so yeah
..this is 2012.
this is what synkpocalypse feels like.
the irony being, for me, that on a practical level, ain't shit really changed. socially, politically, culturally, it's been essentially more of the same. albeit much more.. we've been synking deeper and deeper.. are we supposed to hit bottom this year? doubt it, but, i haven't a clue what that means. are we making contact this year? well.. that depends..
is a parody of contact acceptable?
the idea of exploring an abyss, speaking practically, seems pretty wack to me. it's not like discovering an untouched rainforest, or scouring a previously un-see-able portion of space; the abyss is seemingly infinite darkness, endless shadow.. deep dark cold empty, with nothing to keep you company but your thoughts and tweets.. [but that's just me]
is reaching the abyss considered contact?
or.. does the contact happen when you make it back..
director extraordinaire and jesus parody James Cameron made headlines last week by diving really really deep into the ocean and coming back un-squished. this seems like a great example of the Contact Parody; i distinctly remember being exceptionally unmoved by his historic heroic undertaking.. yet the synknificance was unmistakeable.. the guy directed The Abyss for crying out loud..
-picture-MOV_8c661eef_b.jpg)
"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
contact - touching water kinda
contact
touching water, from Seven Pounds
..and his most recent film, Sanctum, is a true story, about a guy diving really really deep underwater to reach a place that no one has ever been before
[sketches for the set design of Sanctum's ending scene]
as i've written before- the whole 3D IMAX super hi-def craze reflects the parody of synk quite.. um.. synk-ly. because of the parody nature of film, all of a sudden, it's a huge expensive deal to view movies in a parody of three-dimensional projection.. i honestly think it's lost on many people that we naturally see in 3D, and that those bulky glasses do for flat film what our eyes and brain do for the world around us.
but- i Gladly paid twenty bucks to see Inception on an IMAX screen..
..and given the chance, i would love to see the Titanic sink in 3D..
as if reality wasn't surreal enough
the movie 2012 also exemplifies the Contact Parody concept. released just a few short years before doomsday was supposed to take place, the film used high-end computer animation and explosive action sequences to Make Fun Of a deeply spiritual idea that the ancient mayans took very seriously.
and many many many people got the joke, hence our current pop-culture doomsday punchline, while considerably fewer people grasped the cosmic esoteric occult nuances and what not..
parody. contact.
:)
EDIT:
.
Here's another amusing thing about "Sanctum".
ReplyDeleteIt was filmed in "Downunder" (Australia)
" Shot on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.All of the underwater sequences took place in a large water tank at the Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland. Real caves were also filmed in South Australia's cave-diving region around Mount Gambier.
Sanctum was inspired by the film's co-writer Andrew Wight's experience with a cave diving expedition in Australia that resulted in 13 cavers becoming trapped in one of the world's largest underwater cave systems after a freak storm collapsed the entrance.
Stunt diver Agnes Milowka, who appears as a double in the already-released film, drowned in one of these caves on 27 February 2011 when she reportedly ran out of air."
Andrew Wight
(14 November 1959 - 4 February 2012) was an Australian screenwriter and producer best known for his 2011 film Sanctum.His credits include "Ghosts of the Abyss"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_of_the_Abyss
Interesting poster,by the way;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ghosts_of_the_abyss.jpg
On 4 February 2012, he was killed in a helicopter crash at Jaspers Brush near the town of Berry in New South Wales, Australia.
The crash also claimed the life of American filmmaker Mike deGruy.
Mike deGruy
(December 29, 1951 – February 4, 2012) was an American documentary filmmaker specializing in underwater cinematography. His credits include Life in the Freezer, Trials of Life, The Blue Planet and Pacific Abyss.
Oddly,in "Pacific Abyss",a three-part TV series,
episode three was titled,"Into The Abyss" and was about;
" As the Big Blue Explorer heads to their final destination at Palau Islands, they test out the very futuristic "Newtsuit", that could take divers to new depths, into the abyss.
The "Newtsuit" is an incredible feat of submarine engineering - a bright yellow one-man submersible that Mike DeGruy has to master before he can venture even deeper into the Pacific abyss. "
Tragic stuff.
Maybe 'we all live in a one-man,yellow submarine' exploring our own inner abyss ?-)
Also Richard Roxburgh,one of the stars of "Sanctum" is also in a film called "The Touch".
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Touch_%282002_film%29
" The Touch tells the story of a Chinese family of martial artists and acrobats who have been performing for many generations. The family are, in secret, guardians of a holy treasure accessible only by a spectacular jump which, to everyone else, is impossible to perform.
One of the family members (the main character's brother) and his girlfriend are kidnapped by a ruthless treasure hunter (Roxburgh) to procure the priceless relic for him. Yeoh's character Pak Yin, with the help of Eric (Chaplin), her master thief ex-boyfriend, pursues them into an ancient desert where legends say the treasure is buried in order to uncover and protect the treasure that her ancestors had sworn to keep safe. The action culminates in a climactic sequence set in the booby-trapped subterranean Buddhist temple."
He also played the role of Bob (Hawk)e,the Australian Prime-minster in the tele-movie "Hawke" ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawke_%28film%29
In other words the man said to run Oz (Australia). The wizard of Oz?
He also plays Dr. Keith Orbit in Rob Cohen's movie "Stealth" ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_%28film%29
Another nice poster,by the way -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stealth_poster.jpg
I thought I saw an eye in a triangle there somewhere?-)
He also played Mr. Jeffries in
"Oscar and Lucinda" ;
" In mid-1800's England, Oscar Hopkins (Ralph Fiennes) is a young Anglican priest, a misfit and an outcast, but with the soul of an angel. As a boy, even though from a strict Plymouth Brethren family, he felt God told him through a sign to leave his father and his faith and join the Church of England. Lucinda Leplastrier (Cate Blanchett) is a teenage Australian heiress who has an almost desperate desire to liberate her sex from the confines of the male-dominated culture of Australia at that time. She buys a glass factory and has a dream of building a church made almost entirely of glass, and then transporting it to the Australian Outback. Oscar and Lucinda meet on a ship going to Australia; once there, they are for different reasons ostracized from society, and as a result "join forces" together. Oscar and Lucinda are both passionate gamblers, and Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport the glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads to the events that will change both their lives forever.
SPOILER ALERT:
Oscar drowns in the river with the church when it sinks (syncs) into the murky depths below.
It certainly is a year for syncs (sinks)!-)
Heroic Gnosis 40,000 Leagues Under the Sea: America can't Sync? The Titanic did.
ReplyDeleteLove how WILL jumps at Pi time. SANCTUM so we're talking about SANTORUM's ship sinking as he exists the race, leading to the rise of ROM-knee. Good times to be had by all. These posts will form the new library of ALEX-AND-r[h]ia. Make no JONES about it.
ReplyDeleteloved it.
ReplyDelete