poets corrupting our youths--what do you mean Socrates has to drink hemlock!?"</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The movie, </span><a href="http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/13/12173660/ghostbusters-criticism-anger" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">as Daniel Friedman has pointed out</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, has become a political cause in itself. To see it or not see it, to like it or not like it is now a moral position: It </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">is no longer a question of taste but of character. This “regime of truth,” as Foucault might put it, distracts from one of criticism’s chief functions, the study and interpretation of art. In fact, the film has only just been released. All this goes to show that the text does not matter. We have politicized the art work before we have even begun to unravel the movie’s own political point of view, and any serious appreciator of the arts should find this particularly distressing.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The text and its intentions are now inconsequential, and meaning has become literally infinite. The </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">deconstructionist</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> inside me wants to celebrate the latter clause as a victory, but to do so would be to take away the wrong message. Any argument about a text has to be rooted in the text itself first and foremost: It requires careful study and attention--a </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_reading" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">close reading</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">. Even deconstruction, which at once affirms a text’s intentions and undermines them, must be performed on what is there, not from without. But much more troubling is that this makes the text utterly meaningless. At least moralists of the</span> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">past </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">would have taken the time to view the text before charging it with ethical heresy.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-size: large;">Now, sadly, there is no reason to view a film, for both sides of this debate have more or less made up their minds. Texts have become a talisman for us to place our political burdens upon, a receptacle for us to </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">empty and </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">refill with our intentions regardless of its own individuation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">“Misinterpretation” has long been the thorn in the side of every author. Nietzsche, for example, had his works chopped up and rearranged by his sister after his death in support of National Socialism, even though many scholars would argue he would have felt otherwise. Both the Bible and the Quran have been subject to “misinterpretation” as well, as various individuals try to wedge more modernly acceptable views into texts that don’t have very much good to say about women or homosexuals. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Damnit, Elisabeth, for the last time, I don't care if all your friends are going: I don't want to go to the Nazi party." </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Of course, it would seem antithetical to at once recognize the undecidability of a text and, at the same time, conceive it as inherently meaningful. Yet I wonder if the issue must be an either/or.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And maybe what I find most upsetting about this whole thing is that this film is wholly insignificant in the grand scheme of American cinema and cinema at large. The </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Ghostbusters</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> reboot may very well be good, but in all likelihood, this film does not change the game. It probably isn’t innovative or boundary-pushing. It probably won’t be remembered for its quality. Yet far more important and significant films in our history have, as far as I’m aware, never generated such an enormous conversation upon their release, not </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Bicycle </i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Thieves</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, not </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Vertigo</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, not </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Seven Samurai.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> I hope that revelation might give us pause since the problems we currently have aren’t going to be solved through culture as much as many a neoplatonist would have us believe. While a way out of our current political circumstances will require significant social and </span>institutional change, it<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> seems to me, when it comes to movies, maybe we should leave <i>our</i> politics at the protest and shut the fuck up, so we can hear what the <i>movie has to say</i>. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><a href="http://www.ghostbusters.com/" target="_blank">Ghostbusters</a><i> is in theaters on July 15th 2016.</i></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><i>Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the </i>Ugly Club Podcast <i>and writes the column <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/search/label/Dissenting%20Opinions" target="_blank">"Dissenting Opinions."</a> He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i> <a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i>,</i> <a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i>, and</i> <a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">The Big Click</span></a><i> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><i>@vitogulla</i></span></a><i>. </i></span><span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"> </span> </span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-78074640918687838722016-07-13T17:00:00.000-04:002016-07-18T03:18:31.782-04:00Dissenting Opinions: Everyone Does Not Get an Arc<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
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<a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">@vitogulla</span></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> yells at the Internet once again</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It seems</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> like anymore that the politics—or potential politics—of a movie have begun to outweigh the quality of a movie. That is to say, as Bret Easton Ellis puts it, ideology trumping aesthetics. This trend, unfortunately, seems to be only worsening as the new culture wars play out, and our corporate movie overlords do their damnest to reinvent old franchises to compel us back to theaters. Strangely, these ends of the spear have received little push back from artists themselves, with many bowing to the demands of both. On the one hand, the artist is supposed to have a moral obligation to control all meaning or potential meaning of the text. Should someone read a message that some Neoplatonist finds corrupting, then the text is somehow less meaningful, less aesthetic. This is particularly hard to accept in the face of </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/#Dec" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">undecidability</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">. On the other hand, we face the growing commodity fetishism of art, where a movie is no longer a series of images on screen designed to</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> demand our empathy but a monetary value to be collected and counted. These two tensions have formed a odd kinship in recent years and may be one of the reasons that this has been one of the worst summers for movies in recent years. It has infected not only how we perceive art but how it is made.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When we look at a movie like say, <i>Captain America: Civil War</i> or <i>Star Wars: The Force Awakens</i>, we find an enormous cast of characters, all of whom are sanitized and purified, purged of any possible sins to avoid sending a disheartening message. Characters must be, first and foremost, likable, affable, a true friend. Moreover, filmmakers shouldn’t leave out anyone’s favorite, as they too must be thrown in to the mix. These large diverse casts, while well-meaning, only serve to muddle the story at its center. In <i>Avengers</i>, there’s never an explanation of how Bruce Banner can suddenly control his rage: He just can. In <i>The Force Awakens</i>, Rey can use a Jedi mind without any training. In <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>, Black Panther recognizes the errors of his ways because the plot demands it. These characters have no grand epiphanies. There is no causation for their actions. They do it because the plot needs it to happen. Strangely, it because of these choices that character has been dwarfed by plot. The protagonist does not drive the story along in opposition to the antagonist. Things happen to create a semblance of causation, not because of some equal and opposite reaction. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Why exactly do these movies need such large casts? Why should there be so many characters? How do all those people help tell the story of one person? They don’t. Han Solo’s story in <i>Force Awakens</i>, his reconciliation with his son, has no bearing on the rest of the story. It is not, as far as we know, his character goal when we first meet him. And it doesn’t intersect with Rey’s or Finn’s stories either, even though all three are ostensibly about finding a family. What commentary does Han’s death provide on those other two? Finn doesn’t even seem to know what he wants other than to run away from the First Order. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But all of this, at its heart, is founded on good intentions. The need for representation. It is, I would agree, an admirable thing. There is something irrationally pleasing seeing someone who represents you onscreen. However, what we are seeing is not the case. These characters are not our protagonists, the focal center of our story. In many cases, these characters have competing narratives with other characters, which do not compliment each other. The truth is, in order for a story to work, you cannot tell everyone’s story. They are all in service of our protagonist. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Look at a movie like <i>Aliens</i>. It has a somewhat large cast too. But none of them ever are as complex or developed as Ripley. She is the focal center. And her goal is to accept what she has lost and make life anew. She is the agent of change in the story. Newt, who has a similar goal, is never more than Ripley’s surrogate child, the replacement for the daughter she had lost. Newt has wants, desires, motivations, but once she crosses that initial hurdle, she never really changes. She always stays Newt. So too does Hicks, Burke, Bishop, and the rest of the crew. They never really change. It is Ripley’s perception of them that changes. Ripley learns that Hicks is a pretty good guy, that Burke is nothing more than a manipulator only interested in money, that Bishop isn’t going to betray her. This is the rhetoric of the text, the way it colors our understanding of the world. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Some might cry foul at this point, citing that just from such a brief description, we can infer a political message in the movie. I no doubt agree. But to suggest, simply, that this is a “good” message or the “right” one or even worse the only <i>one</i> is to, as <a href="https://archive.org/stream/thebirthoftraged00nietuoft/thebirthoftraged00nietuoft_djvu.txt"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Nieztche wrote in <i>Birth of Tragedy</i></span></a>, condemn “art, all art, to the realm of falsehood. Behind such a mode of thought and valuation, which, if at all genuine, must be hostile to art, I always experienced what was hostile to life, the wrathful, vindictive counterwill to life itself: for all life rests on appearance, art, illusion, optics, necessity of perspective and error.” It is the word that ends the quote I’d like to focus on, “error.” There is no conclusive truth to existence, and how we perceive it is all just “error.” We cannot say, definitively, that corporate interests should always be depicted as duplicitous or that the military must always be shown to be super macho or that mothers must be presented as strong, willing to do anything for their children. These are not truths. And to do the same with any political discourse possibly expressed through art, whether you agree or disagree, is to imbue it with the centrality and perfection of Christianity’s God.