Ever since Zack Snyder left production of Justice League ostensibly because of his child's suicide, fans have been clamoring for the mythical "Snyder Cut" of the movie. Even over two years later people are still debating whether or not it exists and whether or not it should be released. Besides fans "experts" and celebrities like Kevin Smith have weighed in on it.
For what it's worth, I don't think there's a real, finished product out there. As some people on Twitter have mentioned if there's anything it's probably a rough cut or "assembly," the sort of thing the crew watches to see if they got what they needed. That being the case not only would it probably be 3-4 hours long, but also it would look like shit. Have you ever seen the actual footage of a big CGI-heavy movie before they add all the effects in? There are green screen backgrounds, people in motion capture suits, and basically people pantomiming because the lasers and whatnot haven't been added. (And Superman would have a mustache, as was reported on to death.) It would be laughable to watch more than a few minutes.
Unlike a lot of fans, let me apply some logic here. Justice League was a flop even though it made like $800 million worldwide. Now if there were a finished product of an alternate version, don't you think WB would have released it by now to make some extra money to offset their losses? I mean this is the same company that released THREE versions of Snyder's Watchmen on DVD: the theatrical cut, Director's Cut, and Ultimate Cut that included the animated material originally put out as a separate product. And again with Snyder's Batman v Superman there were two editions: the theatrical version and Ultimate edition. They're clearly not adverse to putting out multiple versions of one movie if it suits them, especially Zack Snyder movies.
So if there were a finished alternate version of the movie they'd just be leaving money on the table and considering how the movie performed, I doubt they'd do that.
On someone's blog I read recently she talked about the deeper issue here: the spoiled fandom that in the age of social media thinks it's entitled to whatever it wants. I mean like all those idiots signing online petitions to completely remake season 8 of Game of Thrones because they didn't like it. Or wanting to refilm The Last Jedi, something I would support, though not for the racist reasons as a lot of the people supporting that. I'd want to refilm it for story content, not to erase ethnic characters. But unlike a lot of fans I know that's unrealistic. There's no way HBO would spend the millions and millions of dollars to reshoot a new season of Game of Thrones. And even then, who decides what the ending would be? Do we take an online poll?
And even if HBO did that or even if WB released "The Snyder Cut" do you think fans would be happy? I doubt it. They'd just bitch about something else. There'd probably be conspiracy nuts saying "That's not the REAL Snyder Cut! Release the REAL Snyder Cut!" Even if Zack Snyder himself went to their houses and showed it to them, they'd still deny it. Because some people are just like that. Unfortunately in the age of social media those people can actually be heard.
There's that old story about a guy who tried to please everyone and wound up pleasing no one. That's why most of these whiny fan petitions don't get listened to: even if companies went to the time and expense of trying to please them they'd still bitch about something. And if you give them an inch they'd take a mile as the old saying goes; you give them the Snyder Cut and then they'll want all kinds of shit.
I'm just saying.
Friday, August 16, 2019
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
The Boys Isn't For The Girls
Last entry I talked about Amazon's new series The Boys based on a comic by Garth Ennis. On Twitter a woman was complaining that the first episode "fridged" the main character's girlfriend and then had a rape scene so she wasn't down with it. And, well, it's a good thing she didn't read the source material because it's like a million times more misogynist and sexually depraved.
If you're wondering, the idea of "fridging" comes from Green Lantern in the late 90s when Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was murdered and stuffed into a fridge for him to find. Among women especially this became symbolic of comics killing or maiming or otherwise incapacitating a hero's girlfriend solely to motivate the hero.
Which if you watch all 8 episodes of the Amazon series this wasn't strictly "fridging" the girlfriend. The main character, Hughie, and his girlfriend Robin are talking about moving in together when she suddenly explodes as the speedster A-Train literally runs right through her. This is what leads Billy Butcher to recruit Hughie for his team and for Hughie to accept. So in that sense it is "fridging" but later on it becomes a catalyst for finding out about this "Compound V" stuff that is like steroids for superheroes. So in that way if it had been Hughie's dad or a male friend who had been run through the impact would have been exactly the same. And in this context it wasn't entirely about just giving him motivation. It was like Watchmen where it begins with a murder and that eventually leads to unraveling a whole big conspiracy. Though admittedly Watchmen is pretty misogynist too, though less sexually depraved.
Since the show is on their network, Amazon made the first volume of the comic free on Prime Reading so I read the first six issues or so. At least in that the girlfriend thing is a "fridging" because there really doesn't seem any reason for it except to provide motivation for Hughie to join Butcher's team. In the comic she's not run over by A-Train; he throws or punches or whatever a villain who flies through Robin at such a high speed that she explodes--except for the arms that Hughie is still holding when paramedics arrive.
Next there's the rape. It's not a rape in the sense of throwing a woman down and forcibly entering her. Starlight is a young girl from Iowa with superpowers who's picked to join "The Seven," the series's version of the Justice League, though it's more like the Crime Syndicate from Earth-3 in that while they pretty much have the same powers as the Justice League they're totally evil. Anyway, upon joining she meets her idol Homelander who then drops his pants and tells her that to become part of the team she has to give him a blow job. And also A-Train and Black Noir, the Batman-ish character who's really more like Snake Eyes of GI JOE. If she doesn't do it then she'll be sent back to Iowa to live out her life as a second-rate hero. So guess what she does? And finds no sympathy in the only other female "hero" Queen Maeve, who deals with her problems by drinking.
In the show it's mostly the same situation, except it's only the Aquaman-ish character The Deep who drops his pants. And later gets his come-uppance when he's raped by a woman in Sandusky, Ohio, where he was sent to after Starlight inadvertently publicized what happened. I'm not sure how much of that happens in the comics since I haven't read beyond the first volume; I think that was probably added in light of the #metoo and #timesup stuff.
