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TheGutterMonkey (302)
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Not confronting our problems
I believe I preferred Day One (1989)
Cool ideas, amateurish realization of them
Why is everyone so convinced of his guilt?
Let me get this straight...
Who do you think is morally worse? Heisenberg or Saul?
Preaching about social justice worked in the 60s... not today
I found this to be surprisingly good... except for the last 14 minutes
I'm kinda disappointed at how silly the show has become
So... no mention of the three days of rape, murder, and pillaging then?
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I think the IDEA behind Ish's reaction has merit. For many, it may be emotionally difficult to handle having killed even a bad person. You see this, for instance, from many soldiers. It doesn't matter if who they kill is bad or if it was done in self-defense or the greater good; the weight of having ended human life alone is enough to torment them. Perhaps this feeling would be amplified in a situation like this, where humans are already an endangered species and the loss of any life could significantly affect the survival of humanity. On top of this, there's the scary realization that you're now responsible for setting the ethical precedent for what we do in these situations.
The show has bad and lazy writing, though, and doesn't flesh this stuff out well. So these ideas come off as rushed and awkward.
While the series may technically be more realistic than The Walking Dead — with its cartoonish rival groups and whatnot — I think TWD was more believable on an emotional level. This is because TWD was better with the "show, don't tell" rule of storytelling. Instead of being clumsily told what the characters felt, their motivations, their intentions, etc, we subtly picked up on that info over time in an organic way that felt natural. Earth Abides, though, just smacks us in the face with what it wants us to know when it's convenient to know it. It's as if the series isn't interested in anything but getting points across and hurrying to the next plot beat.
Instead of watching Ish subtly grapple with the moral implications of this stuff over time, we spontaneously have him see ghosts (seemingly after being fine for 3 years) and then all but scream at the audience "I'm haunted by my past!" This is pretty much the same clunky way they handled the character of Charlie, as well. There was no fleshing out of him or his plan. It was just them rushing to tell us "he's a bad guy" in the most simplistic, one-dimensional way possible so they could hurry to this beat with Ish.
Bogus? lol Pew Research Center, Gallup, the Williams Institute, etc. have consistently found similar numbers (about 7% identifying under the umbrella LGB alphabet and approximately 3% identifying strictly as gay). Also, from a biological perspective, the lower incidence of homosexuality isn't biologically surprising considering that humans obviously evolved primarily to be attracted to things that would result in more babies. It's the same reason most men aren't attracted to the elderly.
If this were a different time (pre-2018 or so), I'd probably agree with you. But at this point, when every movie or TV show released always has these random gay characters tossed in, women in what's typically male roles, and every other relationship being interracial, we've gotten to a place where it feels like tokenism and sorta tropey and inauthentic any time you see it (especially when it's a combo of these things). Honestly, the overcorrection they've done in movie/TV world has been super counterproductive, I think, in making people more accepting.
I'm not sure how we handle that feeling that many of us get now. Because we shouldn't just scrap these types of diverse characters all together. And, really, if this movie were just looked at in the context of itself and we were to somehow be able to forget the landscape of other things being released, most probably wouldn't think twice about the random gay couple or the scrawny black female supercop. But, as it is, as soon as we hear that guy say "my husband" or we see the main agent in charge is this lady, it's inevitably going to be followed by a ton of audience members rolling their eyes saying "of course". lol
I was around in 2009 and as far as I could tell she was just another celebrity who was temporarily very famous for no good reason (other than her being hot and having that rebellious-seeming "bad girl" image, which people thought was cool and different). She wasn't a particularly good actress, though (IMO, she was a particularly bad one), and she didn't have an impressive body of work under her belt. Transformers and Jennifer's Body were about the only things anyone cared about and, again, she wasn't exactly Meryl Streep in those (heck, she barely emitted a noticeable personality in them). She was all unearned hype and good looks from the get-go, as far as I could tell, and after her 15 minutes were up, her career went the same direction as many others of her ilk who only had those things going for them.
