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James Woods posted:Thank you. That was the spirit of this exercise not to quibble whether it's worth watching in the first place. Halt the plan immediately and follow these up with The Guest, Robocop 2014, and Chappie.
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May 22, 2020 16:56
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Lechtansi posted:This is amazing. I've never seen a more correct post on the SA forums. It's the only one that transcends being "an MCU movie". Made before things got too formulaic it's got its own distinct style, helped by being set in the past instead of 201X like all the others.
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May 30, 2020 05:02
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sean10mm posted:Not sure why people feel the need to shitpost here. The guy started a perfectly benign topic and people just had to be assholes about it, rather than just move on because it's about a movie series they don't care about. The basic premise of the thread is that a lot of the movies suck - hence the need to curate them. And, when you sincerely and thoughtfully begin that process, you immediately run into troubles. Because there isn't really a good, coherent series of films there. As I noted in my post, the MCU films peak with Captain America 1, and basically stop being good at all after that point. That's why it's necessary to branch out into "unofficial" sequels like Chappie, Robocop 2014, and The Guest. You can also add films like Code 8 and Attraction into the mix (an X-Men movie done in the style of Chappie and an interesting Russian version of Thor, respectively). On the other hand, if you are curating them in the sense of "which films are actually narratively relevant to Avengers Endgame and therefore a distillation of the MCU as a 'whole'?", then the answer is: -Thor 1 -Guardians of the Galaxy 1 -Avengers 1-3. ...but those 5 films include several of the worst films in the series, and certainly none of the best.
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Jun 2, 2020 19:10
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All the films introduce characters adequately. When they first appear onscreen, that’s their (re)introduction to the audience. You don’t need to watch Winter Soldier just to find out who the wing guy is in Avengers 2. He’s exactly what he’s presented as: the sidekick who doesn’t really do anything except show that the Avengers have been hiring more people. The entirety of Civil War is pretty much dismissed with a line about how the Avengers broke up ‘like a band.’ There’s frankly nothing - in any of the individual films - that you couldn’t figure out in a matter of seconds by just using your noggin. Like, the movies themselves say “oh, that guy’s just an alien” or “that guy’s a wizard. You’ll have to accept it.” That exposition exists to reassure the audience that they aren’t actually missing anything.
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Jun 4, 2020 23:14
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ProperWhopper posted:I love how this sub forum is so obsessed with huffing it's own farts that daring to discuss incredibly popular mainstream movies on it is considered being a troll thread. I’m glad that you’re standing up for the nerds against the shadowy and muscular intellectual elite, but the confusion over why this thread exists is largely due to the fact that the CD frontpage already has six or seven megathreads about “comic-book” franchises: Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Superman, Godzilla, etc. There’s also a dedicated Comic Book Movie Megathread on top of that. So why make a thread effectively asking which Iron Man movies suck the worst? We already know that it’s any given Avengers movie.
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Jun 7, 2020 17:51
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ProperWhopper posted:Hmm yes I think we need to keep the disgusting plebs with their ~blockbuster summer films ~ away from our precious subforum and further Arthouse films are much better than you. Hence why I recommend Iron Man 2. That’s a poem (High Art).
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Jun 7, 2020 20:24
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What’s interesting is that this Whopper guy didn’t even bother to say that any of these movies are worth watching, and derailed the thread away from whatever limited praise there was - even tarring them with an insistence that they promote illiteracy.
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Jun 7, 2020 23:35
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Black Panther was literally made in partnership with the CIA, as part of a recruitment campaign targeting highschool-age kids with an interest in STEM. This was advertised on the official CIA twitter.
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Jun 8, 2020 15:09
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Arist posted:I didn't argue the specific plot points of BP in that post because this entire thread is about someone going through these movies for the first time, but suffice to say the CIA's goddamn Twitter account does not prove anything about the political leanings of the actual movie, much less decisively. The actual movie is about the CIA teaming up with an African leader to prevent a bloody global revolution by crazed “Black Lives Matter” egalitarians. It’s cool that the movie has black characters, but Black Panther himself is a very bad person - a sort of superpowered villain.
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Jun 8, 2020 15:30
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Arist posted:Spider-Verse is a fantastic movie with great representation but the cultural impact of the first black (major, before you cry out about Meteor Man or Steel) superhero movie. Hancock came out in 2008, with Will Smith as Literally Black Superman, and made 700 million dollars. And that is far from being the first ""major"" black superhero movie (whatever that means).
