Pophistory: music, movies, history, and life.
Official Comedy put together this trailer putting together scenes from six movies starring Tom Hanks, imagining if they all made up one film. Check out the trailer for Tom Hanks: The Movie.
Movies featured in the trailer are Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Cast Away (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Captain Phillips (2013), and Toy Story (1995).
What is your favorite Tom Hanks movie? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Vashi Nedomansky has put together a video examining Alfred Hitchock’s movie Rope (1948), which starred Jimmy Stewart. Chimesfreedom earlier explored the real-life crime that inspired the film, but Nedomansky focuses on an interesting technical aspect of the movie. While watching the movie, one senses there are no edits or cuts. But Nedomansky illustrates how there are actually ten cuts, some less obvious than others.
If you have never seen the film, note that the following video contains spoilers. If you have seen Rope, or do not mind the spoilers, check out How Alfred Hitchcock hid 10 Edits in Rope.
How Alfred Hitchcock hid 10 Edits in ROPE from Vashi Nedomansky on Vimeo.
What is your favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
MSN Entertainment put together this short entertaining look at the five most overused songs in movies. Check out “Geeking Out On…The Most Overused Songs in Movies.”
In case you do not have the three minutes to watch the video, the songs are “Hallelujah,” “Bad to the Bone,” “Born to Be Wild,” “Let’s Get it On,” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It does not seem to be a scientific survey, but those songs are good picks.
What do you think is the most overused song in movies? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Several Chimesfreedom posts have touched on the theories of sociologist Ernest Becker. Among other things, Becker’s book Denial of Death has inspired artists including Woody Allen and writer Don DeLillo. I also own a documentary about Becker’s theories, so wanted to point out this interesting film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality (2003) for anyone who might be interested.
In a superficial nutshell, Ernest Becker wrote about how humans are unique creatures because our intelligence gives us an understanding of something inevitable and horrible. One day we — and everyone we know — will die. This knowledge is so disturbing, Becker reasoned, that we subconsciously suppress this knowledge on a daily basis. In so doing, we subconsciously use other ideas to help us suppress our fears. Thus, we seek out things that help us feel immortal to buy the idea that we may one day die. For example, we root for sports teams because our attachment to a team that will survive and triumph makes us feel connected to something eternal.
But these attachments can have bad effects too. If I have a belief that helps me deal with my subconscious fear of death, your belief that is inconsistent with mine may make me feel threatened. As a result, our subconscious fear of death can make us hostile to people with different views from us. Interestingly, a number of scientists have been exploring these theories and are seeing results of how they affect our every day lives, influencing everything from voting to wars.
Anyway, that is my attempt to summarize some of the ideas in a couple of paragraphs, but the film Flight from Death does a better job of explaining it. In the film, a number of writers, philosophers, and Terror Management Theory scientists discuss the way that our subconscious fear of death can impact our lives. Some of the commentators in the film include Sam Keen, Robert Jay Lifton, Irvin Yalom, Merlyn Mowrey, Sheldon Solomon, and Daniel Liechty. It is one of the rare documentaries that can change the way you look at your life.
The film is narrated by Gabriel Byrne, and while the film is no longer available on YouTube, you may find some clips there, such as this 10-minute clip (or watch the whole film on Amazon
What do you think of Flight from Death? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
The new space film, Gravity (2013), starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, is getting rave reviews. The movie about two characters who end up floating in space features great special effects, fine acting, and drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
If you have seen the trailer, you know what to expect. The movie does not waste time with a back story leading up to the accident, where debris from a Russian satellite destroys the U.S. space shuttle and sets Bullock and Clooney adrift. The rest of the movie features their attempts to stay alive and get back home.
Without saying more about the plot, the movie features plenty of action and drama, reminding me of Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000), where a human struggled to get back to civilization and learned about himself along the way. Director Alfonso Cuarón, who also directed the wonderful Children of Men (2006), has a special eye for creating other worlds while still staying focused on character.
For a film set in space, Gravity is a very intimate film, with Clooney and Bullock carrying the entire story. Clooney’s character makes great use of the actor’s charm, and Bullock provides a solid center as a scientist who appears to be in over her head. We do, however, hear some other voices. As required for any movie about NASA such as The Right Stuff (1983), Ed Harris appears. Here he is the voice for mission control as he was for Apollo 13 (1995).
The movie is playing in both 3D and 2D. I had the unusual experience of getting to see part of the movie in both forms, as the theater made a mistake and showed my 3D audience the first 20-30 minutes in 2D and then, realizing its mistake, began the movie from the start in 3D. While, I still enjoyed the 2D version, Gravity is a movie where it is worth the extra bucks for 3D, as the shots of people and items in space, as well as the earth in the background, are spectacular.
Conclusion? If you like space movies or desert island adventures, you will enjoy Gravity. I do suggest you avoid reading many of the glowing reviews, as they may raise your expectations too high for a solid movie that has many traditional elements. Gravity is not as challenging as recent space or sci-fi movies like Moon (2009), Clooney’s Solaris (2002), or Cuarón’s Children of Men. But it is definitely worthwhile. I give the film eight chimes out of ten.
What did you think of Gravity? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
