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tsdcs

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Posts posted by tsdcs

  1. Posted

    Since someone mentioned it: there was indeed a Highlander cartoon series (non-anime). Which has to be toward the top of the list of the "why did they make a cartoon based on this, the original is not suitable for children at all" shows. Conan, Robocop, Tales from the Crypt, Toxic Crusader etc.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUlEamQJ-1g

     

    It was originally a French show, but it was syndicated in the US. It used to come on around the same time as Samurai Pizza Cats and Sailor Moon on weekday mornings around here, back when cartoons on non-Cartoon-Network were a thing.

  2. Posted

    (psst...you may be wasting your time, bro)

     

    Here is the New Yorker piece that came up in the episode, where the white supremacists give their thoughts on Trump. I found it to be really interesting. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated

     

     

     

    Also, the Ace of Base nazi theory definitely far-fetched IMO. I get that whats-his-name was actually in a neonazi band etc, but that doesn't mean that the lyrics in question were written by him. Even accepting that some of them were, it doesn't mean that he had any control of what was in the music videos. Also there's the fact that they were Swedish. While I understand that many (most?) Swedes speak English, there are still always things that don't translate exactly. I listened to the episode of Unpopular Opinion where Brown got into this theory, and I think it got a more appropriate amount of skepticism there.

  4. Posted

    I think one of the things left out of the conversation was fear of reprisal.

     

    On the racism/genocide issue- a few months back I read a statement by a Confederate general from Texas during the Civil War period. He defended the institution of slavery, and part of his rationale was the following: if blacks were to get equal rights and be encouraged to act the same as whites, then it would inevitably lead to white oppression and slavery.

     

    From his point of view, it made complete sense, right? If you grow up in a world where you not only discriminate against a certain group of people but actively keep them subjugated as slaves, and in said world this is not only common, but a multi-billion-dollar industry which is centuries old, then that is your concept of normal, and begs no alternative. I read a similar statement from someone opposed to black voting rights a century later. So it was feared that black people, if given the chance, would obviously do what white people had done to them- because it would be a mirror image of that normal order of things. Indeed, it would have to be even worse, due to the barbarous nature of black people, etc.

     

     

    There's a common phenomenon where a cheating spouse will accuse the person they're cheating on of having an affair. More generally, there is a great Edgar Allan Poe short story called The Black Cat, which is somewhat subtly about the hate (fear) that stems from wrongdoing.

  5. Posted

    What a sad ultimatum these indie turned studio directors face: you either try something different and risk failures, knowing that if you fail you'll probably get butfucked by both critics and social media OR you play it safe to the point of sterility, and make mindless unmemorable movies that guarantees profit (e.g. Jurassic World, Jurassic World, Jurassic World).

     

    Isn't it pretty clear that the studios hunt for these directors, though? They throw money at these indie directors because they want young guys who they can push around. They want to be able to tell them what to do (exception: Edgar Wright, etc), force storylines and characters, etc. Marc Webb went from 500 Days of Summer to the Spider-Man reboot (what), Josh Trank went from Chronicle to Fantastic 4, and I think like 90% of those Platinum Dunes horror reboots were directed by either former music video directors or Rob Zombie.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Thomas Jane. James Marsden. Scott Glenn. Piper Perabo. Billy, Bob, Thornton.

     

    And Bart the Bear.

     

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP4XCk25Qzs

     

    Can not officially recommend this, since I haven't seen it, but the trailer is nuts. Anyone willing to take the plunge?

     

    Synopsis from VUDU:

     

    James Marsden, Thomas Jane, Piper Perabo and Billy Bob Thornton star in this action-packed adventure set in the Alaskan wilderness. After a relentless grizzly starts to wreak havoc on a small town, the sheriff heads into the forest to find his ecologist wife but instead crosses paths with his estranged brother. They soon find themselves on the run from the massive killer bear. The hunted become the hunter in this edge-of-your seat thriller about the power of nature and the smell of blood.

