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georgiapeach30513 · 4 months ago

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Disclaimer: Long

With all the critic centered criticism of Red One, I have to say the cynical part of me feels like it was a concentrated effort by the industry to be assholes re: Amazon + Dwayne.

I think a huge part of the criticism is the fact that the movie's budget was so overblown due to whatever happened behind the scenes. If the film was half or even a quarter of the final budget, I don't think we'd be seeing so many "critics" screaming online about it. This film was sort of doomed from the start by that alone, due to the increasing "resent" the industry seems to have towards DJ. But all the critic reviews I've seen so far have been so overwhelmingly harsh I'm kind of wondering, "who hurt you?" Like...how can you look at a movie with a premise like this one and think it was supposed to be anything but unserious? The fact that audience scores are so much higher, and even online in comment responses to critics, you'll see people saying, "I think this film was fun. I'm confused, why are you so mad? I feel like this was better than expected." The repeated and most common response is that, which tells me people were bamboozled by critics into thinking they had to hate on this film, but the ones who still went to see it anyway, found themselves surprised when they actually took the time to form their own opinion.

I know it doesn't matter and honestly, no one is paying me to defend the film, but the critics are reacting way too hard for my sake. It's really turning me off of critics in general.

One thing I do have to say is that Red One is ACTUALLY an original story. Yes, it does take from a lot of different things and that's probably contributing to the negativity from some, but I can appreciate an original story in an era of reboots, remakes, existing IPs, and adaptations of things that already existed as a show, movie, game, broadway show, book. Now my worry is that because people reacted badly to this, studios will be even less enthused to put original content, especially holiday/Christmas themed ones. I can only hope they learn from this and rethink budgeting as a whole in the future when they're greenlighting these types of projects. You wanna put out a goofy, unserious, probably cheesy AF movie? Sure: Instead of 200 million, make it 20 million. Hire some actors who really want to lean into it and market it as such. It's really not rocket science.

In comparison: Gladiator II. Now, I know some people are already biased because some of their favorite actors are in this film, but IMHO, this sequel did not need to be made. As someone who loved the original, the entire premise (won't give spoilers) of Part 2 defeats the purpose of the first, and in my opinion, completely kills the ending of Gladiator, which I felt was nearly perfect. Gladiator II is also getting mixed reviews, and heavily dinged by critics as well, but I think there's a more valid criticism towards this film than towards Red One. The difference here is that GLADIATOR II was supposed to be better. It was supposed to be this big amazing sequel (that nobody really needed, but Ridley Scott can do no wrong to some) but the premise and actual storyline make no sense if you're somebody who enjoyed the first. This movie is rightfully getting the criticism it deserves, because the expectations for a follow up like this one was supposed to be so much better than it ended up being.

Red One? I mean...even The Rock's own fans were hating on the film before it even came out. CE's fans have been hating on this film since it was announced, and they haven't stopped giving gripe about it even though it was filmed over 2 years ago. It was never going to be some amazing masterpiece and anyone who was going in thinking differently...well.

As for Chris...yes, people online have been coming at him left and right and wondering why he's doing stuff like this and why he's not doing more or better etc etc etc. Well...Can I be honest? They always overlooked him and never took him seriously. Even when he was Cap, he got more or less brushed aside for RDJ playing himself as Ironman. Every film Chris has done outside the MCU that has been worthy of praise either gets brushed under the rug or ignored, or people didn't show up in the theaters. The industry seems to completely ignore him when it comes to anything serious, but they will happily shoehorn him into headlines using the Cap title forever.

I think he got tired of trying to work against the grain and he figured, he'll get his bag and at least he can pay his bills. But it does feel like something may have changed within the last year or so, as his recent film choices appear to be a 180 from the last 2-3 years. So who knows? All I know is, I don't blame him for ultimately disappearing from social media. Everyone has to find and make their own peace.

For me, the budget is a big issue. Who greenlit a Christmas movie with a $250M budget, and then a $100M marketing budget?? I think it's absurd, and yes, I do think the CGI was cheap looking. Now, the heart of the movie itself, the story, I enjoyed. I think the acting was quite nice. I think the practical effects makeup on Kristofer is phenomenal! Krampus is fully believable because of it. I love seeing practical effects instead of straight CGI, and that was a great call.

I agree, the critics are going a bit hard on a silly Christmas movie. I'm not unsure who pissed in the hot chocolate, but they need to calm down. It's not that serious. And I like that we got a Christmas movie that embodies some true Christmas spirit. I wish it came out after Thanksgiving, but whatever.

I agree with your points about Gladiator II. I think people expected more for various reasons, and now it's not delivering.

I think with DJ it's really easy to hate on him right now. You either love him or you hate him. He is a showman, and he loves bigger than life events/moments. There are some Chris fans that have been hating on this from day one, while I and several others were excited to see what this movie brought to the Christmas movie lineup, and honestly, I wasn't disappointed, and dare I say pleasantly surprised?

I think for Chris R1 served several purposes; Christmas movie bucket list, work with DJ, easy paycheck. I don't think there's a huge point to act like this movie was going to be anything but goofy and fun, and that's what we got. I don't fault Chris for doing a money grab movie. However! I do hope this doesn't become the normal, and judging by his last three choices of movies, I don't think it will be.

A lot of actors do the big budget money grab movies to have a nice lifestyle, and then add in more challenging and interesting roles after. Typically you don't see the big paycheck with those (unless you're Leo). I just hope there's a good balance.

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angy-grrr · 2 months ago

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I just remembered that it was Hori who sent the video of that little girl with the birth mark to Todoroki's va, which means that likely he's been lurking on socmed or someone else is and made him aware of that.

I believe they are going to fix this in the anime, bc they are DEFINITELY putting 431 in it. Like making the handhold more romantic, taking away the implication that they haven't been contacting each other, adding extra content etc.

I doubt they're doing anything for bkdk's dynamic (i actually think they'll do it worse) bc as we could see, they dgaf abt them unless it's for taking fujo and character fans money. But if it's better there at least then they can start advertising the main couple and stop pretending once and for all.

why are you so sure they'll add it?/gen besides the mess that "canonization" was, the world 431 presents makes them lose money: what more things could you do with this? Heroes arent needed, they'll need new jobs sooner than later, so what could the movies, OVAs and merch focus on? If they canonize 431 in the anime, they are limiting themselves in terms of getting money from many parts of the fandom -with the confirmed death of Touya, no update on Spinner, and the use of Shigaraki for this, they lose even more of the villain stans, some fans of the ship also dislike a rushed canonization, losing fujo and queer shippers' money, many of the ones interested in heroes and fights wont care about extra content related to a past that wont matter anyway nor for random villains that make the end of 431 even more unserious, romance and shoujo fans arent exactly loving this pair so focusing on these aspects is a bad move too.

I could see them making an adaptation inspired in 431 but completely changed so it would allow them to keep making money from BNHA, but making literally 431 is a really, really bad decision in terms of marketing (and story wise). They are already seeing how many of the copies are going into resellers and the final volume isnt selling as good as aspected once the extra cards were obtained -ppl mainly cared about those, and 431 turned many fans, specially the ones that have been here since the beginning, against BNHA- so I dont understand why would an anime studio make such a stupid decision, honestly.

#grrr talking

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crascet · 8 months ago

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X-Men Movie Tier List Update- Deadpool

Let's first go back to Origins for a second here. In the character's film debut, Wade Wilson was shown as a really good mercenary with a snarky, wisecracking attitude that annoys people around him, which is typical to how he is in the comics. At first, people thought this would be a good adaption of Deadpool, but then...

... yeah, fans of Deadpool were really not into this. So, 7 years later, they rebooted the character, making him more comic accurate and made Deadpool the movie.

Already, this movie tells you that this is a very unserious, fun, rated R movie just from the freeze frame car crash, with the Juice Newton song and opening credits such as "God's Perfect Idiot" (followed by a picture of Reynolds on a People magazine with "World's Sexiest Man" on it), "An Evil British Guy," and "A Fully CGI Character." This whole sequence just establishes the tone right-off-the-bat, and the movie follows that greatly.

Reynolds as Wade does a great job here, and not just with the comedic parts. This movie just shows that Wade is not just some comedic side character, but as someone with more depth to him, mostly tragic. In the first flashback of the movie, it shows Wade as a merc-for-hire with at least a moral code with his first job in the movie being to stop a teenage stalker of a teenage girl free of charge while also not killing him, just threatening him to stop doing it. Wade is not a great guy, but he's also not the worst. He's... decent, suffice it to say.

