How China is changing Hollywood
27 Jan 2017 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles, movies Tags: movies, The Great Escape
Four Legends by Martin Schoeller
20 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, movies Tags: movies
Shooting the MGM logo, 1924.
27 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, movies, technological progress Tags: movies
Shooting the MGM logo, 1924. http://t.co/wp5LCwSUhe—
History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) June 30, 2014
Are you wearing a wire?
25 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, movies, TV shows Tags: movies, TV shows all
One of the oldest dramatic devices in a TV show or movie drama is to have the hero or police spy go into a meeting with the criminal desperados wearing a wire.
There has been zero technological progress in the size of these listening devices ever since I started watching TV.
When undercover agents record conversations., they use a bulky tape recorder strapped around their waists, and wires — connected to a microphone — secured to their chests with an adhesive.
When the criminals look for the wire, they tear off the shirt of the suspected police spy to look for the wire. They never check his mobile phone.
Today, eavesdropping equipment is sophisticated enough to record high-definition video and sound, and stream it live to a remote computer. Devices no bigger than a pen cap can be slipped into a coat pocket and easily record through the person’s clothing.
Scriptwriters are really going to have to look for a substitute dramatic device. Pretty soon, a large part of the audience simply will not recognise an old-fashioned tape recorder.
Film review: Gone Girl starring Ben Affleck
14 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in movies Tags: Alec Guinness, Ben Affleck, Gone Girl, Leftover Left, Meryl Streep, movies, Old Left, Sean Penn
This thriller is surprisingly good. I did not particularly want to go because it was foreshadowed to include graphic violence, which it does include.
Gone Girl passes the key test of good thrillers, great thrillers. It is pointless watching this movie a second time because you know how it finishes and all the plot turns. The movie really grows on you and you don’t notice it is 149 minutes long. Not a scene is wasted.
Silence of the Lambs is a similar movie in the sense of it is pointless watching that movie the second time. Silence of the Lambs is plain boring if you try and watch it a second time .
Gone Girl is about the disappearance of Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) on her wedding anniversary, and the whodunit investigation that followed. Support cast is made up of unknowns who fill out their roles excellently.
Oddly enough, on the morning before going to the movie, I was thinking about who are the great actors and actresses.
The obvious is Meryl Streep to she dissolves into any role. You don’t remember the movies that Meryl Streep appeared in because she was such a part of the movie that you don’t remember the movie because Meryl Streep was in it.
Alec Guinness is another brilliant actor who dissolved into any role he was cast. Sean Penn is his modern match, although Penn spends too much time in art house movies trying to persuade you to like Fidel Castro and his philosophy and outlook on life.
When I was drawing up this list, Ben Affleck got a mention as someone who can just appear in the movie and you pay no attention to what his previous roles were or even remember what they were. Ben Affleck is rising actor these days
Film review – Elysium
03 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, law and economics, liberalism, P.T. Bauer, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick, technological progress Tags: democracies, movies, rule of law, The Great Enrichment
Elysium was on TV. When I saw it on the big screen, no one told me it was a depiction of contemporary capitalism and the class war.
I read it as a contrast between third world countries lacking the rule of law and capitalist democracies.
The ships shooting up to the space station reminded me of Cubans trying to cross into the USA by boat to Florida.
Sorry, but I am just a simple country boy from the back blocks of Tasmania.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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