  8. Posted

    RoboCop 3 is easily one of the most insulting movies I've ever seen. It never even occurred to me that it might be for kids, given how violent the first two were. I just know it made me mad. The plot points are almost literally written out on the screen.

     

     

    That is why I recommend they watch it for HDTGM.

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    I have to say, I found this ep a little bit lacking? As a Black guy, there are certainly perspectives which aren't communicated to the general, mainstream audience (ie. White people)- but this episode seemed a bit narrow (IMO). Was expecting something more along the lines of the Moral Panics episode.

     

    Also, there was quite a bit of reverse American exceptionalism- instead of saying that we're the best,, Mr. O'Brien declares us (Americans) the worst, based on the OKCupid studies. But, to defend Whitey for a second, it seems to me that internationals on OKC are probably more comfortable with dating internationally, because they're on an American website (or are just Americans living abroad). And being more open to the idea doesn't make them not-racist, by the way- it's like saying White guys aren't racist because a lot of them are super into Asian women.

     

    On the plus side, I have listened to a few eps of the "Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time, Period" podcast, and enjoyed them. Will check out the "The Read" and give them a shot, also.

     

     

     

     

    PS. I am a regular listener, don't mean to come across as a hater.

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    Apparently "My Hat Is Like a Shark Fin" is actually a reference to an earlier rap song. From an article about the Cool James most out of touch moments (http://www.complex.c.../deepest-bluest)

     

     

     

    I'm not sure if this makes the line cooler (Oh, see he is bringing it back to the history of rap) or dumber (can't even come up with your own Shark metaphor LL?)

     

    1. Cooler

    2. LL Cool J's signature look during the 80s was a kangol hat that he'd wear all the time, and this carried over into the 90s. It was so tied to his identity that when another rapper wanted to diss him, he disrespected one of the hats:

     

    He challenged LL on his platinum selling album How Ya Like Me Now on the single of the same name. He also took a shot at LL by appearing on the album cover with a jeep in the background with the wheel crushing one of LL's trademark red Kangol hats.[3] The feud persisted, with both MCs proclaiming themselves the victor.

     

    Kool_Moe_Dee_-_How_Ya_Like_Me_Now.jpg

     

     

     

     

     

    And now, without further ado, the king of all bad "...and I'm here to say" raps...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1CRatikdWg

    I feel like Larry Zbysko kinda killed it. Relatively, I mean.

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    Flashback scene with the ventriloquist show was the best scene, I think.

     

    Just watched this recently on Netflix, this is a great bad movie. Not cheesy-but-enjoyable like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. This is a bad movie in the sense that it's packed to the gills with horror movie cliches and plot holes. Still very enjoyable (in a WTF kind of way).

     

    In searching for reviews on Youtube, I stumbled across some people who actually like this movie, which actually makes sense to me if it's your first horror movie or you don't watch them often and you don't realize how uninspired it is.

  16. Posted

    OH MY GOD I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING ELSE.

     

    Satan Zuckerberg is supposed to be filthy rich, right? He has his own jet and takes off to Paris whenever. When he goes to his garage, there is room for exactly two cars in there: the red Lamborghini (?) and the white Bentley (?). (I probably don't have those right, I'm not a car person.) When he uses the garage door opener and Judith is standing outside, that garage door doesn't even look like it's big enough to get both of those cars in or out. I half expected to see a cheap metal rack with totes full of Christmas lights and ornaments next to a stacking washer and dryer given the layout of that garage.

     

     

    Uh, also? He's a fucking billionaire, and all these fucking weirdos (Judith, Brice) are showing up at his house. So he just lives in a fucking duplex somewhere? He's super rich, but has no security, of any kind? You could make the dubious argument that Judith knows his address from working with him or that he gave it to her, but Brice shows up and literally almost beats him to death.

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

     

    But it's not like Tyler Perry is the Jackie Robinson of film making. There have been many other black directors that have come before him with successful movies like Jon Singleton or Antoine Fuqua and movies like the Friday or Babrbershop franchise and yet Perry is somehow the standout.

