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RedLetterMedia |OT| Very Cruel.

kyle mechlachlan

kyle mechlachlan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,367
when they got to the actual review, things were fine. i agree with most of their opinions on the actual filmaking itself. the movie was fine, but wasn't really that interesting one way or the other. when they try to put their feet into any kind of commentary about society or culture it ends up being exactly what it looks like - a bunch of out of touch old white dudes who are out of the depth. ultimately, that's fine. they can be that if they want. but trying to talk about stuff with any degree of nuance is completely beyond them. stay in your friggin lane.
 
Hoot

Hoot

Member
Nov 12, 2017
2,123
Heckler456 said:
What is the goal here? To have fewer white male critics? Or to have more diversity? I mean heck, she was at an event for women in film. What would benefit that audience more. A take down of "white 40 year old men", or like they said, some sort of rousing speech spurring women on to become critics. But who knows, maybe the take down of "white 40 year old men" is more effective in terms of getting your voice heard, but I guess that just the world we live in nowadays. At the very least, I see where they're coming from.

A way better example mentioned in this very thread is is Jordan Peele's #UsFirst thing. He's not taking down white people to elevate black people. He's just elevating black people.

Also, from what I'm seeing in the video, they agree with the actual content of what she's trying to say, so I'm not sure where you're getting the notion from that they're trying to invalidate the point of her message.
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Because wether people like it or not, white males have been and are still very much gatekeeping huge chunks of the media, often virulently. The old "If you don't antagonize us, it'll be fine" is moot since even when women or POC or LGBT don't, white men will have something to say on how it's cynically motivated or how it doesn't matter. For heaven's sake, even Mike several times in the past went off on the black panther review or the wonder woman review. "Black kids don't care about black superhero", or how little girls don't care about super hero role model because the 12 or so we always dish out are enough, right ? Whatever women do or act, it'll never be "the right way", because what people truely want isn't equality or justice, is just that they're not bothered. It's also incredibly disingenuous for Jay or Mike to just go "Oh she could've said that", like she haven't expressed those same views anytime in her life, several time

And lastly, Brie Larson's comment isn't even that inflamattory. Yes, the critic scene is predominantly dominated, culturally, by middle aged white men. Meaning the way the culture is conveyed is still primarily through their lens. Mike might scoff and be self deprecating, but in an age of youtube and mass consumable media where critics ARE incredibly popular, this shit matters.

Jordan Peele's stunt is all well and good, but let's not pretend he didn't get huge flack from white watchers after Get Out. And let's
 
Neece

Neece

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,229
Draper said:
I feel there is something to be said about white reviewers genuinely praising high quality minority-based films, but are simultaneously dismissed by Larson and her remarks. Her angle of approach was just very curious. And yeah, the movie was pretty much just 'okay'. I couldn't get a read on what they were going for with her character. I'm not sure whether to chalk it up to poor writing or miscasting of the main character.
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Those films are considered "arthouse" films and middle age white men love those. Hell if anything those films are targeted towards them. It's different when it's media targeted towards a demographic of young people and girls.

I was going to attempt to basically summarize what Lindsay Ellis said about the topic but I'll just link her video. She isn't talking about white male critics (she talks about female critics too) but her overall points about the culture hating things made for girls can be applied to the conversation of "this wasn't made for you so I don't care what you have to say." With that in mind, i can see why someone like Brie would say she wants to hear what girls or POC have to say about A Wrinkle In Time.

 
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LakeEarth

LakeEarth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,205
Ontario
I'd say don't skip the video. Watch the intro, then skip to where the first commercial break is set. That's when the actual review starts.
 
Seesaw15

Seesaw15

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,824
Trojita said:
Mother! made more money and was profitable unlike Annihilation.
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Yes a movie that was marketed as a hunted house horror film starring the most famous actress in the world made more than a cerebral hard sci fi film. Mother! only made about 10 mil more than Annihilation and thats because it was front loaded and the majority of audiences got pissed because the marketing tricked them.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,721
Seesaw15 said:
Yes a movie that was marketed as a hunted house horror film starring the most famous actress in the world made more than a cerebral hard sci fi film. Mother! only made about 10 mil more than Annihilation and thats because it was front loaded and the majority of audiences got pissed because the marketing tricked them.
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Most people wouldn't know how crazy annihilation would get unless they watch the movie. Mother! had bad word of mouth (as you said it was frontloaded) vs annihilation being reviewed pretty good but ultimately floundering at the box office.

Koklusz said:
Annihilation made almost twice as much money in the US compared to mother!, and with Netflix deal it might ended up being more profitable of the two. Also what Seesaw15 said.
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Well I guess if we assume Annihilation had no marketing, maybe it could be true? Mother! made 40 mil on 30 mil budget. Annihilation made 42 mil on a 40-55 mil budget. Add on all the other expenses who knows. You think the netflix deal was that good?
 

