http://shanghaiist.com/2008/03/12/the_idea_is_sim.php All comments for Vision Beijing films premiere, and all of them suck en-us 2009 shanghailaine Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:45:00 +0700 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss elaine@shanghaiist.com elaine@shanghaiist.com 60 http://shanghaiist.com/2008/03/12/the_idea_is_sim.php#comment-1311568 http://shanghaiist.com/2008/03/12/the_idea_is_sim.php#comment-1311568 Comments Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:55:29 +0700 <p>I'm not even going to bother watching any of the shorts to see just how right you are. I know better. And the real reason for the possibility of suckiness is that these were made by directors who are not writers. A film with a great script can be made awful by a director, but a film with a awful script can't be made to look good. Maybe the Olympic committee should've hired a few screenwriters to help with the projects. Live and learn.</p> http://shanghaiist.com/2008/03/12/the_idea_is_sim.php#comment-1311463 http://shanghaiist.com/2008/03/12/the_idea_is_sim.php#comment-1311463 Comments Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:24:02 +0700 <p>"Is banality the new language of ideology?" Nicely put question. Echoes that famous Hannah Arendt quote about the banality of evil (not to get too heavy with the implied analogy) and that famous (ummm... famous if you're, like, a comparative literature grad student) Walter Benjamin bit about the politicization of aesthetics and the aestheticization of politics (the latter symptomatic of totalitarianism... the former more like, say, what Bjork pulled, roughly speaking). Not that I have any brilliant point here, just appreciate the question and how it's phrased and the overall take on the propagandadvertising. Too bad Leni Riefenstahl's not still around to do another kick-ass Olympic film, eh?</p>