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poparena posted:My newest requested review is up on "Who is Bugs Potter?" by Gordon Korman, a book whose main protagonist is completely blind to everyone's feelings and get's everything he wants without consequence. I hate you, Bugs Potter. I really liked "I want to go home" Here was a kid who did bad things and didn't give a poo poo. Take that, system!  Also, don't feel too bad. I'm too lazy to publish anything. 
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Mar 10, 2015 06:11
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I hate Man of Steel more than any Superhero movie out there. I love Snyder, but everything about that movie was so, so off. It was dour, and gritty for some strange reason. Yes there are colors in the movie, but the whole thing is drenched in a steely color pallet. The ending left me shocked and gave me a headache. I was hoping for something in the vein of Batman Begins, where it's a little bit darker, but it's still fun and has some charm to it. There is none of that in Man of Steel. Death and destruction with a poo poo ton of cynical product placement. I've seen the movie about 5 times now. Trying to see if maybe it was because I was in a mood, or something. Not the case with me.
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Mar 10, 2015 08:06
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Asuron posted:Not really. The first time they face off he literally slams Zod into the nearby town and then proceeds to keep the fight there even though at one point he's literally fighting in a diner with lots of other people crouching around them. They just keep slugging it out until he gets blown through a wall. Yes in Smallville Superman is temporarily blinded by rage. He stops talking to Lois in mid sentence and takes off. He then yells at Zod for a good 5 miles about attacking Ma Kent. It's only after he sees Pete Ross that he realizes what he's done and then he does try and minimize the damage. Personally I rather like this fight because it shows him learning, realizing that he always has to be in control and can't let his emotions get the better of him. quote:The second time he just punches Zod into every building he sees. I mean on its own this shouldn't be that big a deal right? But that's the problem with the movie , the tone is all over place. They try to glorify Superman as a hero but he never really does anything heroic other than beat Zod and causes more destruction by keeping it in the area. In the Avengers you had the same type of city wide destruction but you had multiple scenes where the Avengers were helping citizens, trying to move fights way from them and making that the priority. Superman is never shown to be doing any of that except to save Lois Lane repeatedly when she falls from the air which just clashes with everything the movie tries to portray him as. Superman punches Zod into exactly 1 building in the fight, which is the station at the end on their reentry from space. He scraps Zod's face across the glass of another and does cause an explosion into the side of a third building, which Zod is in the process of destroying, through the force of hitting Zod. The initial act of moving the fight from the ruined crater portion of the city to the ruined portion is also the act of Zod and not Superman. Zod is the one who is knocking Superman into buildings and causing maximum collateral damage. Superman repeatedly tries to keep the fight in the open streets, in the air, and finally in space. Zod thwarts this each time. Finally Superman manages to gain the upper hand during their reentry impact and pins Zod in the train(?) station. At which point Zod starts eye lazering in an attempt to kill people. The big problem with the Metropolis fight is that the editing doesn't work. It's supposed to be slightly confused as these two gods fight each other, often switching direction and control multiple times in the space of one attack. However Snyder, or the Editor, or whoever, fails to maintain coherence between cuts. Superman hits Zod to the right, cut, Superman flies through a building from left to right from Zod hitting him. The way the shots are cut together makes it look like Superman just knocked Zod through a building instead of it being the other way around. This happens multiple times in the fight, forcing you to work against what your brain expects from a movie. With each cut you have to reexamine the scene and ignore the previous scene's composition. If the cuts where located when we see Zod and Superman writhing around in mid air they would work better, instead the cuts most often happen with one of them knocking the other away and then cutting to a scene where their positions are reversed. CelticPredator posted:There is none of that in Man of Steel. Death and destruction with a poo poo ton of cynical product placement. Was there more product placement in Man of Steel than usual? Yes, Sears was slightly awkwardly framed into a couple of Smallville fight scenes, but by and large it was more unobtrusive than other movies I've seen. I don't think anyone awkwardly held a soda with it's label always facing the camera or name dropped products in an unnatural way. But product placement is kind of a weird thing where what bothers one person doesn't bother another.
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Mar 10, 2015 12:59
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poparena posted:My newest requested review is up on "Who is Bugs Potter?" by Gordon Korman, a book whose main protagonist is completely blind to everyone's feelings and get's everything he wants without consequence. I hate you, Bugs Potter. Written by a literal 14-year-old, I'm pretty sure. Korman got his start as a middle-school kid in the 70s after winning some kind of fiction contest, I believe for that book.
