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Ho Lee Fuk.

While that opening fight scene felt too choreographed, it's still awesome to see her in an extended hands-on-violence scene all shot in a single take! American movies far too often turn every punch in a fight scene into pile of a dozen different cuts spliced together.

Overall, this looks pretty killer to me. I can't wait until it's released [on TPB].

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https://videosift.com/video/Gorillaz-Feel-Good-Inc-Gayageum-cover-by-Luna-Lee

Couldn't agree more! The writer is pretty fresh and the director(s) are stunt guys. Beyond that, I don't know much about the production, but both John Wick and John Wick 2 are precise and well choreographed gunfu with elements of the Matrix/Indigo Prophecy, Hitman, Assassin's Creed, Bruce Lee movies, and on and on. Star power, as well.

I have Jack Reacher (same writer as Usual Suspects), John Wick, Collateral (Michael Mann), and Jason Bourne in the same stack.

In 2002, when I was studying film I had a chance to listen to Doug Liman, the director of The Bourne Identity talk about the making of the film. He hadn't really done much at the time, but now he's in the thick of these highly stylized, star powered, accurate (bullet count, stunts, etc.) Action flicks.

Samantha Bee - Heart-On: Lee Gelernt Edition has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.

Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

Top 10 Jackie Chan Stunts has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

Jackie Chan Picks a Fight with Bruce Lee...and Loses has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

I love this movie. Can you imagine the uproar if someone in the west tried to make a movie where the hero gets his "power" from being drunk?

And in case anyone didn't realise that Jackie Chan is awesome... required watching:
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Jackie-Chan-How-to-Do-Action-Comedy
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Top-10-Jackie-Chan-Stunts
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Jackie-Chan-Picks-a-Fight-with-Bruce-Lee-and-Loses

Bobby Lee is pretty funny. *promote

Thanks Rad. I would still imply that there IS a purpose to the refrigerator angle and "rant" form rather than "report" form. The opinion is strong but the reporting is meh.

Glen Greenwald is weak. A journalist should only breach privacy if there is a crime or significant damage to "public interest" involved (oversimplified). What is the crime?

Lee Fang - I see his point on banks and fracking and being a two-faced liar. I understand how exposing this is worthwhile to hurt Hillary. I just see this as repeating the words "email scandal" ad nauseam without enough substance.

You cant read your neighbors mail, hoping to prove they killed someone, and then inform the public that the mail proves they are an unpleasant person.

The claim "if someone had stolen the e-mails sooner she might have lost to Bernie" is just plain funny.

That's not "underground" reporting. It's Jordan Chariton of TYT, providing additional content besides the more professional coverage straight from the trail. Unlike CNN, they don't have the personnel to create everything in a studio, so it's either this sort of coverage through Facebook videos or no coverage at all.

And frankly, I prefer this less-than-professional coverage with actual content over CNN's professional coverage without content.

As for the question whether it's ok to expose these emails, Glenn Greenwald covered it yesterday.

Finally, whether or not there's anything worth reporting: Lee Fang on Democracy Now.

*Warning I've only gone and done yet another wall of text again! This may or may not get read by anyone on here (good god I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping it), but at the very least it's formed the backbone to a video script so it's not a complete waste of my time! (he tells himself)*

This is as much @bareboards2 as yourself, but he already made it clear he wasn't willing to engage on the issue, so you're getting it instead MWAHAHAHHAHA! *coughs*

I don't wish this to come across as over condescending (though I'm sure it will none the less as I'm in one of those moods). But pretty much every (successful) comedy premise operates on the same underlying principle of irony. i.e. there is an expectation or understanding, which is deliberately subverted, and what results is comedy.

In this case, amongst other things we have the understood premises that:
A. rape is a bad, often horrific thing.
B. that there is an established social taboo about praising such behaviour.
C. that there is a section of society inherently opposed to making light of things of which they do not approve (or in a way in which they do not approve)
D. most words and phrases have an expected association and meaning.

