Fountainhead Cameo

Posted by Scott Hughes Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:35:00 GMT

I watched the trailer for the upcoming film A Scanner Darkly and a brief cameo of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead caught my eye. It looks like an interesting movie. I kind of like the art style, where real actors are colored over. I’m not sure if it’ll get old after a few minutes, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

A Scanner Darkly

The character shown holding the book is not the best advocate for Ayn Rand’s novels. The scene leading up to this one showed him screaming about something in his hair (the government?), then he’s staring down the barrel of a weapon held by a guy in a suit who has a head with a hundred eyes. There are obvious dystopian overtones here, which makes me wonder why he wasn’t reading Atlas Shrugged.

Update: Figured out why he’s holding a copy of The Fountainhead… From the pages of A Scanner Darkly:

He spent several days deciding on the artifacts. Much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself, and approximately the same time required to get that many reds. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (which would prove he had been a misunderstood superman rejected by the masses and so, in a sense, murdered by their scorn) and an unfinished letter to Exxon protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way he would indict the system and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved.

Ugh… What an awful interpretation of the book. Roark rejected the “masses” (or rather the idea that society was more important than the individual); he didn’t give a damn if society at large did likewise to him.

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Genetic Memory

Posted by Scott Hughes Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:21:00 GMT

Dear Hollywood,

I’ve noticed your latest crutch for movie plots which has appeared in a number of recent films: Genetic Memory (i.e. offspring or clones share the memory experience of their genetic parents). I’d like to be the first to let you know that the entire idea of Genetic Memory is stupid and isn’t based on any sort of science. Frankly, those of us who are familiar with science are beyond bored of it. If you have any scripts on the burner which use Genetic Memory as a plot device, I’d suggest doing a rewrite.

There could be some other interesting questions on cloning that you could raise besides Genetic Memory. For example, if cloning became commonplace, wouldn’t we be more susceptible to a pandemic disease? Now that’s a legitimate concern.

Note how there used to be a good number of movies about the dangers of radiation and the atomic bomb? Now we laugh at the titles of these films because we recognize the patent ridiculousness of the idea that an atomic bomb test could create a skyscraper-sized spider. In 20 or so years, you are at risk of becoming that guy.

I would even go so far as to say that when you had hackers surfing around a 3d computer interface you were closer to reality than when a clone shares a memory experience of the clonee. Lets just go back to that one; you can make us all scared of the internet again.

Sincerely,

Scott

p.s. - I am available for free consultation (within reasonable time constraints) on any script that you need technical advisement on.

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I'm very disappointed with you...

Posted by Scott Hughes Mon, 10 Oct 2005 21:50:00 GMT

We had a conversation a couple of weekends ago about how you destroyed the beyond excellent tv series Firefly by not watching it. I had hoped that you learned your lesson and you were going to take this second chance you’ve been given. Unfortunately, it seems that on Serenity’s second weekend, more of you decided to see The Gospel than a movie about space cowboys. Are you completely out of your respective minds?!

To help sweeten the pot, Universal has now started offering a 9 minute free preview of the movie so you can better decide if it’s something you’d enjoy. That’s a really generous offer; don’t be ungrateful.

My personal review of the movie is that it is an excellent and fun film. I am too biased to say whether or not you have to be a fan of the show to enjoy the film, but I want to believe anyone can enjoy it. I did have a disagreement or two with the film… For example, that bad thing that happened that most are upset about. Not only was that a “shock” moment, but it’s an excellent example of bad fiction. I don’t go to the movies to see random maladies afflict good people for no good reason. If that’s your kind of thing, you can get plenty of it by watching documentary shows like Trauma: Life in the ER. It actually turns my stomach a little that the scene made it into the final cut. But, the fact that I feel so strongly about that scene, yet I still enjoyed the movie, should be a considered a good sign that the rest of the movie makes up for it in spades.

Now, hurry up and go watch it. If I don’t get my BDT (Big Damn Trilogy), I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive you… But I will most certainly repay you in kind.

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Am I Excited About Serenity?

Posted by Scott Hughes Tue, 27 Sep 2005 23:08:00 GMT


Am I Excited About Serenity? by globalreset.

Yes! Yes, I am! So excited, in fact, that I bought a Captain Malcolm Reynolds doll! (I know I am supposed to say action figure, but come on… It’s a doll.) I like having a few dorky desk toys to lighten up my work place. Might as well have a desk toy of my favorite anti-hero.

This is a big weekend for me… The release of Serenity and the celebration of my birth are both on Friday, followed up by my Wedding Anniversary on Sunday.

Now I know some of you did not watch Firefly while it was on Fox, so they cancelled it. I have noone to blame but you for this injustice. Now Paramount has decided to give you a second chance, and if you don’t watch it this time, I will never forgive you. Wikipedia has a lot of information on the original show, which you completely destroyed.

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Peak Movie Ideas

Posted by Scott Hughes Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:41:00 GMT

Forget the doomsday prophets and their cries of panic as we approach some alleged day of reckoning with our “natural resources”… Their is a bona fide shortage that must have peaked ages ago: Good Movie Ideas.

Unfortunately, it may be far too late to do anything about it. The steady increase in movie ticket price did not result in an increase in movie quality, as we had hoped… We may have to experience a Movie Apocalypse before we can revive the medium with good art.

Don’t believe that it’s gotten that bad? You must not have heard of Snakes on a Plane. Synopsis: On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who’s a witness in protective custody, let loose a crate full of deadly snakes. That’s right… It’s called Snakes on a Plane because, well, it’s about snakes… on a plane. As Erik puts it, next we’ll see movie titles like Someone gets stabbed and You just gave up $8.50 to see this?.

As an aside, if you don’t know what the title and the first sentence are referencing, I was alluding to the Peak Oil prophets. They claim that we’ve reached the end of our oil supply and the whole world is going to end because of it. The author of this Peak Oil website got more than just the idea for a ranting single-column layout from TimeCube guy. Besides our memories of the assorted Y2K-disaster theorists, if you need any reason not to waste your time on this disaster-du-jour you can browse the criticisms area of wikipedia.

But Good Movie Ideas… I would be interested in hearing a solution to this problem. Lately, Nicole and I have spent more time at the independent theater than the standard theater. But, we’ve been watching mostly documentaries, so I don’t think it stands in opposition to the problem necessarily.

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