My Movie Map

here

James Howard Kunstler: The Tragedy of Suburbia

Here is a video of Kunstler's presentation.

Slate and the L.A. Times on Mike Judge's film Idiocracy

Slate: The Movie Hollywood Doesn't Want You to See

L.A. Times: The Funniest Movie You Can't See



From Patt Morrison's L.A. Times piece:

Why has Fox deep-sixed this film? A Fox spokesman tells me that "Idiocracy" was "a limited release, that's it, nothing to really talk about."

But the cine-blog world is roiling with questions. Did Judge's film, by sheer happenstance, mirror Rupert Murdoch's blueprint for a Fox-fed nation of fat, dumb and happy? Is the problem a threatened lawsuit over the way "Idiocracy" treats corporate America? Starbucks in 2505 serves speedy sex acts with the coffee, and Carl's Jr. and H&R Block get the same rough handling. But that's why studios have lawyers, and that's why we have the 1st Amendment.

Paper Three: Jacobs, Kunstler, and _______ (fill in the blank)

In this essay, you will compare the analysis of Jane Jacobs and James Howard Kunstler to a third writer on the subject of American cities and suburbs in the post-WWII era. Your paper should address, but need not be limited to, the following questions:

1. How does each author address the role of government (local, state, and federal) in the development and re-development of U.S. cities?

2. How does each author address the role of the automobile and the growth of large highway projects in the transformation of American urban and suburban life after WWII?

3. What specific crisis does each author highlight, and what solutions does each author argue or imply would be most effective for the problems facing U.S. cities and suburbs?

7-10 pgs. DUE IN CLASS ON DEC. 11th

mapping the city on film pt 2; demo

Good Will Hunting:

Harvard Sq.

Southie

MIT

Chinatown

L.A.'s Chinatown

The Valley

New Use for a Classic Building in Harlem

Ron sent in this NY Times article this morning.

Veterans Day 2007

Memorial Wall
Weymouth, MA




Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.

A. E. Houseman

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

A. Lincoln

Mike Davis on Katrina

Here it is.

Urban Bibliography

New York

Morningside Heights

Boston

All Souls

Los Angeles

City of Quartz

Chicago

Our America


Atlanta

Makes Me Wanna Holler (this book also involves life in Washington, D.C. and its suburbs)

Walt Disney's plans for a city

video here

Kuntsler's Eyesore of the Month

Despite winning numerous awards for its design, Simmons Hall at MIT is hated by students, full of design flaws and merited an Eyesore of the Month award from James Howard Kunstler.

New Urbanism

Here is a CBS News profile of New Urbanist communities, including the Seaside development depicted in Peter Weir's film The Truman Show. And here is the website for Duany Plater-Zyberk, the firm responsible for Seaside and hundreds of other New Urbanist developments.

Jane Jacobs

HERE SHE IS!!!