What Movies Have You Recently Watched?


As one who has been reading Tolkien since I was 8, I’ll be curious to see what they’ve changed.


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I never read The Silmarillion, which is what it's based on, so I can't speak to the accuracy question.

As far as the reviews is concerned, it presently has an 85% critic score and a 39% audience score on rotten tomatoes.

I've seen all the episodes aired to date, and I don't have any real issue with the casting of any character, however, the representations of them is a bit problematic.

All the non-white and female characters seem to be likeable, powerful, brave, and have their excrement together. The white male characters? Not so much.

Which seems to be a trend in Hollywood, for some time now.

I did note something in the latest episode that caught my eye.

Balin's wife was leading a ceremony to try and beseech the rock to release trapped miners and all the male dwarves look like prototypical anti-semitic images.

Hmmmmmmm.... Dwarves are supposedly only interested in gold, jewels, and other forms of mineral wealth, i.e., money. Who else in history has been characterized that way?

Now I don't recall how Tolkien described the dwarves, and if the portrayal here is in line with it, and if he had any anti-Semitic tendencies. Maybe he did.

I was just surprized that a show that prided itself so much on "diversity" and "overthrowing stereotypes", and changing how characters appeared for a "greater good" seem to not recognize, or maybe not care, that they were portraying a classic anti-Semitic trope, just struck me as odd.
 
I watched Moonfall over the weekend, based in part by The Critical Drinker's review.

Hey, it's the Drinker, clearly NSFW.



This is a movie crying out for the three heads in silhouette (i.e., MST3K).

My wife and I filled in for Joel/Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo.

Edit: Speaking of MST3K, it's back!
 
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As one who has been reading Tolkien since I was 8, I’ll be curious to see what they’ve changed.


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Well, based on watching two episodes and then frustratedly turning to some spoilers to decide if I'm just going to get pissed off if I keep watching:
Galadriel is an unstoppable warrior woman, Celebrimbor has a sister invented whole cloth for no particular reason, and the two key events of the Second Age seem to have shifted from occurring ~1500 years apart to being more or less contemporaneous.

It's pretty to look at. But none of the characters so far seems very likeable, they keep recycling dialogue from Jackson's trilogy, and the rest of the dialogue is both stiff and stuffy, at least so far.

Is it irredeemable? Not based on what I saw in episodes 1&2. But if you read & remember the Silmarillion, it's frustrating.
 
I've been reading Tolkien since I was 12. I was not a fan at first. Galadriel is like 6000 years old in the second age, i doubt she was still impetuous.

I decided to try and forget everything in the Middle Earth canon, and just watch the story that's being presented. It's not the best thing I've seen, but its not the worst either.
 
I've been reading Tolkien since I was 12. I was not a fan at first. Galadriel is like 6000 years old in the second age, i doubt she was still impetuous.

I decided to try and forget everything in the Middle Earth canon, and just watch the story that's being presented. It's not the best thing I've seen, but its not the worst either.
I'm able to do that with a lot of things. Tolkien is the legendarium, though. You can't break it into pieces and try to capture the general feel...
 
I'm able to do that with a lot of things. Tolkien is the legendarium, though. You can't break it into pieces and try to capture the general feel...

I will admit that I enjoyed Tolkien back in the day, but IMHO it is vastly overrated.

It is to fantasy as Star Trek is to Sci-Fi.

characters are two dimensional. The good are sickly sweet good and the bad are irredeemably evil.

with the exception of Boramir, there is no tension or conflict in any character’s thoughts or actions In LOTR.

In Star Trek, with the possible exception of some characters in DS9, there is never a doubt what a Star Fleet character will do.

This is an anathema to drama.

the essence of drama is personal conflict. If the characters have absolutely zero struggle as to what they must do, there is zero conflict.

Now compare Donaldson’s Tales of Thomas Covenant, specifically the first trilogy, to LOTR, or Babylon 5, to Star Trek.

The difference is stark. There is real drama for the simple fact that there is personal conflict.

Good guys do bad shit and bad guys to good deeds. You can never be certain what’s going to happen because of that.

That’s what happens in real life, and that’s what makes it better.
 
I will admit that I enjoyed Tolkien back in the day, but IMHO it is vastly overrated.

It is to fantasy as Star Trek is to Sci-Fi.

characters are two dimensional. The good are sickly sweet good and the bad are irredeemably evil.

with the exception of Boramir, there is no tension or conflict in any character’s thoughts or actions In LOTR.

In Star Trek, with the possible exception of some characters in DS9, there is never a doubt what a Star Fleet character will do.

This is an anathema to drama.

the essence of drama is personal conflict. If the characters have absolutely zero struggle as to what they must do, there is zero conflict.

Now compare Donaldson’s Tales of Thomas Covenant, specifically the first trilogy, to LOTR, or Babylon 5, to Star Trek.

The difference is stark. There is real drama for the simple fact that there is personal conflict.

Good guys do bad shit and bad guys to good deeds. You can never be certain what’s going to happen because of that.

That’s what happens in real life, and that’s what makes it better.
All good points. Which is why I made the point that Tolkien is the legendarium. It is the world building, the history, explicitly written as legend-as-history from the perspective of the victor, which is what gives the story the shape you're pointing to.