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Jun 8, 2020 16:27
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Killmonger is absolutely right to reject 'kinship with his homeland' (i.e. nationalism) in favor of the universal. Killmonger's plan to go to Hong Kong must be read in context with the ongoing Hong Kong protests. His plan is obviously not a black-supremacist invasion of China. Sending material aid to Hong Kong instead demonstrates that Killmonger is generally egalitarian: he is not limited to only helping poor black men. It's telling that you read this as a cautionary tale against being "too angry", that the revolutionary character should seek compromise instead of sticking to his ethics.
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Jun 8, 2020 17:10
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Arist posted:Oh, the Hong Kong protests? Those protests that started a full loving year after this movie released? Those protests? You disingenuous gently caress? The causes of the Hong Kong protests preceded the release of the film, in the same way that the causes of the current BLM protests preceded the release of the film. Also, saying that the character "never had a chance to be anything else" strips him of his agency. He consciously chose to perform his good actions. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 17:17
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Arist posted:You said "ongoing protests" you goddamn liar The Hong Kong protests are ongoing.
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Jun 8, 2020 17:21
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Arist posted:Not when the movie came out they weren't. I think you're having some trouble with context. When the movie came out, the reference to Hong Kong was just Killmonger expressing support for the Hong Kong independence movement. That reference has now been given new context by the ongoing protests. The context of the film has changed with time.
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Jun 8, 2020 17:31
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Arist posted:SMG is clearly trying to use the Hong Kong civil unrest in the present to contextualize the text of the movie two years ago. Yes, there were the same underlying factors present at the time, but using the current unrest as retroactive evidence in this way is profoundly loving dishonest. That’s not a trick. That’s actually just what context is. For example, can read the film Rosemary’s Baby in the context of MeToo. That does not mean Rosemary’s Baby was shot in June of 2020. It means that the act of reading the film is taking place now, in June of 2020.
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Jun 8, 2020 17:59
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Arist posted:The dishonest part is suggesting that any read of a film is definitive, particularly one that requires context from the future. Contextualizing things in a future perspective is not a trick. It’s kind-of the entire basis of Afrofuturism: what if African cultures are not “primitive” but actually extremely advanced, and in fact more compatible with technological advancement than European cultures? What if we look back from the future and see that Africa is better? That being said, my current act of reading is taking place in the present. I am reading in June of 2020. The reading that Killmonger wants to enslave all Asians, and randomly chooses Hong Kong as his primary target, is obviously far weaker than the reading that he is specifically choosing to help the citizens of Hong Kong escape rule by China. The former reading requires some sloppy thought, like that he’s just crazy and loves slavery because trauma.
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Jun 8, 2020 18:38
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I think it’s important to break down what just happened, given the recent discussion of “toxicity”. To begin with, I wrote that we must read the reference to Hong Kong in Black Panther in a political context. Aris believed I was referring to a historical context, so I clarified that I was not referring to a historical context, but to a political context. Now, if things were going well, the response would be something like, “oh, ok”, and we would continue from there. That didn’t happen. Instead, Aris rejected the clarification, repeatedly accused me of lying, and doubled down on his earlier misunderstanding. (Dario, although presumably meaning well, then dismissed the difference between such things as history and politic as merely semantic, when they are actually entirely different concepts. That can only muddy the waters.) Aris continued this in this way and insisted that he was facing persecution - ultimately claiming that it is philosophically impossible for him to be wrong (because he was consciously rejecting the political in favor of a curious historicist reading where the concept of Hong Kong independence was generally unheard of before 2019). Now, this may be perceived as a terrifying imposition, but it is in fact possible to be wrong. When multiple people point out that there were important black films made before 2018, that is not a form of gang-stalking and harassment. It’s just multiple people pointing out that you made a mistake - and very curious, interesting mistake at that. How is such an error even possible? What preconceptions is it based in? From there, we can also say that it is wrong to depoliticize a text. Is that “toxic”? What is “toxic”?
