Let's all go to the movies~

[Friday]

The best pitch I ever heard for a Fountainhead adaptation was to keep all the story bits the exact same but cut out all the dialogue where characters are explaining their actions. This way you don't get the pages of Randian justifications for people's actions, just them doing nasty shit to each other without explaining themselves. Snyder might accidentally make this happen.

wow that sounds absolutely amazing ngl lie

[Thad]

Nathan Rabin described the 1949 movie adaptation of The Fountainhead thusly:

The Fountainhead is the best movie that could have been made out of a singularly terrible, toxic novel. It’s a glorious Art Deco fever dream that understands that the only way to realize Rand’s didactic nonsense cinematically is to crank everything up to 11, to be as melodramatic and operatic and over the top and dream-like as possible.

Vidor wisely never attempts to convince us that the film’s characters are anything but cartoonish vessels for Rand’s philosophical sophistry.

[Brantly B.]

We tried this with Starship Troopers and nobody got it.

[mharr]

We tried this with Starship Troopers and nobody got it.

Okay trigger warning: Personal Bugbear but that might be because the movie was a satire of a book Heinlein didn't write about a political position he stood against by a director who was proud of not bothering to read the original text.

I mean, Heinlein was a fucked up guy especially in his later life, Oedipal complex a mile wide, infantilised women, did not get that power imbalance is the enemy of consent or that holy shit Grooming is Bad, but he was also a fiercely anti-authoritarian 1950s straight white guy that saw the 60s progressive revolution coming and was excited for it, and who trusted his legacy to the hands of hippie Buddhist punmeister Spider Robinson of all people. No way did he write a fascist propaganda piece, The Federation was just set dressing for a book about the insane bullshit personal sacrifice of signing up as General Infantry, even in a gung-ho militaristic space future where you get cool robot armour check this shit out. Maybe even especially then, btw this society requires eternal war to function and is perhaps not our best bet for first contact scenarios.

Might as well call Star Control pro-genocide for giving the bad guys understandable motivation lore.

The movie was fun, but AFAICT was about Cartoon Nazis are Evil and here's NPH in Hugo Boss fetish gear in case you missed the subtext.

[Mongrel]

To be fair, a bunch of Doomguys whacking bugs always had a lot more popcorn action flick potential (and thereby a distraction effect from any parody message) than anything in The Fountainass.

[Thad]

We tried this with Starship Troopers and nobody got it.

Okay trigger warning: Personal Bugbear but that might be because the movie was a satire of a book Heinlein didn't write about a political position he stood against by a director who was proud of not bothering to read the original text.

I mean, Heinlein was a fucked up guy especially in his later life, Oedipal complex a mile wide, infantilised women, did not get that power imbalance is the enemy of consent or that holy shit Grooming is Bad, but he was also a fiercely anti-authoritarian 1950s straight white guy that saw the 60s progressive revolution coming and was excited for it, and who trusted his legacy to the hands of hippie Buddhist punmeister Spider Robinson of all people. No way did he write a fascist propaganda piece, The Federation was just set dressing for a book about the insane bullshit personal sacrifice of signing up as General Infantry, even in a gung-ho militaristic space future where you get cool robot armour check this shit out. Maybe even especially then, btw this society requires eternal war to function and is perhaps not our best bet for first contact scenarios.

Might as well call Star Control pro-genocide for giving the bad guys understandable motivation lore.

I mean it's been awhile since I read it but my recollection is that all that "you should have to serve in the military to be a citizen" stuff seemed like more than window-dressing to me. Especially the chapter he spent on the importance of physical punishment and why it's bad that parents don't spank their kids anymore.

Fair point that the movie's a parody of Verhoeven's idea of what the book was like, without having read it, though.

To be fair, a bunch of Doomguys whacking bugs always had a lot more popcorn action flick potential (and thereby a distraction effect from any parody message) than anything in The Fountainass.

The Fountainhead does involve a guy blowing up a building.

[Mongrel]

The Fountainhead does involve a guy blowing up a building.

[Büge]

The Fountainhead does involve a guy blowing up a building.

So does Speed.

[Thad]

The Fountainhead does involve a guy blowing up a building.

Haha, House of Usher.

Man, I should go back and do a rewatch. Much as I've got the first ten seasons or so pretty much memorized, when I go back and watch them again I catch references I didn't the first fifty times. The other day I watched Homer, Defined with my nephew and wow, I did not catch that Bob Fosse joke all those times I watched it as a kid.

[Mongrel]

So some of you may know that the Russians are no less enthusiastic about their war movies than Americans or Brits, and honestly the quality is usually about the same, in terms of silly patriotism, bad filmmaking, hackneyed tropes. But just as most of theirs - as ours - are crap, or at least just popcorn action stuff, they too have a few really good ones.

I want to share this one, not just because it's one of the best Russian war movies out there with a good story and talented actors (it is), but in particular because it has an excellent, top-tier translation, both subbed and dubbed (confirmed by bilingual Russian speakers, but I think you can tell anyway), AND because the direction itself is extremely good.

The show-not-tell cinematography and film storytelling are definitely in line with, if not directly influenced by the likes of George Miller. Things like pacing and exposition are aspects of a film or show I tend to notice only when they're particularly good or bad, and here they are very, very good.

Dubbed:



Subbed:

[Mongrel]

He really is just a big dumb dog.

[Friday]

Wasn't the original quote something like "they're theme park rides"?

I don't know why people have decided to take that as an insult. Theme park rides are fun.

I guess if you really to insist that Spiderman Shoots A Web At Captain America And Then Says A Quip is REALLY FOR REAL HIGHBROW MEDIA ART then it might rankle you.

[Brantly B.]

I think generally Star Wars people get upset when Star Wars they get a theme park ride Star Wars when they're expected something a lot more thoughtful Star Wars.

Some people Star Wars are just unable to get into the "theme park ride" mindset Star Wars completely, and so they develop a taste for Star Wars those kinds of movies.

Which is fine, except for when a "theme park" type of franchise Star Wars strays out of its bounds to pull in some Star Wars fans who are never going to be able to accept its core conceit.

Can't think of any examples Star Wars right now but you know what I mean. Air Bud.

[KingRoyal]

Part of what he and Spielberg were complaining about was not that these were "theme park ride" movies or whatever but that the studios and the theaters were shifting to a model of only having theme park ride movies. Theme park rides are fun, but I would feel pretty exhausted if a company were to buy up all the museums and concert venues in my city and turn them into theme parks.

[Brantly B.]

You get used to it.

[Mongrel]

Six Flags Over The Louvre.

[Blossom]

[KingRoyal]

Well that makes me pro dog murder enough to sit back and enjoy the next 2 hours.

[Büge]

"the Dalmatians started it"

[Grath]