I found an article from Mandaroty.com that talks about 10 things that this movie predicted right. The link to the article is:http://www.mandatory.com/2013/08/09/10-things-idiocracy-predicted-would-happen-and-sadly-already/

And the 10 things this article compares from Idiocracy to the our real lives now are:

1. Legitimate Businesses Peddling Smut: this is that companies were offering “adult services” with their normal products. And in the article they compare this with people being able to use Google glasses to watch porn.

2. Ads Everywhere: this is self-explanatory. In the movie there were ads everywhere, on their clothes and even on the US flag, and in real life, there are ads everywhere you look. (There are ads around you right now).

3. Profanity in Advertising: I think that this is the funniest one. Examples of this from the movie are the billboard, and Carl’s Jr’s slogan: “F** You!, I’m eating!” In the article, they talk about Frank’s Red Hot commercials where they say, “I put that **** on everything!”

4. Extra Big Ass Fries: In the movie, Carl’s Jr vending machines sell big ass fries, And in real life there are real products that are extra big and some that even have the word “ass” in them.

5. Garbage Avalanches: The set-up of the movie is that they were released from their pods because of a garbage avalanche, and as it turns out, there are real landfill landslides in Guatemala during rainy seasons.

6. The Human Language: In Idiocracy people couldn’t understand what he was saying because he was using real full sentences instead of sounds, and in the article they compare this to the language used in texting and twitter.

7. Remote Shutdown: In the movie, the police was able to turn off their car remotely, and in real life authorities and loan companies are able to shut down a car.

8. Advanced GPS: In the article they say that although GPS did exist when the movie came out, they had not get been able to actually give a person directors out loud yet.

9. Ow My Balls: The article compares the TV show in the movie to any clip ever on any show there they use a guy getting hit in the crotch as a comic relief.

10. Ass (the movie): People in the world of Idiocracy would go to the movies to watch 90 minutes of a man’s rear end. And there is a music video from a Chilean band that features a man’s behind as well.

What do you guys think of this article’s comparisons with the movie? I think that some of them are a little far fetched, but they still don’t make the human race look not so good.

I believe that the homeless guy that he kept seeing everywhere was somehow, his own spirit trying to steer him in the right direction.

The first and last thing that he said to him was that he should be a spirit, not just a ghost. He told Bulworth that he should use music to become a spirit.

So this man put the idea into Bulworth’s head to express himself through music. And the next scene, he started rapping and rhyming.

Also, the homeless man was following him every where. He appeared in places where there was no one he would have been allowed in. Also, correctly if I’m wrong, but to me, it seemed like Bulworth was the only person who could see or hear him, no one else even acknowledged him.

The character of his spirit is a black homeless man for a couple of reasons. First, he is the complete opposite of rich, white, powerful Bulworth. And second, because he is the embodiment of the issues that Bulworth brought to light with his rapping.

And, all of this could be supported by the last scene. The homeless man comes back after Bulworth was shot to again point out that he is a spirit.

Do you guys support my idea? Or do you feel like this character was meant to represent something else?

“While you’re doing it, it is sort of a lonely kind of feeling, even though you are surrounded by so many people giving beyond the call…”

This is a quote I found from the director of Broadcast News James L. Brooks. I think that this could easily be a line from Holly Hunter’s character Jane.

Jane feels lonely, and that is why she cries silently every day. She feels lonely so she fall for a good-looking guy she meet, she is so desperate that she invited him over to her room the same day they meet. She feels all this weight on her shoulders from her job, but she does not realize that she has other people that support her, so she feels alone.

It is known that James L Brooks has an OCD character in all of this movies, and on this film, it is Jane. It could be argued that Brooks took some a page from his own life as a basis of Jane. In the quote, Brooks is talking about making movies:

“That’s generally true of movies, there’s a sense of urgency, people risking their tail, people working past exhaustion. That’s what moviemaking is. It’s lonely because you asked all of them to work that hard for this idea you had.”

This could be compared to Jane, when she got promoted to executive producer, she was in charge of all the people working there, and she knew that. But she also knew that she could not do anything to help them when they got laid off.

Can you guys recall any other OCD moments that Jane had that could be applied to James L Brooks’ quote?

Source: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000985/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

There was this scene in the movie that stood out to me. It is right after he shot is partners at the TV station, he is trying to run away from the building, but there are two men carrying doors that slow him down. I don’t really understand what this scene is supposed to mean, and as the professor said in class, I am assuming that the filmmakers are smarter than me, his walking into doors has to have a meaning.

Here are some of my ideas, I don’t know how right I am, or if anyone else has different interpretations.

Doors are ways to get in and out. He needed to get out physically of the building, but he also needed to get out of Videodrome, and out of his mind into reality.

But, after he walks through the doors, he starts hallucinating again, that is when he notices the gun attached to his hand, and he tries to put it back in his stomach.

This might be a little far off. When a God (Videodrome?) closes a door, he opens a window. So a window is open, the window into his mind, an we start seeing his hallucination.

But I still wonder if there are other doors, either opened or closed, present in the movie?

What do you guys think of this scene with the doors?

In A Face in the Crowd, Lonesome Rhodes gets accredited for inventing the Laugh Box, so I did some research about it. I did not know this, but laugh tracks did actually used to come from a box. The Laff Box was invented by Charles Douglass around the late 60s, its not specified.

How it started was that on radio, there used to be a live audience during the live shows, so they could hear the audiences response in real time. But on life TV, the audience never really laughed at the right time, so sound engineer Charles Douglass would be running audio and he would play a tape of laugher just at the right moment, and then sound out the audience after a few seconds if they were laughing for too long, this was called sweeting.

