![\"\"](\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/1600\/narnia-georgie.jpg\")
<\/a>1.<\/a> You may have heard that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/a><\/i> came out on DVD<\/a> today. I haven\u2019t had time to check out more than one or two bonus features so far, but I must say I do like the wardrobe-themed packaging. Plus I love Georgie \u201cLucy\u201d Henley\u2019s Linda Blair impression, above.<\/span><\/p>\n
2.<\/a> Paul Verhoeven, who directed the original Basic Instinct<\/a><\/i> (1992) but not its considerably tamer sequel \u2014 which flopped when it opened this past weekend \u2014 tells Reuters<\/a> that the erotic-thriller genre has died because of the current political climate:<\/p>\n \u201cAnything that is erotic has been banned in the United States,\u201d said the Dutch native. \u201cLook at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Scribe Nicholas Meyer, who was an uncredited writer on 1987\u2019s seminal sex-fueled cautionary tale \u201cFatal Attraction,\u201d agrees, noting that the genre\u2019s downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a big puritanical mode,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, it\u2019s like the McCarthy era, except it\u2019s not \u2018Are you a communist?\u2019 but \u2018Have you ever put sex in a movie?\u201d\u2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n FWIW, this strikes me as somewhat preposterous, not least because the first film came out during the presidency of George Bush and the vice-presidency of Dan \u201cFamily Values\u201d Quayle.<\/p>\n I do think that, with the notable exception of films that target the \u201curban\u201d market (e.g. Training Day<\/i>), there has been a decline in the acceptability of gratuitous sex and nudity in films \u2014 compare the abundance of naked-breast shots in 1980s action films like Commando<\/i>, Lethal Weapon<\/i> and Die Hard<\/i> with the absence of such things from most action movies of the past decade.<\/p>\n But I think, if anything, the lack of open eroticism in mainstream film \u2014 most of which was badly written to begin with \u2014 owes more to the fact that it has become much more available in the culture at large. In other words, it may owe more to increased liberalism, as it were, than to increased conservatism. Hence, I\u2019d be more inclined to agree with the following bit from the same article:<\/p>\n For producer JC Spink, the genre\u2019s demise has little to do with politics, scripts or willing talent and everything to do with the Internet, which became ubiquitous in American homes around the same time studio executives were suffering through such debacles as \u201cBody of Evidence,\u201d \u201cShowgirls\u201d and \u201cJade.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy pay $10 to see something at the movies that you can see for free on the Internet?\u201d Spink asked. \u201cI think the genre is suffering because sex is more pervasive in our society now than it was 10 years ago, from Vanity Fair ads to reality TV. I mean, there\u2019s porn stars on reality TV.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 3.<\/a> The Vancouver Sun<\/a><\/i>\u2018s Pete McMartin reports that the B.C. Teachers\u2019 Federation\u2019s \u201chomophobia and heterosexism\u201d group has released its \u201cBrokeback Mountain Lesson Plan<\/a>\u201c. The film, which is the first to become the subject of an entire BCTF lesson plan, is rated 14A in British Columbia, so most students in Grades 10-12 would be able to see it without adult accompaniment. Needless to say, the lesson plan exploits the film<\/a> for political reasons, and not to encourage deeper engagement with the film as a film<\/i>.<\/p>\n 4.<\/a> The Associated Press<\/a> reports that two more movies \u2014 Sony\u2019s The Benchwarmers<\/a><\/i> and Fox Searchlight\u2019s Phat Girlz<\/a><\/i> \u2014 are being released this Friday without being screened for critics first<\/a>. That makes at least 12 such films in the first 14 weeks of this year (though two of them were<\/i> shown to critics in Canada, at least).<\/p>\n 5.<\/a> The Associated Press<\/a> reports that educators are \u201coutraged\u201d by a new series of Sesame Street<\/i> DVDs that are aimed at children as young as six months, called Sesame Beginnings<\/a><\/i>, because they believe \u201cno form of TV or video is suitable for kids under 2.\u201d In a completely unrelated note, my children have just graduated from Disney-themed Huggies to Muppet-themed Pampers, and it always freaks me out a little to see Baby Elmo\u2019s eyes staring at me from my children\u2019s diapers whenever I prep them for a change.<\/p>\n 6.<\/a> The National Post<\/a><\/i>\u2018s Robert Fulford grumbles that biopics sometimes deviate from the facts regarding the people they depict; being a journalist himself, he pays particular attention to the way Capote<\/a><\/i> depicted New Yorker<\/i> editor William Shawn.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1. You may have heard that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe came out on DVD today. I haven\u2019t had time to check out more than one or two bonus features so far, but I must say I do like the wardrobe-themed packaging. Plus I love Georgie \u201cLucy\u201d Henley\u2019s Linda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n