Considering the Sequels is a monthly film podcast that examines the merits and weaknesses of specific movie franchises. In Episode 10 we consider the original “Star Wars” trilogy. And, as always, we each give Mini Reviews of recent film releases and whatever else we’ve been watching lately. This episode proudly features two special guests: Dave3 of Geeks of Doom.com and “Star Wars” Guru Steve Hernandez.
Listen here => http://bit.ly/fr6zhf
Considering the Sequels is a monthly film podcast that examines the merits and weaknesses of specific movie franchises. In Episode 9 we consider the “Star Wars” Prequel trilogy with special guest Steve Hernandez, a Classical Studies scholar and “Star Wars” guru. This episode also includes a Concept Discussion in which we’ll analyze Robert Zemeckis’s “Cast Away.” And, as always, we each give Mini Reviews of recent film releases and whatever else we’ve been watching lately.
Listen to this episode here: http://bit.ly/ggowod
Thanks,
JP
Recently I went over to my good friend Jason’s new house to check it out. In the interest of full disclosure – it happens to be the very same Jason who is the purveyor of this here blog.
It is Jason and his lovely wife Natalie’s first home purchase. And I must say they picked a dandy. As Jason was giving me the grand tour, I noticed that the basement was unfinished; and as men are want to do – I started imagining all the possibilities just waiting to be created in the always exciting art of home theater. At this point I hadn’t said anything out loud.
When we got back upstairs to the kitchen where Natalie was working on something with their cute son Davy, I braved the friendly air with a casual: “You know it’s great that the basement isn’t finished yet cuz we can pre-wire it for a nice home theater!”
At this point Natalie looked at me with a hint of a smile - but try as her body most assuredly did, she could not force back the inevitable rolling of the eyes that is almost as natural as blinking for women when they are forced (consciously) to think about anything that has electricity flowing through it.
Now at my age, I’ve learned to overlook such blasphemy from the unwashed, and put it down to a lack of (audio/video) education. It reminds of a time when I was first married (now 20 years ago) and my wife would look at me with disgust and disdain after I had just purchased yet another piece of audio or video gear. It took many years of proving over and over again why something was better or improved and how it added joy to our home movie viewing.
One of the things that didn’t help was the fact that for every new piece of gear that you would buy – another remote control was added to the arsenal. And finally after a while – our coffee table started hinting that an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) factory was just in the other room. It seemed that manufacturers would never come together to solve this very unfriendly-to-wives situation.
Enter Logitech. That’s right – the famous computer mouse and keyboard making company that we’ve all come to love as one of the best makers of cool working devices for communicating with our beloved PC’s. About 6 years ago they decided to buy a little company called Harmony. A company whose name was so inspired – it seemed as if God himself had a hand in it - probably to ward off the ever increasing divorce rate from out of control husbands who couldn’t figure out why their wives had a problem with 14 remotes!
Harmony had started building remote controls that were designed to control ALL of your gear! Imagine only having to pick up one remote and you could control all 10+ devices in your system!
Harmony’s idea was so beautiful and simple – that it’s one of those that you wonder why it took so long in the computer age. Harmony’s idea was to take their remote, hook it up to your computer via a USB cord, fire up the Harmony remote program and tell the program the brand and model number of each piece of gear that you wanted it to control. It would then program the remote with the correct codes and voila! But they didn’t stop there. They also programmed the remote for your system so that whatever activity you were going to do – watch TV or DVD or play a video game – it would know which devices to turn on AND which inputs and settings to set each device on. Couldn’t you just hear the angels singing? I could.
They even went one better and included a HELP button. Which is designed that if during the setup of a particular activity – something didn’t get set right – you just hit the help button and it re-runs the macro and then asks you a series of questions to see if everything is as it should be.
After I bought my first Harmony remote – (that’s right – I’ve owned a few and currently have 2 – one for each room) my wife no longer looked at me with that hint of “what made me say yes to you all those years ago?”
It’s these little inventions that bring man and woman together; and let’s face it, ensure that we can keep buying more crap and not be single again.
After years of me teaching my wife how an audio system should sound or how a calibrated TV should look – she finally gets it AND more importantly – appreciates it.
I remember the tear in my eye a couple of years ago when she came home from a friend’s house and said to me – “They were watching a movie or something and I could tell that their TV was way out of whack! – It made me appreciate ours more” Honey – you had me at “I could tell”.
