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Post by ThirdMan on Mar 5, 2018 19:31:55 GMT -8
I have to admit, I do find it a little funny, folks here saying "How can I possibly relate to a teenage girl?", given that this site was founded on freakin' Buffy. Oh well, different people relate to different types of personalities, and back when I saw LB in October, I thought it quite charming, with Gerwig making nary a false move as writer or director. Perhaps I better relate to the female perspective than some other folks here.
And I would've been cool with Baby Driver winning Sound Editing.
In retrospect, I'm kind of glad Dunkirk, from all appearances, wasn't one of the three-mostly-likely films to win Best Picture, because it sort of sidestepped the obligatory backlash. Not that it doesn't have some haters, but they're not as loud as those for, say, Three Billboards. How some critics have given that film solid reviews, only to shift gears and label it one of the worst films of the year, is pretty suspect.
I remain of the position that Get Out is a pretty good horror/satire, that just happens to have significant social import. More creativity in the third act would've put it over the top for me.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 5, 2018 20:05:21 GMT -8
That's just it - I totally expected to love Lady Bird, given my general interest in high school drama and female-based stories. (The 99% RT score didn't hurt, either.) So I was a bit surprised when I just... found it okay.
And yeah, Get Out definitely has some third-act issues. It's not the best film of the year, but it's the best of the nominees. That I've watched. Of which there aren't many. I dunno, I'll check out Three Billboards and Shape of Water on DVD.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Mar 6, 2018 3:33:21 GMT -8
I didn't expect Dear Basketball to win the Animated Short award (given the seemingly bad optics of having Kobe Bryant win an award at a #MeToo-heavy ceremony), and caught off-guard when Coco beat The Greatest Showman for Original Song, but that was about it. 1. I wonder just how much crap the Academy is getting for giving alleged domestic abuser Gary "Van He'llsing" Oldman the Best Actor award. 2. If nothing else, this Oscars ceremony made me ask the deep and piercing question: who did I want to see annihilated more, Sufjan Stevens or Pasek & Paul? (Still leaning towards the former.)
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 6, 2018 6:34:43 GMT -8
Hey, Pasek & Paul have written some good songs! I still catch myself humming the tune to "Another Day of Sun" occasionally. And "This Is Me" is a lot of fun.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 6, 2018 8:09:37 GMT -8
I have to admit, I do find it a little funny, folks here saying "How can I possibly relate to a teenage girl?", given that this site was founded on freakin' Buffy. Oh well, different people relate to different types of personalities, and back when I saw LB in October, I thought it quite charming, with Gerwig making nary a false move as writer or director. Perhaps I better relate to the female perspective than some other folks here. "different people relate to different personalities" Well this, but also relating to any character is somewhat contingent on the storytellers capability to intersect some universal trait along with the uniquely personal. You can relate to a rock if they're doing a good enough job. The remove that one feels in the absence of this is obviously rather natural. While i liked Lady Bird quite a bit, i too felt somewhat removed from it because many of the personal aspects were exclusively unique to a teenage girl. It reminds me of a coworker of mine who received backlash for stating he was putting off watching "Call Me By Your Name" because it's about a homosexual relationship. It's funny how people could get so offended by something clearly rational. I mean, that film doesn't interest me in the slightest as a straight man, and it's no wonder, it's really quite jarring to watch an ostensibly 'romantic' themed scene with two guys making out. I mean, it is perfectly okay and biologically justified to find it completely unrelatable and weird, and its not like i have some religious rationale for it, it just is. I think it treads on pretty similar ground with males watching female protagonists or vice versa. There's always the possibility of personal dissonance based solely on personal differences. "How can I possibly relate to a teenage girl?" To be fair i don't think anybody said anything that could be interpreted as this.
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Post by Jay on Mar 6, 2018 9:38:22 GMT -8
Can I pile onto the Sufjan Stevens hate at least? His first couple of albums were overplayed, he's written some uniquely awful Christmas songs (not that I care much for the genre generally, but if it's bad enough for me to notice), and seems to be a walking gimmick. If we're talking weirdly prolific multi-instrumentalists hailing from the Midwest, give me Andrew Bird any day of the year.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 6, 2018 10:57:28 GMT -8
I'd like to distance myself from all of you as Carrie and Lowell is excellente and Casamir Pulaski Day and John Wayne Gacy Jr are masterpieces.
Though to be fair I haven't heard much outside of Illinois and Carrie and Lowell.
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Post by Jay on Mar 6, 2018 13:07:55 GMT -8
I'd like to distance myself from a man who wears multiple hats in circumstances where one would do the trick!
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 6, 2018 15:12:29 GMT -8
I'd like to distance myself from a man who wears multiple hats in circumstances where one would do the trick! Haha yeah that is pretty goofy.
