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Neo_Reloaded posted:I believe in my reading, and will defend it with the context that led me to that belief - but I'd be more than happy to discuss alternate ideas as well, as long as they aren't "this divisive scene in the movie exists for entirely no reason" I suggest you watch the opening 4 minutes of Quentin Dupieux's 'Rubber' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTFbXLbv71Y Some things just are. Alternatively, it was just funny... ?
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Mar 11, 2015 10:24
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88h88 posted:I suggest you watch the opening 4 minutes of Quentin Dupieux's 'Rubber' The thesis of 'Rubber' is "There is no reason for the events of this movie." Arguing that that style of thesis applies to Kingsman would be a much tougher sell, though I encourage you to try if you believe there is evidence of that. DrVenkman posted:And again, as I stated earlier, the roles change because the princess constantly ups the ante and puts Eggsy on the backfoot through the whole exchange. Also interesting that when you throw out your 'written and directed by Matthew Vaughn - a man' screed, it ignores that Jane Goldman also wrote the script and also would've had a hand in that scene. No one is arguing that she's suddenly a pro-feminist icon, merely that she's the one in control of that exchange. It is the same as any Bond ending, I don't think anyone is denying that and you'd have to be dumb not to see it, but it frames the princess as the sexually proactive one, not the bond substitute. It's just an inversion of that scene, which is something the movie does quite a bit throughout. I do not feel the Princess being proactive in the exchange differentiates it from a Bond-style romantic relationship at all - numerous Bond Girls are the pro-active ones, and a fictional woman being the instigator of a sexual liaison is far from being outside the box, it is incredibly common. By that logic, women are in control of the scenario in the vast majority of porn aimed at heterosexual men. Also, I'd say it's very difficult to be in control of the exchange whilst inside a locked cell, speaking to someone on the outside. Power dynamics and all that. What differentiates the scene in my opinion is the overt quid-pro-quo of the situation as well as the crudeness/specificity of the sex act involved. While, removed of all context, it can clearly be seen as a sex joke, the context of the rest of the movie (the complete dearth of other sex jokes, the riffs and subversions of James Bond lore, and the joke's culmination being the final shot of the film) makes me read it in a different light. Am I saying that Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, et al. absolutely intended this? No. But the aforementioned factors, at the very least, give support to this as one possible reading of the scene. Neo_Reloaded fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 16:25
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Everyone's heads exploding is a pretty great joke in itself. It calls back to the earlier scene where Firth shows all the headlines from his successful missions, which of course would usually set up an equivalent scene where young Eggsy looks at a banal headline after saving the day. Instead, the headlines will read EVERYONE'S HEADS EXPLODED. Again, it's a joke about films. It's a reverse Chekov's gun.
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Mar 12, 2015 04:54
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Social justice will only be achieved when allowing black actors into certain roles and portrayals of women enthusiastically consenting to sex are excised from cinema due to their problematic nature.
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Mar 12, 2015 10:55
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Neo_Reloaded posted:The thesis of 'Rubber' is "There is no reason for the events of this movie." Arguing that that style of thesis applies to Kingsman would be a much tougher sell, though I encourage you to try if you believe there is evidence of that. My point is there doesn't need to be this ridiculous list of reasoning behind some things in a movie outside of a writer thinking "this would be real funny..." Neo_Reloaded posted:Am I saying that Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, et al. absolutely intended this? No. But the aforementioned factors, at the very least, give support to this as one possible reading of the scene. Sometimes a cigar in the butt is just a cigar in the butt.
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Mar 12, 2015 15:23
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88h88 posted:My point is there doesn't need to be this ridiculous list of reasoning behind some things in a movie outside of a writer thinking "this would be real funny..." Even if the writer was truly just thinking "this would be real funny...", meaning can still exist. An author explicitly deciding "I am making this scene mean this thing" is not the only way for meaning exist - an author can try and succeed, try and fail, or try for one thing and achieve something else entirely. Or they can not try at all and create things that inadvertently reflect other ideas in art or in the world. All the kids who interrupt the English teacher and question whether authors really intended to create symbolism in their works have 100% missed the point, the way you are right now. And the hilarious thing is that this isn't really reaching in this case. The argument here is apparently a) anal sex princess as a silly joke with no real meaning vs. b) anal sex princess as a further call out of James Bond in a film FILLED with such call outs and a comment on gender in a film FILLED with comments on gender, and you're going to tell me that b) is a "ridiculous list of reasoning"? I'm not even denigrating the movie! You're saying you liked it because it was fun and funny. I'm saying I liked it because it was fun, it was funny, and it had interesting things to say about class and gender as traditionally represented in Bond films.