Having children and watching them grow up is awesome – but having your wife notice when someone else system isn’t as good as yours? That’s a keeper.
So remember gents – harmony in the home is worth its weight in gold. A Harmony remote? – Priceless.
As the official podcast of this site, Considering the Sequels is a monthly film podcast that examines the merits and weaknesses of specific movie franchises, as well as other cinematic matters.In Episode 8 we consider the “Red Riding” trilogy. This episode also includes a Concept Discussion in which we’ll discuss the idea of the “life-changing movie” and if such a thing exists. And, as always, we each give Mini Reviews of recent film releases and whatever else we’ve been watching lately.
Listen to Episode 8 here: http://bit.ly/f3tLZs
As the official podcast of this site, Considering the Sequels is a monthly film podcast that examines the merits and weaknesses of specific movie franchises. But the bonus episode we just posted varies from our usual format and gives us the opportunity to discuss the job description of a director and the industry phrase “execution dependent,” while comparing and contrasting “The Cave” and “The Descent.”
Listen to this episode here: http://bit.ly/fvv64J
Jason
by Jason Pyles
In late March, the official podcast of this site — the Considering the Sequels podcast — will have a bonus episode on “Extreme and Shock Cinema.” (We’ll post it at ctspodcast.com in April.) We’re going to investigate the morality, utility and social repercussions of filmmaking that graphically depicts the dregs of human depravity. Our discussion won’t be for the faint of heart, so be ye warned.
Though comparatively mild it may be, the infamous Japanese film, Batoru rowaiaru — aka “Battle Royale” (2000) still falls upon the fringes of this extreme, macabre film movement.
Reading from the Internet Movie Database’s plot description, “In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill one another under the revolutionary ‘Battle Royale’ act.”
So what you’ve got here, is a dystopian society, of sorts, where military-types gather a group of 14-year-old kids into a room and explain that they have to engage in mortal combat, in an every-man-for-himself, last-man-standing fight to the death. And to illustrate their seriousness, the military instructors kill a kid or two in front of their classmates to demonstrate that the same fate will surely befall them if they don’t participate.
So, these kids must fight or die, with the objective to kill every last person — even friends, love interests and siblings. No mercy. The solitary winner will be set free. Each child is given a small “kit” that includes one weapon. These weapons vary in their utility. Some “weapons” really aren’t weapons at all. And most of the kids aren’t natural-born killers, though they must learn quickly or else.
The violence is fairly graphic, which is unsettling, since the perpetrators and victims are so young.
You might have guessed that, upon its release, this film instantly became a cult classic. And really, it is “a trip” to watch. It’s a little hard to believe your eyes sometimes. It’s just so weird.
As I’ve thought about “Battle Royale” and other entries of extreme cinema, I’ve noticed that these films and the milder horror genre, in general, reduce down to two primal elements: fear and sorrow.
Through myriad illustrations of unthinkable violence, extreme cinema and the horror genre are fueled by intense fear and profound sadness. Now, these movies aren’t for everyone. I’m personally not even into regular horror movies, really — let alone shock cinema. But there is no denying that there is an enthusiastic audience for such filmmaking.
So, speaking about that audience from a place of curiosity and not condemnation — what is it about the human condition that draws so many people to become fascinated by the aspects of life that we instinctively tend to avoid the most — fear, sorrow and death? (The only one I didn’t mention here was “fire,” but many of these films also use fire to great effect, as well.)
This is something we’ll explore in our podcast, we hope, in non-judgmental terms. But in short, I think when it comes to viewing taboo atrocities — such as ninth-graders being forced to kill one another — we are so hard-wired to steer clear of such things, having been raised by “proper society,” that we are paradoxically drawn to them. It’s that age-old principle, if you want someone to press the red button, all you have to say is, “...and under no circumstances whatsoever — whatever you do — don’t press this red button.” At that point, we simply have to press the red button. We must, and we do.
Many, perhaps most, humans have a morbid curiosity and fascination with the macabre because those things are so far outside our circle of daily, monotonous experience.
And I guess in some, sick way, “Battle Royale” serves as some kind of twisted wish-fulfillment: I mean, if we’re perfectly honest with ourselves, who among us didn’t have at least one person in junior high that we would have liked to knock off?
