Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
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- Oxnard Montalvo
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
oh shit this takes me back. Jaws was probably one of the first "adult" books I read (back in fifth grade) and yeah I remember the sex stuff.
without re-reading the book, I'm going to take this guy's word that the movie is a better movie than the book is as a book.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Yeah, the book is... pretty bad.
NOTE:
The above-written is wholly and solely the perspective of DaMU and should not be taken as an effort to rile, malign, or diminish you, dummo.
The above-written is wholly and solely the perspective of DaMU and should not be taken as an effort to rile, malign, or diminish you, dummo.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Fear on Film: A panel with John Carpenter, David Cronenberg and John Landis from 1982
Love that feathered hair.
Love that feathered hair.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
It wasn't the first adult book I read, but I remember it being the first adult book I finished and thought, "Well, that sucked." It's got a giant shark, some mobsters and sex thrown in for good measure, and it somehow makes that all boring to an adolescent boy. How do you fuck up that badly, Peter Benchley?DaMU wrote:Yeah, the book is... pretty bad.
"It's OK to have beliefs, just don't believe in them." — Guy Ritchie
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Thank you. That was an interesting watch.Torgo wrote:Fear on Film: A panel with John Carpenter, David Cronenberg and John Landis from 1982
Love that feathered hair.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Glad you enjoyed it.ski petrol wrote:
Thank you. That was an interesting watch.
I always forget how intelligent and well-spoken Cronenberg is. If he ever retires from filmmaking to become a professor, I'd quit my job and go to his school.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Last Great Movie Seen
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Bringing Back What’s Stolen: Fury Road and the Avenging Feminine
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Waaaat, Tilda Swinton was the old German dude in Suspiria? 

"We're outgunned and undermanned. But you know somethin'? We're gonna win. You know why? Superior attitude. Superior state of mind." - Mason Storm
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Blog!
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Tilda Swinton is the Gary Oldman of Meryl Streeps
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
What, you didn't already know?Rock wrote:Waaaat, Tilda Swinton was the old German dude in Suspiria?


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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
By the way, I've studied the crap out of Fury Road for years now through various articles and video essays (in addition to actually watching it, haha), and this video is still alerting me to new details about it that I'd never known before... and it's just part 1 of an 8-part series? Thank you,, Ox!Oxnard Montalvo wrote:Bringing Back What’s Stolen: Fury Road and the Avenging Feminine
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
he also has a pretty good breakdown on Gamergate. which we're still kinda living with. or at least various Gamergate-adjacent backlash movements.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
I dunno if this is exactly movie related BUT I'm sure we all need cable or internet to maintain our viewing habits so I'd say this is kinda related
I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America.
I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Thanks, that was a great read.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Welcome! And now, for a great watch:Slentert wrote: Thanks, that was a great read.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Inside Dau, the 'Stalinist Truman Show'
What started as a film shoot evolved into a mammoth project which saw the cast eating, working and sleeping on a period set – for years. Is its creator a genius or a monster?
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Green Book’s big Oscar victory proves that the Academy, like America, still has a long way to go
I absolutely love me a good video essay, so I saved this for later viewing; thanks, Ox.Oxnard Montalvo wrote:
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
imo it's one of those things that is hard to talk about without people coming out of the woodwork with bad-faith arguments about the PC/SJW lynch mob. but it's better than not talking about it either.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
A Q&A with William Friedkin after a live screening of his 1977 movie Sorcerer.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
I saw it at a screening at my church when I was 13. didn't really do much for me.
- DaMU
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
As a peek into the corrosive psychology of Mel Gibson, it's compelling.
As a movie, it's gorgeous.
As a narrative, it's dull as fuck.
As a movie, it's gorgeous.
As a narrative, it's dull as fuck.
NOTE:
The above-written is wholly and solely the perspective of DaMU and should not be taken as an effort to rile, malign, or diminish you, dummo.
The above-written is wholly and solely the perspective of DaMU and should not be taken as an effort to rile, malign, or diminish you, dummo.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
Not really a deep-dive analysis or anything, but made a video that shows the musical links/remixes in Metroid:
NOTE:
The above-written is wholly and solely the perspective of DaMU and should not be taken as an effort to rile, malign, or diminish you, dummo.
