glabella

This very enjoyable movie has been analyzed to exhaustion by the above contributors, so I'll just make few comments, if you don't mind. Lola runs in desperation, but she is wearing the ungainliest of pants to do so. She is rather thick hipped for the task, and I don't think it's an accident that the actress who plays Lola really doesn't conform to the stereotype of a slim-hipped swift sylph outrunning fate. In the opening scene, Lola is thrust into a crisis (the one unvarying element of the plot). Her costume leaves her ill-equipped to surmount Manni's impending doom, yet she somehow slogs through it all. Two other cryptic elements that appear in each plot variation are the vicious dog and the its owner on the landing outside her apartment door, and the pane of plate glass being carried by the uniformed workmen across the street. Any interpretations?

OK, think about it. You're using the latest advance in technology to transport information right now. Suppose somebody came up with a technological method tomorrow to transport any amount of matter from one place to another. Not two dimensional text or photos, but three dimensional objects. Food, clothing, machinery,even people, transported electronically. No more airlines, trucks, automotive industries, OPEC, Middle East crises, on and on. Hasn't the aim of technology (since Faraday) been to organize "essential" matter? Starting with manipulable electromagnetic waves to form impulses into telegraphic and then radio waves, technology has sought to shrink distance. Seth Brundle's (fictional) invention is the logical outcome of this quest. The joke to this theme is in the title. The "fly" is the proverbial fly in the ointment. The dark side of technology is it's capacity to inflict massive suffering on humanity, in the form of war machinery, totalitarian regimes, and biomedical disasters. The author of the original story, "The Fly", had a prescient understanding of the runaway obsession with technology we are now caught up in. How many dotcom commercials have you seen or heard lately? Get ready, the fly is about to hatch.

In the '50's, TV was wrecking the movie industry, so the studios fought back with gimmicks like 3-D and bloated studio set pieces like "Around The World In 80 Days." There is nothing to this vapid marathon of cameos and strenuous set designs in the way of emotional concern for the characters or a feeling of a time and place long gone. This film is unwatchable after an hour, but it won the Oscar for best picture anyway. Which goes to show that the Academy was rewarding mediocrity back then, as it does now. (Recent winners: Cher, Kim Basinger, Roberto Begnini.) Not that there weren't some great films in '56...Friendly Persuasion, Giant, Kiss Me Deadly, The Killing, Rebel Without a Cause, Baby Doll...but not this indigestible tripe.