Marvel Films

[IdleRich]

You say many reviews that take it as read that right-wing propaganda can't be art... I think they, the reviewers I mean, are perfectly happy if it agrees with their viewpoint though. For me any art that puts across a viewpoint could be propaganda to someone and so they are impossible to separate and so you must accept that propaganda can be art.
The recent Tarantinos... well, I like them but it's the sort of thing I like. Perhaps Kill Bill was a low point but if you didn't like it I don't think the later ones are gonna change your mind. I like The Hateful Eight cos it's like an Agatha Christie but you don't know which one is Poirot and they say mutherfucker a lot.

 

[IdleRich]

I used the word "like" way too much there.

 

[Corpsey]

You say many reviews that take it as read that right-wing propaganda can't be art... I think they, the reviewers I mean, are perfectly happy if it agrees with their viewpoint though. For me any art that puts across a viewpoint could be propaganda to someone and so they are impossible to separate and so you must accept that propaganda can be art.
The recent Tarantinos... well, I like them but it's the sort of thing I like. Perhaps Kill Bill was a low point but if you didn't like it I don't think the later ones are gonna change your mind. I like The Hateful Eight cos it's like an Agatha Christie but you don't know which one is Poirot and they say mutherfucker a lot.

Well I loved Reservoir and Pulp fiction when I was a teenager, cos it had guns and swearing and cool ppl, etc. (I probably wasn't consciously aware of the bravura direction), and then I didn't like kill Bill much at all and so figured I've grown out of tarantino. But I see a lot of ppl I respect raving about inglorious basterds e.g. so maybe I was wrong

There was a jg Ballard review of kill Bill which really nailed tarantino I thought that put me off him too because I respect Ballard even if I don't really like his actual books

 

[version]

I dunno, it somehow seems distasteful to turn this stuff into comic book fun for all the family.

I'm still torn over the D-Day level in Medal of Honour: Frontline, it was an amazing thing to play, but they made a game out of D-Day...

 

[Corpsey]

True!

They made a level out of an airport massacre, too...

Although actually having played Red Dead Redemption 2 I think we're reaching an interesting area with video games where it could become harder to kill enemies.

 

[version]

Is this the Ballard review of Kill Bill you were on about?

"And Kill Bill Volume I, which I rented the other day, is dreadful. It was scarcely a film at all - just a lot of cinematic posing by Tarantino, who has obviously completely run out of ideas. It's just a compendium of film cliches, which weren't wittily transposed or played upon. Dreadful. It's appalling to think there's a Volume II, and even conceivably a III and a IV somewhere in the echo chamber of Tarantino's imagination. It's a fast-forward experience if you want to save your sanity. I've got 60 years of film-going under my belt, and Kill Bill I is definitely on the all-time bad list."

 

[yyaldrin]

If video games like James Bond 007: GoldenEye and Call of Duty already function as a sort of imperialist playground, placing players in hyper-realistic war settings, praising headshots and high murders rates of victims from countries which just so happen to be enemies of the U.S. military-industrial-complex, then will this new "interactive" entertainment be the next frontier in being harnessed for war propaganda?

http://www.papermag.com/bandersnatch-violent-implications-2625377947.html

 

[yyaldrin]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/venezuelan-government-takes-issue-with-mercenaries-2/1100-6151849/

from 2006:

"I think the US government knows how to prepare campaigns of psychological terror so they can make things happen later," said Venezuelan congressman Ismael Garcia.

there is a level set in caracas, venezuela in call of duty (2013) as well that involves installing a virus in the electrical system to generate a blackout, something the usa did last month.

 

[version]

I've been wondering whether they've had something like what's described at the end of Zero Days in place in Venezuela for a while.

