[Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

in other some guy itt is just watching random poo poo that was linked in the thread news

Toph Bei Fong posted:

I regret to inform you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZOCCEuROPk

quote:

Winter Dragon is a 22-minute short television film that aired in 2015 during an infomercial timeslot without prior advertising. It was based on the prologue for The Eye of the World, the first novel in The Wheel of Time book series.

watched that in the headspace of an old person trying to guess what kind of insurance this very strange infomercial is going to try to sell me at the last minute and was not disappointed

# ? Apr 18, 2021 02:29

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 11:06

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

just watched southland tales; it's the best PKD adaptation ever filmed with the caveat that it's one of the really bad ones he wrote in like six months while out of his mind on meth

# ? Apr 18, 2021 05:02

Farm Frenzy: Jan 3, 2007

i really desperately wanted to like southland tales but its too slow for me. its cool how the entire cast obviously have no idea what movie theyre in though

# ? Apr 18, 2021 06:45

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

nah i don't care

Dreylad has issued a correction as of 07:00 on Apr 18, 2021

# ? Apr 18, 2021 06:48

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

whole movie is worth it for this scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7aS01JpK0

# ? Apr 18, 2021 07:05

elaboration: Feb 21, 2020

is the bob odenkirk john wick movie any good. im sold just from the concept

# ? Apr 18, 2021 07:27

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Judge Dredd Scott posted:

is the bob odenkirk john wick movie any good. im sold just from the concept

somehow worse and dumber than john wick

# ? Apr 18, 2021 07:34

elaboration: Feb 21, 2020

having finished it: i dunno about worse, but its definitely dumber, but in a fun way, and way closer to like death wish but less racist

the final big fight being christopher lloyd/the rza/bob odenkirk teaming up is cool in a fever dream-y kinda way though

# ? Apr 18, 2021 10:17

Falstaff: Apr 27, 2008; I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

Some Guy TT posted:

leaving this on tv while i play vidja games and its starting out great she just said the only thing you can criticize about deblasio is that he eats food in a funny way

beginning to wonder if shes ever going to actually explain how raya the last dragon is similar to avatar which seems like a more interesting topic to me than discourse about discourse

Fondly remembering the time Lindsay Ellis told the world that non-Americans don't get to have opinions about US elections because they don't have any skin in the game.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 12:09

grate deceiver: Jul 10, 2009; Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

Farm Frenzy posted:

i really desperately wanted to like southland tales but its too slow for me. its cool how the entire cast obviously have no idea what movie theyre in though

i liked it when the policeman said flow my tears

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:05

grate deceiver: Jul 10, 2009; Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

but I regret to inform you that the best PKD adaptation is screamers

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:06

nonathlon: Jul 9, 2004; And yet, somehow, now it's my fault ...

StashAugustine posted:

just watched southland tales; it's the best PKD adaptation ever filmed with the caveat that it's one of the really bad ones he wrote in like six months while out of his mind on meth

I don't know if it's a great film or even a good film. But it is an amazing, out there, one-of-a-kind film.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:17

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Falstaff posted:

Fondly remembering the time Lindsay Ellis told the world that non-Americans don't get to have opinions about US elections because they don't have any skin in the game.

What a distinctively liberal opinion

Related a bit; how long have we been immiserated in Joss Whedon's piss? If I were more shameless and internet famous I could do a video series on trying to de-Whedonify our pop culture experience.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:29

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Ghost Leviathan posted:

What a distinctively liberal opinion

Related a bit; how long have we been immiserated in Joss Whedon's piss? If I were more shameless and internet famous I could do a video series on trying to de-Whedonify our pop culture experience.

oh brother remember when he got Loki to say "mewling quim" and that was a thing for a hot minute

# ? Apr 18, 2021 14:32

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Ghost Leviathan posted:

What a distinctively liberal opinion

Related a bit; how long have we been immiserated in Joss Whedon's piss? If I were more shameless and internet famous I could do a video series on trying to de-Whedonify our pop culture experience.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was his first big hit, but he didn't really take over nerd culture till Firefly, so 21 years. Though I think his annoying tendency if c quips and pop culture are just an outgrowth of stuff we saw in the 90s with Quentin Tarantino and Scream. The problem is that's all he has because he's a hack

