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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
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Gristle McThornbody
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Germany
186 Posts |
 Posted - 09/12/2007 : 12:01:44 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ericb
It's the beginning of the end!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070912/ap_on_sc/farm_scene_killer_bees;_ylt=AsZB836CIOInDvXFJ_EUzh2s0NUE
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp
Thirty years ago, when I was eight and first heard about killer bees, this would have scared the ever-loving crap out of me.
Nowadays, I read that article with eyes made cynical by the intervening years of endless media hyping of the latest science scare - ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE SARS EPIDEMIC! EGGS ARE BAD!!! BUTTER BAD, EAT MARGARINE!!! MARGARINE NOW BAD, GO BACK TO EATING BUTTER! Y2K! GLOBAL WARMING! GLOBAL COOLING!!! ACID RAIN!!! BIRD FLU WILL KILL 1/3 OF THE WORLD!!! - and think to myself "Has the media always blown every science scare they get their hands on waaaaaay out of proportion?"
"Hi, I'm Bob Evil!" |
Edited by - Gristle McThornbody on 09/12/2007 12:03:09 PM |
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TheFoywonder
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
833 Posts |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2007 : 2:11:59 PM
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All I can say about The Swarm is that no matter how bad it is, it can't be as bad as the source novel. I got a copy for a couple of dollars when I was 12 and couldn't believe such bad authors could earn a living, much less being adapted into blockbusters.
Of course, nowadays we have Dan Brown. |
Edited by - Neville on 09/12/2007 2:12:27 PM |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2007 : 4:23:14 PM
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We have the power to split the atom and change the earth's climate (so they say) and I'm supposed to be afraid of bees!?
Look upon my works, ye puny...and despair!
If bees had an internet, there would probably be some dread news coverage of "homo sapiens" with their deadly chemical weapons invading bee territory.
"And when you kill one homo sapien, multitudes of them converge on you and begin spraying liquid death!" |
Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 09/12/2007 11:15:26 PM |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 07:56:31 AM
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Funny thing about many of those killer bee movies, they always seemed to imply that the killer bees only became a threat to human civilization when they crossed the US border ignoring the obvious implication that apparently South America had been getting along quite well with the killer bees for decades. The Swarmis particularly bad on this score.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 07:58:58 AM
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Oh, yeah, and Africa, of course, had been living with them for millenia.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 2:00:30 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ericb
Funny thing about many of those killer bee movies, they always seemed to imply that the killer bees only became a threat to human civilization when they crossed the US border ignoring the obvious implication that apparently South America had been getting along quite well with the killer bees for decades.
For all us non-americans, that's easily one of the things about Hollywood we hate the most. In many movies, what happens outside the U.S. or to non-Americans has no repercussions.
You'd think in these days of globalised G.I.Joe's this is not a problem anymore, but even the Bourne saga makes this mistake.
[SPOILERS about the ENTIRE BOURNE SAGA follow]
In Bourne's ultimatum everybody (even the good guys) make such a big fuss about Treadstone killing Americans, and that once that is made public it's gonna be their funeral. Excuse me? Those motherf*ckers killed Marie in the second movie, and they just murdered a British journalist in broad daylight. What about that? Are they implying all other nationalities are fair game? |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 5:15:57 PM
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I will say in our defense that the Bourne movies have been categorized here as rare "successful" left-wing action movies. If I may paraphrase the author, action and horror movies remain the last bulwarks of "conservatism" in movies.
In horror, it is traditionally the most virginal, pure character who ends up killing or surviving the bad guy or force. Action heroes tend to be conservatives if not in word, than in deed.
Liberals and left-wingers prefer their heroes to be "rumpled, middle-age Robert Redford" types who commit their heroics in newsrooms or corporate board meetings. For example, John Travolta in the execrable, detested The General's Daughter in which he plays a soldier, an officer who is almost never seen wearing a U.S. Army uniform in the movie, preferring instead cheap suits that are badly wrinkled.
Bourne is a rare "liberal" action hero who engages in violence. Violence he detests and doesn't fully understand because he doesn't remember how he learned it or why.
But I digress. Yes, in many ways American movies still (suprisingly!) pander in some ways to American audiences. Shocking, I know. My college Russian language teacher once had a German friend who complained about this same pro-American bias in American movies. The one he routinely sighted was Armageddon, which was unabashedly pro-America and pro-NASA.
