I caught this article by Matt Taibbi on Smirking Chimp. I had trouble getting onto the site to read it, so when I did get on, I saved a copy here. Please visit the original site and help pay their bills!
#WritingFromIsolationWard
I caught this article by Matt Taibbi on Smirking Chimp. I had trouble getting onto the site to read it, so when I did get on, I saved a copy here. Please visit the original site and help pay their bills!
Whenever there is a discussion about movies and or theaters; there will always be a posting like this:
Darksoul:
Theaters are over rated, for $4.99 I can watch any new released movie in HD on in demand and they always release on demand on the same day as the dvd releases. And the funny part is because I have bought movies from them all the time threw on demand Cox gives me like two bucks off so I only really pay $2.99. So what would I rather do sit at a theater listen to people talk on their cell phones and hear kids crying or people eating pop corn or sit in my living room in my recliner.?
Seriously they should just release movies right off for renting.
imronburgandy83:
Amen, movies are way too expensive now. My screen at home is way better anyways. Why pay $10+ to watch standard definition movies with annoying people?
Or These:
I am not going to theaters, nor buying full-priced DVD’s for my movie enjoyment, mostly because 90% of movies are lousy anyway.
spritomspritom
It does seem like we’ve been in a rut for a few months on movie quality.666300666300
Legitimate dvd’s should cost like $5 then i would gladly buy whatever movie i wanted to watch.
$20- $25 is way too much and movies these days make millions of dollars in profit anyways.howcansheslaphowcansheslap
Are the really lousy? Or do you just have different taste then other people?
kingatrockkingatrock
check rottentomatoes.com the majority are LOUSY.AmazingSteveAmazingSteve
No they’re lousy. I used to take in 3, sometimes 4 movies a week up until 10 or 12 years ago when we REALLY started getting bombarded with absolute shite from Hollywood.comfort1872comfort1872
I know! The movies these days are SO bad that I will only watch them for free! THAT is how bad they are! Just terrible! THAT is why I pirate! Because I only pirate crappy movies!CuchanuCuchanu
You obviously haven’t seen Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc.
kinseyincanadakinseyincanada
yet you will still pirate most movies. Just because something is shitty doesnt mean you deserve to get it for free.
The movie theater near me that I affectionatly refer to as the local “Dirt Theater” has 8 screens, all of which are taller and wider than my home, a three story 3 bedroom with full basement and all the mod cons one would love. Each screen is accompanied by loveseat style thatre seats that allow one to get cozy and large accomodating aisles that (for the most part) leave you miles from the people ahead and behind you. This is the “Dirt” theatre. As in the crappiest one nearby. It is 1-million times better than the 52 inch LCD HD tv that my sister-in-law sports and better still than the 62-inch projection deal my more affluent friends have going. The screen in the cheapest theatre around me (gives you free tickets if you go to a week day showing, when no KIDS OR LOUD ASSHOLES ARE THERE) has excellent popcorn and snacks and an amazing digital sound system that immerses one in the movie. On top of that you can see the movie with 20-40 of your friends or co-workers and no one is forced to sit on the ground or anything.
How watching a movie at home alone is superior to this experience I will never know.
All of that aside, if your aspergers has become so pronounced that you cannot stand the idea of enjoying a social event like a big movie premiere, I understand. I mean, you are backward and socially withdrawn and you hate crowds, I get it. Sure.
However, the “Movies Suck Now” argument is SO disinginuous, one hardly has the blood in one’s brain to even take the time to comment on it.
It would seem that people look at the movies of yesteryear as some kind of geneology that led somehow to a generation of subnormals that communicate only in grunts.
These are the top grossing movies of 1995 (14 years ago)
191,773,049 | Toy Story (1995) | |
183,997,904 | Batman Forever (1995) | |
141,600,000 | Pocahontas (1995) | |
108,344,348 | Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) | |
100,475,249 | Jumanji (1995) | |
100,328,194 | Casper (1995) | |
100,125,000 | Se7en (1995) | |
100,003,359 | Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) | |
99,929,196 | GoldenEye (1995) | |
91,400,000 | Crimson Tide (1995) |
Which of these Opus’ to the human condition was somehow better than say “Taken” or “[Rec]” or “The Dark Knight” okay se7en was a masterpiece. The rest, mass culture drek, enjoyable films, but not exactly hard eyed examinations of the human condition or a means to excel the art of film itself.
