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tyrantisterror · 8 months

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Twitter (or “X”, I guess) is currently losing its mind over a media analysis video that implies King Kong might have some racially charged (or even racist) themes. Thoughts?

I actually talked about this recently here: https://tyrantisterror.tumblr.com/post/730214779314176000/kaiju-twitter-is-currently-in-a-tizzy-because

But I also think King Kong (1933) has a somewhat undeserved sterling reputation in general. Even critics who have otherwise been quick to be hypercritical and dismissive of monster movies talk about King Kong as if it's a "perfect" movie, because historically King Kong has always been considered a classic. And, like, historically speaking, yes, King Kong will always be an important and groundbreaking film. It's a landmark moment in special effects.

But if you take the special effects out of it... you're not really left with much to rave about. The acting in King Kong ranges from passable to outright bad (and racist when you consider the islanders and Charlie the inexplicable Chinese Stereotype cook who exists for... comic relief? I guess?), the characters themselves are thin, the dialogue can be very good but also outright atrocious, and the camerawork (again, outside of special effects) is nothing to rave about. King Kong has a reputation for perfection that's solely hinged on cool special effects and a shitload of nostalgia. It does not have the depth to its storytelling of, say, Godzilla (1954), which had to claw and fight over decades to be reappraised by critics for its many virtues. All King Kong has is groundbreaking special effects.

And those special effects are really good, don't get me wrong. You feel for that monkey before the movie ends, and the wonder and terror of Skull Island's ecosystem of monsters is rightfully iconic. But if you dig past that - and you have to if you want to analyze the movie, because most of it is surface level stuff - you're not left with much to analyze, and what there is to analyze are a bunch of racist tropes that were old and timeworn by the time King Kong was made, and much more so now. Evil black savages who want to sacrifice a white woman because of her enchanting Aryan beauty, a giant ape who's horny for said white woman because of said enchanting Aryan beauty, heroic white men risking everything as they plunder an evil, backwards island of degenerate relics from the past that were best left forgotten, Charlie the Chinese Cook who is exactly as grating a racial stereotype of Chinese people as you'd expect from the 1930's - yeah, all of these tropes have racist roots, and whether or not the racism was intended by the creators doesn't really matter, because they certainly did nothing to try and mitigate it or divorce the tropes from those racist roots. It's a racist movie, an undeniably racist movie, which isn't something that should surprise people because it's from the 19fucking30's.

And that doesn't mean we have to condemn King Kong, and that watching it makes you a problematic Nazi MAGA chud, or that we're not allowed to praise what's good about it (i.e. the special effects). It just means that, maybe, after 90 years of completely untempered praise from all corners of the film world, maybe it's time to admit that King Kong, while still a classic, is not a perfect movie. That it has some flaws. And maybe we can start by admitting the really obvious flaw of it being a movie from the 1930's that reflects the 1930's attitudes about race which were, you know, not great, and then from there we could maybe talk about how it reflects 1930's attitudes about gender (also not great), and then to how the acting in it is mostly bad, and then to how the scriptwriting is... let's say uneven, and then maybe admit that really we just like the monster bits and the rest is kind of forgettable at best, and that Godzilla is a far superior movie in all respects.

But I think what's likely to happen is people will viciously defend the movie without thinking about it critically for a moment, because nuance and honest self reflection is for chumps.

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invested-in-your-future · 1 year

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You think RWBY says fighting racism is wrong just because it treats a white guy as evil for being a psychopath who doesn't actually give a shit about fighting racism. You're a sad racist loser.

No I think RWBY ends up saying (intentionally or not) that fighting racism is wrong because:

The show takes one of the leads with the most clear-cut stance against racism and turns her into literal clueless princess that grew up in basically a castle in an island paradise. Making her strong opinions be literal trope of people writing off real life activism as "twitter activism from clueless people who did not have it as bad as people in Insert Country Here". Menagerie is literal island resort LMAO.

The show does literally nothing with the other one of the leads whose flaws involve social biases and prejudices learned via her toxic and classist family that literally owns slaves.

It's literal "racism against faunus subplot" culminates with Blake delivering an absolutely awful monologue about how "faunus are no better than the racists" because "look at all the fire and looting and damage we did". You know, the literal fascist talking point used against any form of activism or protest in real world???

Ilia's arc culminates with "her deciding to be the model minority because that solves racism".

The show literally just wants you to forget the racism subplot existed and does not bother to actually give focus to it. The show literally moves on to the kingdom that supposedly is the most racist and does nothing with it because whoops gotta get rid of these pesky human REALISTIC villains because goofy magic fortress of doom is arriving.

The show conflates LITERALLY EVERYTHING from activism and civil disobedience to blowing up things with bombs into one. In MilesWBY, if you do ANYTHING beyond merely frowning and sighing at bigotry, you will suddenly find yourself planting pipe bombs to murder government officials or something.

Literally every instance of minorities standing up against persecution is treated as "evil" or "unhinged". There are two states of being for Faunus - "living like racism isn't there and hoping some non-faunus girl will literally cure racism of people targeting you with a speech" and "literal freaking terrorism".

Even beyond the "intended minority" of faunus the show treats it's non-white and non-straight characters absolutely awfully. If a non-white character survives their first on-screen appearance, they are bound to either get absolutely done dirty, be treated as "evil" or disappear off the face of the earth right after.

I literally don't care about Adam's whiny nonsense, LMAO. Hi, hello, you talking to one of the earliest "Adam is Gaston" posters in the fandom right now, LOL. The only flaw is that Blake(and yang) did not get a proper arc of absolutely demolishing him and parsing years of abuse and fear she suffered because of him.

#rwby #rwde

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swirlmup · 1 year

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RWBY may have its flaws, but at least its not racist to POC, at least it doesn't treat its female MCs as damsels in distress, nor does it make male side characters into white male saviors.

Fixing RWBY v5 took a pedophile bandit, and made him into a father and husband while still having him sexually harass teenagers.

It also glorified racist white men as protagonists in place of the female characters, but let's focus on FRWBY V6.

Where the angry abusive straight white male version of toxic masculinity is now suddenly overpowered, gets sympathetic backstory, can now force women who have never met him before to beg for forgiveness, and the woman he abuses is now forever forced to carry his blade? And he is not allowed to be killed by the women he oppressed?

RWBY is written for people wanting feminism, lgbt rep, and SJW values.

Fixing RWBY is for toxic masculinity and people with conservative values, like libertarians.

To say nothing of how Fixing RWBY treats POC characters like garbage....the sheer racism in your fanfic is atrocious.

I mean there was the whole thing in RWBY where the writers said the White Fang were inspired by American Civil Rights movements, but then the White Fang are also unequivocally portrayed as the bad guys, and then there was Blake needing to be rescued by Sun when she was captured, and then there was ubermensch Jaune activating his healing semblance just in time to save Weiss, but go off I guess.

FRWBY, for the record, also isn't racist, nor treats its heroines as damsels, nor makes white male side characters into white saviors.

Shiloh isn't a pedophile and he isn't Raven's husband. He's just Vernal's baby-daddy. He assumed Yang was a legal adult when he met her, and he was correct in that assumption since Yang is already 18 by the time they meet, so that clears him of that accusation as well.

It did not glorify any white men over the heroines.

Adam is canonically a strong fighter in RWBY, all we did was be more consistent with his strength and didn't depower him at any point, and instead allowed him to also progress in the same way the heroines progressed and got stronger. Adam canonically always had a sympathetic backstory, as evidenced by the brand on his face and additional canon from the short and comics showing that when Adam was younger he was much nicer. All we did was add more meat to his already hinted-at backstory. He didn't force Weiss to apologize, she chose to do that on her own, and I think that that was a very grand moment for Weiss. She's stepping up to take responsibility for her family's actions, she's being the bigger person and extending whatever kindness she has to offer to the person who deserves it the least. Weiss is downright saintly in that moment. Adam didn't want her apology and spat on it. Blake took Adam's sword of her own will. Nobody forced it on her, she could have left it behind. We don't know what will become of the sword in future volumes, if she'll really keep it forever or throw it away. The story hasn't revealed the sword's final fate yet. The entirety of team RWBY worked together to beat Adam up. Blake protected her friends, Yang put Adam in a crater, Weiss said the final words, and Ruby shot the finishing blow. These women were all terrorized by Adam, and they all worked together to end him. This might shock you to hear, but a lot of the artists contributing to FRWBY are also deeply concerned with women's portrayal in media, are lgbt and want rep, and also believe in social justice values. I won't say every single one of the Sketchy Huntsmen are like that, but a good chunk are. Perhaps you just have a different idea of what feminism, lgbt rep, and social justice should look like compared to us?