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Mar 12, 2015 16:31
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The only way the ending wouldn't have been problematic is if it was Samuel L. Jackson presenting his rear end for Eggsy to enter.
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Mar 12, 2015 18:55
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Neo_Reloaded posted:Even if the writer was truly just thinking "this would be real funny...", meaning can still exist. An author explicitly deciding "I am making this scene mean this thing" is not the only way for meaning exist - an author can try and succeed, try and fail, or try for one thing and achieve something else entirely. Or they can not try at all and create things that inadvertently reflect other ideas in art or in the world. All the kids who interrupt the English teacher and question whether authors really intended to create symbolism in their works have 100% missed the point, the way you are right now. Let's kiss and make up then. But you're not doing it in the rear end.
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Mar 12, 2015 19:39
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Neo_Reloaded posted:Even if the writer was truly just thinking "this would be real funny...", meaning can still exist. An author explicitly deciding "I am making this scene mean this thing" is not the only way for meaning exist - an author can try and succeed, try and fail, or try for one thing and achieve something else entirely. Or they can not try at all and create things that inadvertently reflect other ideas in art or in the world. All the kids who interrupt the English teacher and question whether authors really intended to create symbolism in their works have 100% missed the point, the way you are right now. So what exactly is your point then...?
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Mar 14, 2015 07:28
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I get that whole English teacher interpretation junk but I still can't stand it. I suppose that's partly because a lot of them wanted me to learn the "accepted" interpretation, rather than teach me how to interpret for myself. Of course those are the lovely teachers, but it only takes one of those who obstinately insists to really put a kid off on the whole deal. And as far as whether the interpretation is one the author intends, that wouldn't bother me so much if that didn't have such a huge effect on the work's reputation.  That's a bit of a derail, but there's not much I want to get across about this movie except "I enjoyed it, go see it if you like old spy movies and campy gags played straight"
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Mar 14, 2015 15:03
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BottledBodhisvata posted:So what exactly is your point then...? I've made numerous points, so you'll have to be more specific in your query. I see at least two in the post you quoted. CrashCat posted:I get that whole English teacher interpretation junk but I still can't stand it. I suppose that's partly because a lot of them wanted me to learn the "accepted" interpretation, rather than teach me how to interpret for myself. Of course those are the lovely teachers, but it only takes one of those who obstinately insists to really put a kid off on the whole deal. And as far as whether the interpretation is one the author intends, that wouldn't bother me so much if that didn't have such a huge effect on the work's reputation. While teaching you how to interpret for yourself would be ideal, middle and high school English is really a basic introduction to literature, and its easier to teach by example, especially in typical classroom environments. And most of what is taught hews closer to "No, this is borderline the text of the story, not subtext" than "Outlandish overreadings." It's just an exercise of putting into words the various levels that things operate on. Like, yes, the pickle dish in Ethan Frome is a symbol of their marriage - if it wasn't, then the wife crying over it breaking is just a weird thing that happens without any real reason for being in the story. But yes, there are also many lovely teachers who do not know the first thing about how to teach this type of material.
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Mar 14, 2015 15:44
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It was a good movie. I liked the head popping finale, but the freebird scene felt like tumblr wank. Maybe Im just a softy, but it seemed kinda gross for there to be an extended stop motion action scene where a secret agent murders a room full of (mostly) unarmed churchgoers. The fact that they were supposed to be westboro baptist bad people just made it creepier. I still liked it a lot though, looking forward to seeing it again.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:04
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Miltank posted:It was a good movie. I liked the head popping finale, but the freebird scene felt like tumblr wank. Maybe Im just a softy, but it seemed kinda gross for there to be an extended stop motion action scene where a secret agent murders a room full of (mostly) unarmed churchgoers. The fact that they were supposed to be westboro baptist bad people just made it creepier. I think that is the scene working as intended. It's definitely supposed to be a shocking and ghastly moment, but with a cool action veneer. A fun game to play with it would be to time how long into the scene it takes for you to start being bothered by the violence. For me it's the immediate first kill, where Firth just shoots that loud lady in the face as she follows him to the door.. The scene is still a great action sequence, but it's definitely not supposed to be a feel-good moment. It's one of those great political statements too--I suspect a large portion of the audience truly does hate those people and are pleased to see them die, and then you get the mass murder at the end, which would probably appeal to the more Westboro-inclined audience members. The film really seems to want to gently caress with everyone's political perceptions.
