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Zack Snyder v. Superman

artician says...

What Zack Snyder lacks in general directing skills, he makes up for exponentially with his action scenes. Because of those actions scenes, Man of Steel was the first super hero film I actually enjoyed in almost forever. I get that most people loathe that film, but for me it delivered on what's been lacking from the "super hero" genre since its introduction to film: super-human, appropriately-sized destruction and chaos.

What if the World went Vegetarian?

transmorpher says...

Here are my sources, and each book is filled with thousands of references to peer reviewed published studies.

The Starch Solution, Dr. John McDougall.
Negative Calorie Effect, Dr Neal Barnard.
Power Foods for the Brain, Dr Neal Barnard.
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn.
Engine #2 Diet, Rip Esselstyn.
How Not To Die, Dr. Michael Greger

This video isn't as detailed as the books, but it's a pretty good introduction http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/

After reading these, and watching all of Dr Greger's videos, I'm now certain that there is overwhelming evidence showing how bad animal products are for health. So there is no reason to write things in a debatable way, because there is no reason to debate the truth.


We live in the Matrix and it's time for everyone to wake up.

dannym3141 said:

if you'd said things in a debatable way, presented your sources (you provide none), offered it up for discussion rather than a commandment written on a stone tablet

Hollywood Whitewashing: Last Week Tonight, Feb2016

MilkmanDan says...

"Automatically ok"? Not necessarily. But in cases where it makes sense, at a stretch even "plot sense" for the character to be there; yeah, I think that is OK.

The Last Samurai isn't a documentary. But, the general historical justification for Tom Cruise's character being in Japan is pretty much valid. Meiji was interested in the West -- clothes, technology, weapons, and military. He actually did hire Westerners to train his army, although from what I read it sounds like they were German, French, and Italian rather than American. Still, the movie portrays the general situation/setting with at least *decent* broad-strokes historical accuracy. LOADS of movies deviate from even this degree of historical accuracy *way* more without drawing complaints; particularly if their main purpose is entertainment and not education / documentary.


Your hypothetical reverse movie makes some valid criticisms. Even though it would have been historically possible for a Westerner to be in Japan at the time -- even to be involved with training a Western-style military -- it would be unlikely for such a person to get captured, run into a Shogun that speaks English, become a badass (or at least passable) samurai warrior, and end up playing a major role in politics and significantly influencing Emperor Meiji.

My defense against those criticisms is that, for me at least, the movie is entertaining; which is kinda the point. Your "Union Samurai" movie might be equally entertaining and therefore given an equal pass on historical inaccuracies by me.

The whole characters as a "lens through which the audience can appreciate a culture/history outside their own" issue is (slightly) more weighty to me. I don't think those are often necessary, but I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted if the movie maker feels that they are in order to sell tickets.

I love the Chinese historical novel "Three Kingdoms". A few years ago, John Wu made the movie "Red Cliff", mostly about one particular battle in the historical period portrayed in that book. For the Chinese audience, Wu made the movie in two parts, summed up about four and a half hours long. For the US / West, he made a version trimmed to just over two hours. Why? Because he (and a team of market researchers, I'm sure) knew that very few Westerners would go to see a 4+ hour long movie, entirely in Mandarin Chinese (with subtitles), about a piece of Chinese history from ~1800 years ago that very few in the West have ever heard of or know anything about.

I think the full 4+ hour long movie is great. In my personal top 10 favorite movies of all time, ahead of most Hollywood stuff. But I also understand that there's no way that movie would appeal to all but a tiny, tiny fraction of Western viewers in that full-on 4+ hour format. But, even though I personally think the cut-down 2 hour "US" version is drastically inferior to the full cut, I am glad that he made it because it gives a suitably accurate introduction to the subject matter to more people in the West (just like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Dynasty Warriors" videogames do), and makes that tiny, tiny fraction of Western people that know anything about it a little less tiny. While being entertaining along the way.

For other movies, sometimes the best way that a filmmaker can sell a movie to an audience that otherwise might not accept it (at least in large enough numbers to justify the production costs) may be to insert one of these "lens" characters for the audience to identify with. I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with that. It might not work for movies that are taking a more hardline approach to historical / contextual accuracy (ie., if Tom Cruise showed up in "Red Cliff" in circa 200AD China), but outside of those situations, if that is what the studio thinks it will take to sell tickets... Cool.

The Last Samurai is, like @ChaosEngine said, a movie primarily about an outsider learning a new culture (and accepting his own past). He serves as that lens character, but actually the hows and whys of his character arc are the main points of interest in the movie, at least to me.