The relationship between Wade and Vanessa is also just a very nice relationship between two messed up people with messed up lives just loving each other, by being nerds and mostly through sex, but if that's not a true love, then I don't know what is. This going into Wade's reaction to hearing he has late-stage cancer is both sad and also realistic, since when people hear that they have a terminal disease, the last thing they want to see are their loved ones suffering emotionally, which is why he went out to that black market organization to get a cure for his cancer, leaving Vanessa.

Ajax/Francis is a real asshole and this movie shows you that with how cruel he is towards Wade in wanting to activate his X-gene, which when activated, gives Wade a sort of healing factor since it is implied that Wade was injected by Logan's blood, which may have been stored since Apocalypse in that post-credit scene for that movie, but also radically altered his appearance to have his cancer cells come up to the surface of his skin. This pretty much makes it hard for him to come back to Vanessa, especially with how he left her when she was sleeping one night. So now it's sort of a revenge movie with him trying to find Francis and find a way for him to look normal again. Also, the whole reason for Francis taunting Wade with "What's my name?" being all about wanting control over Wade, since Wade found out his actual name by snatching his laundromat tag on his lab coat without him knowing is interesting.

The characters here are pretty good too. Colossus comes back and he's essentially what mainstream PG-13 superhero movies are: clean, always do the right thing types that people are familiar with, he even has an inspirational speech to Wade on how he shouldn't kill his enemies especially to Francis at the end of the movie... which didn't do anything to Wade since again, he's not a great guy, and just kills Francis. Colossus being this trope is good since that's what he usually is in the comics. Negasonic Teenage Warhead is pretty cool here with not only her cool as hell name but how she also has the New Mutants suit. Vanessa is good here as a crude spin on the love interest character who is also capable for herself since she can fight an gotten herself free thanks to Wade's katanas in the final act. Weasel is good here as a nice friend to Wade and has some funny moments in here, same goes to Dopinder and of course, Blind Al who is the best character here.

This movie is also just funny in general. From the opening sequence to the introduction to Colossus to Wade going through NTW's jerkish attitude of either doing long sullen silences or hurtful comments and that one time he calls her Ripley from Alien 3 to the hand regrowing scene to Wade's scenes with Dopinder to Wade's unmasking in the ending to Vanessa, only with a picture of Hugh Jackman stapled to his face and let's not forget, Blind Al.

Also, bonus points for using Careless Whispers from Wham! (WHAM!)

A simple, but fun movie with crude jokes and a good appreciation to Deadpool that goes so far as even including Bob. A good placement on B, just behind The Wolverine. Speaking of which, the next movie is what is considered not just the best X-Men movie here, but one of the best superhero films ever, in the sort of adaption of Old Man Logan as we see him be one of the last mutants still surviving in a world where most mutants are dead, but has him protecting someone way younger than him, but went through the same situations as him as well as the next generation of mutants, for the next movie is Logan.

#movies #movie review #tier list #marvel #marvel movies #x men #x men movies #deadpool #deadpool movie

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sappymix1 · 1 year ago

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OJAY BUT TALKING ABOUT THAT I hate how everything about the movie FROM THE VERY BEGINNING have tried to pull away from the musicals formula to (i guess??) appeal to a wider audience but in that they both jeopardize their established audience of theater fans AND whatever non musical fans they manage to trick. It's just horrible for everyone involved WHY ! WOULD THEY DO THAT ! i just feel like everybody loses even from a "more money" perspective it just sucks

its really baffling bc with this example in particular i actually really liked how they chose to adapt it like i think a lot of the “teen musicals” leave a lot to be desired in how they impliment the music itself but this is one that definetly embraced it more and got really creative with it which while there were def a few songs that fell flat (and also like. most of the musical from mean girls bway is really mid lmao) i really liked overall how they were silly and fun with it didn’t try to just play it straight or shy away from indulging in that aspect of theatre that is inherently a little bit unserious. which is why i’m so fucking confused by why they chose to market it in the way it did 😭😭😭 like the total refusal to associate it with musical theatre just doesn’t extend into the movie itself the way i was expecting it to based on the advertising

#asks #nunki tag

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fishyspider · 1 year ago

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(This is an ETN post and not a Repo! TGO post!! Bear with me!!)

2008 Repo! The Genetic Opera absolutely prided itself on being camp. Everyone knew they weren't going to make any money off of it, the film advertises itself as a shitty, gory , messy, bad horror film. And it worked! Nobody claims that it's a top tier horror film, but it has a following for a reason. Had Repo! attempted to market itself as a serious film it would've failed miserably.

I can't stop thinking about Repo! whenever I think about the ETN movie, and I honestly think it's a part of why I hate the idea of the movie so much. Joey is literally having to beg for 250k!! A million dollars not a lot of money for a 85 minute film (Repo! Was several million for a 90 minute film yet it was still incredibly camp) and while I'm sure Joey can work some magic, that's a *lot* of magic to work.

Joey's talking like it's going to be a serious horror film..but it just doesn't seem to have that budget. Unserious horror films with small budgets are camp but prepare before hand and make the camp enjoyable, but serious horror films with small budgets end up camp in a bad way.

I don't HATE hate it, but these kinda films rarely go well and that worries me.

#slightly more composed then my original post on the movie #but still.. I'm very scared #not a repo! post so I'm not tagging it as such #escapethenight #escape the night #escape the night movie #ETN

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goongiveusnothing · 1 year ago

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i think a fascinating thing is he couldn't even do a proper PR overhaul by committing to a black woman and doing a big showy thing of respecting or committing to her publicly. he's such a dog and cares so little about women that he's like this relationship can be public enough i can get the PR from it, but get fucked if you think i'm gonna actually respect her enough not to be mingling with other victoria's secret girls at weddings or even give people or some outlet some little story about how much i adore or care about her because that may mean she gets big feelings about this and i don't want her to think i care that much about her.

THIS! That's why I don't agree with all the Harries that said Taylor is "the one" and are predicting they will get married, have kids, etc even though I get called a "conspiracy theorist" or "jealous" for not agreeing with that. I might actually believe he is in love with someone when he actually treats them with respect, defends them, or looks like he actually enjoys holding their hand or being with them. Not this "well they are lucky to even be seen with me" vibe he has had going on with the past couple of women. He is giving the absolute bare minimum and it makes the woman also look like a clown for being ok with it. Someone who cares about/loves the person they are with wouldn't treat them that way or put them in a position to be perceived that way by the public.

it's been months of him being seen with her and we have no official word or source from his people about how he feels about her.

just look at how people talks about them, not one source, not one confirmation, not one "he has feelings for her" blah blah. nothing. (also notice the way his hampstead heath swim gets an article mention).

it's totally giving unserious casual relationship vibes. and i hate to do the whole "does he follow her on insta" thing as though that defines relationships, but he literally followed emrata the second he broke up with olivia. he didn't need to do that. he liked all of yan yan chan's posts when he followed her then when he dated olivia he stopped doing that, and then afterwards he started liking them again or something. he very clearly uses social media for his hook ups. yet he's been quiet on the taylor front.

i think he's going to treat this as a casual thing, i think he's hoping this leads to a role in some movie or TV series, and i think when it ends he's gonna have a story about it with a whole no hard feelings just having fun vibes to it because THEN is when he's gonna want to define it to make sure everyone knows he's truly on the market and can be seen holding some other woman's hand in the open without getting trashed for double dating.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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Facebook vs Robert Bork

Unless you're a certain kind of conservative, you probably haven't heard of Robert Bork, but he's one of the most important people you've never heard of. The best way to understand Bork is that he was Ronald Reagan's court sorcerer.

Reagan was an empty vessel with the hands of ruthless plutocrats shoved up his asshole*, operating him like a hand puppet for their collective will to power.

He served as a kind of dowsing rod for policies that would transfer wealth from the 99% to the 1%.

*Hence the polyps

That dowsing rod pointed straight at Bork. Bork was an alternate history writer, a fabulist with a unique and wildly improbable theory of antitrust statutes: that if you studied the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act with Qanon-style fervor, you'd find hidden messages in them.

Specifically, you would discover that the lawmakers who drafted, debated, amended and passed these laws thought monopolies were good, actually. They were only concerned with a small and possibly mythical minority of monopolies that were "harmful."

Not just any harms: Bork said that these ancient sages were worried about *consumer* harms, which, practically speaking, means monopolies that use their power to raise prices. This, he said, was the only thing that the government should step in to prevent.

Since it is nearly impossible to prove that a given merger or tactic would result in higher prices before the fact, and *also* it's nearly impossible to prove that a price rise after the fact was attributable to monopolism we should probably just forget about antitrust.