    Well, those guys actually care about their GPA, whereas Tyler Perry puts out a new movie every 9 months. Also, Perry's movies, despite a reputation for being niche or wild, are actually very safe and almost four-quadrants. They speak to social issues, they have romance and a lot of drama, and some comedy- they don't necessarily do all or any of those well, but they show their roots as being plays. They are, in nearly all aspects, quite broad.

     

    Also, like I said, not all people who watch movies are movie fans- they just want something entertaining. Again, just my 2 cents.

  18. Posted

    - I know that there is a pretty strong argument for misogyny in this film, but it is interesting that his appeal is pretty broad in the African American community. He has several shows on Oprah's network alone. There's gotta be more to it than just "Tyler Perry hates women."

    My 2 cents:

     

    Nature abhors a vacuum. Black characters tend to be either minor/supporting characters, and/or have historically been less-than ideal roles (the old-timey mammy & butler stuff, the blaxploitation roles of the 70s, the random junkie stuff in the 80s, the Singleton-ripoff gangsta/prison movies of the early 90s etc). There are exceptions, mostly in the form a few sitcoms, but people enjoy Perry's form of representation, I think; there are middle and occasionally upper-class families shown, as if Black people are, you know, normal American human beings.

     

    In terms of content Perry gets to have his cake and eat it, too- the morality plays are successful because they have a broad appeal; you get to have the juicy soap opera turns, while also appealing (or pandering) to a Christian audience, which is where Perry found much of his success (Kirk Cameron is actually a fair analogy). After a point you get momentum, and you have so many people talking about or recommending his movies, that even someone like me who had no interest in his movies has seen one, because my brother and his wife like some of his stuff and we ended up watching one of his D+ efforts at a gathering once.

     

    Finally, most people don't care how good movies are, if they're not egregiously bad; there are a lot of very successful movies that have made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars by appealing to the right audience at the right time (Adam Sandler, Michael Bay, Roland Emmercih, etc). People even tolerate your forgettable run-of-the-mill Redbox fodder like Jack Reacher or Lone Ranger or Red Tails or (random sequel), because they were okay, and they don't expect better, and/or don't watch movies to see something novel or expert.

  19. Posted

    1. Half-baked claims of racism in this thread are unconvincing.

    2. Tyler Perry movies have a larger gender divide than racial divide- these are chick-flick melodramas, they just involved Black women dragging their loved ones to see them instead of a more diverse (Whiter) crowd.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

     

     

    About half way through this movie. I've read a few spoilers in this thread (my fault for reading), but there's a huge thing that hasn't really come up yet.

     

    Uh, guys? This is the gayest movie that I've ever seen in my life. And I don't mean gay like "bad" or "lame," I mean homosexual. This is a homosexual film. This is a movie about a man in a straight relationship, who is lead into temptation by a gay man- they just swapped the husband character for the wife character. The husband even looks like Tyler Perry- notwithstanding the fact that he's super ripped, for no reason whatsoever.

     

    Let's break this down.

     

    The male lead (bald guy) comes across pretty gay. I don't mean the actor- I mean that, as a Black guy, my Specific African-American Gaydar went off immediately, and after I was done being annoyed at the faux-Zuckerberg conceit of the character, I realized immediately that he was cast because he's the type of dude Tyler Perry would be into. Pretty sure he was wearing lip gloss at one point. (He is, at least, a gay man's version of what a straight woman would want). Seems frivolous, you say? Let's continue.

     

    You know why the Kim Kardashian character sounds like a catty gay man? Because that's how she's written.

     

    The husband not only resembles Tyler Perry, but they even dress somewhat alike. There was that scene where the married couple gets harassed, but the "wife" who is "female" doesn't feel safe. Imagine if it were the man who didn't feel safe, because he didn't have someone who could physically have his back? Later on she approaches her "husband" with something she wanted to do sexually, but is subsequently shamed because it is an unnatural act. The husband would prefer to continue making sandwiches in the kitchen.