I'm sure that an awesome, historically accurate movie could be made dealing with young Emperor Meiji, Takamori (who Katsumoto seems to be based on in The Last Samurai), and the influence of modernization on Japanese culture at the time. It could be made with no Western "lens" character, no overt influence by any particular individual Westerner, and be entirely in Japanese. But that movie wouldn't be The Last Samurai, wouldn't be attempting to serve the same purpose as The Last Samurai, and very likely wouldn't sell as many tickets (in the US) as The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise!) did. That wouldn't make it a worse movie, just an apple instead of an orange.

Babymech said:

Wait what? Is it automatically ok if the skewed / whitewashed role is written into the script? You do know that this kind of skew doesn't come about by the kkk kidnapping black actors at gunpoint in the middle of filming and replacing them with white ones?

If a Japanese director were to make a movie about the civil war, but chose to make it about a Japanese fighter who comes to the US, becomes the most kickass soldier of the Union, makes personal friends with Lincoln, and convinces him to stay the course on emancipation... that would be pretty weird, even if the argument went that this was the only way a Japanese audience could identify with this obscure historic time.

Bernie's New Ad. This is powerful stuff for the Heartland

enoch (Member Profile)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Official Trailer 2

dannym3141 says...

Obvious parallels with the Avengers here, which is odd because the first half of the trailer looked like a gritty, tense standoff between two legends of comic books only to be followed by an action-has-no-consequences, special effects driven, quip marathon with extra characters shoe-horned in (presumably for sex appeal, or am i being too pessimistic?)

There was little chance in the superhero genre (that's enjoying such popularity right now) to build up a strong female superhero that has her own story and relevance. To me, Johanssen's character is nowhere near as deep or involved as the other Avengers are, to the point i can't even remember the character's name but i definitely can remember what she wears. Given that opportunity with Wonder Woman, why is she being introduced as an aside to Batman and Superman? That undermines her right from the start in my view - the male characters all seem to have had their own individual films as introduction.

What i mean is, just as it is for boys, you'd want a young girl to imagine themselves as Wonder Woman and be the centre of focus, in command, important and everyone wants your input or help. In this case, it seems the best you can do is help out her male colleagues with their critically important work, where they both go "oh i thought she was with you."

Star Trek: Renegades (Episode 1)

jmd says...

Wow.. so.. a lot of good.. a lot of bad. Actor performances and writing were all over the board. The seasoned actors were all awesome, and sean young who at first seamed out of place turned out a wonderful performance as Dr Lucien and a hopeful character. The space sequences were numerous and well done with great ship models. Pyrotechnics were kept minimal as those are still hard to do in style in CG so its best to keep it good or keep it out.

The bad how ever. The klaxon mining facility was just all kinds of horribleness. The bad layering, the over the top and ridiculous amounts of shooting flames, and the cherry on the top is the introduction to the main bad guy race with their mask straight out of planet of the apes. I seriously can't believe someone though those were a go for filming. Also most of the planet intro scenes are more of a neo electro artistic style rather than something that looks real. This is a bit surprising since I would think the "animated paintings" from enterprise and voyager era would have been pretty low cost. The worst of the performances is by Crystal Conway, chekovs great great grand daughter.

Writing was also up and down. I think the story was ok with 2 general sins being committed. #1 a little to much backstory stuffed into the first 30 minutes. Icheb's borg roots were uncomfortably recited in a full scene in front of his own crew who would have already known this, and should have instead been a few lines to say he was a borg and then leaving his origin story for a later date. And #2, a lot of plot points like the doorway placed on earth ahead of time and being able to transport through the time distortion seem awfully convenient and tries to absolve the episode from going any farther in complexity. This is a pretty big sin when you consider these need to be %90 self contained episodes. Also it seems no matter how bad you are or how much of an outlaw you are, finding you in the star trek universe is one scene away. I do have to give props to Corin Nemec as the captain of the other ship. His crew is actually pretty bad but I liked him. I was sad to see his script called for more shooting and less investigating. Also I feel bad for the horrible looking bridge set they built him.

Still in the end, I am a big supporter for more star trek. I loved voyager and I think the renegade crew is actually in good shape. Lexxa, is not BAD but needs more work. Like another comment I read, she doesn't seem very smart about anything, no hidden talents. Her fighting is pretty horrible and scripted, and while she pulls the bad girl image off, she lacks the muscle or fancy footwork to look like she could actually hold her own physically.

Ronara was largely forgettable and suffered from the same origin scene stuffing scene sin as Icheb. Chekovs 2 girls on the other hand look like good additions and I think they pulled the female andorian well. Nothing dramatic in their acting but at this point, not sucking is a good thing.

Unfortunately who knows how many years till we see eps 2. I seem to recall this one finished its kickstarter long ago but delayed heavily.