Reagan loved this. By shifting antitrust's focus from *democratic* harms (like reducing choice, distorting regulation, hurting workers, etc) to *consumer* harms, he could demote "citizens" (who have a role in shaping policies) to "consumers" - mere ambulatory wallets.

Reagan tried to get Bork a seat on the Supreme Court, but there was a little problem. Bork had committed a string of disgusting crimes while serving as Nixon's Solicitor General, and the Senate refused to confirm him for a seat.

(Conservatives were outraged that committing crimes at the highest level of government disqualified you from the Supreme Court and coined the term "Borked" to describe rich, powerful people who had to face the unfair prospect of being held accountable for their actions)

But Bork - along with the Chicago School economists - went on to completely revolutionize the world's conception of anti-monopoly enforcement, as neoliberal leaders all over the world (Thatcher, Mulroney, Pinochet, Kohl, etc) took up his theories and tuned them into policy.

Bork was a fringe figure, but he was preaching a gospel that stood to make the richest people on Earth *so much richer*, and they bankrolled the hell out of his theories.

For example, 40% of US federal judges have attended "continuing education" seminars at an annual lush Florida junket where they are initiated into the bizarre world of "consumer harm" theory.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/10/18/law-and-economics/

40 years later, monopolism has surged in every industry, from bottlecaps to pharma, from poultry to pro wrestling, from eyeglasses to emergency rooms, from oil to car parts, from music to publishing to movies to online services to telecoms.

All driven by mergers, all resulting in higher prices (so much for "consumer harm") all wildly distorting of public policy (the decision to let Boeing self-certify the 737 Max is repeated in thousands of ways across hundreds of industries), all brutal news for workers.

It's a disaster, but it's one that we have been powerless to avert or address for so long as "consumer harm" ruled antitrust enforcement.

Finally, that's changing.

In 2019, Dina Srinivasan published a landmark paper: "The Antitrust Case Against Facebook," which made *incredibly* clever arguments showing that FB's democratic harms were also consumer harms, meaning FB could be sued without first undoing Borkism.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

But the magic of this work was in revealing the poverty of the consumer harm standard: she laid out the innumerable ways in which FB is bad for society and showed how a sliver of these harms were technically illegal, raising the question: why isn't *all* this stuff illegal?

Today, Facebook was hit with *two* antitrust suits, one from the FTC and the other from almost every US state (including California!).

The complaints say that FB's acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were anticompetitive.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22158483/facebook-antitrust-lawsuit-anti-competition-behavior-attorneys-general

Of course, they *were* anticompetitive. We know, because Zuck - who specializes in tripping over his own dick - sent out memos extolling the acquisitions' anticompetitive advantages, proving he hasn't learned a thing since he traded incriminating IMs about founding FB.

https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19490586/mark-zuckerberg-called-people-who-handed-over-their-data-dumb-f/

The complaints build on Srinivasan's work and they carry the same flavor: claiming "consumer harms" in the acquisitions, but winking and nodding toward a broader, more democracy-focused (and less consumer-focused) critique of monopoly.

It's a weird tightrope act: they want to win, so their argument is designed to balance on the single, fragile hair that borkism stretches across the chasm of monopoly enforcement, but they wanna make sure we see that big sturdy bridge of nonbork antitrust right there.

If there was any doubt, it was erased by the remedies demanded in the complaints. The prosecutors aren't asking for money damages - a fine is a price, after all - instead, they want FB to sell off the companies it bought for illegal purposes.

And they want FB to get regulatory approval for future acquisitions (though the states will let it buy companies for less than $10m without approval). These are not "consumer harm" remedies - they're "democracy" remedies, aimed at removing the company's source of power.

Facebook has stood up a website explaining why it's a cuddly mom-and-pop business that's being bullied by mean government meanies:

https://about.fb.com/building-to-compete/

The argument's pretty similar to the one laid out in a leaked memo in October:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#dnr

Basically: it would be really hard for us to unwind these illegal, anticompetitive mergers. Seriously, it would cost a bundle and take so much work!

This is an unserious argument, and it shows how badly FB has misgauged the mood.

All of FB's arguments are garbage, really. Take the line that ex-British-Deputy-PM-turned-FB-salesdroid Nick Clegg has been peddling: "STOP TRYING TO BREAK UP FACEBOOK OR THE CHINESE WILL WIN!"

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebooks-nick-clegiden-must-unite-global-powers-to-shape-internet-amid-china-threat

The company's best arguments are about "market definition" - to claim that they don't have a monopoly because of all the competitors they face, provided you define FB's market broadly enough.

Like, "Here at Facebook, we are in the 'using computers' business. Now, just think of how much time you spend using a computer without interacting with FB! Your car has a computer and it's not on FB! How can you say we have a monopoly?!"

If you want to see someone making this argument as well as it can possibly be made and literally getting laughed at by a University of Chicago (!) audience, check out this debate from 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Jp-GJ9LM0

Forcing FB to divest itself of Whatsapp and Instagram is a no-brainer. The company lied to secure those mergers, broke the promises it made to get permission to make them, and the penalty for that should be unwinding those mergers.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/dont-believe-proven-liars-absolute-minimum-standard-prudence-merger-scrutiny

And if FB fights this for a decade the way IBM fought its antitrust action, fine - IBM outspent the entire DoJ antitrust division every year for 12 years (Bork called it "antitrust's Vietnam"), but even though Big Blue wasn't broken up, they had their spirit broken.

It was fear of another tangle with antitrust regulators that caused IBM to sit idly by while Phoenix cloned the PC ROMs and created the PC clone industry, which became the US computing industry.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/ibm-pc-compatible-how-adversarial-interoperability-saved-pcs-monopolization

And it was the same fear that caused IBM to hire an outside company to make the OS for its PCs, getting a couple of nerds named Paul Allen and Bill Gates to supply one for them.

IBM's 12 years of antitrust hell focused the attention of every tech giant of the age, letting them know what was on their horizon if they acted like IBM had. It created the US tech industry.

Today, VCs call the businesses that Big Tech dominates "the kill zones" because they know that monopolists have the market power to destroy any startup that tries to compete with them.

There is an entire - better, more pluralistic - tech industry that's been suppressed by Big Tech. If FB and Goog and Apple and the other tech giants spend the next decades throwing billions at the FTC and the states attorneys general, it will be money well-spent.

Because it will be money that these companies don't get to spend destroying the next wave of tech companies, co-ops, and platforms.

#pluralistic

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How The Nevers Weathered COVID Delays and Joss Whedon’s Departure

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

For a show called The Nevers, HBO’s latest fantasy endeavor doesn’t say no to a lot.

The series, developed by erstwhile TV titan Joss Whedon, brings quite a few competing elements to the table. For starters, it’s set in a steampunk version of Victorian-era London. Ladies wear corsets, men wear bowlers, and everyone wears the same dour expression as they smell the rancid air around them.

Then, in addition to its steampunk leanings, The Nevers goes full on X-Men with its hook. Due to a mysterious event, a sizable percentage of London society (though predominantly women) have developed supernatural mutant-like abilities. Lead character Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) is precognitive, briefly experiencing certain events before they happen as a warning. Her closest friend Penance Adair (Ann Skelly) can sense the potential energy within objects, leading her to create fantastical inventions like an old-timey quartermistress.

Amalia, Penance, and many more of these superpowered individuals reside in Charles Xavier’s ma…we mean Lavinia Bidlow’s (Olivia Williams) Orphanage. Just like in Professor X’s world, Amalia, Penance, and their kind are viewed with suspicion and distrust. In fact, the uniquely abled of The Nevers’ world are referred to as “The Touched.”

The word “touched” is dripping with historical resonance. The term can indelicately refer to someone who is perceived as crazy. The Nevers leans so far into this interpretation of the word that it nearly falls over. Several of The Touched are carted off to Victorian era lunatic asylums, some before they even exhibit supernatural abilities like series antagonist Maladie (Amy Manson). Even those who are allowed to remain behind in polite society are viewed as untrustworthy and unserious, which surely sounds familiar to many a gaslit female viewer even today.

The Nevers is the latest in the long line of fantasy series that wears its themes on its frilly Victorian sleeve. The storytelling goals of the show are so apparent that one may wonder why any of the supernatural elements were necessary, when a far more literal interpretation of 19th Century Western society may have sufficed.

That’s where Amalia True actress Laura Donnelly (Outlander) comes in with an apt metaphor.

“They say that when something rhymes, it sounds more true to the human ear,” Donnelly says. “I think there’s a similar thing that goes on a lot of the time with fantasy. You can, in fact, explore fundamental human truths and it will feel even more true for that.”

