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sure criticism is subjective but who are you gonna believe, literally the most esteemed film critic of all time or a literal retard.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 16:13 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:21 |
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im sorry to have called u a retard but im eberts widow and wont take this slander.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 16:14 |
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Judge Clayjar posted:im sorry to have called u a retard but im eberts widow and wont take this slander. Condolences.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 16:17 |
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theflyingorc posted:I disagreed with Ebert about tons of stuff, but if you think there's something seriously wrong with his "what movies should be judged on" mantra you are a very stupid person IMO Still, saying, "Current Releases is really bad by Roger Ebert's standards, and you should pay attention to what Roger Ebert says about criticism," is infinitely better than Pirate Jet's "NUH-UH ACTUALLY HE WAS WRONG not that I'll make any points of my own" bullshit.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 17:03 |
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Sham bam bamina! posted:He was absolutely right, but it's not enough to just cite him when you're dealing with someone who clearly has the opposite mindset from the beginning; that's not going to go anywhere. He was only one guy - it's the ideas themselves that matter, and they're right on their own merits. quote:Still, saying, "Current Releases is really bad by Roger Ebert's standards, and you should pay attention to what Roger Ebert says about criticism," is infinitely better than Pirate Jet's "NUH-UH ACTUALLY HE WAS WRONG not that I'll make any points of my own" bullshit.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 17:32 |
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Pirate Jet posted:The Gone Girl review isn't even a review. The first rule of critical thought is basically "don't get indignantly self-righteous" and CR breaks it in spades. The Gone Girl review does almost nothing to tell you what the author thought about the movie, what they got out of it, what they think it "means," or anything like that. Up until the very last "MRAs will love it" question, I thought the author was going to praise it for how Goddamn ridiculous the movie got (which is not a bad thing.) It's a list of the things in the movie that the author was offended by. It's literally a ten-paragraph trigger warning. With the Gone Girl review, I think a relevant question would be: Would it be funny or novel to have an advice-column format with a fictional male serial killer, in which he responds to each query by detailing one of his gruesome murders? Maybe funnier. But to me the presumption that women like Gillian Flynn shouldn't be able to create dynamic, competent villainous female characters is more patronizing and inherently misogynistic than anything about Gone Girl, a black comedy that satirizes marriage by stretching gender assumptions about heterosexual partners to grotesque extremes. And to decry Amy's character as being MRA propaganda is to ignore that Nick is the kind of hapless-schlub husband character that posters on actual MRA sites spend a lot of energy protesting. In the CineD Gone Girl thread, FourLeaf asks if people considered Do The Right Thing racist because it "includes all sorts of negative stereotypes racists say about black people." I had the same thought when reading the CR review, but about Bamboozled. Is Spike Lee catering to Klan members with these films, the equivalent of the Gillian Flynn MRA argument? Or do accusations like this represent terribly misguided analysis regarding social satire?
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 18:25 |
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Still, saying, "Current Releases is really bad by Roger Ebert's standards, and you should pay attention to what Roger Ebert says about criticism," is infinitely better than Pirate Jet's "NUH-UH ACTUALLY HE WAS WRONG not that I'll make any points of my own" bullshit. It's been less than a day, yeesh, give me some time. A movie is an inanimate object. It doesn't have thoughts or feelings, it doesn't have have goals or ideals, and it certainly doesn't have any intentions. Defining a movie's quality by "how well does it accomplish what it intended" is a fool's exercise because there's no way to measure what a movie intends. Even if you don't believe in "death of the author*," that old CineD chestnut, it's impossible to say that a movie shares intentions with its creators because movies take thousands of man-hours from hundreds of people to be made. The classic argument is that Ridley Scott doesn't think that Deckard is a replicant, but Harrison Ford does. Who's correct!? They were both involved in the character's creation! The answer is neither of them are technically "correct," and the ambiguity and people discussing what THEY thought the answer was is what makes the movie fun. *This phrase gets abused a lot by CineD to mean to basically ignore every tertiary piece of info about a movie, when really it just means that everyone's interpretation of a movie is valid (and just as worthy of criticism), including the author's. This mutated definition is probably what lead to CineD declaring the movie as "misogynist garbage!" when it was written and single-handedly adapted to the screen by a woman (who has said that feminism in literature depends on female villains just as much as female heroes), and directed by a guy who's made multiple movies touching on the pressure on men to be masculine. garbage day posted:With the Gone Girl review, I think a relevant question would be: Would it be funny or novel to have an advice-column format with a fictional male serial killer, in which he responds to each query by detailing one of his gruesome murders? Maybe funnier. But to me the presumption that women like Gillian Flynn shouldn't be able to create dynamic, competent villainous female characters is more patronizing and inherently misogynistic than anything about Gone Girl, a black comedy that satirizes marriage by stretching gender assumptions about heterosexual partners to grotesque extremes. And to decry Amy's character as being MRA propaganda is to ignore that Nick is the kind of hapless-schlub husband character that posters on actual MRA sites spend a lot of energy protesting. Yep, I agree completely. Thanks for phrasing it better than I ever could. Pirate Jet fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Oct 16, 2014 |
