KnightShade

a vaguely not-so-modest proposal

<Snipped quote by BrobyDDark>

You joke, but it's possible. Kanye is a political outsider, a poor public speaker, and everyone has seen his wife naked. Par for the course.

@Vilageidiotx

Yes, but is he narcissistic enough?

So, House of Cards Season 5

@SleepingSilence I think I expected better things of this season because, you know, Donald Trump is the President now. That opens the field of possibilities right up. Combined with an audacious end to the last season this series had a lot of potential. They really could have taken far far better advantage of that.

So, House of Cards Season 5

eh, first 2 seasons were p. fun. 3rd was kinda eh. Didn't bother with 4th. Watched 5th with 0 expectations and it had already passed the point of no return and become kind of self-parody, so I could enjoy it on those terms.

>It's the "Claire I planned this entire series of convoluted events that just so happened to oust me from the Presidency! Don't you see? It was all on purpose so I could do what I really wanted!!!!!" episode

@Doivid

Agreed, I enjoyed the first 2 seasons. They're the only bits of the show I remember that well. That, and whenever Claire and Francis had troubles, but that was patched up pretty quickly. Season 4 was pretty bad but the ending was very compelling still.

I should probably spoiler some of this

Frank's 'plan' was the worst part in so many ways, especially because he had absolutely no reason to not tell Claire and if he should have known there was no way he could pardon him even if he had told her the truth. But it was also just the final nail in the coffin.

This season was trying so damn hard to get a cerebral feel, the lighting ends up constantly grey and events are the focus on ambiguity was annoying as fuck. They work so hard to make character motivations ambiguous that they can rarely be called character anymore. I could barely recall the names of a lot of the new characters. And then there's the reluctance to actually show anything happening, events are just talked about appropos of nothing. Frank even points this flaw out when he closes the laptop on Leanne's death. Did we even see what happened to Kathy Durrant after Frank pushed her? Is she dead or in a coma from a two foot fall? If not, why isn't she telling people what happened? How did Frank react to his lover's death too?

Tom Yates is probably the height of this pretentiousness. Who hires a novelist as a speech writer? What politician would give them that kind of access. We waste so much time rolling around with his self insert ennui. Oh yeah, and the random widow Doug has been fucking knows what he did. Really? But she still slept with him out of hate? I get that hate sex is a thing, but sleeping with your husband's killer? It sounds meaningful but actually makes no sense.

They've ruined most of the good characters too. Doug Stamper's loyalty has been taken beyond breaking point, so that it's actually cartoonish. Tom Hammerschmidt has turned kind of dumb too. Claire becomes distant from Francis for no particular reason other than to recycle a storyline we've already been through.

Ugh, I'm so done with this show.

So, House of Cards Season 5

That was really bad. Terrible frankly. I was enduring the boredom knowing everything usually kicks off at the end of the season, but even those rewards were completely nonsensical. This show used to be good, right?

Talk about (almost) anything.

@SleepingSilence

Oops, didn't realise I'd done that xD

Spoiler for Don't Breathe

I don't exactly thing its emotionally realistic, more that it emotionally conveys her relief. I tend to be more forgiving of violations of realism than a lot of cinema goers, I think probably because the dominant trend in internet criticism has become in logical inconsistencies so I like to be contrary. I think the worst offence in that scene for me is that she has to say out loud that he's powerless out there, when that information could easily be communicated visually in a matter of seconds. Realism could have been married better to emotion too, ala this far superior scene from the end of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not once does she stop trying to get away, but they still manage to convey her relief at the end.



The turkey baster wasn't meant to be a joke, but the director did do it to deliberately shock so I can see how it comes off that way. It does have some set up, mostly thematically in that the film is somewhat about motherhood and the things people do for their children. But, that theme actually kind of feels like it might be there just to justify the shock now I think about it. The lack of more obvious set up has a lot to do with the need for every movie to have a twist nowadays I'd guess. I see your point more now, although does that make the rape scene in Deliverance a joke, because that didn't have much set up either.

I'd not noticed that about the dog, I can see how that would be one of those distracting things you can't un-notice. I don't know how they'd correct something like that though. Don't Breathe is not the best example, both The VVitch and the Neon Demon are far better recent horror films, but they are a bit pretentious.

