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Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

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Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#351

It's not a coincidence that all the main characters featured in this video are women. The main thing the filmmakers are trying to show is that these are girl-bosses who can do anything men can do (and more) and it's so important to show that with utter, relentless completeness, that they've created characters that are magical, who don't need to overcome anything, characters who matter mostly as individuals, who have…

I think captain marvel is an interesting one on this note. It is a problem in recent films that writers want to overpower women to make things fair, and they do a disservice to the women by doing so. Captain marvel seems to address this directly and in a more mature way. Her character does start weak. She is shown losing repeated to her officer in physical fights and feeling inferior. Later she becomes the most power…

,, I think captain marvel is an interesting one on this note. It is a problem in recent films that writers want to overpower women to make things fair, and they do a disservice to the women by doing so’’

It’s about making money: social media gives young pretty women more power than any other large group of people ever in human history (especially if they give up their morals), and of course many of them want to believe that that power is not going away, and they don’t have to do anything to keep this power.

In the past 30 year old women were very responsible, but nowdays I know people who just optimize their poses on instagram to hide the weight that they gain by partying and getting drunk every night.

Of course it’s just some poeple who this kind of life, it just got much easier to do using internet, so the temptation is much stronger.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> English is a rather unusual language that the meaning is mostly carried only by consonants, while vowels are almost meaningless. Sorry but this sounds like nonsense. Vowel distinctions absolutely matter in English. Think of how many words would be indistinguishable otherwise: bout, bought, bet, bat, bit, beet, boot, boat, bite, but, and bait are all distinguished from each other only by a vowel. (And, yes, these al…

I get that, but it matters very little in a typical sentence. I bet you could understand almost everything with all vowels replaced with schwas.

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Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted both you and Buldak because I'm certain there's something to what you're saying. Few things are monocausal or completely explained by one factor. And surely these modern filmmaking tropes feedback on themselves and reinforce prevailing styles. Mine isn't any kind of grand unifying theory. I just think it's a factor.

There's a little bit of gender role in there: Male assholes (ex: Rick from Rick and Morty, Nolan's Batman, Downy's Iron Man) are fun and interesting to watch. Female assholes are much, much harder to write (Amanda Waller, Suicide Squad, seems to be the best written one in recent films?) I guess there's explicitly "female" movies, like "Devil Wears Prada" where that kind of behavior is more acceptable (Miranda Priestl…

This comment made me replay 2021 cruella in my head a bit.. the successful female asshole is successful since she does not play fair.. the younger female gets to be an asshole cuz she is poor / parents taken away (?) She then becomes a different asshole caring for only herself and single success, which her long time friends dislike.. then she gets to be a more sinister asshole because she has proof her victims have been more sinister (?)

the female lead was the same as devil wears prada right? so the typecast / emotional prejudice was already embedded..

I can see how this stuff is hard to write, once of the suicide squads tried so hard it should of just made up new characters imho.

but then this particular formula seems so easy to write - main characters get to do really bad things to people cuz those people did really bad things.

I guess this is the main appeal of spiderman type projects - they limit the bad things done to bad people (?)

I put question marks because my study and recollection of these things is of a real interest, but not well versed research / knowledge. I'm sure there is much more.

Frankly I've been disappointed in what movies/media/tv shows / social sharing - all this stuff has been teaching for lessons for a long time, I can't think of much that is done well for non-awful lessons I guess.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are adults enjoying things clearly meant for kids? There are many potential reasons. Abnegation, power fantasy, sense pleasure, social cohesion (being able to discuss with your peers what's in the zeitgeist). I could spend a paragraph on each of these and why they are reasonable for adults. Your attitude is narrow minded, and you've resorted to insults to try to make your point on several occasions, rather than…

Quoted post unavailable.

Hey, I'm out. You are too intense to have a nice conversation with. You seem really angry about this, maybe it's worth interrogating that.

