In 2011 this rule held true: if it was December there were a lot of movies coming out 'based on true stories'. I feel like 'based on a true story' is the sort of phrase that deserves to always be put in quotes. It stands out. I remember going to a theater and seeing two or three 'based on a true story' movies. Could be my memory is destroyed. You can check for yourself in many ways, I'm sure, but I will provide one.
I guess seeing a fabulous movie with roots in the mundane, grimy, desperate reality of life is a heart-warming thing. It's not terrible. You can't simply hate the story for being insipid or unbelievable. However, you can throw shovelfuls of shit onto the screenplay, script, and performances. I'm not one for 'true story' movies myself, but I can see the appeal. Recent Denzel vehicle Flight was also allegedly 'based on a true story' in the trailers. There is some discussion about that. Again, maybe my memory is shot.
It seems to me, after some reflection, that the winter months and the final weeks of autumn is the key season for 'based on a true story' movies. I guess film-goers need their hearts warmed, too. I will include in this discussion biographical films. I saw The Master this year in an independent cinema in late November. It fits the bill, even though the movie was released much earlier. I just wanted to say that I watched a movie. Was it good? Hell yeah it was interesting. I've never seen such a good, unbiased movie about Scientology in my life. The word 'Scientology' isn't even used once, as far as I know, in the movie. That's brilliant. L. Ron Hubbard is renamed. It's a work of art. Drags a bit. Philip Seymour Hoffman is in it and he's a masterful actor who positively keeps the damn thing going.
But I digress. Take one of recent history's most successful and critically lauded Milk, which was released on November 26, 2008. It was a movie 'based on a true story' and some might have called it a 'biographical film' or even a 'biopic'. I'm more or less an idiot, but even I can see this trend. I won't go ahead and say December is peak month for this type of movie, but it is certainly roughly in the middle. It is the median month for 'based on true story' entertainment.
Though, following this line of reasoning, every war movie ever made is 'based on a true story' and most crime movies as well. Then, let's get existential and very post-modern critical and just say that every movie and every book and every narrative ever is 'based on a true story'. Most music is probably born along those lines. Everything creative is partly 'based on a true story'. This is problematic, because I mean a specific type of feel-good, heartwarming, nonthreatening, almost unconscious type of movie. The type that would star Sandra Bullock and a minority actor, and you'd find your girlfriend watching it late one evening – absorbed, transported, and entirely quiet. Why can't she be like that when Ted is playing?
Except that movie with Sandra Bullock is not really so unconscious. I feel bad for considering it problematic. It's probably legitimately progressive, and probably has integrity as a work of art, as a consumer product, and as a social statement. I don't actually know, though. I never saw it. All I know is that, apparently, it was based on a true story, and according to that logic probably came out between mid-November and late-February.
12/6/12
That Time of Year, Pt. 1: Donate to Wikipedia Already
Apparently, seeing as the notices have disappeared, I am too late with this article. In my defense: at the time it seemed like a great idea. I was going to exhort in beautiful and compelling language everyone to donate. What could be more important, I would ask, than free information? Better yet: often factual free information that is peer edited, reviewed, and verified. Sure, now and then people get in and make stupid edits and ridiculous joke pages, but that is life.
It's the #5 website in the world, and probably one of the better and more neutral top-5 websites. They know they deserve it. Like PBS or NPR. The naysayers know not what they say, as is so often the case. In 2005 and beyond (and probably before) citing Wikipedia became a constant struggle. Professors would treat it like a cancerous lump: we all knew they were frightened because their death grip on knowledge might be broken. It was the dawn of collaborative knowledge. Myths would be dispelled, and the layman might know what lies within the mysteries of nature.
Or so we thought. Mostly, intelligent stoners spend hours drifting aimlessly down the infinite isles of Wikipedia, following insane paths. Students use it as a fateful start to research. The populace visits it to figure out what things are. Most uses are heavily similar. Yet, the stoners. It was not unheard of for an unfortunate, intoxicated in mind and feverish in pursuit of information, to start out with a mundane consumer product and end up in the Cretaceous or even Carboniferous era, trying to piece together the start of life. Caught, often, in mysteries far beyond their purview.
There is a moral somewhere in that story. Lazy students would straight-up cite Wikipedia. Snobs and profs would spit on it and declaim it. The masses didn't give a shit and were confirmed in their ignorance by the political and oligarch classes. Whatever. Business as usual. Wikileaks made a huge spash, by comparison, but then again, the crux of all of this was Wikipedia. The faithful, the peer-edited, the generally honest and neutral and balanced.
Yes, it was the start of everything, and possibly the only beautiful thing to come out of Web 2.0. I would sooner have something to read than a coffee. I was going to write in support for their cause. The upshot of my tardiness is that it is clear that Wikipedia has many supporters already. You have to see the value and comfort in that.
It's the #5 website in the world, and probably one of the better and more neutral top-5 websites. They know they deserve it. Like PBS or NPR. The naysayers know not what they say, as is so often the case. In 2005 and beyond (and probably before) citing Wikipedia became a constant struggle. Professors would treat it like a cancerous lump: we all knew they were frightened because their death grip on knowledge might be broken. It was the dawn of collaborative knowledge. Myths would be dispelled, and the layman might know what lies within the mysteries of nature.
Or so we thought. Mostly, intelligent stoners spend hours drifting aimlessly down the infinite isles of Wikipedia, following insane paths. Students use it as a fateful start to research. The populace visits it to figure out what things are. Most uses are heavily similar. Yet, the stoners. It was not unheard of for an unfortunate, intoxicated in mind and feverish in pursuit of information, to start out with a mundane consumer product and end up in the Cretaceous or even Carboniferous era, trying to piece together the start of life. Caught, often, in mysteries far beyond their purview.
There is a moral somewhere in that story. Lazy students would straight-up cite Wikipedia. Snobs and profs would spit on it and declaim it. The masses didn't give a shit and were confirmed in their ignorance by the political and oligarch classes. Whatever. Business as usual. Wikileaks made a huge spash, by comparison, but then again, the crux of all of this was Wikipedia. The faithful, the peer-edited, the generally honest and neutral and balanced.
Yes, it was the start of everything, and possibly the only beautiful thing to come out of Web 2.0. I would sooner have something to read than a coffee. I was going to write in support for their cause. The upshot of my tardiness is that it is clear that Wikipedia has many supporters already. You have to see the value and comfort in that.
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