Branded

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Branded

Postby brainpanhandler » Thu Aug 09, 2012 10:10 am

It's actually aliens running the planet. Not corporations. Or maybe that's just a metaphor.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_(2012_film)

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ABSTRACT
Against a background of research suggesting that brand symbolism
understanding does not develop until 7 to 11 years of age, two studies
investigate various aspects of preschool children’s brand knowledge.
While children’s recognition of child-oriented brands is found
to be significantly greater than their recognition of brands that are
marketed primarily to teens and adults, these young children do recognize
brands. In a second study, children’s ability to form mental
representations of brands is assessed, along with their understanding
of brands as social symbols. Cognitive ability, theory of mind, and
executive functioning are assessed as predictors of these brandrelated
outcomes. Theory of mind and executive functioning are both
significant predictors of the ability to form mental representations of
brands. Children’s brand symbolism understanding shows a significant
link with theory of mind. It is concluded that 3- to 5-year-olds
have emerging knowledge of brands that are relevant in their lives.
The impact of individual differences in theory of mind and executive
functioning on children’s brand knowledge aligns with current theories
of child development. Methodological contributions and societal
implications are discussed.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream ... 28_ftp.pdf
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:18 pm

You know for the first time, seeing that word alone in the title, I read it as "Brainded" or braindead.
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Aug 09, 2012 2:48 pm

Just watched the preview. I am so totally running to the theater for this, it looks like a blast. Look at who's playing the baddies! I hope they reserved cameos for Roddy Piper, David Keith and Meg Foster. Did you catch a glimpse of the updated version of probably the best-known scenes in "They Live"? Also, the terrorist media event is branded in the news as the "Attack on Advertising." On the trivia side, did you catch the twisted tribute to "The Red Balloon"?

And yeah, it's a metaphor. And a very apt one. Like The Matrix was - ponderously. Our group-mind constructs are alive. They control us. Especially the vivid ones. What was it Bob Black said? "Theory - When you have ideas. Ideology - When ideas have you." But what are ideas compared to the symbol-idea-emotions of flags and anthems and brands?
Last edited by JackRiddler on Thu Aug 09, 2012 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Branded

Postby brainpanhandler » Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:35 pm

You know for the first time, seeing that word alone in the title, I read it as "Brainded" or braindead.


Funny you say that because I was looking up pictures of brain coral earlier and then dead brain coral and then brain dead coral. That's one of those little synchronicities people talk about around here that you never take any interest in. I don't take a whole lot of interest in the little synchronicities either as they seem to happen all the time, but sometimes they squeak the loudest.

On the trivia side, did you catch the twisted tribute to "The Red Balloon"?


No. Please explain.

I miss Hugh, sorta. I wonder if we could allow Hugh to post in this subforum only.
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Aug 09, 2012 11:20 pm

brainpanhandler wrote:you never take any interest in.


Do you mean "you" as in me? Mostly, I don't, since they're so common and people usually overplay their significance, or manufacture it through some question like, "What are the odds?"

As for "The Red Balloon," I thought the scene with the happy-seeming enthusiastic boy on some European-like street and a largely red bubble rising from him -- presumably carrying a piece of his stolen life-energy up to the extraterrestrial parasite-demons -- was meant to evoke it. Maybe not.

I miss Hugh, sorta. I wonder if we could allow Hugh to post in this subforum only.


I don't. He turned too many discussions into his narrow thing and got pretty unpleasant about it. And is this idea of limiting someone to one forum even possible?

.
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Aug 11, 2012 12:42 am

Bad form to quote oneself, but I frequently succumb to the temptation.

JackRiddler wrote:Maybe I missed it but this thread seems to lack the observation that at this stage of the global culture's development, the most common conditioned mode of viewing everything, at least insofar as it is viewed through the electronic media, may be described as pornographic. I think this is inherent in the now almost universal and near-infinite power to reproduce images. Everything's chopped up, sexed up, blown up, and thrown about in rapid-fire scattershot, most all of it striving to maximize sensation and raise stakes in environments where everything screams for attention and viewers' capacity to grant it has been over-stimulated and overwhelmed. Advertising, as I'm hardly the first or ten-millionth to observe, is essentially pornographic: dazzle the eyes, occupy the cerebrum, capture the reptile underbrain. Constructed reality using fill lighting, makeup and standardized mannerisms, costumes and head-shots long ago came to be considered the necessary precondition for seeming real with authority, which reality often no longer does. Note that certain extremes of religious fundamentalism don't ban only pornography, but representational art altogether; iconoclasm has a long history of conceiving images in themselves as exerting a form of mind control or bad magic.


Found an older trailer, with the film title in a sequence of brand parodies at the end.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9DsbEAK6Kg

Release Date: September 7, 2012 Studio: Roadside Attractions Director: Jamie Bradshaw, Alexander Doulerain Screenwriter: Jamie Bradshaw, Alexander Doulerain Starring: Ed Stoppard, Leelee Sobieski, Jeffrey Tambor, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Max von Sydow Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller MPAA Rating: Not Available Official Website: brandedmovie.com

[snip]

Plot Summary: "Branded" is a dark and mind-bending journey into a surreal, dystopian society where corporate brands have unleashed a monstrous global conspiracy to get inside our minds and keep the population disillusioned, dependent and passive. One man's Misha (Ed Stoppard) passion to unlock the truth behind the conspiracy will lead to an epic battle with the hidden forces that really control our world....
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Re: Branded

Postby brainpanhandler » Sat Aug 11, 2012 8:44 am

And is this idea of limiting someone to one forum even possible?