The above-written is wholly and solely the perspective of DaMU and should not be taken as an effort to rile, malign, or diminish you, dummo.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
an excerpt from the book The Hollywood Jim Crow: The Racial Politics of the Movie Industry
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/labeli ... nbankable/
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/labeli ... nbankable/
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
I do find it hard to empathize with the banality of Serpell's insights here.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
¯\_(ツ)_/¯Jinnistan wrote: I do find it hard to empathize with the banality of Serpell's insights here.
I know it isn't ground-breaking stuff. although I still feel that those kind of "empathy-machine" stories are still valuable despite their limits.
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Re: Recommended Readings: Reviews, Writings and Rants
First off, I honestly disagre on the value of these recent pushbacks on empathy, and the reference to Paul Bloom is the kind of thing that will glaze my eyes a bit. I'll just post a couple of the refutations from Simon Baron-Cohen because I'm far more sympathetic to his reasoning here, and it'll involve a lot of text to lay it all out. Serpell seems to happily apply Bloom's counter-intuitive notion that empathy somehow leads to more racism than it relieves, but that only brings up another issue with her piece.Oxnard Montalvo wrote:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I know it isn't ground-breaking stuff. although I still feel that those kind of "empathy-machine" stories are still valuable despite their limits.
Serpell is almost terminally fixated on the idea of empathy being limited to demographic distinctions, and this warps her perspective on narrative art generally that reveals itself throughout the article, usually in the form of her various dichotomies. The one that stood out as the most representitive of the problem is the "political justice" vs. "moral feeling". I can't figure out exactly why these things should be in conflict with each other, or especially why a narrative work should fail by attempting to connect them. It seems that Serpell doesn't have a great deal of faith or appreciation in the more esoteric, rather than political, empathy, or can understand why they necessarily inform each other. Instead, she mocks the significance of "the personal" (the "shapelessness" of "inner turmoil") by leaning on Rousseau and Arendt: "This feels like a specious little paean to the triumph of the personal over the public good in our time." Again, the unnecessary zero-sum conflict between the personal and the public good is very telling, as is her inability to comprehend the rather profound ways in which the personal and public are interlocked and mutually strengthened. Civil rights (personal liberty) are a requisite to social harmony. This is much less of a paradox than she makes it seem.
I might add that it doesn't seem that Serpell has a proper understanding of the definition of "empathy", echoing Baron-Cohen's criticisms over Bloom's presumptions. "Rather than virtually becoming another, she asks you to imagine using your own mind but from their position." In fact, this is the definition of empathy: the capacity for "imaginative projection" of one's self into another. The "distance" that Serpell champions as distinct from empathy is actually what distinguishes empathy from sympathy. There are other instances where she indicates that she may be confusing these terms. Also, she questions why we should presume empathy to be a social good at all (eching James Damore's call to "De-emphasize empathy", which is uncoincidentally lock-step with his call to "Demoralize diversity" - I wonder if Serpell is at all cognizant of perpetrating alt-right talking points here), which, first, should require an adequete understanding of what the word means. More importantly, it runs counter to her suggestion towards the end of pushing for more diversity in narrative voices, which is an initiative reflecting an increased empathetic desire, one would think.
In terms of her critique of narrative art and its capacity to inspire empathy among audiences, Serpell's need for clean political categorization leads her astray on at least points: 1) Empathy is not exclusively a tool for demographic transcendence - in films we find that we're faced with empathizing with people who may be more or less like us in ethnic and class attributes, but who have varying psychologies which may not be relatable, where we find empathy with those of weak conscience, poor or corrupt judgment and other manifestations of moral frailty; and 2) The artistic use of "empathy vehicles" is fundamentally a qualitative assessment (like all art), and therefore cannot be easily countered by offering a handful of examples where it's done poorly - claiming Driving Miss Daisy as an example for why empathy in films tends to be shrill and selfish to the audiences' baser motives happens to ignore the empathetic triumphs of other qualitatively challenging films like Do the Right Thing. What she's criticizing most frequently is not the empathy of a particular work but the demogoguery, the emotional manipulation, of more banal work, which I'm convinced should not be confused with empathy itself.
I could go on with finer irritants throughout the article, but I think that about sums up why I think this piece is far more banal than the works that she's accusing. I would try to empathize with her as a writer, but unfortunately she doesn't seem to have the highest opinion of writers despite being one. Maybe she's imaginatively projecting her banality. I'm not a neuroscientist, like Simon Baron-Cohen, for example.
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