Topic: The Movie Thread

@WanderingBullet yeah i saw those trailers and they look pretty good but i'm still weary because the Suicide Squad trailers looked good too and look how that turned out

@JohnnyShoulder @FullbringIchigo Yeah, I'm a bit weary too but at the same time looking forward to them. I had low expectations for the previous DCEU movies after watching their trailers, tbh. Tone wise, I'm glad that these two movies looks and feels completely different compared to the previous movies.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was suppose to start filming at end of this year I think. Second movie was good (except for the ending) but I loved the first one. If I'm not mistaken, Gunn also wrote scenes that involved the Guardians of the Galaxy in Infinity War and for the most part I thought they were good. I read that Gunn had already turn in the script for the third movie. It'll be interesting to see who Marvel will hire to replace him.

@Rudy_Manchego It is hypocrisy. The way Disney's statement was worded is like they only just found out about the tweets.

I got this from a comments section on a article about the firing.

"ABC, which is owned by Disney, employs Jimmy Kimmel, who used to be the host for a TV show called " The Men Show " which was vulgar and objectified women on television. He’s apologized about it and pretty much anyone would agree that he’s a much nicer and respectful person now. Will Disney fire him too?"

I don't if that is true or not, but seems a bit of double standards by Disney.

@Th3solution I just accepted the phase sbjcting since Marvels lost any realism they tried to have with Iron Man when they first started. The mom thing felt like a bit of a jump in logic, but then I just accepted for what it was lol. I didn’t expect to see Ant-Man and Infinity War explained, but that’s because the house arrest excuse was stupid as all get out. It made for a good personal life dynamic, but it’s utterly ludicrous to thing they didn’t get him for the battle of the worlds with Thanos because of it. Since he wasn’t in Infinity War I already accepted that part of it, and consider an Infinity Problem more than a Ant-Man problem.

Batman: Hush is getting an animated movie!!

Also, Disney are of course reactionary hypocrites in the James Gunn matter, but I don't see them reversing the decision.

Western society has never had to deal with the long-term ramifications of something like social media before. People create permanent records of their stupidity on something like Twitter now and it's haunting them long into the future.

Well, anyway, Disney is pretty famously averse to ANYTHING linking them to racism or pedophilia (pretty much the reason they'll NEVER pull Song of the South out of the memory hole by re-releasing it), so once this became a big thing, Gunn's firing was only a matter of time, even if they knew about the possibility that it would come out into the open. Just as ABC knew very well about Roseanne's tendency to post insane rubbish on her twitter account when they rebooted her show.

It has been pretty interesting watching conservatives wise up and start weaponizing the left's techniques against them to claim scalps.

@Ralizah I don't know if conservatives have anything to do with it.

But like you said Disney has always been pretty clear in cutting associations with subjects like pedophilia et cetera when they can. And that has nothing to do with virtue or anything, but only money. They're protecting their brand, nothing more.

And I think that shines through most clearly here. Gunn ain't no Roseanne Barr. His tweets are:
1) Old, already addressed before and, like Gunn said himself, not something he would post nowadays. That's different from Barr, who posted stupid stuff around the clock.
2) It's clear he doesn't stand politically behind what he says, they're jokes. Bad jokes, and hurtful as well, but jokes all the same.

Still Disney went on to fire them. Because with Disney it's about money, and they don't care about truth or values at all. So as long as these tweet return to haunt Gunn and Disney's image, they take them just as serious as real racism.

It's hypocrisy from Disney and everyone who reads further than the headlines on this matter, knows it. But many people don't, unfortunately. They'll only read "Gunn" and "pedophilia" in one sentence. That's bad for business regardless of the context. It's a part of modern society I hate, obviously.

I think Gunn's jokes were in bad taste, but like most people someone deserves at least a second chance, especially if they apologize. These jokes have nothing to do with the movies, so... yea.

But hey, it's Disney. It's corporate, it's evil.

@JohnnyShoulder @Ralizah I think the interesting thing is that there already was a trial be media back in 2013-2014 when these tweets originally surfaced and they were addressed by Gunn and Disney. What we have here is double jeopardy on social media.The implications are pretty scary - essentially anything ever said or done in your past can be weaponised. Gunn's jokes are horrid and very very offensive however you can see similar on plenty of 'edgy' shows from comedians or networks. I wonder what the impact will be to the creators of that content?

Absolutely right about the interesting use of this and it being weaponized. I hate the false outrage at everything - while there are successes in calling out obvious injustices, boiling down everything to a simple right or wrong is just turning everything into a witch hunt which means real injustices get lost in the mix.

@Rudy_Manchego Media are way too black and white unfortunately. You're either a good person or a bad person, but no one seems to acknowledge the simple fact that people are people, and they make good and bad decisions. They aren't both.

I think Kanye West is a great rapper and I enjoy his music. He does say a lot of stupid things, which I sometimes disagree with or even find offensive. But these opinions on him can coexist. I don't need to boycott him for something like that.

And Gunn can be a great director for the Guardians series, while also having made some offensive jokes in the past.

PS My opinion is that I don't think Barr's show should be cancelled. Even though I hate the things she said. However, her firing wasnt as hypocrite as Gunn's firing was.

