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EvRobert

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Posts posted by EvRobert

  2. Posted

    in last week's mini ep, when Paul said Sean Penn and Madonna, I somehow heard Sean YOUNG and Madonna  and watched this thinking it was going to be some sort of Some Like It Hot/Road To with Madonna and Sean Young that just fell to the wayside because it's a WTF movie. Imagine my disappointment in expecting a beautiful 1986 Sean Young and getting Sean Penn...

  3. Posted

    19 hours ago, taylorannephoto said:

    We could maybe also like do slow morphs! Like this one is definitely headed in the direction of maybe not considered musicals but music plays a heavy part, so we could like focus on that too! Clueless, Pulp Fiction, Garden State, Drive, etc!

    we've kind of being doing that since around the time someone choose Baby Driver. I mean off and on :) I'm actually all for this

    • Like 3

  7. Posted

    2 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

    I always assumed Cher was 16. Her and her friends are all getting their license. I think Paul Rudd is supposed to be law school because doesn't he help their dad with paperwork aat some point?

    Add me to the list of people who always thought that was weird. Even at the end she says that thing about "not being from Kentucky". So, you know it's weird but don't care? Gross.

    oh I forgot about the whole getting their license thing

  8. Posted

    3 hours ago, theworstbuddhist said:

    Clueless was based on Jane Austen's "Emma," I assume they preserved the relationships from the book. But yeah, weird that they would.

    It has been forever since I've seen Clueless, but isn't Josh going into Law School or just completed his first year of Law School? he's got to be at least 21, right? But then I assumed Cher was 18 and a Senior in High School so it wasn't THAT weird to me. The age thing never bothered me, I grew up hearing stories about how my folks had a 4 or 5 year age difference but the "former step sibling" was always a bit strange to me as well.

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    39 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

    *I just noticed the similarity of the names. Twilight literally is Beauty and the Beast, meets Dracula, meets Romeo & Juliet, meets Pride & Prejudice.

    from the Wiki article on Twilight

    Quote

    Each book in the series was inspired by and loosely based on a different literary classic: Twilight on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, New Moon on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Eclipse on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and Breaking Dawn on a second Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Meyer also states that Orson Scott Card and L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series are a big influence on her writing. The Cullens were inspired by Meyer's own family[16] as well as characters from the X-Men cartoon. Other influences on the series which Meyer has acknowledged include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, HGTV, and the films Iron Man, Somewhere in Time, Stranger than Fiction, and Baby Mama.

    Some wild sources here, some I see, some I don't 

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    Man, I'm drawing on some knowledge that I haven't thought about in awhile, but IIRC, Stephanie Meyers did state that (at least) Twilight and New Moon were based on Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice, so I think an argument can and has been made that these stories are problematic. I know we discussed at length the issues with R&J in the West Side Story thread on Unspooled. And I don't see anyone HERE arguing that Edward is problematic but Mr D'Arcy isn't. I've also seen quite a bit of a movement in the last couple of years about how Beauty and the Beast is a problematic story as well (also a Twilight connection with Bill Condon). So I think by saying that Character B is problematic his counterpart in Character A is also problematic and possibly his counterpart in Character C is problematic. 

    Lots of people argue that Christian Grey from 50 Shades is a problematic character, but if he is, we have to look at his source material, which is Edward Cullen AND Mr D'Arcy and Romeo. 

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    Thank you for correcting me about Bella's mom and dad, I literally couldn't remember (but I literally remember nothing about her parents). 

    I'm not sure what else I can add to this discussion that hasn't already been said better and by those more affected by these books than me. I read the books once (and frankly I thought they should have ended at the third one (New Moon?) which I thought ended in a perfectly fine way and made for a nice conclusion. 

    From a movie making point of view, I do think that the movies got more "serious" and more and more funny (but less intentionally so), but I think is the fault of the filmmakers. I do think it is interesting that only one of the films (the first one) had a female director at the helm (I think we've talked about Catherine Hardwicke's career on this board before) . What else, I think, is interesting to  note is that this extends not just to the twilight films. None of the Hunger Games were directed by women, none of the Divergent movies were directed by women, despite those stories being about female protagonists and written by female authors. 

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    I also think it's easy to pick on the TWILIGHT books because, well they're not poorly written but they will never be mistaken fro great literature or have a timelessness that other books would have. 
     

    That's not Stephanie Meyer's fault and that's not to unfairly criticize or malign her.There just isn't a lasting quality there. There's a lot of worse YA fiction that made worse movies and worse books (don't get me started on Christopher Paloni and the Eragorn series). Other works of literature and movies and art can have a lasting impression, if there are better made. 

    the problem is that is sometimes harder to spot the problematic elements in better written/better produced work because, at least for me personally, I get caught up in the craft and the art. 