Still don't know where people get the racism thing from. Like, at no point does FRWBY treat any poc character poorly.

#asks #anonymous #fixing rwby #frwby

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 9 months

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If Edelgard starts a war on cats it would be a CATastrophe. Bad pun aside, it really speaks volumes when people are so enamored and defensive about their fave that they're willing to say "racism, genocide and terrorism is good actually". Fiction may not affect reality most of the time, but it exposes views that some people share that makes you go "yikes.".

I can't believe I didn't even think of that when I wrote it LOL.

For people missing the context, this ask is in response to a reply I wrote on another post.

When it comes to media, it's one thing if there's nuance to the situation and it's not as direct (is she being brainwashed? Controlled? Forced? Somehow unaware? Shown to be conflicted about her actions/what she says? etc). In her case though that's not present and she means what she says. Even still, liking her as a character is fine.

It's different when people start using real life situations or making outright harmful rhetoric, which is something they do both to lift their favorite up and to vilify her enemies (which is why they have to reach so hard, and farther than their arms actually can reach to make up reasons to hate Dimitri. It's not him, it's the fact that they hate anyone who opposes Edelgard, and if Edegard wants them dead they also want them dead. Unfortunately that also turned into demonizing those with mental illness).

Fiction in and of itself doesn't affect reality or indicate what a person is like irl, but their behavior toward others is no longer fiction. Story wise you could argue it makes an interesting character to have these flaws and villainous traits, but it's another story entirely when people double down to insist their characters' actions are just and they go into detail to force it down people's throats - 99.99% of the time unprompted, when that character actively associates with people who have willingly and intentionally committed genocide and aims to do the same herself by finishing the job.

Which you'd think she wouldn't because... those same people wiped out all her siblings, but okay. Somehow the CoS is worse than them. I guess bc Agarthans are human at the end of the day, so no matter how inhumane and atrocious their actions are, they get a pass as long as there's a non-human in the vicinity. Racism typically goes hand in hand with genocide, so. Yeah.

It's not even just that though - it's how the arguments go that indicates if a person is just trying to defend their favorite. If they start brainlessly spewing harmful rhetoric at real people, and if what they say would actively defend real life issues, it's concerning. It's the manner in which they defend their favorite. If the way they argue is exactly how American-hard-rights defend themselves, it starts becoming uncomfortable for people and no longer applies to just fiction.

If what you argue sounds exactly what irl politics sounds like, that's a pretty powerful indicator of who you're dealing with. It doesn't matter if they are or claim to be American-left (specifying because Random said it's different in Europe!). If their arguing points shit on all the values American-lefts stand for, they are not, whether they like it or not, arguing for the left (which all stans claim to do, and then they start regurgitating American-right political stances, extremely often at the expense and discomfort of actual American-lefts. Might I remind you that one of them, a straight man, used abortion and gay marriage both being legally in jeoprady as a gotcha to argue for Edelgard).

It doesn't matter what you claim you're doing. If your arguments actually start reflecting things that can be real, you need to be careful about how you word it. Houses deals with a political atmosphere very heavily, which shouldn't have really been a problem... but it got too close to real life politics within the fandom and people's true colors started to show.

It should have been "I love Edelgard but damn some of what she does is fucked up" and not trying to vehemently defend every singular word she's ever said. As I've mentioned in my very lengthy "why the writing failed Edelgard", the writing is partly to blame for people being divided on her, but it's the fans' own faults if they can't draw a line between liking her character and supporting things in a way that makes it sound like you'd support them irl.

It's even worse that all that nonsense picked up really badly right around the time Ukraine got invaded and Putin was out there spewing nonsense. It became a sensitive issue to have people defending Edelgard invading other countries proudly with false claims/propaganda, because the arguments fell perfectly to a T in line with what Putin was doing.

Evidently that didn't matter to the people who never touch grass and waste their time and energy only thinking of defending Edelgard instead of just enjoying her character, but then, they don't really even enjoy her character; they just enjoy their made up version of her who fights for what they want her to fight for instead of realizing what she's actually doing. These people would be damn easy bait for irl politics and it shows. Dangerously.

So for anyone arguing about your fictional favorites, remember that context is important and how you treat the topic(s) at hand are just as important. I absolutely adore a villain just like Edelgard because of good writing, and there are points I can actually defend him (if you've been on this blog for more than like a week you prooOOOObably know who I'm referring to AT THIS POINT lmao). That doesn't mean I'm going to call invasion, racism, etc good and just for his better talking points to be achieved.

In my opinion Edelgard ended up poorly written because the writers wanted to be bias in the context of the story but couldn't properly justify the atrocities. I'll be honest, if this is how they handle (main) female villains, I'd rather just not have them. I'd rather go back to the days of Petrine and Hilda who were side villains and allowed to be as disgusting and horrendous as they wanted.

If writing a lead villain who is female won't work because they can't stop pushing their bias into the writing (don't even look at poor Petra, she got SKEWERED in CF and especially in SB) and it reflects poorly, I just don't want it. I know men at the writing table for some wild reason throughout the years have been unable to properly write females (which like, why. Just write human beings. But no, they seem to act like females are a different entity entirely), but if that's going to remain the case, I don't want them to write them in situations like these because they clearly can't handle it. They treat Edelgard as a trophy wife who has to be perfect for them and not as a complex, legitimate person.

Mind you, I also made a post before about how Edelgard is separated from other female villains by being drawn as "attractive". Ishtar gets treated much better than other female villains as well, with Heroes going as far as to outright shit on canon and give her an alt where she "joins the Liberation Army", which... the whole point of her character and her fighting in that war was that she was on the opposite side but wasn't a bad person. I could argue similar things for Burian, but that's more headcanon/literally based on just his death quote lmfao.

Point being, Ishtar is drawn to be attractive. Petrine and Hilda are not, and are outright villainous, terrible, not complex people at all (Hilda is a hypocrite, but she's not complex). Edelgard was drawn to be attractive, and was thus not treated like a villain proper. Unfortunately this got warped into the fandom we know now, but... like we both said, the way they argue for her is pretty telling and honestly pretty scary. Let's not forget that they've spewed death threats at people simply for not liking Edelgard.

No, that last sentence was not a joke nor an exaggeration. In a way it makes sense though, considering they defend genocide, racism, etc.

#DCB Ask #this is why I like to just discuss things with JUST people I know. we have differing opinions in our own circle!#in this fandom tho I have to already know I can debate this game safely and not have to deal with bullshit #I do like talking abt this game (Hopes too) and I do like being able to vent safely when I'm unhappy with certain story beats #talking about/venting about things isn't always looking for discussion but the stans do NOT understand that #and will come after you unwarranted simply for liking Dimtiri. I noticed some of them have been #recently basically going down the line of who follows who. they find other fans through who follows who #so even people like me who just stay in their corner and talk with their mutuals end up with #a stan coming at me bc they couldn't resist going onto my blog and looking at my posts #when my blog content is CLEARLY not aimed at them and they are NOT the target audience for it #and it also sucks that like... I don't rly engage in discourse but it finds some of my mutuals bc of who they follow #so I'm not totally away from seeing it but I'm on the sidelines/not rly involved #if a stan comes at me for no goddamn reason I reply and block and continue on with my day #but sadly having a discussion with mutuals or posting on your blog without tags still gets stans a-knockin'#anyway I have midnight Taco Bell and it's really fucking great #I am a night owl and tonight I am a happy night owl. I have consumed and am continuing to consume Taco Bell I am invincible right now

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littlefankingdom · 1 year

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My brother made me watch Avatar 2: The Way of Water, so I'm going to make it everyone's problem

Avatar 2 is a good sequel in the sense that it has the same elements as the first one: gorgeous visuals but meh plot with some controversial stuffs in. Maybe you don't remember, but Avatar is this white savior story that came out 13 years ago, and now, because someone needed to make more money (pick whoever you want), we have a sequel and a third movie in the making. For now, we have these 3 hours of the artistic department, which I hope was well treated, busting their ass off to hide the flaws of a movie that could have been 2 hours.

Watch out, spoilers.

