Sunday, August 26, 2007

Television Devolution...

Book is a medium for WRITERS...
Stage is a medium for ACTORS...
Film is a medium for DIRECTORS... and
Television is a medium for PRODUCERS...

Which one is the nearest to artistic expression and which one is not? I guess TELEVISION gets more and more corrupted exponentially everyday as we turn on our TV sets. Being influenced mainly by the producers, television has a natural inclination towards propaganda and money making. I can count on my fingers the number of TV shows which are made with sincerity and sheer quality.

It is sad to say that the local TV market is stucked in the mediocre to D shows which fools the people on the real concept of reality. Speaking of non-fiction shows, reality TV series try to be as accurate as possible but in the end, people acting in these projects are more unreal than actors playing in the primetime soap operas.

Now we go to soap operas, people are forced to watch (because we can't see good alternatives) several plots manipulated by actors playing characters who dies, go on plastic surgery because he/she can't play anymore because of other projects in the pipeline. Start and end dates in the timelines are also changed because of the sudden fluctuations in the rating and continuous endorsements of products while watching in the middle of the show (why not remove the commercials?). We also have characters who meet each other in absurd circumstances, why? because the writers have already lost creativity on how to fuse frictions between their characters... They only have the same plots recycled over and over again and nothing changes except for the set of typecasts actors.

Not only on local shows, American shows cling on constipated (as Nette said it) actors and writers who can't think without sex, violence, scandals, visual effects on the contents of their materials.

Hmmm... I don't know how to end this but I call this devolution on the worldwide level... Television takes advantage on people so much and like what said in my favorite film "The Edukators", people are like zombies in the front of the boob tubes for more than several long hours...

posted by basmayor @ 7:09 PM 1 comments

And the AUGUST film of the month is...

Pathfinder - Seeing this film reminds me a lot of 300's photography... The historical backdraft of the plot which is suppose to be interesting turned out to be one sided. (C+)

Ouija - All aspect of a good horror film is there, blood, twist, a lady with a long black hair but the film falls short on logic... (B)

Recycle - Danny and Oxide Pang, the directors of the very scary film The Eye changed their style a bit and created a very imaginative sci-fi/horror flick that reveals a very touching philosophy and a pro-life commentary. (B+)

Sunshine - I am always fascinated on what is next in Danny Boyle's films. Unfortunately, his recent films like Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Millions are far better than this movie which tries to capture the same stigma of the Kubrick's masterpice 2001: The Space Odessey. (B)

The Bourne Ultimatum - The greatest merits of this film is its skillful film editing and heart pounding original score which will surely be rewarded by the AMPAS voters with nominations. But honestly, I am still convinced that this film is somehow plotless? (B+)

1408 - The last film of the month that I've seen... Surprisingly Mikael Håfström made me happy again after seeing his previous movies like Evil and Derailed... I greatly commend the editing and the haunting cinematography of this film... (B+)

MOVIE OF THE MONTH August - This is tough because all of the films I've seen this month have their own significant shortcomings and none of them can be considered flawless... But I think, August belongs to Hong Kong's very imaginative surreal entry RECYCLE...

posted by basmayor @ 7:27 AM 0 comments