So the Amazon series is actually a lot tamer than the comic book series. If you're complaining about that, well, definitely don't read the source material because as I've laid out it's worse. You also have a team of young heroes having sex with a bunch of prostitutes and in a park Billy Butcher has his bulldog Terror sodomize an old lady's Shih-Tzu. For obvious reasons the bulldog is not in the TV show. But the TV show does have The Boys shoving a bomb up an invisible "hero"'s ass and exploding him, so there's that, not that they really show much other than the exploding.
I guess if I'm a good liberal I should hate the show and the book, but I really don't. I mean the blowjobs and dog sodomizing are a little too extreme but it's the world of the show. Super "heroes" are assholes and the people fighting them aren't really much better. It is what it is and you either accept it for that or don't. But clearly if you're the type who's going to complain about "fridging" on Twitter then you aren't going to enjoy it. Fair warning.
A couple of Fun Facts on how the show and comics are different: first off in the comics Compound V is something The Boys use to fight superheroes. For a short time it gives them the strength, speed, and healing ability to go toe-to-toe with most of the superheroes. When Hughie takes some he winds up punching through a young hero and killing him. As I said, in the show the Compound V is used like a steroid. It's also given to babies to make them into superheroes. There's this whole big conspiracy on distributing the drug to hospitals to create heroes, but also to terrorists to create supervillains.
In the show Hughie is an American played by Jack Quaid, who really looks more like a Michael Shannon and Rainn Wilson hybrid than Dennis or Randy Quaid. In the comic books he's Scottish and was actually modeled after actor/comedian Simon Pegg. Which as an Easter egg Simon Pegg plays Hughie's father in the TV show. In an added coincidence Karl Urban plays Billy Butcher and they were both in the reboot Star Trek movies.
Another Easter egg in the show is that two of Vought's marketing writers are named Seth and Evan, like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, two of the producers of the series. We find out when Billy and Hughie visit a support group that Seth's penis got broken off when a hero he was sleeping with turned to ice when she orgasmed, basically turning his dick to a Popsicle like liquid hydrogen. So, yeah, this is definitely not a nice PG-13 show. You've been warned!
If you're wondering, the idea of "fridging" comes from Green Lantern in the late 90s when Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was murdered and stuffed into a fridge for him to find. Among women especially this became symbolic of comics killing or maiming or otherwise incapacitating a hero's girlfriend solely to motivate the hero.
Which if you watch all 8 episodes of the Amazon series this wasn't strictly "fridging" the girlfriend. The main character, Hughie, and his girlfriend Robin are talking about moving in together when she suddenly explodes as the speedster A-Train literally runs right through her. This is what leads Billy Butcher to recruit Hughie for his team and for Hughie to accept. So in that sense it is "fridging" but later on it becomes a catalyst for finding out about this "Compound V" stuff that is like steroids for superheroes. So in that way if it had been Hughie's dad or a male friend who had been run through the impact would have been exactly the same. And in this context it wasn't entirely about just giving him motivation. It was like Watchmen where it begins with a murder and that eventually leads to unraveling a whole big conspiracy. Though admittedly Watchmen is pretty misogynist too, though less sexually depraved.
Since the show is on their network, Amazon made the first volume of the comic free on Prime Reading so I read the first six issues or so. At least in that the girlfriend thing is a "fridging" because there really doesn't seem any reason for it except to provide motivation for Hughie to join Butcher's team. In the comic she's not run over by A-Train; he throws or punches or whatever a villain who flies through Robin at such a high speed that she explodes--except for the arms that Hughie is still holding when paramedics arrive.
Next there's the rape. It's not a rape in the sense of throwing a woman down and forcibly entering her. Starlight is a young girl from Iowa with superpowers who's picked to join "The Seven," the series's version of the Justice League, though it's more like the Crime Syndicate from Earth-3 in that while they pretty much have the same powers as the Justice League they're totally evil. Anyway, upon joining she meets her idol Homelander who then drops his pants and tells her that to become part of the team she has to give him a blow job. And also A-Train and Black Noir, the Batman-ish character who's really more like Snake Eyes of GI JOE. If she doesn't do it then she'll be sent back to Iowa to live out her life as a second-rate hero. So guess what she does? And finds no sympathy in the only other female "hero" Queen Maeve, who deals with her problems by drinking.
In the show it's mostly the same situation, except it's only the Aquaman-ish character The Deep who drops his pants. And later gets his come-uppance when he's raped by a woman in Sandusky, Ohio, where he was sent to after Starlight inadvertently publicized what happened. I'm not sure how much of that happens in the comics since I haven't read beyond the first volume; I think that was probably added in light of the #metoo and #timesup stuff.
So the Amazon series is actually a lot tamer than the comic book series. If you're complaining about that, well, definitely don't read the source material because as I've laid out it's worse. You also have a team of young heroes having sex with a bunch of prostitutes and in a park Billy Butcher has his bulldog Terror sodomize an old lady's Shih-Tzu. For obvious reasons the bulldog is not in the TV show. But the TV show does have The Boys shoving a bomb up an invisible "hero"'s ass and exploding him, so there's that, not that they really show much other than the exploding.
I guess if I'm a good liberal I should hate the show and the book, but I really don't. I mean the blowjobs and dog sodomizing are a little too extreme but it's the world of the show. Super "heroes" are assholes and the people fighting them aren't really much better. It is what it is and you either accept it for that or don't. But clearly if you're the type who's going to complain about "fridging" on Twitter then you aren't going to enjoy it. Fair warning.
A couple of Fun Facts on how the show and comics are different: first off in the comics Compound V is something The Boys use to fight superheroes. For a short time it gives them the strength, speed, and healing ability to go toe-to-toe with most of the superheroes. When Hughie takes some he winds up punching through a young hero and killing him. As I said, in the show the Compound V is used like a steroid. It's also given to babies to make them into superheroes. There's this whole big conspiracy on distributing the drug to hospitals to create heroes, but also to terrorists to create supervillains.