Twelve Years Ago:
600,779,824 | Titanic (1997) | |
250,147,615 | Men in Black (1997) | |
229,074,524 | The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) | |
181,395,380 | Liar Liar (1997) | |
172,620,724 | Air Force One (1997) | |
147,637,474 | As Good as It Gets (1997) | |
138,339,411 | Good Will Hunting (1997) | |
126,805,112 | My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997) | |
125,332,007 | Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) | |
112,225,777 | Face/Off (1997) |
One Non-Hollywood movie and the one Bond Movie… (same as 1995)
1987
167,780,960 | 3 Men and a Baby (1987) | |
156,645,693 | Fatal Attraction (1987) | |
153,665,000 | Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) | |
123,922,370 | Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) | |
80,640,528 | Moonstruck (1987) | |
76,270,454 | The Untouchables (1987) | |
66,995,879 | The Secret of My Succe$s (1987) | |
65,207,127 | Lethal Weapon (1987) | |
63,952,836 | Dirty Dancing (1987) | |
63,766,510 | The Witches of Eastwick (1987) |
The Top Grossing movie from 1987 starred three aging men cooing over a baby girl (and may have starred a ghost!!!), hey look, two Cher movies too.
Popular movies will always be drek and pap. That’s why they are popular, they hit that good middle of the road where people above and below the line of average intelligence can see them. Sometimes the under the line’r folks just go ro more movies…
Uh.
Subnormals watch a large number of movies.
Shoot, I’m digging a hole here.
Anyway, 1977
460,935,665 | Star Wars (1977) | |
102,000,000 | The Goodbye Girl (1977) | |
50,800,000 | A Bridge Too Far (1977) | |
38,251,425 | Annie Hall (1977) | |
31,063,038 | High Anxiety (1977) | |
28,000,000 | Slap Shot (1977) | |
28,000,000 | Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) | |
26,414,658 | The Gauntlet (1977) | |
25,850,802 | Saturday Night Fever (1977) | |
24,652,021 | The Other Side of Midnight (1977) |
There is a Herbie movie in there. Slap Shot, while considered a classic is hardly a pinnace of movie making. The less critically said about Star Wars, the better.
Are we seeing a pattern here? Mass Market movies will always “suck” in the eyes of overly critical assholes; they were never worth the 10cents movies cost when their Grandparents went to see them:
1957
33,300,000 | The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) | |
26,300,000 | Sayonara (1957) | |
25,600,000 | Peyton Place (1957) | |
11,750,000 | Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) | |
11,000,000 | A Farewell to Arms (1957) | |
10,000,000 | Bayou (1957) | |
8,750,000 | The Pride and the Passion (1957) | |
8,000,000 | Island in the Sun (1957) | |
7,000,000 | The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) | |
4,000,000 | Jailhouse Rock (1957) |
That is an Elvis movie there and a Frankenstein Movie.
And may never be worth the money in the future either.
And just so I can make my point, you thought the MAtrix Sequels sucked, huh?
377,027,325 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) | |
339,714,367 | Finding Nemo (2003) | |
305,388,685 | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) | |
281,492,479 | The Matrix Reloaded (2003) | |
242,589,580 | Bruce Almighty (2003) | |
214,948,780 | X2 (2003) | |
173,381,405 | Elf (2003) | |
150,350,192 | Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) | |
139,259,759 | The Matrix Revolutions (2003) | |
138,614,544 | Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) |
Yeah, the movie going public didn’t think the same thing as you.
My favourite movie in the past decade (real movie, not action movie) was Garden State, I loved it. It was not in the top ten movies of 2004, not by a long shot. That doesn’t give me the authority to turn around and say “all movies are crap!” And your taste not matching up with the general public doesn’t validate your qualitative description either.
So, to conclude, the movie going experience is better without all the people who don’t like the social aspect of the theaters; who complain about the prices and the crowds. The theater is better without the people who prefer to watch it on the Television over the Big Screen. In short, I enjoy the movies better without you.
I’ve written about my daughter’s nascent fundamentalism before; it finally erupted into real problems for me over the past month.
It seems that a discussion about the Lenten Fast (Chocolate for Her if you must know) at a friend’s house led a major arguement and a dream in which God told my little girl that he was angry with the world. I was not privvy to this dream or the argument until I received a call from the school (Catholic School no less) about my Daughter.
It seems she was cursing the kids to hell in the name of God.
And my wife wonders why I discourage religousness. Sigh.
