Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 6:54:46 GMT -8
A couple good comments about the woke Amazon ring series from the Durden article: Yep. Even when things aren't ruined by being "woke," this is often a factor in modern productions. I can't find what "OP" stands for but it's likely something like "Ass-Kicking Female." I'm guessing the Eldron actor/character is a stand-in for gay. But, yeah, "puny tween shaped boy body" says it all about this one. And the "woke" quota system can have bad unintended implications: As one commentor wryly noted: That's not racist. That's just good parody.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 5, 2022 7:27:02 GMT -8
Most of the reviews on IMDB are giving it between 7 and 10. I find that improbable. Even if it was good, it was not that good. If you are so shallow, or immature, that glitzy FX can impress you to ignore the PC and race pandering then this is a TV series for you.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 8:27:59 GMT -8
I think the bad reviews have been scrubbed from IMDB as well as on Amazon.
90% of movies and TV is mediocre. But we can still enjoy watching some of it. I watched Beneath the Planet of the Apes last night. That really is technically a terrible movie. But it has some exotic sci-fi themes and is just bizarre and stupid enough to be watchable.
The Rings of Power, from what I saw, isn't mediocre because of "wokeness," although wokeness has never made a movie better. It's mediocre for the reasons movies and TV have always been mediocre: real talent is rare. And real talent not being bent and deformed by the movie-making process until most of that talent has been filtered out is also rare...and precisely why truly good movies are rare.
This Ring of Power junk is no worse than the later Star Wars movies or the Marvel or DC comic movies that these same yutes slobber all over.
But despite that, it does seem that "wokeness" has hit a bit of a Rubicon moment. People seemed to be genuinely tired of the wokeness. And although I can watch and enjoy some kinds of mediocre movies, I have zero tolerance for "wokeness." I won't sit there and be insulted by the Hollywood Politburo. I love this comment by someone:
This stuff should be rejected. And not because it's mediocre cinema. But because it's Politburo cinema. It is an attempt by those higher up to shove their boutique Communist political ideas down our throats.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 5, 2022 8:40:25 GMT -8
I have looked around and the most likely definition is "overpowered." Realistically, I don't know what that means. I hate most acronyms and this is not even a true acronym. Lazy thinking, the result of a texting culture.
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Brad Nelson
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Sept 5, 2022 9:15:20 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 9:15:20 GMT -8
IAWY
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 10:14:07 GMT -8
There has always been a dose of fantasy in fiction, movies, and TV. Could John Wayne really do all that stuff from the back of a horse?
Well, yes, in fact, he could – or someone like that could. The Lone Ranger and Tonto could also realistically do what they did, although it's quite a coincidence that they kept running into unusual villains the same time each week.
Superman was realistic...given the power he is assumed to have. The interesting part of his story is the moral clarity he had to use those powers for good.
But seeing that ass-kicking female in The Rings of Power take on the troll and scoring hits (many while turned away from the troll) while all the male elves around her were helpless is the non-reality that movies are now swamped in.
But could Linda Hamilton really do all those things she did in the Terminator movies? Yes, in fact, she could. A woman like that could believably have gritty determination to protect her child and the will and strength to pick up a weapon to do so. There were no flying karate-chop leaps at Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator character. She was believable.
And no one had any problem with a strong female character in that movie or in the Alien franchise with Sigourney Weaver. She played another strong and believable women. And all the men around her weren’t turned into wimps.
Although probably most yutes can't articulate their feelings about why they hate The Rings of Power and other movies like that, it surely has to do with being insulted with this feminist and racial-quota garbage. I'm offended, for sure, by this feminist, racial agenda. But I'm probably more offended by the propensity of idiot yutes (of any kind or persuasion) to live in a land of unreality which has turned most movies into giant reels of hackness.
Yes, movies have always been larger than life. But only in the last 20 years or so has unreality (politically motivated for the most part) turned movies from entertaining fiction to unbelievable hacks made by amateurs and ideological kooks.