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Mar 23, 2015 20:56
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This is pretty much Wanted but with more British people. If you thought Kickass 1 was funny you will probably like this. It's hard to hate something so gleefully stupid and that wears everything it's about on its sleeve. It's a solid entry into the Young Male Power Fantasy genre and I hope all the Academy Award winners involved enjoy their new swimming pools.
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Mar 28, 2015 08:46
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This is pretty much Wanted but with more British people. If you thought Kickass 1 was funny you will probably like this. It's hard to hate something so gleefully stupid and that wears everything it's about on its sleeve. It's a solid entry into the Young Male Power Fantasy genre and I hope all the Academy Award winners involved enjoy their new swimming pools. I think it's a little different from most of that genre specifically because it's a lower-class male power fantasy. Upon stewing on it for a while, I feel like the movie's really trying to say, "hey, wouldn't it be awesome if we the proletariat could turn the bourgeoisie's tools and methods and even their aesthetics against them?" Eggsy, at the end, hasn't turned into another oppressor of the lower class- he's using these new, co-opted tools to solve problems within the proletariat, like wife-beating jackasses, now that the external threat of capital has literally been blown to smithereens.
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Mar 29, 2015 22:31
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I read the comic today, does the film have the excellent sequence where he stops the prick from beating his mum up? Because that was so good.
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Apr 2, 2015 22:36
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Vitamin P posted:I read the comic today, does the film have the excellent sequence where he stops the prick from beating his mum up? Because that was so good. It's in the post credit sequence.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:19
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I just saw this movie yesterday---I thought it had already dropped out of theaters but was pleasantly surprised to find it otherwise. Without reading the thread at all I'd like to offer my thoughts: this feels like taking the same basic idea of Kickass (an action movie that isn't afraid to be ridiculous and gonzo and juvenile) and refining it to make an even stronger movie (helps that it's Vaughn returning to direct a Mark Millar original I guess). The pacing, editing and action were all top-notch. Like John Wick, lots of elaborate choreography and stuntwork, but here combined with (I'm assuming) digital special effects in an effective way. The G.I.-Joe looking plastic space platform being a literal holdover from the 80's Star Wars program ("....it should still work") was a nice touch. Also it would have been really easy to make the hero too mean-spirited or unlikeable (always a danger when translating a Millar comic), but they very deftly avoided that. Other than, literally, the opening 12 seconds, the movie doesn't try to ground itself in "relevant" real-world conflicts or make a hamfisted War on Terror analogy. It was completely happy to exist in its own ridiculous super-spy world (and acknowledged that with a few lines that poked the 4th wall in a wry, unintrusive way). Even though Jackson and Michael Caine were just kinda there, Colin Firth and Mark Strong both did a p. good job.
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Apr 5, 2015 21:43
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:
We don't know for sure. Merlin says that if Arthur was compromised, they can't trust anyone but themselves and have to save the day themselves.
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Apr 11, 2015 11:01
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Charlz Guybon posted:We don't know for sure. Merlin says that if Arthur was compromised, they can't trust anyone but themselves and have to save the day themselves. Well, all things being settled, if they were false their heads exploded.
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Apr 13, 2015 08:46
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BottledBodhisvata posted:I think that is the scene working as intended. It's definitely supposed to be a shocking and ghastly moment, but with a cool action veneer. A fun game to play with it would be to time how long into the scene it takes for you to start being bothered by the violence. I'm really glad you brought this up, because for me the crux of the whole movie, even moreso than the class stuff, was it's relationship with violence; I thought of Drive a lot more than spy films toward the end of it in how it was handled (although mostly in terms of contrast; they both handle things rather differently. Perhaps the best example or at least an intermediary would be Hotline Miami, since it also shows graphic, impactful and brief violence but in a very stylistic manner for the sake of aesthetic rather than theme). The violence is incredibly cathartic but also sort of deeply disturbing, and for this reason I consider the church scene sort of simultaneously the best scene in the film (because holy poo poo is it a good action scene, maybe one of the best ever put to film) and also the one that unravels the whole drat movie. I mean throughout the whole scene Eggsy is visably shocked, and there's a lot of places where the viewer can be to, if not during the scene then during the aftermath or where Colin Firth gets shot, since it's a bit of violence that emphatically does not feel good to anyone involved who isn't just a total inebriate of violence like the leg-prosthetic henchwoman. Now this sort of works and doesn't when the whole rage virus thing is going on, I found myself wincing when it was activated (and seriously disturbed at people in the audience laughing when the bus slides into a crowd of pedestrians, as an example) since there is a pretty big emphasis on how no one really is an authority on choosing whether these people live or die. Which is why the head popping scene was actually brutally shocking to me; the protagonists immediately do decide to play executioner, to what are largely unarmed civilians, to great repercussions to the world and to a very tongue in cheek scene that suggests fireworks and therefore celebration. I found that scene just broke the movie for me, which is a shame because I was sort of on the fence but overall really enjoying it. I know you can make an argument that they sowed it themselves and all that, but given how incredibly well the movie drove home to me that people don't deserve to die even if you find them despicable with the church scene, it just felt mean spirited, childish and kind of lazily written. The movie kind of does this bizarre double think with its messages of the importance of classlessness and moderated violence, and while you could forgive some indulgence with armed combatants to play executioner with the enemy when it could have just as easily had interpol raid the place or something struck me as deeply unsettling. Which is weird, since I usually don't have even close to this much of a visceral reaction to violence in movies- the aforementioned Drive is one of my favourite movies.