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Jun 9, 2020 00:37
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Arist posted:If you're going to just make a bunch of random poo poo up about me can you at least spell my loving username right It’s a brief summary of some stuff you wrote on this page. If anything I’ve written is untrue or inaccurate, it should be trivially easy for you to demonstrate as much - especially given how motivated you appear. However, I wager that you will not be able to do this. I wager that this assertion that I am ‘making things up’ is as based in confusion as your various other claims. Is this the toxin? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 9, 2020 02:34
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sean10mm posted:The entire point is to get someone with the wrong opinion to get big mad and say "gently caress you" at being needled. Having an emotional reaction is just going to be framed as you being anti-intellectual and validate the thing that makes you mad. That’s an odd conspiracy theory. I do not believe in “intellectualism.” I myself am not an intellectual. My goal is to discuss cinema, and I find people’s attempts to shut down discussion (because they claim to be emotionally overwhelmed or whatever) to be very tiresome. I’m not interested in that sort of failure. That’s a distraction. So, why have I isolated the reference to Hong Kong in Black Panther? Because it points to an interesting failure. The claim that Hong Kong was apolitical in 2018 encapsulates a lot of problems with Aris’ interpretation. Primarily, it points to the absence of leftist thought in Aris’ interpretation. In claiming that the Killmonger character hates Hong Kong for no reason and wants to enslave Asians, Aris is (unwittingly?) asserting that slavery is rooted in ‘toxic masculinity’ rather than socioeconomics. In other words, slavery is ‘merely’ a cultural institution of rude men who deny their vulnerability and fail to tolerate difference. If he had only embraced the therapeutic power of his native culture, kinship with his homeland, Killmonger would no longer express rage over inequality, etc. This is of course tied to all manner of ideological assertions - such as your assertion that the CIA’s methods are bad - a displacement away from the CIA itself being bad. Being against “methods” means that you can somehow praise the film’s heroic CIA character as he performs drone-strikes on black leftists and claim to be against the CIA, without experiencing an incredible cognitive dissonance. The film itself is just kind-of mediocre, but can we really recommend it if these are the sort of takes it generates? Like Iron Man 2, the main source of interest in Black Panther is in how Coogler tries (and largely fails) to smuggle a leftist message into a heavily studio-controlled film where even the action scenes were made by other people (including the CIA drone strike scene, presumably). In other words, we can almost read it as a satire. But then, why not just recommend The Spook Who Sat By The Door? Or did that one not make enough money? SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Jun 9, 2020 |
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Jun 9, 2020 16:17
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Arist posted:Most "important" black movies are stuffy period dramas about like, slavery or civil rights. Do you not understand why, for people who've been subjugated for 400 years, whose cultural histories were stolen and erased, who even still today cannot find pride in their homeland because it is consistently depicted as either primitive tribes or dysfunctional, broken cities, Wakanda would be powerful? Arist posted:Furthermore, do you not understand why it's important and distinctive that this depiction comes from the same "low" culture that is widely disdained? Dogg you've declared the entire Nigerian film industry "unimportant". How are you not even aware of Nollywood? Like, the fact that African people in Africa are making cool movies right now?
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Jun 9, 2020 17:16
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Arist posted:I actually watch Wakaliwood, dude, this is loving baseless Ok, so: what's your favorite Wakaliwood movie, and why doesn't it qualify as an important movie? Is it a 'stuffy period drama about slavery or civil rights'? You could really clarify what you're writing if you defined this nebulous "importance".
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Jun 9, 2020 17:37
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Arist posted:Hmm, yes, the cultural impact of a bunch of (very talented, granted) dudes in Nigeria with virtually no budget or distribution scheme can totally be compared to the impact of the ninth-highest grossing film of all time and an entry in the most popular movie franchise ever made, based on the first black superhero in mainstream comics. This is a rational argument. So "importance" is effectively being defined as "the degree to which a movie is the movie Black Panther" Like, I could point out that the first two big-budget Fantastic Four movies were directed by Tim Story of Barbershop fame (and formerly rapper MC Taste), but that's not "important" because those movies aren't Black Panther. They aren't about the character Black Panther, they were not owned by Disney at the time, and the first was popular enough to get a sequel but they nonethless had sort-of a mixed reception. Sorry Tim, but you just don't count. Now, on my side, I would say that there are plenty of blaxploitation films, by black directors, that have had more cultural impact than the Black Panther movie. Also, if Black Panther is only the ninth highest grossing movie ever made,* that means there are eight films that will forever be superior to it. Weird way to judge films. *It isn't. Adjusted for inflation, the ninth-highest-grossing movie actually The Exorcist, Star Wars 7, or Dr. Zhivago (various sources disagree).
