Category Archives: Cinema/Visual/Audio

all purpose spiritual materialism

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Dave

Spiritual themes have often been the occasion for the goriest and most violent scenes in movies. It seems that intrinsically good subjects like liberty, chivalry and honor seem to be the best pretexts for really pouring it on. Think of … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Anthny Quinn, Anthony Quinn, Christopher Fry, Dino de Laurentiis, Harold Bloom, Jack Palance, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Mel Gibson, Par Lagerkvist, Richard Fleischer, Silvano Mangano, the help movie, viola davis the help, vittorio gassman | Leave a comment

brothers and sisters at arms

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Dave

It seems any liberal democratic country needs some group to kick around, vaporize public opinion, and marshall discontentment towards some form of visible minority. Why should israel be excluded from the party when they have jews to kick around as … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Madame Pickwick Weekend | Tagged Amir Peretz, Amona expulsion, David Landau, gush katif expulsion, Igal Hecht, Josh Hasten, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Margaret Atwood, Meir Dagan Mossad, Meretz Party, Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo, ramat migron, Razi Barkai, Yair Golan, Yair Lapid, Zehava Gal-On | Leave a comment

kane: “auteur theory”

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Dave

by Jesse Marinoff Reyes : … American cinema’s one-time enfante terrible, and one of Hollywood’s most enigmatic stars—making him one of my all-time favorites—we take a look at some graphic expressions of his most famous film, the European-inflected CITIZEN KANE, … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Francois Truffaut, Francois truffaut "auteur theory", french new wave cinema, Hedda Hopper, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Howard Hughes, Jean-Luc Godard, jesse marinoff reyes, John Houseman, Joseph Pulitzer, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Orson Welles, Orson Welles Citizen Kane, Robert McCormick, William Randolph Hearst | Leave a comment

utopia: machines triumphant

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Dave

Utopians were prophets in the sense of predicting the future and also prophets in the sense of castigating the present; a vision of things as they should be was also a reproach to things as they are. One of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged H.G. Wells, H.G. Wells A Modern Utopia, H.G. Wells When the Sleeper Wakes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karel Capek, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Samuel Butler, Samuel Butler Erewhon, William Morris, William Morris News From Nowhere | Leave a comment

too solitudes: two little too late

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Dave

A Bottle in the Sea of Gaza. Advertised as a pacifist message of hope and reconciliation is based on the two solitudes premise, ostensibly in the film that posits the secular perspective of bridging societies uniting them in the process … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged a bottle in the sea of gaza, Ariel Sharon, Benoit Charest, Erez Crossing, gush katif expulsion, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, MK Zahava Galon, Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo, Sylvain Belemare, Theodor Herzl, thierry binisti, valerie zenatti | Leave a comment

naples yellow: pots of peculiar gold

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Dave

Italian neo-realismo. Very much a complement to, and reaction towards, the American ideological war as docu-drama that took flight in Germany after WWII and ran the gamut clunker to precursor to cinema verite. Italian realismo was not created in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Alberto Moravia, Carlo Ponti, Charles Baudelaire, Frederico Fellini, Helen Levitt, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, silvana mangano, Silvano Mangano, Sophia Loren, vittorio de sica | Leave a comment

sinking feeling

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Dave

To Marxists, capitalisms imminent sinking was symbolic in the Titanic. A hundred years later the Commies fell into a pit and capitalism is still around; heavily flawed and perhaps redeemable if the global plutocracy can be dismembered. Oh yeah, that … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Adam Kirsch, Alain Badiou, Andy Warhol, Bell Hooks, Bell Hooks Outlaw Culture, Guy Debord, Jacques Lacan, James Cameron, James Cameron Titanic, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Slavoj Zizek, Titanic 100th anniversary | Leave a comment

hidden messages

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Dave

To forfeit your own reality, to forfeit your own identity and sense of autonomy. To step into the game of the human being as “ready-made” a banal, everyday generic object prissied up with a few optional features as a mark … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Adam Sandler, Adam Sandler product placement, Audrey Hepburn, D.W. Winnicott, FCC, FCC Federal Communications Commission, Guy Debord, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, product placement in movies, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin | Leave a comment

samurai candles

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Dave

Jesse Marinoff Reyes: Last week we looked at 24 Akira Kurosawa film posters on the occasion of his 102 nd birthday, with many of the posters featuring his star, Toshiro Mifune. Today, we look at Toshiro Mifune on what would … Continue reading →