...see what I mean? lol Indeed the music was great. Didn't see Barjo, how was it? PKD's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep" was made into BLADERUNNER. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" into TOTAL RECALL. "Second Variety" into SCREAMERS (which I have not seen) People have pointed out that THE TRUMAN SHOW is a total swipe of "Time Out Of Joint" (saw the movie, didn't read the book) Rumors have floated around for years of an "A Scanner Darkly" project. And I have even heard of plans to do "The Man In The High Castle" (a documentary on contemporary life in the US would come pretty close)
- steve 2-25-2001 4:26 am [add a comment]

• One review I read claimed The Matrix was loosely inspired by Dick's Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Instead of colonists living under the Martian desert you had "human batteries" floating in amniotic fluid; instead of Perky Pat layouts you had a fantasy world of consumer electronics and high-tech cubicles. In both scenarios "the system" keeps you amused while using you up.
  - Tom Moody 2-25-2001 7:20 am [add a comment]




• Hmmmmm I read the book but don't remember anythng about it at all. I heard that The Matrix was based on The Odyssey which make sence (not that I ever read that one)
  - steve 2-25-2001 11:32 am [add a comment]




• I thought the Matrix was a swipe of Grant Morrisons comic The Invisibles (requires javascript.) Or at least, that's what he says.
  - jim 2-25-2001 6:28 pm [add a comment]




• I wonder who Homer swiped from?
  - steve 2-25-2001 7:21 pm [add a comment]




• I thought Homer was just a composite of several sucessful ancient authors.
  - jim 2-25-2001 7:32 pm [add a comment]




• Homer is pretty nebulous, and his notion of being an author was different than ours. Basically, he’s the intersection between oral and written culture, consolidating traditional materials into a specific text. The Hebrew scriptures went through something similar, and the traditional authors of the biblical books perhaps inhabit the same plane of existence as Homer. The source of inspiration; the necessity of an author; the way our conception of these things has changed over time, these are interesting issues. I mentioned pseudoepigrapha recently, which are writings ascribed to some traditional author, but removed from the authentic cannon by modern scholarship. These texts are not “fakes”, but appeals to a patron source of inspiration, and may legitimately extend a particular cultural path.
  On a tangent, Tom Moody’s Doris Piserchia page had me wondering about relationships between these matters and contemporary use of pseudonyms, both by writers, and in the construction of pop personae.
  - alex 2-25-2001 10:39 pm [add a comment]




• homer say what?

  oh sorry, i thought this was bills page.
  - dave 2-25-2001 11:02 pm [add a comment]




• A really low-rent pop-culture version of pseudoepigrapha might be fan fiction, or "fanfic." Here, the sacred ideas of such oracular figures as Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas are perpetuated by fans who write stories about the manners on Chewbacca's world, or Lieutenant Uhuru's years at the Academy. Often a science fiction writer creates a world or characters so popular that lesser writers can make a few bucks off them--I'm thinking of the Man-Kzin Wars books, based on Larry Niven's writings. Strangely, this copycat-ism may guarantee Homer-like immortality for genre authors, while more highbrow literary figures drop away; it's hard to imagine fanfic based on Saul Bellow or John Updike.
  - Tom Moody 2-27-2001 8:25 am [add a comment]




• i was searching for some "poochie" joke here. after all, he is an outrageous paradigm and some of homers best work.
  - dave 2-25-2001 11:06 pm [add a comment]




• thats not where i expected that comment to thread.
  - dave 2-25-2001 11:07 pm [add a comment]




• D'oh!
  - alex 2-26-2001 2:19 am [add a comment]




• BARJO
  it was pretty silly - a good one to follow an afternoon viewing of traffic (which was mike's pick although he didn't know what it was about, and, AS PER USUAL, wanted his money back afterwards). who knew there were suburbs in france?
  - linda 2-28-2001 6:08 am [add a comment]




• i am very happy traffic was made in the usa!!!--i didnt like it as it was like a documentary...very good though/thank you hollywood
  - Skinny 2-28-2001 10:36 pm [add a comment]




• I've decided that I think Traffic sucked.
  - steve 3-01-2001 12:01 am [add a comment]




• why sucked??
  - Skinny 3-01-2001 2:22 am [add a comment]




• I agree, it sucked, but the marketing (through the praise of esteemed critics?) of it was every bit as good as Blair Witch. I did think Benito Del Toro exuded himself pretty well. And the ending, although hokey, was good because 1. It eventually came, and 2. I think if you could look at that whole movie as an overly realistic reality play (in that it was boring, dull, and sometimes reprehensible), but that in the end with all the various power brokers essentially self-consumed and ineffectual, some kids got a ball park--that's as good an expression of hope as any I've seen.
  - jimlouis 3-01-2001 2:32 am [add a comment]




• "I did think Benito Del Toro exuded himself pretty well."
  I liked him too, I just wish the whole movie had centered around his charactor.
  "in the end with all the various power brokers essentially self-consumed and ineffectual, some kids got a ball park--that's as good an expression of hope as any I've seen."
  I liked the ball park too.
  So much hokeyness(answering Mike here) I found the innocent wife of the drug kingpin
  suddenly becoming a ruthless kingpin herself pretty hard to swallow
  And Michael Douglass's daughter becoming a down and out
  junkie and (gasp)sleeping with a black man.
  That's where dope'll getcha.
  And Michael Douglas becoming a vigilante, taking the law into his own hands to save her, why didn't he just call the cops?
  - steve 3-01-2001 8:30 am [add a comment]




• and the poison breakfast scene was not real--they(cops) would allways send one of thier own out for breakfast
  - Skinny 3-01-2001 3:37 pm [add a comment]




• Plus, Soderberg is arty as hell. I find his use of alternating film stocks irritating. Oliver Stone started this trend, and now everyone's doing it. Did anyone else find the use of the piss-yellow, grainy stock for the "Mexico" scenes to be subtly racist/colonial? Imagine if it was inverted--if the Mexico footage was shot clear and bright and then every time he cut to Washington DC you were suddenly in a blurry miasma. (Might be more interesting, actually.) Also, I found it ridiculously coincidental that Catherine Zeta-Jones would call Frankie Flores to do the hit, and even more ridiculous that he would accept the job from her. The last time we saw him he was a broken, weeping wreck. "Another job? Sure, I don't know you, but I'm your man!" Yeah, right. For these and the reasons you guys mentioned (sleeping with a black man? gasp), I hated Traffic. What a phony crock!
  - Tom Moody 3-01-2001 8:06 pm [add a comment]




• frankie's name was in the painting that czj's husband told her to "look into"...that's how she got hooked up with him.
  - linda 3-01-2001 9:34 pm [add a comment]