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Mar 10, 2015 13:13
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Gyges posted:Yes in Smallville Superman is temporarily blinded by rage. He stops talking to Lois in mid sentence and takes off. He then yells at Zod for a good 5 miles about attacking Ma Kent. It's only after he sees Pete Ross that he realizes what he's done and then he does try and minimize the damage. Personally I rather like this fight because it shows him learning, realizing that he always has to be in control and can't let his emotions get the better of him. Open streets are the worst place possible for a fight though. Especially when you clearly see the streets are full of people fleeing for their lives. Hell, grinding Zod against a glass building just dumps a shitload of lethal glass shards down whoever's unfortunate to be down at street-level.
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Mar 10, 2015 14:18
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Gyges posted:But product placement is kind of a weird thing where what bothers one person doesn't bother another. I'm genuinely curious: have any Internet critics ever talked about product placement in reasonable depth?
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Mar 10, 2015 14:52
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People overthinking a bad movie ITT.
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Mar 10, 2015 15:39
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Gyges posted:It's supposed to be slightly confused as these two gods fight each other, often switching direction and control multiple times in the space of one attack. However Snyder, or the Editor, or whoever, fails to maintain coherence between cuts. I love that Zod x-ray scene too. It perfectly summarises his character and his view of humanity - to retain his stability he focuses on his own clenched fist. It's essentially declaring 'I am real, and everyone else is just meat'. Meanwhile, Clark focuses on the sound of this mother's voice - on other people - as his anchor. Fundamental ideas of self-determination are being shown by how a man in a silly spacesuit deals with getting x ray vision. It's lovely. Arcsquad12 posted:People overthinking a bad movie ITT. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Mar 10, 2015 |
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Mar 10, 2015 17:57
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New Baywatching is up: The Fabulous Buchannon Boys! Mitch's sleepy brother shows up with his kid. Meanwhile, shoddy bikinis. http://phelous.com/2015/03/10/obscurus-lupa/baywatching/baywatching-the-fabulous-buchannon-boys/
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Mar 10, 2015 18:46
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Hbomberguy posted:Personally I think the Zod fight owns because it's this disorienting struggle. Gods are fighting, and the film cannot keep up with them. It is visually disturbing in this really great way. Viewers detect this and attribute it as a flaw, but it's clearly very effective. It would be like arguing that the scene where Zod's mask gets broken and he starts to see with x-ray vision was disorienting. Like, yeah! I don't think it's like Zod's x-ray vision at all. That's clearly representing the disorienting effect and the actual effect from Zod's point of view. The editing of the fight is like bad shaky cam. It's making things unclear beyond the intended usage. A muddled mess isn't an effective visual information method. You have to maintain enough clarity for the audience to be able to pull out the story.
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Mar 10, 2015 19:01
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Hbomberguy posted:
I think they were making a joke dude, simmer down a notch.
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Mar 10, 2015 20:26
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If there's any non-CineD thread for overthinking bad media in general, I'd say it's this one. Also that PYF Irrationally Irritating Movie Moments thread.
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Mar 10, 2015 20:32
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Miss Wallace posted:New Baywatching is up: The Fabulous Buchannon Boys! Mitch's sleepy brother shows up with his kid. Meanwhile, shoddy bikinis. Will the brother ever show up again, played by the same actor?
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Mar 10, 2015 20:35
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Nope! Next time he shows up he's a different guy, and he tries to pawn off his kid on Mitch. His lesson was truly learned this episode! Oh and he has a heart attack.
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Mar 10, 2015 20:46
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Jack Gladney posted:Written by a literal 14-year-old, I'm pretty sure. Korman got his start as a middle-school kid in the 70s after winning some kind of fiction contest, I believe for that book. It was "This can't be happening at MacDonald Hall" that he started out by writing in middle school. In grade school those books were pretty much required reading since Korman went to the local high school so the teachers were all over us reading books about students being assholes, oddly enough. Not that Ferris Bueller characters weren't a thing, but he really had his finger on the pulse of the early grade school wish fulfillment of being a pretty selfish and horrible person yet it turning out awesome and everyone loving him in the end, or at least his books of that era did; I grew out of his books at some point while reading one and realizing I felt pity/secondhand embarrassment for the secondary character who acts as narrator, because they were always being left cleaning up the mess of the "hero" character. Hell, even Ferris Bueller had a brief moment of regret. stillvisions fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Mar 10, 2015 |
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Mar 10, 2015 21:31
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Gyges posted:I don't think it's like Zod's x-ray vision at all. That's clearly representing the disorienting effect and the actual effect from Zod's point of view. The editing of the fight is like bad shaky cam. It's making things unclear beyond the intended usage. A muddled mess isn't an effective visual information method. You have to maintain enough clarity for the audience to be able to pull out the story. I think I approach the film from a different place though: I don't try to pre-judge the 'intended usage' and then measure the film against it, I just take it for what it is. If I wanted to use the intent argument, though, I'd bring up that we're dealing with the master of slowing things down to show total clarity, the guy behind the speed-ramping of 300 and the ultra-close-ups of Dawn of the Dead. Not slowing down, not giving you time to focus and not getting a money shot of slow motion punching is totally purposeful on the part of the creators. Snyder is a master of visuals and film is a visual medium. The film is the way it is and it conveys what it conveys. The fight between nigh-indestructible gods who can move at incomprehensible speeds is presented as so hard-to-follow, not only because it 'realistically' would be, but because it is an extension of the film's themes of losing sight of the truth and getting lost in an ocean of nonsense - hence the film's constant reliance upon imagery of drowning in water, dying in barren wastelands on distant moons - or the antarctic - and locking yourself in a closet because you just discovered everyone is made of meat and skeletons 'underneath'. That scene is repeated in the dream sequence where Clark is literally drowning in an ocean of skulls. That's good filmmaking. OldTennisCourt posted:I think they were making a joke dude, simmer down a notch.
