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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
 Posted - 02/18/2008 : 05:11:39 AM
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I just wanted to add (before I haul my sandbagging butt out of bed and get the work day started) that I don't get the impression that British society is all that class conscious as we'd like to think.
Or do we like to think that?
After watching the, well, revolting public displays of grown Englishmen crying their eyes out in the stock footage clips of Diana's memorial in The Queen, I could only conclude that Churchill's England is dead and buried.
Compare the Diana footage with images of the throngs who gathered for Churchill's funeral procession.
Yes, that England was conscious of class distinctions. It also had more dignity, to my mind.
Heck, they don't even call it England anymore themselves. Older ones still do, but younger Brits call it "The U.K.", which has all the dignity of a fast food burger joint.
In other words, they've become too much like us. A pity. I liked the old England.
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Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 02/18/2008 05:12:41 AM |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 09:25:11 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Prankster
You raise a good point. Most Hollywood stuff in the SF arena usually bobbles the parallels with 9/11 or the War on Terror or whatever because, as you say, it's usually a real, obvious threat, and thus, the dynamic is totally different from the more complex real world situation. I'm always baffled by the way filmmakers want to shoot themselves in the foot with a "the [Bush Administration stand-ins] are just trying to scare you with stories of zombies!" When there ACTUALLY ARE ZOMBIES. It's stacking the deck, but against their OWN argument.
This reminds me of something else I ranted about before, but it’s the same sort of extremely inept analogy. Those annoying X-Men movies always have some subplot running through them about how poor and put-upon the mutants are and how everyone is prejudiced against them and how politicians and military types are out to get them. To be honest, I could barely stomach this in the first one so I’ve never seen a follow-up. But here again is the thing. Mutants are indeed very dangerous! The first one had some girl who could kill merely by touch! Why in the world wouldn’t the majority of non-mutant people be very frightened by things like that? And yet the movie insists on viewing anti-mutant sentiment as some kind of irrational bigotry – from the ham-handed McCarthy reference (Senator Kelly holds up a list of mutants) to the truly tasteless Holocaust parallels that start the movie. It’s just not irrational to fear someone who can kill you by touch or set you on fire or suck all the blood from your body magnetically. An attempt to restrict the ability of these freaks to kill or harm innocent people is not the metaphorical equivalent of using Zyklon-B in the gas chambers.
And it seems to me that they kept digging the hole deeper with each subsequent movie. As I said I’ve never seen - nor do I care to see – the second one, but isn’t there some general that’s all bent out of shape about mutants in that one? And for what reason? Merely because some unstoppable mutant entered the White House and tried to murder the President? What a silly reason for the head of the U.S. Armed forces to be worried about mutants! |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 10:06:27 AM
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R. Dittmar, to answer your question about X2:
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
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It turns out the general is behind the plot to kill the President. The mutant is abducted, drugged, and brainwashed into committing the crime on the general's orders. In essence, the mutant is framed. The general secretly wants the mutant to kill the President so that all mutants will get blamed as result, thereby granting the general carte blanche to declare war.
The general's reasons for hating mutants? Well, I'll let you discover that on your own. Rest assured, it's a doozy.
...
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...
ENDSPOILER
ENDSPOILER
ENDSPOILER
ENDSPOILER
ENDSPOILER
ENDSPOILER
In any event, you're missing out on a great movie if you decide to skip it. On the whole it's far less "preachy" than the first one, though I loved that one, too.
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Culfy
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
United Kingdom
113 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 12:05:16 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
I just wanted to add (before I haul my sandbagging butt out of bed and get the work day started) that I don't get the impression that British society is all that class conscious as we'd like to think.
Or do we like to think that?
After watching the, well, revolting public displays of grown Englishmen crying their eyes out in the stock footage clips of Diana's memorial in The Queen, I could only conclude that Churchill's England is dead and buried.
Tell me about it. *Sigh*.
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Notes from a small cavy
www.culfy.blogspot.com |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 2:18:41 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
Ah, but I slightly disagree there too.
It wasn't by accident that in 1968 the hero of Night of the Living Dead was a competent, businesslike, non-stereotypical black man who was basically playing the role of John Wayne at the Alamo.
I always liked that touch.
Yes, but Romero's genuinely subjersive touch was that this guy got everyone killed, whereas if they had listened the the stupid cowardly bigot, they all would have lived. 99% of the time, Ben would have definately been the guy to follow. In this situation, everything he did turned to disaster.