Sandstar

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,749
Snowy said:
It's still a silly, stupid perspective on art criticism.
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What, being told that a movie made for children of color might not resonate with middle aged white men? *gasps* Who could ever have imagined it?! Next you'll be telling me that white men don't get the Madea movies, and Tyler Perry should be making them to appeal to middle aged white men as well. (don't tell me he's ending them, I know that. it's called an analogy.)
 
OP
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Skiptastic

Skiptastic

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,728
Well, that review went on and on and on about things that had absolutely nothing to do with the film itself.

I much prefer when they stick to criticizing the film itself versus attempting to analyze the culture or outside factors. It has consistently been a weak point for them recently (TFA Plinkett review where they go on and on about ring theory and revisionist history on the prequels or the Scientist Man about the Ghostbusters review controversy, for example).
 

Snowy

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
1,399
Sandstar said:
What, being told that a movie made for children of color might not resonate with middle aged white men? *gasps* Who could ever have imagined it?! Next you'll be telling me that white men don't get the Madea movies, and Tyler Perry should be making them to appeal to middle aged white men as well. (don't tell me he's ending them, I know that. it's called an analogy.)
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Something having appeal is not the same thing as it having merit. While they often fail at identifying such, the latter is what critics should be trying to deal in. The whole "this is/is not made for you" mindset is an exceptionally deleterious aspect of our culture, as it basically ensures that people will dig deeper and deeper into their bubbles and fosters the mindset that one should not be able to appreciate the merits in something one does not like.

As I said in another thread, it's like any sense of there being any universality to human perspective or experience has been completely shut out of modern conversation.
 

Sandstar

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,749
Snowy said:
Something having appeal is not the same thing as it having merit. While they often fail at identifying such, the latter is what critics should be trying to deal in. The whole "this is/is not made for you" mindset is an exceptionally deleterious aspect of our culture, as it basically ensures that people will dig deeper and deeper into their bubbles and fosters the mindset that one should not be able to appreciate the merits in something one does not like.

As I said in another thread, it's like any sense of there being any universality to human perspective or experience has been completely shut out of modern conversation.
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Yes, because if there's anyone who doesn't have their opinions heard, it's middle aged white men. That's why we have to take care to make sure they have a chance to speak their mind, least they get trampled by other's.

Remember kids: get a wide variety of opinions, but make goddamn sure middle aged white men or in there, or they'll get upset.
 
Seesaw15

Seesaw15

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,824
Trojita said:
Most people wouldn't know how crazy annihilation would get unless they watch the movie. Mother! had bad word of mouth (as you said it was frontloaded) vs annihilation being reviewed pretty good but ultimately floundering at the box office.
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We'll never know how much Annihilation could have made with the full confidence of the studio behind it. Hard sci-fi films with nihilist Cronenberg-esque sensibilities are never going to do as well as deeply humanist (mostly) crowd pleasing sci-fi like Interstellar or Arrival. With a full(somewhat deceptive) marketing push I think Annihilation would have done about as well as Widows. If the studio played up the chemistry of the female lead cast and the pedigree of the director it could have maybe made an extra 5-10 mil domestically tops imo.
 

Snowy

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
1,399
Sandstar said:
Yes, because if there's anyone who doesn't have their opinions heard, it's middle aged white men. That's why we have to take care to make sure they have a chance to speak their mind, least they get trampled by other's.

Remember kids: get a wide variety of opinions, but make goddamn sure middle aged white men or in there, or they'll get upset.
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There is a difference between inviting a diversity of criticism and effectively dismissing certain opinions as having less validity or cogency with respect to certain works of art, which is essentially what Larson did and what I assume rankled Mike.
 
Cheerilee

Cheerilee

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,969
SArcher said:
I'm annoyed at how Mike and Jay were here saying that Carol has no arc and the only thing that happens to her is that she stands next to an exploding engine (The Double Toasted guys expressed the same sentiment saying she doesn't change). If you think about it this has the exact same beats as all the other MCU solo movies, just in a slightly different order.

Carol's mentor/friend dies (Yinsen, Erskine, Ancient One, Yondu, I'm sure I'm forgetting some) and she sacrifices herself by blowing up the engine (note that she's the one who decides to do that, knowing full well that it might kill her whereas in the comics she just happens to be near the machine when it explodes) akin to when Thor faces the Destroyer or when Captain America crashes Red Skull's plane.

