Red Letter Media
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- Jun 4, 2019
Read Herodotus, then watch 300. It's Dreck.
I remember saying that at the time, and someone told me "oh but this is how the Greeks would have seen it!"
If the Greeks had been so simple as to see the Persian Wars as "based good guy Spartans defeat wicked evil Persians," there would have been nothing lost had the Athenians not won the decisive battle at Salamis.
Fortunately, the Greeks were much more self-critical than Americans. Athens and even Sparta were worth fighting for. I dunno about Los Angeles.
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- Jan 3, 2017
Well, it is that perfect mix of turgid and insufferable that seems to attract his game incompetence.
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- Sep 18, 2016
I did not know about this and now I am afraid.
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- Oct 24, 2019
4 hours will not be long enough: trust me. And I say that as someone who liked and was pleasantly surprised by the Snyder Cut (And very happy to be wrong about it because unlike the idiot culture warriors that have sprung up around Snyder, I actually just like/want more good movies at the end of the day. Because I like movies)
biscuitscilia
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2020
This is true. I don't think you guys notice this but when Superman t-posed in Man of Steel, it was a reference to Jesus.
It's a combination of the last two, which is why you see Snyder compared to Andrei Tarkovsky on Twitter. It used to be ironic. But like a lot of things, it became sincere. Until eventually the line between shitposting and autism evaporated. Like it often does.
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Evangelion posters. They'd use auteur theory and death of the author in the same sentence.
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2016
I'm pretty sure I've heard Mike use the term before.
BScCollateral
kiwifarms.net
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- May 28, 2018
This is a place where I part ways with Red Letter Media.
I can't imagine Tig Notaro being good in a good movie. Take that performance and put it in a good movie, and everyone would agree it was insufferable smug shit. I have a lot more respect for someone like Peter Cushing, who was in a lot of bad movies, and on the set of one of them said (more or less) that as actors they can't save a film single-handedly, but they could sink it.
Army of the Dead was never going to be a good film, probably, because Snyder was the director. Tig will never be anything more than the best part of a bad film.
Product Placement
kiwifarms.net
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- Dec 1, 2020
I have only seen Tig in this, she was weird but unsure if because she is a poor actress or her being green screened into footage. With that in mind didn't think she was worse than the rest of main cast and she had a few alright line but was in no way a stand out.
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2018
I'm in the minority of actually liking Tig, but even I concede she's limited as an actor, from what I've seen.
On the other hand, I only see her in stuff directed by short bus veterans. Good directors can make a difference with middling actors. Maybe she could do better, I don't know.
On the other hand, I only see her in stuff directed by short bus veterans. Good directors can make a difference with middling actors. Maybe she could do better, I don't know.
Stasi
kiwifarms.net
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- Jan 6, 2019
Holy shit, are you serious? How embarrassing for you.
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- Oct 24, 2019
Give him a break. He just found out who Pauline Kael is and he's very excited about it. Just like we all were when we were 15.
I do find the idea that the RLM guys don't appreciate auteurs really fucking funny, though. Jay literally invented an entirely new show just to be able to talk about David Lynch and other weird art shit as much as he wants.
Scarmiglione
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 20, 2021
Gave it some time for the intelligent replies to arrive. Starting to look like they're not coming so let's just make do with what we have. This thread can at least host half of an interesting discussion for a while longer.
You all suck. You all hate art. You are enemies of civilisation and humanity. Send my reaction score negative with your torrent of hat reacts. The contempt of those less human than oneself is nothing to be ashamed of.
Like you can tell the difference. What is the difference between an immense film and a monumental one? Is Michael Bay's Transformers a monumental work? Can you explain why it is or isn't without resorting to a sputtering appeal to the self-evidence of your pea-brained knee-jerk reaction?
That's craft work. Archivist work. Not great work. Jackson hitching himself up behind someone else's vision to see the job done. You can say it's good work, but not great by any standard by which the word means anything. Snyder has demonstrated his greatness on multiple occasions. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
Greater than you? No question. What have you got over them other than appeals to your personal brand of pea-brained slave morality that doesn't hold 2 seconds under the 'fat girl cope' test? Are you also a better man than Neil Armstrong because you don't litter on the moon? Better than Julius Caesar because you understand violence and conquest are bad? I look forward to more hare-brained appeals to the self-evidence of your righteousness on this point, followed by your fellow weak art and greatness hating retards pinning upvotes on your chest.
