The Illusion of Depth

Please note that this week's film has been rated  12  in the UK. Last week's film ( Logan's Run ) is a prime example of a science fiction film that was emphatically a product of the era in which it was made. If anything, its very relevance proved to be its vulnerability. By the time it reached the theatres in 1976, many of the social trends it was responding to were already starting to fade. That may also be why attempts to produce a remake have consistently failed to make any headway. Hollywood studios have repeatedly attempted to reboot Logan's Run over the decades, and at least six different directors have embarked on such a project over the last 30 years. Multiple writers have been approached, and in some cases have written complete screenplays - but to no avail. Logan's Run has remained stubbornly and imperviously un-remade. If you think about it (and I have, trust me) remaking Logan's Run is easier said than done. After a decade of hippie culture, you...

Imagine for a moment that you're a middle-aged American witnessing the 1960s. You probably have vivid memories of World War II. Depending on just how "middle-aged" you are, you might even have some memories of World War I. In any event, your formative years were probably spent during the decade of the Great Depression. If you are male (and in some instances female) your "vivid memories" of World War II are probably the kinds of memories that wake you up screaming in the middle of the night. If you are a parent, your kids were most likely born during the post-war "baby boom". And if you are even slightly liberal, you probably raised them according to the teachings of Dr. Spock, giving them a much more permissive and soft upbringing than you ever had from your own parents. In any event, your kids' formative years would have been spent in the 1950s, when the country was enjoying a period of economic prosperity. They would have had a great childhood; m...

Our films over the last few weeks have essentially been Boomers: The Early Years , and have explored the Boomer generation as it came of age, much to the bewilderment (at best) of the establishment. The 1950s was surely an exasperating decade for anyone who had memories of pre-war society, and films like Beat Girl and Violent Playground (not to mention American films like Rebel Without a Cause ) are a reflection of that exasperation. But the 1950s was just the overture. It was in the 1960s that the curtain really went up on the Boomer generation. It has become axiomatic for the Millennials and Generation Z to ask (repeatedly) what the Boomers ever did for them, and one can certainly understand the reasons for their outrage. The Boomers after all, have contributed very little to society in the decades during which they were dominant - apart from the Civil Rights movement. Also the Women's Rights movement and the sexual revolution, as well as the LGBT movement, but otherwise, the Bo...

Last week's film ( Beat Girl ) was a shocking and unflinching exposé of the radical beatniks of London's coffee houses and nightclubs in the early 1960s. I'm sure everyone who attended the screening was appropriately shocked and... unflinched? It was therefore interesting when I recently found myself coincidentally engaged in a lively (but completely unrelated) discussion about the problems and dangers associated with the "rad element".  I had been devoting quite a bit of thought to the rad element while preparing my remarks about Beat Girl , so I was able to make what I considered to be some very salient and perceptive points about the beatniks and their specific form of rebellion; pointing out that they were actually reasonably benign and non-violent, and not nearly as "radical" as the older generation had made them out to be. My arguments, which were of course thoughtful, cogent and exquisitely articulated, ultimately failed to convince my plumber. T...