This is a movie about fatherhood, but more so about a bad father as Jake Sully was saying the same shit my abusive parents used to, and for a moment I had to ask myself if I was in a theater or back in the house I grew up in. Maybe the original dialogues are different (because I saw the French version), I don't believe so, but this man has four children and yet, doesn't know how to be a parent. No, man that sounds like Thor but it's because you are voiced by the same VA (Adrien Antoine) and not because you are Chris Hemsworth, you don't threaten to beat your children to make them stop joining a battle or not fighting their sister's bully. And the way he talked to his second son is just so awful, even if he brings trouble, that's not a good way to take care of the issue. The whole family dynamic is just wrong because they keep calling him "Chief" ("chef" in French), and he kept using this authority on his children and on his wife, so nobody can discuss his decisions. And it's even more annoying because women are portrayed as more "savage"/emotional and the men are more calm and prone to reason in this movie. Sexism in my 2022 movie? It's more likely than you think. The message being "a father has to protect the family", which is just not correct because, look at your wife my guys, she is also doing the same job. And she isn't saying to your children to befriend their bullies. Another guy is a father, I guess, Miles Quaritch. Him and Spider has a bond for no reason, just because he's a blue clone of his father. But Spider was raised by the Navi and hated his father at the beginning, and yet save the clone at the end because he... cares about him??? Why??? He has no reason to! The guy didn't raise him and have been terrorizing people for the short time he was with him. He threatened to kill so many innocent people in front of Spider, the boy has no reason to care for him at all! Unless it's stockholm syndrome.

Favorite character: Payakan rules, and everyone treats him like shit for wanting to revenge his mother. Y'all are literally doing the same shit for your siblings and children. Everyone else is being so dumb at least once.

This is a movie about racism, I guess. Neytiri refusing to treat Spider like one of them because he's human. Your husband also is, and your children are mixed, wtf? She was even going to kill him just because of who his father is, when they raised him, not the military! The boy must be so traumatized, having his friends' mother threatened to kill him for being related to a human. And the Navi also have racism because, why not? Mocking others for being different, calling them monsters, letting them to die in a dangerous area, and only accept them if they take the blame for you! No bullies are going to be your friends if you take the blame for them trying to kill you, don't be like Lo'ak, that was so dumb.

And finally, this is a movie about war and colonization. The military's goal is to kill Jack Sully because he is the chief of the resistance, so the colonization can continue. When Jack decides to leave with his family to protect them because he knows the military are after him, which is dumb because if they are looking for you, it would be better to put your children in someone else care so they aren't hurt if you are attacked, the military stops caring about the resistance and the colonization because they must kill Jack Sully, for some reason. If he's gone and not the chief of the resistance anymore, do he still matter in the conflict? No! There isn't any logic for the plot to happen! He isn't impacting the colons vs resistance anymore, why are they still focusing on him??? They can kill and destroy everything in the forest while he isn't there, he doesn't care anymore because he has children!

Least favorite character: Jake Sully. You are so bad at everything, white man, so bad. I cut contact with my parents for a reason, stay back.

Expiration date: 2009

This is only my opinion, pls to not try to start a debate

#avatar the way of water #avatar spoilers #avatar critical

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back-and-totheleft · 1 year

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The Impossibility of Reason

Seeing Oliver Stone’s breakout movie on its original release was one of those experiences that are so intensely felt that one rather resists a second viewing. But as I am in the process of re-evaluating Stone’s work, how could I not revisit this seminal picture? That Platoon rewards the returning viewer is not surprising; that what felt like dramaturgical flaws in it three decades ago* now largely strike one as much more subtle and integrated is a very pleasant surprise.

Although the picture functions as kind of exorcism for its writer-director, Platoon is not merely an exercise in cinematic memoir, and the assurance of its writing and direction strikes me now, as it did then, as heralding a unique talent, which indeed it did. The picture also reminds us of how appealing Charlie Sheen seemed at the time (the ardor, at least on my part, didn’t last long.) And if Platoon becomes an allegory, its central character pulled between father-figures saintly (Willem Dafoe) and Satanic (Tom Berenger), the metaphor feels less willfully imposed today than it did in 1987… although Dafoe occasionally seems too good to be true, especially in our first real glimpse of him, smiling welcomingly at Sheen from his hammock, and in a way that could be misinterpreted as seductive.

Platoon 4402522_stdThis seems as good a place as any to take note of the subsequent sequence of the “cool” soldiers dancing to Smokey Robinson. There’s a charming shot of Sheen being silently asked to join, declining, and being pulled to his feet that is almost a homoerotic parody of a high-school mixer, and the dance itself is both joyously comradely and vaguely romantic. I am not making a case here for a deeper reading of this moment. It’s merely an observation: Enforced single-gender institutions like the armed forces of the period make such social accommodations necessary — there are historic photos as well of isolated cowboys dancing together — but they’re very rarely depicted in popular entertainment, and just as rarely commented on. Billy Wilder did something similar in Stalag 17, and it’s seldom remarked upon either.

Although I’ve never been in a combat unit, it seems to me that Stone gets it all right: The heat, the rain, the insects, the boredom, the confusion, the terror… and, especially in that CIA-directed war, the creeping realization that there is no clear purpose to any of it. When the emotions of Sheen’s platoon-mates boil over, and precipitate atrocity against a Vietnamese village, the causes are demonstrably more than the convenient racism that accompanies them. (There were, as our engagement in Vietnam imploded, well over 200 documented cases of “fragging” — the murder by troops of their commanding officers — and behind them was precisely that advanced level of unmitigated frustration.) I recall this sequence especially well because, during it the film at the theatre in which I was seeing it with an older friend broke and when I turned to talk to him, he was staring straight ahead and unable to speak; afterward he, a former Navy man during the Vietnam period, told me he’d spent decades deriding the anti-war movement of the time. That My Lai-like sequence rocked him, on an extremely personal level, and forced him to confront his own, long-cherished, ideas. This is not merely evidence of the power of film generally, but the power of this film specifically.

It could be argued, I suppose, that Stone didn’t need to depict the battle for his surrogate’s soul as epitomized by the Dafoe/Berenger conflict — that the events of combat themselves were defining enough. I would counter that there is a classic dramatic unity to this central notion, and the only criticism I might make of it is that it may be a bit more explicitly stated than necessary. But opposition in drama is a basic unit of construction, and the gulf that lays between them is the abyss into which the traditional naïf must stumble on his way to deciding who he is, and what he believes.

In the large ensemble cast, which along with Sheen, Dafoe and Berenger includes Keith David, Forest Whitaker, Francesco Quinn, Kevin Dillon, Reggie Johnson, Corey Glover, Johnny Depp, Chris Pedersen, Richard Edson, James Terry McIlvain and Dale Dye, only John C. McGinley gives an actorly performance. But then, McGinley is nearly always bad; his continued career is one of those, like that of Anthony Heald, which defy rational explanation. He does have one good moment, however: When his plea for respite is turned against him, his face carries a look of such stunned disbelief that the cosmic unfairness seems to have cracked his mind irreparably.

Georges Delerue, who had composed the music for Stone’s previous picture, the incendiary Salvador, contributed a brief, lyrical score and which included a heartfelt passage Stone ultimately rejected in favor of the Barber Adagio for Strings. Claire Simpson provided the effective editing and the cinematographer, Robert Richardson, gave the movie both a pictorial lushness† and a stark reality that encapsulate Chris Taylor’s experience, particularly in the long siege sequence which climaxes the picture. And if Dafoe’s death scene, with its Christ-like symbology and Barber strings, still feels overstated, it’s undeniably moving for all of that. One of the primary lessons the movies teach us is that you can be manipulated and still experience genuine emotion.

It took gumption to get Platoon made — Stone wrote his initial pass on the material in 1968, and ran into the predictable resistance to the material of studio suits throughout the ‘70s — and it’s the sort of impassioned work we may associate with young firebrands. In retrospect, this and Stone’s subsequent Born on the Fourth of July won acclaim (and Academy Awards) in part because by the ‘80s Vietnam was a collective experience many in both the general populace and the press could agree had been an appalling enterprise… even if the whole truth was still unknown by the one and suppressed by the other, as indeed it is to this day. It was only when Stone upset the status quo by extending his critique of American values into areas of recent political turmoil and accepted falsehoods peddled by both the government and that very same press which had previously lauded him that he lost his position as media darling, unlikely ever to be regained.‡ The love showered on him pretty much dried up with JFK, and the implacable hatred of that very establishment Stone rightly attacks has gone unabated ever since; I suspect they’d like to see Stone’s Oscars® taken from him now, preferably by force.

-Scott Ross on his blog Too Many Poets, Feb 12 2019 [x]

#scott ross #oliver stone #platoon #reviews

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manuscripts-dontburn · 3 years

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The Unwomanly Face of War

Author: Svetlana Alexievich

First published: 1983

Pages: 372

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 12 days

No review is needed for this book. It is as gut-wrenching as any true voice crying out from the darkness of war. It also reminds one how alive, how near to our central and Eastern-European minds and hearts this particular war truly is still.

Across the Green Grass Fields

Author: Seana McGuire

First published: 2021

Pages: 174

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

This is a lovely one. It seemed more for children than the rest of the series (to the point of being almost didactic), but I was glad of it. I was really in need of a "comfort" book and this one delivered on exactly that.