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">So what’s a filmmaker, or any artist, to do? If we are truly interested in representing the diverse experience that is human existence, our emphasis should be on <i>a</i> human being—not all human being. <i>Force Awakens</i> could have very well have been a very good movie. It had plenty of talent behind the camera and in front of it, but the vastness of its story was too large for a two hour movie. No movie could achieve its goals, at least not in the timespan of most modern feature films. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Character matters. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The protagonist is the heart and soul of every story. It is, first and foremost, <i>their</i> story. Had J. J. Abrams just told Finn’s story or Rey’s story, it likely would have been a much better movie as one of those characters could have been fully developed and explored rather than the uncertain mess we have now. Of course, what could have been does not matter very much. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And of course, we have others who falsely claim that <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/07/12/the_growing_gender_divide_over_ghostbusters_why_movies_starring_women_get_slimed_by_male_critics/?platform=hootsuite"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">we cannot empathize with those onscreen who do not look like us</span></a>. That is possibly even more disheartening, as it presumes we are all little sociopaths, unable to look beyond our own navels, but such an evaluation is foolhardy to say the least. Regardless of the protagonist, regardless of identity or morality, we will always empathize with them as long as they are drawn well and their motivations clear. I would like to think that this kind of fan-service, both to those of the movie’s universe and to those of a particular political aim, would marry itself with good storytelling, placing its reliance on the aesthetic and the formal over "meaning" and "inclusion," but if this summer movie season is any indication, I won’t get my hopes up. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><i>Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the </i>Ugly Club Podcast <i>and writes the column <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/search/label/Dissenting%20Opinions" target="_blank">"Dissenting Opinions."</a> He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i> <a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i>,</i> <a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i>, and</i> <a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">The Big Click</span></a><i> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><i>@vitogulla</i></span></a><i>. </i></span><span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit; line-height: normal;"> </span> </span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-68008779507071109952016-07-11T15:00:00.000-04:002016-07-25T14:18:56.999-04:00Podcast Episode 74: The Shark is On Fire (The Shallows)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Tim returns to discuss <a href="https://twitter.com/ShallowsMovie" target="_blank">@ShallowsMovie</a></span><span style="font-size: x-large;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_74_The_Shark_is_On_Fire.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 74.</span><br />
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">(discussion of <i>The Shallows</i> begins at 11:48) </span></div>
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Also discussed on this episode: <i>Sicario </i>(2015), <i>The VVitch</i> (2016), <i>A Walk in the Woods </i>(2015), <i>10 Cloverfield Ln. </i>(2016).</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-23563408061480686012016-07-08T16:00:00.000-04:002016-07-20T10:34:54.704-04:00Sex and Sexuality in Otto Preminger's Laura<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal;">
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<a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">@vitogulla</span></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>examines the sexual politics of Otto Preminger's 1944 film <i>Laura</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I am often surprised at how little credit we give to our own history. When we look back at the past, we are likely to claim it as backwards or unrefined. And certainly, from a legal and institutional perspective, there is much to support that view. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Just recently, until <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Obergefell v. Hodges</i></span></a>, same-sex marriage had been illegal in many parts of the country—not to mention <a href="http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/1940s-Sodomy_Laws-pdf"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">the exhaustive list of laws across the states against any form of sexual “immorality.”</span></a>) In the UK, Oscar Wilde, the great playwright and novelist, was tried in 1895 and eventually imprisoned for engaging in homosexual acts. Those kind of civil rights abuses, of course, are not limited to the US and the UK: In Germany, Hitler and the Nazi Party committed some of the most heinous acts against homosexuals in the entire 20th century. Beginning with the expansion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph_175"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Paragraph 175</span></a>, the Nazis arrested thousands of gay men and later sent them to concentration camps, where many died of starvation or were executed. And in a sickening twist, when Allied forces began liberating those same camps, because some American and British jurists did not believe the camps were prisons, gay men who violated Paragraph 175 were sometimes returned to prison. But a top down view of history obviously fails to grasp some of the subtleties in our past. We forget that the first documented same-sex marriage (post-Rome) was performed in Spain in 1901 (though it was accomplished through a ruse). In the <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7178/7178-h/7178-h.htm"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">first volume of Proust’s <i>In Search of Lost Time</i></span></a>, the narrator watches as Mademoiselle Vinteuil has sex with a female friend, whom she encourages to spit on a picture of her father which is on a bedside table during the act. And in 1924, The Society of Human Rights was founded as the first LGBT rights organization in the United States. Maybe most shocking of all comes from 1926, in Hemingway’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>The Sun Also Rises</i></span></a> (sorry it’s still in copyright): The narrator, Jake Barnes, goes out for drinks with a prostitute when in walks: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">[a] crowd of [gay] young men, some in jerseys and some in their shirt sleeves…. [Jake] could see their hands and newly washed, wavy hair…. The policeman standing by the door looked at [Jake] and smiled. They came in…. </span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">[Jake] was very angry. Somehow they always made [him] angry. [He] know[s] they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but [he] wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Hemingway, the supposed macho king of misogyny, writes that people should be more tolerant of homosexuality. Think about that for a second. It would be easy to dismiss such a line as it is a only a fleeting detail in a much, much bigger story—and the fact that Jake still wants to punch them—but this, I think, goes to show the very complicated and complex truth of history. History, as Hegel tells us, is a dialectic, not just a linear march towards progress. This brings me to the curious case Otto Preminger’s<i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_(1944_film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Laura</span></a></i> from 1944. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It is unique among film noirs, not just for its then frank treatment of homosexuality, but its hero-falls-in-love-with-the-victim plot, which seems to <span style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">prophesy</span></span> Hitchcock’s <i>Vertigo</i>, its claustrophobic mise-en-scene, and its aesthetic masterstrokes and subversion of genre conventions. The story is simple enough: Detective Mark McPherson (played by Dana Andrews) is investigating the death of a highly successful advertising executive, Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who appears to have been shot in her apartment with a shotgun blast to the face. McPherson has a few suspects in mind. There’s Laura’s conman fiancée, Shelby Carpenter (a nearly unrecognizable Vincent Price), who is also the paramour of Laura’s aunt (Judith Anderson) but also keeps a model girlfriend on the side. Then there is Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), a friend of Laura’s who takes a vested interest in her well-being. And it is Waldo that I find most interesting in the light of my introduction.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Waldo has all the trappings of a gay stereotype. He’s a snappy dresser, unwilling to leave the house without a carnation in his lapel. His home too is well decorated. He is a collector of antiques. He helps transform Laura from a drab woman working with the legions of other women scribbling ad copy into an elegant socialite and career-woman. He is certainly unencumbered by his sexuality and his desire as well, as he allows McPherson to enter his apartment while he writes in the tub. He even gets out and gets dressed in front of McPherson in an act of unburdened sexual bravado. Yet, strangely, we are encouraged to empathize with him, to understand him, to trust him—and it helps that he has some of the wittiest lines throughout the movie:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: Were you in love with Laura Hunt, Mr. Lydecker? Was she in love with you?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lydecker: Laura considered me the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting man she'd ever met. And I was in complete accord with her on that point. She thought me also the kindest, the gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world. </span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: Did you agree with her there, too?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lydecker: McPherson, you won't understand this. But I tried to become the kindest, the gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world.</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: Have any luck?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lydecker: Let me put it this way. I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbors' children devoured by wolves. Shall we go? </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But what can we make of this character? What, as many a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Historicism"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">New Historicist</span></a> would ask, does this film communicate about that moment? How does this film examine the sexual politics of the era? If we were to approach this simplistically, looking solely at the narrative as a movement from point A to point B, such an interpretation would suggest that Waldo, because he is revealed to be the villain by the film’s end, reinforces societal and institutional bias against homosexuals. They are, after all, killing "our" women. And it is the film’s sense of poetic justice that is a revivification of the laws of the time and its underlying assumptions, an act of power/knowledge that further justifies the status quo. This, I think, highlights the great flaw in the thinking of many who approach texts as cultural artifacts. This is cherry-picking at its finest: It is the highlighting of evidence which goes to suit your hypothesis, rather than recognize the complexities and uncertainties of text’s rhetoric. Even to suggest that Waldo is a representative of the gay community, that he exists as a place holder for all gay men is rather absurd, since such a claim relies on an assumption of monolithic identity. To investigate Waldo and his thematic consequences requires a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(literature)" target="_blank">formalist</a> perspective, for, as my introduction notes, the truth of history is far more complex than we often recognize. A work of art has to have some form of individuation. It will be moored to its moment of creation, tied to its various paradigms in some degree, however small or large, but to say it is trapped in that moment, that it is unable to think outside its box, to transcend the mess of history in its most minute possibilities, is to limit art’s capacities and human achievement.