When speaking to the Principal I had to speak in code to avoid insulting my wife; placing the blame for the fundamentalist leanings in my daughter squarely on the shoulders of the Evilution-Denying shoulders of my wife and mother-in-law. I’m game to discuss religion, but I always ensure that I frame it as a social coping mechanism. It seems this nuance is lost on my little Christo-Fascist in training.
I apologized to the Principal and told him that I would speak to my Daughter about her behavior; we comiserated about Fundamentalism of that stripe and it’s corrosive effects and ended the call. I then called my parents and asked them to NEVER discuss religion with my daughter again; as reinforcing it was causing trouble at school.
I’ve asked my wife to do the same with her family, but as I have said before “they’ve got the Jesus”…
Two More Years… Just Two more…
Rush Limbaugh recently said: “I am all for the AIG bonuses” and attacked the Obama administration for trying to undo them. He also blasted Dem efforts to get the names of the AIG bonus recipients as “McCarthyism.”
Fox News followed suit, also comparing Dems to “Joe McCarthy.” And Sean Hannity has now derided efforts to tax the execs by saying: “In other words, we’re going to just steal their money.”
When these people say “they are for the little guy” they mean “Short CEOs”
In the end many don’t. I was in a small enough town that I went through school with some students that were in 1st grade with me. I was a “jet” in the reading department. I was reading the “see Jane run” crowd on day one. There were kids there still working on the alphabet. They “caught them up” to me, but predominately these kids were always a step behind. By high school graduation, I was headed off to engineering school, and most of them were lucky to be getting a degree (a couple never did). My guess is that these kids never really were “caught up”, but merely were able to pass some test (potentially more of a subjective test than an objective one). And I’d bet I spent the summers going to the “book mobile” and reading 5 or more books a week (many psuedo nonfiction subject books of inventors and historical figures) while they probably watched alot of TV and hung out at some play ground.
It’s not that kids can’t be helped to “catch up”, it’s that the reasons they are behind in the first place rarely go away. Exceptions abound of course, but to presume that a teacher/school can “catch up” a kid without really addressing how or why he is “behind” in the first place would seem to me to be an institutionalized form of “betting against the house”. Apparently they see that with Head Start. They get these kids up and running, but as they progress through elementary school, with out the cointinued help, they just fall behind again.
Whenever someone puts into writing how many books they read over the summer; especially when followed up with “and those other kids wasted their time playing” you got yourself an insufferable fucking nerd on your hands. Anyone who thinks education is wasted on people really needs to be sterilized. Now. We can live without more of their ilk clouding up the world; I know it’s not likely someone with such a toxic attitude will ever reproduce, but let’s nip this in the bud now.
This is the same kind of person who votes to cut taxes; then complains about the state of government services and infrastructure. They ask questions about social services like “Why can’t they do more with less?”
It’s like their terminal lack of human contact made them into some kind of other species; devoid of human empathy or reason.
I have no doubt that this person is better educated than I am; seriously. What has that done for them?
While I’m sure that Marvel folks are aware how the sound effect FAP is received on the Internets; I’m thinking they were trying to illustrate the sound of those guns landing.
Or are they?
Is this a subtle message from the Marvel art department? PREPARE FOR A MASTURBATORY CONTINUITY WANK FEST DURING DARK REIGN? No? I wish it was.
The Dark Reign Concept is a good idea; but it would have been better had it started before the whole Skrull invasion; the Skrull invasion was just kind of pointless and directionless. It set up some nice tension points, but it would have been just as easy to limit it to the major characters who had been replaced; without the need for the whole crossover.
Dark Reign has gotten off to a fairly good start, with Normon Osborne making nice in front of President Obama… yup, he’s there in Thunderbolts 128 talking to Doc Sampson and looking to get to work fixing the economy (after the Skrulls and not the former President or Tony Stary wrecked it)
With Norman Osborne running roughshod over the Marvel Big Titles and making it a crime to be a superhero at all (TAKE THAT PRO-REGISTRATION FORCES!) I’ll be reading all of these titles; but I’m looking forward tothe collected volumes with more anticipation than I did the Skrull Invasion. This feels like a real follow-up to Civil War and I’m looking forward to Steve Rogers return.
How is it possible that a planetary body that has endured ice ages, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, etc can be said to be under threat by a puny species like humankind? How is it possible that we (as humans) continually overstate our individual and collective worth despite all evidence to the contrary?