Vigée Le Brun

Author: various

First published: 2016

Pages: 288

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 1 day

This is a truly beautiful catalogue of works of celebrated during her life and yet somehow forgotten up until 1980s Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. I loved it. I have always been fond of portraits because they carry the stories of people in them as well as the stories of their creation. And Vigée Le Brun´s work truly appeals to my aesthetic tastes.

Solutions and Other Problems

Author: Allie Brosh

First published: 2020

Pages: 519

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Put a bitter-sweet smile on my face. Some parts hit me in the chest like a freight train.

You Had Me at Hola

Author: Alexis Daria

First published: 2020

Pages: 384

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 3 days

This was my first ever contemporary adult romance and... it was a pleasant experience. I am probably never going to be a big fan of the genre, but it was a welcome palate cleanser after some really depressing and emotionally (as well as mentally) taxing reads. The story was completely predictable, at times a little slow and dull, but I liked the characters, the Latinx representation and the wholesome feeling the book has throughout. And that cover is gorgeous.

Entertaining Tsarist Russia: Tales, Songs, Plays, Movies, Jokes, Ads, and Images from Russian Urban Life, 1779-1917

Edited by: Louise McReynolds

First published: 1998

Pages: 448

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 7 days

If I should rate it for the educational value - educational as in getting a telling glimpse into a common mind of a common man in the Imperial Russia of the 19th century mostly - the rating would be high. If I should rate it for the literary value and quality of the included texts, it would be very low. Naturally, the excellent and interesting writing of the period has found its recognition (we have all heard of or read Tolstoy and Pushkin etc), and these are the scraps of what we might call "folk artistry" where the "art" part is really the least of the author´s concern. Many of the included text make a reader of today uncomfortable with its sexism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism so I would advise some caution if you choose to read them. In any case, an interesting collection for anyone vested in researching the period.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Author: Susanna Clarke

First published: 2004

Pages: 1006

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 22 days

This book is a delight of storytelling and plot gradation. Set in England during the time of Napoleon and Lord Wellington, it wonderfully combines the real historical characters and events with elements utterly other-worldly. And thus we see that Napoleon was defeated, among other things, by the "English" magic. The folklore of Great Britain is the basis for the rest of the plot and the source which the two magicians - Strange and Norrell - study and use to do their magic. The book has the social observance of custom and human flaws as penetrating and humorously presented as any Jane Austen novel yet at the same time Susanna Clarke conjures up scenes of complete desolation, terror and bleakness when she needs to. This book does many things at once and does them very, very well, no plot thread is useless and everything ties together in the end. Considering the length of the novel, it certainly takes you on a journey, starting off slow but being all the more rewarding to those who persevere. Just the ending I wished a bit different. For even though it makes complete sense, it was not as satisfying as I wanted it to be.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Author: Ibram X. Kendi

First published: 2016

Pages: 582

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 12 days

Important and above all illuminating. I definitely learned a lot and it put many things I have already known into their correct context and perspective. A neccessary read for anyone living in European-based society.

Caravaggio

Author: Milo Manara

First published: 2015

Pages: 128

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Geniální dílo Michelangela Caravaggia jsem objevila poměrně nedávno a byla jsem zcela nadšená. Tento komiks si jistě zaslouží ocenění za výtvarnou stránku a tím, že dýchne vším tím ošklivým, v čem Caravaggio žil, aniž by to narušilo jeho schopnost vnímat krásu. Odhalených zadnic a poprsí je na 120 stránkách bohužel tolik, že je jasné, že Milo Manara si je prostě nedokázal odpustit, ne proto, že by byly pro příběh nějak zásadní, což je vždycky problematické. Celkově zajímavě zpracovaný příběh o jednom nenormálním leč skutečně talentovaném umělci od jiného poněkud sexem-posedlého talentovaného umělce. Jen je vtipné, že mezi všemi těmi nahotinkami není jediný náznak Caravaggiovi bisexuality, ne-li přímo homosexuality. Na to asi Manara neměl dost odvahy.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Author: V.E. Schwab

First published: 2020

Pages: 560

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 8 days

This was possibly the most talked-about and hyped book of 2020, so it feels rather useless rehashing what it is about. I am just going to say I liked it. It was beautifully written (this was my first V.E. Schwab), I enjoyed the historical parts a great deal and even the contemporary setting had very charming moments (I tend to be bored to tears by anything set in a modern world, so this was a nice surprise). I only cannot decide if the ending was frustrating or clever.

#booklr #wrap up #February 2021

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davidmann95 · 4 years

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Comics this week (11/25/2020)?

Anonymous said: This week's floppies?

Anonymous said: This week’s comics?

Anonymous said: Have you read Red Hood #51 yet? It’s one of the best stories Jason has been in since Under the Red Hood and I don’t think I can go back to his normal stories after this

Anonymous said: God damn the Other History of the DC Universe has a pretty brutal call out of Superman, yet as a Superman fan I wasn’t offended or put off by it at all. Ridley specifically narrowed in on one of the key flaws of Superman, his need for public love and approval. What did you think of the portrayal of Supes?

Anonymous said: Thoughts on "The Other History of the DC Universe" and why it's already one of the greatest comics of all time?

Anonymous said: Thoughts on "Other History"?

X-Men #15: Heck yeah, Quiet Council discussing protocol, this is what I come to Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men for, and Cyclops getting his Captain America in Hickvengers moment.

X of Swords: Destruction: Look this rules and I guess I understood the Arakko story by the end but not the Otherworld/Captain Britain stuff, and it’s the former that’s gonna matter to Hick-Men going forward. But I don’t care if it put a ‘_ of 22′ counter across the top, if a crossover is for real going to demand you buy 22 comics in 3 months for you to see the entire core story you need to be screaming that from the rooftops with every single interview that it’s genuinely the whole thing that’s essential, because editorial claiming that you should totally get everything aside that’s not how crossovers have actually worked since the 90s no matter how many checklists and reading orders may be provided. This whole thing really sorta felt like the Infinity of this run, good stuff but ultimately Hickman serving a master beyond telling his own story - in this case trying to provide a forcible on-ramp from Marvel’s hottest book to all the ancillary related stuff.

Shang-Chi #3: This continues to be a really solid little mini with some poignant bits.

Power Pack #1: Haven’t read much if anything with them in it before, but as good as I could have hoped of Ryan North’s first post-Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Marvel gig.

Fantastic Four: Antithesis #4: Fine, but it would have been so much funnier if Waid’s last Marvel work before finally returning to DC had been that cancelled Squadron Supreme two-shot.

Daredevil #24: God so goooooood. And next issue’s next week?!

The Department of Truth #3: Imagine going literally any duration back in time, handing this to someone who’d read and even enjoyed his work, and explaining “THAT’S the level James Tynion is going to end up operating on”.

BANG!: My shop got the TPB this week of the recent mini by Kindt and Torres, and this is a top-notch reimagining of assorted 80s action/pseudo-pulp archetypes into something modern and strange and delightful, that while technically concluding somewhat tidily if the sales aren’t there is set up to go on for as long as the creative team has ideas for it. It taps into that America’s Best Comics/Planetary/Adventureman energy for a slightly different branch of genre storytelling, and even if like me it’s not an iteration you grew up with it’s definitely worth your money and attention.

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Multiverse Who Laughs: It’s fine, whatever, just a buncha little Dark Multiverse stories...except for the last story, where the Twilight Zone-esque shocker final twist is that being black in America and thereby constantly experiencing the constant low-grade terror of the background radiation of systemic racism essentially acts as a vaccine against Scarecrow’s fear toxin, which...okay??? It’s written by a black man so it’s not as if I think it’s offensive, but particularly given that given the rules of the Dark Multiverse one of the three characters in there had to have imagined this possibility, and that then The Batman Who Laughs must’ve seen it and gone “Hell yes, all about this, definitely one of the 52 scariest of all possible universe”, it’s a serious candidate for weirdest comic of the year.

Legion of Superheroes #11: This is an excellent kickoff to a 3 or 4-issue arc so I have absolutely no idea how it’s going to reach some kind of season finale next month.

Action Comics #1027: Romita Jr.’s deteriorating by the day but I did like his take on the Phantom Zone, and I feel like this while taking it a bit farther than I’d prefer still convincingly sells the idea of Superman just being absolutely fed up after a truly awful day.

Justice League Dark #28: So is this the end of the run, Future State notwithstanding? Shocking how coherently it held together through the transition in writers, and I really hope it says and so does Ram V to take it in a direction wholly his own.

Wonder Woman #767: Substantially improved now that it’s not working off the completely bizarre and increasingly uncomfortable ‘buddy-cop’ premise.

