General Chat: Woop woop, you wonderful old savings and loan!

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Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Literally The Worst posted:

I'm really sorry to hear that, TL.

In an attempt to lighten the mood a little, Bill Watterson has drawn his first three comic strips that have appeared in newspapers since Calvin and Hobbes ended: http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/06/04#.U5NGXvldXh4

He actually did a movie poster a few months back. It's all pretty small stuff, but because it's Watterson, any sign of him in the spotlight is a big deal.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 02:19

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:34

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Timby posted:

That's pretty weak as far as shot context goes ... by that logic you could use probably almost every Bond title sequence ever produced and say Mad Man references them.

To be fair, Mad Men is pretty big on appropriating aspects of spy movies, especially when Don goes to California.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 19:32

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

axleblaze posted:

Just because Anthony was the one caught being racist doesn't mean Opie isn't racist.

Honestly, those gus have always struck me as pieces of poo poo and their continued popularity amazes me. They're friends with some funny people but that's really about it. I always think back to the time they got fired from the local Boston station and just how unfunny and lovely the thing that got them fired was.

It's even shittier when you consider that they did it to get out of their contract since they had already lined up a deal with New York.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 20:49

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

DNS posted:

I never thought O&A themselves were funny or likable but they used to have so many funny dudes on that I didn't really care.

Jim Norton convincing Patrice O'Neal that Face-Off is a bad movie is one of the funniest thing that I've ever heard. And I don't even like Jim Norton.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 21:11

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I love Face/Off. But John Travolta rubbing his hand down his loved ones' faces all the time is kinda redic.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 21:24

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I'd really love to see Travolta do something like About Schmidt where he gives up any pretense of coming off as cool and plays to his age and lets himself be vulnerable.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 21:55

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I wonder how Michael holds up.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 22:13

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Kramjacks posted:

I don't like Rifftrax, I think they're p lame.

Like, I saw Avatar: Last Airbender with the Rifftrack and the jokes were all "Wow this dialog/acting is bad hahaha!" or "Zoku said he doesn't have time to date girls, he must be gay hahaha!".

Rifftrax has its moments. Part of me wants to say that my love for MST3k might be colored by nostalgia. But then I think of "Remember to believe in magic... or I'll kill you" and I just start laughing forever. Part of it is probably that MST3K had a bigger crew of writers and they probably spent more time crafting jokes. But I think a lot of what is lost between MST3K and Rifftrax is that they're not characters. I think having them play characters instead of being themselves actually allowed for a better group dynamic.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 00:39

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Being a part-time vegan has been pretty cool. I limit my animal-products and will eat them if I'm out. So I don't eat as many cheese omelettes and the ones I do are amazing. But honestly, I don't think I could do if I didn't love eggplant so much.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 03:32

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

bows1 posted:

Fargo the TV show owns really hard and everyone should watch it.

I just finished it. This show is so good that I actively look forward to the title sequence. Allison Tolman better win an Emmy and then star in all the movies. I love Breaking Bad so much, but it's really refreshing to watch show about an unrelentingly good person.

It also gives you a good excuse to rewatch the movie which you should watch before diving into the show.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 22:17

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Coffee And Pie posted:

I just bought LA Noire, so someone needs to hype it for me.

Play it in black and white with the mini-map turned off. It's a'ight.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 20:48

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I just wish that they didn't try to have an overarching plot. It would have been a better game if it was just these little standalone mysteries for you to solve. That's what ultimate kills the homicide desk.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 21:21

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I've been day drinking while reading 80s Suicide Squad.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2014 01:31

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I lover Her so much that it's hard for me to not react negatively when someone tells me it's a bad movie. I know that's wrong. But my heart is like, "Okay. This person failed the test. They are a replicant.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2014 15:12

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

CloseFriend posted:

I've never actually watched Weeds, but if you describe it that way, now I want to. Besides, I do love Mary-Louise Parker�

I think dealing with this dilemma will become the next big problem for TV dramas. A lot of successful working writers and producers seem cognizant of it, so I think we'll see more and more projects that tackle it head-on.