# ? Apr 18, 2021 15:49

Aglet56: Sep 1, 2011

how much influence does joss whedon really have on modern pop culture anyways? he's homogenized superhero movies, but like, is game of thrones whedonified? what about the tiger king? or cardi b songs? or the expanse?

stop watching superhero movies I guess

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:31

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

nonathlon posted:

I don't know if it's a great film or even a good film. But it is an amazing, out there, one-of-a-kind film.

yeah same, it's massively incoherent and overlong and i'm still not really sure how each scene connects to the one before it never mind to the movie as a whole, but i'm glad i watched it

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:34

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Aglet56 posted:

how much influence does joss whedon really have on modern pop culture anyways? he's homogenized superhero movies, but like, is game of thrones whedonified? what about the tiger king? or cardi b songs? or the expanse?

stop watching superhero movies I guess

a friend is currently trying to convince me to watch the second nolan batman but I'm afraid it'll be a dumb snoozer compared to joker

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:53

uber_stoat: Jan 21, 2001; Pillbug

I start the process of de-Whedonification. 5 years later, the project is cancelled, an admitted failure. Joss Whedon is president of the United States.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:56

Bro Dad: Mar 26, 2010

i say swears online posted:

a friend is currently trying to convince me to watch the second nolan batman but I'm afraid it'll be a dumb snoozer compared to joker

it's the only good batman movie

begins is really boring and rises is just ridiculous trash

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:56

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 9 years!

Aglet56 posted:

how much influence does joss whedon really have on modern pop culture anyways? he's homogenized superhero movies, but like, is game of thrones whedonified? what about the tiger king? or cardi b songs? or the expanse?

stop watching superhero movies I guess

Exactly

# ? Apr 18, 2021 16:57

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Bro Dad posted:

it's the only good batman movie

begins is really boring and rises is just ridiculous trash

but joker is the only good batman movie??

I liked the 90s cartoon, maybe that phantasm one is good

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:00

josh04: Oct 19, 2008; "THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"
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the marvel project is bigger and has bigger problems than whedon-writing. his influence is way more persistent in genre tv, imo.

e: every batman movie is good. i wish it weren't the case but it is.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:01

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Clearly the best Batman movie is the one from the 60s.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:08

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

Aglet56 posted:

he's homogenized superhero movies

MCU movies maybe

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:28

Blood Boils: Dec 27, 2006; Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS

josh04 posted:

every batman movie is good. i wish it weren't the case but it is.

It's true isn't it, drat you

I never wanted to enjoy the Schumacher's, but I can't help it

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:44

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

quote:

Cabin in the Woods is a film by director Drew Goddard and cowritten by Goddard and Joss Whedon - Whedon is famous for writing the entry that ruined the Alien franchise for over a decade until Ridley Scott came to take science fiction back from the retards, and Goddard is the guy who wrote all that dialog in Cloverfield you fast forward through to get to TJ Miller losing his poo poo. This movie is being hailed up and down by everyone as an innovation in horror films, as a brilliant meta-narrative, a rejection of the modern "torture porn" era of horror, and as a return to a more character-driven take on the genre.

All of that is ridiculous bullshit. While the script and direction are smart, they're actually too smart and too clever to actually be at all effective or entertaining.

If you've ever gotten sick of a movie because you can see the strings, all the plot tricks, all the stupid things you go with to get to the scene where the naked girl gets her hed chopped off, this is a movie that spends nearly the first two thirds of it's runtime pointing out those things. Goddard and Whedon even take a shot at Scream in the opening scene of the film, but the only difference between this and Scream is that Wes Craven was one of the guys who created those rules and expectations and was totally okay with exploding those conventions. Goddard and Whedon, they don't come off as someone deconstructing their own mythology (even though Scream isn't really all that great a movie, it's very much a part of Wes Craven), it feels like two guys in a screenwriting course sick of learning Joseph Campbell and figuring out a way to make their horror assignment interesting to them. It's inside baseball, and it's biggest problem is that anyone who can get the references that start flying really fast and loose is going to be someone who also gets really sick of being told that what they're really invested in is nothing but a series of checks to be hit by bored technicians (ie screenwriters), and it doesn't matter if they're watching films as diverse as Hooper/Spielberg's barnburning classic Poltergeist or Larry Fessenden's micro-personal Wendigo, both of which are directly referenced in the film, it's the same structure and gently caress you, all we can see is structure and we're sick of it. The end of the movie literally has two of the ciphers that lead this thing say it's time to end it, meaning the structure that Goddard and Whedon have played - even when deconstructing it. I just don't think that exposing a structure and not doing anything with it is entertaining on it's own, especially when there's so much beyond Scream that has done this and then gone somewhere with it, elegantly and beautifully. From Death Proof to Night of the Living Creeps to that halloween Community episode, it's not like we're hurting for humanisitic deconstructions of the horror genre.