# ? Oct 16, 2014 20:28 |
Pirate Jet posted:It's been less than a day, yeesh, give me some time. There's no way to measure what a movie intends, and yet interpreting Casablanca as a fantasy epic would be either a joke or a sign of severe brain damage.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 21:16 |
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It's also really, really hard to be effective at something you didn't set out to do in a work of art. I've never seen a comedy that made me have an existential crisis, I've never been entertained by the high-intensity action of a British Period drama. Citing a film like Blade Runner that where two people involved have a different opinion on it's ambiguity basically shows that the movie succeeded in it's aim of being ambiguous. (Fine, the creative team succeeded, if I can't use metaphor and shorthand for some weird reason).
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 21:29 |
theflyingorc posted:It's also really, really hard to be effective at something you didn't set out to do in a work of art. I've never seen a comedy that made me have an existential crisis, I've never been entertained by the high-intensity action of a British Period drama. For that matter, in a case like that, there's generally often a stronger answer and you can determine it from the rest of the movie. In the case of Blade Runner, it (arguably) weakens Deckard and the movie if he's a replicant.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 21:35 |
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Pirate Jet posted:Even if you don't believe in "death of the author*," that old CineD chestnut, it's impossible to say that a movie shares intentions with its creators because movies take thousands of man-hours from hundreds of people to be made. The classic argument is that Ridley Scott doesn't think that Deckard is a replicant, but Harrison Ford does. Who's correct!? They were both involved in the character's creation! The answer is neither of them are technically "correct," and the ambiguity and people discussing what THEY thought the answer was is what makes the movie fun. I like how you tried to use Blade Runner here in your post but don't even know enough about it to know that it was Ridley Scott who's claiming Deckard was a replicant, and Harrison Ford saying "Wait, what? No he wasn't."
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 21:39 |
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:I like how you tried to use Blade Runner here in your post but don't even know enough about it to know that it was Ridley Scott who's claiming Deckard was a replicant, and Harrison Ford saying "Wait, what? No he wasn't." I made a simple mistake of switching the two around, sorry! It doesn't invalidate the rest of my argument.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 21:52 |
Pirate Jet posted:I made a simple mistake of switching the two around, sorry! It doesn't invalidate the rest of my argument. So does it make equal amounts of sense for Casablanca to be interpreted as: a) a sword-and-sandals fantasy movie b) a period piece c) a drama with heavy political overtones
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 21:56 |
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Effectronica posted:So does it make equal amounts of sense for Casablanca to be interpreted as: It's actually a very avant-garde porno
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 22:34 |
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Pirate Jet posted:A movie is an inanimate object. It doesn't have thoughts or feelings, it doesn't have have goals or ideals, and it certainly doesn't have any intentions. Defining a movie's quality by "how well does it accomplish what it intended" is a fool's exercise because there's no way to measure what a movie intends. Then you have something like Strange Days, which sets itself up to be an indictment of systemic police injustice and in the final act reveals that there were only two bad apples the whole time. It's a neutered film - its last-minute attempt to avoid being offensively radical undermines the impact of the streets full of armored, violent police officers that you see over the previous two hours. Again, the intent is obvious, and (for far different reasons; this reeks of outside interference) it is again executed ineffectively. The entire point of art in general, let alone cinema, is to invoke some kind of response in the audience. A well-made film is focused on producing such a response - whatever it may be - effectively; the response to a badly-made one is blunted or outright contradictory. Intent is a major factor in this, and that is why Ebert gave it such consideration. Pirate Jet posted:Even if you don't believe in "death of the author*," that old CineD chestnut, it's impossible to say that a movie shares intentions with its creators because movies take thousands of man-hours from hundreds of people to be made. The classic argument is that Ridley Scott doesn't think that Deckard is a replicant, but Harrison Ford does. Who's correct!? They were both involved in the character's creation! The answer is neither of them are technically "correct," and the ambiguity and people discussing what THEY thought the answer was is what makes the movie fun. In fact, your example shows exactly the kind of dissonance that deliberately ignoring a film's intent can produce. Scott may find a Replicant Deckard more interesting, but it's too late to change the mindset that actually produced the movie. (His attempt to Lucas his way out of this with the unicorn shot only makes things worse - the origami unicorn makes far more sense as a symbol of the futility in Deckard's and Rachael's life to come than as part of whatever the hell is supposed to be going on with the dream, if only because it follows the pattern of the chicken and the erect man from earlier on.) Wait a minute; I completely forgot your other posts in this thread. If this is a dead end and we both agree on Current Releases being bad, then who cares if we disagree on why it's bad? And we might not even disagree on that; it might just be a misunderstanding. I apologize if this has been a pointless discussion. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Oct 17, 2014 |