The laugh track was later adapted, by Charles Douglass himself, for films and other shows that allowed for post production. From around the 50s until 70s, Charles Douglass and his studio held a monopoly on laugh tracks so most studios came to him.

The Laff Box was about 2 feet tall and would be played almost like a piano with keys. It could play “exactly 320 laughs on 32 tape loops, 10 to a loop. Each loop contained 10 individual audience laughs spliced end-to-end, whirling around simultaneously waiting to be cued up” (Wikipedia [this was the only source I would find with the actual history of it]).

This is the actual Laff Box playing. And just a fun little fact, it was appraised in 2010 for $10,000 (Antiques Roadshow).

There still lies the question of why in the movie they said that Lonesome Rhodes was the inventor of this machine. I believe that that short scene about the Laff Box was in the movie just to add to the idea that Lonesome Rhodes changed television a lot, just like he did with his talk show and his variety show. But, what do you guys think?

The question I want to post is who would be the Edward Murrow today?

Stephen Colbert, maybe?

          Other than the fact that they are both news anchors, they have a lot in common. They both are political figures, even though they are news anchors professionally; they have even created their own political movements.

Although, they, as TV personalities, have opposing political affiliations, they both are known for criticizing Republican politicians.

Finally, and the biggest point, is that they are both idolized, and listened to. Even though, The Colbert Report is a comedy show, I believe that Stephen Colbert has way more of a stand, and following in political and national matters than any other news anchor.

What do you guys think? Is there another news anchor on TV today that can also be compared to Ed Murrow?

Leo Minosa did turn out to be Lorraine’s ticket out. I use the word “ticket” figuratively because all Lorraine wanted was money to buy a ticket as far away from Escudero as possible, and thanks to Leo, she did get the money she needed. Leo’s death was the perfect chance for her to get out.

Lorraine was better of after Leo died. She now has the means to move to a big city and have an exciting life like she always wanted, this is why she married him in the first place. She did not her what she thought she did when they got married, she thought he had a successful business and a large piece of land that would give her the life that she really wants. But she was disappointed to find out that he owned a small shop in the middle of the desert where the best they do is sell 8 burgers and a case of cola.

From what she said, she was not very happy with her life before either. She was desperate for a life of riches and excitement that she married a man she did not care for. So marrying Leo, though it was a long pay-out plan, did in fact work for her in many ways.

She could now leave with a lot of money, over a grand I’m sure, because she was entitled to a portion of the money they made. And she did not have to feel bad one bit for leaving after her husband died, she could just say that she could no longer live where she lived with Leo, it would be too painful.

Lorraine did change throughout the whole movie. She turned more cynical, she put herself first over every one else. She didn’t even care that her husband’s last wish was for her to get a taste of the life she wanted by giving her a very nice and expensive scarf. It is not specified in the film, but Lorraine surely took advantage of this moment as much as she could, she might have even taken all the money they made, and left.

In a lot of the articles I read about this movie, they said that it was Capra’s commentary on Nazism. To quote Capra himself, it was because “little “fuhrers” were springing up in America, to proclaim that freedom was weak, sterile, passé.” (1). But what I don’t understand, is why the movie seems to  support more Nazi ideals and idealizes the power that Nazis had over the media, and is clearly opposing American politics.

John Doe uses the media to bring together the public, and he is sharing his believes through the radio and the papers, and people look up to him. The politicians like BD Norton, were also using the media for their own political gain, but they were doing it behind the editors of the news papers and behind John Doe, so they did not have the same effect and following as John did. But Hitler did use the media in both ways to reach people, he would talk to them, and then manipulate the media, what could be published and hear and more importantly what could not.

John Doe in the movie is against big government, and believes that the people together should come together to support each other. We talked about this in class a little bit, that the American politicians are seen as the bad guys. This idea that John Doe spread does share a few similarities with Nazi ideology. This is more against American Politics than it is supporting Nazi ideology, but back then people believed that if you weren’t with America you were against it.

(1) http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA97/halnon/capra/doe.html

This isn’t really about the movie itself, it is more about the actual history of the Statue of Liberty, because Park Row based it on real facts, except for the name.

Now, I am not an American, so I didn’t know there was even a story behind how the Statue of Liberty got its Pedestal, I don’t know if this is common knowledge and I am the only one who was surprised by it.

The only thing that Park Row changed in the story was the name, in the movie they said that the main character Phineas Mitchell was the one who had this brilliant idea, but in reality it was Joseph Pulitzer. Pulitzer was Mitchell’s “contemporary, his competition” as Charity said, so there’s a bit of overlap in the movie.

But other than that, everything they said about the Statue of Liberty getting the pedestal was spot on. The American Government, or whoever made these decisions, didn’t want to pay for the pedestal. So Pulitzer asked the readers to donate any amount of money for it and they would have their names published in the paper.

At first, I thought it was pretty cool that they did that, and how the movie says, that the American people paid for the pedestal instead of the government. But after watching the movie, it made me think that it was all just a publicity attempt to get subscribers. And this is what Fuller was commenting on in a way, that news papers are business, and they are business in real life using an interest piece to get more readers.

There is this short article about the real story of the pedestal: http://www.nps.gov/stli/historyculture/joseph-pulitzer.htm

You can also find the Drunk History clip on Youtube, but this is a Comedy Central show, so just so you are aware they say dirty words and jokes. I don’t mean to offend anyone by this, so you don’t even have to watch it, this is just where I first heard it, and its a pretty interesting story. They talk about Pulitzer’s involvement around minute 4:30.