Category: Mediaphilism

When it comes to eating healthy and maintaining a state of physical fitness, the latest fad is never the best route to take. The long-term effects of today’s wonder-diet won’t be realized for another twenty to thirty years from now. Mindful of this fact, only the “tried and true” method, the established paradigm for physical…

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil Terry Gilliam has a long career as a darkly fantastic and absurd filmmaker. Brazil is considered his masterpiece by most fans. Inspired by George Orwell’s “1984”, and the working title for the film was “19841/2,” “Brazil” also takes place in a world overrun by a totalitarian bureaucracy, where an oppressive government watches…

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” – Party slogan George Orwell’s 1984 Some people think of George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia as a future that never came to pass. The year 1984 has come and gone, they figure, so his vision never manifested; however, Orwell’s cautionary tale remains…

Steven Johnson’s Emergence The wave phenomenon that occurs at sports stadiums gives the illusion of movement, a rolling surge of activity that sweeps round and round the bleachers. The phenomenon is not confined to any one sport or even any one culture, but occurs around the world in a wide variety of venues. There is…

Triumph of Will I reached a point during Leni Riefenstahl’s film, where I found myself overpowered by its majesty. I became swept up in its images of cooperation and goodwill between citizens, its hopeful vision of a better future, its themes of modernity, bringing society into a new age of possibility. An ideal is parading…

Momento Memento became an instant classic of the noir genre and an art house cult favorite when it was released in 2000. It follows the story of one Leonard Shelby, an insurance claims investigator, whose deductive skills are now aiding him in the search for the person who murdered his wife. There’s a problem, however,…

David Brin’s Nonfiction While most famous for his Science Fiction works, it is actually Dr. Brin’s non-fiction that I find most inspiring. The Doctor is a brilliant man with fascinating perspectives on society, politics, and technology. He is a role model of pragmatic centrism. Brin takes a phenomenally unique perspective on the growth of surveillance…

The Ascent of Man Dr. J.Bronowski begins this story, our story, five million years ago with the emergence of Australopithecus africanus, ancestors to the human race, and continues through our modern adventures into the Quantum World. The Human Race’s social, architectural, agricultural, metallurgical, and scientific accomplishments are all catalogued with rich and wonderful detail. Although…

La Grande Illusion Poster Illusion takes place during a time of epic cultural change, the first World War. The French Revolution has produced a burgeoning middle-class and the advent of modern warfare meant a new definition of honor in battle. Noblemen and commoners were forced into fraternization. The opening scene seems almost satirical. The German…

Let me begin by warning anyone who intends to see this movie that it does not make any sense. It seems like it will make sense. There’s a plot, there are fantastically effective scenes, great characters, all the components of a great movie… minus a coherent conclusion, and yet Mullholland Drive is David Lynch’s most…

Our goal is to show how Bush has attempted to deceive the nation and why he has escaped serious consequences for doing so. In the process, we hope to spur discussion about a political system under siege by the forces of public relations and spin. Bush may be the current leader of the arms race…

There is a point in Principa Discordia, where one of the many scribbles and stamps found in its margins reads, “If you think this book is just a Ha-Ha, then go back and read it again.” The older I get, the more truth I find in this statement. Discordia is a very free and liberating…