I complained about this in TVIV, but Fargo is like the anti-Breaking Bad in theory. It's about an unwavering good woman trying to take down a couple of male anti-hero douchebags while being disenfranchised at every turn. But the Emmy noms list her as a supporting character and the anti-hero-douchebags as the leads. Good show though.

Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jul 14, 2014

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 00:10

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I saw The Aristocrats in theaters in the middle of the afternoon without really knowing much about it. The theater was filled with old people who slowly left.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 17:53

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I'm right for disregarding people who actively dislike Weird Al, right?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 15:07

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

If you like Frank's faces or not, the guy is undeniably a good storyteller.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 03:42

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Spatula City posted:

Bone is incredible and everyone should read it.

I'd really love to see Dean DeBlois direct a Bone film. But instead, this is the guy who was last connected to the project.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 12:35

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

So, I realized for the first time that the radio kid in Wet Hot American Summer isn't Sam Levine, but some other kid with Sam Levine's voice ADRed onto him. Then I couldn't notice that there is some pretty rough ADR in a lot of the rest of the film.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 10:31

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

InfiniteZero posted:

It's awkward when attitudes about sex and what defines deviant and "out there" goes mainstream. Secretary is a good film, but yeah -- it's quite sanitized. Have you ever read John Updike's Rabbit Run? It was written in 1960. One of its major shockers is that somebody once gave a blowjob and then she does it again. At the time, this was considered edgy.

But Secretary and I assume 50 Shades of Grey aren't broadly about weird sex. They're mostly about BDSM. And BDSM is pretty tame in the grand scheme of things. And even the more far out aspects of it are more fat out because a lot of people in that scene don't really go that far. I think what makes Secretary work for me is that it goes in-depth into submission and what that actually means. There are a lot of people who actually don't like any sadomasochism or bondage, but still really dig domination and submission which can be a much subtler and complicated thing. The food scene in Secretary is a lot deeper and heavy than any SM stuff they could show in that film.

What makes BDSM controversial is that a lot of people see it as a rape fantasy at least and actual abuse at worst. I think there are a lot of people who are more comfortable talking about rimming and spitting cum in your boyfriend's mouth and diaper play than BDSM because they believe the latter isn't entirely based in consent or a desire for sex not based in consent.

Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jul 25, 2014

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 16:02

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

It's amazing that people buy those books when the fanfic is still readily available.

InfiniteZero posted:

BDSM is not considered pretty tame by most and it only became even generally accepted within the last 30 years or so (and of course it existed well before that). Movies like Cruising were considered shocking not because of the content but because people were shocked that such places even actually existed. Don't underestimate the mainstream American prude.

It's hard to argue that BDSM is considered tame in the mainstream when it appears that the very fabric of American morality is threatened if a boobie were to appear on regular television.

That's not what I was saying. I was responding to your claim that Secretary was sanitized. I think that the stuff shown in that movie is pretty accurate for what BDSM looks like for a lot of people. Especially when Secretary's focus is more on domination and submission than SM.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I don't know much about 50 Shades, but the objections to the source material were exactly that. The basic appeal of Twilight is that it has a strong female protagonist(!) who is - simultaneously - physically weak and not terribly rich. That alone upsets some types of feminist. Throw her in a relationship with an older, physically stronger, rich-rear end cultural-conservative and Tumblr readies its dashboards.

But then, to top it off, this physically weak girl gets off on lightly-coded BSDM - and that's when you get the freaking out about abuse, and Mormon cultism, and 'Bella lets herself get raped,' blah blah blah.

The liberal outcry is understandable in some respects, since the series is very obviously about this tension between Edward's 'dom' preferences and his privileged social status. It's a subgenre of vampire horror for a reason. But again, the appeal is that Bella manipulates her way through this situation to get what she wants.