And then they criticize how the only thing Carol needs to learn is that she has to take off the thing on her neck. Like any of the other characters face more difficulties. Thor can't defeat Hela until he gets a vision from Odin telling him he always had the power inside him and then he can. Doctor Strange can't master magic and is about to freeze to death on a mountain until he suddenly can and after that he more or less becomes the same cocky guy he was before. Black Panther can't defeat Killmonger but then he can etc etc. In fact, I think that Carol remembering who she is (someone who never gives up) is a much better explanation as to why she's able to do the thing she couldn't before (fight off the Supreme Intelligence and gain full control of her powers).

My point is that these complaints about the character not changing or being too badass throughout the movie (basically saying they are a Mary Sue) only come up when it's a woman.
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I think that's why Mike suggested rearranging the order of the story beats in Captain Marvel.

As-is, yeah, Captain Marvel is 100% the same character at the start of the movie as she is in the middle of the movie, as she is at the end of the movie. She has a mystery sidequest that seems intended to carry the movie, where she remembers that she was a kid once and that she's Human, but the movie completely spoils that mystery for the audience, so Captain Marvel's the only one who doesn't know. And the not-shocking revelation doesn't really change anything about her. It's kind of worthless in that configuration.

But if you rearrange her story into chronological... Carol's a girl who keeps on falling, but she keeps on getting back up and aiming higher next time. A powerful older woman finally gives her a chance to prove herself and fly a plane when the men won't because of her gender. The mentor dies and leaves her legacy to Carol. Moments later, Carol sacrifices herself, destroying it to keep it out of the hands of the enemy, and in the process becomes Captain Marvel. But the bad guys capture her and brainwash her and now Captain Marvel is working in the service of the obvious bad guys from Guardians of the Galaxy 1. The audience knows it's wrong, regardless of previous Marvel experience. Maybe keep some ambiguity about how maybe the ground-level troops aren't bad guys, maybe they're just pawns, and maybe they might not turn against Captain Marvel. She gets separated from her group, meets Nick Fury, and eventually discovers that maybe the Skrulls aren't the bad guys. Then the AI brainwashing tries to tell her that it's the strong one, it's the one in charge, and she's too weak to fight it (should the AI be male? I'm thinking it should have been male), but Carol says that while she falls sometimes, she always gets back up again, and she kicks her brainwashing to the curb and becomes full superhero.

It's like, across the entire movie, Nick Fury had a story arc. He clearly changed as he interacted with Captain Marvel. But the Captain Marvel he interacted with was mostly static and unchanging. But if Carol's story was extended into the past (rather than her past being relegated to flashbacks), then she has the opportunity to have a complete story arc, while Fury has a differently-timed story arc in the same movie, that takes place during the limited window where he was interacting with Captain Marvel.

I think that in a chronological rearrange, Captain Marvel is an aspirational character to look up to. As-is, the aspiration is there for people who go looking for it, but she's mostly aspirational because she got bitten by the radioactive spider, which is the part that RLM seems to have a problem with. People shouldn't look up to Captain Marvel for her powers, they should look up to her for her character, and I think a rearrange of her story beats would present her character better.

It's more simplistic like that, but I think it works better like that.

But then again, it's not like all Marvel movies are perfect. Like, I think one of the best changes they could've made to Doctor Strange would've been to cut the big mystical action scene at the beginning. It blows the movie's load way too early on what mystical action scenes look like in Doctor Strange, when the audience should be discovering all this amazing mystical shit at the same time that Strange discovers it. But that doesn't make Doctor Strange a bad movie, just a flawed one. Which isn't bad, but it's no Winter Soldier or whatever other peak-level Marvel movie.
 
chalkitdown

chalkitdown

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,241
Oh laws, a thread about the review has been made in Etcetera. That will be a fun car crash of a thread.

How long before the first accusations of racism/alt-right get thrown at them?
 
Cheerilee

Cheerilee

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,969
chalkitdown said:
Oh laws, a thread about the review has been made in Etcetera. That will be a fun car crash of a thread.

How long before the first accusations of racism/alt-right get thrown at them?
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It's not even a thread about the review. It's a thread about "RLM spent fifteen minutes talking about Brie Larson's comments instead of reviewing the movie".
 
Mona

Mona

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
26,151
Snowy said:
There is a difference between inviting a diversity of criticism and effectively dismissing certain opinions as having less validity or cogency with respect to certain works of art, which is essentially what Larson did and what I assume rankled Mike.
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pretty much my thoughts
 
jontin

jontin

User Requested Ban
Banned
Dec 29, 2017
854
chalkitdown said:
Oh laws, a thread about the review has been made in Etcetera. That will be a fun car crash of a thread.