In the show Hughie is an American played by Jack Quaid, who really looks more like a Michael Shannon and Rainn Wilson hybrid than Dennis or Randy Quaid. In the comic books he's Scottish and was actually modeled after actor/comedian Simon Pegg. Which as an Easter egg Simon Pegg plays Hughie's father in the TV show. In an added coincidence Karl Urban plays Billy Butcher and they were both in the reboot Star Trek movies.
Another Easter egg in the show is that two of Vought's marketing writers are named Seth and Evan, like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, two of the producers of the series. We find out when Billy and Hughie visit a support group that Seth's penis got broken off when a hero he was sleeping with turned to ice when she orgasmed, basically turning his dick to a Popsicle like liquid hydrogen. So, yeah, this is definitely not a nice PG-13 show. You've been warned!
Monday, August 12, 2019
Does Absolute Power Corrupt Absolutely?
At the end of July Amazon Prime Video premiered The Boys, which is based on a comic by Garth Ennis. The show is about a small team of guys (and one woman) who terrorize superheroes. The idea being that in this universe most superheroes are secretly assholes, especially the biggest one "Homelander" who looks like Captain America, has Superman's powers, and is a complete sociopath. He murders numerous people and we find out he raped and impregnated the wife of one of the main characters, Billy Butcher.
About a month or two before this I read the first book in Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series called Steelheart. In it some weird red star called Calamity suddenly appears and people start to get superpowers. Except inevitably all the people with superpowers turn evil. The eponymous Steelheart is naturally the Superman-type character, only of course evil. (And he has the power to turn stuff to steel, hence his name.) Steelheart and other "Epics" force the governments of the world to capitulate and then split the world up amongst themselves. Ten years later a kid joins this group called "The Reckoners" who go around assassinating Epics. With his help they're able to finally kill Steelheart.
So in both of these cases people who get superpowers are inevitably assholes and/or evil. In The Boys the evil is mostly kept hidden thanks in large part to the evil Vought corporation while in Sanderson's books the evil is usually on full display.
Which brings up the title of this entry: does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Greek philosophy says yes. If you got superpowers, how long until you started to use them for evil? I mean if I got Superman powers, how long could I resist the temptation to walk into a bank and take the money to pay off all my debts and shit? I'd say about as long as it'd take me to get to the nearest bank.
Or maybe you don't use it for outright evil. Maybe you sell your powers to the highest bidder like a mercenary. Or like in the recent Shazam movie set up a demonstration to essentially do super-powered tricks for money. And like in The Boys you could probably eventually set yourself up with all sorts of endorsement deals like an athlete. If you follow sports at all you know the sort of shit a lot of athletes get up to in their personal lives because they have all this money and easy access to booze, drugs, and floozies. See Tiger Woods, Pacman Jones, Michael Vick, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Aaron Hernandez for some recent examples of athlete malfeasance. Plus there are numerous DUIs and such every single year.
I hate to say it like this, but DUIs and a few sexual assaults is almost a best case scenario. The absolute best is that you'd only use your powers for good and be squeaky clean like Superman or Captain America or Spider-Man. The absolute worst case scenario is that like Steelheart you decide to take the world (or a chunk of it) for yourself and force all the unpowered people to be your slaves. Maybe like Sanderson and Ennis I'm a bit cynical about this because it's hard to see most people actually being squeaky clean if they suddenly have superpowers. If you go digging it's hard to find anyone with money and/or power who is absolutely clean. Now if you give someone like that superhuman strength, invulnerability, flight, and heat vision? We're all fucked.
But maybe you think you could resist the urge to just take whatever you want--or think you're owed. Good thing we'll probably never have to find out.
About a month or two before this I read the first book in Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series called Steelheart. In it some weird red star called Calamity suddenly appears and people start to get superpowers. Except inevitably all the people with superpowers turn evil. The eponymous Steelheart is naturally the Superman-type character, only of course evil. (And he has the power to turn stuff to steel, hence his name.) Steelheart and other "Epics" force the governments of the world to capitulate and then split the world up amongst themselves. Ten years later a kid joins this group called "The Reckoners" who go around assassinating Epics. With his help they're able to finally kill Steelheart.
So in both of these cases people who get superpowers are inevitably assholes and/or evil. In The Boys the evil is mostly kept hidden thanks in large part to the evil Vought corporation while in Sanderson's books the evil is usually on full display.
Which brings up the title of this entry: does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Greek philosophy says yes. If you got superpowers, how long until you started to use them for evil? I mean if I got Superman powers, how long could I resist the temptation to walk into a bank and take the money to pay off all my debts and shit? I'd say about as long as it'd take me to get to the nearest bank.
Or maybe you don't use it for outright evil. Maybe you sell your powers to the highest bidder like a mercenary. Or like in the recent Shazam movie set up a demonstration to essentially do super-powered tricks for money. And like in The Boys you could probably eventually set yourself up with all sorts of endorsement deals like an athlete. If you follow sports at all you know the sort of shit a lot of athletes get up to in their personal lives because they have all this money and easy access to booze, drugs, and floozies. See Tiger Woods, Pacman Jones, Michael Vick, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Aaron Hernandez for some recent examples of athlete malfeasance. Plus there are numerous DUIs and such every single year.
I hate to say it like this, but DUIs and a few sexual assaults is almost a best case scenario. The absolute best is that you'd only use your powers for good and be squeaky clean like Superman or Captain America or Spider-Man. The absolute worst case scenario is that like Steelheart you decide to take the world (or a chunk of it) for yourself and force all the unpowered people to be your slaves. Maybe like Sanderson and Ennis I'm a bit cynical about this because it's hard to see most people actually being squeaky clean if they suddenly have superpowers. If you go digging it's hard to find anyone with money and/or power who is absolutely clean. Now if you give someone like that superhuman strength, invulnerability, flight, and heat vision? We're all fucked.
But maybe you think you could resist the urge to just take whatever you want--or think you're owed. Good thing we'll probably never have to find out.
Friday, August 9, 2019
How Important is the US Box Office?