# ? Oct 16, 2014 22:49 |
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theflyingorc posted:I disagreed with Ebert about tons of stuff, but if you think there's something seriously wrong with his "what movies should be judged on" mantra you are a very stupid person IMO Nah
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 02:33 |
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Effectronica posted:So does it make equal amounts of sense for Casablanca to be interpreted as:
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 03:11 |
TetsuoTW posted:As long as you can back your argument up, absolutely. The problem - one of them, at least - is that CR either can't or just doesn't. The broader point with those three is that the first one is basically impossible to back up in a serious way, while the second one is supportable fairly easily as long as you ignore that this 1940s "period piece" was made in 1942, as a response to, "It's impossible to determine intent at all for films".
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 04:23 |
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There's nothing wrong even with unserious readings, it's just if you're going to do that you need to have a sense of humor (which CR doesn't any more) and not come across like you think yours is the One True Reading. Also CR is meant to be reviews not critical interpretations, so this is all irrelevant bullshit that walks right around the many reasons CR sucks, such as "they don't review movies" and "the 'reviews' are pretentious, self-serious garbage".
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 04:49 |
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I feel this thread has reached the point where everyone has aired their grievances and there's nothing left but a few people repeating the same complaints to each other ad nauseum.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 04:56 |
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TetsuoTW posted:Also CR is meant to be reviews not critical interpretations, so this is all irrelevant bullshit that walks right around the many reasons CR sucks, such as "they don't review movies" and "the 'reviews' are pretentious, self-serious garbage". Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Oct 17, 2014 |
# ? Oct 17, 2014 04:58 |
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This thread has gotten as boring as your average CR review and it should have been closed at ArfJason's .gif. That's my 2 cents.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 05:45 |
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Y-Hat posted:This thread has gotten as boring as your average CR review and it should have been closed at ArfJason's .gif. That's my 2 cents. *Feeds your two cents into the katana vending machine and slices your body in half*
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 06:26 |
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systran posted:After you said you'd stop posting in this thread if I did, I stopped posting. Since then you have posted three or four times. I am not going to post here, but you are free to break your word like a big baby. Dude, you gotta say something like "Deal" or "Challenge accepted m'lady", otherwise how am I supposed to know you've agreed to the terms? It's too late now, I'ma talk about Blade Runner Effectronica posted:For that matter, in a case like that, there's generally often a stronger answer and you can determine it from the rest of the movie. In the case of Blade Runner, it (arguably) weakens Deckard and the movie if he's a replicant. I dunno if it would weaken it - the whole point is that it doesn't matter, there's no real difference between people and replicants.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 07:02 |
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Black Bones posted:Dude, you gotta say something like "Deal" or "Challenge accepted m'lady", otherwise how am I supposed to know you've agreed to the terms? sub supau fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Oct 17, 2014 |
# ? Oct 17, 2014 07:04 |
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Everyone stop posting in this thread just so Black Bones can't reply to people anymore
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 07:24 |
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Black Bones posted:Sorry, I wasn't very clear there. I was attempting to provide a quick example of when children's art can be cool and interesting, so I thought I'd read the characters of Jungle Book as representing the underclasses of the inner city. Like, Baloo is obviously homeless, Bagheera is a manic street preacher (a Black Panther!), the wolves/vultures are street punks, Louie is a gangster or lounge singer (jazz? I dunno, some kinda old-timey stuff), Kaa is I guess a pimp, Shere Khan a murderer of some sort, the elephants would be cops. All these groups want to claim the orphan Mowgli in some fashion. Black Bones posted:Then why is the last frame before the credits his smile? That and the text imply that he is enjoying the confrontation. If you have a better reading, go ahead and make it. It's fun!
