Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.


June 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 38

Total Comments: 13


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Czech Dream / Ceský sen / Czech Republic / 2004

Two Prague film students use government funding to finance the advertising and promotion for a the grand opening of a fictional department store. The documentary follows the entire process: the grooming of the grubby students into slick businessmen, the recording of the horribly bleeding-heart jingle, the sneakily ingenuous ad campaign that tells consumers, “Don’t come” and “Don’t spend.” And thanks to the well-oiled mechanisms of modern market-research, it works. Opening day arrives and with it a mob of hundreds of soon-to-be-disappointed patrons.

The film offers the obvious guilty pleasure of a highly successful practical joke, but it also pauses for a meditation on the power of marketing and empty promises, specifically as they relate to the Czech Republic’s joining of the European Union. And whereas the film lacks any heartfelt introspection on the part of the filmmakers, the camera compensates by generously following the alternately amused, enraged, and crestfallen victims of the scheme.

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Digital projection
12 Jun 2006 1:42 PM | Submit Comment


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