But yeah, the monsters that show up first are meant to highlight all the horrible things about modern horror - dubbed "Zombie Redneck Torture Family", they're the things that you've seen in theaters throughout the past phase of horror movies which have mostly been awful (as, lets admit horror always is mostly horrible, that's why the good ones are so good). But torture porn has been dying out, as Saw and Hostel are not really speaking to people anymore (and weren't that far away from what Cabin is doing, albeit not as smart, but Hostel is built on Miike and Wicker Man and Saw features more Argento/Fulci shoutouts than you'd expect for a stupid puzzle movie starring Cary Elwes) and the only torture porn that's really coming out these days is stuff like Martyrs from France (which is, like Cabin in the Woods, a deconstruction about the sacrifice and dehumanization of women in the name of art, only y'know, not as vapid as this thing).

The thing is, this isn't a return to classic horror so much as it is a love letter to post-80s horror - it has the slasher structure but all the monsters in the film are explicitly from Hellraiser, Reanimator, the Evil Dead films, Pumpkinhead, The Strangers, Nightbreed, The Hills Have Eyes, It, The Howling, Dreamscape (thx to Jeff Lester for pointing that out), the Manitou, and vauge-er "Zombies, Mermen, Aliens, Vampires". In interviews Whedon and Goddard liked to say John Carpenter is their standard for horror, which is what got me to go see this thing. I think invoking the name Carpenter automatically means that you have a certain level of respect for the material and the audience, neither of which is evident here. Carpenter is my favorite director, biases upfront, so I hold that name pretty highly.

Instead the film attempts for a weird hybrid of Sam Raimi and Clive Barker, two directors who are vastly influential and impossible to copy because no one has Raimi's timing or comedic sense and no one in horror has managed to turn Lovecraft and gothic romance into personal sexual exorcism the way Barker has. So when the sequence in the film plays liberally with a scene from Nightbreed, albeit saying "old ones" instead of "Baphomet" (and it's not a Cthulu reference because it's clearly Baphomet in the last shot, so don't correct me on this poo poo) , it comes off as hamfisted and weird, rather than a logical conclusion to the film.

The characters here have been championed as real characters forced to play into the slasher archetypes, but in reality, you don't spend nearly enough time with any of them to actually care about them, and the one you as a viewer are supposed to identify with (the stoner, because gently caress you, audience; and the half-assed iteration of the Final Girl/Virgin) are annoying and empty characters. All of them, you want to see all of them murdered violently. Because that's what you go to a horror movie for, to see people get murdered. Usually women, or at least sexually active couples, and while there is a touch on the misogyny of this kind of material with one of the girls (who gets called "the whore" more than she gets called whatever they named her), but it's more of them hanging a lantern on their bullshit than discussing anything, which is worse than just indulging it.

The money shot in the film, where the two plucky survivors unleash all the monsters at once, is great. But it feels like it's 80% of the way there as a scene, it feels like they wanted to take it even further and couldn't and settled on what they could afford. The way the scene plays out, you feel like Goddard and Whedon felt they were saying something, pitting the supernatural old guard against the current era of military and military-influenced (read: torture) imagery. But it plays out that they'd really just like to see all the monsters at once attacking a bunch of people (hey look they killed the only black guy in the movie just to hit the cliche, oh wait that's exactly what they're telling people not to do but they'll do it anyway , because who cares you've just got to kill the black guy! Garbage). The big reveal cameo at the end of the film has the stunt casting of Sigourney Weaver making a speech to a character named Dana about how all slashers are a ritual sacrifice to the old gods, her being the "ultimate final girl". Except the speech is clearly not written for her, it's written for Jamie Lee Curtis (star of 4 Halloween films, Prom Night, The Fog, Terror Train, Roadgames, Virus - the definitive scream queen of the slasher era), who definitely said no, and they got Ripley, who the narrative doesn't quite work with because Alien had her as the Final Girl but the narrative doesn't quite fit, and the speech doesn't quite ring true because it's not Laurie Strode it's Sigourney Weaver. Any cache they're treading on rings false, because she's as much the James Cameron Ripley as the Ridley Scott one, and calling out Dana Barret feels like a half-measure or a last minute fix. It's like that with every reference and knowing twist and clever punch on the material in the film, it's all cerebral in a way horror can't be to be successfully visceral. It's a horror film for people who WRITE horror films, and when you hold it against other movies you could describe that way, it's not even a good example.