Last month I read this article on Tony Laplume's blog about the top movies of 2018 in terms of money. He listed both the domestic and worldwide top 10 and I thought it'd be interesting to crunch the numbers (or just look at them on Box Office Mojo) about just how much of the movie's earnings came from the USA (domestic) or from the international market.
Taking a sample of 15 major releases of the last year, you can see the results are somewhat mixed:
The two horror movies on the list--Halloween (2018) and A Quiet Place--had the highest percentage of domestic earnings with Halloween's at 62%. Solo, which was a flop for Star Wars movies, had 54% of its paltry earnings come from the USA.
When it comes to superheroes, note the two movies featuring black heroes as the lead characters had just over half their earnings come from the USA while Aquaman and Venom had only about 30% and 25% respectively come from the domestic market. It's interesting that Black Panther and Aquaman had almost the same overall take and yet the distribution of that money was widely different.
Since I'm not an expert like Scott Mendelson I can't really draw a lot of conclusions about this. There are of course some factors that come into play like some movies don't get into as many international markets. That might explain why a smaller movie like A Quiet Place had most of its money come from the USA. And that like Halloween and Deadpool 2 was rated R in the USA, which can also affect how many people here and around the world will be able to see it in theaters.
But I think you can see just how important the international market is becoming, to the point some movies are making 3/4 of their money from it. If you track the numbers like Box Office Mojo there's probably been a growing share of the box office coming from international markets as the rest of the world catches up to the USA in terms of disposable income and access to big Hollywood movies. That can be good but also it can be a bad thing as typically if you want a movie to do well overseas it means you can't take many risks for it in terms of casting minorities in lead roles or deal with LGBTQ material for instance. So not everyone will be sharing the wealth.
Taking a sample of 15 major releases of the last year, you can see the results are somewhat mixed:
The two horror movies on the list--Halloween (2018) and A Quiet Place--had the highest percentage of domestic earnings with Halloween's at 62%. Solo, which was a flop for Star Wars movies, had 54% of its paltry earnings come from the USA.
When it comes to superheroes, note the two movies featuring black heroes as the lead characters had just over half their earnings come from the USA while Aquaman and Venom had only about 30% and 25% respectively come from the domestic market. It's interesting that Black Panther and Aquaman had almost the same overall take and yet the distribution of that money was widely different.
Since I'm not an expert like Scott Mendelson I can't really draw a lot of conclusions about this. There are of course some factors that come into play like some movies don't get into as many international markets. That might explain why a smaller movie like A Quiet Place had most of its money come from the USA. And that like Halloween and Deadpool 2 was rated R in the USA, which can also affect how many people here and around the world will be able to see it in theaters.
But I think you can see just how important the international market is becoming, to the point some movies are making 3/4 of their money from it. If you track the numbers like Box Office Mojo there's probably been a growing share of the box office coming from international markets as the rest of the world catches up to the USA in terms of disposable income and access to big Hollywood movies. That can be good but also it can be a bad thing as typically if you want a movie to do well overseas it means you can't take many risks for it in terms of casting minorities in lead roles or deal with LGBTQ material for instance. So not everyone will be sharing the wealth.
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
With #TheOrville Off to Hulu is There Any Room For Sci-Fi on Broadcast TV?
During ComiCon in San Diego, it was announced that The Orville would be moving from Fox to Hulu for Season 3. Which means I don't think there are any real science-fiction shows on the major four networks anymore. Unless you want to count superhero shows like Agents of SHIELD on ABC (already scheduled for cancellation in 2021) which I don't.
Other than Syfy I'm not sure there's any real sci-fi on any broadcast networks anymore. And even Syfy doesn't show all that much real sci-fi anymore. They mostly seem to show crappy reality shows, wrestling, and lame Asylum movies like Mega Corgi vs Giant Tree Sloth.
Really sci-fi's history on ordinary TV has always been somewhat troubled. The recurring problem is that sci-fi shows are more expensive to produce and don't easily get big ratings. Even classic shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek were kept to shoestring budgets and often were perched on the edge of cancellation. And there's a long list of shows like Firefly that got one season or maybe two before they met the network ax.
Last year Amazon picked up Syfy's The Expanse, the new season of which should be out this year, and now with Hulu picking up The Orville and developing a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy show it really does seem that streaming is the only hope for sci-fi programming anymore. Besides those two shows you have Black Mirror on Netflix, the new Twilight Zone and Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access, and soon at least one Star Wars show on Disney+ to name a few.
This is good for sci-fi fans, but the problem is that the streaming market is most likely a bubble that's going to burst in a couple of years like the dot-com bust in the early 2000s. Once that bubble bursts and streaming companies are no longer tossing around money like a drunken trust fund kid at a strip club, how many sci-fi shows are going to survive? I'm sure a few will since sci-fi shows have been around pretty much since TV began (and before that on radio, I guess) but if I'm looking to the future I'm not all that optimistic.
Is anyone else more optimistic? Or maybe you know of some shows on broadcast TV that I missed.
Other than Syfy I'm not sure there's any real sci-fi on any broadcast networks anymore. And even Syfy doesn't show all that much real sci-fi anymore. They mostly seem to show crappy reality shows, wrestling, and lame Asylum movies like Mega Corgi vs Giant Tree Sloth.
Really sci-fi's history on ordinary TV has always been somewhat troubled. The recurring problem is that sci-fi shows are more expensive to produce and don't easily get big ratings. Even classic shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek were kept to shoestring budgets and often were perched on the edge of cancellation. And there's a long list of shows like Firefly that got one season or maybe two before they met the network ax.
Last year Amazon picked up Syfy's The Expanse, the new season of which should be out this year, and now with Hulu picking up The Orville and developing a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy show it really does seem that streaming is the only hope for sci-fi programming anymore. Besides those two shows you have Black Mirror on Netflix, the new Twilight Zone and Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access, and soon at least one Star Wars show on Disney+ to name a few.