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Apr 14, 2015 01:20
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ManlyGrunting posted:Which is why the head popping scene was actually brutally shocking to me; the protagonists immediately do decide to play executioner, to what are largely unarmed civilians, to great repercussions to the world and to a very tongue in cheek scene that suggests fireworks and therefore celebration. I found that scene just broke the movie for me, which is a shame because I was sort of on the fence but overall really enjoying it. I know you can make an argument that they sowed it themselves and all that, but given how incredibly well the movie drove home to me that people don't deserve to die even if you find them despicable with the church scene, it just felt mean spirited, childish and kind of lazily written. The movie kind of does this bizarre double think with its messages of the importance of classlessness and moderated violence, and while you could forgive some indulgence with armed combatants to play executioner with the enemy when it could have just as easily had interpol raid the place or something struck me as deeply unsettling. Which is weird, since I usually don't have even close to this much of a visceral reaction to violence in movies- the aforementioned Drive is one of my favourite movies. The protagonists weren't playing executioner, that was mass murder in self-defense. Eggsy was cornered and about to die, which would have resulted in billions of innocent people dying soon after. Merlin didn't have time to sort out who to kill and who to spare, so he just killed everyone with a chip in their head. If you had a button that would save billions of lives in exchange for a hundred, you'd push that button even if the hundred were saints. On that scale, whether they deserved to live or die is irrelevant. I just figured the fireworks were something Valentine added to the explosive mix to cover up the blood.
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Apr 14, 2015 03:20
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Layer Cake and X-Men: First Class were the only Vaughn movies I'd seen before Kingsman, and I went into it expecting a completely different thing. Maybe it was the tiny slice of marketing I'd seen but I was under the impression that this was some fun-for-the-whole-family PG action pleaser and I wanted to see it mostly because of Firth who is a dapper gent and a hell of an actor. So when in the first minute the f-bombs start flying you could imagine my surprise. And that's how it kept going, I was more and more surprised by the movie as it went on and in the end I enjoyed the hell out of it. Really made me feel like it had been ages since I'd watched a movie that was just unapologetic, silly, violent fun, but also had an interesting story and the lot. Such a good movie. The church scene was so absurd and I couldn't stop laughing. No, I don't think religious fundamentalists deserve to be stylishly murdered but I'll be damned if watching a fully-suited Colin Firth wreak gory havoc on a church full of people out of nowhere wasn't darkly funny in the best way.
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Apr 30, 2015 21:13
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According to The Wrap, a sequel is definitely happening. http://www.thewrap.com/kingsman-the-secret-service-sequel-in-works-at-fox-exclusive/
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Apr 30, 2015 21:42
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Matthew Vaughn is turning into the master of action that is  but goes that extra step and makes people uncomfortable. It was amazing the number of people troubled by Hit-Girl getting beaten up at the end of Kick-rear end who were untroubled by 12 people getting shot in the head (by a small girl) in the preceding scene.
Snowman_McK fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Apr 30, 2015 |
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Apr 30, 2015 23:26
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Chairman Capone posted:According to The Wrap, a sequel is definitely happening. Another really interesting article on the film from the same source: http://www.thewrap.com/how-kingsman-the-secret-service-blew-away-bond-bourne-in-south-korea/ Kinda warms my heart that this movie being weirdly leftist was a pretty big factor in it being a surprise hit. Wonder if we'll get more movies about rich people getting merc'd as a result of this?
