Lurker > Donomark

Definitely working on the important issues.

I could not care less if someone isn't a Republican or Democrat. What annoys me is false equivalence or cynicism and ignorance masking as savvy.

At first, I enjoyed the videos, because they were fun. But then, they became formulaic and cringey. It's like, "Ok. We get it. ZOMG WHITE MAN speaks language."

See, I'm like one of the seven people in the audience who liked Thor prior to the MCU. Waititi's version of the Executioner (i.e., Karl Urban's character) is such a ****ing waste. If you had no idea who that character is, then I get not caring. But if you do, and even more, enjoyed his death scene in the comics, then it's tough to ignore. The MCU in general has a tendency to really waste or otherwise screw up villains.

Oh yeah, Chappelle and Chappelle's Show are overrated. The fact that people look at this dude as some kind of modern-day sage is baffling.

Hmm.

I agree that Chrono Trigger is overrated. I think it's better than okay (good, even) especially considering the era in which it came out but placing it among the top ten RPGs of all time is ridiculous.

The best Batman films are not live action, but animated.

In live action, the casting of Batman / Bruce Wayne has always been wanting. Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Wesley Snipes as Blade, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Christopher Reeves as Superman....are examples of well-cast comic book characters. In live action, Batman has never been cast as comparably well.

Batman & Robin, while not good, gets too much hate and should not seriously be considered one of the worst films ever made.

Batman Forever is better than a good bit of the MCU.

The first Blade film is the best and is also better than most MCU films.

Neither Infinity War nor Endgame are top five MCU films.

Thor Ragnark is not a good Thor movie.

Omitting Rick Jones from the Hulk's origin in the MCU was a mistake.

Generally, Cowboy Bebop (the anime) didn't do it for me. I found it stylish, but also dull, and never got beyond episode eight or nine.

Torgo posted...

I have kind of a unique experience with that, I was hanging with a regular bunch of guys that were very diverse I was taking classes with, and we all loved Chappelle show - but also we were stoned out of our minds and in our 20s watching it and busting each other's balls at the racial humor.

In retrospect, knowing he had much funnier writers like Bill Burr working on the show it makes more sense. As a stand up, I tend not to like that pretentious storyteller style unless the comic is really good at it. The anti-trans stuff which is the source of a lot of controversy now is just... not well constructed as humor. It comes off more like cheap pops to get a self-righteous crowd that agrees with him to clap.

Now... I still believe Chappelle is a talented comic and entertainer, which is more than I can say for his Half-Baked co-star Jim Bruer... his anti-vax routine is the saddest and most desperate shit I ever heard, worse than his usual brain dead material.

I mean, I don't think his old stuff was that sharp, satire-wise. I mean, was it really better than the Chris Rock Show or In Living Color?

Come to think of it, at least in comparison to The Chappelle Show, I think In Living Color, and hell, even Mad TV, are underrated.

Glad to see Streets of Rage 2 getting love. That series was never as popular as it should've been IMO.

He can be funny, no doubt, but I always thought he was overrated, even going back to the Chappelle's Show. I don't really understand why that show was the breakout hit that it was.

Is she wearing a wig? If so, it sucks. Why can't they just dye and cut her hair appropriately?

Wow, I tend to be fairly familiar with Genesis titles, and I've never ever heard of this.

Oh, yes. My older cousin loved the hell out of this and X:Men 2 Clone Wars back in the day. We would just marvel (pun intended) at him styling out on this game.

FortuneCookie posted...

That's an interesting thought. A movie made by DC could never kill off Batman halfway through a movie and make Batgirl the new point of focus. An original property could.

Exactly. Also, modern superhero films can't really tackle politics, which is something the Watchmen comic did well. Like, how cool would it be to see real left-wing, right-wing, communist, anarchist, etc. characters, without the studio pulling any punches? That would be interesting.

LinkDaLunatic posted...

it would take decent and creative writers. you'd have to create heroes with staying power, unique enough from what came before to stand out and popular enough to drive success. you'd also have to give them a villain or villains with personal conflicts with those characters that won't leave the audience wondering 'yeah but couldn't superman/spider-man have just showed up and taken care of this?'. the scale can't start too big.

plus, i think you'd have to confidently tone shift away from the current superhero movie flowchart. not every scene needs to have a joke or an explosion, and we don't need 20 supporting characters explaining every little thing. let the moments hit without jerking the audience around.

Yeah. Current superhero movies (with some exception) have gotten lazy, formulaic, and stale. Given their weaknesses, I think there's an opportunity. The advantage Marvel and DC have is audience investment, brand recognition, and nostalgia. But that can be taken for granted, which is what we're seeing now.