This is good for sci-fi fans, but the problem is that the streaming market is most likely a bubble that's going to burst in a couple of years like the dot-com bust in the early 2000s. Once that bubble bursts and streaming companies are no longer tossing around money like a drunken trust fund kid at a strip club, how many sci-fi shows are going to survive? I'm sure a few will since sci-fi shows have been around pretty much since TV began (and before that on radio, I guess) but if I'm looking to the future I'm not all that optimistic.
Is anyone else more optimistic? Or maybe you know of some shows on broadcast TV that I missed.
Monday, August 5, 2019
The Importance of And
This is not a writing post. This is a post about movie credits.
I'm not sure when it started. Maybe it's always been around. Anyway, if you watch movie credits there's usually a sort of order to it. You have the stars of the movie and then some supporting players AND then you have "And" which is usually some supporting actor played by someone of note. Like in the credits for The Dark Knight you have Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, AND Morgan Freeman. So you have top billing going to the hero then some other people AND then single out one person to be last. Is it just random? I don't really think so.
When watching the credits for a movie (end or beginning) you can usually tell how big a movie is by the quality of the AND. If the AND is someone like Morgan Freeman then it's definitely a big budget movie. Or if the AND is some C or D-list "star" then it's like the movie isn't huge but they at least saved up some money to pay for someone people might have heard of. If the AND is no one you've ever heard of, then it's probably a really low budget movie.
When you watch something like the Avengers movies that has so many notable names it's fun to try to guess who the AND might be. Though it was weird to me that in Avengers Infinity War the AND was Chris Pratt. I mean he seemed too main a character and really has Chris Pratt been around that long that he should be singled out like that? Maybe his agent lobbied the hardest or got it written in the contract or something.
Along with and you also have WITH. That's a way to single out multiple actors, but WITH is not really as important as AND. I mean you're being singled out but there can be a lot of WITHs and only one AND so I maintain the AND is still more important.
Besides Infinity War there were a couple of other Marvel AND choices I disagreed with in the last couple of years. For Black Panther there were a lot of great and important actors. You had Angela Bassett who was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. You had Forest Whitaker who won an Oscar. Maybe one of them would be your AND? Nope. The AND goes to...Andy Serkis. Who was nominated for a Golden Globe but has never won an important award and is mostly known for playing CGI characters. AND more importantly in the first major black superhero movie you give the AND to a white guy? Really?! It's like saying, "All these black actors are nice, but you know who's really important? The white guy." It'd be bad optics if anyone but me cared about this.
It's the same thing with Captain Marvel. It's the second major female superhero movie and who does the AND go to? A guy. I mean OK Jude Law's been nominated for two Oscars and some Golden Globes but he never won anything. Meanwhile you have Annette Bening who was nominated for 4 Oscars and won two Golden Globes and she's a woman but she's only a WITH? Again it's like saying, "This accomplished woman is important BUT not as important as a man who's accomplished less." Again, it's just bad optics.
Anyway, if you're watching a movie with friends, maybe bet each other on who will get the AND credit. You might be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised.
I'm not sure when it started. Maybe it's always been around. Anyway, if you watch movie credits there's usually a sort of order to it. You have the stars of the movie and then some supporting players AND then you have "And" which is usually some supporting actor played by someone of note. Like in the credits for The Dark Knight you have Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, AND Morgan Freeman. So you have top billing going to the hero then some other people AND then single out one person to be last. Is it just random? I don't really think so.
When watching the credits for a movie (end or beginning) you can usually tell how big a movie is by the quality of the AND. If the AND is someone like Morgan Freeman then it's definitely a big budget movie. Or if the AND is some C or D-list "star" then it's like the movie isn't huge but they at least saved up some money to pay for someone people might have heard of. If the AND is no one you've ever heard of, then it's probably a really low budget movie.
When you watch something like the Avengers movies that has so many notable names it's fun to try to guess who the AND might be. Though it was weird to me that in Avengers Infinity War the AND was Chris Pratt. I mean he seemed too main a character and really has Chris Pratt been around that long that he should be singled out like that? Maybe his agent lobbied the hardest or got it written in the contract or something.
Along with and you also have WITH. That's a way to single out multiple actors, but WITH is not really as important as AND. I mean you're being singled out but there can be a lot of WITHs and only one AND so I maintain the AND is still more important.
Besides Infinity War there were a couple of other Marvel AND choices I disagreed with in the last couple of years. For Black Panther there were a lot of great and important actors. You had Angela Bassett who was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. You had Forest Whitaker who won an Oscar. Maybe one of them would be your AND? Nope. The AND goes to...Andy Serkis. Who was nominated for a Golden Globe but has never won an important award and is mostly known for playing CGI characters. AND more importantly in the first major black superhero movie you give the AND to a white guy? Really?! It's like saying, "All these black actors are nice, but you know who's really important? The white guy." It'd be bad optics if anyone but me cared about this.
It's the same thing with Captain Marvel. It's the second major female superhero movie and who does the AND go to? A guy. I mean OK Jude Law's been nominated for two Oscars and some Golden Globes but he never won anything. Meanwhile you have Annette Bening who was nominated for 4 Oscars and won two Golden Globes and she's a woman but she's only a WITH? Again it's like saying, "This accomplished woman is important BUT not as important as a man who's accomplished less." Again, it's just bad optics.
Anyway, if you're watching a movie with friends, maybe bet each other on who will get the AND credit. You might be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised.
Friday, August 2, 2019
On the Nature of Daylight
I probably could have made this a Facebook post but just as many people will care if I put it on my blog.
Anyway, I heard this song called "On the Nature of Daylight" on my Pandora "Nighty Night" station that I usually play at night. When I heard it I thought it sounded like something from a movie because my station plays some soundtracks like Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight, etc.
