Welcome to my blog

I have wanted to do this for a while, but as it is with all things technological, it took me a while to finally get around and figuring out a way to do this. I am sure since I am obsessed with politics and films that a very high percentage of my entries will be along those lines. To me, the two are very much paralell. I think if you watch even a simpleton film like the current remake of "Bad News Bears," you will find distinct political elements to it.  I must profess that the things a given film can say about your country or culture can be very disturbing. I was made aware of this while in Turkey, where my late father Mehmet Gokbudak hailed from, in 2003. I watched "Final Destination 2" at an outdoor cinema simply because I was on the island of Buyukada, off Istanbul, and this was the only film showing. I was very unsettled by how much the mostly teenage audience loved the film and how they openly cheered its' heinous violence. I was amazed by how both my conservative side and my liberal side were simultaneously outraged. My father who was born in 1921 and was almost 50 when I was born in 1970  had a very positive image of America because of films from the likes of the Marx Brothers and Laureal and Hardy. One of his favorite films the original 1933 version of "King Kong" happens to also be one of my favorite films even though politically and culturally we would have very little in common if he were alive today. Though I ardently support artists of all types, including filmmakers, I have to wonder if we need to reexamine our priorities and consider the impact of our cultural imports around the world. But, our world is motivated by greed and the need for profit and not ethics and the film industry is no different. I can not blame the current generation of young adults for watching films like "Final Destination 2." When I was their age, I watched films like "Child's Play" (the first Chuckie doll movie). I suppose there is a part of me which thinks my generation's slasher/horror nonsense is not as bad as this generation's nonsense, but of course that is mere hypocricy. Many cultural conservatives and even fervent liberals frequently state their reasons in wondering why other parts of the world feel a degree of hostility towards our beloved country and their reasoning seems dramatically off-base- "They hate our freedoms" or "They see us as the evil empire" both seem like equally ridicilious sentiments.In reality, many countries regardless of geography feel overhwelmed by the impact of our culture on their own. And, with films like "Final Destination 2"  showing up more and more frequently, often as they are now seen here, the image of our country at a time of socio-political upheveal around the world is a stark contrat to the films my dad saw in Istanbul during the 1930s. A few months before I was in Turkey the Turkish Communist Party (the TKK), which is a relatively small socialist organization, protested the opening of the newest James Bond movie in Turkey, because they felt it was a promotion of war and global imperialism. The irony is that one of the most famous Bond films "From Russia With Love" was filmed in Istanbul and showed Turkey in a rare positive light. Alas, the times have changed and I wonder when we can ever turn the clock back.

 

I promise my future entries will be considerably shorter....!