adam_y
@adam_y@lemmy.world
- Comment on UK cinema issues Minecraft warning as police are called to ‘disruptive’ screenings 1 year ago:
It is. And in the Independent newspaper which has editors that should have spotted a clanger like that.
- Comment on UK cinema issues Minecraft warning as police are called to ‘disruptive’ screenings 1 year ago:
Yeah, it is a financial success, but so was the emoji movie… Not sure that qualifies it as “culturally renowned”.
Conflating those ideas that money equals cultural impact is what leads us to an endless cycle of sequels and reboots that most people watch once and then forget.
- Comment on UK cinema issues Minecraft warning as police are called to ‘disruptive’ screenings 1 year ago:
Classic independent reporting “the movie whose cultural impact is renowned”.
Is it? There’s no proof that the movie is having a renowned cultural impact above any others and the link on their own site for that quote is talking, not about the movie, but Minecraft as a whole.
- Comment on Mutant Reviewers article: Six of the worst cult sequels out of the ’90s 1 year ago:
Thanks, that guy.
- Comment on Mutant Reviewers article: Six of the worst cult sequels out of the ’90s 1 year ago:
Nice listicle, but would have been better to write something inciteful as to why all these sequels failed so hard.
It wasn’t just the cash grab, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what made the previous film great.
Kids loved watching the original RoboCop because it was R rated. It was a comic book film with gore and guns. It was illicit.
Then they turned him into a cartoon character for kids.
Police academy became a paradox of itself. You could argue that the public perception of the police had changed significantly between the original and Mission to Moscow too. It was no longer funny to be entertained by the thought of inept police.
Anyway, that’s just off the top of my head.
- Comment on 'Jupiter Ascending' came out 10 years ago, and we're still not sure how The Matrix creators' space opera went so wrong 1 year ago:
You’re hired.
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
Yes, I totally agree and I think you’ve hit on something subtle but really important…
The difference between starting to make a work (of art, if we are lucky) with an intent for it to be about something and telling people a work is about something.
I think the intent is important. Marvel’s latest round of press includes them telling us how the new Captain America is about modern politics but the plot really doesn’t hold that up beyond some fairly blunt motifs. Ultimately, it feels as if it about a struggling studio, if that is a theme.
I guess the context is really important… And it highlights the slippery thing between thematics and meaning. Take a film like Stalker where the plot is arguably slightly, but the characterisation and the context give rise to meaning through the themes… It would be a different film if Tarkovsky had tried to market it as being about politics and Chernobyl.
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
Hang on, are we arguing for the same thing? That story, and more importantly, compelling story, is what is needed?
I was just using king as an example of someone who crafts stories… Whether they are page-turners or not, that compel audiences.
My problem with Marvel films is that they are stale, narratively, and as such the only thing that can fix them is decent writing that isn’t in the service of “franchise”.
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
Yeah, if we weren’t talking about Marvel films you’d have a point.
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
Which is to say that absolutely, you are right that theme is important because ultimately theme is context.
I do wonder how much of this belongs, not to the creator, but to the viewer/reader.
There’s that great example with Ray Bradbury telling people that Fahrenheit 451 was not about fascism until someone pointed out to him how it absolutely was.
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
I think the slightly casual, almost throwaway comment that I started this with was more about the fact that, specifically Marvel, films have become all theme and no story.
The standard superhero narrative of “Bad guy gets weapon, or does something bad and Superhero A must stop them” doesn’t sustaing multiple franchises.
Couple that with the classic trauma genesis story which forms the obligatory introduction arc.
Marvel films have become about themes almost entirely to the point where characters and story are interchangable. Take the latest captain America… Almost any other Marvel character could have played the same role in that film… The narrative is so weak that it doesn’t matter. The themes are grand and perhaps even important (a bright red tyrannical monster rampaging in the whitehouse) but the story is what let’s it down.
These stories are weak and we’ve seen them multiple times now. It doesn’t matter how often we change the themes, whether the film is about fascism in America, finding friendship and family, or the perils of unchecked science… These themes ultimately fall flat when the underlying structure, the story, used to convey them is weak.
Sure, all art is usually about something, and those themes can be important, but I stand by what I said… If you want Superhero films to see any good they need to shrug off the notion of being entirely about symbology and theme and maybe have some gripping story.
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
Sure mate, Stephen King says this:
. . . starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story”
But what does he know?
- Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes 1 year ago:
Or, you know, actually stories rather than themes and characters.
- Comment on Nintendo omits original Donkey Kong Country Returns team from the remaster’s credits 1 year ago:
Here’s that vague statement in full:
“We believe in giving proper credit for anyone involved in making or contributing to a game’s creation, and value the contributions that all staff make during the development process,”
- Comment on Horizon Zero Dawn and Helldivers 2 are getting movies plus a Ghost of Tsushima anime is coming 1 year ago:
Starship troopers > hell divers > hell divers movie > hell divers movie the video game > hell divers movie the video game extended universe books
Can’t wait for the franchise to get massive, overblown, ubiquitous and then die off in subsequent TV spin-offs.
The Marvel Way.
- Comment on ‘Wicked’ and ‘Gladiator II’ collide in theaters 1 year ago:
The cinema industry is trying so hard to make “glicked” a thing.
It is sort of embarrassing. Not least because they lean back on weak stereotypes about film viewers, their gender and their expectations from films.
- Comment on Humble Games announce ‘restructuring’, laying off entire publishing team 2 years ago:
I remember when the humblebundles were a great way to pick up some old but great software alongside some new but smaller games. A pay what you want approach and a solid reason for charity.
It hasn’t been like that in a long time. Now it is a lot of shovelware and surprisingly expensive tiered offerings.
They forgot to humble.
- Comment on The 15 craziest Nicolas Cage movies, ranked (including 'Longlegs') 2 years ago:
Really? No dream scenario? Do you even Nicolas Cage?
(It’s literally a film where the rest of the world dreams about his character.)
- Comment on Indiana Jones Whips Up $130 Million Loss For Disney 2 years ago:
Still think they should have gone with a story where indy has to steal back all of the artifacts he’s “acquired” and put in museums, returning them using time travel and having to outfox himself.
Last shot should be of a glass case in a museum with just his hat and the whip.
- Comment on Why there are no "secondary" sports league that allow performance enhancement drugs? 2 years ago:
Maybe because we don’t want to actively encourage a dystopian hellscape where people deliberately destroy themselves for entertainment.
I know it already happens, but the increased financial incentive will just mean the poor are even more likely to sell their health.
Pretty sure there was a short side mission about that in Phantom Liberty.
- Comment on Stop pussyfooting that gaspedal! 2 years ago:
50% of all shitposts come from Viz.
It’s like the ancestral Eve.
- Comment on When you let boomers run social media accounts 2 years ago:
Good but fake, right?
https://dataconomy.com/2023/12/29/microsoft-edge-deleted-tweet-real-fake/
- Comment on Why do we have an internal monologue? 2 years ago:
Absolutely fascinating.
- Comment on Why do we have an internal monologue? 2 years ago:
Pedantry, not conversation.
Still, you are correct.
- Comment on Why do we have an internal monologue? 2 years ago:
And there’s something else I’m interested in. When you think, do you think in a mixture of those languages? Or do you actively translate? Is it a conscious thing?
- Comment on [deleted] 2 years ago:
You’re more than welcome. It’s a fascinating subject area. Especially given the history of street photography and its roots in France.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 years ago:
Legally, the default is that you need to ask permission of all subjects to shoot the photo. And again for each publication of that image.
In practice this is relaxed for public shots and street photography where the intent is not to make someone the subject of the photograph (people walking by in the background of a shot) or when “treating people with respect” (so yeah, no predatory homeless shots, or getting up in people’s faces). That said, this is for personal use and publishing them means you still might need to seek permission or risk being prosecuted later.
Finally there is a caveat that is “the right for information” which is how the paparazzi are able to photograph celebrities and the like. Under the heading of journalism.
Even so, you can only use those photographs in context. So, say you catch a shot Madonna flouting the law, you can’t later use that same photograph to illustrate an article of her being nice to cats. Furthermore they can also claim you are intruding on their private life. Which might still get you into trouble.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 years ago:
In France the subject of the photograph owns the copyright of the picture.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 years ago:
Spot on answer and really well articulated.
I think a lot of folk assume privacy, similar to the French model, but in the UK that really doesn’t exist.
One of the clearest examples is how the press operates. Doorstepping politicians and celebrities. They wouldn’t be able to do that if they required permission from the individual.
- Comment on Where do guns go when people are done using them? 2 years ago:
Gun heaven, where they can run around and frolic in the fields and enjoy the rest of their well deserved life.