My defense: Come on. Who are you going to call when there's a meteor the size of Texas plummetting towards the Earth?
China? With it's cutting edge 1960s space technology? Russia, maybe? Brussels, perhaps?
Now, this raises an interesting question. America is a prolific producer of movies, but we aren't the only ones in the movie business. France and Russia turn out some pretty good stuff...sometimes. There is "Bollywood", which may make more movies than anybody else. Japan. China. Hell, just about everybody makes movies.
Has anybody complained or even heard complaints that Bollywood movies don't take enough of the rest of the world's sensibilities into account? That they focus too much on "India"? Anybody ever grinded their teeth while watching a Russian movie because the subject matter was too "Russian"? Japanese movies too ethnocentric? Italian neo-realism films just so gosh darned "Italian"?
Nope. But America gets that stuff thrown at us all the time. Kind of...interesting, don't you think? |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 5:57:32 PM
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CC, I tbink what Neville meant was threats to non-Americans are often treated by Hollywood movies as non-events, or at best as a prologue to the "real" movie, which is what happens when the same threat befalls (blowing the trumpet) Americans.
Wasn't it just a few years ago that somebody made a movie about a WW2 submarine incident involving the British navy, but Hollywood decided to change history and make the characters all American because nobody wants to see a movie about a bunch of Brits. (Take that, Harry Potter!)
Since someone brought up The Swarm, anyone remember a bad TV movie called Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo? The movie starts out somewhere south of the border. Coffee traffickers looking to make a quick score (think about it) accidentally haul in deadly tarantulas who were apparently "hibernating" amongst the coffee beans. (I know, but stick with me.)
Like The Swarm, someone has to ask the question: if this south-of-the-border town was infested with these killer tarantulas when the movie starts, why weren't any of the locals dying in droves? And if they had been, why didn't the movie bother to mention it. |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 09/13/2007 5:58:43 PM |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 6:28:34 PM
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Frankly, if a movie about spiders doesn't have William Shatner in the starring role, I'm not going to watch it.
Now, I'm not totally disagreeing with you here.
Wouldn't The Last Samurai have been a pretty good (if not better) movie if all the characters were...Japanese? Oh, a few Europeans and whatnot in a few scenes cracking open cases of rifles and cannons, but did the movie really need the "white guy going to a foreign land and adopting their foreign ways" condescension angle? I can even take this further. Wouldn't Judge Dredd have been pretty good if it didn't have Stallone in it and instead just starred Max Von Sydow. I'm not kidding. I'd watch it.
I stand by my assertion that American movies are far more often criticized for not being "international" enough or multicultural enough and that similiar criticisms are never aimed at movies from other countries.
"Look Martha, those darn Finns have made another movie where you'd think Finland was the only country in the world that mattered!"
Nope, don't see that very often.
I do agree that Hollywood gives very little credit to American audiences' ability to watch non-Americans doing interesting stuff on camera. Hollywood seems to share Europe's belief that American audiences are too "Ameri-centric". I would've gone to see The Last Samurai even if it didn't have the Tom Cruise character just the same as I would go watch The Seven Samurai on the big screen if given a chance. Problem is that Hollywood doesn't often give American audiences the chance to demonstrate that we WILL watch movies that don't have American characters as the main focus.
I think that submarine movie was U512 or some such thing starring Jon Bon Jovi. Having Americans as the focus wasn't that movie's only problem. I think part of the problem with doing a movie that tells the real British exploit is hampered by a shortage of big name British actors. In the past, we could round up a Richard Burton or Oliver Reed or David Niven to ramrod a movie like that. Now we've got...hmmm. Hugh Grant? Those two guys from Hot Fuzz? I'm not being fair. I guess we've got Brosnan or that new James Bond guy.
And for the record, I would go watch a submarine movie starring those two guys from Hot Fuzz.
I can think of a few disaster movies, like Armageddon where destruction is visited upon Paris and other places.
Still, I think the complaint is overwrought.
After the meteor fragment destroys Paris, it doesn't cut to Billy Bob Thornton sitting at a conference table saying:
"Well, at least it didn't hit America! Yee haw!"