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 12:02 |
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Hat Thoughts posted:Everyone stop posting in this thread just so Black Bones can't reply to people anymore I thought reading his crazy poo poo was why people are posting in here.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 20:45 |
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did nay of the CR writers come here and defend their terrible reviews im not reading 70+ pages of this thread
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 23:25 |
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zVxTeflon posted:did nay of the CR writers come here and defend their terrible reviews im not reading 70+ pages of this thread No.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 23:32 |
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Hat Thoughts posted:I feel this thread has reached the point where everyone has aired their grievances and there's nothing left but a few people repeating the same complaints to each other ad nauseum. Well, until Sunday
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# ? Oct 18, 2014 03:40 |
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Well, I'm not seeing any new reviews so let's just discuss something else. Something specific instead of the vague theory of criticism that's so poorly defined that even people arguing with each other aren't even sure what their argument is.garbage day posted:With the Gone Girl review, I think a relevant question would be: Would it be funny or novel to have an advice-column format with a fictional male serial killer, in which he responds to each query by detailing one of his gruesome murders? Maybe funnier. But to me the presumption that women like Gillian Flynn shouldn't be able to create dynamic, competent villainous female characters is more patronizing and inherently misogynistic than anything about Gone Girl, a black comedy that satirizes marriage by stretching gender assumptions about heterosexual partners to grotesque extremes. And to decry Amy's character as being MRA propaganda is to ignore that Nick is the kind of hapless-schlub husband character that posters on actual MRA sites spend a lot of energy protesting. What happens if we divorce the idea of social justice from just the general absurdities of the plot? The review in question doesn't even mention MRAs until right near the end. Until that point the criticism is mainly just over how stupid and incomprehensible the character actions are. You seem to be suggesting that we should give the movie a wide berth on the satirical element, but I think at some point we need to acknowledge that not everything is a secret satire and should probably be evaluated on some level on how most people are actually likely to interpret it, not just those of us with secret film decoder rings. Like, to bring up a random CineD anecdote, way back someone was insisting that True Lies can't possibly be racist in regards to its depiction of Arabs because it's an over-the-top parody. And it's points like this where the whole parody/satire/pastiche problem can be an issue because such an argument seems to be stating that it's impossible for any movie to be racist/sexist/whatever as long as it has jokes or is sufficiently absurd.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 02:10 |
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Some Guy TT posted:Well, I'm not seeing any new reviews so let's just discuss something else. Something specific instead of the vague theory of criticism that's so poorly defined that even people arguing with each other aren't even sure what their argument is. whats more sexist, a woman who is unusually villainous and exploitative or saying that women cant be unusually villainous and exploitative
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 02:54 |
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Where is everyone getting the idea that the review said women villains can't be unusually villainous and exploitative? Was I reading it with really weird goggles or something? What I got was "the woman villain as portrayed in this film is a delusional MRA stereotype written with no sense of self-awareness". Now, you can disagree as to whether or not this is actually the case (I haven't seen the movie so I can't judge). But you seem to be saying that simply suggesting the portrayal is problematic at all is The Real Sexism.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 03:01 |
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lol at the guy defending a humorless, wordy nerdlord by acting like a humorless, wordy nerdlord.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 03:32 |
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Some Guy TT posted:Where is everyone getting the idea that the review said women villains can't be unusually villainous and exploitative? Was I reading it with really weird goggles or something? What I got was "the woman villain as portrayed in this film is a delusional MRA stereotype written with no sense of self-awareness". i dont think u have seen the film.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 04:51 |
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Great work guys. See you next week. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 04:55 |
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Some Guy TT posted:Great work guys. You lost the argument dude
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 05:07 |
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I have inadvertent disdain for the intellects of others, too, and am frequently concerned for how a bunch of average idiots will interpret something they see on a screen. Unironically.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 05:53 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 05:21 |
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Some Guy TT posted:Great work guys. Not if I see you first toilet boy.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 06:11 |