It could absolutely work. In fact, I think they'd have some advantages over Marvel and DC, both of which are a bit hamstrung by not being able to take really big risks with their characters.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It depends on where these conversations take place. We live in a fairly fractured media environment. Yes, I am certain there are an abundance of contexts where the conversations you are referring to occur; believe it or not, there are also environments where the challenges that men face are broadly met with disinterest and dismissiveness.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I agree that "blaming" an entire population is not the solution. That only contributes to further division and resentment and will likely even obscure the path toward a resolution. I will also point out that, for the record, I don't think that anyone in this topic has either leveled or advocated placing blame on an entire gender, sex, or ethnicity.

That said, I do think that there can be a reason to examine the nature of certain challenges and evaluate them as being on a scale of more or less severe. Like it or not, that's how we decide what gets priority in society. We can talk about the seriousness of different problems and say which are more severe without devolving into an unproductive blame game.

SwayM posted...

Im honestly not trying to be mean spirited like so many people on CE are. But this may be one of the worst analogies Ive ever seen.

Im one person who absolutely believes in the power of an analogy to drive home a point, but I cant for the life of me see the point youre trying to make. Also why you decided to use kingdom hearts as an example and then use nothing about the game itself and defined it in very general video game terms.

I haven't played KH, but I kind of see what he's getting at, and it doesn't strike me as ridiculous, but he didn't have to be condescending.

I'll throw in my two cents. It often seems like when people discuss the challenges that men experience in modern dating, there seems to be a casual dismissiveness expressed toward those challenges that you generally tend not to see (at least in the mainstream) expressed toward the challenges that women face.

It's almost as if by acknowledging that perhaps there is a domain in which the male experience is either worse, or generally more frustrating, then you are the problem, because women must have it worse, and to entertain otherwise is to be an incel or redpiller.

Is what happened to her right? No. But come on. I'm kind of getting tired of hearing these stories. If you can waitress, you can do other things. You know going in that some people either do not tip or tip poorly. You know that.

royic posted...

Only reason Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was a hit, even while being objectively good, is because it's more of a space opera.

Don't be dense

Cavill was done dirty by Dwayne Johnson, who tried to wag his dick around and basically screwed him over. But Snyder did him no favors. Look how Superman is characterized throughout. He hardly ever smiles. Every scene where he saves someone, he looks like he regrets it. He threatens people *constantly*. Like, I don't care that Luthor pushed Lois off of a building, Superman would never say to a normal person "I'll take you in without breaking you, which is more than you deserve."

Like, Henry Cavill was a wonderful ambassador for the character, but pretending that that enthusiasm was met in the actual film material is being completely disingenuous. And every single one of his film appearances underperformed, from MoS to BvS to JL to Black Adam. Even the Snyder Cut was meant to have people subscribe to HBO Max and it didn't even do that. James Gunn's Suicide Squad movie did better than the Snyder Cut.

Punished_Blinx posted...

So you don't think The Lone Ranger and John Carter were bombs?

These are movies with a lot of distribution and big marketing budgets. They need to double it. Because the production budget is so high they lose a lot of money if they only just meet it.

The nerve of Gunn not sticking with the same 40 year old actor for his reboot and picking another guy who looks like Superman instead.

And plus, the new actor is like 13 years younger.

Zithers posted...

also you seem to be unaware of the fact that various filmmakers worked at various studios in various decades and managed to have identifiable and repeated themes and styles. they were not receiving notes from ghost artists or bending the knee to studio heads lol. which filmmakers are you referring to btw?

What? Of course artists have had identifiable styles. I'm not saying "No individual was ever an artist," I'm saying that the simplistic notion that that individual styles was a thing of the past is ridiculous and presents a half-truth. We don't know the full scope of who contributed what to certain classic films because the films were produced under an autocratic model that prioritized public facing mythmaking at the expense of accurate accreditation.

Please refer to the excerpts below. Basically, in the studio system era, studio heads hired staff art directors and production designers that acted as co-directors, cinematographers, and coauthors of the films. Although artists, these individuals were fundamentally house-style company men who contributions to the final product were enormous and far exceeded what most would have anticipated given that they were not credited as directors.