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The first thing you’ll notice about <i>Laura</i>, after the credits and its main musical motif, is that the film is narrated by Waldo himself. For a person who has been marginalized by society, whose very desires are illegal, this is a surprising amount of agency. What’s more striking is that his reflection, which comes during a moment of blackness on screen, refers to this past event as “the weekend that Laura died.” This, we know, is untrue for a number of reasons. First, Laura was not murdered in her apartment. Waldo had gone there to shoot her, yes, but instead, he kills Shelby’s mistress who had answered the call at the door. And two, by the end of the movie, Laura is saved at the last minute by McPherson and the NYPD. So is Waldo lying to us? He has the hindsight of memory in his opening narration. He’s aware of all that happens. But maybe we’re reading his words too literally. He doesn’t say murdered, which is the inciting incident of the entire plot: He says “died.” Therefore, instead, his statement should be taken metaphorically. It is not she who died, but his friendship with her. Of course, the question should be what was the cause of “Laura’s death”? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Waldo tells us, “It was the hottest Sunday in [his] recollection. [He] felt as if [he] were the only human being left in New York.” Already, we should be suspect. Waldo is “hot,” cooling off in his tub, but no one else mentions the weather. It’s not a detail that ever seems again discussed. So why mention it at all? The truth is that it is not New York City that’s burning but Waldo himself. He burns with sexual desire, and in a brilliant juxtaposition, we get the cause of his passion as the camera slowly pans to Detective McPherson. Waldo watches McPherson attentively, as he tells us, and mentions that McPherson notes Waldo’s—with a heavy emphasis on the last syllable—“clock.” When McPherson does enter the bathroom, Waldo talks with him briefly before asking him to toss him a wash cloth. Waldo pushes away the typewriter which sits on a table above his genitals, and McPherson walks to the other side of room. He finds him even more exciting when he learns that McPherson is a hero cop, a true man’s man, and then gets out of the tub as if to show off his body. McPherson goes on to question Waldo about the murder, but when the detective finishes his questioning and heads for the door, it is Waldo who calls him back and asks if he can join him. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">All of this evidence suggests Waldo’s growing attraction to McPherson. It is a traditional story of unrequited love—but instead of Ophelia and Hamlet, it is between two men. And in fact, unrequited love creeps up repeatedly in the film. Both Laura and her aunt love Shelby, but Shelby loves, presumably, his mistress. McPherson falls in love with Laura, but as far as he knows, she’s dead. Bessie (Dorothy Adams), Laura’s housekeeper, loves Laura too, though maybe platonically, but when she is overwhelmed by Laura’s sudden resurrection, Laura tells her to calm down and make breakfast—which may be the most callous thing anyone says in the entire movie. So what is it about Waldo’s love for McPherson that is so terrible, and what is it about Laura and McPherson’s love that is so perfect? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A mind suited for cultural studies would be quick to suggest that such a contrast can be only explained by Waldo’s homosexuality—but what about Shelby and Laura’s aunt? Why are they so detestable? Waldo is even insulted by Shelby, who says, “Why don't you get down on all fours, Waldo? It's the only time you've ever kept your mouth shut.” If we’re to empathize with Waldo, it would seem that this statement should make us far more critical of Shelby than the columnist. Then what is Waldo’s flaw? What causes his unrequited love to be so toxic? The answer lies in the film’s approach to love. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Early on, when McPherson questions Waldo, they exchange some dialogue:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: You said Harrington was rubbed out with a shotgun loaded with buckshot, the way Laura Hunt was murdered, the night before last.</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lydecker: Did I?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: Yeah. But he was really killed with a sash weight.</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lydecker: How ordinary. My version was obviously superior. I never bother with details, you know.</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: I do. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Love, for <i>Laura</i>, is precisely about the details. Lydecker wants to invent, to fudge the facts. Just as he transforms Laura into something she was not, he wishes to the same for McPherson; McPherson, on the other hand, accepts Laura for who she is. She smokes. She drinks. She’s ambitious. She’s in a position of authority in her company, moving up the ranks. She is the embodiment of the modern career woman. But Waldo was unhappy with her style of dress and choice in men, trying to change her, to make her the “superior” version. But nothing about Laura ever ruffles McPherson: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: Did you know or did you suspect that he [Carpenter] was going to bring her here Friday night, Miss Hunt?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Laura: How could I? I don't know that he brought her here, and neither do you. You merely assume it.</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: What other assumption is possible? Do you love this fellow Carpenter so much you risk your own safety to protect him?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Laura: My own safety? You suspect me?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: I suspect nobody and everybody. I'm merely trying to get at the truth.</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Laura: I see you have been trying to get at the truth. You've read things I never meant anyone else to look at. </span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">McPherson: Strictly routine. I'm sorry, really. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">He doesn’t judge her. He has no grand plans to change her. He knows all her secrets, all the things both good and bad about her but loves her regardless. It is this kind of love that, I would argue, the film is trying to emphasize. In its most pointed moment, during an argument about Shelby’s past, Laura communicates this message in its most blunt form: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Lydecker: Did you know that he almost went to jail for passing rubber checks? That he was suspected of stealing his hostess' jewels when he was a house guest in Virginia?</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Laura: What of it? I know his faults. A man can change, can't he? People are always ready to hold out a hand to slap you down but never to pick you up. All right, I'm helping Shelby. His past is his own affair. I only care about the present.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And that’s what it comes down to: caring about the present. Waldo wants to recreate the world and his lovers. McPherson is everything he wants—except he isn’t gay. This rage, of course, turns violent when Laura manages to win McPherson’s affection, and Waldo attempts once again to kill her, which may have been the case with Shelby. It is not Waldo’s homosexuality that makes him turn violent, but his inability to accept things (and people) as they are. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Ironically, I think Waldo serves as an cautionary tale for many of today's critics, those preoccupied by their own ideological persuasions, putting those above the rhetoric of the text. When we view art, as <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wilde/oscar/dorian/preface.html" target="_blank">Oscar Wilde so rightly noted</a>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: -2em;">The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. </span><span style="text-indent: -2em;">The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.... </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="text-indent: -2em;">All art is at once surface and symbol. </span><span style="text-indent: -2em;">Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. </span><span style="text-indent: -2em;">Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. </span><span style="text-indent: -2em;">It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.</span><span style="text-indent: -2em;"> </span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A good critic and a bad critic will both demonstrate their own biases, as we create meaning out of ill-defined, uncertain, arbitrary symbols. But it is the good critic who imbues the art with a reaffirmation of existence's possibilities; the bad critic is one who uses it as a cudgel and beats us for our sins. In Waldo's desire to make things as he believes they should be, we see that corruption, and the critic who forces a text into a monolithic zeitgeist is just as corrupted. It would seem logical to recognize the connection between the widespread illegality of homosexuality across the world during that time and to conclude that the text is a victim of such momentary paradigms, but to do so denies the experience of the individual. Power does not solely come from the top down or the bottom up: It is distributed, ever-present and omnipresent, everywhere and nowhere. Yet we forget that power is not collectively held--at least not completely. There's no doubt that we are mired in our own present moment to some degree, but to force that on the moment entire, on every aspect of its collective being, allows us to "never bother with details." And that, I'm afraid, is the worst thing we can do when pursuing "the truth." </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Laura is currently available on </i><a href="http://www.netflix.com/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><i>Netflix</i></span></a><i>. </i></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i> </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the </i>Ugly Club Podcast <i>and writes the column <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/search/label/Dissenting%20Opinions" target="_blank">"Dissenting Opinions."</a> He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i> <a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i>,</i> <a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i>, and</i> <a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;">The Big Click</span></a><i> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla"><span style="color: #fc3300; line-height: normal;"><i>@vitogulla</i></span></a><i>. </i></span><span style="color: #252525; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-71676393065177468802016-07-04T15:00:00.000-04:002016-07-04T15:00:07.738-04:00Podcast Episode 73: Frito (Frida)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>#Frida</i> is the groundbreaking biopic about Frida Kahlo's husband.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_73_Frito.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> to listen to Episode 73.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: medium;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-42105756744024961292016-06-30T17:01:00.000-04:002016-07-18T03:18:54.996-04:00Review: Outrage<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/06/review-outrage.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjroIeZOiMV96nPUEAlpeiaG2T5IfLi2aeYPPfzkWyfhM1lnPFvgEXRyx8pZgxtRzfJ-Z2B5bmEG5purtNWQBktIzx1LfdhZnmLXSjynJYEmnyWtetP5uNxSCqGrU1MdJ-6JvoKS1E02kY/s640/d159cba199d002c22be7f40fef1b8fab.jpg" width="432" /></a></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@vitogulla</a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"> turns a critical eye to Takeshi Kitano's <i>Outrage</i></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">For our podcast on Takeshi Kitano's <i>Hana-bi </i>(<i>Fireworks</i>), click <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/06/podcast-episode-72-fireflower-hana.html">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The mob drama is very hard to get right. Sure, it seems like there’s a lot that do: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>The Godfather</i></span></a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Public_Enemy"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>The Public Enemy</i></span></a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Caesar_(film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Little Caesar</i></span></a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodfellas"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Goodfellas</i></span></a>, but how many have we forgotten? Nobody talks about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cimino"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Michael Cimino</span></a>’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Dragon_(film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Year of the Dragon</i></span></a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sicilian_(film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>The Sicilian</i></span></a> nor does anyone mention <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Young_(director)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Terence Young</span></a>’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valachi_Papers"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>The Valachi Papers</i></span></a>. There has been thousands of American mob movies people have never seen or heard of—and the same can be said of the mob cinema of Italy or France or China. But what makes a mob movie any good in the first place? The answer lies, I believe, in an awareness of what has come before, a foundation of knowledge, a history of what has been done, which the filmmaker recognizes and chooses to reject. It is in this regard that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeshi_Kitano"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Takeshi Kitano</span></a>’s 2010 film, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_(2010_film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Outrage</i></span></a>, sadly fails. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Released in Japan by Office Kitano and Warner Bros. in the States, the film is Kitano’s 15th and marks his return to the mob film (the yakuza more specifically) since 2001’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_(2000_film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Brother</i></span></a>. Though Kitano started out as a comedian, his rise as a filmmaker was propelled by bold and innovative work like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatine_(1993_film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Sonatine</i></span></a> and <a href="http://www.apple.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Hana-bi</i></span></a> (<i>Fireworks</i>), but <i>Outrage</i> does little to remind us of those masterpieces. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The film, at its heart, is elliptical: Every scene is brief and muted, often ending before it has even begun. Characters exchange a few lines before a sudden cut or a fade to black changes locations. In fact, this seems to be one of the film’s biggest weaknesses when compared to <i>Hana-bi</i>. There are no dramatic edits, no sharp contrast between two images, like in the previous film, and it creates a monotonous rhythm to the film’s pace. Because the camera is often static but carefully placed, the scenes have a certain solemnity, which is only shattered with a violent explosion, and there’s a strange lack of cohesion to its organization and a lack of propulsion to the story. That’s not to say there is no sense of causality to the plot—there is and plenty of it—but because the editing never seems guided by some greater unifying principle, it instead feels slapdash and messy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As anyone who has ever seen a Kitano film can tell you, whether its <a href="http://www.apple.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Zatoichi</i></span></a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Cop_(1989_film)"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>Violent Cop</i></span></a>, the director is not known for his compelling plots, and his dialogue is more the efficient exposition of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">James Cameron</span></a> than the thoughtful and lyrical style of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Kar-wai"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Wong Kar-Wai</span></a>. Kitano relies on visual storytelling, the careful composition of an image, silence and action, but while the director still showcases his visual flair and excellent blocking, it comes as a surprise to find that <i>Outrage</i> has a plot—and a lot of it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The story is a complex web of double-crosses and betrayals, a series of connecting subplots which constitute a whole, but the main thrust is Otomo’s (played by Kitano under his Beat Takeshi moniker) allegiance to Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura), who uses Otomo as a pawn in order to create tension within their yakuza syndicate and seize control of rival territory, much to the dismay of the equally machiavellian syndicate chairman (Soichiro Kitamura). The plot is reminiscent of Shakespeare, part <i>Othello</i>, part <i>King Lear</i>, but unlike some of Kitano’s other films, <i>Outrage</i> seems largely uninterested in its protagonist. Sure, we get a sense of who Otomo is and understand his unbreakable loyalty to ritual and his superiors but rarely are his choice his own. For one, there isn’t much in terms of debate (when the refusal of the call comes) as the film moves from act one to act two without real pause, since Otomo is just following orders. He has no alternatives. They aren’t even presented. In other words, the plot moves forward because it has to. The only real choices he makes come late in act two, when his back is against the wall and must see the chairman himself, and near the end of the film, Otomo gives up and turns himself into the police. Much like Iago dwarfs the protagonist in <i>Othello</i>, the crafty secondary characters are far more interesting than Otomo. They aren’t static like he is but active: Ikemoto betrays Murase (Renji Ishibashi); Ishihara (Tomokazu Miura) skims money from the casino behind Otomo’s back; Ozawa (Tetta Sugimoto) leaves Ikemoto for dead; Kato (Tomokazu Miura) murders the chairman and takes on the position for himself. Of particular note is Ishihara, who, over the course of the movie, transforms from foot-solider to the syndicate’s number two, patiently manipulating the game behind the scenes, but unlike Portia in <i>Merchant of Venice</i> or Rosalind in <i>As You Like It</i>, Ishihara is relegated to the scenery a little too often. In fact, this is, narratively speaking, one of the film’s biggest weaknesses: the lack of focus. The film has so many characters that it doesn’t have a chance to explore any of them completely, as scenes go from one character to another, trying to keep all the different plot threads in play, but since the film is only an hour and 48 minutes, which somehow feels too long here, the movie never has gives us a full glimpse at any of the characters. Of course, it would be remiss of me if I didn’t speak to what all those machinations were in service of.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;">At the end of the day, the yubitsume (the cutting off of one’s finger as penance) and the <span style="color: black; font-kerning: none;">irezumi</span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> (full body tattoos associated with the yakuza) and the syndicate offices are all there to remind us that these men are bound by a centuries old code and its rituals, but there is no honor among thieves. It is only those who still follow the rules, the Otomos, the Murases, the Mizunos (Kippei Shiina), who end up serving someone else’s interests, and their reward is death. And this is where <i>Outrage</i> falters the most. The traditional versus the lawless is a theme often explored in yakuza films, like, for example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Drifter" target="_blank"><i>Tokyo Drifter</i></a>, and comes up again and again in mob films the world over, but <i>Outrage</i> fails to bring anything new to the table, neither stylistically nor thematically. There’s no doubt that Kitano is aware of the genre: In some ways, he has helped redefine it. But this isn’t a film designed to push the boundaries of the form, to find those untold ideas in an age old story. And that maybe the most damning thing one could say about this film. It’s competent, yes, but after the blood is spilled and the bullets fly and the necks are snapped, it’s clear that Kitano doesn’t have anything new to say. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-kerning: none;">Outrage is currently available on <a href="http://www.netflix.com/" target="_blank">Netflix</a>. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"> </span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px;">Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the Ugly Club Podcast. He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px;">,</i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px;">, and</i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Big Click</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">@vitogulla</i></span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif; line-height: 25.6px;">. </i></span></span>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-57314829206524603082016-06-27T15:00:00.000-04:002016-07-02T16:05:27.521-04:00Podcast Episode 72: Fireflower (Hana-Bi/Fireworks)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> is missing, and </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a></span><span style="font-size: large;"> are left unsupervised. This week the Ugly Club dives into the 1997 Golden Lion Winner, </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hana-Bi</i><span style="font-size: medium;"> (</span><i>Fireworks</i></span><span style="font-size: large;">), directed by Takeshi Kitano, and discovers a remarkable Japanese crime film. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByP1IlbI-9_MRHlabzVuaXVHYWc/view?usp=sharing">here</a> to listen to Episode 72.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">(discussion of <i>Hana-Bi</i>/<i>Fireworks</i> begins at 1:42)</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RobDiCristino" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@RobDiCristino</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tubnubbins" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@TubNubbins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shawnreasin" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@ShawnReasin</a></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-9392244974148832222016-06-22T19:00:00.000-04:002016-07-18T03:19:08.939-04:00Dissenting Opinions: Death to the Spoiler Warning<h3 style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" target="_blank">@vitogulla</a> takes down the spoiler warning </span></h2>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Back when people were still excited by the prospect of a new M. Night Shyamalan film, when we were still enthralled by <i>The Sixth Sense</i> and the ever diminishing returns of <i>Unbreakable</i> and <i>Signs</i>, I remember I couldn't wait to see <i>The Village </i>that summer. I hoped it would be a return to form for then seemingly potential-less director, based largely on the success of his debut feature. During the week of its release, my father ended up revealing the big twist—they were in modern times all along!—and I was so enraged I didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A year or two later, I had finally got around to seeing it, on HBO or Stars or something, with the big Shyamalan twist in mind, and I found that the question I kept asking was not “What is going to happen?” but the much more valuable “How is it going to happen?” As it turned out, the answer was “not very effectively.” And looking back, I wonder how I would have perceived its quality if I was wondering the former rather than the latter. Most likely, I would have been so caught up in the “mystery” of it, of wanting to know what happened next, that I would have overlooked the film’s myriad flaws until a second viewing and to do so would be a huge mistake.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8738913215613003817" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Many commentators have discussed <a href="https://theawl.com/the-history-and-use-of-spoiler-alert-86d9fd8333f4#.jpfg4qwtc"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">the culture and history of spoilers</span></a>, <a href="http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2013/06/03/its-your-responsibility-to-avoid-spoilers"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">who is responsible for avoiding them</span></a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/2011/08/spoilers-dont-spoil-anything/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">what kind of impact they have on our enjoyment</span></a>. <a href="http://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/">Daniel D’Addario</a> recently <a href="http://time.com/4359766/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-spoilers-j-k-rowling/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">discussed the phenomenon in an article</span></a> in <i>Time</i>, saying that when artists impose a spoiler-free restriction on those of us who want to discuss a work that artists don’t “indicate what, exactly, is a ‘secret’ to be kept, so therefore everything could be one. There’s little left to talk about, with such stringent guidelines, other than how good <i>Game of Thrones</i>, <i>Mad Men</i>, or <i>Harry Potter and the Cursed Child</i> is, which is exactly what the creator wants,” concluding, “…eschewing talking about it out of an abundance of caution actually spoils the tradition of taking art seriously enough to engage with it. If it’s well cast, an artist’s spell can withstand far worse than a little foreknowledge.” But no one, as far as I can tell, has been willing to ask why they should matter to us at all. Therefore, I find it necessary to investigate the assumptions behind the spoiler warning and whether they truly make a difference.