How long before the first accusations of racism/alt-right get thrown at them?
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tenor.gif
 
Sordid Plebeian

Sordid Plebeian

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,495
Snowy said:
There is a difference between inviting a diversity of criticism and effectively dismissing certain opinions as having less validity or cogency with respect to certain works of art, which is essentially what Larson did and what I assume rankled Mike.
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This is a much better articulation of what I tried to say in the other thread, should've just come here to crosspost lol
 
UltraGunner

UltraGunner

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,213
Los Angeles, CA
It's always fun to see people analyze the politics of RLM because they said things they didnt agree with. You can argue that they are South Park cetrists but a lot of their pushback to the corporatization of art wouldn't be out of place in the dirtbag leftist podcast circuit like Chapo Trap House/Pod Damn America
 
DanarchyReigns

DanarchyReigns

Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,991
I got bored of their review because the Wisconsin gag ran too long (and I say that as someone living in Wisconsin). Sounds like I didn't miss much.

I'm tired of the "all or nothing" reaction people here have to online content makers. It'd be one thing if they were quoting StormFront (JonTron) are were ran by awful people with no idea how to do things (Channel Awesome), but it's the "they said a bad thing once, that means everything they do is bad and everyone that likes them is alt-right and bad" attitude I see so much.
Everyone has misfired jokes. People here have misfired jokes. They may not admit it, but they do.
 
jontin

jontin

User Requested Ban
Banned
Dec 29, 2017
854
Sordid Plebeian said:
You're either with us or with them, no nuance of opinion allowed
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Yeah, I have the utmost respect for people here posting in the other thread, but I don't think it will accomplish anything. I gave up on Captain Marvel threads after the idea that anyone who actually liked Alita were trolls/alt-right started rolling in.
 
Shy

Shy

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
18,520
Heckler456 said:
There's something to be said about the notion that at the end of the day, this is a product made by a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate with the sole intent for profit. It's like that recent Hbomberguy video about "woke brands". Sure, it's great that little girls have something to look up to, just like it's great that commercials seem to espouse more socially relevant commentary these days. But at the end of the day, both of these are probably only interested in your dollar, and it's worth keeping in mind that they may be attaching themselves to these movements for more cynical reasons.
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The two aren't mutually exclusive.
Sordid Plebeian said:
You're either with us or with them, no nuance of opinion allowed
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Where's the nuance in saying minorities kids don't care about see themselves on screen (representation)
 

jviggy43

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
18,184
Oh jesus this fucking video. They had been on such a better streak recently with this. "film criticism is the least important topic for social justice", way to perfectly encapsulate what Larson was saying about 40 year old white men, like why are you telling them what is important for women?
 
Joeku

Joeku

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,481
Shy said:
Where's the nuance in saying minorities kids don't care about see themselves on screen (representation)
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Not that I'm the one you're replying to, but let me add: while I'm all for teaching kids to be wary of getting suckered into the black hole of a cynical multinational corporation's open arms, I don't really see how you do that with someone who's under, say, 13. How the fuck do you tell a 6 year-old that that Elsa/WW/CM/etc outfit she wants is actually just a cheap way just to get through her emotions to your --her parent's-- pockets? Kids are going to dream and play and idolize shit that's both good and honest as while as dumb and creatively bankrupt because they're impressionable. If a gender or ethnic minority sees themselves up there and it means something to them then, then good! Let them learn the dark realities of late capitalism when they're teens; they'll be primed to be miserable then anyways.
 
Sordid Plebeian

Sordid Plebeian

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,495
Shy said:
Where's the nuance in saying minorities kids don't care about see themselves on screen (representation)
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I wasn't trying to say to tolerate all opinions coming from them because I find some, especially that one, very disagreeable. What I meant was suddenly because an opinion is given that doesn't align with that of this forum (in this case theirs on Captain Marvel), they're lumped with the worst opinions out there as if there's no difference between them and the alt-right.
 

Sandstar

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,749
Snowy said:
There is a difference between inviting a diversity of criticism and effectively dismissing certain opinions as having less validity or cogency with respect to certain works of art, which is essentially what Larson did and what I assume rankled Mike.
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She doesn't have to listen to, or care about every single piece of criticism about every single movie or other piece of media she creates.
 
Joeku

Joeku

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,481
Coincidentally while neither Alita or Captain Marvel seem particularly great I would have preferred they had reviewed the former because it seems to be doing some weird shit and going for something, no matter how it succeeds or fails at them, instead of one of what seems to be one of the lesser Marvel movies. They already talked about being over this kinda thing yet seemingly did it out of obligation.
 
JoeInky

JoeInky

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,490
Not even going to watch the review because I don't give a shit about Marvel movies anymore, but they should probably just stop watching Marvel movies if they're that bored of them they spend so long talking about "controversy's" surrounding them, but talking about Marvel probably gets them more clicks.
 
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