Friday, 4 February 2011

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
(2010)

RATING: 60%



Gimmicky, psychedelic, faux-Sixties tale of youthful growing-pains that focuses on sexual jealousy with a dash of White supremacism. The style veers between Bollywood, Western comic strips and primitive computer games' consoles. Overall, this is a limited theme with limited ambitions and limited results: After a while it all becomes rather repetitive and one-note.

Youthful sexual exploration is presented as proceeding deeper into the heart of a computer game via increasingly-difficult levels of play. The problem here is that the irony and self-reflexivity is laid on so thick that it creates a barrier between the audience and the emotional drama; making the drama affectively flat. The performances are excellent but never escape the trap of a narrative obsessed with artifice over and above simple storytelling. In truth, this film has little more to say about adolescence than a pop video. The girls are all cute but this ends up being imaginative tedium with clever set-pieces and special effects. Proof that comic adaptations rarely great movies make: Rare exceptions are Batman Begins and American Splendor.


Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.