When I launched this current series ( The Grok, the Glunk and the Golem ) last month, I said we would be exploring "Artificial Intelligence" in literature, in art and in popular culture, as well as in real life. We are now almost five weeks into the series and have thus far encountered a 2000-year-old mud man (in a 105-year-old film), a group of emancipated fictional characters (a 50-year-old production of a 104-year-old stage-play) an insurance salesman whose entire Reality turns out to be a TV sitcom, and a mischievous (100-year-old) cartoon clown with a talent for tormenting his animator. I trust everyone has been enjoying my selections thus far (and we're just getting started, believe me) but I'm sure I can hear some voices from the back of the hall wondering "Where are all the killer robots at?" I know, I know. Most depictions of A.I in popular culture (no matter how serious they profess to be) ultimately seem to culminate in murder-bots, killer sex-dol...
When I launched this series last month I said that we wouldn't be focussing exclusively on feature films (although there will still be plenty of those; don't worry); we would also be showcasing some short films, a few television episodes and even a couple of ballets. Well, this is the week that I make good on all that (and there will be others to come). We're going to have a triple bill no less ( quadruple , if you count the "Out of the Inkwell" cartoon) all directly relevant to the topic at hand. Don't worry; there's no need to panic; I did tell everyone that there would be a lot more diversity in this series, but I guess this is finally the moment when we can fully dispense with any archaic notions about this being just a "weekly film night". (And if anyone still persists in referring to it as "Vicky Park Flicks" after all these years I will personally descend upon them with the very Hounds of Hell. And we will show no mercy...) Moll...
Consider Hamlet . I'm sure you remember Hamlet. Gloomy guy. Wears black a lot. Talks to himself. Likes to hang out in cemeteries. Now, imagine for a moment that you are Hamlet. You are the Prince of Denmark (congratulations!) and heir to the throne. While you're off at University doing the "student" thing, you receive word that your beloved father (the King) is dead; murdered, it turns out, by your horrible Uncle, who then promptly marries your mother (eww) and usurps the throne, snatching it away from you before you even have a chance to catch the next train home. Your father's ghost (who is, you learn, burning endlessly in some harrowing Purgatory, suffering torments beyond imagining) confirms all this, and urges you to take revenge on his behalf. You're not really the right guy for this sort of thing; you're more the academic type. Revenge isn't your natural style; your first instinct would probably be to write an essay at them or something... bu...
The child ahead of him received its candy bar and raced off. Ragle laid down his fifty-cent piece on the counter. "Got any beer?" he said. His voice sounded funny. Thin and remote. The counter man in white apron and cap stared at him, stared and did not move. Nothing happened. No sound, anywhere. Kids, cars, the wind; it all shut off. The fifty-cent piece fell away, down through the wood, sinking. It vanished. I’m dying, Ragle thought. Or something. Fright seized him. He tried to speak, but his lips did not move for him. Caught up in the silence. Not again, he thought. Not again! It’s happening to me again. The soft-drink stand fell into bits. Molecules. He saw the molecules, colorless, without qualities, that made it up. Then he saw through, into the space beyond it, he saw the hill behind, the trees, the sky. He saw the soft-drink stand go out of existence, along with the counter man, the cash register, the big dispenser of orange drink, the taps for Coke and root beer, the...
As most of you will probably know by now, our current film series is looking at a phenomenon currently termed Cancel Culture . Current examples of Cancel Culture are legion, and one has only to glance at the news on any given day to see yet another example of some individual or other whose life has been torn apart because they said the wrong thing, or "liked" the wrong Tweet, or praised the wrong film. As of this writing, a story has been running in the UK news about an Essex pub that was raided by the police because it had "Golly" dolls on display. Last week, the full force of the internet came crashing down on the Dalai Lama because he allegedly asked a young boy to " suck his tongue. " When a new Harry Potter video game was released in February, fans were urged to boycott the release in order to protest author J.K. Rowling's views on transgender issues. Some of these cases may strike you as trivial. Some of them might be genuinely shocking. Some ...
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