Re: OT: art and language and THE DAVINCI CODE

Tim:
> Andreas Johansson wrote at 2003-06-02 23:00:35 (+0200)
>  > Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:
>  >
>  > > Similarly, to this day I don't understand all the fuss over "The
>  > > Matrix".  Great visual effects, impressive action sequences,
>  > > laughably silly premise, passable acting and writing - enjoyable,
>  > > but hardly "the thinking person's science fiction movie", as I
>  > > heard it touted repeatedly
>  >
>  > The Matrix may very possibly have the worst plot of any movie I've
>  > seen. "The thinking person's SF movie"? Armagedon (sp?) makes more
>  > sense ..
>
> I don't agree to that.  It's certainly not "The thinking person's
> science fiction movie", but it does contain a lot of references to
> various questions of philosophy.  Maybe "The not-particularly-thinking
> person who would nonetheless enjoy a palatable introduction to certain
> deep thoughts's blockbuster action movie"
>
> Really, I'd have quite liked it if they'd just understood that humans
> are not net energy sources
I was thinking to myself "Who gives a shit that humans aren't batteries,
so long as you can don a long black coat & go shoot machine guns in
super-slowmo, soar through the air & stop bullets midair at will". But
then it occurred to me that even if narratively-minor scientific
impossibilia don't bother me in films, narratively-minor linguistic
impossibilia do. Most obviously, English-speaking aliens cause my
belief's suspension to sag to utter slackness. A little less obviously,
and a little more anally, any film where the characters would in
reality be speaking something other than English (Russian, say; or
vulgar Latin). Less obviously & more anally still, historical or
scifi films set a few hundred years in the English-speaking past or
future, with the characters speaking contemporary English. And least
obviously and most anally, films set only a few decades ago, where
only the actors' accents are off.

--And.

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