"By the end of the silent period, the studio system in Hollywood was fully in place, with the art director now the head of a department that was largely responsible for the mise-en-scne of every film produced at a given studio. This resulted in the highly recognizable visual styles of the major studios studios during the sound period, each style generally attributed to the tastes of the supervising art director. The Twentieth Century Fox look was shaped by William Darling, Richard Day, and Lyle Wheeler; Warner Brothers had the gritty realism preferred by Anton Grot; MGM had the luxurious, high-key look of Cedric Gibbons; Paramount had the European sophistication of Hans Dreier; Universal, the moody darkness of Herman Rosse and Charles D. Hall. And at RKO, Van Nest Polglase oversaw the styling of the AstaireRogers musicals and Citizen Kane."

"Though the production designers specific responsibilities may vary slightly from film to film, [the production designer] has a far more comprehensive role than that of the art director. In addition to designing the overall style of the sets, props, and costumes, he is also intimately involved with the shot flow and dynamic elements of film design as well. A good example of this is Menziess contributions to Gone With the Wind, for which he drew thousands of elaborate continuity sketches detailing the composition, staging, and editing points for each shot of the film."

Katz, Steve D.. Film Directing: Shot by Shot - 25th Anniversary Edition (p. 7-8). Michael Wiese Productions. Kindle Edition.

These same men basically created the film on paper prior to directors and cameramen being hired. And at that stage, the director was primarily executing the vision of the studio and its art department. This truth was kept hidden from the public for decades for commercial and political reasons.

"Art director and Oscar-winning production designer Gene Allen (the first president of the Storyboard and Matte Painters Union in 1953; and former president of the Art Directors Guild) began his career in the Warner Brothers art department in 1937. Allen told me that continuity boards were already an established method of mapping out scenes in the mid-30s and that at least eight fulltime continuity sketch artists were working in the art department under the supervision of department head Anton Grot. In the studio system, the physical design of a movie was handled entirely by the art department. The art director worked out set designs and costumes and the continuity of the picture, aided by the staff artists. Only after the picture had been designed on paper (and with many sets built as well) would the director and cameraman join the picture. This procedure was extremely efficient, and if it resulted in generic graphic solutions much of the time, it also permitted major stars and directors to make as many as three pictures a year...Under the studio system, the use of storyboards was kept from the public and press because the building of directorial reputations was easier if all the ideas in a film were credited to him."

Katz, Steve D.. Film Directing: Shot by Shot - 25th Anniversary Edition (p. 18-19). Michael Wiese Productions. Kindle Edition.

IDK, but with respect to the Masacari people in Tomba, if you were to swipe out their light blue skin for a darker human complexion, they could easily be read as caricatures of Africans.

Foppe posted...

Back then, Deadpool was just a Marvel carbon copy of Deathstroke.

Yup. That's where the name Wade Wilson came from: Deathstroke's alias, Slade Wilson.

Is the Punisher a hero? Well, yes, he's done heroic things. I think what you're really asking is "Is the Punisher a good guy?"

The answer is no.

I was about to say, that daughter doesn't look a damn thing like him.

Zithers posted...

i did cite the legacy filmmakers earlier. tarantino, the anderson's, scorsese, spielberg.... all working for major studios with mid sized or large budgets. even someone like ridley who i think is more of a journeyman director.

all she* cares about. did you even read the article? cmon man there's some gold in there. it'll demoralize you for sure.

it's interesting you bring up titanic stories being told before. which ones featured jack and rose? the godfather was based on a hit book. why are we conflating adapting a best seller with franchise fodder? do you actually genuinely believe they're analogous? i guess i'll give you little women which has three prior adaptations that are fairly popular, but what about lady bird?

i think caring about what the person running the movie branch says is probably important when discussing the future of movies. also how familiar are you with classic hollywood from its origin until the late 60s? because plenty of filmmakers had unique voices. and their voices were certiainly louder than those of, say, james mangold or craig gillespie or the russo bros who are all, as far as i can tell, completely anonymous and just puppets for executives.

Which ones featured Jack and Rose? The fact that you're now drawing finer distinctions underscores my point. At first, you were exhalating originality, now you're asking me which versions had Jack and Rose. Well, here's your answer, which is even more telling (and further underlines my point): Romeo & Juliet.

Again, at first you were poo-pooing IP, now, you're carving out exceptions. No one is saying Barbie and the Godfather are the same thing. But I am most definitely saying that they're both IP, and there's no question you went from putting down IP to now changing your tune. Exalting Tarantino is particularly interesting given your preference for originality. I'm sure you're familiar with City on Fire.

Classic Hollywood had a tremendous amount of garbage. Particularly the serials of the 30s and the schlock and exploitation films of the 50s and 60s. We tend to only remember the classics; whereas now, we're inundated with everything of this era, therefore, we're hyper attentive to the crap and can look at the past with rose tinted glasses.