    As a theater person and a film person, there is a lot I love about David Mamet because I get caught up in the craft of his work, and as a result I find it hard to look at his more problematic elements, as far as his worldview and him as a person. i've gotten better at it as he has become more and more of a toxic person. But god damn if the man can't write.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    I'm not saying that she shouldn't have written from her POV or her upbringing, but we should still call it out when it's problematic.

    Like, I love me The Chronicles of Narnia. That was my first exposure to fantasy and allegory and really cool writing and mythology. And most of it is pretty good but book 5 (The Horse and His Boy) is DEEPLY problematic that is only borderline and marginally corrected in book 7, but book 7 also has that horrible revelation that Susan was more concerned with boys and dresses and parties and forgot all about Narnia and didn't get to go back when her siblings all died. Like Lewis is is saying that if you like boys and dresses and parties you don't deserve to go to heaven. 

    And I'm going to call it out. I still love Narnia (and I really love Lewis' Space Trilogy) but that doesn't mean he didn't write from a problematic POV that may have influenced people negatively (thankfully the Narnia neighbors who are problematic in the books never showed up in the films)

    • Like 2

  16. Posted

    15 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

    But it’s also a fairy tale book about vampires and werewolves. I don’t think any impressionable teens are walking away from Twilight thinking, “I sure wish Timmy would break into my room tonight and stare at me while I sleep. Then I know he loves me.” He’s supposed to be creepy, weird, and off-putting. What would be the point of making him just like a normal teenager? If that were the case, then you might as well just write a story about two regular old teens falling in love. All the creepy things he does feeds into Bella’s unease. She’s not right off the bat like, “I love him.” She’s drawn to him but afraid of him - which is something in every vampire book and story ever written.

    So, yes, if we’re talking real life, totally. It’s really problematic. But with narrative shorthand, we get that he’s probably okay pretty much right away. It’s just like we get Mr D’Arcy is okay long before it’s actually revealed or how we know Prince Charming isn’t just some creep who likes to kiss dead women.

    One of my brother's ex girlfriends would not go to sleep unless he was on the phone with her. 

    She was a senior in HS. 

    She would get mad if he didn't stay on the phone with her all night. even if they were both asleep. 

    it was weird AF.

    I know this because my brother and I were sharing a condo at the time.

  18. Posted

    First, I never wanted to be the kid under the stairs, I wanted to be Shipwreck from GI Joe :D or Han Solo or The Tick (I was a weird kid/teenager, I know). 

    And Cameron, I don't think Stephanie Meyer intended to showcase a toxic relationship nor do I think she intedned Bella to be someone that was emulated, but she did. She wrote what she knew, which was based on a lot of LDS courting and marriage stuff (even more influenced I think once OSC kind of took her under his wing and mentored her and whatnot). For Bella there was only ever Edward and nothing else would do, She does dangerous things throughout the books to try and get his attention and/or prove herself or whatever to get herself turned, including having that damn creepy baby.  There is a worldview and a POV throughout the books and movies that I think says that there is only ever one person for someone (IIRC, Bella's father and mother never find a meaningful relationship after their divorce) and you won't ever be happy without that person. There's also a lot of weird purity movement stuff in there about sex and how chaste Edward is even when Bella is throwing herself at him and whatnot. I mean this is just my reading.

    I also had a whole bit about how, if one was inclined, they could read an incel POV into Jacob, but I was just kind of pulling that out of my ass.

    • Like 3

  20. Posted

    5 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

    She did a made-for-Showtime movie pre-Twilight based off a book I LOVEEE called "Speak" that she's genuinely amazing in with Steve Zahn. You wouldn't think reading those two names together would prove for quality but it's this gorgeous little indie movie about a teenage girl dealing with the aftermath of being raped and it's beautifully told. Zahn plays her art teacher that helps her find her outlet to express all of her feelings.

    I genuinely like Steve Zahn as a comedic actor, so this sounds really good. I'll have to see if I can find it. 

  22. Posted

    1 hour ago, theworstbuddhist said:

    Yeah, Twilight is super gross. There are things to like about the films here and there - Anna Kendrick, Kristen Stewart - and many things to hate. The only part of the entire series that I actually love is the (invented?) battle scene in the last movie, because you get to see so many sweet, sweet beheadings.

    I vaguely remember a fight at the end of the last book, the only reason I read them was I had a friend who was super into the books and told me Icouldn't make fun of them  unless I read them. I tried to get her into the Southern Vampire Mysteries (that TRUE BLOOD was based off of) to no avail. 

    I'm not even a fan of Kristen Stewart in these films, I found her dull and boring, it wasn't until Adventureland that I really started to like her as an actress, and then I found one of her early films (the one she did with David Gordon Green and produced by Terrance Malick) that I really liked her. She's still hit and miss for me but at least I know she can act. 

    What really surprises me about these films, is the number of QUALITY directors that they got to direct them. 

    • Like 1
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