There it is, in once simple statement. The Veritable “God of the Gaps” in Climate Change denial. Humans are puny, how could humans take any hand in the alteration of the Environment?
One does not have to look far to see the veracity of the claim that human activity affects the local enviornment. Trash and industrial waste go a long way to demonstrating the the localized power of human misadventure. How about on a transnational scale? Look at the Acid Rains that have ravaged the forests in Northern Ontario and Quebec, passed from plants in the USA and Canada. What about Chinese pollution that reaches North America?
Doesn’t humankind sport the ability to crack mountains?
Doesn’t humankind have the ability to shirk gravity?
Seriously; there are people who use the internet every day and say “pfft, human achievement is nothing when compared to the rain and babies. Babies are amazing mysterious things.”
I can type a few bits of text on a box with wires in it and EVERYONE ON EARTH CAN READ THEM IF THEY HAVE A BOX AND SOME WIRES WITH ELECTRICITY IN THEM. Why is it beyond some people to think that humankind might influence weather patterns a bit?
It’s amazing to live in a world with such people in it. Dunderheads all.
Boredom + Ennui equals TAKEDOWN
Published by NiteMayr on April 6, 2009I hated Wall-E so much that when a Mefite posted a link to an old story about it; I found an equally old review and decided to take them down a peg:
The “good folks” over at Redstate.com loved Wall-E and posted a tortured set of reasons why Wall-E was all about the Reagan and the Guns:
1) The overthrow of fascist tyranny – The most direct conservative message in the movie is the uprising of the humans to throw off the chains of fascism. Humans on the Axiom have been subjugated to the soft fascism of the nanny state where the state provides all needs to all people, and they are all equal in their care. Everyone looks the same. Every gets the same food, clothes, media and activities. It is the perfect Marxist utopia, except for the French Revolution inspired construct of a ruling elite (Auto and his hench-robots) who have the ultimate freedom and authority to rule society and construct it to their ideal. Just because it is performed “for the good of the people” doesn’t make less of a tyranny. I’m sure Pol Pot’s forced march into the wilds of Cambodia was for the good of the people too.
Of course, when I think of Liberals, I think of Rigid social mores and Cool Uniforms. Or wait, do I think of Hippies? Yeah, the last thing. Also Fascism does not Equal Communism. These two things are not equal. I think they were trying to arge against authoritarianism; which I think is still a stretch, since there is really only one Authority and society as a whole (The land whales) were not down for it; they were just mindless consumers (like good Capitalists).
(Quick, examine that short Paragrah, did I say anything about a certain Austrian political figure? No, Give me a cookie!)
2) Failure of the Big Government social programs – We’ve had a lot of discussion of the anti-corporate message in the form of Big N Large. I contend that BNL is not a corporation, but a government. It represents the ultimate extension of the nationalized corporation as defined by Mussolini, and is a pretty close analogy to Great Society. In the end BNL has total worldwide societal control and all needs of the people are met by BNL’s “programs”. But just like the failure of the Great Society, BNL’s planned economy fails in a spectacular manner. Even the changes made to save humanity do not meet the promises. We see advertising, analogous to current PSAs, to take the Axiom on its 5 year cruise. But the promise of the Axiom is not met and we see the price of that failure early in movie when we see all the fat people on hover chairs. Just like the Great Society, once the liberal plan is put into motion, there is no option to change to a rational alternative. All that can be done is to maintain the status quo, without end. As a side note, the CEO of BNL makes all of his pronouncements from something that looks like the White House press room. This is reference to governmental power, not corporate power.
Simply stating that Wal-Mart , ahed, I mean BNL is not a Corporatation and then going on from there isn’t reasoning; that like saying “I don’t think the Green Goblin is a villan, so therefore Spider-Man is a menace!” good thinking there JJJ. So; yeah this whole section of the argument is out the door.
3) The effects of the Mainstream Media – Every human has a personal video feed that is used to pipe constant media brainwashing. We see the propaganda where they are all told that “Blue is the new red”. All of the mind numbed sheep dutifully go “oooohhh” and happily don the new color, while all continue to look identical. They dutifully do as they are told, including eating what they are told, until they have become an identical group of fat useless drains on the welfare state. A state which dutifully fills up the troughs for them to eat from. I found this theme to track with the current obesity problem in the welfare and food stamp programs.