If you look at the kind of male characters who get fanfictioned by women, you often see terrorist madmen (e.g. Heath Ledger's Joker), or emotionally damaged rich guys (e.g. Ed Cullen, The 'Onceler'). The broad appeal is, on the one hand, translating The Joker's terror (arguably motivated by political love) into love for a particular individual - and, on the other, playing a system that is disproportionately against you to your advantage. Of course, you have to go into the nuances to determine whether a specific case is good or not. I mean, this is roughly the same reason women send love letters to serial killers in prison.

A lot of kink positive people I know despise 50 Shades and consider it to be an actual abusive relationship. I can't really speak to that since I haven't read the books.

I think a lot of people code Twilight as a very conservative franachise, especially in terms of sexuality. So, a lot of the stuff you code as BDSM--and I don't necessarily disagree with that coding or the idea of Bella finding strength through submission--comes off as patriarchal.

Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jul 25, 2014

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 17:35

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

morestuff posted:

Does 50 Shades actually have an obligation to show a healthy S+M relationship?

Well, no. I can't really speak to the criticisms without reading the book, but part of the issue is definitely that it is the only exposure a lot of people have to BDSM.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 18:49

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

My ex also told me that Grey's growth towards not being a piece of poo poo involves giving up the BDSM as if that's the problem. But I'm going secondhand.

I go to a monthly little kink get-together in NYC every now and then, and it's really made up of the dorkiest and least threatening people imaginable. Somebody should write a tale of a young lady meeting a Magic the Gathering playing engineer with a ponytail and an utility tool who takes her on an erotic journey through the extremes of pleasure and pain.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 18:59

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

morestuff posted:

I'm probably just being naive, but the line just seems a little more vague here than it does with broader LGBT and gender issues. If a woman has a rape fantasy, is that morally wrong?

If someone's skeez is reading or watching or acting out simulated rape then whatever. But that's not really BDSM and actual rape is the antitheses of any sort of healthy relationship. It's not about what people masturbate to. It's about the book's point of view.

The line also really can't be vague in a BDSM relationship. Consent is at the core of everything. The funny thing is that I think a lot of people in vanilla relationships don't sit down with their partners and have conversations about what they like, don't like, or what they're uneasy about. People in BDSM relationships tend to draw really clear borders.

Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jul 25, 2014

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 19:16

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

FreudianSlippers posted:

BDSM is really silly and inherently hilarious.

Pretty much yeah. I think that's why Secretary honestly does such a good job with it. There is no veneer of sleek danger. It's strange, often goofy, but fun.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 20:15

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Lord Krangdar posted:

Are people taking a hosed up message from it and applying that to their real lives en masse, or just to their fantasies?

I respect what you are saying, but your question kind of operates under the assumption that we don't have issues with consent in the real world. In the US, the last state to finally decide that a husband could not legally rape his wife did so just a little over twenty years ago. I think a larger issue with the rape scene isn't that it's a rape scene to masturbate to. The larger issue is the assumption that the novel nor the author nor some of the audience is viewing it as rape.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 20:41

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

I've always been struck by the weird dichotomy between positive and negative consequences of fiction. Like, if I go up to a sci/fi author and go, "Hey, I read all your books when I was a kid. They got me interested in space, and now I work for NASA" the author isn't going to be like, "HEY! SLOW YOUR ROLL WEIRDO! I was writing a book of FICTION. I never actually intended anyone to go into space."

Fiction influences real life all the time. But once somebody does something bad because of fiction or somebody suggests that a piece of fiction might have negative consequences in reality, people suddenly act like there is a brick wall between the two. And I'm not arguing that porn makes people rapists or that Columbine happened because of video games. But I think that there is an easy way to respond to those things which is, "Fiction and reality are two completely different things." And while it's usually an argument that it is trying to fight against censorship and other bad things, it's still a disingenuous argument.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 22:13

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Uncle Boogeyman posted:

Too serious. It doesn't feel accurate to me to refer to the guy who made The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun and Schindler's List as a genre director. Not a pure one, anyway.