The Nevers creator Joss Whedon has made a career of crafting fantasy projects that “rhyme.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer used its vampire slaying premise to examine what society expects and demands from young women. Firefly crafted a swashbuckling space opera to ask what freedom really means and whether it’s ever truly attainable. Whedon’s version of The Nevers was set to be a return to TV form for the showrunner after years spent shepherding blockbusters like Marvel’s Avengers, and the theatrical version of Justice League.

But of course, that return proved to be fairly short lived. Whedon stepped down as showrunner of the show he developed in November of last year, citing the physical demands of “making such a huge show during a global pandemic.” HBO’s statement on the matter was a terse “We have parted ways with Joss Whedon. We remain excited about the future of The Nevers and look forward to its premiere in the summer of 2021.”

An important bit of context here is that over the past several years, Whedon has been accused of inappropriate and abusive behavior on his sets. Justice League actor Ray Fisher reported that Whedon’s conduct during filming of that movie was “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.” That led to an investigation by WarnerMedia, which culminated in unspecified “remedial action.” In February, Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Charisma Carpenter similarly tweeted that Whedon abused his power on that set.

Though Whedon may be gone from The Nevers (and thoroughly scrubbed from the show’s marketing material), his original vision will remain intact for at least the first six episodes. In addition to the uncomfortable showrunner departure, The Nevers had to deal with a production schedule severely interrupted by COVID-19 that turned a 10-episode first season order into two blocks of six and four episodes. Episodes five and six of Whedon’s version of the show were filmed and wrapped under HBO’s new COVID guidelines.

“When we went back to film I think HBO was really ahead of the game,” Penance Adair actress Ann Skelly says. “They installed whole new air ventilation system in the studios. They built a set that was supposed to be in a Greenwich location in one of our studios. They made it work somehow.”

Amy Manson, who plays the villainess Maladie, notes the irony in a show about “The Touched” filming during an era in which human touch could be dangerous.

“We’re a tactile bunch,” she says. “But, I think we all felt safe. Everyone from your driver to the brilliant chefs, to producers, were all being tested three times a week. That made it easier for the cast to be able to be on set minus masks, do our jobs, and not feel unsafe.”

The Nevers certainly wasn’t the first series to emerge from a COVID production environment and it won’t be the last, but it might be the first major test case of how a big pay cable endeavor can adapt its process. It’s also a test case for how television can navigate a Joss Whedon property without Joss Whedon.

Tasked with tackling the scale that Whedon left behind now is British screenwriter Philippa Goslett, writer of How To Talk to Girls at Parties and 2018’s Mary Magdalene.

Donnelly, for one, believes that the fictional world already set in motion should be big enough to accommodate new imaginations.

“These first six episodes are only really scratching the surface,” Donnelly says. “Having spoken to Philippa, she’s given me a rough idea of the arc for the next six episodes as she sees them. The ideas that are coming through there and how much more that’s expanding the world of the characters further.”

The back half of The Nevers first season does not yet have a release date. When it returns, however, it will be coming from a British and female showrunner perspective that more closely matches the series’ central characters. In the meantime, The Nevers cast is confident that the show can make do with episode 6 as an unexpected midseason finale.

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“It couldn’t be more brilliant if it tried. It’s the perfect place to just have a mid season hiatus, for sure,” Manson says.

The Nevers premieres Sunday, April 11 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

The post How The Nevers Weathered COVID Delays and Joss Whedon’s Departure appeared first on Den of Geek.

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marredbyoverlength · 7 years ago

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Roundup - October and November 2017

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Visually and aurally stunning, so much so that it would be a solid film no matter what. There’s a lot to love here: excellent performances from Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, and Ana de Armas, an excellent subplot about AI girlfriends, and even a surprisingly emotional ending. But the story is undercut by crowding, which becomes extra apparent in the third act when almost every major plot development happens within 5 minutes of each other. With more even pacing, this could be an all-time great. 8/10.

The Foreigner (2017) Dir. Martin Campbell. This movie was marketed as a Jackie Chan action flick, but really it’s a Pierce Brosnan political thriller about the remnants of the Irish separatist movement in which Jackie Chan sometimes beats the hell out of private security guards. It works pretty well, but I can’t help but wonder if this should have been two different movies. 7/10.

It (2017) Dir. Andy Muschietti. Solid, straight-up horror movie, despite some tonal inconsistencies. But, as is so often the problem with Stephen King film adaptations, there’s just not that much substance here. 6/10.

The Snowman (2017) Dir. Thomas Alfredson. The Snowman is not a finished movie: by the director’s own admission, they didn’t have enough time to shoot almost 15% of the script. It shows. Simply put, the pieces don’t all fit together, and the Big Reveal at the end would have been weak even if the buildup were properly done. But it did at least keep my attention. 5/10.

Geostorm (2017) Dir. Dean Devlin. One of the dumbest movies I have ever seen. Geostorm features Gerard Butler doing an American accent (which he is always terrible at), a big clock that says “Countdown to Geostorm,” a ton of handguns on the International Space Station, the most predictable Ed Harris heel turn of all time, and countless other incredibly dumb things, including the most hilarious bad dialogue line since Winter’s Tale’s “miracles are down by 50%!” The best kind of awful dreck. 2/10, but you should watch it anyway.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Dir. Taika Waititi. Easily the best of the Marvel movies, and it’s no wonder why: the Marvel bosses pretty much kept clear of it, and Waititi had the wisdom to lean into the inherent silliness of Thor and the Asgard mythos. Tremendously funny throughout, and in a way that didn’t detract from Thor’s remarkably compelling character arc. Worth seeing just for Jeff Goldblum’s portrayal of a deranged bread-and-circuses space emperor. 8/10.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) Dir. Kenneth Branagh. A friend of mine described this as a film about how we get justice when the justice system fails us. I think that’s giving the movie too much credit, but it is significantly smarter than the awful Imagine Dragons song in the trailer would lead you to believe. Overall, it’s a pretty good version of itself—but there’s not a high ceiling for that. 6/10.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. When I left the theater, a staff member asked whether I like the movie. I told him I didn’t know. Then he asked what it was about. I told him I didn’t know. That is my review. 5/10.

Justice League (2017) Dir. Zack Snyder (and Joss Whedon, unbilled). Another movie where the production problems really show, especially with these two directors. Whedon and Snyder both have the same problem: they are incapable of writing distinct characters. Every Snyder character is a cynical, loathsome edgelord; every Whedon character is an unserious geek-chic quipster. The styles do not blend well. Still, this is one of the better DC movies, as it doesn’t openly express its contempt for its audience and for heroism in general. 4/10.

The Florida Project (2017) Dir. Sean Baker. I have a hard time reviewing this one. It’s well-made movie with a good heart, but it relies entirely on how much you like young children. I do not like them one bit (save for my nephew. Hi Brady!). The only character I wanted to see was a beaten-down property manager of a low-income extended-stay hotel (an excellent Willem Defoe), who did get a lot of screen time, but not quite enough that I wasn’t glad when the movie ended. 5/10, probably 7-8/10 if you like kiddos.

Coco (2017) Dir. Lee Unkrich, Co-dir. Adrian Molina. Fun, but terribly predictable, and like most of the recent Pixar flicks, it’s almost completely unchallenging. But it gets a long way on spectacular animation, great original music, and bittersweet themes of family, memory, and legacy. Good movie to bring your kids to. 7/10.

Lady Bird (2017) Dir. Greta Gerwig. Strong debut for Gerwig, with impressive performances from Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as a daughter and mother with a strained but ultimately loving relationship. Tracy Letts is also great as the soft-spoken father of the family. The movie blends comedy and drama earnestly, and it’s clear that Gerwig has a good eye for filmmaking, especially with respect to editing. But the movie is held back by a busy script where lots of threads get dropped. 8/10.

Insomnia (1997) Dir. Erik Skjoldbjaerg. Good-looking and well-acted movie, but it’s impossible to root for any of the very awful main characters. Our Hero kills a dog and sexually assaults a receptionist. Without a strong story or character to latch onto, it’s hard to keep watching. 5/10.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982/2007) Dir. Ridley Scott. An oppressive, moody atmosphere and soundtrack make this boring movie watchable. This version is often considered the definitive version by Blade Runner enthusiasts, but even it has serious problems in editing. It’s hard to piece a movie together 25 years later from an incomplete source. 5/10.

#Film #Roundup #October #November #2017

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theconservativebrief · 7 years ago

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Until very recently, it felt like romantic comedies — at least the big-budget Hollywood kind — finally might have died. The culprits blamed for the genre’s decline ranged from the death of mid-budget movies to the genre’s reputation for being “unserious” to, uh, Katherine Heigl.

