OT: Let's talk about movies (and TV shows)... Part IX

[Redux91]

I just watched Chappie. I had modest expectations but the movie really surprised me.

It's ranked 7/10 on imdb and I figure it's because a lot of characters are corny as hell but if you manage to ignore that it's a pretty good movie.

gotta watch this, i like the director

 

[DAChampion]

Who out there would ever give 2 ****s about what internet nerds think? These are the same people who vote up **** like the goonies and marvel movies on rotten tomatoes. They are angry that he didn't include a giant psychic squid exploding at the end of the watchmen? These are people who should be ignored entirely.

The Watchmen was one of the best superhero movies ever made.

I agree with you, but regardless, Internet fandom has some impact. Watchmen finished up with some lukewarm reception, it's fading into pop culture obscurity, its director is widely reviled. The movie had a mediocre box office, with 185 million worldwide gross on a listed budget of 135 million.

No one is complaining about the female lead and a "possible" gay character in True Detective. People are criticizing the ****ty ass writing.

You are either unable or unwilling to make an argument against True Detective season 2 beyond "it's **** because we have seen this all before".

I call BS man, honestly it comes off like one of the producers slept with your girlfriend or something. You are often an articulate poster, but on this subject you've been very emotional while offering no substance at all. Regardless, I will offer three counterarguments demonstrating that TD season 2 is in fact not cliché at all:

1) Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) is a man against time, a composite character. He has a lot of the attributes you'd expect of a dumb hick in standard Hollywood: he's corrupt, he has anger-management problems as can be seen by the beating scene and him carrying a brass knuckle, his work defines him, and his demeanor, fashion sense, and moustache all communicate that he's a hick from 1975. Given these factors, this would normally complete the character profile.

However, we see another facet of him. He is apparently a feminist with body-image issues, that I don't think is touched on a lot. He took his wife's rape very seriously ... keep in ind rape was once dismissed as "just assault". He also defines himself via his fatherhood. Fatherhood, which is attentive, etc is a relatively recent cultural developments, fathers used to be entirely distant, parenting was done by the mother ... think Frank Semyon's father. In standard Hollywood the Velcoro described in the above paragraph would be like Frank Semyon's father, and not like Ray Velcoro in this show. Due to the fact our culture is in transition, attentive fatherhood is something Hollywood often (always?) portrays as coming from milquetoast "effeminate" men, rather than masculine men.

2) The focus of the season is on the California construction industry. We all know construction is corrupt. It was a big issue in Montreal recently with the reported links to the Mafia, etc. In the 1960s Montreal built an entire metro system, nowadays there are so many embedded parasites that adding two stops to Laval costs billions of dollars. I'm an academic, I've done some cursory research into why the f*** university tuition fees have been rising ... there is clearly an incestuous pool between construction, university admins in some schools. This whole industry is corrupt, likely.

Yet these are the clichés of American television: lawyers, doctors, cops (like True Detective ...), superheroes, astronauts (Firefly, Star Trek, etc), and losers (Friends, etc). Off the top of my head I can't recall the last time I saw construction-related issues play a major role in a TV season, maybe the first part of the Wire season 3 when they blow up the old projects.

Within non-fiction, I read a biography of the Helmsley family a while back. It detailed how there would always be construction booms around new train stations, because people knew that land and territory was about to become more valuable, and a lot of nefarious tactics were used to gain control of that land. Does that sound familiar? It should, it's in TD season two. So this is clearly not a trope, since it's an incredibly rare storytelling theme.

3) Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) is, I'm pretty sure, a sex abuse survivor of some sorts. Let us first contrast to how r'ape is normally portrayed by Hollywood, with cues from Film Critic Hulk who explains it better thanks to his superior understanding:
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/04/29/can-hulk-complain-about-game-of-thrones-rape-scene-yet
- The r'ape is used as behavioural exposition, to let us know that the villain is a villain;
- The r'ape sets up a plot, as the woman now has a mission in the story, to seek revenge;
- The r'ape sets up a plot, as the man now has a mission in his story, to avenge the victim, and be rewarded with (consenting) sex by that same woman at the end;
Apparently these tropes (and those are the tropes) often come up in Game of Thrones. Film Critic Hulk points out that we rarely or never see, is how the victim experiences the r'ape herself, her own struggles, her own journey, we don't empathize her, it's often about the other characters. He lists a few exceptions such as the incredible novel/memoire Lucky by Alice Sebold.