Also contributed to this unreality is the yute addiction to special effects. Not just once have I heard in a glowing review "the special effects were great." Yutes are now so shallow they are moved by this eye candy the same way a baby is attracted to a colorful rattle you might have suspended over a crib.
One can hope that as yutes try to extract themselves from the unreality of "wokeness" that they will also demand better stories, plots, and characters and not be bamboozled by the sheer number of shimmering pixels that can be moved on the screen at once.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 5, 2022 14:18:08 GMT -8
But seeing that ass-kicking female in The Rings of Power take on the troll and scoring hits (many while turned away from the troll) while all the male elves around her were helpless is the non-reality that movies are now swamped in I get your point and in most instances I am inclined to agree. I don't see her supposed combat abilities as feminist but cartoonish. As believable as roadrunner and coyote. For reason we do not understand the show runners chose, repeat chose, to be completely different from the Peter Jackson movies, Hobbit and LotR. In choosing to be different they also chose to ignore the strong female characters in both series of movies. In place we have improbable and thin female characters whose skills in combat are the stuff made for one, man/person/woman armies and cartoons, of maybe the Kung Fu movies of Run Run Shaw.
I will watch the third episode but if it doesn't get better that is all the time I will invest.
On another note. We are into the third episode of House of the Dragon on HBO. The first two shows went a little slow as did Game of Thrones but it took off in the third and has promise for the future. In spite of the obvious race pandering the characters are taking shape in a similar manner to GoT.
On another note(s) Recently two major series ended Better Call Saul and Westworld Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad and features the criminal, criminal lawyer from BB. For four seasons the show was entertaining with intriguing plots, and Saul always squeezing through the cracks. The last season felt like something thrown together, building to Saul finding comfort in prison. A very disappointing ending. They built the show around Saul being a kind of latter day Robin Hood, of sorts, and let it end on a downer.
Westworld Was also disappointing they never should have done a fourth season. In short the entire world is destroyed, everyone dies including all the robots. Great FX but a real downer.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 16:10:56 GMT -8
More and more of our society is being controlled and taken over by the mindset of 13-year-old girls. It's interesting to consider if the Ass-Kicking Female in The Rings of Girl Power is an artistic statement, a political statement, or just a fetish. A mix of all three is certainly reasonable to assume.
Good taste is rare. One of my favorite movie factoids is how the ending of Casablanca wasn't a done-deal. I believe they didn't like the ending as penciled into the script but were going to change it when they got to it. They tried several versions until they hit on what became the perfect and classic ending: Rick goes all noble.
The point is, they struggled to find just the right moral/aesthetic/artistic statement. But did they ever struggle with the fine details of the script of The Rings of Girl Power? It doesn't look like it. Even those who say they can watch it and enjoy it admit that the dialogue is extremely thin.
It's a good bet that simply featuring an Ass-Kicking Female was all that was really required. Throw in a few black pre-Hobbits and you've done all the check-box ticking you need. Oh...and make the males effeminate and/or weak. That's what "woke" movies are. They are vehicles not for the classic Hero's Journey but to demonstrate that women are not just as good as men...they are better.
Often movies are ruined when emphasis is placed on special effects and the story is an afterthought. This is the same error that "woke" movies make. What should be a subservient (or even non-existent) element in a movie becomes primary. In many ways, both Marvel Comic book movies and the "woke" movies of Disney (and now Bezos) are terrible because either nobody cares to write a story, nobody knows how to write a story, or (I think this is often true) the entire idea of a story is an afterthought.
That's right. It should be no surprise then that much of what passes for entertainment follows much the same script as porn. The actual story is unimportant, even irrelevant. You are there to see titties...or special effects...or an Ass Kicking Female so that 13-year-old girls can have their self-esteem boosted (and, more importantly, boys and men can be put in their place).
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 18:41:22 GMT -8
I remember watching a couple episodes of Westworld. It was so-so. But I would have watched more if it hadn't have moved to another service. I don't remember where I started watching that.