But this summer, it’s come roaring back, specifically thanks to three movies that made waves with audiences: the big-screen hit Crazy Rich Asians, and the Netflix sensations Set It Up and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. All three hew to romantic comedy conventions but with a twist, and suddenly it feels like rom-coms may be back after all.

Vox’s culture writers love a good romantic comedy. So to celebrate the burgeoning rom-com renaissance, we sat down to discuss the limits and possibilities of the genre, the hang-ups that hold it back, how rom-coms can be more inclusive, and what (and who) we’d like to see in rom-coms in the future.

Alissa Wilkinson: Some of the most beloved films of all time are rom-coms, but the label is often used as shorthand for “unimportant,” “fluffy,” and “inconsequential.” There are a few reasons for that, one of which is that rom-coms are seen as geared toward a female audience, and films for women have often been considered less important or less substantial than “prestige” films. Couple that with the lasting sense, in some quarters, that comedies just aren’t as worthy of serious consideration as dramas and you end up with rom-coms being sidelined.

Yet I believe, and I think you all do too, that there’s a lot of value to rom-coms, and a reason they endure as one of the oldest and most beloved forms of storytelling. What, in your view, do rom-coms do well? What makes them have so much staying power?

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. Warner Bros.

Constance Grady: I think any defense of rom-coms has to begin with the idea that it can be enjoyable and worthwhile to watch two attractive people trade banter, face complications, and eventually fall in love, and there is nothing wrong with that. That basic plot template is not inherently less valuable than the one about the sad, mean man who is really good at something and so has no excuse but to be terrible to the people around him, or the one about the people who fight in a war and are very brave. The fact that we treat rom-coms as frothy nonsense for dumb people stems from the fact that romantic comedies are generally marketed to women, whom our culture does not like — not from the genre’s inherent value.

At their very best, romantic comedies are sheer joy. They are about forging human connections and people changing each other for the better — all of which is complex stuff that is worthy of sustained aesthetic attention — and they approach their subject matter with glee.

I was reminded of that fact when watching Set It Up and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, two of the best rom-coms of the summer and the result of Netflix’s decision to try to fill the long-ignored rom-com market niche. Romantic comedies are about happiness! It’s a joyous experience to watch Set It Up’s Charlie and Harper accidentally fall into a slow dance and then painstakingly drag a pizza up a New York fire escape. It’s a joyous experience to watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’s Peter Kazinsky bashfully splash water at Lara Jean because he can’t quite bring himself to tell her he likes her.

This is a genre that’s about delivering joy to the audience, and what is wrong with that?

Genevieve Koski: It’s also a genre whose success is heavily dependent on charisma, which is the sort of cinematic juju that’s tough both to define and to replicate. Note, charisma is not the same thing as chemistry — I’d argue that a lot of the most successful rom-coms of the past 30 years or so feature leads with chemistry that’s lukewarm at best. But at least one half of your romantic duo, and ideally both halves, need to possess that tricky balance of relatable and aspirational qualities that makes it possible to engage with and care about characters whose narratives are usually, but not always, defined by contrivance. (See: the notorious “meet-cute.”)

Rom-com nonbelievers love to roll their eyes at this kind of narrative, characterizing it as cheesy or clichéd while willfully ignoring the fact that this type of storytelling has been around since the days of Shakespeare’s comedies. But with the right character(s), played by the right actor(s), those contrivances become a path to the sort of joyful human connection Constance is talking about. You need to care about the characters; even if you don’t necessarily like them, you need to be invested in them, and by extension their journey. And while that starts on the page, with the writing, it’s ultimately dependent on the people who bring those characters to life onscreen.

Ugh, as if! Paramount Pictures

So when we talk about the rom-com drought (and possible resurgence), for me one of the biggest issues at the heart of the trend is, as Vox’s own Todd VanDerWerff put it, many actresses’ reticence to do rom-coms. This is all tied up with a lot of other issues facing the genre, like the perceived lack of prestige that you note, Alissa — and which I definitely want to come back to, since some of the most beloved and respected films of the 1940s and ’50s are rom-coms, directed by legendary directors and featuring some of the biggest movie stars in history!

Somewhere along the way, they took on negative (and, yes, gendered) baggage, thus limiting the pool of actors who are both capable of and willing to bring life to this kind of story. The fact that this baggage has denied us the Rachel McAdams-led rom-com wave we all need and deserve is a grievous wrong that must be righted.

Aja Romano: I think another significant factor in the denigration of the rom-com is that they are built so heavily on tropes; their predictability is a huge part of their appeal, but like every other genre that relies heavily on genre tropes, the rom-com has been treated contemptuously by “serious” creators and authors for decades.

The mainstreaming of geek culture has gradually granted legitimacy to all the other heavily trope-based genres — comics, fantasy, sci-fi, video game narratives, horror — because they appealed to men, and male nerds have been ascendant. Yet trope-heavy genres dominated by women, which are mainly rom-com, erotic romance, and young adult at this point, have continued to struggle to gain any kind of cultural legitimacy.

I think it’s significant that a lot of the most critically successful recent films in this vein (Silver Linings Playbook, Young Adult, Lady Bird, Eighth Grade) generally attempt to layer a rom-com structure onto another kind of narrative — the teen comedy or the family dramedy. It suggests to me that Hollywood is most interested in giving these tropes attention when they’re approached ironically or at angles.

That makes the recent immediate success of Netflix’s rom-coms, as well as Crazy Rich Asians, an ebullient reminder that the audience for these tropes is mighty and vocal, and they know what they want and are very interested in owning it, being positive about it, and having it delivered unto them. I see Jupiter Ascending as a significant precursor here: Female fans lost their minds over that movie precisely because it was so open and unabashed about embracing its romance tropes and catering to viewers’ desire for self-indulgent id-fantasy — which, of course, was the very same reason it was critically trashed.

This also plays into the huge dominance of fanfiction culture’s sincere embrace of tropes, where fans are very upfront about wanting endless repetitions of coffee-shop meet-cutes and high school teen romances and office rom-coms, and there’s no high/low cultural divide, or any shame attached to loving these tropes. There’s a huge overlap between these transformative fans and the audiences turning out in droves for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Crazy Rich Asians, and that is, I hope, a sign that the female-dominated side of geek culture is finally starting to make inroads toward the cultural mainstream, and that its desire for these kinds of stories is starting to become more widely understood and accepted.

Todd VanDerWerff: Allow me to say a few words in favor of my beloved television, where the romantic comedy has migrated in these recent years of trial. You’re the Worst has had its rough patches, but whenever it turns its eyes toward being a straightforward rom-com with an acerbic point of view, it’s aces. Similarly, Jane the Virgin has had, like, 17 different rom-coms stuffed into its candy-colored confines, and that’s only a slight exaggeration. And Crazy Ex-Girlfriend deconstructs rom-com tropes better than almost anybody else.

You’re the Worst is one of TV’s most acerbic — and funniest — comedies. FX

But there’s also something to the idea that the best format for a romantic comedy is a movie, because you get to have the happy ending climax of the lovers walking blissfully into the sunset without any of the complications that follow, which TV inevitably has to get into. You also get to see attractive people enacting those tropes, which gives film a boost over novels in this regard. (At least for me. I’ll take the controversial stance of saying that I like pretty people.)

I wouldn’t say that the rom-com completely disappeared in the past 10 years, so much as its many tropes got submerged into different movies. Judd Apatow’s entire oeuvre is based on transplanting rom-com tropes into movies aimed more explicitly at the guy-heavy raunch-com audience. (I like a lot of his films too! I’ll even stan for Funny People, which I realize isn’t his most popular title.)

And a lot of the very perfunctory romantic subplots in superhero movies feel ripped directly from the rom-com playbook. Like, it’s really easy to imagine a version of Iron Man that’s just Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow falling in love, with him occasionally flying off to fight evil. That’s how much fun it is to watch them banter.

But I look at rom-coms and see something similar to what happened to horror, where the genre got laden down with a bunch of relatively unpleasant movies in the mid-2000s, which turned off a more general audience, and it went into hiding. But where horror has experienced a resurgence, thanks to the rise of a whole new indie horror aesthetic and the relentless work of horror super-producer Jason Blum, rom-coms are still searching for their next big launchpad. My hope is that the rom-coms of summer 2018 are that launchpad, but I’ve been burned before.

My question has always been why some Jason Blum wannabe doesn’t just make a deal with a studio to make a bunch of cheap ($5 million and under) romantic comedies, just as Blum did with Universal and horror. But my fear is that for a variety of reasons — including the genre’s perceived appeal only to women, and the fact that its dependence on strong actors means studios have to pay those actors more, which adds up quickly — this is unlikely to happen.

