Metacinema Puns

Abbas Kiarostami made his films self-referential and metatextual. For example, his Koker Trilogy begins with a straightforward narrative film about a boy trying to return a notebook to a friend (Where is the Friend's House); the second film follows the "director" of that first film and his son as they try to find the actor who played the boy after a (real-life) earthquake (And Life Goes On); and the final film opens with another "director" telling you that you are about to watch a film, and then build an entire film around the filming of a 2-minute scene in "And Life Goes On" (Through the Olive Trees). Meanwhile, Close-Up literally takes the actual people involved in a minor Iranian cinema scandal and has them act out the scandal all over again; and Taste of Cherry ends with grainy footage of the filming of...Taste of Cherry. His documentary about homework (called Homework) features Iranian schoolboys talking about homework, with periodic shots of the camerman at work to remind you that you are watching a film, and that the children are "performing" for you. He's an absolute master of metatextual techniques in film and the postmodern touchstone of interrogating the relationship between art, artist, and viewer.

Of course, Kiarostami isn't the only director who does this sort of thing. Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, Lynch, and countless others also love to make self-reflexive, metatextual works. But what I find so refreshing about Kiarostami is how sincere and compassionate his films are in comparison to these other directors. Most other films--most other art, really--that engages in this sort of metatextualism is bitingly ironic and cynical. Godard is maybe the best example of this--as his films remind you that they are indeed films (say, the jump cuts in Breathless or the color changes in the beginning of Contempt), they also drip with irony. F for Fake by Orson Welles is also metacinematic--in a similar vein as Close-Up--but also is soaked through with cynicism. Yet Kiarostami, despite going even further with his metatextualism than anyone else, maintains a sincerity and compassion that I haven't seen elsewhere. His films are filled with human beings showing mercy, kindness, and selflessness--like the boy in Where is the Friend's House walking hours over hill and dale just to return a notebook to a friend, or the man who helps push a car up a hill in And Life Goes On, or the therapy sessions the passengers provide in *Taste of

I recently stumbled across this term when reading the wiki page for Being John Malkovich. I clicked on a page that gave a list of metacinema films but I still don't really understand what can be classified as meta. The definition states, "meta-cinema is a style of film-making in which the film does not let the audience forget they are watching a work of fiction". Some other examples include Mulholland Drive, Tropic Thunder, My Week With Marilyn, Birman etc. However, among all these films I never got the sense that I was being reminded they were works of fiction. The thing that all the examples seem to have in common is that they all have a narrative that centres around the film industry or something related to performance. But I don't get how that can be considered as meta. Would hope to clear up this confusion!

So, first things first, I loved it. I've heard comparisons with Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Gremlins 2: The New Batch, I've specifically rewatched the latter before going to see Resurrections and yeah, it definitely has more in common with these two than any traditional sequels. It's very much a metacinema experience that is more of a commentary than it is a continuation, not that it doesn't have cool moments of worldbuilding, too.

I loved the acting: there was a ton of cameos, Sense8 cast copypasted here as assorted redpills had an already established chemistry that really feels like a family of sorts and the movie also has a ton of relatively young character actors who give the roles their best: Neil Patrick Harris, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff and Jessica Henwick carry large portions of the movie with relative ease and I feel like Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss had much better chemistry, too.

A point I hear a lot is that action is not on par with originals and... I kinda refuse to believe that it was not intentional since firstly there are scenes that look terrific and secondly the crew is mostly the same. It probably is needed to note that The Wachowskis very much can direct action to a point that V for Vendetta had them directing second units because James McTeigue was not that experienced. And then there are several action scenes that made me laugh and looked like a drunken brawl at the bar or some other kind of utter chaos. As a film buff I must admit that this type of stuff is fascinating to me, since editing against the established methodology and producing this kind of scenes takes either unique (bad) luck or precise trial-and-error experimenting. And the thing is: the moment you start to doubt it was not intentional you see something that tells you otherwise, like a street sign with a clear easter egg or something like that. Speaking of latter: this movie is very rewarding if you're a detail freak like me. It's a barrage of very intentional things put there in the background or elsewhere not easily noticeable.

Last but not least, I'm 29 and after that screening I can attest that thirtysomethings are officially the worst cinema crowd right now (at least in Ukraine). A lot of people straight up talked through the movie and while it was irritating it also provided an insight I will cherish and contemplate for a long time. Essentially some of the people attempted to ri

Do your worst!

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

Buenosdillas

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

Lana Wachowski is telling us that our world is the first iteration of the Matrix.

At the end of Matrix Reloaded, and throughout Revolutions, Neo gained the ability to control the machines in the real world. A common theory was that the real world was actually just another level of the Matrix, another level of control employed by the machines. Resurrections is an extension of that idea.

The Matrix Resurrections was not a linear continuation of the first trilogy. It had similar themes and structural elements, but it was very clearly its own story. It was metacinema. The first three were not. This is its own independent film, and it exists outside the storyline of the first trilogy. The first trilogy exists within Resurrections.

Lana Washowski brought in her writing team from Cloud Atlas for Resurrections. Cloud Atlas is famous for its Matryoshka doll structure (stories within stories). The original Matrix trilogy is about a world (the Matrix) within the real world. Some speculate Reloaded and Revolutions showed that the real world was another "doll" within the hierarchy of worlds/stories, which is why Neo had control over the machines in his real world.

Now here we have Resurrections. Another level of the story within a story. The movie is meta and self-referential. It is not a strict continuation of Revolutions. It is about being stuck in endless recurring loops, getting comfortable with routine, and the machines using this as a form of control. The development of the movie itself is a recurring loop. Resurrections references direct scenes from the first trilogy, going so far as to show clips from the other movies and how they loop into what we are currently watching. It references Warner brothers. It references Neo being a video game designer, creating the matrix from the first trilogy within his game in Resurrections; another nested doll.

In the real world, we are controlled by routine, recurring loops. We're controlled by corporations who provide us with entertainment to keep us docile; corporations like Warner brothers. We're controlled by games and social media. In order to find our true, authentic self (obviously a metaphor for Lana herself), we have to break out of what society tells us is truth. Society keeps us hooked, and therefore trapped, by having us chase things that are just out of reach (like Neo and Trinity being trapped in their pods, and just out of reach of each other within the new version of the Matrix; done to better control them

I won't be doing that today!

[Removed]

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

There hasn't been a post all year!

Why

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)

Nothing, it just waved

Bob

Him: I can explain everything!

(It's his best joke yet I think)

So that I could frequently say, "I am going to walk 5 miles now."

Edit: My most popular post on Reddit! 😀 Thank you for the awards.

Just to clarify, 12345678

Me grabbing a soda from my (what I thought was) half full 12pk...

Notices there's only 2;

Me: "Awe man... This is a damn bird box!" Her: "What the hell does that mean?!" Me: (Pulls both cans out & shows them to her) "It's only got Toucans."

I'm not ashamed to admit the look on her face was glorious.

I was just sitting there doing nothing.