It turns out it's originally from Max Richter's album The Blue Notebooks in 2004. But when I looked it up, I found out it has been on the soundtracks for Arrival, Shutter Island, and Stranger Than Fiction so you might have heard this song without realizing it. I think it seemed familiar to me more because of Arrival than the other two because I've seen that one more recently. And re-watching that movie the song is featured in both the beginning and the end of the movie; I was pretty sure it was in the end but not the beginning so I was half right.
Anyway, in my research I found out there was recently a new video made for it starring Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaid's Tale show, though not as that character. I'm not sure if the link above is for that but here's another link if that doesn't work.
If you have Amazon Prime you can listen to the whole album on Amazon Music. None of the other tracks are quite as good though one "Written in the Sky" is like a short piano version of this. Actress Tilda Swinton provides vocals on some of the other tracks, but not this one. By vocals I don't really mean singing; it's more of a spoken word kind of thing.
Anyway, to me this song feels like a sort of spiritual sequel to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" which has also been featured in a number of movies like Platoon and Prince of Tides.
They both start off slow and build to a finish, though Richter's doesn't quite build to the crescendo of Barber's. And they're both inspired by nature: Barber's Adagio was inspired by the flow of a river and Richter's is about daylight and entropy. They're both really beautiful, at least to me. Just take a listen and decide for yourself. Though if that version of Barber's Adagio is too slow for you, look for the William Orbit version that's like a club mix of it.
Anyway, I heard this song called "On the Nature of Daylight" on my Pandora "Nighty Night" station that I usually play at night. When I heard it I thought it sounded like something from a movie because my station plays some soundtracks like Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight, etc.
It turns out it's originally from Max Richter's album The Blue Notebooks in 2004. But when I looked it up, I found out it has been on the soundtracks for Arrival, Shutter Island, and Stranger Than Fiction so you might have heard this song without realizing it. I think it seemed familiar to me more because of Arrival than the other two because I've seen that one more recently. And re-watching that movie the song is featured in both the beginning and the end of the movie; I was pretty sure it was in the end but not the beginning so I was half right.
Anyway, in my research I found out there was recently a new video made for it starring Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaid's Tale show, though not as that character. I'm not sure if the link above is for that but here's another link if that doesn't work.
If you have Amazon Prime you can listen to the whole album on Amazon Music. None of the other tracks are quite as good though one "Written in the Sky" is like a short piano version of this. Actress Tilda Swinton provides vocals on some of the other tracks, but not this one. By vocals I don't really mean singing; it's more of a spoken word kind of thing.
Anyway, to me this song feels like a sort of spiritual sequel to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" which has also been featured in a number of movies like Platoon and Prince of Tides.
They both start off slow and build to a finish, though Richter's doesn't quite build to the crescendo of Barber's. And they're both inspired by nature: Barber's Adagio was inspired by the flow of a river and Richter's is about daylight and entropy. They're both really beautiful, at least to me. Just take a listen and decide for yourself. Though if that version of Barber's Adagio is too slow for you, look for the William Orbit version that's like a club mix of it.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Comedy As a Weapon
Last month on Pluto TV I watched a documentary from about 8 years ago called Hot Coffee. The starting point for it was the famous case of a woman suing McDonald's because she was burned by coffee.
The tragic thing is this old woman was lampooned in the nightly talk shows, on an episode of Seinfeld, and in a "Weird Al" Yankovic Song.
But most of us probably never really understood the true facts of the case. For instance, the old lady wasn't suing for millions of dollars; her basic goal was just for medical costs Medicare hadn't picked up. The jury awarded the punitive damages of $2.7 million--which a crooked judge knocked down to only about half a million and then was probably knocked down even more in a settlement.
Another thing is the old lady wasn't alone. There were hundreds of complaints of people being burnt by McDonald's coffee--according to McDonald's own records! Like cigarettes or the Ford Pinto the company knew of a problem and yet refused to do anything about it.
And yet comedians dragged this old lady through the mud and in so doing helped red states usher in "tort reform" that while on the surface seems like a good idea actually makes it much harder to sue companies who put out unsafe products.
This was before the age of social media with memes and "fake news" even. It's a problem that's only worse now. We make something a joke without really understanding the consequences of that and in the end wind up hurting ourselves. I mean that Seinfeld episode is pretty funny and so too is that "Weird Al" song. I'm sure a lot of the monologue jokes on Leno and Letterman were good too. But it unfortunately turned public opinion against something we should actually be for because the best way to really hold corporations accountable is through making them pay. We need to realize that these jokes are just jokes and we shouldn't take them seriously. As with "fake news" we need to take the time and understand these issues for ourselves.
It isn't just professional comedians either. Politicians like to use humor to change public opinion on an issue. The documentary showed Reagan joking about a guy in a phone booth hit by a drunk driver who sued the phone company. Which on the surface it sounds ludicrous. Obviously the drunk driver is at fault. We need tort reform! Except like the McDonald's case those weren't the actual facts. The guy sued the phone company because the phone booth door jammed so he couldn't escape the car. And also the phone company had received numerous complaints about how dangerous the location of the booth was and yet like McDonald's or Big Tobacco or Ford just tried to sweep it under the rug.
But as the documentary shows the whole issue may soon be a moot point because Corporate America is making sure you can't sue them. Not just by buying politicians but by working mandatory arbitration into as many contracts as possible. For all you know you've probably signed a few of those when you signed up for a credit card or cell phone. Then if you have a problem and want to sue you have to go to an arbitrator instead of a court. Who's more likely to side with you, some arbitrator or a jury of your peers? And of course the arbitration will be secret so no one will know the grisly details, sparing the company any bad publicity.
There was the horrible story in the documentary of a woman who worked for Halliburton in Iraq. They promised when she went over there she'd be living in a trailer with another woman and other women nearby. Guess what? They lied. Instead she was surrounded by men and I think you can guess what happened to a single woman alone with a bunch of horny men. After the inevitable rape some of the evidence was "misplaced" and the woman was kept in a storage container by armed guards for days. But because of the fine print in the contract she signed, she wasn't able to take anyone to court. The perpetrators and company got away with it.
