In a crucial passage from a series of lectures he gave that would be published as Society Must Be Defended, Michel Foucault expounded on the concept of the imperial boomerang. Though the term was used and advanced by many political theorists and philosophers, most notably Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, it was Foucault’s conception of the term that has stuck in the public consciousness. “[W]hile colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents,” he argued, “it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West, and on the apparatuses, institutions, and techniques of power…the result was that the West could practice something resembling colonization, or an internal colonialism, on itself.”
Yance Ford’s documentary Power acts as a piece of supporting evidence for what’s become known as Foucault’s boomerang. The film lays out in clear,...
Yance Ford’s documentary Power acts as a piece of supporting evidence for what’s become known as Foucault’s boomerang. The film lays out in clear,...
- 5/5/2024
- by Greg Nussen
- Slant Magazine
Holy forking shirt balls! The Good Place star William Jackson Harper is venturing toward the Quantum Realm for Marvel‘s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel remains mum about who Harper will play in Ant-Man 3. However, many fans believe Harper is playing Fantastic Four patriarch Reed Richards in the upcoming film. Harper’s role is not confirmed, so don’t go thinking the Reed Richards thing is a done deal. Regardless of what tweets from suspicious sites would like you to believe, it’s not.
Harper is known for playing Chidi Anagonye in NBC‘s The Good Place. Chidi is a neurotic scholar who loves to hear himself pontificate on the works of philosophers, including Aristotle, Plato, and Immanuel Kant. It’s easy to see why Harper would be a prime candidate to play Richards in the Marvel Universe, and I’d love to see it. Still, there’s...
Harper is known for playing Chidi Anagonye in NBC‘s The Good Place. Chidi is a neurotic scholar who loves to hear himself pontificate on the works of philosophers, including Aristotle, Plato, and Immanuel Kant. It’s easy to see why Harper would be a prime candidate to play Richards in the Marvel Universe, and I’d love to see it. Still, there’s...
- 10/28/2022
- by Steve Seigh
- JoBlo.com
There is no shortage or writing out there on the potentially solipsistic nature of love, from Immanuel Kant to Simone de Beauvoir to Jg Ballard, but to determine whether or not it’s a problem, one has to understand what one is looking for in the first place. Is it love itself that is so attractive, or the idea of it? Oxytocin, dopamine, internally produced opioids – all these things can be generated using stimuli other than another human being, and doing so offers liberation from dependency on unhealthy relationships. But self-sufficiency like this doesn’t deliver for those who want personalised reassurance and affection, somebody to hold them, or arm candy to show off to their friends. At least, it didn’t. Robotic romantic partners are gradually getting more sophisticated. Soon they’ll be indistinguishable from the real thing.
If you keep getting terrible recommendations from Netflix and Facebook pushes products at you that.
If you keep getting terrible recommendations from Netflix and Facebook pushes products at you that.
- 12/12/2021
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
“If you’re poor and have no money, and can’t get yourself a lawyer who really gives a shit about your case, you’re going to die,” a defense attorney ruefully notes at one point in “The Phantom,” a fascinating and ultimately infuriating documentary.
This isn’t an entirely fitting description of what befell Carlos DeLuna, a young Hispanic man who was executed in 1989 for a brutal 1983 murder in Corpus Christi that he almost certainly did not commit. Indeed, the film, skillfully and compellingly directed by Patrick Forbes (“Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies”), indicates that DeLuna’s defenders were not indifferent, or incompetent, but grievously (and maybe deliberately) misinformed about mitigating evidence. And yet: The deck was stacked against fringe-dwelling DeLuna, his alibi was never given serious credence, his guilt was all-too-easily assumed by police and prosecutors eager to wrap up what appeared to be an open-and-shut case — and, hey,...
This isn’t an entirely fitting description of what befell Carlos DeLuna, a young Hispanic man who was executed in 1989 for a brutal 1983 murder in Corpus Christi that he almost certainly did not commit. Indeed, the film, skillfully and compellingly directed by Patrick Forbes (“Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies”), indicates that DeLuna’s defenders were not indifferent, or incompetent, but grievously (and maybe deliberately) misinformed about mitigating evidence. And yet: The deck was stacked against fringe-dwelling DeLuna, his alibi was never given serious credence, his guilt was all-too-easily assumed by police and prosecutors eager to wrap up what appeared to be an open-and-shut case — and, hey,...