Red Hood #51: GOOD NOW?! I checked it out because of the rec above and because I was curious how someone would try and salvage the concept post-Lobdell, and while it obviously isn’t literally by him, Shawn Martinbrough and Tony Akins are for all the world doing a Christopher Priest Relaunch with this tonally and aesthetically; I think it’s even a direct sequel to Priest’s Batman: The Hill oneshot from decades ago. I sure hope this isn’t a two-issue filler run with the book either cancelled or reshuffled after Future State, because this has all the makings of an excellent crime comic.

Suicide Squad #11: I’ll probably check out Taylor’s Revolutionaries book once that happens, so I guess mission accomplished. Fine little run.

The Other History of the DC Universe #1: I heard someone on Twitter say this is the best thing that’s come out of superhero comics since HoXPoX, and I don’t know if I’m on that level with it but that is absolutely a fair conclusion. I’ll be honest, I had measured expectations here from having seen some of Ridley’s past comics work - I figured it’d be a perfectly solid book with a few standout moments, but instead it throws out all the haymakers in the world and emerges as one of my favorite comics of 2020, even given we’re only seeing the one issue this year. I can only judge so much because it feels like a lot of what we see in this debut is going to be completely reframed through the perspectives of other characters in subsequent entries, but standalone this is a brutal, intimate, brilliant character study set against the backdrop of a hazy dreamscape vision of the history of DC reformatted as needed to fit the concerns in play here (though the dates presented are so specific I wonder if aspects of this are leftovers of the original version of 5G), and probably as close as we’re going to see to a ‘trilogy capper’ to The Golden Age and New Frontier. That’s why the take on Superman here works, as much a product of the worst of his mass-consciousness image as the Superman of DKR but meshed with a profound understanding of what makes him tick as a character that makes the inherently compromised version on display here palatable, and a believable extrapolation of the Silver/Bronze Age’s version of him when that’s the era this series is thus far working as a contrast to. And god, the art. I always liked him fine enough, but even with finishes by Andrea Cucchi and colors by Jose Villarrubia I never could have imagined Giuseppe Camuncoli putting out the likes of this, and Steve Wands’s lettering is doing at least equal legwork in defining the look of the book. There have been several impressive titles out of Black Label at this point - Last Knight on Earth, Rorschach, Strange Adventures, and especially Harleen - but nothing else has come close to demonstrating the potential power of the imprint as a vehicle for creators taking this iconography and doing something radical and unrestrained and phenomenal with it.

#Week's Comics #Opinion

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years

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Star Trek: Genre and Themes

Considering the fact that Star Trek was pitched as “Wagon Train in space”, it seems almost redundant to discuss the genre of such a show.

Since the beginning, Gene Roddenberry’s show’s genre seemed pretty obvious: science fiction-western. And really, it’s hard to argue with that. Kirk’s style has been outright referred to as ‘cowboy diplomacy’ by future installations of Star Trek. The adventures and ‘exploration’ of the new territory is very reminiscent of the western television shows of the time, and the setting of outer space would seem to place it pretty firmly in the ‘science fiction’ genre as well.

But, like always, there’s a little more to it than that.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, very few pieces of media can be categorized as only one genre. Even the most seemingly obvious and one-dimensional examples have elements of other genres. No show is designed to fit into only one genre, with any individual television program carrying many characteristics of one specific genre, while sharing many elements of other genres.

And while it may be easy to look at the setting of a film or television show and use that to determine a genre (space = sci-fi, medieval = fantasy), that doesn’t mean it’s terribly accurate.

Such is the case of Star Trek.

As a matter of fact, despite Roddenberry’s initial pitch to the studios, Star Trek actually doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the westerns of the day (Besides Spectre of the Gun). Kirk’s ‘cowboy’ nature actually doesn’t come into play nearly as much as one would think. Captain Kirk’s decision making isn’t quite the same as a traditional western lead, weighing more factors than just ‘frontier justice’. For another, the setup is totally different. The Enterprise is a military exploration ship, full of people on a mission, not just of exploration, but of diplomacy. Kirk’s job is not only to defeat ‘bad guys’, but to find the best solutions for problems of other cultures.

So while Kirk’s ‘good old fisticuffs’ solutions may seem a bit more of the ‘Wild Wild West’ than later incarnations of the show would resort to, it doesn’t make it a western. In fact, Star Trek has far more in common with future versions of science fiction shows than one might think.

Star Trek, at its core, is a show about an optimistic utopia, a future where humanity has learned to straighten itself out. A future where there is no oppression, no prejudice, no poverty, but of a unified, educated, compassionate Earth, reaching out into the galaxy to explore, extending a hand of friendship. This is Kirk’s job: being the hand of friendship. Set in a distant future, a twenty-third century where Earth’s problems are solved, as such, there is no need to examine humanity’s flaws as they are.

At least, not directly.

As is done with many examples of the soft science fiction (or speculative fiction) genre, Star Trek uses its setting and set-up to examine the problems with our own society through the disguise of another. Routinely, Kirk and the gang land on a planet or meet a people that represent a part of humanity that is less than pleasant to look at. Episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield take a scathing look at racism, a huge social issue in the late 1960s. Other episodes examined topics like the Vietnam war, labor, and, a science-fiction favorite, the dangers of technology.

Add this onto the ‘traveling through the stars’ plotline of Star Trek, and you’ve got yourself a pretty good argument for a solid science fiction show, with or without the western elements to it. With that said, that doesn’t mean there’s more to the show than just sci-fi.

Star Trek’s storylines typically fell into the category of action or adventure. There were gunfights (or phaserfights), fistfights, chases, daring escapes, and space-battles galore. There was typically at least one hair-raising action scene per episode (with a few exceptions, such as The Trouble with Tribbles or The Way to Eden). Even the episodes without ‘action’ per say as it would later be solidified in shows like The A-Team or Magnum P.I. turned out a decent ‘adventure’ story, with emphasis on the journey and adventure as a whole, rather than action-packed sequences that kept audiences on the edge of their seat.

Star Trek was all about the adventure, as even the opening credits will make clear. The voyage of the Enterprise is aimed at discovery and exploration. The setup of the show is, at its core, the greatest adventure: exploring the unknown. Every episode is aimed at the exploration of the human experience and curiosity. By definition, an adventure is a risky undertaking, and the exploration of deep space and discovering new civilizations and planets is nothing if not risky.

It’s pretty easy to say that Star Trek fits pretty neatly into the ‘sci-fi/adventure’ category, although it does have shades of other genres. Episodes like Shore Leave, The Trouble with Tribbles, I Mudd, and A Piece of the Action have a distinct comedic slant to them, whereas episodes like Catspaw, The Enemy Within, Wolf in the Fold, and The Man Trap have a rather sinister, horror/thriller edge. Other episodes have dabbled into courtroom dramas, tragedies, westerns, and even war, giving all three seasons a wide range of types of stories that they tell. However, one genre that Star Trek has always been the absolute master of, even more than science-fiction or adventure, has been the genre of drama.

At the heart of every Star Trek episode, no matter how cerebral or action-packed, is an overarching sense of drama. Not drama in the ‘soap opera’ sense, mind you, but drama as in real character interaction and growth. The drama in Star Trek is in McCoy and Spock’s argument in Bread and Circuses, in the death of a recently married lieutenant in Balance of Terror, in the death of Kirk’s brother in Operation: Annihilate. Star Trek’s dramatic moments are rooted in character, from Spock’s admittance and sharing of Vulcan rituals in Amok Time and his muted desperation at thinking that he’s killed his Captain in a burst of uncontrollable rage to the doomed romance between Kirk and Edith Keeler in City On the Edge of Forever. The drama in Star Trek is in people, whether human or not.

The examples of Star Trek’s use of characters, be they regular or not, is truly groundbreaking. From Spock’s mind-meld with the Horta in Devil in the Dark to Kirk’s terrifying identity crisis in The Enemy Within, Star Trek’s strength is in the people, in the personal dynamics between the characters, most notably between the main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Even the other, more minor characters on the show received levels of characterization unheard of for the time: Sulu’s love of botany and retro weaponry, Uhura’s musical ability, Scotty’s intelligence and romantic troubles, and Chekov’s obsession with spouting totally innaccurate Russian history, possibly just to annoy the rest of the crew. Even Nurse Chapel’s flashes of snark helped her stand apart from the many nameless crew members who came and went throughout the series.

In short, Star Trek’s characters were people. Nowhere was this more evident than in Mr. Spock.

By the 1960s, most ‘alien’ characters on television were either jokes or monsters, cast as gimmicks in My Favorite Martian or as evil conquerors in shows like The Twilight Zone or The Invaders. But in Star Trek, the ‘alien’ was as ‘human’ as the rest of us, if you’ll pardon the phrase.