(There's a bitter irony in that the senator who championed the woman's cause in Washington later was none other than Al Franken, who was run out of town by #metoo and #timesup because he kissed a woman before he was a senator and apologized instead of stonewalled like the oaf in the Oval Office.)
That's an extreme case of what can happen when you inadvertently give away your rights because you didn't fully understand something and didn't take it seriously.
The tragic thing is this old woman was lampooned in the nightly talk shows, on an episode of Seinfeld, and in a "Weird Al" Yankovic Song.
But most of us probably never really understood the true facts of the case. For instance, the old lady wasn't suing for millions of dollars; her basic goal was just for medical costs Medicare hadn't picked up. The jury awarded the punitive damages of $2.7 million--which a crooked judge knocked down to only about half a million and then was probably knocked down even more in a settlement.
Another thing is the old lady wasn't alone. There were hundreds of complaints of people being burnt by McDonald's coffee--according to McDonald's own records! Like cigarettes or the Ford Pinto the company knew of a problem and yet refused to do anything about it.
And yet comedians dragged this old lady through the mud and in so doing helped red states usher in "tort reform" that while on the surface seems like a good idea actually makes it much harder to sue companies who put out unsafe products.
This was before the age of social media with memes and "fake news" even. It's a problem that's only worse now. We make something a joke without really understanding the consequences of that and in the end wind up hurting ourselves. I mean that Seinfeld episode is pretty funny and so too is that "Weird Al" song. I'm sure a lot of the monologue jokes on Leno and Letterman were good too. But it unfortunately turned public opinion against something we should actually be for because the best way to really hold corporations accountable is through making them pay. We need to realize that these jokes are just jokes and we shouldn't take them seriously. As with "fake news" we need to take the time and understand these issues for ourselves.
It isn't just professional comedians either. Politicians like to use humor to change public opinion on an issue. The documentary showed Reagan joking about a guy in a phone booth hit by a drunk driver who sued the phone company. Which on the surface it sounds ludicrous. Obviously the drunk driver is at fault. We need tort reform! Except like the McDonald's case those weren't the actual facts. The guy sued the phone company because the phone booth door jammed so he couldn't escape the car. And also the phone company had received numerous complaints about how dangerous the location of the booth was and yet like McDonald's or Big Tobacco or Ford just tried to sweep it under the rug.
But as the documentary shows the whole issue may soon be a moot point because Corporate America is making sure you can't sue them. Not just by buying politicians but by working mandatory arbitration into as many contracts as possible. For all you know you've probably signed a few of those when you signed up for a credit card or cell phone. Then if you have a problem and want to sue you have to go to an arbitrator instead of a court. Who's more likely to side with you, some arbitrator or a jury of your peers? And of course the arbitration will be secret so no one will know the grisly details, sparing the company any bad publicity.
There was the horrible story in the documentary of a woman who worked for Halliburton in Iraq. They promised when she went over there she'd be living in a trailer with another woman and other women nearby. Guess what? They lied. Instead she was surrounded by men and I think you can guess what happened to a single woman alone with a bunch of horny men. After the inevitable rape some of the evidence was "misplaced" and the woman was kept in a storage container by armed guards for days. But because of the fine print in the contract she signed, she wasn't able to take anyone to court. The perpetrators and company got away with it.
(There's a bitter irony in that the senator who championed the woman's cause in Washington later was none other than Al Franken, who was run out of town by #metoo and #timesup because he kissed a woman before he was a senator and apologized instead of stonewalled like the oaf in the Oval Office.)
That's an extreme case of what can happen when you inadvertently give away your rights because you didn't fully understand something and didn't take it seriously.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Streaming Knight
Since much of what I do at work doesn’t require a lot of
thinking my mind tends to wander to other things. The other day through a long chain that I
don’t want to get into I got thinking that there’s probably no way in hell I
could do a Scarlet Knight movie but what about a TV show? There are so many streaming services now that
maybe one would buy the idea.
So how would I go about doing it?
I think Season 1 would pretty much be the first book only
with a few other things thrown in to pad it out to 10-13 episodes. The first couple of episodes would introduce
Emma Earl, her friend Becky, her coworker Dan whom she has a crush on, and her
boss Ian. It’d cover Dan finding a
mysterious object, Ian’s family being murdered, and Ian becoming the Black
Dragoon. Then Emma would answer The Call
to become the Scarlet Knight.
There would be the first battle between the Dragoon and
Scarlet Knight that Emma wins through blind luck (see the comic book on
Amazon). Then later in the season they’d
meet again and Emma narrowly escapes. In
the last couple of episodes Emma finds out Ian is the Dragoon and they have
their final battle.
The end of the last episode would have Dan going off to
Egypt with his assistant--Isis. Then at
the start of the next season Dan would uncover the artifact that possesses his
assistant, giving her the powers of the evil goddess Isis.
So the second season would cover the third book. A couple of episodes in would be the sort of
“Red Wedding” where Becky’s fiance is murdered and then she becomes the new
Dragoon. Over the season Emma would have
to unravel the web Isis weaves and then in the last couple of episodes there’d
be the final showdown in the Temple of Isis.
That season would end with Becky and Emma’s friendship over
and Emma losing her job. In the start of
the next season she would go to work for the secretive Russian businessman
Bykov. And eventually she’d find out he’s
up to some scheme and have to stop him while at the same time repairing things
with Becky and exploring her feelings for Jim, aka the Sewer Rat. I’m not sure about doing the body-swapping
that’s in the fourth book. I think I’d
probably combine the fourth and fifth ones into one story arc. The fifth book had an evil businessman developing a bomb underneath a building that led to the Sewer Rat being driven out of his sewer home--and into Emma's. So we could probably just have Bykov do that. In the end of that the good witch Sylvia died to save everyone from the bomb; we might kill her off or maybe we'd kill someone else off, depending on if anyone wants a new contract or to go work on their movie career or something.