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">First and foremost, many argue that part of the fun of experiencing entertainment is the uncertainty, the surprise, the unknown, and on a purely emotional level, there is a benefit. At the end of a good O. Henry story or a movie like <i>Memento</i>, there comes a shock to the system, a registration of incredulity, and while I appreciate that desire, the implication which follows, I would argue, is much more harmful to the discourse as it hamstrings critical commentary and aesthetic evaluation in the interest of a fleeting emotion. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We fetishize the memory, the initial surprise we register, recalling how our minds were blown, as if the memory had any value to another person: He or she will not, unfortunately, perceive it in exactly the same way that we did. Not to mention, we tend to forget the let downs, those absurd moments of unexpected insanity, like the terrible twist in an awful movie like <i>A Perfect Stranger</i>. Moreover, and much more distressing, the “what happens next” approach encourages disposal viewings, that we can only enjoy a film once, and when we watch it again, it serves solely to revisit those memories. Such a proposition invalidates the very act of criticism itself and makes an already subjective judgement even more subjective. There are no grounds for debate, no question of quality, no appreciation of craftsmanship: only aesthetic nihilism, a tossing of the hands in the air, a singular undemonstrative claim of “it works for me.” This, however, has, for a long while, poisoned the conversation. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Just look at any film review out there—book reviews too for that matter. Rarely, do you find any evidence in support of the critic’s claims. The movie is “good” because the critic says it is. But on what criteria has the critic reached his or her conclusions—based on what evidence, what examples? It is a fear of spoilers which holds discussion back, keeps it at the surface-level, the vague and the uncritical, the pontificating and the blowing of hot air. Sure, we can learn whom to trust through trial and error, but this wastes precious time and relegates these conversations to the halls of academia, tucked away from the movie-watching public. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, it would behoove me to mention those among you who might be thinking, “Isn’t there a place for both of these things, for the review and the criticism?” I would be inclined to agree if it were not for the fact that we privilege the review. Many of us flock to Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic for the scores of the latest and greatest, and when we do bother to read the reviews in full, we often find sentences full of bombastic adjectives, claims without qualifiers, an utter lack of specifics—all to avoid “spoiling” the experience. Yet what do these reviews really tell us? Why should a critic invest time in the writing, and for that matter, why should the reader invest time in reading if the goal is to discover whether the critic gives it a yes or a no? (<a href="http://moxipop.com/2014/04/30/2014430the-trouble-with-review-scores/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">And certainly the overwhelming emphasis on scores has only worsened this problem</span></a>.) It’s not an argument, but an opinion, and worse still, a number. Anyone can write up nondescript generalities, but a good critic, a talented one will explain what works or doesn’t and, most importantly, <i>why</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The first of these is in the interest of the review reader. When the critic is specific, it allows the reader to see the review’s underlying assumptions. Everyone, I am sure, is for well-developed characters, great cinematography, a compelling plot, and everything else, but what do any of those things mean? What is a well-developed character? What distinguishes bad cinematography from the good? What makes for a compelling plot as opposed to a boring one? When a critic is specific, when he or she “spoils” the experience, we can see the reasoning behind the evaluation. In fact, here’s an example: When a critic claims a film is too violent, he or she reveals a part of their critical criteria. (However, we are still left to wonder what is to be considered “too violent.”) This is particularly helpful for a reader like myself as if allows me to dismiss, out of hand, the critic’s judgement and look elsewhere whether I should see a particular film or not—likewise for those Puritans who claim a film is “too sexual” or expresses a moral philosophy dissimilar to their own. Strangely, however, it is often those moral crusaders who display “<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass</span></a>” that offer any whiff of support for their opinions. Yet those who regularly view art through an aesthetic lens keep their considerations shrouded in mystery. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The second point I’d like to examine is that when we are aware of a story’s trajectory, understand where it will and will not go, we enjoy it more. And that’s no empty claim either. In 2011, Jonathan D. Leavitt and Nicholas J. S. Christenfeld published "<a href="http://pages.ucsd.edu/~nchristenfeld/Publications_files/Spoilers.pdf"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories</span></a>” in<i> Psychological Science</i>, and the authors were able to demonstrate that “[s]ubjects significantly preferred spoiled over unspoiled stories…. [and though w]riters use their artistry to make stories interesting, to engage readers, and to surprise them…[they] found that giving away these surprises makes readers like stories better.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How can this be if so many people claim that knowing what happens spoils the movie? Leavitt and Christenfeld postulate, “It is possible that spoilers enhance enjoyment by actually increasing tension” and then cite Noël Coward’s “</span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NkVdAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT81&dq=Carroll,+N.+(1996).+The+paradox+of+suspense.&ots=yu2aaR3RpW&sig=23Nv3Sw97Tjebh4hxIjEes90zms#v=onepage&q&f=false" style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The Paradox of Suspense</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">” in </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">Suspense: Conceptualization, Theoretical Analysis, and Empirical Explorations</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">; unfortunately, I am rather skeptical of Coward’s claims therein, which asserts that suspense is “generated in the course of entertaining thoughts that are at variance with our beliefs,” extending Kendall Walton’s theory of the paradox of suspense (the question of how audiences feel suspense even when they know the outcome) from “make-believe” to “imagination.” I find </span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=x00uCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=Yanal,+Robert,+1999,+Paradoxes+of+Emotion+and+Fiction&ots=cS61PJSfQM&sig=QjMSyyIojXoKN3GZOhi-KZTOa-Y#v=onepage&q=Yanal%2C%20Robert%2C%201999%2C%20Paradoxes%20of%20Emotion%20and%20Fiction&f=false" style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Robert Yanal’s explanation</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, in </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">Paradoxes of Emotion and Fiction</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, far more convincing, that a viewer misidentifies the emotion he or she feels: “[E]xperiencing fear is neither itself suspenseful nor is it contingent upon ignorance. (I may know with certainty that my friend will be executed tomorrow, and yet feel fear for him, anxiety over his welfare, etc.)” It is anxiety, not uncertainty, that ensures our enjoyment. And advance knowledge of events does not alleviate anxiety. So why protect an emotion we can feel but once—and only once? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lastly, and I have no science to back this up sadly, but I believe that when we watch a film and concern ourselves with “what happens next,” we miss many important details in order to keep track of the story. Too often have I engaged with others about a film which we have both just seen for the first time, and I am disappointed to find that my interlocutor has missed significant lines of dialogue, subtle juxtapositions through editing, or particularly poignant and thematically resonant compositions, because they were just trying to follow the sequences of events as they unfolded. Many times, before going to see a movie, I look up the synopsis on Wikipedia just so I can avoid such a distraction. This is not to say that plot is unimportant—it is—but to dwell on it exclusively, as we so frequently do, is to fail to recognize the other manifestations of a text’s philosophy. From the highest of the high to the lowest of the low, every film carries a message, an idea, a theme it wants to explore. You may think that <i>The Dark Knight</i> is just popcorn fun, or even a simple morality tale about good versus evil, but that’s because you’re only wondering how Batman can defeat the Joker. Upon closer inspection, you’ll find a complex network of questions, questions about anarchy and order, about fairness and justice, about how to live in our post-9/11 world. (Now that I think of it, the film probably requires a thorough investigation in a future article.) But as long as you’re wondering “what happens next,” you’re liable to miss those carefully crafted touches.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At this point, I’m sure you’re nodding your head in agreement or smashing your phone in frustration, but if you really feel that a spoiler will “ruin” the experience, consider what is facing said ruination. It’s not your enjoyment that has been erased; in fact, you’re likely to enjoy it more. It is that one time feeling of surprise and suspense, the absolute unexpected and uncertain: That is what you are missing out on. But the question you have to ask yourself, the one that matters, is whether it’s worth it. Do you want to disconnect from social media momentarily because someone else might want to share an insight? Do you want to send a nasty email because a critic shared a little too much in their review? Do you really want wring your hands and gnash your teeth over something so trivial, so fleeting? I know I don’t. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;">Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the Ugly Club Podcast. He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;">,</i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;">, and</i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Big Click</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;"> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">@vitogulla</i></span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; line-height: 25.6px;">. </i></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-35200818593708782492016-06-18T15:43:00.000-04:002016-07-18T03:19:23.247-04:00Dissenting Opinions: Captain America: Civil War<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/06/dissenting-opinions-captain-america.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqFqzcaD5ph7wyjT75bn5xpgs-HHiJeS0hRCeVIqHhsFkMEkx3y6E9I17hmsS-7DdbvOT733XtUG340DnNvaMvRFlBT55J4XAJ28p4dcdyckDtc4SNliY_RQZdhEbMLG2QWb1rI5Onao/s640/Captain-America-Civil-War-banner-101.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" target="_blank">@VitoGulla</a> takes down <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Clearly, something is broken in the way we watch movies—or maybe it’s me—because, after the nearly two-and-half hour disappointment that is <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>, I’m beginning to wonder.