These tropes are not what we are seeing in TD season two. We're not spending the entire season while some other character we don't know hunts out and kills Ani's r'apist. We're getting to know Ani. How she's coped, how it's affected her. There's the superficial and obvious stuff, she carries a lot of knives, she is a trained fighter, she wants to stop crime and as a detective she despises prostitution, etc though even this is happens to be far more advanced and deep than what we normally expect from Hollywood and garbage like Law & Order SVU. There's also the secondary aspects: in spite of being such a beautiful woman who is so well put together she is alone, and that's because she doesn't connect to people. The one relationship of hers we see is with that guy she slept with, he's the one who wants more of a relationship with her, and she's the one limiting her life to work and sex (which is also a reversal of the conventional male/female dynamic). She fears/rejects closer connections to people, often an outcome in people who have experienced trauma. She is very cold and utilitarian with the guy "You're a nice guy, but now is not the time, I'm busy with work", or something like that.

To circle back, what TD is doing with Ani's character is not the trope, it is anti-trope, they are focusing on the survivor and her experiences and her psychology. Interestingly, two other good works have done this recently: Mad Max and Ex Machina. So maybe this is a trend.

************

I've now listed three major components of the show that are not just not clichés, but two of them are anti- cliché. That is enough to qualify the writing as original and good, as we will never see a show or movie in our lifetimes that is 100% devoid of tropes. Most stuff from Hollywood has zero (yes, zero) originality, so the fact that for TD season 2 I can list at least three major things, and this is coming from a non-expert who has seen 2 of 8 episodes, means it's hardly the recycled garbage you make it out to be.

 

[Habsawce]

When he drove around the circle at the country club, stopped, then said "**** you Richard!" I died.

Also that dick joke during the season finale of S1 was absolute gold.

LOL, the way he came up with the idea for middle out compression! Amazing really.

 

[Natey]

Has anyone watched the television series - The Last Ship? I like the cast and premise, but never heard anything about it all. Any good?

 

[Natey]

I don't gey why Friends was a pop culture phenomenon.

Cause it's the greatest show ever!!

 

[WhiskeySeven*]

Who out there would ever give 2 ****s about what internet nerds think? These are the same people who vote up **** like the goonies and marvel movies on rotten tomatoes. They are angry that he didn't include a giant psychic squid exploding at the end of the watchmen? These are people who should be ignored entirely.

The Watchmen was one of the best superhero movies ever made.

I maintain that The Watchman is the best cape movie ever made. It has subtext, it has style, it has something to say. The graphic novel is very fun too.

Good post DAChamp, you've been killing it the past few hours

LOL, the way he came up with the idea for middle out compression! Amazing really.

Dick to tip!

 

[Habsawce]

I maintain that The Watchman is the best cape movie ever made. It has subtext, it has style, it has something to say. The graphic novel is very fun too.

Good post DAChamp, you've been killing it the past few hours



Dick to tip!

The only thing wrong with this show is that it's only 30 minutes.

 

[DAChampion]

Has anyone watched the television series - The Last Ship? I like the cast and premise, but never heard anything about it all. Any good?

Some discussion of this show in the past few pages.

 

[Kimota]

whats the beef with Zack Snyder?? only movie he ever made that sucked was sucker punch.

Well his Watchmen looked good but it had the subtility of a sledge hammer.

And embraced destruction porn in Man of Steel. When interviewed about the blacklash of MoS he talked about how he wanted to mirror "mad Gods like Zeus who ate their children" and stuff like that. Somehow the guy didn't get the memo that it was a Superman movie.

 

[MasterDecoy]

Has anyone watched the television series - The Last Ship? I like the cast and premise, but never heard anything about it all. Any good?

I guess as long as you can ignore the pink mass in your skull it could be passable.

I think of it more as a comedy. It Seriously made me laugh non-stop, so, so dumb

Da worst

 

[Kimota]

Well Terminator doesn't look like the most exciting movie, does it.

It's as enticing as going to a Michel Therrien coach teaching course.

 

[mitchmagic]

I agree with you, but regardless, Internet fandom has some impact. Watchmen finished up with some lukewarm reception, it's fading into pop culture obscurity, its director is widely reviled. The movie had a mediocre box office, with 185 million worldwide gross on a listed budget of 135 million.


You are either unable or unwilling to make an argument against True Detective season 2 beyond "it's **** because we have seen this all before".

I call BS man, honestly it comes off like one of the producers slept with your girlfriend or something. You are often an articulate poster, but on this subject you've been very emotional while offering no substance at all. Regardless, I will offer three counterarguments demonstrating that TD season 2 is in fact not cliché at all:

1) Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) is a man against time, a composite character. He has a lot of the attributes you'd expect of a dumb hick in standard Hollywood: he's corrupt, he has anger-management problems as can be seen by the beating scene and him carrying a brass knuckle, his work defines him, and his demeanor, fashion sense, and moustache all communicate that he's a hick from 1975. Given these factors, this would normally complete the character profile.