That leaves Netflix. And while I love some of its movies, a lot of its rom-coms are kind of reprehensible. And a bad rom-com too often isn’t just a bad movie; it’s also propping up some pretty toxic worldviews. So I want to believe in Netflix as a savior, but I have my doubts.

Will Netflix save the romantic comedy with films like Set It Up? Netflix

Alissa: What we’ve been saying, in many ways, is that what makes a rom-com great has a lot to do with who is in it and how it uses (and sometimes messes with) the tropes of the genre, many of which have been around for centuries. The rom-com is surprisingly durable, and as Genevieve pointed out, some of the most respected films of the 1940s and ’50s are rom-coms — it’s just that they’ve attained such canonical status that people talk about them as “classics,” not “rom-coms.” (As if “classic” can be a genre anyhow, but I digress.)

That does lead us down an interesting path, though: If the story and the stars are a lot of what makes great rom-coms work, and Hollywood is feinting toward more inclusive casting and storytelling, how will rom-coms evolve going forward? The rom-coms marketed at the “mainstream” audience have often starred white actors portraying straight characters. Is that going to change? And are there films, maybe some that have flown under the radar for some moviegoers, that have already challenged those rom-com conventions?

Constance: For my money, part of what makes this year’s rom-com revival so exciting — and what gives me hope that it will have some sort of enduring effect on the industry — is the kind of stars it’s making.

We’ve talked a little already about how vital the charisma of a star is to making a rom-com work, but the reverse is true as well. The rom-com and its stars are in a symbiotic relationship: The right stars will make a romantic comedy sing, and the right romantic comedy can jump-start its stars’ careers. Because when you watch a really good romantic comedy, you fall a little bit in love with the actors involved. You want them to succeed. You might even be willing to go to a different movie just to see them again.

Landing the leading role in a good romantic comedy can transform a working actor into a household name. And right now, the stars that the rom-com revival is making aren’t just white people.

One of the biggest narratives of the summer has been that with movies like To All the Boys and Crazy Rich Asians, Hollywood is finally letting Asian people fall in love. It’s hard to say for sure if this is a blip or a genuine sea change (way back when The Joy Luck Club came out in 1993, the narrative was that Hollywood was finally telling stories about Asian people, and then no one made another Asian ensemble film for 25 years), but while this moment lasts, it’s putting incredibly talented and previously overlooked actors into the spotlight.

Constance Wu has been killing it on Fresh Off the Boat for five seasons, but after Crazy Rich Asians, now she’s a movie star. Lana Condor has spent years languishing in action movies, not even daring to hope that she could get placed in a romantic comedy, and now she’s the face of one of the buzziest hits on Netflix.

For as long as Hollywood continues to make romantic comedies that center on marginalized people — and there’s no way of knowing for sure how long that moment will last — it’s going to keep giving actors from marginalized communities the chance to make audiences fall completely in love with them. And that means there’s a shot that they’ll become genuine stars.

Aja: I think, too, that we’re seeing a renewed awareness that you don’t necessarily have to subvert rom-com tropes to create fun and enjoyable stories that people respond to — you can just have fun retelling them again and again, because so much of the validation does come from watching charismatic actors carry the storyline.

And that makes the rom-com a really fruitful space, I think, for marginalized communities of actors and creators who’ve traditionally been barred from telling stories like these, because now there’s nothing stopping anyone from remaking It Happened One Night or Bringing Up Baby with a whole new ensemble. There’s every indication that the audience will be there — for instance, look how successful K-dramas, with their shameless embrace of rom-com tropes and their tendency to retell well-known storylines, have been, both overseas and in the US.

Zoe Kazan and Kumail Nanjiani starred in The Big Sick in 2017. Amazon Studios

I also want to mention Love, Simon and perhaps even Moonlight and Call Me by Your Name here, because while those latter two aren’t rom-coms, and Love, Simon might be arguably more of a teen comedy than a rom-com, they collectively indicate an emerging positive space for queer romance. It pains me endlessly to realize that the last queer rom-com I can remember making a mainstream splash is 2005’s Imagine Me & You — which is also one of the few really pure, trope-a-licious queer rom-coms.

That film capped a decade starting in the mid-’90s when indie queer rom-coms (Jeffrey, Trick, The Opposite of Sex, But I’m a Cheerleader, Big Eden, Touch of Pink, the long-rumored original cut of Bend It Like Beckham the world deserved, sigh) were pretty easy to find but often deeply flawed, tinged with understandable sadness and sociopolitical edge, and more than a little weird. We are overdue for a queer romance renaissance in which the gays just get to have fun and fall in love without having to undergo a social reckoning.

That’s a huge part of why Love, Simon is so important — and I’m hopeful the love and support queer romances have been getting lately will open the field for more mainstreamed queer and genderqueer rom-coms that allow queer people to participate in universal love stories. In other words, I want to see queer and genderqueer remakes of His Girl Friday and The Women, let’s do this, Hollywood!

Todd: It’s also exciting because this is really one of the first times in Hollywood history where you can just make a rom-com around LGBTQ themes, aimed at a large audience, that doesn’t need to be explicitly about the larger experience of being LGBTQ.

Even 10 years ago, there was at least a minor expectation that these stories needed to be filtered through a cis/hetero lens, and they always contained a certain element of, like, “being gay, explained.” There’s less of that now. A movie like Love, Simon can just exist, can just be thoroughly adequate. That’s revolutionary in its own way, but we’re rapidly approaching a point where it won’t feel revolutionary, which is even more impressive.

Love, Simon garnered mixed reviews, but that’s part of why it’s important. 20th Century Fox

But I think the larger point I’m nodding toward here is cultural specificity. There’s far less need to indulge in explaining things to the audience over and over again, out of fear that not everybody will “get it.” The mahjong scene in Crazy Rich Asians simply flies by, trusting you to get the emotional impact of what happens even if you can’t explain all the machinations within the game itself. It works because we’ve all freaked out about pleasing the parents of someone we really care about.

Similarly, The Big Sick trades on a conflict rooted in incredible cultural specificity — the main character’s desire to choose his romantic partner, rather than his parents getting a say in the process — that broadens out to a more universal consideration of the way family can make it harder to fall in love.

This means a lot of the old rom-com tropes feel ripe for exploration again. And thus, I hope more actors try their hand at the genre. Which performers would you like to see appear in a romantic comedy? I’d love Michael B. Jordan to get a shot at one after seeing the romantic scenes in Creed. I suspect we’d all fall in love with him.

Genevieve: I’m going to table that question for just a moment, Todd, because this is probably a good place to acknowledge that the past 20 years or so have seen their fair share of black romantic comedies, very few of which have been able to break out of that unfortunately niche distinction but have collectively established a roster of black actors with a proven history of carrying a rom-com.

Taye Diggs, Gabrielle Union, Sanaa Lathan, and Queen Latifah have all had multiple go-rounds in a subgenre that has produced a handful of “surprise” box office successes in the past decade or so, some of which trade in exactly the sort of cultural specificity Todd is describing.

I’m thinking of 2011’s Jumping the Broom, which “overperformed” in its debut and went on make back five times its production budget; 2012’s Think Like a Man, a cameo-festooned adaptation of a Steve Harvey book that took in $33 million its opening weekend — that’s right around what Crazy Rich Asians pulled in — and produced a 2014 sequel that opened nearly as big; and 2013’s The Best Man Holiday, a sequel to Malcolm Lee’s beloved 1999 film The Best Man, whose $30 million-plus opening weekend debut “trounced all expectations.”

The box office performance of The Best Man Holiday in particular started a dialogue about the assumptions around these films that lead to these “surprise” big openings, assumptions that combine misconceptions about the rom-com with misconceptions about black films: that mainstream audiences don’t show up to black films, and that, as one studio executive told Brown Sugar screenwriter Michael Elliot, “Love does not really resonate with black people. Comedy does.”

Think Like a Man was a big box office hit in 2012. Screen Gems

What exactly am I getting at here? I’m honestly not entirely sure, and I don’t want to suggest I’m some sort of expert on black romantic comedies — I’ll guiltily admit that I haven’t seen most of the films I just mentioned, though I am quite aware of how they are often misperceived by the industry, and of how my ignorance of them contributes to those misperceptions.

But I think if we’re talking about the broad assumptions surrounding romantic comedies, and if we’re talking about more inclusive storytelling, and if we’re talking about bankable romantic leads who aren’t white, and if we’re talking about whether romantic comedies can succeed at the box office, we can’t not talk about the lack of consideration that’s been afforded to black romantic comedies over the years by the broader film community.