Not to mention the fact that studio executives wielded an even heavier hand in the Golden Age than they do now. Hell, back then, staff cinematographers would literally hand directors shot lists and storyboards. It was less of an auteur age than is commonly believed. Basically, a lot of ghost artists and company men who remained in the shadows.

Zithers posted...

well if gerwig's goal is just make IP stuff instead of tackling something in reality or from her imagination then... i would definitely think less of her as an artist, yeah. kind of like how i think less of, say, bong joon ho when he remastered his films to have more of an ugly green tint for their criterion blu ray releases. or how i think of the coen bros as not as good anymore because their entire visual language changed when they dumped roger deakins as their cinematographer, and i realized they may have had very little input into how they made their films look.

if i had to make a prediction, barbie will be the canary in the coal mine who gets away with being interesting and whatever else comes after is neutered into a flavorless paste. kind of like the last jedi. a successful gamble and then lots of playing it safe after for one reason (not having filmmakers as good as gerwig) or another (geeks hating last jedi for ruining lore or whatever). i mean the person running mattel studios is talking about merchandising opportunities in the article more than the quality of the movies. i think this is a tell.

also the demand i do think is conditioning. young people are basically never going to get interested in mature dramas on a large scale. like there's not going to be another titanic or the godfather type box office success ever again. just IP stuff. it's been too long to change. like do you really think our generation and below is going to demand great movies be shown in theaters lol. like are you reading the posts in this topic?

Again, your distinction between "IP" and "tackling something from reality or from her imagination" is a false one. Little Women is IP. Do you think that movie didn't tackle something real? Do you think that movie didn't come from Gerwig's imagination? Little Women is just a book. You need a cinematic mind to adapt it successfully to film (e.g., cast it, develop the shot lists, select the cinematography, scout the locations, not to mention write the screenplay).

What you're saying is increasingly ironic given your reference to Titanic, an event which had been famously adapted to film literally multiple times before James Cameron was even born. And obviously, the Godfather is the opposite of an original story, it's a film adaptation of the Puzo novel.

Also, who cares what the Mattel executive says? Businesspeople are interested in business, and Hollywood has always been a business. All he cares about is money, yes. But that's basically been Hollywood since the very beginning. Hollywood has never been run by artists. Some stories will shift away from the cinema, but many will still get made, just released on other platforms.

Intro2Logic posted...

Men of bland tastes are all you're going to find in charge of increasingly risk-averse corporate sponcon.

I don't agree with that. I think that's more cynicism than truth. Also, risk-aversion is in the eye of the beholder.

Zithers posted...

youre basically never going to make a good movie when you are dealing with a ton of brand management. in the article they go over mattel execs meddling with the movie a ton. maybe they're more receptive. i mean, i'm looking forward to barbie. but not because its barbie. i just like greta gerwig and rodrigo fucking prieto lensed it. it has a great pedigree. and now she's signed on for two narnia movies at netflix. anyway i do think it is depressing that one of the bright new voices in american cinema only got to make two movies before immediately running off to IP land. almost no filmmaker is given the freedom to just do their thing unless they're a legacy filmmaker like pta, tarantino, scorsese, spielberg, etc who are given mid sized or even large budgets to basically do whatever the fuck they want and make awesome movies... which then tank at the box office since audiences have been conditioned to not be interested in originality and instead focus on their favorite brands.

personally i think this is bad for the future of a once great artform. i guess a lot of people disagree.

I think you're attributing too little agency to Gerwig herself. No one is forcing her to do anything. This is the direction she has chosen to take her career. She has an authentic interest in retelling stories that have been told before and has done so to great success. Again, I also disagree with your implied premise that adapting IP is an inherently inferior form of filmmaking. I think we too often draw a simplistic, false, and loaded association between originality and quality. And part of that confusion lies in our failure to recognize the ultimately derivative nature of most things, whether they're based off of a preexisting, recognizable license or not. Now, I agree that it's unfortunate that mid-range movies are increasingly less economically viable, but that's a demand problem as well as a supply one. And I don't think the loss of that demand can be attributed primarily to conditioning.

I can't remember the last Marvel movie that I truly enjoyed. But the problem isn't Marvel per se, it's that Kevin Feige is a man of bland tastes. It's similar to music, the problem isn't the genre, it's the work itself.

xlr_big-coop posted...