Whats the good thing you can say about Cabin in the Woods? Richard Jenkins is amazing as always, and screams gently caress you at some schoolgirls at one point . Other than that, gently caress this movie and gently caress the people who like it.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:53

mastershakeman: Oct 28, 2008; by vyelkin

Cabin in the woods biggest problem is it's never scary or horrific at any point. The lack of sincerity dooms it to bring nothing but sneering mockery

# ? Apr 18, 2021 19:56

Son of Thunderbeast: Sep 21, 2002

McCloud posted:

You're right, making a smug 2 hour video explaining how everyone else is wrong is way preferable

this but unironically

# ? Apr 18, 2021 20:15

Blood Boils: Dec 27, 2006; Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS

mastershakeman posted:

Cabin in the woods biggest problem is it's never scary or horrific at any point. The lack of sincerity dooms it to bring nothing but sneering mockery

Or funny.

Great premise tho

# ? Apr 18, 2021 20:41

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 9 years!

fun elevator scene tho

# ? Apr 18, 2021 22:57

LIVE AMMO COSPLAY: Feb 3, 2006

I'm amazed that Netflix managed to tell a complete story with The Queen's Gambit that didn't just end in a cliffhanger for a (potential) season 2.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 23:07

uber_stoat: Jan 21, 2001; Pillbug

https://twitter.com/carbideVerstand/status/1383631720172249089?s=20

# ? Apr 19, 2021 02:32

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

me in my new mining rig

# ? Apr 19, 2021 02:33

Miss Lonelyhearts: Mar 22, 2003

A Scanner Darkly is a pretty loving good adaptation, it's very close to the novel ie extremely paranoid. Downey Jr. and Harrelson are A+ and Keanu's wooden acting is perfect for the role just like January Jones in Mad Men. iirc Dick originally wrote it about his real friends but his publisher made him add a bunch of sci-fi for sales.

Miss Lonelyhearts has issued a correction as of 03:28 on Apr 19, 2021

# ? Apr 19, 2021 03:21

uber_stoat: Jan 21, 2001; Pillbug

Miss Lonelyhearts posted:

A Scanner Darkly is a pretty loving good adaptation, it's very close to the novel ie extremely paranoid. Downey Jr. and Harrelson are A+ and Keanu's wooden acting is perfect for the role just like January Jones in Mad Men. iirc Dick originally wrote it about his real friends but his publisher made him add a bunch of sci-fi for sales.

i'll never let anyone tell me this is a bad movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhmFPvJldeI

# ? Apr 19, 2021 03:37

Aglet56: Sep 1, 2011

just wanna say that january Jones cracks me up in mad men

# ? Apr 19, 2021 04:14

Miss Lonelyhearts: Mar 22, 2003

uber_stoat posted:

i'll never let anyone tell me this is a bad movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhmFPvJldeI

It's good, the book is also good if you like PKD

# ? Apr 19, 2021 04:45

DesertIslandHermit: Oct 7, 2019; It's beautiful. And it's for the god of...of...arts and crafts. I think that's what he said.

Cabin In the Woods would have probably been good if Whedon never put his fingers on it.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 04:49

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 11:06

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Miss Lonelyhearts posted:

A Scanner Darkly is a pretty loving good adaptation, it's very close to the novel ie extremely paranoid. Downey Jr. and Harrelson are A+ and Keanu's wooden acting is perfect for the role just like January Jones in Mad Men. iirc Dick originally wrote it about his real friends but his publisher made him add a bunch of sci-fi for sales.

scanner darkly rules but i have an irrational grudge against it because it cut down my favorite part of the novel (donna driving fred to the hospital and shooting up the coke truck) even though i must grudgingly admit it should be cut for time. i should try it again sometime

# ? Apr 19, 2021 05:11

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