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HBO's Fahrenheit 451 Trailer Teases Dystopian World Filled With Burning 'Chaos' (hollywoodreporter.com)
HBO has released the first trailer of its film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's best-selling 1953 dystopian tale, Fahrenheit 451, which depicts a time period where history is outlawed and "firemen" burn books. The Hollywood Reporter reports: In the Ramin Bahrani-directed film, Michael B. Jordan stars as Guy Montag, a fireman who comes to question his role in enforcing the state's censorship laws, and in so doing finds himself at odds with his "mentor," Beatty (Michael Shannon). "By the time you guys grow up, there won't be one book left," Jordan is shown telling a group of students. Throughout the trailer, a reel of destruction is shown as Beatty's voiceover warns that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." "We are not born equal, so we must be made equal by the fire," Beatty explains. Jordan will also serve as the film's executive producer. Sofia Boutella, Martin Donovan, Laura Harrier, Keir Dullea, Jane Moffat and Grace Lynn Kung also star.
I always considered Equilibrium as spiritual successor to Fahrenheit 451 and enjoyable film to watch (even if bit too Matrix-like in certain places). I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to watching Equilibrium-sans-gun-kata...
News for NERDS.
"A very popular book about the dangers we face in the future is now being made into a movie."
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This is more news for nerds than the announcement of the awesome features of the latest iPhone or Samsung Galaxy. The (old) movie is actually something a lot of geeks had and have some interest in, so a remake is certainly of interest.
The feature list of the phones was more something for squealing fashion girlies...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Early editions of F541 lacked the additional third forward penned by bradbury himself on why he wrote it. I found them illuminating because most adaptations of F451 get the overt points and action points correct but mis the understated points. So we get book burning and an oppressive dystopia, and people who memorize books in the movies, along with irony of the "fireman" title. But we often lose the subtler notion that one of the good things about books is they might offend you and be politically incorrect. Another theme is ironically something we didn't have words for till about ten years ago, the "cognative bubble" and "online freinds" in which someone can immerse themsevles in something like facebook or reality TV (in the book portrayed by soap operas) in which the human part of our interactive nature is falsely satisfied by thinking we are interacting and experiencing emotions, whereas it's just a carefully scripted empty echo chamber and all we do is pick which echo chamber we want to lock our selves away from the world in.
When I first read F451 and long before the internet existed in it's present form, coincidentally that week, the San Francisco Public library removed Mary popins from the library for it's portayl of a black maid. Later they restored a bowlderized version which replaced the offensive subservient black english of "I's been `specting you missus poppins" with "i have been anticipating your arrival Miss Mary Poppins".
In his forward Bradbury described how he didn't think firemen would arrise all at once or at all but rather he was describing something that also had no term at the time but what we call creeping political correctness and trigger warnings. An assumed civil right that the world must be sanitized so it offends no one.
At the time I thought is seemed prescient and a good warning. But that was before the internet, and boy was he right about what's happened since. Now we even have a president who starts his day in the warm soapy bath of fox and freinds soothing his ego. But he's not the only one.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Sure, just like it is legal for a US citizen to own a machine gun. You can do it, you just have to submit a lengthy and complex application (eliminating a major fraction of the terminally stupid right there), be absolutely squeaky clean with the law (eliminating a significant fraction of the remainder who were able to fill in the form or got somebody smarter to do it for them), and to be certified as being not mentally ill (active) as opposed to being sane as far as anybody knows (passive) which takes out a goodly fraction of the ones who are smart enough to fill in the form, honest (or smart!) enough never to have been arrested for any crime beyond disposing of their gum on a sidewalk at age twelve, who are STILL silly enough to think that an AR-15 or AK-47 or other semiautomatic large magazine rifle designed exclusively for killing people (and shooting the hell out of trees, targets, beer cans, all of which I'm sure is good clean fun if you're into that sort of thing) is a good thing BECAUSE they are borderline, schizophrenic and off their meds, bipolar and off their meds, etc.
Oh, and to own a machine gun, you also have to be pretty well off financially, because there IS NO SUPPLY with this set of hoops to jump through, so the price of what machine guns are out there to be purchased is astronomical. As in your "hobby" will cost you 20 large or more just for your first gun, and ammunition to feed the full metal jacket kitty ain't cheap, so taking your gun out and actually shooting it for a day probably costs as much as a decent deer rifle. I'd be perfectly happy for that to be the case for removable magazine (and hence large magazine) semi-automatic rifles as well. After all, having money is (like it or not) a symptom of not being terminally stupid, and being more likely than not to be at least approximately sane, although yes the class certainly contains some spectacular counter-examples who are sane, smart, and badass criminal who need the ARs "for their business". But we can at least hope that they fail the legal background check. Make assault rifles really expensive so that most of the jackasses who own four now can't afford them unless they sell their trailer home and their boat and a whole lot of meth.
Otherwise, sir, you are "dead" on the money. A bolt action 30-06 doesn't have the rate of fire of an AR-15, its magazine holds a humble five rounds, but those rounds can have bullets that range from 110 gr to 220 gr, and You Do Not Want To Get Hit with a 220 gr silvertip 30-06 bullet -- or to fire your 30-06 holding such a bullet inside a house or neighborhood unless you want to put holes through your own house and the house next door and your neighbor inside. An AR 15 has a 5.65 mm, 63 gr bullet. High muzzle velocity, sure, but it is still like shooting somebody with buckshot at close range, only one bullet at a time. I say somebody, because while the 30-06 is good for game ranging from deer through elk or middling large predators, the AR 15 isn't really good for shooting anything bigger than a coyote.
I also happen to think that using a semi-automatic rifle for hunting is borderline immoral as it encourages bad practice -- if you are shooting at a deer and think you are going to need two shots to kill it, you shouldn't be taking the shot in the first place, and don't we ALL wince when we're in the woods and we hear that signature five round pop pop pop pop that indicates that some butt-head has emptied his magazine at the sound of a squirrel rustling in the leaves somewhere?
So modest proposal -- leave the 2nd amendment right where it is, as the regulation of machine guns has already passed muster. Add ARs to the existing law pretty much as is. AR being defined as a) semiautomatic; b) centerfire; c) rifle; d) bullet > 40 gr; e) bullet diameter > 0.22; f) removable magazine; g) with > 5 round capacity. That still leaves open semiautomatic shotguns, which are usually already regulated as far as magazine capacity is concerned and which arguably have some role in bird
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Meanwhile, schools are banning literary classics because they contain a word that some people happen to obsess over.
The worst place Trump could get 'ideas' from would be from those that hate him: the censoring, deplatforming, shouting down, physically attacking, blasphemy law enforcing, thought-policing fascists that pretend to be against fascism.