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">The film has received universal acclaim from critics. <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_america_civil_war/"><span class="s2">With a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes</span></a>, I’m obviously in the minority. <a href="http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/2016/5/5/review-captain-america-civil-war"><span class="s2">Max Weiss of Baltimore Magazine</span></a> writes that “<i>Civil War</i> manages to achieve something <i>BvS</i> never accomplished: It has fun. Marvel films have always found a way to serve the <i>de rigueur</i> self-seriousness of comic book films with a side-order of snappy wise-cracks and snark. Better still, in this case, our dueling superheroes—Captain America and Iron Man—are actually likeable guys.” As far as arguments for quality go, I’m not sure what “fun” is. What exactly does Weiss mean to say? Is she trying to say that the film is successful because she agrees with its tone? This, I find, is not very compelling as far as I’m concerned. In fact, this, if anything, is severely limiting, since this is somehow a criteria for aesthetic evaluation, on what either film—or maybe, at least, comic book film—<i>can</i> be. Furthermore, her suggestion, that, because the characters are “likeable guys,” the movie is therefore good, is even more absurd. For some reason, this seems to be a popular myth in the discourse on the arts, one which presents a foolhardy answer to why we enjoy narratives. The assumption behind this argument is that we cannot empathize with people who we do not like. The problem of such a theory seems to undermine one of narrative’s most important purposes. We are not compelled to empathize only with those whom we would have a beer: We should be compelled to understand the most pitiable and despicable of our species, not just those who have attractive qualities to us. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Alternatively, others have commented on the film in a language which is as meaningless as it is irritating. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/captain-america-civil-war-20160504"><span class="s2">Peter Travers at Rolling Stone</span></a>, who apparently has recently discovered the joy of onomatopoeia, states: “Once the sermons die down, the action intensifies without letup. Pow! Pow! Pow! You only have to pick sides. Are you Team Iron Man or Team Cap?” What exactly Travers is getting at is beyond me. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">And briefly, I’d like to mention that <a href="http://christylemire.com/captain-america-civil-war/"><span class="s2">some</span></a> have <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2016/04/review-captain-america-civil-war-starring-chris-evans-robert-downey-jr-scarlett-johansson-anthony-mackie-don-cheadle-more-292575/"><span class="s2">said</span></a> that Holland’s Spider-Man “is <i>the</i> highlight of the movie.” And while I agree I did find him rather charming as well, on a pure emotional level, it doesn’t make up for the film’s overall schizophrenic attempts at unity. But this, I think, gets at the mistake many have made. Audiences, increasingly commodifying art and making demands on artists themselves, look at films as products, as a fan-service extravaganza, rather than meaningful attempts to document the human condition which are contained within a form. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">At its heart, <i>Captain America: Civil War</i> is about loss and revenge. Bucky has lost his identity. Stark lost his parents—and then later Rhodes. Wanda lost her brother in <i>Age of Ultron</i>. Black Panther lost his father. Zemo lost his family. Most characters are motivated by a quest for revenge. It’s a fine theme for exploration, but unfortunately, the construction of the film holds it back from transforming those ideas into something revelatory. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">First, the film’s structure is a mess. The prologue, which documents Bucky’s mind control and his eventual murder of Stark’s parents, presents a myriad of problems. For one, this scene lacks any sense of context. It is a strategy we find in the piss-poor novels that tend to dominate the <i>New York Times</i>’s Bestsellers List, rather than anything worth a second look. In order to generate “excitement,” the artist gives us a moment in the story which is not fully explained, a scene which will be later reexamined. However, this only serves to create a sense of “mystery.” It tells us nothing about the characters, their goals, or the direction of the plot—not to mention provides zero conflict—which unfortunately falters in comparison to <i>Winter Solider</i>’s far more successful opening. Furthermore, all sense of mystery disappears through multiple viewings. We are supposed to be interested because the picture is incomplete, but when we are already aware of the solution, what would compel us to watch that scene again? The answer, quite unsurprisingly, is nothing. Bucky struggles in his chair as his handler rattles off the activation code, maybe to suggest that he is truly conflicted, but that isn’t very well communicated. Does Bucky, at this point in the film, really not want to do it or does the process just hurt? I have no idea. The emotional effect of the scene is far too ambiguous as is the goal of the character. Of course, even if the Russos couldn’t find a novel visual to express the character’s conflict, a few lines of dialogue would have gone a long way in making the scene express something rather than serve solely to further the plot and force a third act showdown between Cap and Stark, where nothing is really resolved.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Even the subsequent scene, which serves as the catalyst for the rest of the story, is just as context-free, where the Avengers stop Crossbones’s theft of a biological agent but fail to prevent enormous collateral damage. (And frankly, I’m not sure two cold opens in a row makes for compelling viewing.) But, sure, the Avengers want to prevent some kind of plague or whatever and the catastrophe at the end propels the plot, but I’m not entirely how this set-up is in service of the film’s thematic aims. Sadly, in another instance of fan-service, the appearance of Crossbones only exists to connect it to the previous Captain America film. There are some attempts to fold the scene into the overall rhetoric of the text—with the revelation of his scarred face and self-destruction—but again, this largely exists as an excuse to stage a fight, rather than develop our protagonist.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Furthermore, the scene which introduces Spider-Man, arriving near the middle of act two, is just as out of place. He’s just as purposeless as Wonder Woman in <i>Dawn of Justice</i>, but maybe even more ancillary to the plot than the famous Amazon. Stark recruits him for what—I’m not entirely sure. And after the airport scene, Spider-Man, apparently is never to be heard from again, further demonstrating how the movie emphasizes fan-service over thematic resonance and unity. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Black Panther’s shoehorning into the film is just as pointless. In less than five minutes, we meet the character and his father, and then are supposed to be affected by the father’s death. Unfortunately, Black Panther is presented as nothing more than a kiss to his father’s hand. At least, when Luke lost his aunt and uncle in <i>A New Hope</i>, we knew Luke’s motivations and what he wanted before tragedy struck. In Black Panther’s case, he is nothing more than a two-dimensional revenge-seeker, suffering from the same kind of lazy writing seen so often in video games: backstory-explains-character rather than actions-explain-character. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">In fact, the presentation of characters’s motivations seem to be a major problem in this film. The villain, Zemo, is a question mark throughout the film, an enigma who is ruthless but without clear cause—that is until the end of the film when it is revealed that his family had been killed in Sokovia. This, again, privileges mystery over clarity. Who is this character? He wants something to do with Bucky, but for most of his time onscreen, we are completely in the dark as to why. All such a tactic demonstrates is dishonesty and contempt for the audience. In other words, mysteries like these only make the film disposable: There is no demand placed on the viewer, no reward for repeated viewings or careful consideration. We only need to watch the film once, until the revelations have been exposed. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">From a technical point of view, there has been a lot of discussion of the fight scenes in the film. <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2016/04/review-captain-america-civil-war-starring-chris-evans-robert-downey-jr-scarlett-johansson-anthony-mackie-don-cheadle-more-292575/"><span class="s2">Russ Fischer of Indiewire claims</span></a>, “The Russos and their various fight choreographers and visual effects leads design fight sequences with a fluidity that would please Bruce Lee.” Such a statement makes me wonder if Fischer has ever seen a Bruce Lee film or anything out of Hong Kong cinema or even any movie from Asia at large. Shaky cameras, lots of coverage, and a depressing amount of cuts are not hallmarks of the action cinema of Hong Kong. If there’s one thing successful action scenes have in common, whether its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xbw7a0kX8g"><span class="s2">the end of Game of Death</span></a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RwaptQ_rpU"><span class="s2">the hallway fight in Old Boy</span></a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaLvcM-u4ns"><span class="s2">the subway fight in The Matrix</span></a> or even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8wpAkB5PSc"><span class="s2">the rapid cutting of the ladder fight in Once a Upon a Time in China</span></a>, its clarity. I find it somewhat amazing that mega-budget, tent-pole films can’t spend some of that time and money on fight choreography, practice, and storyboards. The only time the camera can focus on the action without cutting away to hide flaws or shaking uncontrollably is when the shot is composed by a computer instead of a camera and human beings. This is painfully obvious during the much hyped airport fight, contrasting the unclear fight choreography of Black Widow and Hawkeye, for example, and the all-animated brawl between giant Ant-Man and War Machine. It would make sense, if, when the action was underway, the edits became more rapid and the camera more uncontrollable, as seen in a film like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzEloJ5venk"><span class="s2">The French Connection</span></a>, to represent the heightened emotion of the scene and frantic pace, but when CGI is the only thing that keeps the camera focused and things clear, the faults of the staging and composition are painfully obvious. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Lastly, returning to the film’s central themes of loss and revenge, these too are buried in mystery. Sure, these things are there, such as when Black Panther explains what is already obvious to Zemo—and to us—“Vengeance has consumed you.” (How Black Panther has come to such an epiphany so quickly is, of course, never explained or realized, considering that last we saw he too was consumed by revenge.) But there’s a certain amount of dissonance when viewed through the story’s main conflict, the signing of the Sokovia Accords and the ideological fight which follows. How does oversight fit into this equation? It does not apparently. It’s either one or the other: Either the movie puts its emphasis on revenge or the ideological tensions of oversight. There might be some overlap with collateral damage, but it doesn’t tie that information together as well as it could. Stark is motivated by the revelation that his actions resulted in the death of a woman’s son, but suddenly by the showdown, he is cool with Cap’s philosophical disagreement only to be then motivated by revenge. In other words, these two themes serve separate interests rather than a unified whole.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: large;">Needless to say, <i>Captain America: Civil War</i> is as overrated as it is overstuffed, full of red herrings, such as the other Winter Soldiers, and “mystery” and “revelation,” like Agent 13 is Sharon Carter. (Oh boy! Shame she’s just as useless as everyone else.) I don’t think it would be out of line to call this movie artless either. The Russos aren’t visionary. They aren’t visual storytellers. They’re completely interchangeable with Joss Whedon or any other director without a sense of visual flair. They come from the world of television, which doesn’t worry itself over the frame, the image. As <a href="http://podcastone.com/Bret-Easton-Ellis-Podcast"><span class="s2">Bret Easton Ellis has bemoaned practically weekly</span></a>, and quite correctly I might add, this thoughtless approach to cinema has reduced it to little more than content, indistinguishable from a multi-camera sit-com or a YouTube vlog. Critics, and audiences, seem eager to celebrate performance and story but hardly appreciate the artistry of framing and composition anymore. After all, film is a visual medium, and while I think the narrative should always be strong and focused and the characters rich and complex, a film that succeeds at neither isn’t worth my time. Or maybe it’s just me. </span></span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px;">Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the Ugly Club Podcast. He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px;">,</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px;">, and</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Big Click</span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px;"> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">@vitogulla</i></span></a><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; line-height: 25.6px;">. </i></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-67485483948466706692016-06-08T11:46:00.000-04:002016-07-18T03:19:38.853-04:00How to Argue About Movies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/06/how-to-argue-about-movies.