Magic In Your Mind Review

Bengal kitty is barely Husky tolerant

poolcleaner says...

Precisely.

I've found it helps to introduce the cat to the dog when it's a kitten; doesn't matter what age the dog is, however, as every dog I've owned usually enjoys the introduction of a new kitten no matter what age it is.

Older cats, on the other hand... yeesh. You never know. They may have permanent grudges that end with a scratched up dog nose.

NirnRoot said:

What we have here is a translation issue: a clear example of how cats and dogs simply do not understand each other's body language.

Montreal Swing Riot Invitational Battle Pt 2 - Swing vs Funk

SIAM 7X DUAL SCREEN SMARTPHONE - OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION

OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION - SIAM 7X DUAL SCREEN SMARTPHONE

DUAL SCREEN SMARTPHONE - SIAM 7X (PROMO VIDEO)

Understanding the Financial Crisis in Greece

radx says...

Pure quality by John, as usual.

There are a few points I'd like to add, in order of appearance.

5:10 – Greek default or Grexit could be manageable by the rest of the EZ, economically. Italy looks a bit shaky and Spain still looks like shit, so things could spiral out of control, but chances would be better now than they were in, say, 2010.

However, Grexit would be a political nightmare. EZ membership is supposed to be irreversible, so Grexit would reduce the Euro from a common currency to a peg when viewed from the outside. That's open season on the rest of the PIIGS. If Greek then rebounds, other people might very well decide to give Germany the finger and leave as well. If Greece fails, you have a NATO member turn into a failed state, which not only gives NATO the shivers, but also buries any notion of solidarity within the EU. This union survives because of the promises it makes, which include increasing standards of living and solidarity among different peoples. Without it, we're left with... what exactly?

And nevermind the humanitarian catastrophe taking part in Greece. We've conditioned ourselves to block out the pain and suffering of people in Africa. We even manage to shrug at the cesspool of corruption that is Kosovo. But if we do that to Greece as well, what little moral authority Europe might still have left would be gone then.

5:32 – The last payment Greece received was in August, long before Syriza took over. The previous government was in disagreement with the Troika and therefore transfers were frozen.

5:57 – Troika payments are required to service previous debt obligations. They are separate from what the Greek banks require to maintain their liquidity. That would be Emergency Liquidiy Assistance (ELA) from the ECB, which is a different thing entirely, even though it comes from a member of the Troika.

The ECB is bound by law to maintain and ensure the stability of the banking system(s) within the EZ. If a bank runs into liquidity problems, support is provided by the national bank of the respective country, which funnels funds from the ECB to the troubled bank. That's ELA, and a limit on ELA is a limit on the amount of funds that banks can draw from through this process. If an illiquid bank is cut off from ELA, it goes belly up. Bad idea.

Some argue that the ECB should not provide ELA to those Greek banks anymore, since they are insolvent, and ECB rules forbid ELA to insolvent banks. But as Varoufakis said, even the ECB's own Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) department, which is the new banking oversight, declares the four large Greek banks to be solvent. So there is no reason for the ECB to cut ELA to Greek banks. It's all political, and the ECB is designed to be outside of politics. That's also a reason why its membership in the Troika is so controversial.

The political argument for cutting off ELA is that Germany et al. are on the hook for the total amount should Greece itself go belly up. Somewhere along the line, someone made the glorious decision to install the ECB as a currency issuer without providing it with the attributes of a regular currency issuer. If the Bank of Japan or the Bank of England racks up losses, noone cares. They issue their own currency, they cannot go bankrupt, whatever debt they have in their books is irrelevant, for this discussion anyways. But the ECB has to balance its books, it has to receive funds from its members to balance losses, and in proportion to their economic size.

They made sure that politicians can scare the demos by pointing out how they have to foot the bill for this shit, even though it's the one entity where debt truly doesn't matter at all.

By the way, the funds that Greece is hoping to acquire are meant, primarily, for two purposes: making debt payments and to provide financial room to convert ECB(?) debt into EFSF debt (4% interest down to 1%). That's all. No spending.

6:54 – "Printing" money is generating demand out of thin air. There is a shortage of demand throughout the entire continent. So yeah, if the folks at the ECB could type in a few numbers, that would be swell.

Even Germany has a shortage of demand. We are merely hiding it behind the €200b+ of demand that we steal from other countries, i.e. our current account surplus. But the infrastructure and investment spending over here is at all time lows. We'd need an additional €200b+ just to get the infrastructure back to the state it was in a decade ago.

There is no productivity growth in Europe. The UK actually lost a lot of productivity by its introduction of zero hour jobs and other forms of slavery. Without sufficient demand, there is no need to improve production capacities – they can't even sell what they could produce right now.

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