The Great Movie Thread

[Fife]

Netflix as Death Cult

Stop believing in God, G.K. Chesterton is misquoted, and you will believe in anything. A suggested corollary: Stop believing in eternal life and you will be obsessed with death. Human beings can’t bear mortality without the hope of immortality. As we abandon the old faiths, we confront our own mortality naked and afraid. That, I think, explains the extraordinary surge in the horror genre during the past twenty years. It also helps explain the improbably high valuation of Netflix stock.

. . .

That is why we live in terror. The snowflakes of identity politics live in terror that onlookers will see through the fraud of their self-invention, and point at them on the street and laugh. The hedonists who pursue eternal youth live in terror of the onset of age that will afflict them no matter how many cycle classes they endure or how much Botox they inject. We have thrown out our inheritance and our hope, and have nothing left but our fears. That, it appears, explains why the Netflix public is fascinated by the preposterous idea of a supernatural entity that so amplifies our fears that we feel a compulsion to kill ourselves.

[heydaralon]

I wonder what it says about our culture in general that we are so obsessed with morbid and self destructive shit on television. Antiheroes etc.

To me, this is not as alarming as the above article makes it seem, because many of the oldest and most important pieces of literature tackle mortality. Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Sophocles stuff, and all of Shakespeare's tragedies are centered on these questions. To be honest, I think it is important to at the very least think about this stuff. I forget which guy said (maybe Montaigne) that philosophy teaches us how to die.

My biggest gripe with Netflix is not its topics, but the way it tackles them. Black Mirror is a straight up misfire. They basically take stuff Ballard, Dick, and Harrison have masterfully discussed in scifi decades ago and rehash these ideas in a hamhanded, boring way with a heavy dose of SJW politics.

I think that traditional religion is adept at discussing death. Modern people don't like the discomfort and responsibility that comes with it, so they channel their urge into mindless media, and corporate executives are happy to indulge,which explains the popularity of this stuff.

[brewster]

I wonder what it says about our culture in general that we are so obsessed with morbid and self destructive shit on television. Antiheroes etc.

I don't think antiheroes are necessarily self destructive, they just don't operate on heroic motives. But the self destructive stuff really turns me off. Gilligan always fucked up their chances of getting off the island, but not because he raped Maryanne and then drank all the alcohol the doctor was going to use to power the generator. Sitcoms were about the situation people found themselves in, not the ones they created because they were assholes. Life is dark enough, why watch it on TV? At least the fantasy shows have external enemies, I even watched some episodes of "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina". Dark, and she's totally a Mary Sue, but at least I don't squirm watching someone set themselves on fire or it's moral equivalent.

That said, last night I watched a British fishing contest reality show. It was great! A middle aged Englishwoman loses a huge tarpon off Cuba and says "oh my, that was disappointing". Just awesome Brit understatement and restraint, nobody acting out.

[Speaker to Animals]

I'd be pissed to be stuck on that island when the two fertile females ate staunch lesbians.

[brewster]

I'd be pissed to be stuck on that island when the two fertile females ate staunch lesbians.

What makes you say that they were lesbians? Seems to me no one on the island had a sex drive at all! Is there saltpeter in coconuts?

There's gotta be some parody porn out there, BitTorrent here I come, so to speak...

[Speaker to Animals]

Pretty sure the professor was gay too, and Skipper was obviously MGTOW.

Poor Giligan. RIP.

[Fife]

Prof CJ at Dangerous History just did a John Carpenter tribute show where he talks extensively about why Big Trouble in Little China is so good. Check it out, 21:30 mark he starts
http://profcj.org/ep174/

Good episode . . . I'm just catching up on Prof CJ. I was backed up to the Mike Resnick ep.


Speaking of John Carpenter (and in this case Snake Plissken) . . .

[Hastur]

Ha!

Remember when David Fincher wanted to do a new version of Heavy Metal? Looks like he finally got there, just under another name. And he's doing it with Tim Miller (Deadpool).

In a statement accompanying the announcement of the series in January, Miller called Love, Death and Robots his “dream project.” He continued: “It combines my love of animation and amazing stories. Midnight movies, comics, books and magazines of fantastic fiction have inspired me for decades, but they were relegated to the fringe culture of geeks and nerds of which I was a part. I’m so fucking excited that the creative landscape has finally changed enough for adult-themed animation to become part of a larger cultural conversation.”

[GloryofGreece]

Dude how much coke does he do , that trailer was like mkultra.

[SuburbanFarmer]

A League of Ordinary Gentlemen - currently on Youtube and Amazon only, I think.

Behind the scenes look at the comeback of the PBA. Great stuff, if you're a bowler.