I don't think anything was surprising (let alone shocking) about what happened to her career. Seemed a pretty cookie-cutter story to me, in fact. I mean, I suppose it's technically possible that she was "blackballed" after her thing with Michael Bay, but I'm gonna go with Occam's razor on this one and say that, without some serious luck on her side, this outcome was always inevitable.
Not sure how many women you've heard speak in your life, but plenty of them have expressed their enjoyment of men's ripped physiques. Heck, just take a trip to YouTube right now and watch them react to the very scenes you're talking about in this movie for some real-life examples.
You seem to be under the impression (or wishful thinking?) that visual appearance is completely irrelevant to females. If that were the case, they wouldn't have been salivating over the likes of Brad Pitt for over 30 years and short guys wouldn't keep getting discriminated against on dating apps. A girl may not typically take an instant dive into bed with a guy or hop into a relationship with him based on looks alone (as many men would do for women), as a greater emphasis on attraction is often based on things like status for them, but looks are hardly irrelevant. And, unlike how guys usually are with girls, many females actually even prefer older men (men didn't evolve to typically be attracted to older women because they're less fertile, so things such as more hardened, masculine faces signal the opposite of what they're biologically designed to look for to keep their genes spreading... something that isn't true for females).
That all being said, it's a comedy and there was a running joke about him taking his shirt off and having let himself go (along with some known audience expectations of this). The punchline was that his shirt finally exploded off in the climax and it turns out that he's actually as ripped as ever.
The Muslim areas around Israel have been cleansing out Jews for years. They've got 'em in only single, double, or 0 digits now. Israel is the final smudge.
Unlike other groups, Jews never had a home to run to for safety against bigots. The one they're at is the closest, as they've always been there and it was theirs before the Romans took it. Wherever they've been, they've had 3 choices (when there was a choice): die, accept second-class citizenry, or get the boot. It was decided after a war they'd get a home. Israel was the logical choice. Middle Eastern Muslims have been genocidal ever since.
Gaza and the West Bank are cesspools of hate. They see suicide bombers as heroes, kids play "martyr" like kids in the US play pattycake, streets are named after bomb makers, stores are named after Hitler (he's also a hero/former ally), and when they drag a freshly raped teen hostage through the streets not only is there not a shocked face in sight, there's cheering. Just like cheering in the West Bank after 9/11 (9/11 was partly done due to US support of Israel). On kid's shows, little girls say they wanna grow up to be cops so they can "shoot Jews". This is their norm. They welcome death and think murder is okay because even babies are "occupiers".
But Israel is the bad guys? The only place in the Middle East where "women and gays" are treated remotely equal? The place with 20% of their pop. being the Arab Muslims they allegedly hate (many in positions of authority)? The place where gay Palestinians run for safety? The ones dropping millions of fliers over Gaza to WARN people when and where attacks will happen? lol No. They're fighting an urban war against a suicidal cult that thinks they're doing their own people a divine favor by strategically having them die as shields.
If someone is anti-Israel in this, they're either ignorant or vile. They're the ones supporting ethnic cleansing. And that's the story that will survive because that's the story supported by evidence.
Being pro-Israel and anti-the woke Inquisition may not be great for his career, but it certainly is for how history will see him. It's an indicator that he was one of the rare celebrities who actually thought about reality clearly and rationally, as opposed to being swept up in whatever absurd cult-like narrative/moral panic was trending at the time.
If you grow up being repeatedly told by the news, books, films, TV shows, musicians, celebrities, and talking heads that not only are monsters real, but they're lurking behind every corner and are specifically targeting <i>you</i>, it's no surprise that you grow up paranoid, thinking every squeaky floorboard or bump in the night is a sign of one of them.
Well, if I recall, you were the only one arguing. We were just talking about the movie lol. Was just a comical memory that seemed relevant to the topic. 🤷♂️
I recall one time, after politely correcting him about a playful "black meat" reference someone made on the Naked Lunch board — which he was misinterpreting as racist and somehow Trump-related, apparently forgetting it was from the film which he was claiming was a "masterpiece" — he responded merely by telling me to suck his d-ck lol. Seemed especially non-passive at the time.
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