[Thornton turns to portrait of Reagan on the wall and salutes. Camera pans down and zooms in to ice cold can of Coca Cola Thornton is drinking in shameless product placement.] |
Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 09/13/2007 6:39:07 PM |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 6:46:29 PM
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CC, I agree with you quite a bit here. Hollywood does pander in dumb ways to American audiences. The "Last Samurai" would have been better with just Japanese main characters. That wouldn't have excused some of it blatant historical revisionism, but the story would have been better.
The move was "U517" I believe. It failed on so many levels that changing nationality wouldn't have helped. Also, considering that the British now designate Red and Blue fleets so as not to offend the French during the recent Trafalgar anniversary, I think they need to worry about other things.
Here's the reverse question, does anyone care when their films say nasty things about us? Japanese anime runs with a strong undercurrent of anti-Americanism.
Finally, I personally wish Hollywood would clean up it's act. It presents an awful and distorted view of America.
- While science has societal benefits, science is not a social virtue. - |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2007 : 7:11:41 PM
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When their films say nasty things about us?
I think if a person was going to defend the practice of criticizing American films for not taking into consideration more "international" sensibilities while NOT criticizing other countries' films when they don't either, they would probably have to make the "superpower" argument.
It would sound something like "Yeah, it is a double standard, but since America is rich and powerful they deserve the criticism."
It's out there. |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2007 : 02:09:53 AM
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Hey, relax. We're talking movies here, not international politics. I should say it's been a while since I last heard somebody criticise an American movie for not taking into account the rest of the world. It is true we tend to forgive local point of views in movies coming from other nationalities, though. Somebody should use Deep Thinking about that. For once, I wouldn't say it's a matter of politics, rather than prevalence of American films in the international market. As we speak, easily 90% of the films on theatres in my country are American. On the long run, people, as consumers, expect to be taken into account and have some input on what they're buying.
I mean, they used to sell the Jeep Cherokee with a Renault Diesel engine and manual transmission and I'm told McDonalds serves wine, but movies have a zero margin for adaptation. So now and then some detail we find offensive gets through the quality control.
[MORE BOURNE SPOILERS FOLLOW]
I wouldn't have brought the Bourne issue if I wouldn't think it was a blatant case. I mean, over the movies we've seen the bad guys kill people all over Europe, some of them pretty dramatic deaths, and none of the victims, as far as we know, are American. And then in the end Treadstone is terminated because they killed some Americans we've never heard about. WTF?
I've heard that stuff too about Bourne being "liberal" or "left-wing". Frankly, I'm not buying it. Bourne is nothing but old wine in new bottles. Nothing wrong with that, really, I like the series, and they're a great improvement over the books by Robert Ludlum. I'd say they are saying that to help it market it as a sort of anti-Bond, because some moron said once Bond was fascist or at least conservative. Who cares, really.
I mean, yes, some guys at the CIA are evil, but so they were in Three days of the condor (I think) and in Above the law, but the world isn't a better place because of that, is it? There is some criticism of the way the CIA handles its affairs there, sure, but it's carefully covered with action and eye candy, I doubt most people even notice it. |
Edited by - Neville on 09/14/2007 02:17:22 AM |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2007 : 06:22:14 AM
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Honestly, the fact nobody at the CIA seemed all that put out that non-Americans were being killed in their operations did kind of get by me. I think part of that is just the overall pacing of the movie.
And the other part of it is surely political. Because everything is political. Movies doubly so. Americans being killed by a Homeland Security/Patriot Act kind of operation suits the political sensibilities of segment of Hollywood. A large segment. |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2007 : 10:37:55 AM
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I didn't find Bourne left wing or right wing... it's politically neutral, just like the Bond films.
Somebody clarify, though: who is this supposed American whose death leads to the shutdown of Treadstone? IIRC, Treadstone is shutdown in Identity because of a CIA scandal involving the death of an African politician. No Americans were killed or injured during the making of that picture.
In Supremacy, which was post-Treadstone, I didn't see anybody whimpering over the bodies of any dead Americans. The victims were mostly Russian, except for Marie, who was German.
Ultimatum, though, I need a memory refresher. The movie was so disappointly forgettable I can't remember who lived or died. There was some Brit guy writing for the Guardian, also a CIA guy... was the CIA guy an American? (Already my mind is a blur, and I just saw it a month ago.) |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 09/14/2007 8:44:19 PM |
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