1:45:26

 

[version]

Nitro Zeus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitro_Zeus

Nitro Zeus is a project name for a well funded comprehensive cyber attack plan created as a mitigation strategy after the Stuxnet malware campaign and its aftermath.[1] Unlike Stuxnet, that was loaded onto a system after the design phase to affect its proper operation, Nitro Zeus's objectives are built into a system during the design phase unbeknownst to the system users. This built-in feature allows a more assured and effective cyber attack against the system's users.[2]

The information about its existence was raised during research and interviews carried out by Alex Gibney for his Zero Days documentary film. The proposed long term widespread infiltration of major Iranian systems would disrupt and degrade communications, power grid, and other vital systems as desired by the cyber attackers. This was to be achieved by electronic implants in Iranian computer networks. [3] The project was seen as one pathway in alternatives to full-scale war. There was no requirement for this type of plan after the Iran Nuclear Deal was signed, though any functioning implants in Iran's critical SCADA infrastructure systems are not likely to be removed.

 

[Leo]

installing a virus in the electrical system to generate a blackout, something the usa did last month.

did they? not that I doubt they could or would, just never heard/seen anything about this. can you share a link about it?

 

[Corpsey]

I started watching batman Vs superman last night, having read armond whites contrarian (or is it?) Review of justice League.

Perhaps I was high on armond white juice but I could almost instantly see what he meant about Zack Snyder being a proper director with a real cinematic eye. Marvel movies are always super fun but they're not visually interesting, they're more like TV on a mega budget, slightly bland and vapid - popcorn.

Snyder of course risks and falls prey to ridiculousness by taking it all very seriously, but OTOH he manages moments of real grandeur and the way he moves the camera and constructs shots is superior to any marvel movie I've seen.

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed the first hour of batman/superman and mistrusted it slightly, cos I can be a contrarian myself.

 

[Corpsey]

Also I was watching BVS through the lens of propaganda detection and I thought it was actually less jingoistic than marvel movies insofar as both the superheroes in it are portrayed as frightening and borderline evil.

I've read online that Snyder has been accused of peddling facism with these movies so dunno what to make of that.

 

[Corpsey]

I intend to force Luka to watch BVS so we can analyse it's fascist imagery

Interestingly, I have tried to watch Wonder Woman repeatedly, which is clearly trying to be a Marvel movie, and found it unbearable.

 

[luka]

I intend to force Luka to watch BVS so we can analyse it's fascist imagery

Interestingly, I have tried to watch Wonder Woman repeatedly, which is clearly trying to be a Marvel movie, and found it unbearable.

Sounds good. Bring the dvd round mine tonight. I'll get some popcorn. Maybe order a pizza. Get a few Morretis.

 

[yyaldrin]

did they? not that I doubt they could or would, just never heard/seen anything about this. can you share a link about it?

okay wasn't a virus but an electromagnetic attack.

 

[yyaldrin]

hate batman by the way, he's just a rich bourgeois cunt why he don't do something really good and just give away the wealth he stole

 

[Corpsey]

True, Batman is a deeply reactionary fantasy - the rich spending more money to wipe out criminals, rather than crime. I do think there is more ambiguity towards Batman in the Batman movies, though - particularly in the recent ones he's often portrayed as a lunatic. (In 'BVS' he's also become actively sadistic, branding criminals so they get murdered in jail, etc.) But the third in Nolan's trilogy was particularly open about its reactionary stance - the terror of the mob, the anti-99% stuff.

 

[IdleRich]

"And Kill Bill Volume I, which I rented the other day, is dreadful. It was scarcely a film at all - just a lot of cinematic posing by Tarantino, who has obviously completely run out of ideas. It's just a compendium of film cliches, which weren't wittily transposed or played upon. Dreadful."

My friend went on some film course about Westerns or something and I remember he told me the guy was saying something about how Peckinpah quotes from older films but how that is somehow different from and better than the way Tarantino does it (his are just facile references or something) - but sadly I can't quite remember the argument/explanation.

 

[Corpsey]

1 minute 33, the way the camera glides over (or hops over) the oncoming car.