When Vulture published its 2015 list of the best rom-coms since When Harry Met Sally, a list that included no films with black or LGBTQ leads, it did so with the admission of its own “blind spots,” conceding in its intro that “there are movies this list needs.”

All that said, there has not been, to my knowledge, a financially successful black rom-com film since 2014’s Think Like a Man Too, which came out almost five years ago at this point. (Diggs co-stars in Set It Up, but he’s more of a romantic antagonist there, and I don’t think anyone would dare categorize it as a black rom-com.) If we are indeed in the midst of a rom-com renaissance, I hope those looking to revive the genre remember the legacy-within-a-legacy of the black rom-com, if for nothing else than to help correct what might be the mainstream rom-com’s biggest, most shameful blind spot.

Anyway, please cast GuGu Mbatha-Raw, of Beyond the Lights and Black Mirror’s “San Junipero,” in a romantic comedy, thank you.

Alissa: Speaking of dictums aimed at Hollywood! Suppose a studio executive approaches you at a cocktail party and says that they think the rom-com is about to have a resurgence, and wants your best piece of advice for making a great one.

What do you say?

Constance: I’m going to take my inspiration from To All the Boys and get really earnest here: I think the most important thing for a romantic comedy to have is emotional honesty.

Part of what killed the romantic comedy in the mid-’00s was that the biggest studio rom-coms, your How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or your Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, were getting increasingly slick and smarmy and cynical. They followed the formula of a rom-com on a surface level — aspirational jobs, fancy clothes, beautiful people — but they were made with a palpable contempt for both their characters and the people who enjoy watching romantic comedies. These movies didn’t care about their characters or why they should fall in love; they were just putting them through the motions. And watching them didn’t feel escapist and joyous and fun. It felt gross and slimy.

That’s part of why it’s felt so refreshing and exciting that this year’s best romantic comedies are suffused with sincere affection for the genre and for their characters. It’s because we can feel that these movies love their characters that we’re able to fall in love with them too, and that love is something that can’t be faked. It has to come from a place of honest respect and affection.

Crazy Rich Asians loves its characters, so we do too. Warner Bros.

Todd: I would double up on Constance’s suggestion: Sincerity is key. If you don’t believe in the love story, then there’s no good reason to tell it.

But I would also encourage this imaginary exec to continue exploring the ways that falling in love can feel universal, even when rooted in very specific experiences. A film I didn’t talk about earlier was Azazel Jacobs’s The Lovers, which is maybe a little too dark to be a classic rom-com but definitely has the trappings of one. What I liked about that movie was how it rooted its rom-com shenanigans in the very specific milieu of a long-lasting marriage, between two people exiting middle age for their elderly years who are just pretty sick of each other. It gave what could have been a tired story an extra boost of dramatic stakes, and that was all it took.

But really, so long as Matthew McConaughey is nowhere near this rom-com renaissance, we’re doing something right. Sorry, Matthew. Love your smarm, but not in this genre.

Aja: My suggestion is probably why I don’t wind up getting invited to many cocktail parties: I’d tell them to read more fanfic. Because in fanfiction, especially queer fanfiction, writers tend to simultaneously embrace and explode rom-com tropes. They do that by treating them extremely seriously and with that much-coveted sincerity, but also by centering them within very self-aware lived experiences, making conscious choices about how to either subvert the tropes they’re working with or reframe social issues in order to shamelessly leverage those tropes to create even more shameless fantasy.

Fanfiction is all about cultivating a fantasy version of reality where challenging romances can thrive, but fanfiction also never lets us forget that its creators are driven to build that fantasy version of reality because the real one sucks. I’m reminded of the 2009 sci-fi romance Timer, which is explicitly about that fantasy/reality divide. It’s not a happy movie, but it inadvertently created a massively popular recent fanfiction trope, because people who write romances have increasingly used the genre and its tropes to thwart socially imposed norms that tell us what love should be and look like.

I believe the way to keep this genre resurgence going is to keep writing it within that framework — by embracing romantic fantasy as a powerful palliative and social remedy. Tension between fantasy and reality makes romance stories more passionate, and the more people we have telling these stories, the more diverse and fascinating real-world experiences we can draw on as we create new fantasies for everyone to enjoy.

Genevieve: I’m going to second all of this, but conclude with some cold pragmatism that might seem to undermine what we’ve been talking about. Just bear with me, because studio execs in particular need to hear this: Please don’t think of rom-coms as potential blockbusters.

So much of Hollywood’s modern movie model is built on the quest for big openings and big international box office tallies, and those are not expectations that this genre is in a position to meet. The latter is particularly tough for a genre built on two things — comedy and romance tropes — that don’t easily translate between cultures (give or take the occasional cross-cultural property like Crazy Rich Asians).

I worry that a studio exec who’s deeply internalized this model might hear the words “rom-com resurgence” and be tempted to throw millions at these movies, paying through the nose for bankable international stars and big-name directors with the expectation of a return on investment that is unlikely to happen.

As previously mentioned by Todd, the recent indie/Blumhouse horror revival is the model to follow here: Think small but distinctive, cheap but memorable. Invest in lesser-known talents with a passion for the genre who are eager to bring something new to it while respecting its roots. At the very least, you’re likely to get a good return on investment; if you play your cards right, you might even get some prestige shine in the deal.

The rom-com could and should be a strong part of a studio’s portfolio, but overinvesting in a genre that tends toward the small and the intimate by design is a recipe for a resurgence that’s DOA. As I think we’ve proven with this discussion, there’s plenty of enthusiasm out there for the genre; if Hollywood wants to capture that enthusiasm, it needs to let the rom-com succeed on its own terms.

Original Source -> Why romantic comedies matter

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: A Western Cultural History of Pink, from Madame de Pompadour to Pussy Hats

View of the Women’s March on Washington from the roof of the Voice of America building in Washington, D.C. (image via Wikimedia)

Visitors to the official website of the Pussyhat Project are welcomed with an exclamation of color and joy from founders Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman: “We did it! We created a sea of pink!” And indeed they did. The Women’s March on Washington, D.C., and the 600 allied marches across the United States and the world, drew between 3.3 and 4.6 million protesters, making it one of the largest single-day demonstrations in the nation’s history. Suh and Zweiman launched the Pussyhat Project in advance of the march with the goal of having one million hats on hand, and their website includes PDF patterns for knit, sewn, and crocheted versions, which have collectively been downloaded more than 100,000 times. The resulting sea of cat hats caused a run on pink yarn across the country and quickly became a powerful visual shorthand for this particular swath of anti-Trump protest movements.

The message of the color pink is so powerful that it rarely needs explanation. We all know what it implies: it’s feminine, frilly, cheery, and delicate, certainly not a color we expect to see on, say, the cover of a scientific journal. It is often used to stand in for character development, as in the 2001 movie Legally Blonde, in which it’s implied that the pink-clad sorority girl Elle Woods, who carries a pink-accessorized chihuahua for good measure, can’t possibly be serious about applying to Harvard Law School. A claque of superficial teenage girls is similarly characterized in the 2004 film Mean Girls (“On Wednesdays, we wear pink,” says the alpha.) Unlike red, which flexibly symbolizes both Communism and the GOP, pink is so precisely coded that it’s almost impossible to misunderstand its intent. For this reason, pink tends to be either loved or loathed.

This happened yesterday in San Francisco! Were you there? We see a mini sea of pink. Resist, dear ones. And may we never stop Stefan Ruenzel

A post shared by Pussyhat Project (@p_ssyhatproject) on Feb 12, 2017 at 5:04am PST

The Women’s March managed the tricky feat of eliciting criticism from both the right and the left, and one of the themes of that criticism has been the Pussyhat Project, and its signature color, in particular. A week before the March, Petula Dvorak admonished her readers in the Washington Post: “Please, sisters, back away from the pink.” Dvorak argued that pussy hats risked trivializing the message of the Women’s March, and she focused much of her critique on their color and crafting. Her language is telling: She writes of “pink pussycat hats, sparkly signs, and color-coordinated street theater,” as well as “she-power frippery,” then goes on to describe the imagined march as “an unruly river of Pepto-Bismol roiling through the streets.” Noting that the issues at stake for women in the Trump era are “serious stuff,” Dvorak makes the case for equal pay and reproductive rights, asserting her feminist bona fides, then goes on to mock pussy hats as “totally clever and cute and fun” — a clear dig based on negative stereotypes of young women’s speech. And in his predictably tone-deaf post-mortem of the march in the New York Times, the conservative opinion writer David Brooks proposed that the whole exercise was mired in the dead-end rituals of lefty identity politics and that its props and crutches were distractions disguising a lack of real substance from which a coherent anti-Trump agenda might arise. He singles out “pink hats” for disdain, and his lack of any descriptors to characterize them makes his logic clear: It goes without saying that pink is unserious. But why?