Do you feel the same way about Ridley Scott?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 15:47

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Uncle Boogeyman posted:

-We've all been ignoring the elephant in the room that is the Coen Brothers. I'm on the fence to whether I consider them "genre guys" or not though. They've certainly done experiments in pure genre (Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, The Hudsucker Proxy) but most of their stuff is in a different idiom. Even their magnum opus Fargo, which is ostensibly a crime thriller, doesn't really play by many rules of the crime thriller.

I think the Coens are pretty comparable to Wes Anderson in terms of genre. Many of Anderson's films can be simplified into genres. Bottle Rocket is a heist movie, Rushmore is a teen comedy, and The Life Aquatic is an action movie. Even the Royal Tenenbaums, while not fitting into a clear genre, follows a common story archetype of a family coming home and reconciling over a major life event. But what he and the Coens do feels more like appropriation. Although they go about in different ways. Anderson takes basic structure and puts his own spin on it until it's no longer recognizable as that genre. The Coens actually play off recognizable tropes and cues of genre. Hucksucker Proxy is probably the best example. It is clearly mimicking the screwball comedy genre of the first half of the 20th century, but they take it to such extremes that it becomes a very different thing while still resembling those movies.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 16:55

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I don't read many comics, but one of my favorite individual panels is from some issue of Batman (featuring Clayface?).

A dude is casually walking down a dark alleyway, eyes downcast with noir-ish lighting and some internal monologue. On the street, in the background, a bunch of dudes in technicolor suits are leaping about punching a massive tyrannosaurus. No relation to the plot; that's just what happens nowadays, and dude is really depressed about it. It's like the advertising dirigible in Blade Runner.

Marvel Studios does a lot of stuff, but it does not actually pack in dozens of superheroes for surreal Kingdom Come insanity - even in Avengers.

It's funny you mentioned Kingdom Come, because I'd actually recommend Alex Ross and Kirk Busiek's Marvels. It still has Ross's stiff painted panels, and it definitely serves to have him paint as many superheroes as he can. But it's pretty well written and deals with what it means to just live in a world of superheroes.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 21:59

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Man, Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn has such a good line-up of movies right now. Snowpiercer, Obvious Child, and Boyhood. But none of my friends want to spend thirty dollars on good cinema and good food.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I recommend Warren Ellis' RUINS.

I tried to read Ruins once. But it was just a bunch of photos of Warren Ellis sitting in his underwear and melting action figures with a magnifying glass.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 22:16

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Coffee And Pie posted:

Slice of life: I'm (probably) gonna be visiting my ex in Boston in a few months, is there anything fun to do while I'm there?

And yes, I realize that's the most GenChat sentence a person could write.

The MIT Museum is a blast and pretty cheap.

If you have car, I also really recommend Kimball Farms. It's this place outside of Boston with ice cream, BBQ, video games, miniature golf, batting cages, tennis courts, a petting zoo, and it's generally a fun day. If you're going to be there in October, you could also go up to Salem for some fun tourist fishing.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 22:42

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Ya'll need to listen to the most recent Doug Loves Movies. TJ Miller apparently gives no fucks about talking poo poo about Michael Bay and has a story about him being yelled out for Bay for not being funny enough and failing to make dying children laugh.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 00:21

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Toebone posted:

Rocko's Modern Life also had a "Squeel like a piggy" joke, IIRC.

I watched Tiny Toons: How I Spent My Summer Vacation recently. It has a pretty extended homage to Deliverance. It's not a very good movie, and I forgot how much it relied on gross out humor. Still had some ok gags though.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 03:11

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Jonny Angel posted:

See I look at something like this and get scared because I'm 23, working at a good-paying job that I love, just got engaged to the most amazing woman, and am more connected with my friends and creative pursuits than I've ever been.

So basically I have no idea which part of that above sentence is going to become a "hahaha how could I have ever thought that" when I hit 30. One day this house of cards is gonna fall.

Maybe you wear a stupid hat and nobody tells you?