- 6/30/2021
- by Joe Leydon
- Variety Film + TV
TV writer and producer Michael Schur doesn’t believe you can become a better person. But in the grand scheme of things, he’s not sure it matters.
“To me, the meaning of life is to try to be a better person today than you were yesterday,” Schur told IndieWire. “And I don’t think you’ll succeed.”
Schur said that no matter how benevolent your intentions, it’s unlikely you’ll incrementally improve yourself, every single day, without falter, until the inevitable moment of your death. People screw up. It happens.
“But the meaning of life isn’t to be a better person today than you were yesterday, it’s to try to be,” he said. “You can still go to sleep and say, ‘Well, I tried. I failed today. I blew it. I got angry and lost my temper when that guy cut me off in traffic. I...
“To me, the meaning of life is to try to be a better person today than you were yesterday,” Schur told IndieWire. “And I don’t think you’ll succeed.”
Schur said that no matter how benevolent your intentions, it’s unlikely you’ll incrementally improve yourself, every single day, without falter, until the inevitable moment of your death. People screw up. It happens.
“But the meaning of life isn’t to be a better person today than you were yesterday, it’s to try to be,” he said. “You can still go to sleep and say, ‘Well, I tried. I failed today. I blew it. I got angry and lost my temper when that guy cut me off in traffic. I...
- 1/23/2019
- by Ben Travers
- Indiewire
Raúl Ruiz frequently remarked that he was the perfect person to adapt Marcel Proust’s vast set of novels Remembrance of Things Past (or, more literally, In Search of Lost Time) to the screen because, having reached the end of reading the entire work, he instantly forgot it all. He was joking, of course, but his jest disguised a serious method. The only way to convey Proust on screen, in Ruiz’s opinion, was to approach it not as a literal condensation of multiple characters and events, but as a psychic swirl of half-remembered, half-forgotten fragments and impressions—full of uncanny superimpositions and metamorphoses. “‘The best way to adapt something for film,” he summed up, “is to dream it.” Ruiz’s dreaming was always accompanied by extensive, meandering, seemingly eccentric research. In the case of Time Regained, he plunged (as he revealed in a splendid, lengthy interview with Jacinto Lageira...
- 2/9/2018
- MUBI
Immanuel Kant + Bugs Bunny = Winston J. Perez? Now, there's a "concept." Or maybe not. The only way to be sure, as Winston Perez views a term that has come to define his professional life in Hollywood, is to take a close look at Perez's latest work, an upcoming book with an imposing title: Concerning the Nature and Structure of Concept. Some of it is heavier reading than the average entertainment executive has done since pulling a C+ in that sophomore philosophy class…...
- 11/30/2017
- Deadline
Tom Hanks is no fan of Harvey Weinstein.
The actor spoke out against the movie mogul to the New York Times in a feature about his collection of short stories, titled Uncommon Type: Some Stories. Hanks, 61, said he didn’t buy Weinstein’s statement in response to the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him by multiple women in the Nyt, including actress Ashley Judd.
In the lengthy statement on Oct.5, Weinstein referenced his upbringing in a different time when addressing the allegations.
“I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different.
The actor spoke out against the movie mogul to the New York Times in a feature about his collection of short stories, titled Uncommon Type: Some Stories. Hanks, 61, said he didn’t buy Weinstein’s statement in response to the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him by multiple women in the Nyt, including actress Ashley Judd.
In the lengthy statement on Oct.5, Weinstein referenced his upbringing in a different time when addressing the allegations.
“I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different.
- 10/12/2017
- by Ale Russian
- PEOPLE.com
Benjamin Franklin spent his mornings naked. Patricia Highsmith ate only bacon and eggs. Marcel Proust breakfasted on opium and croissants. The path to greatness is paved with a thousand tiny rituals (and a fair bit of substance abuse) – but six key rules emerge
One morning this summer, I got up at first light – I'd left the blinds open the night before – then drank a strong cup of coffee, sat near-naked by an open window for an hour, worked all morning, then had a martini with lunch. I took a long afternoon walk, and for the rest of the week experimented with never working for more than three hours at a stretch.