I over-dosed fairly quickly on Breaking Bad so didn't really have the heart to watch Saul, although it seems like a good premise. The guy was a funny ambulance-chasing lawyer.
Right now I'm watching The Hawaiians on ScreenPix. It stars Charlton "Get your hands off me you damn, dirty ape" Heston. It's a second part, sequel, or something from Michener's "Hawaii" novel.
It's opens with Heston captaining what is a de facto slave ship. He's transporting a cargo of Chinese to Hawaii to work in various jobs. These are volunteers. But I had to LOL early when Chuck looks down into the dank hold crammed with Chinese and calls them all "heathens." Subsequent events gave that observation some credence.
On his return, he learns that his grandfather has died...and disinherited him. Chuck (Captain Whip Hoxworth) had plans to make this his last voyage. He wanted to start a fleet for scheduled service. But now he has nothing but a lousy 85,000 acres of land in Hawaii.
I'd love a lousy half acre in Hawaii. But, them were the times. And now Captain Whip has to write his own rags-to-riches story. And that's as far as I've got. Looks good so far and I can't believe it's a Heston film that I haven't seen.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 5, 2022 19:21:58 GMT -8
Heston. It's a second part, sequel, or something from Michener's "Hawaii" novel. Hawaii was one of the first Michner novels to start with the forming of the earth. I believe it came out in the 70s and was an instant hit. It is a very long novel as I recall about 900 pages. Michner did a lot of research on his novels and the general historical facts are accurate. The Yankees who came to Hawaii in the 19th century were either whalers or missionaries. The whalers stopped in the islands to supply for their wheeling and the missionaries to convert the heathen. Both groups brought a plethora of disease unseen by the natives. When Capt. Cook discovered the islands there were 600,000 happy, pagan, naked natives. 100 years later there were less than 50,000 fully clothed Christian unhappy natives. And the missionary families owned most of the land. A native Hawaiian of pure blood is a rare thing, possibly gone forever. Every native family has white, Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian blood. Not to mention the odd Russian, African or European.
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Brad Nelson
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Sept 5, 2022 21:10:14 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 5, 2022 21:10:14 GMT -8
Well, the reason Captain Hoxworth's vast acreage in Hawaii is of little value is because his grandfather could never find water on it. But then some drunken water guy comes to the captain with a method that hasn't been tried before.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hoxworth (played blandly by Geraldine Chaplin) goes all goofy and frigid. She may be cracking up as well. The doctor suspects too much inbreeding in the royal families which she derives from. Oops. That's not PC...but perhaps true.
Meanwhile, screenplay writer James R. Webb, James A. Michener, Director Tom Gries, and Tina Chen (as Nyuk Tsin) show real "girl power" without the obnoxious, trite, and bizarre juvenilism of the "woke" bigot misandrists of the misshapen Bezos project.
Nyuk crossed over on the boat disguised, and later pretending to be the wife of Mun Ki (Mako). Mun Ki is a bit of a dirtbag. The children he has via Nyuk Tsin are to be his. And when he's collected five sons (I'm not kidding), he's going to bring them back to his wife in China. Nyuk is considered an "aunt" in this entire proposition.
So...it's not just white people or white males who can be dirtbags. So can a Chinaman...and his wife. But Nyuk Tsin shows moxie. She has no desire to save a little money and then return to China, which is the usual. She wants to stay in Hawaii. And she wants to buy a plot of land from Captain Hoxworth.
You go girl! How to be a strong female (and a likable one) without the kind of idiotic display by the pathetic actress, Morfydd Clark, in her badly-written role in The Ring of Girl Power. No, the kids are not alright. They produce little but junk in the arts these days.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 6, 2022 5:17:31 GMT -8
Elon Musk has a similar take as Brad's on the new Lord of the Rings movie. It sucks Perhaps I am simply decades behind the times, but it seems to me that those who produce such movies are naturally courting failure. In my experience, it is mainly boys who like such movies. They naturally want to see a simulacrum of themselves up there on the screen, or on TV as it may be. Do girls really flock to see ass-kicking females dressed like men?