Gotterdammerung means so much more than a deliberately obtuse way of saying hey did you notice this film is about really bad stuff happening? It's actually his way of suggesting the opposite, that what's happening in the film is natural and cyclical, and that what we're witnessing is a catastrophic destruction, but also the necessary prelude to a more vital rejuvenation of the world. It's not just a wink. I know that's all your pea-brain can process and you've never challenged yourself with reading more into art than superficial stimulation and maybe some stupid little winks. That's all you can imagine of subtext, winks. Jokes. Memes. Things which don't matter beyond scoring a bullet point on the imdb trivia page. But in this case these things do matter. They matter because Snyder cared enough to do them. They matter because I and other perceptive viewers enjoyed the film more for their presence, we got significantly more out of the viewing experience because they were there. If this doesn't matter why does anything matter in art? Why don't we all just watch 15 second videos of people falling down on youtube in our spare time? Is this the least masturbatory way to enjoy ourselves?
You clearly don't give a shit about film, but you care about RLM. Why is that? Because RLM isn't about film. RLM isn't a film program. It's a guerilla war against high culture and human excellence. Even when they're being positive, even positive towards "auteurs", maybe they'll occasionally talk about David Lynch or Craig Zahler's least superficially challenging work, they're still waging their war. They shoot the shit over superficial bullshit and call it thought. They're unchallenging. Deliberately so. They aim to pass time, like short videos of dogs or people falling down, but also they aim to pose as teachers. They give you nothing and tell you this is all that there is. That's the appeal of RLM. Comfort, no challenge, and the security of fellow retards telling you everyone who seeks more than this is some kind of retarded failure. The same rush you get from fellow idiots here pinning medals on your inane posts.
"300 is Dreck" says Kiwifarms poster Sped Xing. Why is this film bad? Well Snyder is retarded, but also the comic book is shit, so it's not really his fault. This begs the questions, why is the comic shit? And by extension the film of the same name which apparently Snyder was powerless to affect the substance of. I figure the answer is almost certainly some faggot-brained art-hating offal along the lines of "doesn't align with and validate my boring as shit dry, moralising and factual knowledge of the events which inspired the work. Every movie should be a photographed wikipedia page."
You say a civilisation's value in its ability to be 'self-critical'. That the Greeks were 'self-critical' and thus better than the Persians, or at least worthy of preservation. By what standard can we measure this 'self-critical' edge? How else but by their great works produced by their great men? What good is self-criticism if not using it to direct ourselves towards more full self expression and fulfillment. What did Athens and Sparta have that Los Angeles doesn't? Sparta was a great work, and Athens provided an environment in which many men could produce their own great works. That's why they're remembered. And their greatness is in the scope and richness of what they were doing. Big visions. More than that, necessarily big visions. Big enough to contain the whole breadth of imagination and power of their creators.
You can't simultaneously hate the great-man vision of art and civilisation and lionise the greeks. They lived and breathed this philosophy you're trying to tear down in this thread. Why do you think they thought slavery was okay? It's because they understood that retards like you and the rest of dead-inside normalfaggotdom can't appreciate anything beyond the base so the best and most proper use of your lives is shackling you to the wills of greater and more sensitive men. In better times people like you would literally wear shackles so that your betters could better do what they wanted. Denying you and your kind freedom costs the human race nothing, and for it men with potential were able to flourish to heights still impressive to this day.
Do you think the average slave could understand Parmenides? If he didn't have it drilled into his head by force that two-legged cattle could never have anything worthwhile to say about their betters he might express opinions on Parmenides despite the lack of understanding. What do you think those opinions might sound like? Think about that. And then think about the content of this thread. And then think about why i might feel so strongly on this issue.
Now onto film art. If you weren't a completely degenerated soul only fit for slavery by this point in your life you'd have recognised 300 as a film all about these questions of power and domination. This is how the Greeks would have seen Thermopylae eventually. Not in the literal sense that they're children who imagine everything as superhumans fighting ogres, but almost in the same sense yes. The deep and sensitive minds of Greek high culture see beyond the surface facts of a thing and see the underlying truth. The point of art is not to give an accurate and factual recreation/depiction of the past, as if that's even possible. The point is to blow life up bigger, so that we can better explore the universal truths that underlie individual experience. Caring about the truth of Thermopylae is fucking gay. There aren't just as many truths of Thermopylae as there were people there. There are as many as there are people who have heard of it.