From the perspective of a pure narrative you're 100% right. But take LOTR and The Hobbit from the stance that you're reading Bilbo and Frodo's attempt to memorialize their journey and it's a level deeper to try to understand how much of it is true, how much they could understand of other characters' motives, etc.

The Silmarillion is not quite the same sort of personal narrative, but is laid out with a similar built-in bias, as it is the "legendarium" of the people who arose from all this conflict. Their shared cultural myth that brings them together.

But while there are definitely exceptions - Gollum, Denathor, Elrond, Boromir, Thorin, & the wood elves just from Hobbit & LOTR (books, not movies) stand out off the top of my head - generally you're right: if you take it as a classical omniscient narrative, or even an unbiased POV narrative, it's pretty stale. It's about archetypes and grand theme rather than character development or interpersonal strife. But what makes it more interesting to me is accounting for point of view.
 
I will admit that I enjoyed Tolkien back in the day, but IMHO it is vastly overrated.

It is to fantasy as Star Trek is to Sci-Fi.

characters are two dimensional. The good are sickly sweet good and the bad are irredeemably evil.

with the exception of Boramir, there is no tension or conflict in any character’s thoughts or actions In LOTR.

In Star Trek, with the possible exception of some characters in DS9, there is never a doubt what a Star Fleet character will do.

This is an anathema to drama.

the essence of drama is personal conflict. If the characters have absolutely zero struggle as to what they must do, there is zero conflict.

Now compare Donaldson’s Tales of Thomas Covenant, specifically the first trilogy, to LOTR, or Babylon 5, to Star Trek.

The difference is stark. There is real drama for the simple fact that there is personal conflict.

Good guys do bad shit and bad guys to good deeds. You can never be certain what’s going to happen because of that.

That’s what happens in real life, and that’s what makes it better.

Art to me is an artist's selective recreation of reality according to his metaphysical value judgements.

I find little value in making muddy or ugly the good for one example. And as much as like Game of Throwns i found that as a highly depressing flaw.

If I want to see flaws and contradictions I will look at my neighbors.

Good art to me is romantic and inspires as a fuel. The bleak, the ugly, the contradictory in a supposed hero is no such thing.

If a painter creates a brilliant work of a beautiful woman and adds a cold sore on her lip he is mocking the reality of the possibilities beauty carries and in fact believes beauty is an illusion. Same with anti heroes.
 
Art to me is an artist's selective recreation of reality according to his metaphysical value judgements.

I find little value in making muddy or ugly the good for one example. And as much as like Game of Throwns i found that as a highly depressing flaw.

If I want to see flaws and contradictions I will look at my neighbors.

Good art to me is romantic and inspires as a fuel. The bleak, the ugly, the contradictory in a supposed hero is no such thing.

If a painter creates a brilliant work of a beautiful woman and adds a cold sore on her lip he is mocking the reality of the possibilities beauty carries and in fact believes beauty is an illusion. Same with anti heroes.
Art can be whatever you want it to be. At least it is for me. Art should be a freedom of expression...or have no meaning at all. Or, have the viewer come up with their own personal interpretation of it. It all depends...
 
Art can be whatever you want it to be. At least it is for me. Art should be a freedom of expression...or have no meaning at all. Or, have the viewer come up with their own personal interpretation of it. It all depends...

That is simply untrue.
 
Art to me is an artist's selective recreation of reality according to his metaphysical value judgements.

I find little value in making muddy or ugly the good for one example. And as much as like Game of Throwns i found that as a highly depressing flaw.

If I want to see flaws and contradictions I will look at my neighbors.

Good art to me is romantic and inspires as a fuel. The bleak, the ugly, the contradictory in a supposed hero is no such thing.

If a painter creates a brilliant work of a beautiful woman and adds a cold sore on her lip he is mocking the reality of the possibilities beauty carries and in fact believes beauty is an illusion. Same with anti heroes.

Have you ever watched this?


View: https://vimeo.com/549715999



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ELVIS... Great movie and that kid Austin Butler was awesome as The King. He really should get an Oscar for his performance. My mother got confused a few times forgetting that we were watching a movie ABOUT Elvis not a movie STARRING Elvis. Very sad the way Tom Parker took advantage of him.
 
Watched the first 4 episodes of 1883. Very,very good. Gives a down to earth of the lives and hardships of pioneers going across the country to find a new life.
Can't wait to get the next disc which will have another 3 to 4 episodes.
 
Where the Crawdads Sing, good mystery movie, well acted, and people that have read the book have said it does do it justice. If you like stories about misunderstood pretty women growing up alone in the deep south marshes and being accused of murder, you will like this movie :)
 
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Where the Crawdads Sing, good mystery movie, well acted, and people that have read the book have said it does do it justice. If you like stories about misunderstood pretty women growing up alone in the deep south marshes and being accused of murder, you will like this movie :)
That's, like, my very favorite sub-sub-sub-genre!
 
Anything you create in free form can be art. Are we really having this discussion? FFS...

Yes, in fact we are.

If you thank that definition is true and accurate I recommend watching video PF09 recommended to me above by Sir Roger Scruton. It's excellent.
 
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