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Jun 9, 2020 18:00
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I enjoy the Avengers movies more than you do.
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Jun 9, 2020 18:09
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If it’s just self-evident that Black Panther had a massive cultural impact, then I assume we can point to some massive resurgence of Afrofuturism. So where is it? Could it be that Black Panther is one of those movies like Jurassic World that has very little cultural impact even though it made a lot of money? Could it be that you have the causality backwards, and Disney was simply making money off of existing trends (hiring the hot new director of Creed to direct the dialogue scenes, etc.)? Was the marketing campaign for Black Panther not identical to that of Disney’s Lion King Remake? Is the Lion King remake the most important animated film of all time? Was Black Panther actually ripping off M. Night Shyamalan’s astonishing After Earth?
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Jun 9, 2020 18:46
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Sodomy Hussein posted:The alphabet agencies and in particular the CIA being dirty tricks organizations with legacies that are at best tainted is so ingrained in our culture and specifically our movies that it's really low hanging fruit. Basically unless you are literally the antagonist from The Shape of Water you're not really on the fence about the CIA, an organization that gets hate from both left and right. Also Black Panther is overtly about whether to meet the CIA blow-for-blow with its own tactics or not. Martin Freeman is treated like a self-interested ignoramus for most of the movie and ends up having to symbolically and literally endorse Wakandan power and autonomy. Why does the Wakandan leader need this endorsement? If Freeman learns that the CIA is bad, why doesn’t he quit in shame?
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Jun 9, 2020 18:51
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I am the End-Boss of this thread. In order to defeat me, you must curate the MCU for me. You must curate these films as though I am a first-time viewer. I expect a solid rationale. You have one day to stop the complaint, and save your planet from death.
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Jun 9, 2020 19:02
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OpenSourceBurger posted:Holy poo poo will you please shut the gently caress up. If you're going to constantly Kramer your way into threads and desperately attempt to be the center of attention could you PLEASE actually be funny or actually interesting? I’m here to save the thread, given that the OP has achieved his purpose and left. (Evidently, he agreed that Chappie is the best MCU film.) So, I have changed the course things. Things will never be the same again. You are now failing to curate the MCU for a first-time viewer. If you are not interested doing that, then why persist?
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Jun 9, 2020 21:20
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One thing that people are evidently missing is that curation is an artform unto itself. If you go to an art gallery, they don’t just shlump together a bunch of work by a single artist. It’s common for curators to create radical juxtapositions as a form of critique. Although people were scandalized, curating a ‘Disney-MCU Exhibition’ with no official Disney-MCU films is actually bold artistic statement.
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Jun 9, 2020 22:20
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WeedlordGoku69 posted:the insane thing here is, SMG wasn't even putting forth that weird of a take Right: nothing I’ve written would be controversial in, like, a highschool English class. But. although I like to ruthlessly mock anti-intellectualism, we must stress that I am not an intellectual. I am not an academic. I’m actively hostile to obscurantism and jargon. I write plainly. I deploy concepts and terms that you could figure out from a cursory Internet search. What I am is pro-literacy - and that is a source of earth-shattering terror, because it’s often held that literacy is for “the elite”. I am lower-class, and yet I’ve taught myself to read and write, and speak. In general CD, is obviously not a “serious, intellectual forum.” Serious, intellectual discussion looks nothing like this. Read a book, for God’s sake. Like, who could possibly come across as more humourless and intellectual than the guy demanding respect because his postmodern rhetoric makes him incapable of being wrong about, like, the entire history of black film? If there were not important black films before 2018 to you, then what makes you important? What do you stand for? Here is my curated list of MCU films: -Captain America -The Guest -Chappie -Iron Man 2 -Code 8 -Robocop 2014 -Attraction -After Earth
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Jun 10, 2020 00:17
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Arist posted:Actually, you know what? I changed my mind, this is funny Give an example of a term or concept that you don’t understand. (Is it “context”?) Also, stick to the topic & curate the MCU for a first time viewer. Your goal is to create a better list than mine. The fate of your world depends on it.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:05
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OpenSourceBurger posted:okay ill bite please give us the multi paragraph long tortured explanation about how, aside from Captain America, that random assortment of films is part of the MCU so we can all pretend to get it and then the rest of the thread is everyone clapping and jerking off about the hilarious and thoughtful discussion about how Robocop 2014 is really the best mcu movie because get it guys it's not because the mcu sucks Robocop 2014 is a superhero film about drone warfare modelled after (and satirical of) the Iron Man films. It is politically to the left of Iron Man 2.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:20
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OpenSourceBurger posted:its not part of the mcu It is now. It is part of the exhibition I’ve curated.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:23
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OpenSourceBurger posted:cool this was good thank you this was fun and informative You are behaving oddly. Consequently, you are failing to curate the MCU for a first time viewer. I have managed to accomplish that incredible feat. Will none dare challenge me?