However, we see another facet of him. He is apparently a feminist with body-image issues, that I don't think is touched on a lot. He took his wife's rape very seriously ... keep in ind rape was once dismissed as "just assault". He also defines himself via his fatherhood. Fatherhood, which is attentive, etc is a relatively recent cultural developments, fathers used to be entirely distant, parenting was done by the mother ... think Frank Semyon's father. In standard Hollywood the Velcoro described in the above paragraph would be like Frank Semyon's father, and not like Ray Velcoro in this show. Due to the fact our culture is in transition, attentive fatherhood is something Hollywood often (always?) portrays as coming from milquetoast "effeminate" men, rather than masculine men.

2) The focus of the season is on the California construction industry. We all know construction is corrupt. It was a big issue in Montreal recently with the reported links to the Mafia, etc. In the 1960s Montreal built an entire metro system, nowadays there are so many embedded parasites that adding two stops to Laval costs billions of dollars. I'm an academic, I've done some cursory research into why the f*** university tuition fees have been rising ... there is clearly an incestuous pool between construction, university admins in some schools. This whole industry is corrupt, likely.

Yet these are the clichés of American television: lawyers, doctors, cops (like True Detective ...), superheroes, astronauts (Firefly, Star Trek, etc), and losers (Friends, etc). Off the top of my head I can't recall the last time I saw construction-related issues play a major role in a TV season, maybe the first part of the Wire season 3 when they blow up the old projects.

Within non-fiction, I read a biography of the Helmsley family a while back. It detailed how there would always be construction booms around new train stations, because people knew that land and territory was about to become more valuable, and a lot of nefarious tactics were used to gain control of that land. Does that sound familiar? It should, it's in TD season two. So this is clearly not a trope, since it's an incredibly rare storytelling theme.

3) Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) is, I'm pretty sure, a sex abuse survivor of some sorts. Let us first contrast to how r'ape is normally portrayed by Hollywood, with cues from Film Critic Hulk who explains it better thanks to his superior understanding:
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/04/29/can-hulk-complain-about-game-of-thrones-rape-scene-yet
- The r'ape is used as behavioural exposition, to let us know that the villain is a villain;
- The r'ape sets up a plot, as the woman now has a mission in the story, to seek revenge;
- The r'ape sets up a plot, as the man now has a mission in his story, to avenge the victim, and be rewarded with (consenting) sex by that same woman at the end;
Apparently these tropes (and those are the tropes) often come up in Game of Thrones. Film Critic Hulk points out that we rarely or never see, is how the victim experiences the r'ape herself, her own struggles, her own journey, we don't empathize her, it's often about the other characters. He lists a few exceptions such as the incredible novel/memoire Lucky by Alice Sebold.

These tropes are not what we are seeing in TD season two. We're not spending the entire season while some other character we don't know hunts out and kills Ani's r'apist. We're getting to know Ani. How she's coped, how it's affected her. There's the superficial and obvious stuff, she carries a lot of knives, she is a trained fighter, she wants to stop crime and as a detective she despises prostitution, etc though even this is happens to be far more advanced and deep than what we normally expect from Hollywood and garbage like Law & Order SVU. There's also the secondary aspects: in spite of being such a beautiful woman who is so well put together she is alone, and that's because she doesn't connect to people. The one relationship of hers we see is with that guy she slept with, he's the one who wants more of a relationship with her, and she's the one limiting her life to work and sex (which is also a reversal of the conventional male/female dynamic). She fears/rejects closer connections to people, often an outcome in people who have experienced trauma. She is very cold and utilitarian with the guy "You're a nice guy, but now is not the time, I'm busy with work", or something like that.

To circle back, what TD is doing with Ani's character is not the trope, it is anti-trope, they are focusing on the survivor and her experiences and her psychology. Interestingly, two other good works have done this recently: Mad Max and Ex Machina. So maybe this is a trend.

************

I've now listed three major components of the show that are not just not clichés, but two of them are anti- cliché. That is enough to qualify the writing as original and good, as we will never see a show or movie in our lifetimes that is 100% devoid of tropes. Most stuff from Hollywood has zero (yes, zero) originality, so the fact that for TD season 2 I can list at least three major things, and this is coming from a non-expert who has seen 2 of 8 episodes, means it's hardly the recycled garbage you make it out to be.

Jesus you're reading way too much into 2 hours of television. Over-analyzing the hell out of it and giving Pizza-man too much credit.

 

[mitchmagic]

Well his Watchmen looked good but it had the subtility of a sledge hammer.