This was all in an effort to adopt the rituals of some great artists and thinkers: the rising-at-dawn bit came from Ernest Hemingway, who was up at around 5.30am, even if he'd been drinking the night before; the strong coffee was borrowed from Beethoven,...
One morning this summer, I got up at first light – I'd left the blinds open the night before – then drank a strong cup of coffee, sat near-naked by an open window for an hour, worked all morning, then had a martini with lunch. I took a long afternoon walk, and for the rest of the week experimented with never working for more than three hours at a stretch.
This was all in an effort to adopt the rituals of some great artists and thinkers: the rising-at-dawn bit came from Ernest Hemingway, who was up at around 5.30am, even if he'd been drinking the night before; the strong coffee was borrowed from Beethoven,...
- 10/5/2013
- by Oliver Burkeman
- The Guardian - Film News
Feature Briony Addey 27 Sep 2013 - 07:00
Briony explores the ethics in play in the Dexter finale, Remember The Monsters. Philosophy and spoilers ahoy...
Warning: this feature contains Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and spoilers for the Dexter finale.
Dexter did have an epiphany in the series finale; he understood that having relationships with others might help him in various ways, but for those others, the relationship with him is necessarily toxic and destructive. We definitely know that Dexter has eschewed personal relationships in his new, more limited life, what is less clear is if Dexter has kicked his dark passenger out of the car for good.
Inscribed on the walls at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was the maxim ‘Know Thyself’. In my article ‘How will Dexter End?’ I said that the character of Dexter is a reflection of a kind of pervasive selfishness that we can see in the world around us.
Briony explores the ethics in play in the Dexter finale, Remember The Monsters. Philosophy and spoilers ahoy...
Warning: this feature contains Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and spoilers for the Dexter finale.
Dexter did have an epiphany in the series finale; he understood that having relationships with others might help him in various ways, but for those others, the relationship with him is necessarily toxic and destructive. We definitely know that Dexter has eschewed personal relationships in his new, more limited life, what is less clear is if Dexter has kicked his dark passenger out of the car for good.
Inscribed on the walls at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was the maxim ‘Know Thyself’. In my article ‘How will Dexter End?’ I said that the character of Dexter is a reflection of a kind of pervasive selfishness that we can see in the world around us.
- 9/26/2013
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
"From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." —Immanuel Kant.
Even before I knew what a cinephilic sensibility was, mine was being shaped by the evolving filmic projects of William Friedkin and their focus on humanity's crooked timber. As a participatory member of the Gay Movement of the early 70s, I resisted the scriptural representation in Friedkin's The Boys In the Band (1970) and—a decade later—Cruising (1980), but was undeniably swept up in the Catholicized hysteria surrounding The Exorcist (1973), which I managed to catch at its Bible Belt premiere in Little Rock, Arkansas. The French Connection (1971) challenged Peter Yate's earlier Bullitt (1968) with its iconic car chase and Sorcerer (1977) dazzled me with its suspenseful virtuosity and has continued to intrigue me with its court battle over copyright. To Live And Die in L.A. (1985) introduced me to the talent of such actors as William Petersen and Willem DeFoe; but,...
Even before I knew what a cinephilic sensibility was, mine was being shaped by the evolving filmic projects of William Friedkin and their focus on humanity's crooked timber. As a participatory member of the Gay Movement of the early 70s, I resisted the scriptural representation in Friedkin's The Boys In the Band (1970) and—a decade later—Cruising (1980), but was undeniably swept up in the Catholicized hysteria surrounding The Exorcist (1973), which I managed to catch at its Bible Belt premiere in Little Rock, Arkansas. The French Connection (1971) challenged Peter Yate's earlier Bullitt (1968) with its iconic car chase and Sorcerer (1977) dazzled me with its suspenseful virtuosity and has continued to intrigue me with its court battle over copyright. To Live And Die in L.A. (1985) introduced me to the talent of such actors as William Petersen and Willem DeFoe; but,...
- 8/13/2012
- MUBI
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies! David Crook’s play, The Truth Teller, attempts to examine just this: the lies we tell ourselves and each other. Is it possible to be completely honest all the time? Is it possible to turn a compulsive liar into an honest man or woman? Is it sometimes better to tell white lies so as to keep our relationships in tact? Our main character, Jonathan (Tom Radford) is the compulsive liar in question and is sent to a very expensive shrink, Shane (Gary Cady) , by his girlfriend Mary (Martha Barnett ) who has decided that he Must be cured of his shoddy ways.