Can't have a conversation with someone who is just yelling.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#356
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The episode of Fly is a good example how well BB portrayed character's personality. That was a pointless filler episode that only got made because they ran out of money.

Sometimes creativity comes from constraints.

But it was the worst episode...

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#357
post #48

I think I agree with the thrust of the video. My caveats would be: 1) When anybody dunks on "modern movies", they mean "modern movies with $>100m marketing budgets". Which is actually a small minority of modern movies. 2) The messaging has changed, but movies have always had terrible messaging in them. Edit: Maybe it's a bad idea to say this out loud, but when you get protagonists who are "just born preternaturally a…

> Maybe it's a bad idea to say this out loud, but when you get protagonists who are "just born preternaturally awesome", they're generally female, right? I'm not sure the same trend applies for male protagonists. Do you watch many superhero movies? Because I feel like you must not. Many of the characters are literal gods , and many more are just uncannily good at everything because of some hand wavey backstory. Even…

I think it's more about the stakes, obstacles, "psychic wounds" etc, than the actual superpowers. Being born with superpowers isn't that big a deal, if you're in a film where every other significant character also has superpowers.

Spider-man lets his uncle die because he's busy showing off. Batman in The Dark Knight "has no cartilage in his knees, scar tissue on his kidneys, concussive damage to his brain, and a host of other issues". Bruce Banner is subject to fits of uncontrollable rage. Logan is dying and in constant pain. Doctor Strange's hands are mutilated due to a car crash caused by his own arrogance.

IIRC Wonder Woman has a naivity due to growing up on a remote island populated by women, but she's basically confident and hypercompetent throughout. Captain Marvel's big issue is she's forgotten she has galactically important superpowers. Black Widow's character has a bit more going on, and I liked the film better than the other two. But, I think there is a difference between the amount of freedom big budget movie screenwriters have with male and female characters.

At lower budgetary levels, you're more likely to see women with less straightforwardly heroic characters, facing more interesting or engaging stakes.

Before Captain Marvel Brie Larson was doing great indie flicks like Room and Free Fire. She's said she was quite conflicted about taking the role, and I can't blame her for taking the money but I think I understand her hesitation.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#358
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of the third paragraph? To protect yourself from criticism?

From a certain kind of boring, predictable, repetitive criticism that's unresponsive to any of the actual points I made in my comment, yes. It either worked or I was too pessimistic, because the responses so far have been substantive and interesting!

And I was downvoted for asking the question.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A response to your edit, I was on a zoom call with current musical editors / producers and that is 100% part of the problem. Many of today's actors /actresses almost mumble their lines and make it absolute hell for the audio people to pick them up, whereas theatre trained individuals were loud and enunciate the crap out of everything.

> Many of today's actors /actresses almost mumble their lines and make it absolute hell for the audio people to pick them up, whereas theatre trained individuals were loud and enunciate the crap out of everything. There's zero correlation between how loud someone says their lines and how loud they are in the resulting mix when ADR is used. There is a limit to how far you can push this for lines recorded live because…

Are lines ever recorded live? I imagined that they almost always re-record them in a sound booth later, it just seems like it would be so hard to get good sound on-set in most circumstances.

Re: Modern movies teach us awful lessons [video]

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of today's actors /actresses almost mumble their lines and make it absolute hell for the audio people to pick them up, whereas theatre trained individuals were loud and enunciate the crap out of everything. There's zero correlation between how loud someone says their lines and how loud they are in the resulting mix when ADR is used. There is a limit to how far you can push this for lines recorded live because…

Are lines ever recorded live? I imagined that they almost always re-record them in a sound booth later, it just seems like it would be so hard to get good sound on-set in most circumstances.

Yes, on-set audio is often used if possible. Re-recording is a bunch of extra work (you need to pay your potentially quite expensive actors for), needs matching, might not be as "in-the-moment" as the original, ... But re-recording is of course done where needed.
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