@Kidfried It was weaponised. Perennial arse Mike Cernovich was the chief instigator this time around.

There's very little surprise in Disney's reaction. The far right mob-minded have found their perfect weapon against anyone like Gunn who is routinely critical of them - snowflake-like reactions to any highlighted behaviour that they can't deal with; so you may never be seen to be or have been anything other than perfect; never having succumbed to any particular 'ism'; be utterly and totally 'liberal' or progressive in all things at all times.
Any differing opinion, any dare to question the liberal hive-mind, and sadly - even a few bad taste, vulgar jokes are now the bullets that will sink you. Because not enough people and companies - how ever well intentioned are able to stand back and just say: 'so what?'.

@KALofKRYPTON Ah, yes. Of course. From their side it was politically fueled of course. It's a sad thing to see.

Al Franken's resignation was largely the same sort of thing. His tasteless joke became a weapon to use against lefties and their "one drop rule" in terms of public morality (any sort of display of perceived sexism, racism, etc., regardless of context or severity, and you're 'unpersoned' by the mob).

Of course, it's not like influence in the culture wars doesn't go both ways. Lefties going after right-wing figures on youtube and getting their videos demonetized by targeting their advertisers is the EXACT same tactic Gators employed in 2014 to hurt Kotaku and cause it to lose millions of dollars in ad revenue.

And, of course, siccing mobs on people via social media is something both the alt right and the snowflake left are fond of doing. Doxxing, too.

Extreme political views and communities are especially bad on reddit. Tons of digital ink has been spilled on extreme right wing communities on that site, but, strangely, they never seem terribly interested in the equally crazy leftist subreddits on there. I guess this is to be expected with communities like r/late_stage_capitalism and whatnot, but r/politics, one of the bigger subs on the site, has been totally radicalized. I browse it every day and routinely see people calling for revolution, violence against politicians, against conservative neighbors, against supreme court judges (recently saw one highly upvoted post suggesting Justice Kennedy should be executed as a traitor for letting Trump pick his successor), etc.

Needless to say, I find this societal insanity to be both fascinating and utterly infuriating. Although I'm tired of being called, variously, a "nazi," a "soyboy," etc. so I've stopped offering my opinions online for the most part.

ON TOPIC: I saw The Equalizer 2 yesterday, and I really don't understand the lukewarm reviews. It's a fantastic movie! A definite improvement on the first one, too. This one is much more of a moody spy thriller. It still has some awesome action sequences, of course, but the film takes more time to set them up, and it's less interested in lingering on the aftermath. Denzel's healthy masculinity brings a lot of charm to the character, as it did in the first film.

@Ralizah On topic indeed!

I quite enjoyed the first film, and must admit that the reviews for the second have put me off (paying cinema prices at least). They're not unexpected, and seem to indicate the sequel I expected of such a tenuous movie reboot anyway. I can forgive Denzel a lot though, so I'll get around to it.

Have you seen the Death Wish remake? Surprisingly not awful. Willis does sometimes seem like he's in a different room to the rest of the cast; just seems like a bizarre disconnect with his performance and other people in some scenes, could be an editing thing I suppose.
But yeah, if you enjoyed The Equalizer, give Death Wish a shot.

@KALofKRYPTON I actually saw Death Wish opening weekend. It's about what I expected: a fun, if somewhat toothless remake of a classic exploitation film without the troubling racist subtext. Although the way the public reacts to his vigilante killings makes it feel a bit more like mid-series Dexter than the original Death Wish.

Ultimate Shymalan plot twist: The Sixth Sense was actually true all along and nobody on set could actually see Willis.

@Ralizah Ha!

If anyone doesn't know that one by now...!

@KALofKRYPTON There's always that one guy who gets upset when you spoil a 19 year old pop culture phenomenon with unmarked spoilers.

Robert De Niro is in talks to join Joaquin Phoenix's The Joker movie.

@WanderingBullet I still just don't understand why it's even happening...

I'd assume that since they're riffing on The Killing Joke, De Niro will be a cookie cutter mob boss pressuring Phoenix's Joseph Kerr/Jack Napier to don the Red Hood.

@KALofKRYPTON I think I withhold my judgement until I see the trailer. Besides, while Leto's performance wasn't bad, I don't think he did a great job either.

@WanderingBullet I like Phoenix, I think he's probably a good pick for the project actually. I just don't see all that much merit in it. WB could be putting their resources to work fixing their mishandling of Snyder's films, rather than falling back on their default position of pushing what they think will be instantly profitable. I assume that Leto is probably under contract for another film, and given how badly Suicide Squad was received (largely because of the studio meddling, and creating a Will Smith vehicle) and the slightly absurd state of the Batman solo film - you can bet that they aren't really in a rush to use Leto again. But The Joker sells.
It just feels cynical.

I quite like Leto's Joker. Took me a while, but the combination of genuine, fear inducing passive-aggression and the look really do work. I'd like to see the entire gamut of Joker material they filmed for Suicide Squad - I'd wager that it alone is easily better than the entire film- and potentially, the best representation of The Joker on film. (*Nicholson is great, Ledger is great - but both characterisations are bigger steps away from what I think of The Joker. The level of violence aside, Leto feels like, with a little more of perhaps what we didn't see - TAS Joker. The best Joker).