Director: David Gargani
Year: 2008 - Studio: Blue Room
Movie Home - SXSW Page - IMDb
Lowdown: Blind me with SCIENCE!
Bonus: Awesome 50's space and monster footage.
With a sharp focus on American Science Fiction film from the 1950's, Monsters explores the role of the Scientist as an American hero during a time when the whole world was getting used to the idea that science had become awesome enough to blow us all to hell.
The 50-year rule of history seems to be well in effect here as the images of attractive everyman scientists working hand-in-hand with the military and government evoke a firm distinction from the way we view our current technological wonderworld, both in modern film and in the pseudo-reality of news and media.
The contrast that will sit in your gut like a slightly undercooked blarney stone is just how differently America viewed science and engineering back in the glossy days of yore at the dawn of the atomic age. Lauded as our savior, part of our national strength and identity, science is portrayed without the moral repulsion that can be found these days.
Viewed through this lens, our hypocrisy is laid naked; for only some science is eeeevil these days. To many of us in America the science of geology, stubbornly demanding that the Earth is more than 6000 years old or the science of biology, the science that might cure Alzheimer's or Multiple Sclerosis is very very bad. However the science that makes the GPS in your SUV work or the science that lets you trade Credit Default Swaps to rape people's life savings is just fine and dandy.
The third act of Monsters is an open plea for education and the restoration of the Scientist as a person to be honored and remembered in America. While slightly less effective than the rest of the film, this plea is nonetheless smack-in-the-face obvious to anyone who had their eyes and ears open during the first two-thirds of the movie.
The message is simple, and the same one Kennedy uses to urge us to the moon: humanity is going to brave the scientific fronteers of space and energy and if America continues to keep science as a bastard child locked in the basement, we will simply be left behind.
I am
the
Baba
Year: 2008 - Studio: Blue Room
Movie Home - SXSW Page - IMDb
Lowdown: Blind me with SCIENCE!
Bonus: Awesome 50's space and monster footage.
With a sharp focus on American Science Fiction film from the 1950's, Monsters explores the role of the Scientist as an American hero during a time when the whole world was getting used to the idea that science had become awesome enough to blow us all to hell.
The 50-year rule of history seems to be well in effect here as the images of attractive everyman scientists working hand-in-hand with the military and government evoke a firm distinction from the way we view our current technological wonderworld, both in modern film and in the pseudo-reality of news and media.
The contrast that will sit in your gut like a slightly undercooked blarney stone is just how differently America viewed science and engineering back in the glossy days of yore at the dawn of the atomic age. Lauded as our savior, part of our national strength and identity, science is portrayed without the moral repulsion that can be found these days.
Viewed through this lens, our hypocrisy is laid naked; for only some science is eeeevil these days. To many of us in America the science of geology, stubbornly demanding that the Earth is more than 6000 years old or the science of biology, the science that might cure Alzheimer's or Multiple Sclerosis is very very bad. However the science that makes the GPS in your SUV work or the science that lets you trade Credit Default Swaps to rape people's life savings is just fine and dandy.
The third act of Monsters is an open plea for education and the restoration of the Scientist as a person to be honored and remembered in America. While slightly less effective than the rest of the film, this plea is nonetheless smack-in-the-face obvious to anyone who had their eyes and ears open during the first two-thirds of the movie.
The message is simple, and the same one Kennedy uses to urge us to the moon: humanity is going to brave the scientific fronteers of space and energy and if America continues to keep science as a bastard child locked in the basement, we will simply be left behind.
I am
the
Baba