TV/Movies Megathread

[The Brain]

A good blot is always nice.

[Savonarola]

Poor professor Griggs doesn't make enough to support his family.

A+

Anyway, was nativism ever really a progressive position?

If it's in a Lois Weber film it was most certainly the party line for the progressives.   

Unions opposed mass immigration because it increased the labor pool and lowered wages.  Eugenicists opposed immigration because it filled up the country with inferior races.  (Theodore Roosevelt called it the duty of every Nordic woman to have four children in order to avoid race suicide.)   Interestingly enough in this film Weber avoids either line; the immigrants are northern European (she would make the case for eugenics in "Where are my Children") and they aren't depressing wages (she would make the case for higher wages for workers in a number of films, "Shoes" for example.)  The immigrants in this film are depicted as petty, mean and vulgar, due to their lack of higher education; and for that reason they do not deserve their affluence.

[Ideologue]

I just realized I oppose immigration.  Thus it must be the progressive line.

I may have to check out this eugenics film, but I bet it's just stupid racism.  Most eugenicists just used it to place the patina of science upon baseless bigotry.

[Savonarola]

I just realized I oppose immigration.  Thus it must be the progressive line.

I may have to check out this eugenics film, but I bet it's just stupid racism.  Most eugenicists just used it to place the patina of science upon baseless bigotry.

It's a lot more subtle than that.  At first glance it looks like an anti-abortion film, but it's not.

Weber was a great director.  (Even Cecil B. Demille, who was by no stretch of the imagination a feminist or generous with praise of anyone but himself called her that.)  She could put together every detail of a scene, like von Stroheim, and consistently got great performances out of her actors, like James Whale.  Unfortunately she could never not adopt a moralizing tone; so her films come across as polemics.

[Ideologue]

Hannibal: still A+ great.

[Queequeg]

Hannibal: still A+ great.

It's so fucking good. 

[Ed Anger]

Okay general. A bit overrated considering the shitty consuls that faced him usually.

B-

[CountDeMoney]

Had elephants with a Riefenstahl tinge.

B+

[Scipio]

His shitty Hans Zimmer score, however, took away from the overall 23 year performance.

[The Brain]

Was black, though I don't see these things.

[Scipio]

Constantine trailer.

You're welcome.

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/05/kill-some-demons-in-the-first-trailer-for-nbcs-constantine/

[katmai]

Pain and Gain. C at best

[Ed Anger]

Pain and Gain. C at best

Not even worth a 99 cent rental.

[katmai]

Pain and Gain. C at best

Not even worth a 99 cent rental.

was just added to Netflix. Only reason I saw it.

[Ed Anger]

Not even worth scrolling through the menus.