I aggree; the mainstream media is a profit driven entity owned by large corporations who want money. How is this a Liberal thing. I get it; if you don’t like it (it’s Liberal) and if you like it (Like cool Stormtrooper uniforms) it’s Conservative. Tell me again how Fascists and Commies are Liberals again?
4) Propagandizing the education system – There was one scene where we saw the fat little children being educated through the use of media propaganda. This removal of parents from the upbringing of the children falls in line with the current drive to push children into the public indoctrination system as early as possible. While it is only an aside, the next time you see the children is when they are in danger thanks to the callous disregard of the elites. In this case, the state doesn’t save them, it is the actions of Josh and Mary acting as pseudo parents that save their lives.
Again, I agree. Using the Education of the young to put forth an agenda is deplorable. Of course, when the truth is that agenda and you don’t believe in it (like say Evolution and how the Mass Market is profit driven and not equitable…) wait what? Oh, my eduction by PepsiCo must have failed me again; no Pepsi for me tonight.
5) Triumph of individualism – Through accidental contact with the robots, Josh and Mary meet each other and begin a romance. We see one scene where the Lido deck is closed, and all of the hover chairs dutifully follow orders and head to the cabins. But Josh and Mary ignore the rules and stay in the pool. In another scene, we see Eve finally ignore the directive to deliver the plant to the bridge, and stay to help Wall-E when he is injured. Both of these short sequences demonstrate individuals standing up for self determination over the dictates of the state.
Wall-E is emulating something he saw in a Movie. If emulation is somehow being an individual, all those kids dressed as the Vampires from Twilight are downright rebels. Dumbass.
6) Elites fighting to maintain power – The Socialist concept of rulership by elites is often accompanied by the struggle to maintain power for the good of the people, even when the people are harmed in the process. It is all done for the good of society. Toward the end of the movie, we see Auto put the humans into danger by turning the ship and causing everyone to slide toward the walls (I promised I wouldn’t discuss the gravitational absurdity of this scene). Here the elite is trying to save humanity, but in the process is likely to kill a lot of humans. This parallels a common environmentalist desire of today to see a significant reduction in human population to save the planet.
What Elites? One Computer is “Elites” plural? Dumbshit can’t even count now.
7) Individualism must be suppressed – In the movie, the robots save the day. But the robots that do this are the “misfit” robots that have been put into a “reeducation program” to get them to perform within the strict tolerances defined by the state as acceptable. Once Wall-E uses Eve’s “blaster” to open the doors, the misfit robots escape. Instead of being a danger to society as the state controlled media asserts, they instead help Wall-E and Eve save humanity.
The “Misfit” robots are dangerously malfunctioning devices used to maintain the ship; some of which were endangering the ship. By this reasoning, a clinically insane person who threaten kindergartens because “Obama is gunna take his guns” is a real conservative icon! Again, Fail! Or WIN! Depending on which end of the spectrum your type of Aspergers ends up on.
8) Superiority of the classics – This one is a bit of a stretch, but the continual use of a “classic” image of the movie Hello Dolly made me think of the fight against cultural corruption. Wall-E (and eventually Eve) pine for, and eventually show the triumph of, the classical values shown by that movie. They reject the cultural mores imposed by modern thought as expressed by their directives that they are expected to blindly follow.
Yes, like CLASSIC Warfare (Raping and Pillaging) and CLASSIC Marriage (dowries) and of course the old Conservative Favourite, the Classic Lifestyle of the Spartan Army.
9) In the end Humanity embraces truth and does the right thing – The captain finally decides to take the Axiom home. But his decision is based on truly knowing what they face. He learns that Earth isn’t the happy wonderful place that his movies are showing him. Instead he directly confronts the bleak reality of the world that Eve shows him. But despite the knowledge of the challenges that faces them, he rejects the easy stagnation of continued life on the Axiom, and returns to earth to build a new world. Once faced with the lies told to him by the state, he rejects the state and embraces the hard road of struggle for independence.
The “State” told him to keep looking for life at home and then when said life is found, GO HOME. Which is what happened.
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS SOMEHOW A LIE ON BEHALF OF THE STATE. THE FUCKING LARDWHALE CAPTAIN DID EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS TOLD TO DO BY A 500 YEAR OLD RECORDING. HOLY SHIT! THAT’S LIKE STONING SOMEONE BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAID TO DO IT.
Again, Wall-E sucks and this gave me an opportunity to relive some of the low-lights of this crap fest.