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Jun 10, 2020 01:28
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sponges posted:“I’ve successfully privatized world peace!” Like Black Panther, Iron Man 2 is best read as a satire where the actual superhero (in this case, the character Whiplash) is tag-teamed and killed at the end. But, unlike Black Panther, Tony Stark obviously has a slew of weird personality disorders. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 01:35
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OpenSourceBurger posted:So can someone explain where the interesting discussion is here? Like I know SMG is the mascot of this place and all but where is the interesting conversation and discussion that's been talked about here? Like, is the joke that he's pretending to be the final boss of a movie subforum of an old message board? Is it a gimmick account? The joke is that you are unwilling or unable to curate the MCU for a first time viewer, even though your life may depend on it. A comet is hurtling towards you, and you are writing out sex fantasies.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:42
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OpenSourceBurger posted:This is the fifth time for the exact same joke, we loving get it. We get the joke. You have smashed it into the ground with the force of a comet. You're curating the MCU, we get it holy poo poo we get it. It is the topic of the thread. See: the title of the thread.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:52
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Arist posted:Oh no, I admitted to being glib at one point, clearly this invalidates my entire argument for all of time, revealing that I am here merely to spread anti-CD sentiment through getting dogpiled for talking about a movie I like! What you are doing is confusing to others because, instead of curating the MCU for a first-time viewer, you are behaving oddly. You must admit that it is odd to write hundreds of words claiming that the phrase ‘Black Panther was made in partnership with the CIA’ is unclear to you. Like, I don’t believe that phrase is too complex for you to understand. It’s not a strange, unheard of stance. I even cited a source: the CIA’s own recruitment campaign. (The context of the phrase is that I am curating the MCU, and I would prefer not to include a film that was made (in part) to recruit children into the CIA.) So, if what I’ve written is not unclear at all, then what is going on?
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Jun 10, 2020 02:57
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To put a fine point on it, WeedlordGoku69 had no trouble understanding what I wrote, and even accurately rephrased it at the top of this page. He is only one of many people who had absolutely no trouble understanding my posts. So others are, apparently, experiencing distress because we are writing clearly and staying on topic. As a contrast, claims like that Black Panther is the most important black film of all time can only generate bafflement and derail the thread. It just raises so many questions: if Black Panther is the most important black film on the history of cinema, and possibly the single most important black artwork in the history of the Earth, then what was the second-most important black film?
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Jun 10, 2020 03:37
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Arist posted:"Black Panther is the most important black film of all time?" I never said that and I don't believe it. Again, these posts are arguing against an ideological construction of me, not my actual posts. Okay, so: what is a black film that is equally as important as Black Panther (or more important)? One trouble you are having is due to evasiveness. You said things I wrote were unclear to you, so other posters (e.g. Kveezy) asked what specific things were unclear to you. No answer. Instead, you switched to repeating that things were “absurd”. So, in this case, you’ve written - somewhat dismissively - that “most” important black films are period dramas about slavery. At the same time, you’ve written a lot about how black genre films other than Black Panther aren’t really important. They all just didn’t make enough money, etc. (Recall that you defined importance mainly in terms of box office revenue and “popularity”.) It’s pretty reasonable to conclude, from what you’ve written, that Black Panther is your #1 most important film, and that your second most important is probably a historical drama about slavery. This new claim that Black Panther is not your pick for most important black film frankly comes as a surprise. But either way, you are avoiding the topic - which is not just curating the MCU for a first time viewer, but also just clarifying your rather idiosyncratic view of black history. Listing at least one other important black film will help us to understand what you are trying to say. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 14:44
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Planetary obliteration will occur in 100 minutes.
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Jun 10, 2020 16:23
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