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Mar 10, 2015 21:47
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We've had a lot of off-topic digressions over the past several pages. Know what we haven't had though? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLKZtppbm_Q
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Mar 10, 2015 21:59
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I think it's wonderful.
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Mar 10, 2015 22:06
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Hbomberguy posted:For me at least, the disorienting-ness of the fight reflects the themes of the conflict being represented and I found it knocked me off-kilter in a really entertaining way. I don't so much disagree as I think the method utilized was not optimal for that result. To go back to shaky cam, good shaky cam still allows to you understand what is going on. Bad shaky cam prevents understanding. More information is always better better and I think the information lost was greater than what was gained from the confusion.
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Mar 10, 2015 22:19
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Confusion, and information loss, was the point of the scene.
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Mar 10, 2015 22:27
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Gyges posted:I don't so much disagree as I think the method utilized was not optimal for that result. To go back to shaky cam, good shaky cam still allows to you understand what is going on. Bad shaky cam prevents understanding. More information is always better better and I think the information lost was greater than what was gained from the confusion. Isn't a huge point of shaky cam that it prevents understanding? How would a found footage film change if the camera's movement was steady and you knew what was happening at all times?
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Mar 10, 2015 22:29
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Hbomberguy posted:Confusion, and information loss, was the point of the scene. Something can be the point and still suck. See: every bad artist going, "BUT IT'S MY STYYYYYYLE!"
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Mar 10, 2015 22:43
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HorseRenoir posted:Isn't a huge point of shaky cam that it prevents understanding? A huge point of shaky cam is to hide lovely cinematography and save money on reshoots. Why try to find a better angle to make everything look good when you can just shake the camera around? General audiences can't tell the difference anyway.
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Mar 10, 2015 22:49
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Hbomberguy posted:Confusion, and information loss, was the point of the scene. It was not the only point of the scene. HorseRenoir posted:Isn't a huge point of shaky cam that it prevents understanding? How would a found footage film change if the camera's movement was steady and you knew what was happening at all times? No, the point of shaky cam is to put the audience into a similar frame of mind as the characters. To emphasize the the confusing and frenetic nature of the situation. However the point isn't to turn the entire scene into a visual collage of indecipherability. A good found footage film, which is practically an oxymoron, utilizes limited and controlled shaky cam. The camera is not fastened down and is allowed to wander more than in a traditional film. Since the character with the camera is trying to film the events, and doesn't have late stage Parkinsons, the overall watchability of the scene should not be impacted. When you're filming something on the camera do you pointlessly move it all over the place so as to make the footage unwatchable?
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Mar 10, 2015 23:47
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Hang on guys I need to post a deluge of paragraphs where I explain why “Battleship” is an objectively more accurate depiction of the psychological effects of warfare than “Come and See”, proven beyond all doubt by this 4,821-row flowchart that tracks all of the dialogue in the “Lord of the Rings” movies and is indisputable proof that every movie takes place in one shared universe.
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Mar 11, 2015 00:34
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stillvisions posted:It was "This can't be happening at MacDonald Hall" that he started out by writing in middle school. He actually gave a talk at my elementary school. I remember it being the first time an adult ever addressed me without filtering or controlling everything he said. He was just having fun talking about being a kid and growing up being kind of a jackoff with no idea where he was going or what he wanted to be. The only specific part I really remember was somebody asked why there were always two girls in the cover art for every one of his books, even when there were more or fewer or no female characters and he said flat-out that the publisher requested it because they thought they could trick girls into buying the books that way. To an 11-year-old he was a cool dude. He was probably in his late 20s then, younger than I am now. It's weird to think about.
