that's a tomato... no wait, that's a fetus.

[intertribal]

Title from the ever brilliant KSK.  Talk about my only light in dark times.

From the NYTimes (Oscar-Nominated Films Deliver Triumphant Tales for Dark Days): "And the best-film nominees this year — give or take “The Reader,” which has the Holocaust as a central concern — reflect an appetite on the part of the Academy, and by proxy, the public, for a nice, big chunk of uplift...  Consumers who are motivated by the laurels heaped on these films to plunk down increasingly scarce disposable income will leave the movie house with the message that circumstance is just that, and no match for the indomitability of human will. The films are built on individual successes — kids from the slums who better themselves, a television celebrity who finds his inner newsman, a newborn who overcomes old age and the midlife closeted man who steps into the light — that accrue to the greater good. That message, that darkness can be overcome by individuals working for the common good, is not so distant from the current collective impulse."

Why did How Green Is My Valley beat out the "vastly superior" Citizen Kane for Best Picture in 1941?  Why, could it be because How Green Is My Valley had a more uplifting message about family togetherness?

I assign the entire Oscar committee to watch Hot Fuzz, and meanwhile I guess I'm rooting for The Reader, even though I've never seen it.  Ha ha ha.

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

for some reason we're reading schmitt in the middle of aristotle, too. it's like: aristotle, aristotle, schmitt, aristotle, aristotle, aristotle, hobbes.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

at least you're not reading Plato. But Aristotle was my third-least-favorite political theory dude, after Plato and Burke. Ha ha ha, Burke.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I hate Plato too. I sorta like Aristotle, but I dunno about his politics...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

All I've read by Aristotle is "Politics". It wasn't awful... but like, I don't remember any of it, at all, and that doesn't strike me as a good thing considering how much time we spent on him.

Well, I guess I'm ok with the Aristotlian tragedy, or whatever.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i'll get back to you on "Politics" when we've finished it. I just like Aristotle 'cause he's prolific, way better than Plato, the predecessor to the scholastics and sign theory, and an empiricist.

i think we don't read Plato 'cause we're also supposed to have read The Republic in Hum 110 (even though I don't remember much of it).

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, I wouldn't know much about that other stuff Aristotle did. I agree that he is way better than Plato, though, and that empiricism helps.

The Republic... ew. That's all I have to say. But I've had a strong dislike of Plato since AP Lang. You know who did like Plato? Anika.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I just remember hating what I read of the Republic, and especially that even though I disagreed, I had a hard time arguing against it. We read Plato in AP Lang? Hm, I do remember the socratic dialogue bit... Haha, oh, Anika.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Plato's tricksy that way. I'm pretty sure we first read about The Goddamned Cave in AP Lang. Anika was obsessed with the idea that this table was not the Real table, that there was a Real table somewhere... out there. With Jesus, probably.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

LOL. Ah, yeah, the Cave, I remember now.