A Mr. Spock type character was unheard of in 1966. A half-human, half-alien, treated as a respected equal of the rest of the crew, was a completely foreign concept at the time. Spock’s development as a character, and indeed, his criticism of the human condition proved to be one of Star Trek’s best elements of its use of character and drama. Spock as a character was constantly at war with himself, torn between the outwardly emotionless Vulcan half, and his emotional, illogical human half. Spock’s internal struggle proved to be one of the most gripping elements of the show, and as his interactions with Kirk and McCoy proved, although Spock did not like to be compared to humans, in many ways, he was more ‘human’ than we are. His subtle flashes of emotion and occasional bursts of illogical behavior proved repeatedly that there was a lot more to Spock than what he tried to let on. He, along with the other members of the cast, had layers.

And Star Trek was very good at exploring those layers.

No science-fiction show would introduce characters with layers to explore if they hadn’t had every intention of making the show hang on the relationships of the characters. And the relationships of characters is the absolute core of drama.

In the end, Star Trek is a science-fiction adventure drama, a speculative look at the nature of humanity and people in general. Star Trek is a look at a better future, an improved society turned to exploration. It’s about the new frontier, about the best and worst of humanity, about friendship, adventure, and morality, full of good and memorable stories and characters. It paved the way for even more complex shows to follow, and remains one of the most thought-provoking and earnest shows of all time.

Even now, audiences remember those characters, those stories, those little moments with these people that they grew to know. They hold up, remaining just as genuine and heartfelt as they were in 1966.

And they owe that, in no small part, to those wonderful characters.

But that’s a discussion for next time.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Don’t forget that my ask box is always open for conversation, suggestions, or questions. Stay tuned for the next article, where we’ll be looking at the crew of the Enterprise and their roles in Star Trek. I hope to see you there!

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lesbatiddy · 4 years

Photo

The Boys: Frenchie, Terror the dog, M.M., Kimiko, Wee Hughie and Butcher

Wondering whether you should watch The Boys?

Here’s a list of reasons for and against to help you decide if you’re on the fence or have been hearing about it from friends or coworkers.

You may know it as the origin of the Invisible Cunt meme or from this scene.

Overall I feel the lazy problematic aspects are outweighed by how good the show is - this is mostly just to warn people about potential content that’s connected to past traumas, phobias, etc. that they’d want to avoid.

Potential mild spoilers and graphic content warning below

Why you might want to avoid it:

- VERY, VERY graphic. If you’re even a little squeamish, this show might not be you. I’m usually fine with gore, but even I felt it was excessive at times. There’s enough blood to make Carrie look like a fucking teletubbies episode. Heads explode and neck bits flop about. You will see internal organs exposed and people cut in half, piles of bodies and laser vision burns. A man’s face is torn off his skull. A bomb explodes in a man’s ass. Family friendly shit.

- Racially motivated violence against POC and racial slurs

- There’s a literal Nazi superhero who commits said violence and goes on a White Supremacist rant. If you join the fandom you may have to deal with fringe individuals simping for said Nazi superhero

- Rape/sexual assault, both onscreen and mentioned, in addition to workplace sexual harassment and a victim of rape having to deal with abuse and harassment from their rapist

- The woman in a relationship with the main character is Fridged (killed off immediately and used as motivation for revenge). Dead women are motivations for more than one character.

- Drug use, on-screen overdoses, violence against animals, child abuse, kidnapping, and endangerment, discussion and mention of suicide

- Depictions of homophobia; a bisexual women is outed against her will on live television (though this is rightfully portrayed as a bad thing)

- the most HORRIFICALLY DISTURBING FUCKING SEX SCENES

- The show may be setting up for a redemption arc for a rapist dipshit and a man who murders his girlfriend and remains unrepentant for manslaughter he committed. They’re also both being lured into a cult.

- You will feel physical, violent hatred for some of these characters

- You may end up watching the entire show just to watch said characters be graphically murdered to gain closure

- You have to deal with the anxiety of said reviled, hate-inducing characters being extremely dangerous and interact with characters you love and do not want to see die

- Holy FUCK they BETTER KILL THESE MOTHERFUCKERS

- Fucking Nazi shitbag

- /+ You may develop paranoia towards Fresca?

-/+ You may get Billy Joel’s Pressure stuck in your head for a week like I did

- It’s on Amazon Prime so you have to support Jeff Bezos and his shitfuck company, though the show is simultaneously a critic of people like him and corporations? How the fuck does he get away with this shit

Why you should watch it:

+ The premise is people with zero superpowers go around murdering terrible, horrible people with god-complexes in extremely violent ways like a group of homeless insane Batmen and it is very, very satisfying

+ Critiques and parodies how celebrity status and money make people immune to consequences and legal punishment, showcases systemic racism, systemic sexism, offers a not-unsubtle critic of capitalism, biphobia, general homophobia in society and the media, Scientology, corporations, the government’s inability and unwillingness to protect its people, the War on Terror, and politician’s greed and ineptitude - overall very, very relevant today

+ Not unsubtle depictions of how capitalism and nationalism go hand in hand with white supremacy

+ Fantastic writing, other than the flaws mentioned above, phenomenal acting, well-rounded characters you’ll love, the horribleness is broken up by wholesome moments and one-liners top notch soundtrack

+ People of colour in badass roles, disabled character representation, two whole bisexuals the bar is so low but

+ Antony Starr deserves an Oscar for playing the best fucked-up character I’ve ever had homicidal fantasies towards

+ Overall great take on the superhero genre as a whole

+ Karen Fukuhara is extremely attractive (and violent)

+ Karl Urban is extremely attractive (and violent)

+ Better than the comic its based on, don’t @ me

+ They gave “The Female” (Karen Fukuhara’s character), an actual name unlike in the fuckin’ comic

+ Makes fun of Joss Whedon’s bitch ass

+ You DEFINITELY, TOTALLY SHOULD NOT pirate it even if it’s probably easy to do, if you don’t support Am*zon

+ Black Noir

+ The Spice Girls

+ Family-sized lube

+ Billy Joel

+/- Love Sausage

#The Boys #VCU #the boys tv #the boys amazon #tv series #tw #cw #spoilers #tw racial violence #tw sex assault #tw r #tw r*pe #tw violence #tw graphic #tw gore #the spice girls

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casualarsonist · 3 years

Text

Cyberpunk 2077 review (PC)

I've found it really hard to find a customer review from someone who hasn't welded their self-worth to the review score of this product, so I'm here to try and fill that gap and rupture the spleens of a few deeply unhealthy people who really need to log off.

First, let's be clear - as a product, Cyberpunk 2077 is in no way mechanically 'ground-breaking'. From top-to-bottom, the systems, setting, and gameplay are all well-worn within the RPG and FPS genres. Driving, shooting, stealth, crafting, weapon upgrading...it's all been done before, and in many cases it's been done better. The game doesn't even adapt its source material particularly well - the original Cyberpunk was a critique of capitalism, oppression, racism, and corporate domination; Cyberpunk 2077 is translated by a company that has openly placed itself on the wrong side of several of those issues in its recent history. It shouldn't be a surprise that their interpretation of such a property eliminates its subtext, nuance, and meaningfulness in favour of simple and staid mechanical tropes in an edgy neon slum world.

What I'm saying is that Cyberpunk 2077 is not a ‘next-gen’ experience, nor is it even the best example of what this generation of video games has to offer. Ironically, it’s surpassed in that aspect (in my mind, at least) by the game that inspired much of this game’s pre-release hype: The Witcher 3. The Witcher 3 was an example of existing trends polished to their apex. It is a high water mark of its genre. But even putting the bugs, glitches, and outright broken versions aside, Cyberpunk 2077 is not a paragon of anything. Its features are, in many instances, a lesser copy of long established features in other releases.

It looks good, in certain instances. But the most impressive visual moments will tank the performance of hardware even one year old, and you simply will not be able to run it at acceptable framerates without some kind of resolution downscaling on most systems. In many other instances, the lighting and shadowing is buggy, the textures are blurry at various distances from the aforementioned downscaling, and the character animations are often janky, making an expensive and meticulously designed world that largely cannot be interacted with feel that bit more fake. And, as always, it's on these small details that the immersion rests. So it's almost funny that CDPR spent so much money and went to so much effort trying to make the game melt your PC when that effort is frequently undone by a character whose neck bends the wrong way while he's talking to you.

The world is big and pretty, but it's filled with bullet-sponge enemies that just stand there and trade fire, vendors you can't talk to, shopfronts you can't buy from, objects you can't interact with, and NPCs that flee screaming in terror when you knock over a garbage bin. The story is almost incomprehensible, and the dialogue is edgy, performative technobabble that far too frequently loses the point of what its trying to say as the weight of all the characters' manufactured quirks pile down on top of it. The HUD is overcrowded and will hurl text and video at you that are hard to concentrate on amongst the busy and bustling visual environment. And this is kind of the way the whole game goes. There isn't really a system, visual, or gameplay element that isn't either flawed, derivative, or just not as game-changing as you were expecting.