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Mar 11, 2015 00:46
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Puppy Time posted:Something can be the point and still suck. See: every bad artist going, "BUT IT'S MY STYYYYYYLE!" Let me get a thesaurus out and write my thesis as to why Alex Ze Pirate is a hard hitting social commentary on the struggles of homosexuals in today's world.
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Mar 11, 2015 01:17
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So, poking around in this thread, I haven't seen this dude posted, so I figured I would share Oddity Archive: Oddity Archive: Episode 42 - Industrial Musicals …: http://youtu.be/e1JJ8s8eqTo A good video from his lost episode channel with stuff originally on Blip or whatever: Oddity Archive: Episode 6 - Conservative Folk Music: http://youtu.be/1nUsAVNo0jY Sometimes Ben's Rifftrax type commentary is a miss but the dude is educational and enthusiastic about his hobby of collecting weird old albums, av equipment, PSAs, and emergency broadcast videos. Some of the stuff he digs up is weird, and while most of it is older than I can remember, it is an interesting look into older media and its evolution. Ive been enjoying the bell out of these vids and learninf poo poo I had no idea of, like Chicago being a late adopter of major cable services meant it was home to a bunch of bizarre TV services and devices.
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Mar 11, 2015 01:49
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Robert Denby posted:Hang on guys I need to post a deluge of paragraphs where I explain why “Battleship” is an objectively more accurate depiction of the psychological effects of warfare than “Come and See”, proven beyond all doubt by this 4,821-row flowchart that tracks all of the dialogue in the “Lord of the Rings” movies and is indisputable proof that every movie takes place in one shared universe. Please do. It'll be better than this
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Mar 11, 2015 02:29
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Robert Denby posted:Hang on guys I need to post a deluge of paragraphs where I explain why “Battleship” is an objectively more accurate depiction of the psychological effects of warfare than “Come and See”, proven beyond all doubt by this 4,821-row flowchart that tracks all of the dialogue in the “Lord of the Rings” movies and is indisputable proof that every movie takes place in one shared universe. And here I thought the Current Releases crew parted ways with Something Awful. 
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Mar 11, 2015 02:51
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It's not very good parody if you have to pretend I'm saying something else, instead of simple facts. Try talking about my farts, that'll be more effective.
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Mar 11, 2015 04:18
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Hbomberguy posted:It's not very good parody if you have to pretend I'm saying something else, instead of simple facts. Try talking about my farts, that'll be more effective. Your posting is already the topic of discussion.
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Mar 11, 2015 04:21
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Hbomberguy posted:It's not very good parody if you have to pretend I'm saying something else, instead of simple facts. Try talking about my farts, that'll be more effective. 
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Mar 11, 2015 04:35
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Hbomberguy posted:It's not very good parody if you have to pretend I'm saying something else, instead of simple facts. Try talking about my farts, that'll be more effective. 
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Mar 11, 2015 04:57
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Anita spoke at a conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgEuY64ECw Poor Anita.
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Mar 11, 2015 05:05
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I'm impressed by her dogged insistence of doing her thing despite being about Osama bin Laden level for a chunk of insane people.
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Mar 11, 2015 06:24
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Puppy Time posted:I'm impressed by her dogged insistence of doing her thing despite being about Osama bin Laden level for a chunk of insane people. Which adds up to the hate at Double Fine because people apparently can't apparently comprehend that game development takes time and that there are delays. And even then the main focus iirc of the kickstarter was more on filming the development of Broken Age rather than the game itself.
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Mar 11, 2015 06:30
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I'm just glad that despite going through a personal hell, she's still able to retain herself and not turn into a bitter husk of a person. Also Briannu Wu has got a Congresswoman on her side and that politician wishes to help her out regarding law enforcement's callousness to her plight. http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/10/massachusetts-congresswoman-urges-fbi-to-take-gamergate-seriously/
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Mar 11, 2015 06:51
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Annointed posted:I'm just glad that despite going through a personal hell, she's still able to retain herself and not turn into a bitter husk of a person. I would dearly love to see what'd happen if the FBI came down on gamergaters. It'd be a colossal shitstorm everyone could enjoy  .
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Mar 11, 2015 06:54
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I'm guessing gamersgate will be taken seriously right about the same time we see people punished for stalking Chris-chan, as it's pretty much identical crimes and motives for the more elaborate stunts. The people mostly in it for sexism/"ethics in games journalism" seem to mostly stick to making angry youtube videos and shouting in comments, which isn't illegal, despite being appalling human beings.
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Mar 11, 2015 07:43
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