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May 1, 2015 17:32
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People in this thread saying this is basically Austin Powers are a little off. Austin Powers is almost a Scary Movie type parody while this is more of a Scream type parody. Really fun movie I hope they find a way to do an entertaining sequel.
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May 17, 2015 04:34
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I still think this is more The President's Analyst or Our Man Flint/In like Flint for the 21st century.
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May 17, 2015 08:36
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I just watched this movie today. Very entertaining, but I was kind of shocked at the climax/ending and how utterly bleak it was if you read into it even a little: - Lots of people who can't defend themselves are dead. Children (who weren't lucky enough to have their parents receive a phone call to lock them in another room), the elderly, disabled, etc. - Everyone remembers how they acted and how "right" it felt and then are struck with grief afterwards. At bare minimum there's some awkward moments at the dinner table while mom tries to avoid eye contact with grandma, who she distinctly remembers really wanting to and really trying to beat to death with a table leg. At most, a bunch of suicides when family members realize they killed people they loved. - Literally everyone in the civilized world needs medical attention to some degree. - All the world leaders and a lot of higher-ups are dead, or if not dead, then just freed from captivity and out of contact during some critical emergency period of time. That poo poo is just bonkers right there.
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May 19, 2015 05:55
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BJPaskoff posted:I just watched this movie today. Very entertaining, but I was kind of shocked at the climax/ending and how utterly bleak it was if you read into it even a little:
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May 19, 2015 06:32
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I enjoyed the film. The lisp was a strange touch. The church scene was reminiscent of Kill Bill Vol. 1. The umbrellas were pretty cool, maybe could have done without a few of the other gizmos. Worth a watch if you like spy/action movies.
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May 20, 2015 00:58
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CubicalSucrose posted:I enjoyed the film. The lisp was a strange touch. The church scene was reminiscent of Kill Bill Vol. 1. The umbrellas were pretty cool, maybe could have done without a few of the other gizmos. Worth a watch if you like spy/action movies. The lisp disassociates Jackson from "serious" villains and add to the quirkiness of the plot. tyler274 fucked around with this message at 17:56 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 13:22
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BJPaskoff posted:
The logical result of the film's ending is World War 3 because of the bloodbaths along every contested border. Worst case we nuke ourselves into oblivion. High Warlord Zog fucked around with this message at 10:53 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 10:48
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Every nation had their leadership decapitated either figuratively or literally, in addition to the population effects, so saying that WWIII would result might be a bit of a stretch. People would demand to know what caused it, and enough leaders were imprisoned so that the true cause would be identified and that would be used to prevent a world war. The next reaction would be to demand that measures be put in place to prevent it from ever happening again
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May 21, 2015 16:29
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Or it'll all be forgotten about by the time the next movie starts, like how the Bond films forget that people perfected space travel five minutes ago.
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May 21, 2015 23:27
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tyler274 posted:The lisp disassociates Jackson from "serious" villains and add to the quirkiness of the plot. It's also a sillier extension of the classic Bond villain having some physical deformity. Le Chiffre weeps blood, Blofeld has a big scar on his face, Valentine has a lisp.
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May 22, 2015 00:34
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I just hope the sequel has a mass murder action set-piece, but it's in a mosque
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May 22, 2015 23:58
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Curvy swords, flying carpets, jihadis and hummus.
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May 23, 2015 00:00
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sky shark posted:Every nation had their leadership decapitated either figuratively or literally, in addition to the population effects, so saying that WWIII would result might be a bit of a stretch. People would demand to know what caused it, and enough leaders were imprisoned so that the true cause would be identified and that would be used to prevent a world war. The next reaction would be to demand that measures be put in place to prevent it from ever happening again Come to think of it, would anyone be left who could launch what nukes they had? I know "launch codes" are kinda bullshit but pretty much anyone who could authorize a strike would be dead.
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Jun 1, 2015 05:01
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Maxwell Lord posted:Come to think of it, would anyone be left who could launch what nukes they had? I know "launch codes" are kinda bullshit but pretty much anyone who could authorize a strike would be dead. Russia has Deadhand or whatever it's called still active. It's whole idea is that that the system initiates launches if there's no one left to stop it. The U.S. has a similar system that relays a message to it's ballistic subs but that's been offline since the 1990s (it's famously used in the WW3 thriller By Dawn's Early Light)
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