And embraced destruction porn in Man of Steel. When interviewed about the blacklash of MoS he talked about how he wanted to mirror "mad Gods like Zeus who ate their children" and stuff like that. Somehow the guy didn't get the memo that it was a Superman movie.

So did the book. The book was pretty heavy-handed. The movie ruled.

 

[mitchmagic]

What made the first season so special was the dynamic between the two detectives. There was humor, there was levity, and there was a certain lightness sprinkled throughout the show. It made the show and the character worthy of the audience's time. They were winking at the audience and worked tremendously. This, along with the heavy atmosphere, is what made the show so damn popular.

That levity is all but gone in season 2. It's just overly serious dribble. The fact that you inferred all of that based on two hours of television supports my argument.

This season is filled with coincidences and has barely any tension. Actually, no tension. If the acting wasn't so god-awful maybe we'd feel a little more.

Pizza is not a good writer. He was saved in the first season by a gifted director and two great actors.

 

[DAChampion]

Jesus you're reading way too much into 2 hours of television. Over-analyzing the hell out of it and giving Pizza-man too much credit.

500 words per hour of television is overanalyzing? What's the maximum in your view: 50 words per hour of television? Beyond which we have a conclusive reading?

 

[Redux91]

The only thing wrong with this show is that it's only 30 minutes.

ive shown this scene to a bunch of friends lol, it just CRACKS me up the thought process put into something so disgusting lmao

 

[mitchmagic]

500 words per hour of television is overanalyzing? What's the maximum in your view: 50 words per hour of television? Beyond which we have a conclusive reading?

No. It's just called over-analyzing.

 

[Redux91]

Well Terminator doesn't look like the most exciting movie, does it.

It's as enticing as going to a Michel Therrien coach teaching course.

it looks honest to god, absolutely terrible.

What made the first season so special was the dynamic between the two detectives. There was humor, there was levity, and there was a certain lightness sprinkled throughout the show. It made the show and the character worthy of the audience's time. They were winking at the audience and worked tremendously. This, along with the heavy atmosphere, is what made the show so damn popular.

They hit absolute two monster home runs with casting woody and matthew... they had the absolute chemistry needed for the show, and everything else surrounding their performances just made it a huge huge hit for me

what made season 1, by far, was how good woody and matthew were. especialy the latter.

 

[mitchmagic]

I don't see the use in wasting an hour on an essay-like post on a hockey forum about a show (season) that I think is garbage.

 

[DAChampion]

What made the first season so special was the dynamic between the two detectives. There was humor, there was levity, and there was a certain lightness sprinkled throughout the show. It made the show and the character worthy of the audience's time. They were winking at the audience and worked tremendously. This, along with the heavy atmosphere, is what made the show so damn popular.

That levity is all but gone in season 2. It's just overly serious dribble. The fact that you inferred all of that based on two hours of television supports my argument.

This season is filled with coincidences and has barely any tension. Actually, no tension. If the acting wasn't so god-awful maybe we'd feel a little more.

Pizza is not a good writer. He was saved in the first season by a gifted director and two great actors.

Ah yes, the argument that writing is not good if you don't laugh at least once every fifteen minutes. A crap argument honestly but I see it around a lot.

Humour is rapidly becoming the equivalent of **** and explosions.

 

[MasterDecoy]

Rick and morty is back

 

[Runner77]

Has anyone watched the television series - The Last Ship? I like the cast and premise, but never heard anything about it all. Any good?

Can't find The Last Ship on Videotron's tv grid. Google says it's playing on TNT but that channel is not among Videotron's offerings.

 

[mitchmagic]

Ah yes, the argument that writing is not good if you don't laugh at least once every fifteen minutes. A crap argument honestly but I see it around a lot.

Humour is rapidly becoming the equivalent of **** and explosions.

That is not the argument I made whatsoever.

 

[Natey]

Some discussion of this show in the past few pages.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Not sure how I missed it!

I guess as long as you can ignore the pink mass in your skull it could be passable.

I think of it more as a comedy. It Seriously made me laugh non-stop, so, so dumb

Da worst

I'm definitely not against the "so bad it's amazing" type of thing.

Kung Fury was fantastic. Zombeavers is one of the greatest things ever made.

 

[Bryson]

I just watched Chappie. I had modest expectations but the movie really surprised me.

It's ranked 7/10 on imdb and I figure it's because a lot of characters are corny as hell but if you manage to ignore that it's a pretty good movie.

I'd say 7/10 is fair. I'd even go as high as 9/10 if you're a fan of Die Antwoord. I didn't realize the movie was going to revolve around them. I think they're hilarious.

Johnny 5 > Chappie tho