Probably not and I doubt anyone would like the idea, including Hugh. Just an idle thought.


Interesting that this film is co-written/directed by a russian:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856884/
I wonder if it will be released in Russia?

A little more information about the plot:

“After Misha skyrockets to the top of the advertising business, a tragic mishap on the set of one of his productions torpedoes his career and he retreats into self-imposed exile. Ten years later, Misha returns to a radically changed world and finds himself plagued by visions of bizarre and terrifying creatures with the ability to influence people’s thoughts, desires and actions. Creatures only he can see.

He soon realizes the creatures are part of a clandestine campaign unleashed by a rival advertising agency to make “fat the new fabulous” and create a new era of uncontrolled consumer appetite. In order to save mankind, Misha uses his own considerable marketing skills to launch an ingenious plan to try to eradicate the plague. But the corporate legions will not go down without a fight.”

http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2012/07/26/ne ... r-branded/


So it's white magic pitted against black magic in an effort to save ourselves from, ourselves? No. We are not the culprits. We are being forced to make bad decisions by the forces of evil.

I just have a hard time believing that any film with a general release in the US will have a genuinely subversive message. I mean marketing/advertising science uses identical techniques to state propaganda. They're practically indistinguishable. How close will this film come to shining a light on that?

Regardless, I am intrigued enough that I will probably pay to see it in a theater.

fwiw:
It's a testament to Hugh's continuing influence on me that I actually googled Gibbons. http://web.mit.edu/rgibbons/www/
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:37 am

All I've said, much like you, is that I look forward to seeing this in a theater.

Will it be genuinely subversive, as you ask? How should I know? More likely a colorful gloss on the subversive thoughts that are already out there. Necessarily aiming for commercial viability, it will very likely be set to a simplistic template of good, evil, heroes, villains, trials, intensifications, speed and effects, a sudden turn, climax, denouement.

Subversive also very much depends on the reception. Was Fight Club subversive? Was the obvious thematic forerunner to this film, They Live, subversive? Maybe neither, but they're genuinely debated as such.

If it's good, it asks a question I've often asked: Advertising is not perfect mind control, far from it, but would advertisers hesitate even one second to deploy perfect remote mind control if it were possible? Certainly not. The crimes they don't commit are the crimes they can't commit, that is all. Advertisers under capitalism have shown this beyond any doubt in what they already do, especially in the way they treat children and take advantage of any perceived psychic vulnerability of the target demographics.

Why Gibbons? Please explain.
Last edited by JackRiddler on Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
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Re: Branded

Postby brainpanhandler » Sun Aug 12, 2012 8:36 am

Why Gibbons?


Cast:

Ed Stoppard as Misha Galkin
Leelee Sobieski as Abby Gibbons
Max von Sydow
Jeffrey Tambor as Bob Gibbons
Ingeborga Dapkunaite as Dubcek


Following Hugh's theory of reverse engineering kwh psyops you can take any actor's or character's name and with the magic of google find what the spooks are trying to hide. Even homonyms will work. It's sort of fun. Which is why I started this thread a long time ago:

The KWH Game

I didn't look past the first page of results and I can't see why anyone would want to confuse an audience about Robert Gibbons at MIT. But I'm sure if I looked long enough I would find something which seemed to fit his theory or I might be confused by a KWH decoy. (See thread linked above).
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:04 pm

Why Gibbons?


brainpanhandler wrote:Cast:

Ed Stoppard as Misha Galkin
Leelee Sobieski as Abby Gibbons


I'd rather just look up Leelee Sobieski. She's got that nerd look going... :heartflowers:
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Sep 08, 2012 5:47 pm

bumpity for precedence! wheee!
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
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Re: Branded

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:36 pm

So I watched this last night and it's really good. Set and shot in Russia. Even if you don't think it's great, the interest is guaranteed because it's got all RI themes. Mass-media mind control. Tulpas. CIA. Hidden ancient forces speaking to visionaries. Systemic corruption of all professionals by state and capital. Very frank about Russian transition and the true meaning of shock therapy. The influence of Leninism. The power of occult blood sacrifice. Retreating to the backwoods to live the life of Hillshoist. Amazing synchronicities that simpleminded materialists like myself will chalk up to the needs and conveniences of feature scripting. Extremely anti-view of present social system. Two very hot leads. Max von Sydow and Pop-Pop Bluth. The humor and use of narration is very Russian in style, though I see few Russians in the credits, truth to tell. You will also see why this could have never, never gotten a proper US distribution deal. Box office numbers http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=branded.htm have just $340 K in US, 3.4 million worldwide. Budget looks much higher than that, though I don't know what the Russian discount is good for.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
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Re: Branded

Postby elfismiles » Sat Aug 24, 2013 6:55 pm

Image

Image

Yeah, RE Branded ... I finally saw it when it went streamable on netflix. Seemed rather an oddly done movie, tween the cinematography style and the sporadic abrupt narration and time / story line cuts.

I have a feeling it underwent several significant recuts/edits, probably as an attempt to make it more accessible and perhaps turning a slightly awkward film into an even more awkwardly strange ... thing.

The video-links only thread
justdrew » 24 Aug 2013 05:39 wrote:this one sure was buried...







... and ...

"Branded"- an "Idiocracy"-style disappointment
Postby vince » 08 Sep 2012 15:33
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35426

Image

Image

Image
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