Category: Media

With a little help from friends

Two episodes of the Implausipod came out this past week:

(Though not necessarily in that order.)

The first one was stuck in a bit of a research and timing feedback loop, which is fine, it happens, but it kind of through off the order, and the urge and/or need to get the following episodes out meant it kept getting pushed back. (There was life reasons for some delays as well, which I won’t get into on the web.)

But I’m so happy to see both of them released this week, mostly because I was joined (figuratively or literally) by some friends on these episodes, and it made both experiences super fun, and I hope that came across in the audio.

Mr. Calvin Becker, a long time friend and amazing musician provided the music that formed the interludes for episode 16, and I’m so thrilled he was able to jump in. He’s made another significant contribution to the show which I think will show up in Episode 20 or 21, which should be available in about a week or so. You can check out his work at calvinbecker.com

And in episode 19, Dr. Aiden Buckland joined in to provide some amazing insight to the background of the Who-niverse that I, as a total noob, was completely unaware of. I’ve known Aiden in a professional, academic content for over 15 years, and have had many discussions in the past, and it was wonderful for him to be able to join in here too. You can reach him at doctoraidenwho@gmail.com

Again, thanks to both these amazing friends for joining in and making the podcast that much better as we dive deeper into this journey. I hope they can join us again soon.

Hilarious in hindsight

Sometimes going through old9er) books can be quite revealing. Looking through Jenkins, Ford and Green (2013/2018) Spreadable Media, from the paperback version there was this gem of a quote:

The popularity of Twitter, for instance, was driven by how efficiently the site facilities [sic] the types of resource sharing, conversation, and coordination that communities have long engaged in. The site’s early success owes little to official brand presence; big-name entertainment properties, companies, and celebrities began flocking to the microblogging platform only after its success was considered buzzworthy

(p.30)

In light of the events of November 29th and 30th, 2023, this is revelatory, and somewhat amusing as well.

The Star Beast

Finally watched a Dr Who episode. Seriously, hadn’t seen more than a clip or three before. Full thoughts will come in episode 19 of the Implausipod.

An odd episode: it felt like a speedrun through the required story beats to link everything together, and a lot of the rest was elided. So I’m not sure it was a representative story of the franchise; we got equal parts “very special episode” and “fanservice”, and while I was able to make some external connections early (and by the midpoint too), by the end it was all internally referential, and the titular Star Beast was a very thin foil for the rest of the internal narrative that the showrunner wanted to hang over the episode.

As a new viewer, I’m not entirely convinced to stick around. Let’s see how the next one goes…

iTunes update

Quick bit of Implausipod news, as it is now up and available on Apple Podcasts, which means it should be propagating to the apps that use that as well. So, great news! Hope that makes the episodes more accessible for a wider audience.

(It turns out that Taylor Swift was right, and “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” At least to a little extent. Apple had a bit to do with it too, as the Apple Podcasts is not accessible without an iTunes account (basically). So my reticence to use their products was a hard stop, with no workaround. Called their tech support on it too. Fixed now though.)

And more episodes coming soon. Talk to you then.

Films as Art…

On Mastodon on the evening of November 17th, 2023, @Ricki.Tarr asked the following question:

And the responses have been pretty amazing. But my own feeling is this:

@RickiTarr Most of them do, tbh. I think the underlying message between “Every Frame a Painting” captured it well. (Miss that channel.)

But seeing as I used to use 80s and 90s action movies for examples in my film class, I might be an outlier.

Anyhoo, a few:

#madmaxfuryroad The desert storm.
#300 The fight on the cliff
#serenity The Serenity dolly shot to open
#GrandBudapestHotel Just the color design, in all of it.
#johnwick Fights as ballet
#matrix2 The Chateau foyer fight

And more…

/2 Been thinking about this all night, how most of my examples would come from some basic and banal films.

And I think that’s the beauty of it, is that they’re all #art

The underlying assumption in responses to the thread is that “art” is defined by something that must be transcendent or sublime, a singular work that stands above others is somehow “art” in ways that the others are not.

But I still find art in #billandtedsexcellentadventure or #videodrome or #returnofthelivingdead

3/ Or #conanthebarbarian or #jurassicpark or #thefifthelement or any of hundreds of other films I find engaging.

Now some films might push this a little bit. If I’m Dan Harmon, I might have issues with #NowYouSeeMe f’rex, and struggle to find the art there, but this is where the subjective alights within #cinema

(Waitasecond, can I still use #frex , or did some tool decide to use it as the label for an AI-generated thesaurus for your smartphone in the last week?)

4/ Anyhoo, where was I? (phone call disrupted the tenuously connected synapses there…)

Oh yeah, there’s beauty in the basics, which is really what I was getting at.

The most recent flick I saw was Aronofksy’s #PostcardFromEarth the psuedo-doc made to showcase the capabilities of #TheSphere in #LasVegas

It’s a brief sliver of a movie with a #scifi wrapper and an eco-friendly message.

It’s a singular experience, worth checking out. Most definitely #art

but so was #furyroad

Art can make you feel the little things too, is what I’m getting at.

Which is where I’m sitting at. So I’m thinking I’ll list out the films, and the frames, that strike me as “art”, however it gets (subjectively) defined, and I’ll run through the list here in the next few days.

Also, more on that Aronofsky film coming soon…