Another season would have Emma getting pregnant and trying
to maintain her superhero career. A
couple of episodes would have her travel to the future to meet her daughter and
deal with a resurgent Isis. Like in the
sixth book Emma would have the baby only to think she dies shortly after, when
in reality agents of Bykov took the baby.
(The placement of this season might depend on if for instance the
actress playing Emma would get pregnant in real life.)
The following season Emma would find out her baby is alive
and along with Jim, the baby’s father, she’d go to Russia and work her way to
Bykov and rescue her daughter Louise, though Jim is killed in the process. At the end of the season though we find out
that Isis has returned and to save Louise, Emma gives up the red armor.
The final season then would be a streamlined version of the
8th book. As Isis’ power grows and she
turns Rampart City into her playground, Emma would be drawn to a parallel world by a girl with special powers and then they do sort of an Into the Spider-Verse thing and Emma gets a new suit of armor before the final confrontation.
I say that’s the final season because that was the last book
but maybe there could be more. The
second book is my least favorite so I wouldn’t include much of that but I think
it could be a two-part episode in season 1 to help pad that out. A villain could fuck with time to create a
time tangent where Emma isn’t the Scarlet Knight and her parents are alive and
then she has to decide to sacrifice them to put things right.
So there you go, it all sounds extremely plausible. Unlikely but plausible.
Friday, July 26, 2019
How Much Choice is Too Much?
Previously on the blog I said:
Another interesting theory was mentioned in this article recently about Netflix losing subscribers--at least temporarily. There's a theory on consumer behavior that when presented with too many streaming services people will turn to broadcast TV and just watch whatever's on. Sometimes I feel that "decision fatigue" though I don't usually turn to broadcast TV. But if I can't think of any new or new to me shows I want to watch I'll just turn to a trusty old favorite and start rewatching it like American Dad, Archer, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Or sometimes I just do that if there's a new season of that show and I want to get caught up as happened with Crackle's SuperMansion this last weekend. Pluto TV's MST3K and Rifftrax channels are also something I'll turn to if I just want to turn something on without really committing to watching a full episode of something.
I was just thinking about TV at the time, but then I was thinking that this theory can probably be applied to book shopping as well. You know why some authors like James Patterson or John Grisham or Dean Koontz sell so many books? Because they're familiar brands and when in doubt, people will go with the familiar.
Imagine this: you go in an ice cream parlor and they have 300 flavors to choose from. Maybe one catches your fancy right away or maybe you (and the server) get tired of trying to decide and just order straight vanilla or chocolate. Something familiar. Something "safe."
That's what I think is the root of that article mentioned above. We think more choices is better, but there's a point where there's too much choice. If the ice cream parlor has 31 flavors then it's not so bad, but 50, 100, 300, or more and it starts to get to be too much.
If you go into a bookstore and want a book there are literally thousands to choose from. You might want a mystery but there are so many to choose from you could spend hours reading the back of each one--or you could just grab a Sue Grafton or Agatha Christie or whatever.
If you're looking on Amazon it's about a million times worse. I mean you could spend days looking for the perfect book--or just grab whatever is popular or familiar to you. And like when you're buying an ice cream cone, you probably don't want to put hours of work into buying a book.
This is a problem for self-published authors and new or mid-list authors. There's so much choice that it's hard to stand out. And when presented with so much choice, people often just go with what's familiar. The path of least resistance. As much as I want to complain about it, we all do it. There's just not enough time or energy to devote to looking for books or finding something to stream.
And yet of course while there's too much choice there's also not enough choice. If you went to an ice cream parlor that only had 2 flavors you'd think it was a gyp. Each person probably has his or her own ideal amount of choice to avoid being over or underwhelmed.
Another interesting theory was mentioned in this article recently about Netflix losing subscribers--at least temporarily. There's a theory on consumer behavior that when presented with too many streaming services people will turn to broadcast TV and just watch whatever's on. Sometimes I feel that "decision fatigue" though I don't usually turn to broadcast TV. But if I can't think of any new or new to me shows I want to watch I'll just turn to a trusty old favorite and start rewatching it like American Dad, Archer, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Or sometimes I just do that if there's a new season of that show and I want to get caught up as happened with Crackle's SuperMansion this last weekend. Pluto TV's MST3K and Rifftrax channels are also something I'll turn to if I just want to turn something on without really committing to watching a full episode of something.
I was just thinking about TV at the time, but then I was thinking that this theory can probably be applied to book shopping as well. You know why some authors like James Patterson or John Grisham or Dean Koontz sell so many books? Because they're familiar brands and when in doubt, people will go with the familiar.
Imagine this: you go in an ice cream parlor and they have 300 flavors to choose from. Maybe one catches your fancy right away or maybe you (and the server) get tired of trying to decide and just order straight vanilla or chocolate. Something familiar. Something "safe."
That's what I think is the root of that article mentioned above. We think more choices is better, but there's a point where there's too much choice. If the ice cream parlor has 31 flavors then it's not so bad, but 50, 100, 300, or more and it starts to get to be too much.
If you go into a bookstore and want a book there are literally thousands to choose from. You might want a mystery but there are so many to choose from you could spend hours reading the back of each one--or you could just grab a Sue Grafton or Agatha Christie or whatever.
If you're looking on Amazon it's about a million times worse. I mean you could spend days looking for the perfect book--or just grab whatever is popular or familiar to you. And like when you're buying an ice cream cone, you probably don't want to put hours of work into buying a book.
This is a problem for self-published authors and new or mid-list authors. There's so much choice that it's hard to stand out. And when presented with so much choice, people often just go with what's familiar. The path of least resistance. As much as I want to complain about it, we all do it. There's just not enough time or energy to devote to looking for books or finding something to stream.
And yet of course while there's too much choice there's also not enough choice. If you went to an ice cream parlor that only had 2 flavors you'd think it was a gyp. Each person probably has his or her own ideal amount of choice to avoid being over or underwhelmed.
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