And obviously those expectations were absurd in the first place, but sadly the poisonous community of people who have inexplicably tied their own sense of self and well-being to the critical opinion of an entertainment product made by a company they're in no-way associated with have made it near impossible to find a reaction that isn't saturated with some kind of anger at either the developers for swindling them, or the audience for daring to speak about their experience.

At the end of the day, it's just a video game. A bombastic, costly piece of entertainment software, who's reach exceeds its grasp. Maybe, one day, it might be greater than the sum of its parts, but given the rushed state it released in, the fact that the company spokespeople lied about the game's quality and embargoed reviews so consumers wouldn't find out, crunched its employees for a release date the game wasn't even ready for, and generally conducted themselves duplicitously and arrogantly, will they ever really deserve to be congratulated? Not for this product. Once again, Cyberpunk is trumped by games that released in a worse state and will likely end up in a better one than this, and I wonder if it will be simply be remembered as another example of the industry’s hubris - a product with lofty ambitions but little innovation produced under duress by a company with too much power and not enough sense.

6/10

#cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #cdrp #CD Projekt RED #pc #ps4 #xbox #video game #review #critique #rpg #fps

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everydisneymovie · 4 years

Text

Review #28: Lady and the Tramp

Post #31

6/25/2020

Next up is 1955′s Lady and the Tramp

Enjoyment : [6]

Being cute is a dogs best defense when they get in trouble and it’s the same with this movie. A lot of the rougher moments can be overlooked based purely on how cute this movie can be. It almost feels like they doubled down and fixed the biggest flaw with Cinderella. Instead of the movie being half plot and half animals running around, they made the animals the protagonists and cut out the middle man. I think this movie is perfectly enjoyable and it tugs at the heartstrings with some good emotional moments.

Quality : [7]

This is a VERY nice looking movie. Based on what I have seen from the previous animated movies, Disney has a comfort zone and it is cute animals running around being cute. The background art is on the level of Pinocchio and I can’t get enough of it. You can gleam so much from the humans based purely on the objects they have laying around their homes. The music is tranquil and color pallets are creamy. It also isn’t afraid to get experimental, depicting the more tense moments in rich blacks and violent reds. This is a real lovely movie and it honestly if Disney kept their 2D department this movie could have been made this year it looks so clean.

Hold up : [3]

The biggest flaw with this movie is the racism and classism neatly sprinkled over the top. The Siamese cats are gross caricatures, and it to make matters worse they appear in one scene and then vanish from the movie, to contribute nothing else other than that one racist joke. There is also some weird stereotyping with the dogs at the pound, and some of the minor human characters. Beyond the racism, the elitism of the movie is a little problematic. ‘A rich lady and a tramp from the wrong side of the tracks fall for one another’ isn’t a harmful trope by itself, but there is some unfortunate subtext poking its head up if you take some of the metaphors literally. The way romance is depicted feels very old Hollywood, very similar to the courtly romances shown in The Sword and the Rose. Personally I don’t think it plays well when its portrayed by dogs, who don’t really care about all that and just act on instinct. They could have tried a little harder to have the dogs act like dogs, and not like humans wearing dog costumes, since it is clear from the animation that they know how dogs actually act.

Risk : [5]

This movie lost a few points because of the choice to focus on animals. From what I have seen so far from Disney’s animated movies, they really love drawing animals, and really hate drawing anything else. It felt like they were falling back into their comfort zone at first, but the movie won some points back with the narrative risks it took. There is an artistry to how they show the dogs point of view, and some of the more intense emotions are not dumbed down for kids. When that rat sneaks into the babies crib you get to feel the desperation and terror along with the characters. That is just good film making. They also don’t shy away from some darker aspects, like the dogs being put down at the pound. It would have been very easy for Disney to cover that scene up with some upbeat song or just straight up lying. Kudos to them for letting a dark scene just... exist.

Extra Credit : [4]

There are lots of small moments that make this movie. There are some very funny jokes (mostly delivered by Jim Dear and Darling) that made me chuckle. The few songs that are in this movie are catchy, and I appreciate that. It is clear a fair deal of effort was put into making this FEEL like a movie and not a 75 minute tv episode.

Final thoughts:

I am happy this movie isn’t as bad I thought it was going to be. The romance might be the weakest element but in the end it isn’t all together terrible. I feel like Lady’s character is really well developed, especially in the beginning, and Tramp has his moments where you can see what he is all about. It only feels flimsy because they fall in love and have their third act misunderstand so neatly there really isn’t anything beyond it. One big thing I can say in this movies favor is that there is actually CHARACTER to it beyond just gags. Jaques, Trusty and Peg all feel a bit more realized than say, Jiminy Cricket or Peter Pan. This is the first movie in this line up where I could see kids buying toys of their favorite characters. It only took 28 movies and 16 years but Disney finally has marketable characters who feel like they have a life beyond the movie they were introduced in.

Total Score: 25/50

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#every disney movie #I watched Every Disney Movie #reviewing every Disney movie #Disney #lady and the tramp #dogs #late stage disney #capitalism #late stage capitalism #tw: racism #animation #animated movie #tw: animal death #movie review #Movie Reviews #movie theory #movie ranking #Film Theory #Rey Rapids

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mask131 · 4 years

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A guide to watching AHS: Guide to the seasons (A)

Now... here is my opinion about how you should watch AHS, in which order, and what each season can bring you.

If you want to begin AHS, my first advice is: begin with one of the three seasons.

As I mentionned, AHS started out as an "anthology series", each seasons being its own story, with its own characters, own themes and own style - and each of them completely unrelated to each other. As a result, you can watch these three seasons in any kind of order you like, merely according to your preference and tastes.

The first season officially has no sub-name, but the one coined by the fans and later adopted by the team of AHS is "Murder House". Murder House reinvents the genre of the haunted house and of ghost hauntings, while also dealing with references to Frankenstein and religious horror. This season, being the first one of AHS and the one that created the AHS fame, is the more "balanced". You will find a bit of violence and gore, but it won't be over-the-top. A bit of sexuality, but it won't be outrageous. There is darkness and grim, but also humor and jokes (though they are rather dry and cold, of an ironic and dark humor style). There's both supernatural and natural horror here. All in all, it is basically the synthesis of all AHS in terms of style - or rather the fertile ground from which all the other seasons bloomed.

The second season is "Asylum", which as it title says, takes place in an asylum. This season is actually just as mad as its setting: there is an abundance and a profusion of horror styles and sources, from aliens and demons to serial killers, mad scientists and the sheer horror of mental health insistutions from the 60s. It is a very dark season, so if you look for dark, depressing, frightening and disturbing horror, this is the one for you, much darker and more adult.

At the opposite of Asylum, you have the third season, "Coven", which centers about the modernization of the myth of the witches and of witchcraft. Since it is set in New-Orleans, it also explores the vodou mythology, with a bunch of zombies and ghosts, but it also deals a lot with numerous harshness and cruelties of the human condition : racism, violence against women, horror related to sexuality, as well as the fear of aging and disease. This season, in term of horror, is much lighter than the other two, because it focuses a lot on jokes and fun. Note that it isn't a parody though, this season is still dark, with disturbing and very sad moments. It is rather a dark comedy, or rather a horror comedy, putting a certain emphasis on pathos, emotions and pity. Let's say, while it will be creepy and horrific, it will make one laugh and cry more than scream in terror.

As a result, basically if you are used to more a lighthearted, funny, "light" horror, go for Coven. If you want a dark, grim, terrifying and disturbing horror, go for "Asylum". And if you want an in-between, go for "Murder House".

These three seasons are in my mind all equally good. They present in high percentages the values and virtues of AHS as I mentionned them before, while having the "flaws" being at a minimum level, sometimes barely even noticeable. This trio is the first step to watching AHS, and an excellent experience.

After this trio, you get to a duo. "Freakshow" and "Hotel".

These two seasons are actually much more flawed than the previous one, I cannot deny it. The plots suffer from all the flaws I mentionned - weird social commentary, an excess of characters, plots that lead nowhere... As a result they are convoluted, frustrating, sometimes disappointing stories. BUT I actually would not call them the worst seasons of AHS and I would even say they are worth watching. Why? Because for their flaws in story, they have a ton of advantages. They have interesting, fascinating or genius ideas. They still have the perfect filming and the incredible soundtracks that make their cinematography a delight. They have beautiful, marvelous sets with memorable and mind-striking styles. What they lack in story, they get in ambiance. In fact, these two seasons actually "colored" my Halloween much more than the three seasons previously. Each of them is a unique, brilliant, unforgottable world. A flawed world with wasted potential, but still worth watching and remembering.