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4m5viLEmSHUM5APDQPgigcD9Z1h34gg4CKutV2NoVHefSJdWXXYIqB0knTuYTkf8Z3PEPxTScxCeIBLBsHTV1adOUwZ9QrS15mHyAEb_tBpE2WoAaIIq2PSYfHLpxiuUnottRTugt63I/s640/The+rules+of+smart+arguing_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.twitter.com/vitogulla" target="_blank">@vitogulla</a> offers some tips on proper critical etiquette. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Recently, I went to see <i>Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice</i> with a couple contributors to the Ugly Club, and though I left the theater recognizing that the film had its fair share of flaws, <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/04/dissenting-opinions-batman-v-superman.html"><span class="s2">I, overall, enjoyed the experience</span></a>, finding it to be a solid film because of its ability to convey its themes and use of mise-en-scene, even if the movie had two third acts and pointlessly inserted Wonder Woman into the mix. One of my fellow viewers, however, did not feel the same, saying, at one point during the film, “Fuck Zack Snyder.” Afterward, I explained why I liked it and asked my interlocutor what was so bad about it. (As the podcast’s resident contrarian, I enjoy a good argument.) But to my surprise, he failed to provide any support for his claim: Nothing came to mind. And as I became more combative, more vehement in my questioning, he fell back on his position, saying, it was just a bad movie. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This, I think, is indicative of what I’ve <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/05/review-nice-guys.html"><span class="s2">been saying</span></a> for <a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/05/dissenting-opinions-fifth-element.html"><span class="s2">some time</span></a>: People tend to view art without a careful, considerate eye. This is not to say that my friend was stupid, but that he was not thinking while watching the film. Instead, he relied on feeling, instinct, gut reaction. These are good places to start for any critic, but they can only get us so far. If the goal of criticism is, as <a href="http://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/the-function-of-criticism-at-the-present-time/"><span class="s2">Matthew Arnold put it famously in “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time,”</span></a> to obey “an instinct prompting it to try to know the best that is known and thought in the world…and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations whatever,” then our feelings are not good enough. I can’t quantify my sadness when Han Solo is frozen in carbonite or my happiness when Luke blows up the Death Star. Therefore, then on what grounds do we base our criticism?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The obvious place to start is what we provide to validate our claims: “It had good character development,” “it had bad cinematography,” “it was too long.” These start the conversation off alright but only lead us to further questions. What is “good” character development? What is “bad” cinematography? What is “too long”? Can a movie be no more than two hours in order to be good? These assessments typically breakdown at a certain point as each side resorts to tautology, avoiding the very underpinnings of what makes good good and what makes bad bad. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, one of the thorniest problems when discussing any art is defining the terms of the debate, and film criticism is no different. We all recognize that art appreciation is inherently subjective. Your friend may not like this movie while you adore it; on the other hand, you may think that film is the worst picture ever made while your friend believes it’s not too bad. What it comes down to, however, is the ability to communicate those points effectively. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Fortunately, we can quickly eliminate some things which are obviously not criticism. As I already mentioned, your feelings about a film mean very little. They cannot be observed by another. It is something that is literally unknowable outside the person who has experienced them. <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/essay/criticism-inc-0"><span class="s2">John Crowe Ransom, in his essay “Criticism Inc.,”</span></a> calls these “personal registrations” and states that “[t]he first law to be prescribed to criticism, if we may assume such authority, is that it shall be objective, shall cite the nature of the object rather than its effects upon the subject.” And of course, we can also eliminate synopsis or summary, which seems to be every high school English student’s favorite method of “insight” and “analysis.” This is not criticism as it confuses judgement with a replication of the content therein. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Now we can start. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While this may be a little reductionist, and likely offensive to some of my colleagues in academia, I think most schools of criticism can be categorized by three different philosophies of aesthetics. The first of these is the formalist approach. </span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When you look at a film, what do you notice? Are you paying careful attention to the framing and composition of a shot? Do you notice subtle uses of editing? Are you listening to the dialogue? Did you notice a motif in the score? Are you focused on the plot? All of these things are inextricably valuable as they cannot be separated from one another and construct the greater unity of the text itself. When you notice these things, you’re engaging in a formalist approach to criticism. You’re thinking about how these disparate elements create and convey meaning. This is what allows you to ground your argument on something tangible. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Take a look at this still from <i>Citizen Kane</i>. </span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Here, we can milk out some of its intentions. Look at the composition. You’ll notice that Kane’s mother is the closest to the frame, making her the largest. Based on the context of the scene, we can infer that her placement is not random but purposeful. Her size is relative to her importance and her control of little Kane’s life as she signs him away. Notice how she is dressed: not a hair out of place, her clothes stiffly pressed as is the man beside her. But then look at her husband on the other side of the frame. He’s unkempt, disheveled, and relegated to the background. She isn’t even looking at him as she speaks, denoting his complete lack of control and frustration. And then, in the very back, through the window, we see Kane playing in the snow, which reminds us of the snow globe he drops in the film’s introductory scene. Kane has no say in the matter, left out in the cold. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Little observations such as these serve as the evidence we can use to support our claims of whether a film is bad or good. If you want to make a grand assessment of the quality of a movie, you have base it on little details such as these. In fact, any other form of criticism more or less starts here, what literary scholars call, a close reading. We use a plethora of little examples to defend our overall judgement. Essentially, a film is a series of choices—performance choices, blocking choices, framing choices, editing choices, audio choices, narrative choices, et cetera—and those choices should exist in service of the text’s overall purpose. And by purpose, I do not mean the simplistic suggestion that it exists to entertain us: I mean that the film has an idea, a message, a philosophy it wants to examine and express. In the case of <i>Citizen Kane</i>, we could also discuss its disjointed, fragmented structure, its use of lighting, the ideas it expresses through dialogue, et cetera. All of these a ripe for investigation. And only after close examination of these elements, can you declare its quality one way or the other. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, the formalist approach is not without its blindspots as it often ignores other aspects of a film in service of pure aesthetics, but regardless of your criteria, <i>you have to start here</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The next approach to consider is moral/ethical criticism. This, as I’ve mentioned before, can only be undertaken <i>after</i> you’ve decided on the film’s meaning. Here what makes a film worth watching is its moral/ethical implications. This is a decidedly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_View_of_the_Immorality_and_Profaneness_of_the_English_Stage"><span class="s2">old</span></a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histriomastix"><span class="s2">way</span></a> of approaching a text, one which often relies on concepts like “poetic justice” and is <a href="http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2000/october23/34.113.html"><span class="s2">typical of the religious right</span></a>. Furthermore, this can be difficult topic to broach when the moral/ethical philosophy isn’t clear cut. Though it may prove useful when talking about something that is <i>literally</i> advocating for racism like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ871wZd7UY"><span class="s2">Birth of a Nation</span></a>. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lastly, there is what I’ll erroneously classify as cultural studies, in which I’d include African-American criticism, feminist criticism, Marxist criticism, and a whole host of others, and its probably the type of criticism you encounter on Twitter or Tumblr on a daily basis, typically accompanied by the word “<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=problematic"><span class="s2">problematic</span></a>.” (By the way, <a href="https://theawl.com/the-internet-has-a-problem-atic-efc33890daad%23.5bovc4sqg"><span class="s2">stop using “problematic”</span></a> <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/society/the-problem-with-problematic/"><span class="s2">to describe works of art</span></a>.) This avenue is shares some similarities with the moral/ethical schools but not nearly as narrow-minded. Again, this requires that first step of unpacking the meaning of the text before moving forward. Here, you investigate the biases of a text and how it expresses them. This typically requires you to consider how the film promotes racism, sexism, xenophobia, et cetera. Fortunately, when it’s obvious, it’s pretty damn obvious: </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, it still requires us to examine what’s in the frame. The image above is from <i>Birth of a Nation</i> and takes place in the South Carolina legislature. Notice how the black characters—who are state legislators!—are portrayed. One has his shoes off; another is eating chicken. This is not “professional” behavior expected of our elected officials. Not to mention, these are white actors in blackface. And in fact, all of the black characters of the film fall into very particular categories: rapists, fools, backstabbers, or loyal servants. There isn’t a single black character who isn’t a negative stereotype. It should go without saying that this film goes out of its way to express its hatred of black Americans. Unfortunately, in most cases, there is a lot more uncertainty when it comes to meaning.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When you encounter this kind of criticism on the social media panopticon, rarely will you find much in the way of support for these kinds of claims. Most times, people only point to something highly <a href="http://www.apple.com/"><span class="s2">debatable</span></a> or <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/770032/rose-mcgowan-says-x-men-apocalypse-billboard-depicts-casual-violence-against-women"><span class="s2">extraneous</span></a>, and assume that it is self-evident, unworthy of the close reading required to support such an argument. (<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Defending-Your-Ignorance-of/236493"><span class="s2">Keep in mind that these opinions are usually voiced by people for whom film history or critical theory were not a part of their education</span></a>.) This, needless to say, is as useless as flatly stating that a film is “good” without some kind of justification. And a quick word of caution for those who chose to go down this road, this approach regularly serves to <a href="https://www.academia.edu/587888/Misogyny_is_Everywhere"><span class="s2">validate the critic’s biases</span></a>. This isn’t to say that cultural studies is without its merits—it does have them—but if it is based on “depriving the subject…of its role as originator, and of analyzing the subject as a variable and complex function of discourse,” as Foucault puts forth in “<a href="http://www.movementresearch.org/classesworkshops/melt/Foucault_WhatIsAnAuthor.pdf"><span class="s2">What is an Author?