Zack Snyder's truth of Thermopylae might not align perfectly with all of your favourite factual tidbits you picked up from r/askhistorians, but it aligns beautifully with the fundamental and universal truths of power and history. And being not just an artist but a film artist, these truths are mostly coded in the language of film. His characters don't simply say what Snyder thinks, his characters and there actions are the truth of Snyder's vision brought to life through sequenced moving images. It's a truth of physicality, masses of bodies, kinetic motion, symbolic gestures. An attempt at making full use of the new language of expression that the creation of the cinema gave to our artists. A language most are unfortunately nearly deaf to by adulthood, the spiteful pecking of the world having clipped most souls of their finer material and sensitivity that makes one receptive to such imaginative expressions of humanity. This state of affairs is what has left us with the dreary anti-spectacle of the writer's cinema. Public celebration of anti-art vomit such as Tom McCarthy's Spotlight. That's what happens when facts and normalfag moral visions are allowed to direct the course of expression. It's worse than ugly. It's boring.
Like you. You are worse than ugly or stupid, you are boring. The reason I have to write so much about art in general and the greeks and so little about 300 is because you have so little to say, and even what you do say is so devoid of substance that i have to make that the subject of my response, your attitude rather than your thoughts. This is because you have none.
"300 is Dreck" says Kiwifarms poster Sped Xing. Why is this film bad? Well Snyder is retarded, but also the comic book is shit, so it's not really his fault. This begs the questions, why is the comic shit? And by extension the film of the same name which apparently Snyder was powerless to affect the substance of. I figure the answer is almost certainly some faggot-brained art-hating offal along the lines of "doesn't align with and validate my boring as shit dry, moralising and factual knowledge of the events which inspired the work. Every movie should be a photographed wikipedia page."
You say a civilisation's value in its ability to be 'self-critical'. That the Greeks were 'self-critical' and thus better than the Persians, or at least worthy of preservation. By what standard can we measure this 'self-critical' edge? How else but by their great works produced by their great men? What good is self-criticism if not using it to direct ourselves towards more full self expression and fulfillment. What did Athens and Sparta have that Los Angeles doesn't? Sparta was a great work, and Athens provided an environment in which many men could produce their own great works. That's why they're remembered. And their greatness is in the scope and richness of what they were doing. Big visions. More than that, necessarily big visions. Big enough to contain the whole breadth of imagination and power of their creators.
You can't simultaneously hate the great-man vision of art and civilisation and lionise the greeks. They lived and breathed this philosophy you're trying to tear down in this thread. Why do you think they thought slavery was okay? It's because they understood that retards like you and the rest of dead-inside normalfaggotdom can't appreciate anything beyond the base so the best and most proper use of your lives is shackling you to the wills of greater and more sensitive men. In better times people like you would literally wear shackles so that your betters could better do what they wanted. Denying you and your kind freedom costs the human race nothing, and for it men with potential were able to flourish to heights still impressive to this day.
Do you think the average slave could understand Parmenides? If he didn't have it drilled into his head by force that two-legged cattle could never have anything worthwhile to say about their betters he might express opinions on Parmenides despite the lack of understanding. What do you think those opinions might sound like? Think about that. And then think about the content of this thread. And then think about why i might feel so strongly on this issue.
Now onto film art. If you weren't a completely degenerated soul only fit for slavery by this point in your life you'd have recognised 300 as a film all about these questions of power and domination. This is how the Greeks would have seen Thermopylae eventually. Not in the literal sense that they're children who imagine everything as superhumans fighting ogres, but almost in the same sense yes. The deep and sensitive minds of Greek high culture see beyond the surface facts of a thing and see the underlying truth. The point of art is not to give an accurate and factual recreation/depiction of the past, as if that's even possible. The point is to blow life up bigger, so that we can better explore the universal truths that underlie individual experience. Caring about the truth of Thermopylae is fucking gay. There aren't just as many truths of Thermopylae as there were people there. There are as many as there are people who have heard of it.