Life works out that way sometimes, and smart isn't wise. There was a Romero who used to make layered films with stuff like that, and that Romero is apparently long gone.
UPDATE: I see this ground was already covered. My apologies.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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TimLehnerer
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
95 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 3:40:17 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
even an innocuous children's story about witches and enchantment is not free of political or social bias.
Yeah, I never could stand those Narnia books trying to sell Christianity either. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 5:05:39 PM
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Never read the books and I must confess, I didn't really catch the subversive Christianity undertones in the movie.
Yeah, the lion dude dies and then comes back, which several movie critics pointed out was an analogy to Christ's resurrection, but frankly I just wasn't focusing on it. I doubt anybody left the theater with some renewed eagerness to start going to church again. And I doubted that most 12-year-olds were catching that vibe either.
But yes, point taken. Still we are citing the exceptions rather than the rule.
Golden Compass, anyone? |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 5:10:53 PM
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Yeah, X2 is a great movie. And I don't think you're quite being fair about the Holocaust parallels--remember, it's the VILLAIN who's jumping to the conclusion that Nazism is just around the corner, and thus he's forced to resort to extremes. The heroes believe there's a common ground that can be reached. This holds true in the second movie (and the third movie actually shows society becoming more tolerant, though it's the weakest movie of the three.)
You're correct in that the ability to blow stuff up with one's mind is a whole different ballgame than simple tolerance, but it is basically an extension of the "life is tough for heroes" theme that runs all through the Marvel universe. (Incidentally, Magneto-as-holocaust-survivor is from the original comics.) This is why I mourn the loss of Brian Singer's X3 and X4--I'm pretty sure he was building up towards a situation in which the ability to tolerate superpowered mutants would be tested to the breaking point, via the Dark Phoenix Saga. The version we got was a whimper rather than a bang.
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 5:17:37 PM
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As a kid, I completely missed the Christian symbolism of the books up until the point where Aslan pretty much says "And by the way, I'M JESUS". A lot of Lewis's ideas, are kind of "inside baseball" for Christians--the parallels with Eustace becoming a dragon and St. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, for instance, is going to fly over the heads of anyone coming from outside that tradition (and maybe most of the people who aren't, too).
I was most definitely coming from outside that tradition as a kid, and I'm still an agnostic, but I far prefer the Narnia books, which I find to be far more subtle and clever and well-written, over the His Dark Materials trilogy. Granted, the latter isn't part of my childhood, and the first book is decent enough, but it gets so darn preachy (even if it's a sermon I generally agree with). Of course, The Last Battle, the final Narnia book, gets pretty heavy-handed in parts, too, and mean-spirited to boot...but I'd still say it's better handled than "The Amber Spyglass".
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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TimLehnerer
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
95 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 7:31:10 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
But yes, point taken. Still we are citing the exceptions rather than the rule.
Golden Compass, anyone?
By using incredibly bad math, I will claim that the six books in the Narnia sequence prove there's twice as much Christian content in children's literature than atheist content; after all, there are only three books in the "His Dark Materials" sequence. |
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throughthelookingglass
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
47 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 9:34:55 PM
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| Weren't there seven Narnia books? Or is that the really bad math part? :) |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2008 : 10:25:28 PM
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Everyone skips The Horse and His Boy *g*
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 02:28:09 AM
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Back on topic (zombies... remember?)
Did anybody see 28 Weeks Later? I haven't because I heard it wasn't as good as the Danny Boyle/Alex Garland original. But many critics latched on the talking point that the movie was basically a veiled criticism of US military policies abroad, Iraq in particular. Did anyone else get that impression, or do you think critics were simply projecting a bias onto the movie that didn't really exist.
(And pleeeeeze let's not turn this into another Iraq debate thread. I'm just curious whether there was a strong political message that came across.) |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 02/19/2008 02:29:28 AM |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 04:52:33 AM
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| I though it was as good as the original, although it is a more frantic, action packed film. There are certain paralelisms between the plot and the situation in Iraq at the point the movie was made, but nothing too obvious. I mean, there are American troops involved, and the situation goes out of their hands, but that pretty much is all. |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 02/19/2008 : 07:38:34 AM
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Let me use the thread to link to this review of Romeros' movie and plug this site:
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=8718
This might be for my right-wing friends only, but the guys who run this site are all in the movie industry yet outspokenly (even stridently) conservative. It's worth checking out frequently for those of like mind.
(I actually stole that Leonardo/TR joke below from them for an earlier post, but no one bit.) |
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