I'm actually interested in this girl who is a few years younger than me, and I'm a little embarrassed around her because she seems to have her poo poo more together than I do. I went through a year and a half of aimlessness after college when I realized TV wasn't really for me, but I had no idea what I wanted to do career wise. So, I just spent all my time with crappy temp jobs until I finally decided I wanted to peruse education. I just got a new job, and I can't overstate how excited I am about it. I live in a great neighborhood, I have good friends, I dress nicely, I have my diet under control, and I'm not in want financially. I regret not just going into teaching after undergrad and having this life four years ago, even if that thinking is flawed. And it's hard to see someone on the other side of 25 who made the choices I wish that I had made.

The point is that some people just make the right choices at the right time.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 03:30

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

CloseFriend posted:

It's a hosed-up result if you think about it. We've had success fighting "racism" as a word, but less so as a concept.

I think you're undermining just how bad things were. There are still a lot of battles that need to be fought, but the fact that hanging people or burning people alive isn't considered reasonable by racists anymore is still incredible progress.

The larger problem is that we have won these big victories against big and obvious evils. Now we deal with subtler and more insidious poo poo, but that doesn't cheapen the progress we have made.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 04:54

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

My one who ex was big into feminist theory in literature found one particular importance in the Bechdel Test. Her point of view was that girls are taught to be competitive and distrusting of each other. As a middle school teacher, I agree. It might be an incidental thing, but it definitely can act as a tool of oppression. Women, like any group, are weaker when they're divided. There are definitely heavily feminist texts that do not pass the test. The Big Lebowski for example is a radically feminist text. But those films still suffer from an issue where women are isolated. when it comes to high literature films, this can often be justified as being realistic.

But when you get to genre literature that operate on high metaphor, are often targeted towards children, and are intended to be inspirational, there's an even bigger problem. Black Widow might be a really cool character, but she does not really have friendships with ladies. Wonder Woman might end up the same way if Warner Bros. doesn't explore the other amazons or characters like Edna Candy. Star Trek '09 might have made Uhura's character more capable, but she is still a girlfriend to one of the main characters and an object of lost to another main character in the first film. Say what you want about My Little Pony, but from what I've seen, that's a show with a primarily female cast that seems to be exclusively about navigating female friendships.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 04:16

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

CloseFriend posted:

Speaking of Reagan, you guys ever wonder how Jodie Foster's career would've played out if that crazy assassin who loved her actually did kill Reagan?

I heard from an acquaintance that she really is awfully awkward and guarded in real life, but I do think it's presumptuous to blame it on that incident. Couldn't have helped though.

quote:

UNRELATED: Slice of Newfound-Appreciation-For-Life: From what I read, the street where I used to live had a drive-by yesterday. Crime's been getting worse arond here. I don't get Eastern Washington gangs. I can understand being proud of being a respected gangbanger in LA or Miami or Mogadishu, but Eastern loving Washington? "Ooh, lookit me, I'm King of the Hops and Apples!!"

Gangs don't make sense anywhere and are the dumbest poo poo. There is also a ridiculous lack of history that you won't believe. I've talked to Bloods about the history of the gang and they don't even loving know about the original Bloods Alliance of gangs that broke away from the Crips which is the whole loving reason that Bloods and Crips don't get along. Except they don't know that. They just know that Bloods and Crips don't get along and dumb recent poo poo that their local crews have done because Bloods and Crips don't get along.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 10:51

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:34

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

Beyond sane knolls posted:

I semi-jokingly brought up getting a hammer and sickle tattoo to my SO and she sorta freaked out. Maybe because of her hungarian ancestry?? I dunno, but I never brought it up again. At what point in the relationship is it best to get it over with and give her the old "Babe, I'm a pinko" speech?

Probably ASAP. I had a high school friend from Belarus who wavered between being a Communist and an Anarchist, but she still despised the Soviet Union. Her issues really might rest with the Soviet Union more than with Communism. But either way, hiding that big a part of yourself is not a good idea.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 03:40

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