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Post by ThirdMan on Mar 6, 2018 17:32:19 GMT -8
The remove that one feels in the absence of this is obviously rather natural. While i liked Lady Bird quite a bit, i too felt somewhat removed from it because many of the personal aspects were exclusively unique to a teenage girl. It reminds me of a coworker of mine who received backlash for stating he was putting off watching "Call Me By Your Name" because it's about a homosexual relationship. It's funny how people could get so offended by something clearly rational. I mean, that film doesn't interest me in the slightest as a straight man, and it's no wonder, it's really quite jarring to watch an ostensibly 'romantic' themed scene with two guys making out. I mean, it is perfectly okay and biologically justified to find it completely unrelatable and weird, and its not like i have some religious rationale for it, it just is. I think it treads on pretty similar ground with males watching female protagonists or vice versa. There's always the possibility of personal dissonance based solely on personal differences. I don't think anyone should feel obligated to watch any film, no matter how acclaimed. That said, w/r/t CMBYN, I don't really need to feel aroused in order to find a romantic coming-of-age drama compelling. If the individual characters are interesting people, that's more than enough. I don't find two guys making out the least bit weird (I honestly believe at least 15% of the overall population probably has homosexual tendencies), and as in any film involving romance, I enjoy watching smart, complex people make emotional connections and find some measure of happiness in life, even if I don't share their sexual orientation. That said, I'm not sexually attracted to men, so in situations where titillation is the primary, defining component, I won't be engaged. Which is to say, I'm not going to be watching gay male porn anytime soon. CMBYN is not gay male porn, in case there was any doubt about that. The most explicit nudity in the film (and this may be a flaw to some viewers) involves the lead character's interactions with a pretty, young Italian girl. I've heard that a penis or two appear onscreen at one point or another, but I didn't notice. Anyways, if someone is avoiding the movie because the characters or style of the filmmaking simply don't seem interesting to them, fair enough. But if someone's looking forward to watching a movie based on clips, but then bails because they hear it involves a homosexual relationship to one degree or another...
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 6, 2018 18:40:27 GMT -8
Well of course not, and I didn't mention anything regarding arousal. There's basically two potential issues here with someone who is..let's say 'very' heterosexual. One: The sexual element is practically inseparable from that of romance, and so generally they are married together...and understandably so. Two: The romance itself is also what I was referring to. For someone who has practically no homosexual tendencies, it's not just explicit material they may find weird, gross, or impossible to relate to, but the very romance itself. Finding a male romantically desirable is really foreign to me for example. I'm essentially arguing that it's perfectly rational from a biological perspective alone to have this kind of reaction, and that there is a pressure on many viewers to accept what they are uncomfortable with in the guise of equality and fear of being ostracized ("you're a homophobe!"), and that the idea that having such reactions to this kind of material is necessarily based in some religious dogma or "repressed homosexuality" or some other ludicrous conclusion is damaging and absurd. Similarly it may be hard for some gay people to relate to a heterosexual relationship, and again, that's totally logical.
For what it's worth, personally I find homosexual relationships in cinema fine, but sometimes difficult to relate to. That is, I'm not particularly sensitive myself, but totally hear people that are, especially people who are psychologically orderly (high disgust levels - generally conservative -- aka the opposite of me) and find it justified. I understand this completely.
Right. and I certainly wasn't suggesting this applies to 'everyone'.
But the fact of it being 'weird' is factually justifiable. It's weird by definition (the biological norm obviously being heterosexuality), and I'm arguing that people who don't want to see a film because the main relationship is homosexual in nature are perfectly justified in that response because everything in their body is likely screaming "ew gross" because they aren't attracted to that sort of thing. As a somewhat stretched analogy, you could imagine a film about a man falling in love with an animal and romancing it, surely the disgust response to this piece of film would be shared by many, and still others who wouldn't find it "weird" or "gross". As a somewhat more conservative example, you can imagine how some are disgusted by large age gaps in film, I know others who won't see a film because they are disgusted by the pervy nature of the relationship (think Angel and Buffy). People are far too sensitive when discussing these matters it seems to me anyways, and I think it makes certain people who find this kind of thing discomforting: uncomfortable and ashamed, despite it being a perfectly reasonable reaction. Even if it's a problem many people won't have.
Basically, "I couldn't relate to this because the focus of the film is on a thing I can't personally relate to at all" sounds fair to me, and sexual orientation makes no difference as a potential factor in that analysis.
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Post by ThirdMan on Mar 6, 2018 21:45:57 GMT -8
Just because something isn't the most common variety of something, does NOT by definition make it "weird".
And you're walking a dangerous line in getting into comparisons between a consensual, adult, gay relationship, and that between a human and an animal with far lower mental capacity and communication skills (genuine ability to offer concrete consent). As much as it may be an attempt to appear sober and "objectively" analytical, it's a stone's throw from the sort of rationalizations that many folks use to justify genuinely bigoted perspectives and behaviour. I, for the record, don't think you're a bigot, but some of your word choices here do give me pause. You probably don't think "weird" is a particularly loaded word, but it can be, depending on its application.