Another reason those two seasons are set apart from the other is that these seasons actually broke the "each season is unrelated" rule, by actually being directly linked to another season, and thus establishing continuities in the AHS universe.

Freakshow, the fourth season, was actually the first attempt at creating a seasons with "no supernatural horror" (spoiler, they eventually included a ghost, they couldn't resist). Centered around a freak show (based on the movie "Freaks" by Tod Browning) but generally dealing with "circus-style horror" (it has an evil, murderous clown and a creepy, demented ventriloquist dummy), it also proposes itself to show a "real" horror in the form of bigotry, discrimination, rejection, violence and hate against women, handicapped people and other form of closed-mindness in the 50s. This show suffers from the "excess" flaw mostly, having a ton of characters introduced at an extremely fast speed only for most of them to be pushed aside of disappear, resulting in a bunch of sub-plotlines not being finished or being forgotten. But, the whole circus theme, the set and the special effects are really worth it - plus, this season actually introduces three of the most memorable, mind-striking and notorious villains of AHS in the shape of the murderous clown Twisty, the psychopathic manchild Dandy Mott and another disturbed man.

To watch Freakshow, you should watch Asylum first because it acts as a prequel to it, but the emphasis on human emotions, pity and the cruelty of real life and humankind make it very similar to Coven.

Hotel is the fifth season of AHS, based originally on the idea of a haunted and disturbing hotel - an entire plot-reference to The Shining (even though it takes a huge inspiration from real-life haunted hotels). It actually is a season set after "Murder House" and exists in the same continuity as it, thus having a similar "haunted building" theme. But the other two major parts of this season are vampirism (reinvented as a modern "virus") and thematic serial killers (a huge reference to the movie Se7en, while there are explicit references to the most unfamous real-life serial killers of America). This season takes for its ambiance style more from Asylum, as it is a more violent, a darker and more disturbing season. But where Asylum was more about psychological horror and creepiness of eldritch things, Hotel is mostly the "sex drugs and rock 'd roll" season, having a lot of explicit sexual scenes, a lot of nudity, a lot of gore and blood, and the recurring theme of drugs and addictions.

This season is difficult to categorize because it has some absolutely genius and mind-blowing parts (the hotel itself, the ghosts of the hotel, the basis for the Ten Commandment killer, the use of real-life serial killers) alongside some extremely dull and annoying ones (dull and uninteresting characters, details and appearances that lead nowhere, plots that are entirely unuseful and feel like padding) resulting in a season that I adore for the ambiance and the idea but that feels stale and unfinished in terms of story. OH AND THE ENDING! I actually had a lot of hopes and respect for this season, given that haunted hotels is one of my big loves, and despite its flaws I still had hopes for this seasons... until the final episode which I feel was honestly an insult to the AHS viewers. I personally do not even consider it canon, I just stop the season at the episode right before the finale.

This makes a guide for a beginner watcher of AHS. The five first seasons.

As a result, you can for exemple begin with the three first seasons in any order "Asylum - Murder House - Coven" in decreasing order of darkness, for exemple, or the reverse. You can also begin with Asylum for exemple, and then follow by Freakshow before jumping to Coven. Or you can begin with Murder House, then jump by Hotel to go to Asylum. Numerous roads are possible.

I however do not advice you to go per "chronological order" as in watching the seasons set in the more distant part first because it actually is not a good order. For exemple, if you go by chronological order you should watch "Freakshow" before "Asylum" (the first being set in the 50s, the second in the 60s), but the thing is that Freakshow acts as a prequel to Asylum as in you should watch Asylum first then Freakshow, else it kind of spoils you on things.

#american horror story #ahs #guide #seasons #review #order #murder house #asylum #coven #freakshow #hotel #halloween #horror #television series

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titleleaf · 4 years

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I saw that you anti-recced The Terror, and I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how good it is, so I was wondering if you’d elaborate more on why you don’t like it? I haven’t seen it and now I’m curious bc this is the first I’ve heard of someone disliking/hating it

I should be clear that my beef is with the novel! The series does a lot of work to deal with some of the novel’s weaker points, and it’s generally pretty successful at taking the fun interesting parts of the premise and scrapping everything else. The series still has flaws, but I would (and do!) definitely recommend it to people, which I wouldn’t really do with the novel.

The tl;dr version is that I found the book to be racist/sexist in ways that the supposed narrative purpose did not remotely warrant, and also just straight-up badly written. (If anyone on this internet is a valiant Simmons defender and this is their favorite novel, it’s ok to stop reading now, my feelings from here on down are unilaterally negative.)

It seems to be a pretty broadly well-liked novel in terms of its atmosphere -- it has some elements I enjoy, and scenes I think work pretty well, but from a literary pov, oof, not a book I ever want to reread. It wasn’t compelling enough as a horror novel or a historical disaster narrative to justify how long and just how grindingly... ugh it is. It’s fully possible to make unpleasant, stressed-out, flawed characters still interesting to spend time with, as a reader if not an actual person, and when your novel is almost a thousand pages long, an author needs to do that. Simmons just doesn’t.

Apart from more serious issues I have with the text, I’m annoyed by the way Simmons characterizes his Erebites and Terrors as Ohoho Unenlightened Victorians who all single-handedly and individually manifest the worst of Victorian imperialism and bigotry. (Except Fitzjames, who’s low-key Tiny Tim. And... Irving? Who is an absolute fuck machine.) There’s a lot of historical research about the individual Franklin expedition sailors that’s only become available since the publishing of Simmons’ novel in 2007, but Simmons just... does the straight-up worst with what he had at the time of writing, and as a result fucking none of his characters are interesting or likeable. He’s trying to write a big beefy 19th century novel but he doesn’t have the chops and I just could not give a fuck about anyone. Simmons does not miss a fucking chance to shoehorn in a stereotype (about Irish people! about women! about gay people! about Indigenous people!) and the result isssssss baddddd. The prose is bad! The pacing is bad! The way it handles its themes is bad! But above all, the experience of reading it is bad.

In terms of more serious, non-stylistic stuff, I think Simmons’ handling of his characters’ racism and sexism extends to a degree that becomes itself racist and sexist. This is a subjective one, but Simmons himself seems to be a marked right-wing asshole, so I’m not really inclined to cut him any slack. I don’t think depiction is the same thing as endorsement, but it just hits a point where it’s like “okay, Dan, is this for something, or are you just luxuriating in this?” It sounds like Drood and The Abominable are pretty similar in this department, but my desire to give them a try and find out

Simmons has a sexism problem in his own right, even independent from characters’ thoughts and attitudes -- I don’t think it would be impossible to write a character with a plot arc like book!Silna’s, or book!Sophia Cracroft’s, and have the end result still be on the whole a serious and enjoyable book with few but well-rounded women characters, but he does, uh. Not do that. At all. I don’t need a book about an all-dude expedition to be a feminist masterpiece but I do need it to actively suck less, and to take fewer detours for the sake of random sexist potshots at tangentially related historical women. I don’t have the background to really unpack the issues with his treatment of indigenous, First Nations, and Inuit characters but my instinct is that it’s also not great, with the same blurring of lines between enthusiastic POV treatment of period racist attitudes/blithely racist depictions with no excuse of a narrative filter to offset them.

Simmons’ treatment of gay characters/male-male sexuality is also at best chronologically shaky (he gives one character, designated good gay(tm) Bridgens, the most generic 19th Century Uranian mishmash backstory because he doesn’t apparently give a shit that his novel is set in 1845-1848 and not, like 1885) and at worst... actively bad (again, making its human antagonist Hickey a serial sexual predator who rapes boys and cognitively disabled men just because he’s very very evil and also gay. And also circumcised?) The show does a fair amount to remedy this and the above sexism, including massively revising Hickey’s character and plotline, but the book wears its bullshit on its sleeve and it’s just tiresome. So that’s, I guess, my beef with The Terror as a novel -- it’s racist, it’s sexist, and it’s fucking tiresome. Even if the series were as straight-up insufferable as the book, which thank God it isn’t, it’s only a single ten-episode series adapting that plotline; I listened to the novel in audiobook form and it’s nearly 30 hours long. I was ready to gnaw my own arm off.

There are well-written Neo-Victorian novels that use ye olde imperial bigotry to make a good point, and there are well-written horror novels that use polar isolation and maritime traditions to create atmosphere and dread (for the latter shout-out to Elizabeth Lowry’s Dark Water) but they all have to be well-written first and this novel is not.

#ska reads a thing #Anonymous

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