Articles tagged with Sexy sexy danger

[Hey, Overthinkers - enjoy this Verhoeverthinking It Week guest post from Diana Barnes-Brown]

When I started the initial Overthinking for my Paul Verhoeven Week Basic Instinct Guest Post, the thought process was more or less as follows:

Michael Douglas + crazy bi chick + Paul Verhoeven = Hollywood hates women! Let the crucifixions begin!

But lots of things are happening in Basic Instinct, and only one of them is misogyny – so why essentialize? Keep reading for a brief rundown of the more interesting plot points, some feminist issues as a jumping off place for (what I hope is) more subtle criticism, and of course the obligatory reference to vagina bugs/Starship Troopers.

Episode 66: The Duality of Man

posted by Matthew Wrather on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 12:17am

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and John Perich and special guest Amanda Marcotte to revisit l’affaire Polanski and talk about the trivializing of sex crimes and then proceed to trivialize sex crimes by segueing to David Letterman, Robert Evans (the movie producer), Bob Evans (the restaurant), the Arbys Logo, and the Dialectic of Bruce Springsteen.

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 66 (MP3)

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel and Mark Lee to overthink Roman Polanski’s legal and moral trouble, cultural hysteria and hypocrisy, the reasons reality is different from fiction, and the deeper meanings of Crank 2 and Glee.

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 65 (MP3)

In a special supplement to the podcast, Mark Lee and Matthew Wrather overthink Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2, missed opportunities in plotting, the difference between movie and TV storytelling, and predictions for the season (series?) finale.

Tell us what you think! Email podcast AT overthinkingit DOT com or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. If you haven’t yet, take the very short survey! And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend.

Download Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Supplement 1

Stoicism, the Black Swan, and the Resurrection of Vin Diesel

posted by fenzel on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 8:24am

Movie junkies suffered a crippling blow to their understandings of the universe this week. If you put your ear to the ground in Hollywood, you could feel the vibrations as the Earth shifted to accommodate it.

I was blind, but now I see. In the dark.

I was blind, but now I see. In the dark.

As of this writing, Vin Diesel’s IMDB STARmeter is up 600%, week-over-week, and the entertainment windmills are spinning like industrial fans.

Fast & Furious made $72.5 million last weekend. That’s the largest April opening weekend ever. It’s the largest opening for a movie about cars ever. It’s the largest opening weekend of the year, annihilating pretenders like Watchmen and Monsters vs. Aliens. These are summer blockbuster numbers, people — and we’re not even in finals season yet.

Thankfully, Overthinking It is here to help you sort through the madness with a little philosophy about this strange world it turns out you’ve been living in all along — this world where Vin Diesel is a huge movie star —

The Pump Action Shotgun: The Sound and the Fury

posted by lee on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 3:28pm

I take it you’ve seen this famous scene from Terminator 2 (click on the image for the video and skip to 6:50; sorry, no embedding available)…

and reached the second level of the game Doom

…but you may not have read Michael Crichton’s novel Next:

She dropped the towel and the robe to the ground and methodically loaded the shotgun. She pulled the action bar back and forward, making a chung chung! sound. (Page 496)

Chung chung!

He froze. He knew the sound of a double-action pump. You never went into a room after you heard that sound. (Page 500)

Three different pop culture art forms, one favorite weapon: the pump action shotgun. So what is it exactly about this weapon that keeps blowing us away, time after time? Find out, after the jump. Chung chung! (?)

When is a rogue not a rogue? When he’s Jack Bauer.

posted by fenzel on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 8:39am

jack-bauer-the-rogueTwenty Four is in full swing (I’ve spelled out the number to comply with Overthinking It’s copious style guidelines), which means it’s time for the annual spring tradition – going rogue.

For the uninitiated, “going rogue” is the process by which defense, intelligence, counterintelligence and law enforcement professionals begin a shift of active duty. It is the third step in the standard U.S. government four-step defense, intelligence, counterintelligence and law enforcement operating procedure (or S.U.S. FSICCLEO).

What is S.U.S. FSICCLEO, and what does it tell us about what we think about order?

The Idea of Order in “Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda”

posted by fenzel on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 8:14am

andromedaascendant

She sailed beyond the horizon of the event.
The pull suspending both her mind and voice,
Like a spaceship wholly spaceship, slipping
Its silent streams; and yet its epic stillness
Made constant show, caused constantly a series,
That was not ours, although we understood,
Because we do not have a spaceship.

(yes, there’s more)

Women in Action Screenwriting Contest: Judging Has Begun

posted by fenzel on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 9:55am

Thanks to everyone who submitted to the First Annual Overthinkingit Linda Hamilton Memorial Women In Action Screenwriting Contest. Our judges are hard at work scrutinizing the entries and preparing to
pick the winner!

Expect the big news and discussion in December.

Gossip Girl, you’ll be a Gossip Woman soon.

posted by Matthew Wrather on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 1:12pm

Wow, so, OK, my weekly post on Gossip Girl is almost a week late. Since Belinkie and I are watching tonight’s episode together, which will probably provide fodder for any number of posts (especially considering the day’s financial meltdown), I should probably push this out, huh? For those just now catching up on this series, last week I saw a problem with Gossip Girl. To recap and summarize:

Gossip Girl’s unique claim on our attention — allowing us vicariously to enjoy stratospheric displays of wealth (leaving aside the scantily clad nubile young things, which are on offer elsewhere) — is inherently at odds with its status as a teen soap opera.

The attraction of great wealth is that, at least in theory, it elevates one above the striving, disappointments, and compromises which the non-wealthy must endure. This is why, as F. Scott Fitzgerald points out, wealth changes the wealthy, replacing one kind of toughness, born of character-building deprivation, with another, a contempt for those who have not enjoyed similar advantages.

But this substitute toughness is at odds with the dramatic necessities of soap opera, which demands that everyone act like an adolescent. (With all the musical beds, copious drinking, and absent parents, we can be forgiven for forgetting that the characters are, in fact, nominally adolescents.) You can’t be hardened by life in the upper crust and still pout and sigh like a petulant child when your boyfriend doesn’t call you.

This is all complicated by our relationship to television, over which we exert a kind of sadomasochistic intimate mastery. The point of the wealth represented on Gossip Girl is that you don’t have it. But the point of television is that you do have it, and with TiVo you have it whenever you want it.

This week, I am taking up that other influence, besides riches beyond the dreams of avarice, on our poor little rich girls and boys: their parents. Needless to say, the outlook is bleak. Spoilers after the jump.