And I suspect most gay people have no problem whatsoever enjoying films featuring heterosexual relationships.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 6, 2018 22:56:32 GMT -8
Hmm, just to preface with this now and for all future posts in which I perhaps try to be too exacting and critical about something rather sensitive: I'm not a bigot. I seldom make any judgments about a person based on sexual orientation, sex, or race. The scientific analyses have been done, there's literally no rational claim at all that one could make that would justify discrimination. Variance between individuals is incredibly high within all groups, meaning on an individual to individual basis, the broad categories you find yourself in biologically are not indicative of anything (with some exception with regard to men vs women). That being said, and perhaps more importantly though, I'm very anti-bullshit. Sometimes that means criticizing an idea I even 'mostly agree with' to the ends of the earth. Anyways, back to the topic: Just because something isn't the most common variety of something, does NOT by definition make it "weird". Sure, the line between weird and different is somewhat subjective. A guy who gets a less popular coffee ice cream may be seen as weird by some, whereas someone who gets gasoline flavored ice cream would probably get strange looks from all directions. But unless you want to claim that there is no rational justification for claiming a guy getting gas flavored ice cream as 'weird', it seems kind of an arbitrary and moot point. And you're walking a dangerous line in getting into comparisons between a consensual, adult, gay relationship, and that between a human and an animal with far lower mental capacity and communication skills (genuine ability to offer concrete consent). As much as it may be an attempt to appear sober and "objectively" analytical, it's a stone's throw from the sort of rationalizations that many folks use to justify genuinely bigoted perspectives and behaviour. I, for the record, don't think you're a bigot, but some of your word choices here do give me pause. You probably don't think "weird" is a particularly loaded word, but it can be, depending on its application. Well sure if you strip away all the context and the rather narrow point I was attempting to make with the analogy that had nothing to do with the participants and everything to do with the 'strangeness' of the romantic circumstance and the proceeding response of disgust that the body may produce. It seems, to me anyways, that only sensitivity (in this case yours) is the arbitrary differentiation made between determining whether "weird" is appropriate to apply to someone. In both cases you would be applying the label of 'weird' to an actual human being. Anyways, weird is often aptly synonymous with "abnormal" and "unusual". I can use the word 'abnormal', which is probably more accurate as far as designating an objective definition for homosexuality (it's not the biological ideal in an evolutionary sense), but again you have unavoidable connotations with that word as well. I don't much care about the connotations though, I'm attempting to use the words rather literally, because in doing so I believe it sheds light on reasons why "straight men may not enjoy gay cinema" that has nothing to do with bigotry and isnot harmful, but more importantly, that being abusive, especially culturally, of someone who has that perspective is harmful and a microcosm for increasing tyrannical pressure. Either way, the main note is that the 'abnormality' of it really is only a point to be made of why something like gay cinema may not catch onto a large group of people. More fundamentally, I'm suggesting it makes sense for person A to not like 'thing' because it's unfamiliar and completely foreign to them and even physically repulsive. I think it's rather wrong to lambaste or culturally disapprove of a rational reaction that a perfectly normal person is biologically disposed to have...I think that's crazy, and that the only reason it doesn't seem that way is because we're inevitably embedded within the culture that has shifted into the realm of social justice and identity politics. Believe it or not, I'm arguing for being anti-stereotypical and non-discriminatory, it's just for the unpopular side. When someone says "It didn't interest me because gay" it's ironically quite bigoted to assume that they are. And I suspect most gay people have no problem whatsoever enjoying films featuring heterosexual relationships. Yes, that's very likely, but similarly, I wouldn't cast aspersions on a gay man who couldn't relate to a heterosexual relationship on the screen or refused to see such a picture, and that it goes both ways, that's all I was trying to say.
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Post by ThirdMan on Mar 7, 2018 9:42:43 GMT -8
I'll let you have the last word on this, other than to note that potentially being thought of as "weird" is likely one of the primary reasons so many gay folks remain closeted, possibly never openly living their lives with someone of the same gender who they love, and that makes me very, very sad. And this goes far beyond people's taste in cinema.
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Post by otherscott on Mar 7, 2018 10:04:15 GMT -8
I just think stating something like "the movie doesn't interest me because it has gay relationships heavily involved" is a little bit close-minded. Like if someone said, "that movie doesn't interest me because it contains bananas" I would find that an irrational reason to not be interested in a movie. It's a movie about people and an experience of growing up, I don't know why it's less of interest than "Perks of Being a Wallflower" or something like that or whether you can't find certain pieces of that to relate to.
And yes, I don't think you should be rushed at with torches and pitchforks because you find a relationship between two men "jarring" and "weird" and "gross". That's a natural reaction based on a number of factors such as upbringing and circumstance. But that said, it's also a reaction that you should work to change. The LGBT community has been fighting hard to try to normalize themselves, because they don't want to be seen as "weird" or "offputting". They don't want people to ignore movies about their experiences because their relationships are seen as gross.
People don't seem to have trouble watching war movies despite having no experiences anywhere close to that of a soldier. Why is this any different?
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