</span></a>,” then the grounds of the debate shift from the text to culture and brings up a myriad of difficult philosophical questions about the nature of the self, its place in society, and the functions of power—none which really make for a particularly useful discussion about a specific movie or movies in general. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">You’ll notice I didn’t include <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/are-we-too-concerned-that-characters-be-likable.html"><span class="s2">likable characters</span></a> or <a href="http://www.avclub.com/article/ghostbusters-frozen-and-strange-entitlement-fan-cu-237139"><span class="s2">representation</span></a> or anything of the sort (concepts that I hope to explore in greater detail another time). Nor did I mention the auteur. All of these things are impositions. They are, as far as the conversation on quality and value is concerned, irrelevant. What you wanted doesn’t count for anything. It’s not your movie. (And <a href="http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/fallacy.htm"><span class="s2">it doesn’t matter what</span></a> <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/Barthes.pdf"><span class="s2">the director wanted either</span></a>.) It should go without saying—or maybe it shouldn’t depending on what type of English teacher you had—that meaning is not fixed. It cannot be deciphered. There are no right answers when discussing a film or any art form for that matter. What matters is that if you’re going to tell me that a movie is good or bad, you had better have some reasons to back it up, because “I liked it” isn’t an argument, and it’s certainly not evidence. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Vito Gulla is a regular contributor to the Ugly Club Podcast. He holds an MFA from Wilkes University in creative writing and teaches English at Delaware County Community College and Lincoln University. You can find his fiction on the web in</i> <a href="https://pitheadchapel.com/pieta-or-the-antithesis-of-time/"><span class="s3">Pithead Chapel</span></a><i>,</i> <a href="http://www.mulberryforkreview.com/mulberry-fork-review/issue-archive/"><span class="s3">Mulberry Fork Review</span></a><i>, and</i> <a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/high-score/"><span class="s3">The Big Click</span></a><i> and follow him on Twitter </i><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla"><span class="s3"><i>@vitogulla</i></span></a><i>. </i></span></span></div>
Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-84207776362885894952016-06-01T08:38:00.000-04:002016-07-08T16:23:35.514-04:00Redboxing: The Finest Hours<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.uglyclubpodcast.com/2016/06/redboxing-finest-hours.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNlBSamBvPz5sIX43UrV00IcNkeZBLx1xBxPDodpm2wIbQbwVzovKpFbTCeuhHq2pNIu6JDPG1UWUtqlpQDb5Db8wBZHcAFeH9x4N9oj92muAZb1E4kgXWS5XkFJDMv7GCd9Usj2mncwE/s640/The-Finest-Hours-Banner303.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Finest Hours</i> is a safe, inoffensive, mid-budget action-adventure. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Attractive white actors play good-hearted people just trying to do their best in a bad </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">situation. It’s staged and directed competently and by-the-book. There is exactly enough conflict </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to keep us interested without any aggressive stylizing or moral ambiguity. The entire film is set </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to medium.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1952, the SS <i>Pendleton </i>is split in half by a nor’easter off the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">coast of New England. Coast Guard crewman Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) leads a skeleton crew </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of misfits in a daring attempt to rescue the surviving sailors. Meanwhile, Ray Sybert (Casey </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Affleck), the <i>Pendleton’s </i>chief engineer, attempts to rally a skeptical and downtrodden crew into </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the fight of their lives. Back home, Bernie’s fiancee Miriam (Holliday Grainger) waits for word, </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">desperate to see her true love again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On paper, <i>The Finest Hours</i> is your dad’s favorite movie. Chris Pine stands </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">at the helm of a ship, spins the wheel, and looks determined. Casey Affleck is a diminutive </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">engineer whose selfless ingenuity saves the lives of men who hold him in contempt. There are </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">giant CGI waves and pretty girls crying in medium close-ups. People are told to “hold on!” and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“look out!” It’s all very exciting. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At least, it should be. Rather than push these heroes to their physical and mental limits, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">however, the film takes refuge in safe politics and bland ideals. Everyone is a hero and no one is </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">to blame for anything. Webber (apparently our protagonist) sails his ship in a straight line while </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">his men cheer him on. Sometimes they fall into the water, but things mostly work out and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">everyone always does the right thing. Miriam leads a group of everyday people who help out in </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Everyday People Ways. Even Sybert’s harassment at the hands of the <i>Pendleton’</i>s<i> </i>curmudgeonly </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">seamen is understandable and even-tempered considering he spends most of the film talking to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">his shoes. They eventually rally behind him, however, because good people are trusting people, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">and these are most definitely Good People.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This isn’t to suggest that a group of disciplined and conscientious sailors can’t really work </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">together or that the <i>Pendleton’</i>s incredible story isn’t worthy of a big-screen adaption. But these </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">characters are bland, prosaic lumps who lack the complexity and contradiction of real human </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">beings. Pine and Affleck both play sheepish, detached geniuses, career underdogs who somehow </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">lack any flaws. Grainger is an old-fashioned doll who serves only to give Pine something to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">literally point his boat at. Eric Bana is completely wasted as Cluff, the Head Idiot in Charge </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">without any real power. A complete lack of character leads to a complete lack of theme - it’s a </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">film that wants to be about bravery, perseverance, and the kind of warm and reassuring love that </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">brings us home to each other every night. Instead, well, it’s just about two hours long. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It’s frustrating as a fan of both lead actors to see them wasted in this way, and one can’t help but </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">wonder if this film was some kind of contractual obligation. <i>The Finest Hours</i> banks on the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">star power and charisma of Chris Pine while simultaneously asking him to leave both at the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">door. It encourages Casey Affleck, fierce and passionate in the right role, to stare at the floor and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">sigh with indifference. This leaves us with yet another bloated and lifeless Event Film that serves </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">artifice instead of story or character. There’s absolutely zero chemistry or brotherhood to be </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">found anywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Craig Gillespie (<i>Fright Night 2011, Million Dollar Arm</i>) directs with a workmanlike style </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">common to journeyman filmmakers. There’s a bit of interesting composition here and there, but </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">he’s often hobbled by an over-reliance on mid-budget computer effects and a sleepy tone. The </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">cartoonish action lacks urgency, and none of the characters are provoked past cautious </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">optimism. Javier Aguirresarobe’s soft-focus cinematography invokes that of Janusz Kaminski </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">but lacks his dynamic eye for depth and texture. The entire thing ends up feeling flat and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">generic. Happy Memorial Day, I guess.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Rob DiCristino writes and podcasts for The Ugly Club (@uglyclubpodcast). Follow him on Twitter @RobDiCristino. He mostly tweets about Ben Affleck.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738913215613003817.post-62648819319043730422016-05-31T14:32:00.001-04:002016-06-27T16:49:53.354-04:00Podcast Episode 71: Quest for Fire Commentary Track<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_71_Quest_for_Fire_Commentary_Track.mp3" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2un_OCC2W3pyFunXQJVrlhmhv1-ZWwYI6Hbe_f5Z19bvJnslIgQc97_8F4ZSgUNhl-N_VxH5QAieqkevt0uvaJS1KYNEV6h6793jxFjhc5ZbNeaWErcMSZprbFuGojxuSBq3ehAmFpxM/s640/MPW-12965.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">All Garret's dreams are finally coming true: We're watching <i>Quest for Fire</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Click <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78681620/Podcast_Episode_71_Quest_for_Fire_Commentary_Track.mp3">here</a> to listen to Episode 71.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Note: This is possibly the least informative commentary track ever recorded by anyone.</i></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/uglyclubpodcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@UglyClubPodcast</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/sarHenrythe8th" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@SarHenryThe8th</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/vitogulla" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; line-height: 25.6px; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">@VitoGulla</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Find us on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast/id932008401?mt=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ugly-club-podcast" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I5exk6u53eonwfs7t6qdk3np64y" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Google Play</a>, and at <a href="http://christophermedia.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">ChristopherMedia.net</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 25.6px;"></span></span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 25.6px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: large;">Song: "Who Likes to Party?" by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #fc3300; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s;">Kevin MacLeod</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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Ugly Club Podcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07222784071713718690noreply@blogger.com1