I also have to admit that Frozen is a guilty pleasure of mine, while it's not particularly good it seems to have the right amount of suspense vs horror for me to indoctrinate horror newbies, its probably the only horror film I've ever been able to watch with my mum.

I'm sort of an optimist, I tend to focus on a movies strengths to the exclusion of weaknesses, that might explain some of our disagreements. I'm also very defensive of the horror genre in general, I get sucked in just to the enjoyable degree of getting scared at a good horror film. I write over intellectualising reviews for a horror site too, so I can enjoy the pretentious thematic stuff a lot.

Major Spoilers for Attack On Titan

I'm watching Attack on Titan right now, but I still couldn't resist looking at the spoiler. I assumed it was going to be about people turning into Titan's... and honestly that doesn't surprise me at all. There's something in the tone that's almost fascistic, it's hard to pin down what exactly but it reminds me a lot of reading Rudyard Kipling, except its funny rather than terrible. The other reason it's not surprising is I'd already seen this video.



So yeah, the Titans as Jews doesn't put me off. If anything I kind of want to see that train wreck play out...

Talk about (almost) anything.

@SleepingSilence

Dont Breathe

Complaining about the intelligence of characters in horror movies very easily discounts their emotions, she was relieved to be out of there and had only just realised he wasn't used to being outside. I also fail to see how the dog was non-threatening to a tiny girl. I'm not sure what your complaint with the turkey baster is, that's probably the scene that most elevates it. Still, without that scene it would be kind of repetitive so it's a bad example.

Based on your earlier list and what you've said here, I'm assuming you've not seen Get Out, The Babadook and It Follows. So the main contact you've had with them is this reductionist version of the plot you've been told, which completely ignores the way in which it is told. The most stupid sounding plot in the world can be told engagingly. I strongly disliked It Follows but I disliked it because of how the story was told. They tried to copy John Carpenter but forgot that he advanced the plot at the same time as building atmosphere, it ended up kind of limp and purposeless.

I'd never defend Unfriended either, I couldn't even be bothered to watch it all the way through. But dismissing the whole modern genre based on it seems a bit thin. Hollywood will continue to put out lots of cheap jump scares while there's loads of decent foreign imports out there.

Talk about (almost) anything.

@KnightShade I dunno, I think Saw and even a bit of Saw 2 had a bit of more clever writing and good shots then most horror films would. I can see why they got as popular as they did...despite going off the fucking rails. It's kind of like final destination, I think it put more effort than a lot of horror film's I've seen. But horror films, aren't usually masterpieces whatsoever. And the ones people call masterpieces their usually pretentious pieces of hot garbage.

I think if one enjoyed horror, to give those movies a try. But pretty much aside from a couple okay thrillers. There's not many -good- horror movies. Unless you like the "so bad, it's good" variety like Sharknado.

@SleepingSilence

There are loads of good horror films out there, modern horror just has such a consistent feel that it tends to blot out the good ones. James Wan played no small part in creating that feel too. Here's some modern and recent ones off the top of my head:

The Descent, Orphan, We Are What We Are, The Neon Demon, The Witch, Don't Breathe, Let the Right One In, The Host (Korean one), The House of the Devil, Get Out, Hush, May, Dog Soldiers, A Tale of Two Sisters, Kill List, The Babadook.

There's also plenty of non-pretentious classics. Primarily: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, Nosferatu, Halloween and Peeping Tom.

There's even a few good 'torture porn' films out there. The Loved Ones is the best I've seen, it's a million times more fun than Saw.

Talk about (almost) anything.

I still haven't seen Saw.

Yeah, I'm behind on some stuff.

@Sherlock Holmes

It's fine, I haven't either.

@Doug

You're not missing anything, Saw is trash. Those films rely on our revulsion towards dirt/infection far too much. It just ends up making them look ugly.

Talk about (almost) anything.

@AwsonDo you even like anything? I've never seen you make a positive remark about something before, at all.

@DepressedSoviet

Alright, @Vilageidiotx is my favorite tbh

@Awson

Literally two pages ago

What if Spam was trapped in Canada?

I think we could survive for a year on politeness and socialism alone. But what sort of life is that?