Zack Snyder's truth of Thermopylae might not align perfectly with all of your favourite factual tidbits you picked up from r/askhistorians, but it aligns beautifully with the fundamental and universal truths of power and history. And being not just an artist but a film artist, these truths are mostly coded in the language of film. His characters don't simply say what Snyder thinks, his characters and there actions are the truth of Snyder's vision brought to life through sequenced moving images. It's a truth of physicality, masses of bodies, kinetic motion, symbolic gestures. An attempt at making full use of the new language of expression that the creation of the cinema gave to our artists. A language most are unfortunately nearly deaf to by adulthood, the spiteful pecking of the world having clipped most souls of their finer material and sensitivity that makes one receptive to such imaginative expressions of humanity. This state of affairs is what has left us with the dreary anti-spectacle of the writer's cinema. Public celebration of anti-art vomit such as Tom McCarthy's Spotlight. That's what happens when facts and normalfag moral visions are allowed to direct the course of expression. It's worse than ugly. It's boring.
Like you. You are worse than ugly or stupid, you are boring. The reason I have to write so much about art in general and the greeks and so little about 300 is because you have so little to say, and even what you do say is so devoid of substance that i have to make that the subject of my response, your attitude rather than your thoughts. This is because you have none.
Next I could quote a lot of your shorter posts which all amount to "wow look how obviously dumb this post was give me thumbs and medals" but they're so devoid of substance this isn't worth making the post longer over. I'll address all of the shorter responses with this. If I'm so obviously wrong in the substance of my thought why doesn't even one of you answer me in substance? It ties into your thoughts on art, as art criticism really is an art of its own. It's one thing to have the general idea, another entirely to make it happen. This is why Zack Snyder is known all over the world and given piles of money bigger than your homes to do as he pleases with, while the "ideas guy" is a widely mocked stereotype. If you totally could tear me apart, if you have the beautiful shining ideas in your head, why don't you prove it? Are you afraid that this inner golden brilliance might appear to only be copper if we all look at it under the light of day?
This is why I'm on this site. I don't intend to stay, but for a while I wanted a fresh set of eyes to challenge some of my biggest and dearest ideas. They've sat in my head getting bigger and shinier in my own perception for a long time, and I've aired them in the presence of my preferred company to good reception, but I had to be sure. That means first testing my will by putting in the effort to transform these ideas from fun clouds in my head to tangible paragraphs of text, and then the test of exposure to a non-friendly audience inclined to criticism and hostility.
I did this because I care about the subject of my writings and my own ability to think. I believe that my ideas need to be proven in a trial by fire, and I believe that my conviction needs to be tested by a demand of some effort. I can freely spin these ideas out line by line among friendly company, But among a new and unconvinced audience I need something that can stand from scratch. I need complete ideas. I need to give my thoughts legs.
I'm doing this. Why aren't you? You have keyboards. You have time. You're implicitly at least superficially interested in the subject matter. Why not answer me in kind? Do you not consider me worth the trouble? Don't make me laugh. I came into this thread certain that I'm a superior thinker to everyone else present combined but type my paragraphs upon paragraphs anyway. Why do you think that is? It's because the challenge and development of your own thoughts is worth doing for its own sake. I believe this, but I get the impression I'm quite alone in this here.
This is why I'm on this site. I don't intend to stay, but for a while I wanted a fresh set of eyes to challenge some of my biggest and dearest ideas. They've sat in my head getting bigger and shinier in my own perception for a long time, and I've aired them in the presence of my preferred company to good reception, but I had to be sure. That means first testing my will by putting in the effort to transform these ideas from fun clouds in my head to tangible paragraphs of text, and then the test of exposure to a non-friendly audience inclined to criticism and hostility.
I did this because I care about the subject of my writings and my own ability to think. I believe that my ideas need to be proven in a trial by fire, and I believe that my conviction needs to be tested by a demand of some effort. I can freely spin these ideas out line by line among friendly company, But among a new and unconvinced audience I need something that can stand from scratch. I need complete ideas. I need to give my thoughts legs.
I'm doing this. Why aren't you? You have keyboards. You have time. You're implicitly at least superficially interested in the subject matter. Why not answer me in kind? Do you not consider me worth the trouble? Don't make me laugh. I came into this thread certain that I'm a superior thinker to everyone else present combined but type my paragraphs upon paragraphs anyway. Why do you think that is? It's because the challenge and development of your own thoughts is worth doing for its own sake. I believe this, but I get the impression I'm quite alone in this here.
Never read Rand but I admire her just based on the calibre of person she visibly upsets. She's clearly onto something, but i don't care to find out what because her books all appear to be the size of cinderblocks.
No you don't.
