1.
“Lucy and the Enduring Appeal of the Instant Upgrade.” Tasha Robinson weaves together a dazzling array of examples of movie characters instantly becoming heroic or super-heroic while bypassing any semblance of study, practice or other hard work. What does it mean?
“The instant-upgrade story is appealing from a filmmaking perspective because anything that lets a story skip past lengthy processes and cut straight to the results tends to be helpful for the limitations of film runtimes. When Neo becomes a martial-arts expert in The Matrix just by uploading a kung-fu module into his brain (“Dude.”), or failed fiction-writer wannabe Eddie takes a pill and turns into a genius in Limitless, the story doesn’t have to pause to deal with the passage of time, or address how an unfocused, dippy schmo got himself together enough to accomplish something time-consuming and difficult. Instant upgrades are efficient in action stories that just want to get the action rolling. More significantly, instant-upgrade stories play into the wish-fulfillment fantasy of awesomeness without effort, awesomeness without waiting, awesomeness anyone can achieve, regardless of personal limitations.”
2.
“Temple of Gloom: Why is the Second Indiana Jones Movie so Dark?” The answer, according to Grantland’s Bryan Curtis: …read more