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 6, 2022 5:33:07 GMT -8
I saw the movie when it first came out. It was one of those epic films which are no longer made. That said, the main thing I remember about it was that there were a bunch of Hawaiian females running around topless. This was quite something to be seen in a local movie theater in the mid-sixites, particularly for a teenage boy. I remember some kids commenting about the females being brown so their boobs were not worth worth looking at. Or something like that. Being naive', I didn't agree and thought the brown boobs looked pretty good.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 6, 2022 5:40:37 GMT -8
Anyone who has looked into this subject will know that "white males" i.e. Westerners have treated women much better than other males around the world. I will not go into the history of it. It speaks for itself. I will only say that some, such as Joseph Campbell see this behavior originating in medieval chivalry. I know it from personal observation.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 6, 2022 5:56:29 GMT -8
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Post by artraveler on Sept 6, 2022 6:07:57 GMT -8
Hawaiian females running around topless. I saw it also and as I remember most of those women were not actually Hawaiian but of mixed blood, mostly Chinese and Japanese. Some of the most beautiful women I have seen were in Vietnam of mixed ethnic history, part French, Dutch, English, American Black and a few Chinese. Since they were not "pure" Vietnamese they were considered low class. Many were sold, by their family to brothels and died early deaths. that was one thing the communists did clean up.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 6, 2022 6:18:55 GMT -8
I do believe that during the late 19th, early 20th centuries the Japanese were selling their daughters into prostitution for the antimony miners in Borneo.
As I said, I will not go into the history of it, but females have never been considered of great value in most Asian cultures. A Chinese female's name was struck off the family tablets once she was married off. As if she had died.
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Brad Nelson
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Sept 6, 2022 7:06:47 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 6, 2022 7:06:47 GMT -8
Chuck has already referred to them as "pious bastards." The board of directors and relatives of his grandfather's company are doing nothing to help him. His grandfather left him nothing but a plantation with no access to water and an option on The Carthaginian...this ship he just returned in from China with a cargo of Chinamen. Apparently grandpa didn't want the curse of wealth to taint him. He wanted Captain Whip Hoxworth to make his own way in the world.
Meanwhile they did indeed strike water on the plantation and Nyuk Tsin was given (and did not have to buy) a plot of land by Captain Hoxworth. That was awful . . . nice of him. She has helped Hoxworth successfully grow a species of pineapple that Hoxworth surreptitiously acquired from New Guinea. Now he plans to go back for a ship-full of it...if he can get use of The Carthaginian from the pious bastards.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 6, 2022 7:19:37 GMT -8
Give the guy credit for not being afraid to see what he sees. Most people are these days. But Musk has called it accurately….at least from what I've seen.
And I love this droll comment. You will have had to have seen the first episode to appreciate the rock reference in this semi-literate comment:
Besides the wokeness, there is indeed a childish or amateurish quality to the series.
That is a very interesting observation, Mr. Flu. Bill Burr (the comedian) has a bit on how nobody (including women) wants to watch the WNBA. It's a fair bet that, no, it's not the girls who want to see a simulacrum of themselves (good choice of words) up there on the screen as Ass-Kicking Females. I would say this is a situation where the Kultural Karens of the Entertainment Politburo are trying to enforce their standards upon us...not make a movie that people want to watch.
And obviously there are a lot of Eloi beta-males who (to avoid the wrath of the Karens) go along with this stuff as collaborators.
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Brad Nelson
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Sept 6, 2022 7:26:31 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 6, 2022 7:26:31 GMT -8
Same thing with 1984's The Bounty film with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. Polynesian women are the best...until they get old and fat.
I started reading Hawaii probably 25 years ago but didn't get too far. I think when it started with the formation of the earth, and I saw how thick the book was, I didn't have the patience for it. I don't think I've ever seen the 1966 movie.
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