Why is Snyder not like Tarkovsky? You seem quite sure this is a bad thing but I'm not convinced you appreciate any element of this issue beyond sign-value.
Pauline Kael is a hero of our time and you haven't given a good reason for abandoning her. Let alone not leaning even deeper into her style and becoming more Kaelian than Kael herself.
You all suck. You all hate art. You are enemies of civilisation and humanity. Send my reaction score negative with your torrent of hat reacts. The contempt of those less human than oneself is nothing to be ashamed of.
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2018
If this is bait it’s good bait at how someone can be retarded enough to waste their time typing this inane pseudo-intellectual drivel. Otherwise if you hate RLM, maybe this pretentious hack is for you?
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2019
I like some of Zack Snyder's movies but I don't understand the culture warriors surrounding him, he's never been THAT good of a filmmaker.
I think people defend him like that though because he's one of the last big "name" directors, movies have gone back to the days of the 30s and 40s where the director was largely anonymous, gone are the days of big names like Spielberg, how many who saw those Avengers movies even know who the directors were?
So Zack Snyder is a guy that still tries to have a recognizable style and is still primarily interested in movies as entertainment, not propaganda.
I'm disappointed to hear Army of The Dead sucks because I do really like his Dawn of The Dead remake and I remember first reading about Army way back, like around 2008 or so, sad to see it finally come out and disappoint.
Here's my question though, was Army of The Dead originally supposed to be a direct sequel to Dawn of The Dead or was it always just another zombie movie directed by Snyder?
I think people defend him like that though because he's one of the last big "name" directors, movies have gone back to the days of the 30s and 40s where the director was largely anonymous, gone are the days of big names like Spielberg, how many who saw those Avengers movies even know who the directors were?
So Zack Snyder is a guy that still tries to have a recognizable style and is still primarily interested in movies as entertainment, not propaganda.
I'm disappointed to hear Army of The Dead sucks because I do really like his Dawn of The Dead remake and I remember first reading about Army way back, like around 2008 or so, sad to see it finally come out and disappoint.
Here's my question though, was Army of The Dead originally supposed to be a direct sequel to Dawn of The Dead or was it always just another zombie movie directed by Snyder?
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
I would still give it a shot. I've disagreed with Mike and Jay's takes before. They were lukewarm to Hardcore Henry and that's a great fucking movie.
Army of the Dead was originally supposed to be a sequel but it just didn't pan out.
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2019
I do plan on still giving it a shot eventually, just disappointed to hear it's not great.
I'd be a lot more interested if it was a direct sequel to Dawn like what was originally planned, especially after 17 years.
Stasi
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2019
Hell you can agree with what they say and still like it. I agreed with every point they had about Kong v Godzilla and still enjoyed it more than they did. Reviewers are just people with opinions, not ultimate arbiters of wisdom.
Which is all @Scarmiglione had to say. Instead he made himself look like an absolute retard. Only someone with crippling autism would take some internet review personally and attempt to publish a novel on an anonymous forum in defence of some hack director.
Scarmiglione
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 20, 2021
Army of the Dead is fantastic. There, now your expectations can be balanced out a little. But of course what do I know after all? The fat former wedding photographers and their fans say the movie is shit. Trust who you will.
You can't discern a single actual point i'm making but still keep trying to get my attention. This is real subhumanity. You don't know what I'm saying but you know you don't like it.
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- Joined
- Jun 18, 2019
Judging by the clips they played and how they described the movie, like how much it rips off Aliens, I already know that I wouldn't think it's a great movie.
The cheapness of it is the main thing that bums me out, it looks pretty cheaply made, not as snazzy as Dawn and it's lazy as hell to imitate Aliens' story beats so closely, that's one of the things I like about the 2004 Dawn is it's an entirely different movie than the original, it just uses the same basic premise but tells it's own story.
If you compare it to his movie Sucker Punch (which RLM hated in only the second or third Half in The Bag episode, but I love) the story was pretty weak and literally just an excuse to have hot chicks do cool things, but at least it was a pretty unique story and not just totally ripping some other movie off.
That RLM review of Sucker Punch was terrible though and almost made me ditch RLM, I just never understood why they reacted quite so negatively, these guys absolutely are way more cynical that I am with my tastes, but I watch them because they manage to make entertaining videos on their own, I don't watch them solely to get their opinions on movies lol.
So I don't think I'd hate the movie either, I still plan on watching it, I've always taken their opinions with a grain of salt.