Jonathan then finds himself in the hands of his new therapist who proudly quotes his favourite German philosopher Immanuel Kant proclaiming that “a lie always harms another”. In fact, Jonathan ends up harming Mary one more time...
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies! David Crook’s play, The Truth Teller, attempts to examine just this: the lies we tell ourselves and each other. Is it possible to be completely honest all the time? Is it possible to turn a compulsive liar into an honest man or woman? Is it sometimes better to tell white lies so as to keep our relationships in tact? Our main character, Jonathan (Tom Radford) is the compulsive liar in question and is sent to a very expensive shrink, Shane (Gary Cady) , by his girlfriend Mary (Martha Barnett ) who has decided that he Must be cured of his shoddy ways.
Jonathan then finds himself in the hands of his new therapist who proudly quotes his favourite German philosopher Immanuel Kant proclaiming that “a lie always harms another”. In fact, Jonathan ends up harming Mary one more time...
- 5/8/2012
- by MJ Palleschi
- Obsessed with Film
To celebrate the 75th birthday of a leading founder of New German Cinema, the Film Museum in Munich released a collection of Alexander Kluge’s fourteen feature films and sixteen shorts from 1960 through 1986. Facets Multimedia is now bringing them out in North America, and In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death (1974) will be available this spring. Kluge is a master director of Autorenfilm as well as a great author and theorist who has produced several volumes of social theory, dozens of films, and thousands of short stories and television programs. Influenced by his friend and mentor Theodor Adorno and by his experience as Fritz Lang’s assistant on The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959), Kluge recognized “the necessity of a new politics for the cinema” early in his career. In response to the crisis of German cinema in the 1950s, he led twenty-six West German filmmakers to declare “Papas Kino ist tot!
- 2/20/2012
- MUBI
USA Network Matt Bomer and Willie Garson in “White Collar”
The first episode in season three of “White Collar” airs on USA Network in just a few hours. Speakeasy caught up with Willie Garson who plays Mozzie, the vastly knowledgeable sidekick of Neal (a master thief turned FBI consultant). The 47-year-old New Jersey native talked excitedly about his favorite line of episode one, Mozzie’s evolution and the art of being a sidekick.
The Wall Street Journal: The first episode airs tonight.
The first episode in season three of “White Collar” airs on USA Network in just a few hours. Speakeasy caught up with Willie Garson who plays Mozzie, the vastly knowledgeable sidekick of Neal (a master thief turned FBI consultant). The 47-year-old New Jersey native talked excitedly about his favorite line of episode one, Mozzie’s evolution and the art of being a sidekick.
The Wall Street Journal: The first episode airs tonight.
- 6/8/2011
- by Alexandra Cheney
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
Vampires are hot. So are gangsta rappers. Actors often say that villains are more fun to portray... and from the audience’s perspective, villains are often more fun to watch than heroes. Even our slang glorifies evil: “Bad” and “wicked,” in some contexts, actually mean “good” and “cool.” Terry Eagleton at Tikkun (via Alternet) explores some ideas about why this may be so, even though in our culture once, long ago, it was the other way around: Whatever happened, then, to this ancient notion of goodness as exciting, energetic, and exhilarating, and evil as empty, boring, and banal? Why do people now see things the other way round? One answer, at least in the West, is the gradual rise of the middle classes. As the middle classes came to exert their clammy grip on Western civilization, there was a gradual redefinition of virtue. Virtue now came to mean not energy and exuberance but prudence,...
- 3/19/2011
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked hundreds of thousands of secret government documents to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks, turns 23 in jail Friday. The Daily Beast's Denver Nicks, in an exclusive interview with Manning's attorney, reports on his solitary confinement, what he's reading (from George W. Bush to Howard Zinn), and his legal strategy.
The last time Bradley Manning saw the world outside of a jail, most Americans had never heard of WikiLeaks. On Friday, Manning, the man whose alleged unauthorized release of hundreds of thousands of classified documents put the website and its controversial leader, Julian Assange, on the map, turns 23 behind bars. Since his arrest in May, Manning has spent most of his 200-plus days in solitary confinement. Other than receiving a card and some books from his family, his birthday will be no different. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, his attorney, David Coombs, revealed key details about...
