TV/Movies Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Hunger Games.
1- Better than it had any right to be.
2- When did young adult fiction become dystopian snuff-fests?

[Ideologue]

Hunger Games.
1- Better than it had any right to be.

[Sheilbh]

What?

[Ideologue]

It's not just you, though.  Lots of people like that movie.  I don't understand it, but there it is.

I think it's the worst big American film, well, pretty much ever.

[CountDeMoney]

2- When did young adult fiction become dystopian snuff-fests?

They've been reading up on their job prospects in the shareholder value economy.

[Neil]

You forgot to put your Hunger Games review on your website, Ide.

[Neil]

2- When did young adult fiction become dystopian snuff-fests?

They've been reading up on their job prospects in the shareholder value economy.

Yeah, young people are starting to figure out what's in store for them and they're realizing that they might as well give up now.

[Ideologue]

You forgot to put your Hunger Games review on your website, Ide.

I'm waiting until a bit before Catching Fire in November.  I'll polish it and post it then, then do Catching Fire (I'm being shanghaied into seeing that anyway, and I concede I'm morbidly curious how it'll turn out).

I also want to do something with John Carter in association with The Hunger Games.  They came out within two weeks of each other.  One was vastly superior in every way.  The other was actually financially successful.

[Neil]

Yeah, I saw John Carter in a theatre with a dozen other people while the retards were packing it in to see the Hunger Games.

Teenage girls are the worst.

[Ideologue]

To protect them from exploitation, I propose that no person under 16 be allowed to purchase movies.

[Ideologue]

I'm trying to develop a list reciting recent movies about class warfare, 2011 or later preferably, but 21st century is also fine.  I thought there were more, but surely I'm just forgetting them.  So far I've got:

Released in or after 2011:
In Time (2011)
Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Pain & Gain (2013)
The Purge (2013)
This Is the End (2013) (rich people die a lot, anyway)
The East (2013) (I guess--I didn't seen it)
Blue Jasmine (2013)
Elysium (2013)
You're Next (2013)

Prior to 2011, 21st century:
There Will Be Blood (2007) (and only arguably)
Um...
Bulworth (1998; that's pretty close, right?)

Not counting mere instances of egregious corporate abuse, e.g. Inside Man, Moon, or Prometheus, especially since movies using the "shareholder value" trope are a dime a dozen (not counting Speed Racer either, although it arguably involves a class dimension to its conflict).  Also not counting movies where rich people being rich but it bears no particular thematic weight, e.g. The Great Gatsby (the movie) or Iron Man 3.  Likewise poor people just being poor.

[Syt]

Land of the Dead (2005)
Machete (2010)


The book "Oil" by Upton Sinclair on which "There will be blood" is loosely based (well, on one scene only, really), is much more focused on class warfare and tells a completely different, satirical story (the idealistic son caught between his capitalist father, the jet set Hollywood life and his communist activist friends in the 1920s).

[Sophie Scholl]

So hey, they're going to make a World of Warcraft movie. They're shooting it in Vancouver too: http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/08/world-of-warcraft-filming-vancouver/

If they shot this one near my house (like all the other movies that come to Vancouver and need forrest scenes) I will try to get you guys some pictures of the elven women.

[Savonarola]

Hypocrites (1915)

Early silent film directed by Lois Weber, one of America's first women directors.  It starts off with a preacher preaching against hypocrisy.  The congregation leaves and he has a dream, at first it's like Pilgrim's Progress where he and his congregation are climbing a  mountain.  Next it turns into the middle ages where the preacher is now a monk carving a statue of truth.  He unveils the statue, which turns out to be of a nude woman, and the townspeople (his congregation) beat him like a piñata.  The statue vanishes, and the rest of the film is about the seemingly righteous members of his congregation.  They'll be doing something, he and truth (a nude woman in a double exposure) appears, holds up a mirror and reveals them to be hypocrites.

Apparently it's hypocritical for a married couple to mourn their daughter's death if they own a sex manual.  FOR SHAME! 

Lois Weber was a moral crusader, and probably for that reason this managed to pass the National Board of Censors.  Even so, before the 1930s each state (and in some cases cities) had their own censorship board; so this film was banned in a number of states.

[Ed Anger]

The Grapes of Wrath on TCM.

Ide goes to California.

5 poors out of 6.2