What Jim Jefferies (an accomplished and well respected comedies amongst his peers) has done here, is take these commonly understood premises and subverted the audiences normal expectations in order to evoke a sense of irony, from which the audience derives humour and amusement.

A simple joke might take a single such premise and perform a single inversion of our expectation. e.g. my dog has no nose, how does he smell?....terrible!

By subverting our assumed meaning (that the missing nose refers to the dogs implied lack of olfactory senses), the joke creates basic irony by substituting this expected meaning for that of the odour of the dog itself.

This is of course a terrible joke, because it is as simple as a joke could be. It has only one layer of irony and lacks any sense of novelty which, might tip such a terrible joke into working for any other than the very young or simple minded.

We could of course attempt to boost this joke by adding more levels of irony contextually. e.g. a very serious or complex comedian Like say Stuart Lee, could perhaps deliver this joke in a routine and get a laugh by being completely incongruous with his style and past material.

And herein we see the building blocks from which any sophisticated professional comedy routine is built. By layering several different strands or ironic subversion, a good comedian can begin to make a routine more complex and often more than just the sum of its parts to boot.

In this case, Jim is taking the four main premises listed above, layering them and trying to find the sweetest spot of subverted expectation for each. (something which usually takes a great deal of skill and experience at this level)

He mentions the fact that his jokes incite outrage in a certain section of society because this helps to strengthen one of the strands of irony with which he is playing. The fact that he also does so in a boastful tone is itself a subversion, it is understood by the audience that he does not/should not be proud of being merely offensive and as such we have yet another strand of irony thrown into the mix.

You know how better music tends to have more and/or more complex musical things happening at once? It is the same with comedy. The more ironic threads a comedian can juggle around coherently, the more sophisticated and adept their routines could be considered to be.

Naturally as with music there's no accounting for taste as you say. Some people simply can't get past a style or associations of a given musician or song (or painting or whatever).

But dammit Jim is really one of the greats right now. Like him or lump him, the dude is pretty (deceptively) masterful at his craft.

There are at least 4-5 major threads of irony built into this bit and countless other smaller ones besides. He dances around and weaves between them like some sort of comedy ballerina. Every beat has been finely tuned over months of gig's (and years of previous material) to strike the strongest harmonies between these strands and probe for the strongest sense of dissonance in the audience. Not to mention, tone of voice, stance, timing etc.

I think Ahmed is basically terrible too, but it is because the jokes lack much semblance of complexity or nuance. Jeff Dunham's material in general feels extremely simple and seems like it uses shock as a mere crutch, rather than something deeper and more intelligent.

Taste is taste, but I feel one can to a reasonable extent criticise things like the films of Michael Bay, or the music of Justin Beiber for being objectively shallow by breaking down their material into its constituent parts (or lack thereof).

Likewise one could take the music of Wagner and while not enjoying the sound of it, still examine the complexity of it's composition and the clear superiority of skill Wagner had over most of this peers.

I guess what all this boils down to is, Jim seems to me to be clearly very very good at what he does (as he ought after all these years). Reducing his act to mere controversy feels a lot like accusing Black Sabbath of just making noise and using satanic imagery to get attention (or insert other less out of date example here).

The jokes were never at the expense of victims, they are at the expense of our expectations. He makes his own true feelings on the matter abundantly clear towards the end of the section.

As as he says himself his job is to say funny things, not to be a social activist.

I take no issue with you not liking it, but I do take issue with the suggestion that it is somehow two dimensional, or for that matter using controversy cheaply.

Offensive initial premises are some of the most ironically rich in comedy. It's like deliberately choosing the brightest paints when trying to create a striking painting. Why would you avoid the strongest materials because some people (not in your audience) find the contrast too striking?

Eh, much love anyway. This was more an exercise in intellectual masturbation than anything else. Not that I didn't mean all of it sincerely.

i LOVE stewart lee. genius.