The last time Bradley Manning saw the world outside of a jail, most Americans had never heard of WikiLeaks. On Friday, Manning, the man whose alleged unauthorized release of hundreds of thousands of classified documents put the website and its controversial leader, Julian Assange, on the map, turns 23 behind bars. Since his arrest in May, Manning has spent most of his 200-plus days in solitary confinement. Other than receiving a card and some books from his family, his birthday will be no different. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, his attorney, David Coombs, revealed key details about...
- 12/17/2010
- by Denver Nicks
- The Daily Beast
Mad Men is finally getting a smattering of book spin-offs. Last month, we got Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America, a look at Mad Men and the history it depicts. Even before that, in June, a philosophy volume titled Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems hit. The latter is finally getting attention from Time.
"Nietzsche believed happiness requires that a person forget the past in order to act boldly in the present — a methodology that Draper, who has denied his past by stealing a dead man's identity, seems to embrace," Time stated. "That allusion, and more, come from Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems — a book of essays that examines the show through a philosophical lens. In it, philosophy professors reference classic works of philosophy by the likes of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Simone de Beauvoir to explore topics like Draper's identity crisis,...
"Nietzsche believed happiness requires that a person forget the past in order to act boldly in the present — a methodology that Draper, who has denied his past by stealing a dead man's identity, seems to embrace," Time stated. "That allusion, and more, come from Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems — a book of essays that examines the show through a philosophical lens. In it, philosophy professors reference classic works of philosophy by the likes of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Simone de Beauvoir to explore topics like Draper's identity crisis,...
- 8/9/2010
- by Sam McPherson
- TVovermind.com
The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad is proposing to put up a statue of Woody Allen, a plan that has met with the film-maker's approval
An unlikely plan to put up a statue of Woody Allen in Kaliningrad has won the tentative approval of the veteran director. Allen, 74, has been approached by a young film-maker, Masha Vasyukova, a native of the Russian exclave that borders Poland and Lithuania, with a choice of designs for this new work of public art. Allen's favourite tribute is a pair of his trademark glasses, mounted at the height of his forehead – 157cms.
Militarised zone
Why Kaliningrad? Well, Russophile fans of Jewish comedy will recall the city was once known as Konigsberg and so was Woody Allen, his birthname being Allen Konigsberg. Whether the connection between the man and a place that was once an impenetrable Soviet militarised zone runs any deeper is not clear. Vasyukova...
An unlikely plan to put up a statue of Woody Allen in Kaliningrad has won the tentative approval of the veteran director. Allen, 74, has been approached by a young film-maker, Masha Vasyukova, a native of the Russian exclave that borders Poland and Lithuania, with a choice of designs for this new work of public art. Allen's favourite tribute is a pair of his trademark glasses, mounted at the height of his forehead – 157cms.
Militarised zone
Why Kaliningrad? Well, Russophile fans of Jewish comedy will recall the city was once known as Konigsberg and so was Woody Allen, his birthname being Allen Konigsberg. Whether the connection between the man and a place that was once an impenetrable Soviet militarised zone runs any deeper is not clear. Vasyukova...
- 5/29/2010
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy has admitted that he accidentally quoted from the work of an imaginary writer. In his recent book De la guerre en philosophie (Making War In Philosophy), Levy referenced the fictional Immanuel Kant expert Jean-Baptiste Botul created by journalist Frederic Page, Afp reports. The New Philosophers leader admitted on Monday that he had quoted Botul's The Sex Life Of Immanuel Kant in his work and also during public (more)...
- 2/9/2010
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
First, a programming note: Fox is pulling “Dollhouse” for the month of November. If you are reading this recap, you surely already know this and have written an irate blog post or something about it, but when the show returns, it will be for three two-hour “events,” and then the remaining three hours will be burned off at some point in time. Hence, when the show returns, these recaps will bloat to 7,000 word recaps of both episodes, probably involving elaborate citations of the works of Immanuel Kant. Maybe the ratings will perk up and we’ll all get to follow...
- 10/24/2009
- by Todd VanDerWerff
- Hitfix
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