Cinema wouldn't be dying if Hollywood bothered to make good movies. Endless hero movies, remakes, reboots and whatnot are burning the fuck out of people pretty quickly

The problem is that they're not good, not that they're sequels, reboots, etc. But because there are so many of them, and many of them are so derivative (not merely in the sense that they're preexisting intellectual property, but rather that they're cliched and poorly constructed) that people are making the false association that sequels, reboots, and superhero films are bad, instead of the accurate association that bad movies are bad. If they were good, this wouldn't be as much of a problem.

wackyteen posted...

Imagine that.

There's plenty of 'original' and 'cinematic' schlock that floods streaming services that are some wet wank stain of a young aspiring filmmakers heart felt passion project that bombed at the box office because nobody fucking cares about if something is original or not.

Just because something is derivative or connected to something else doesn't automatically make to bad, the same as something new or original doesn't signify quality or deservant of praise.

Elemental is an original story, devoid of any connection to anything else and is the product of a big studio and it stands on the brink of being an outright box office bomb.

But you won't hear tc go on about how Elemental fits the narrow box of originality they've carved out in thier heads.

Yes, but we're pleebs, you see. If we were enlightened, we would join the rest in shedding anguished tears and bitterly condescending to our inferiors.

Zithers posted...

yeah im sure you know all about quality cinema

wow i cant believe you dont want to see the movie about the creation of the madden video game series. *wank motion* haha get a load of this pretentious guy right here. just shut up and consume the capitalist propaganda

You're a great guy who definitely seems up for a good discussion.

No, some of us just don't make the mistake of assuming non-IP = original or original = quality.

Intro2Logic posted...

Every dollar that goes towards these projects is a dollar not going to something original.

Originality is overrated. Also, IP films can demonstrate novelty, and non-IP films can be cliched.

Meh. If they make good movies out of it, I'm not bothered. Also, as long as non-IP films remain viable, I don't know that I care that much.

Yeah, the overexposure of Harley Quinn is starting to remind me of the overexposure of Wolverine in the 90s.

Yeah, with limited exception, if it wasn't on Adult Swim circa 1999-2001, I don't recognize it.

K181 posted...

Yeah, I think "nerdier" kids just are assuming that they liked something and other people must've not liked what they liked, too.

Yeah, I think there's some of that going on. But also, the intensity and continuation of the interest may have also been what separated nerds (or, enthusiasts) from everyone else. Like, a lot of people loved Madden and Halo, but not everyone visited Internet forums to discuss them or learned everything they could about them prerelease. Also, a lot of people liked Street Fighter, but obviously, not everyone participated in tournaments, etc.

I feel like I'm one of 10 people online who never really cared that much for Indiana Jones to begin with. I mean, I recently watched Raiders, and while I enjoyed some aspects of it, I can't help but feel it's massively overrated.

K181 posted...

Not really. I was born in '84, and I can't think of a time growing up where basically everybody in my classes either didn't play games or at least wanted to play games. At most, when I was in grade school, it was more of a boy's only thing, but even that got chipped away as time passed.

And I was a jock when healthy, so loads of athletes loved Mario and Zelda and Sonic and sports games even if RPGs were more of a niche thing that I still liked and knew plenty that likewise did.

Agreed. If anything, video games were more segregated by gender. And certain genres were more niche, and perhaps nerdier, but that was it.

Yeah, well, I never really liked the MCU's depiction of Dormammu or the Dark Dimension. So, I can't say I'm too jazzed about exploring it further. What they should've done is cast Ben Whishaw as Nightmare and built a film around that. But, whatever.

I think concerns over the legitimacy of court packing are a bit overwrought. I mean, we all know the game. There is no such thing as the meaning of the Constitution. Legally speaking, the Constitution "means" whatever a majority of the jackasses on that Court say it does at any given time. That's it. It'll "mean" something else when a new majority is appointed, and so on and so on.

Yeah, Charlize's character was originally introduced in the comics as a denizen of the Dark Dimension. Her name is Clea. She's one of Strange's love interests and (I believe) Dormammu's daughter (or, may have been at some point).

As far as the third eye, your guess is as good as mine.

voldothegr8 posted...

Which is the one where they go to space? Instead of letting that become the peak, they should have taken it up a notch and started time traveling.

I can see where you're going with that. They could've really leaned in on the sheer madcap absurdity and become quasi comedies, but they didn't. Instead, they're engaging in a form of corporatized self-awareness that's almost as unwelcome as fast-food brands ****posting on Twitter.

F&F has become more cliche, more indulgent, and less affecting. The sweet spot was the middle entries. Now, they're simultaneously leaning in on the joke while also engaging in self-seriousness. I don't like it.