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour by Maurice Quentin de la Tour, painted between 1748 and 1755, Musée du Louvre (via Wikimedia)

Pink’s cultural history is complicated. Its first real moment in the spotlight was during the European Rococo period, when it became a favorite hue for fashion, confections, tableware, and the lighthearted frolicking depicted in the Romantic paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Madame de Pompadour, the chief mistress of Louis XV, famously loved pink clothes, and she commissioned a bright pink porcelain service from Sèvres, which developed a new color for the set called Rose Pompadour in 1757. But throughout this period, pink was more strongly associated with style and luxury than with a particular gender. Quoted in a 2013 article in The Atlantic, fashion historian and Director of the Museum at FIT Valerie Steele notes that “in the 18th century, it was perfectly masculine for a man to wear a pink silk suit with floral embroidery.” Pink was still understood primarily as a paler version of red — a bold, even bellicose color that had military associations.

Soft-paste porcelain Potpourri vase, Sèvres Manufactory (French, 1740–present), modeled by Jean-Claude Duplessis (French, ca. 1695–1774, active 1748–74), ca. 1757–58, Gift of Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1958 (image via Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Even more surprising is the fact that light blue — which, as many a modern-day sex-reveal cake will confirm, is virtually synonymous with the phrase “it’s a boy!” — was more strongly associated with female children until just after World War II. Sociologist Jo B. Paoletti, whose book Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America traces the history of color and gender in children’s clothing, writes that for most of the 19th century, the go-to color for dressing infants of both sexes was white. This was partly for practical reasons: Dyes during this period were apt to fade with repeated washing, particularly the boil-washing and bleaching required to keep baby clothes clean, so there wasn’t much point in spending money on fashionably hued garments for infants. The second reason is that, at the time, babies’ perceived gender ambiguity was viewed not as a problem to be solved with a color-coded headband, but as a virtue to be cherished and protected. Gender was understood as a component of adult sexuality, which in turn was considered taboo in the context of young children. If prepubescent children were “innocent,” they were to be only vaguely gendered. As color became a potent branding tool in the first decades of the 20th century, pink and blue emerged as interchangeable colors for children’s clothing and nursery décor, along with pale yellow and green. And sometimes pink was perceived as more appropriate for little boys, owing to its relationship to the robust and “masculine” red. But, according to Paoletti, well into the 1920s, there was little consensus on the part of department stores and women’s periodicals as to which color was properly assigned to which gender, and many parents simply gravitated to whatever looked more attractive on their child.

How and when did this change? “There was no sudden, unanimous cultural shift,” Paoletti writes in Pink and Blue. “It evolved over decades. At the same time, clothing manufacturers did their best to anticipate those choices better than their competitors and to shape those choices in order to make them more predictable and profitable.” In other words, it may not have happened overnight, but it was clearly the influence of manufacturing and marketing in the postwar United States that caused the gendered assignments of pink for girls and blue for boys to stick for good.

Print ad for Hotpoint Stoves, 1956 (image via Flickr)

Pink emerged as one of the dominant hues in the 1950s at precisely the moment when American women were whisked off the wartime assembly line and back into the kitchen. Thanks to the postwar proliferation of suburban tract housing with brand new appliances in fashion colors, American homes simultaneously became more explicitly gendered and more actively color-coded than ever before. In her book The Color Revolution, design historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk finds one of the earliest moments of pink’s emergence in, of all places, the preppy men’s retailer Brooks Brothers, which in 1949 opened a department store just for women on 5th Avenue and introduced a popular line of pink blouses that got major publicity in the fashion press. This, combined with First Lady Mamie Eisenhower’s fondness for a shade that became known as “First Lady Pink,” helped propel the color into American shops and homes. Unlike Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s version, Shocking Pink, which enjoyed a somewhat avant-garde moment in the late 1930s, First Lady Pink was soft and subdued.

Mamie Eisenhower in her inaugural gown, painted in 1953 by Thomas Stevens (via Wikimedia)

After pink conquered the fashion world, Blaszczyk writes, Armstrong premiered pink vinyl flooring and General Electric started selling “Petal Pink” appliances. Scores of competitors quickly followed suit. For women in the 1950s who were old enough to remember cast iron stoves, a pink cooktop and a matching floor would have been a revelation. The novel colors and sleek designs of the postwar period transformed kitchens from hot, uncomfortable workspaces into natural extensions of a feminized, comfortable, and stylish home. “Linked with the idea of female childhood,” writes Penny Sparke in her 1995 book As Long as It’s Pink: The Sexual Politics of Taste, “[pink] represented the distinctive gendering that underpinned 1950s society, ensuring that women were women and men were men. Gendering had to start at an early age, and parents were the key role models. The use of pink in the home emphasized the essential femininity of girls and women, and it showed daughters that their mothers understood this and wished them to recognize the distinctiveness of their gender as well.” Unsurprisingly, one of the main critiques of the limits of postwar life for middle-class American women was that it was akin to playing house. Betty Friedan famously characterized housewives as “childlike” and “passive” in The Feminine Mystique in 1963.

With pink’s complex lineage, it’s useful to think of its cultural footprint as intersectional. While its feminine association with gender is now unquestioned, it’s also a symbol, perhaps more crucially, of age. More than womanhood per se, pink represents girlhood, and it can be understood as a gendered yet asexual marker of femininity. Like the all-in-white infants of the 19th century, today’s little girls are awash in pink — a global phenomenon beautifully captured by the South Korean artist JeongMee Yoon in her “Pink and Blue Project.” But adult women are pinkified, too: The Breast Cancer Awareness movement has all but co-opted pink through advertising, product design, and even museum exhibition sponsorship, as in the well-received 2013 show Think Pink, which was on view at the MFA Boston in October 2013 (during Breast Cancer Awareness month). When we seek a pretty razor with a built-in dab of sweet-smelling moisturizer, we pay the “pink tax” to buy a product for women that’s nearly identical to its dark blue or steel gray (and less expensive) male counterpart.

JeongMee Yoon, “The Pink Project II: Lauren & Carolyn and Their Pink & Purple Things” (2009), light jet print (image courtesy of the artist)

So as consumers and activists today, when we embrace pink, are we proudly reclaiming a color that has been unfairly maligned and prone to sexist ridicule, or are we just falling into an advertiser’s trap? And conversely, when we denigrate pink, are we simply being reactionary, carping about an innocuous cultural trait the way radio listeners complain about vocal fry? It’s impossible to untangle the 1950s gendering campaign that made pink so pervasive from the sexism inherent to the era. We can’t know if we perceive pink the way we do because it became associated with women, or indeed if it became associated with women because it had been associated with childhood, and housewives were not perceived as fully adult. This netherworld of the not-quite-grownup woman is evident in pink’s cultural symbolism even now. While breasts are as sexualized as ever in popular culture, the Breast Cancer Awareness movement’s devotion to pink seems like a clear attempt to recast an illness that primarily afflicts a female erogenous zone (although men can also suffer from breast cancer) as something girlish, even prepubescent. Likewise, the Pussyhat Project took its name from the Access Hollywood tapes that record Donald Trump describing how and where a male celebrity can “grab” women. Though they have been referred to as “vagina hats” by critics on the right, in an attempt to vulgar-shame the protesters, the hats themselves, handmade and cozy, are more akin to stuffed animals than sultry clothing.

WOW Um, good morning! We woke up and there were #pussyhats on @theviewabc! Photo by @the_lemonade_shop

A post shared by Pussyhat Project (@p_ssyhatproject) on Jan 18, 2017 at 10:25am PST

I personally like pink quite a bit, even as I’m keenly aware of the machinations of the pink-industrial complex. On one hand, I resent the implication that women are being silly when they wear pink, and on the other, I resent the notion that girlishness is itself synonymous with frivolity. I happen to have been a pretty serious little girl, even as I wore pink stirrup pants in the 1980s. Yet we tie ourselves in knots trying to outrun the misogyny that’s both within and outside us. As the symbol of Code Pink and Act Up’s iconic and highly effective Silence = Death campaign, which referenced the pink triangle that was used by Nazis to identify gay men in concentration camps during World War II, pink has done some serious heavy lifting in social justice movements. It may do us all some good to reconsider pink as an unironic color of protest, and in doing so, to help exorcise some of our impulses to denigrate the color of girlhood. Since its cousin red is the color of war, I like to think that pink could become the hue of nonviolent battle, and that learning to embrace it may be a very small first step toward ending the war on women for good.

The post A Western Cultural History of Pink, from Madame de Pompadour to Pussy Hats appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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