     

    We later learn that one member of the married couple is ashamed of their behavior because of their religious parents and upbringing, and can't express who they truely are. And this person is only in the marriage in the first place because they were best friends and grew up together, but deep down inside is living a lie.

     

    Anyway, like I said, I'm only halfway through the movie, and there are other things worth talking about- Brandy, playing the role of a character who's last name must be Exposition (or Plot-Exposition, hyphenated), White Madea (aka the lady at the pharmacy), random French accent, etc. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the movie tonight.

     

    edit: just finished the movie. I knew about the twist ending from an ep of Your Mom's House, so all that was left for me was hilarity at the lack of subtlety. Scheer was right- even knowing the ending, worth watching.

    • Like 2

  21. Posted

    Just finished watching this on Netflix (whole movie is also on YouTube). This is...curious.

     

    I'm not coming at this from the perspective of some crazy militant atheist who needs to take a dump on anything that seems remotely Christian or whatever. But this movie... This movie.

     

    Lou Gosset Jr. plays the president. OK, makes enough sense. His name is Gerald Fitzhugh, which makes less sense, but whatever.

     

    This is a movie where the President goes on like...spy missions and shit. It's weird. He seems to have almost no secret service protection after the first 10 minutes, it's weird. But I have to say...not a bad movie, aesthetically? It looks like they had a pretty decent budget. And despite the fact that the plot gets increasingly absurd over the course of the film, it's otherwise well-executed.

     

    ...there are a few shitty performances. Lead villain has a shitty Russian accent, because whoever made that decision was alive in the 1980s and also wasn't very creative. But it turns out he's supposed to be Romanian, so...? I guess that is less terrible. And there's a woman who...well, she seems like a very nice woman in real life. But her performance is....eh...you'll know her when you see her.

     

     

    Anyway, will watch Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (real title) when I can. Hopefully it will be at least equally entertaining.

     

    Trailer:

  22. Posted

    Watched this on Netflix a few months back. Pretty fucking great (not in a good way). At first I was pretty unimpressed and just thought it was a movie that wasn't very good. I was mistaken.

     

    It is great. It is, as Jason Mantzoukas might say, bonkers. It gets pretty crazy.

     

    Also: not for kids! Some skulls are crushed, and there's a pair of tits in there. Also, there's more kung fu than you might anticipate.

     

    Here is a trailer, but if you want to avoid some of the delightful surprises that the movie has in store, you might want to just watch it on Netflix straight away- it's still streaming.

     

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    On the female comedian front, I had a weird moment of realization about the horrible YouTube comments that people leave.

     

    I was watching a video of Nikki Glaser on Conan O'Brien's show a year or so back, and I of course scrolled down to the comments section, like a sucker. And I see comments I always see in these kinds of videos- they're always "this chick isn't funny" and/or "I'd have sex with this chick, but she isn't funny". And it was weirder than normal, because I happened to be a big fan of Glaser's, so it's weird to me how someone could not appreciate her jokes, just based on how clever and well-written they tend to be.

     

    But here is the twist: as I scroll down into the comments, I notice that Nikki Glaser is getting funnier. And it hits me: she's too pretty. Her being an attractive woman is distracting to some part of my brain, so when I scrolled down into the comment section and was only hearing her words, I enjoyed her a little more.

     

    I would never leave that kind of douchebag comment about how X[X] female comedian isn't funny but I'd sure like to cut me off a slice, because I'm not a cretin. But it did make me take pause and consider the that the dynamic exists, and that there's a reason that those two ideas so often run in tandem. It'd never occurred to me before that women in that position might be slighted, without the offending party even being aware- not to mention any weird female vs female dynamics that also may be going on. This is, after all, not one-way male/female thing.

     

    ---

     

    Nikki Glaser set question is no longer on YT, but you can catch it on Conan's site, and she regularly appears on @midnight on Comedy Central and says hilarious things.

     

    (Random song suggestions

    and
    . Some really good beats on the first album in particular.)
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