World, get off the lying meme

Many believe the world is full of liars.

A couple of years ago a few of these believers made a movie, creating an opposite world.

I guess they thought this would be funny, and would resonate with the irony of the opposite. And maybe even be uplifting. Not to mention educational.

Right?

Well, No. The conceit failed. Despite featuring charismatic and popular stars, The Invention of Lying barely covered its costs.

I could have told them this would happen. I could have told them the irony would be feckless.

Guys, the reason the movie did not make money is your premise was wrong. The world is not made corrupt by being full of liars.

Yes, the world is full of people who say untrue things. But they believe in truth and consciously believe the things they say are true.

It is only subconsciously they know what they say is false.

And now a picture of some kids. Because kids [Hollywood's #1 audience] know.

They can tell that many of the adults in their world are not completely honest human beings. But also that they are not liars.

The lying meme is feckless. Please, world, get off it. That would be step 1 for you to begin to work out what is really wrong.

people thinking about monkeys and the Apocalypse

Several years ago I spotted in a bunch of movies the underlying idea of a headless chicken.

Now it's monkeys combined with the end of the world.

The most popular sports site on the internet hosts Bill Simmons. In the last 2 days his ' report from NBA all-star weekend appeared.
An account of events last weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It's not a great read but Simmons mentions

“Paris Hilton's birthday party on Saturday night featured a goat, a monkey, a naked woman on a bed of glass and the Kiss midget band. I think this exact scenario appears in the scripture passage about Armageddon.” more

Apparently unrelated, today on a football site someone started a thread with this

“The link is for the official trailer of Apocalypto... Safe for work, assuming you can watch movie trailers at work. Let the trailer load up.. about 80% of the way through, there is a screaming monkey. When you see the monkey, pause the trailer and rewind frame by frame.”

I didn't even look. It doesn't matter if Gibson's image is there or not. If it is then inside Gibson's head the name 'Apocalypto' is linked to a monkey. If it isn't then the same linkage is in the poster's head.

Paris Hilton isn't the only lonely rich person in the world. Maybe that's it. My basic point is, if these two people have recently been unconsciously thinking of apocalypses and of monkeys, then probably millions have been.

addendum
The midget theme, I think, is a more long-standing insecurity in the culture. As portrayed in this movie, or demonstrated by this company.

updated: 2007-07-25

a 2005 movie that had the guts to behead its chicken

Last November I wrote about the shared themes in the top ten US box office. Among the themes I saw embedded was chicken with its head cut off.

One month earlier the French movie Caché had premiered in the USA at a film festival. But I had not even heard of it.


Today, I finally saw Caché. It has a scene where a chicken gets its head cut off and then it flaps headless around a farmyard. This event is central to the story.

I have not seen Chicken Little, Jarhead, The Legend of Zorro or Saw II, but I say confidently that Caché gets to the metaphorical jugular better than they do.

It is personally satisfying to spot an underlying theme in a brief bit of cultural history, and then later to have that confirmed when it turns out there was another similarly-preoccupied movie.

Especially when that movie resonates.

tacked on

• If you have enjoyed high-brow movies in the past you might really like Caché. That is, unless you rationalize a lot (if you tell yourself 'white lies' on a daily basis that would make you the movie's target)


• At the beginning the movie seems to be about how terror unites a family. This is highly misleading. It is really about how adult personality forms.
  [in an interview on the DVD the writer/director, Michael Haneke, chuckles about how much fun he had misleading the viewer]


• The SF Chronicle referred to the chicken head-chopping scene as 'cruelty to an animal'. Strangely, the paper didn't say if they took ads from restaurants that serve chicken. .. In the same vein, the reviewer is somehow blind to the movie's considerable virtues.

changed on 11/28/2006

culture-watching brag

I did it again!

On this blog 3 weeks ago I used a Stephen Colbert 'on notice' generator to put up a few of my peeves. Among other abuses, I put the 'misuse of irony' on notice.

Then yesterday Stephen Colbert himself put irony on notice!!
He didn't pull out the board but he said it.

Is that like proof that I am way cool, or what?

Just call me the 'joke prefigurer' (a very catchy phrase if I don't say so myself).

my earlier bit of premonition
Maybe last year sometime I happened to notice that Tom Cruise's dice had lost another spot, that the movie actor had under gone a 'change'. I was not a Cruise-basher btw. Nor did I follow his story much. But I noticed this before it was news (I won't say how).

I even said it. In another context I predicted that a blowup was coming from Cruise. And just weeks after that he stood on Oprah's stage couch and jumped and yelled. An event which led a gazillion others to notice what I already had.

Did I get credit? No. Not one person said .. that man, he knowz culture. Not one person. they all think they are SO smart. but who spotted what first? ... Sigh.

yes, I know
Clearly, I use too much time looking at popular culture.