I wish "Oppenheimer" had ignited the atmosphere

[euansmith]

@anon61221983

Funny how the most bile is often spewed out for films that are for young women?

I was definitely guilty of sneering. I’m so happy that people have pointed out to me that that sort of behaviour is toxic to me and folk around me.

[Jesse13927]

@robertmckenna

My daughter was revolted by Angel stalking Buffy.

Movies and TV shows where stalking is depicted as acceptable behavior should not be viewed by anyone. I’m sick of the normalization of that shit.

[MagicFox]

The Angel arc was interesting and problematic. It was an interesting morality play in that it did for a while serve as a warning about stalker-like behavior and abusive and exploitative relationships. Angel appears to be a “good stalker guy” until the moment he has sex with Buffy, then suddenly: nope, he’s just a stalker. They’re just bad guys.

This gets ruined at the end of the arc when Angel gets his souls back right before Buffy kills him, and it’s whoops! He actually was a “good stalker guy.”

Maybe Whedon did that to up the emotional stakes for Buffy, or because the Angel spin-off was already in the works, but that ending watered down the warning about stalkers and abusive men and relationships, and was a huge disservice to the viewers.

[Jesse13927]

The MeToo revelations about Whedon do not inspire confidence at all. Honestly, I wish that writers wouldn’t even play with the idea of “good stalkers” because that is not a thing.

But we should probably stick to Nolan movies on this topic.

[euansmith]

Indeed

[danimagoo]

Whedon got too much credit early on for having “strong women characters”. If you really looked at it, most of his “strong women” had supernatural powers or were unrealistic in some way. He rarely presented typical women as being strong. The one exception might be Zoe from Firefly. Maybe. I still enjoy Firefly, but what we now know about Whedon makes me glad the show got canceled. I have a feeling things would have gone off the rails at some point had it continued.

[Anselm]

@danimagoo

I still enjoy Firefly, but what we now know about Whedon makes me glad the show got canceled. I have a feeling things would have gone off the rails at some point had it continued.

Yes, but I still wouldn’t have minded a few more good seasons of Firefly until that point.

[MagicFox]

@Jesse13927

The MeToo revelations about Whedon do not inspire confidence at all.

Same. It could be sloppy writing, it could be Whedon being the creeper we found out he is. I lean towards the latter.

@Jesse13927

I wish that writers wouldn’t even play with the idea of “good stalkers” because that is not a thing.

No. No it isn’t.

@Jesse13927

But we should probably stick to Nolan movies on this topic.

But Nolan didn’t make a vampire movie, did he?

I will stop derailing the topic, though.

[Clementine_fergal]

I felt the same about Battleship Potemkin

[anon61221983]

@anon58741709

So it was girly, and I accepted all of the derision because of misogynistic gatekeeping of my fantasy/sci-fi nerdscape. That’s the kind of shit I want to purge from my being.

@Jesse13927

The whole 117 year old vampire stalking/dating a high school girl is hard to overlook…

That criticism was certainly there and it’s a solid one… however, I’m gonna suggest that most of the hot takes were not about that…

@anon58741709

Sounds like a valid criticism.

Agreed!

@RutherfordBHayes

but I’d also like to point out that Christopher Nolan writes women (when he writes them at all) like the most stereotypically bad male writers.

That’s pretty much kind of common, as you note, sadly with tons of male writers… But hey, not like wimmins were a part of history, anyways, right?!?

@cool_catbad

its the ultimate “Project Management” story, and that is what employment means for a lot of people these days.

@FGD135

Depeche Mode,

@robertmckenna

My daughter was revolted by Angel stalking Buffy. It is genuinely ick.

@MagicFox

And whole articles on the misogyny of dumping on things teen girls like.

@euansmith

I was definitely guilty of sneering. I’m so happy that people have pointed out to me that that sort of behaviour is toxic to me and folk around me.

Yeah, it’s fine not to like something… but…

It's okay to not like things

[Jesse13927]

@anon61221983

That criticism was certainly there and it’s a solid one… however, I’m gonna suggest that most of the hot takes were not about that…

Oh, most definitely. The media always finds the wrong things to criticize, even when there is plenty of stuff worth criticizing for real.

[euansmith]

Learning to say, “I’m not the target audience, and I’m happy that other people are.” has helped a lot.

[gtmac]

@gatto

@boingboing

An especially strange component of the film is its entire plot

one cannot help but love a movie review with a line such as this

I beg to differ. At least this one can.

[robertmckenna]

@euansmith

Learning to say, “I’m not the target audience, and I’m happy that other people are.” has helped a lot.

Looking at the top 15 earning films ever as I did yesterday made me realise I’m not the target audience for high earning films. Except Barbie at number 15 (and maybe Frozen 2. I honestly can’t remember it and I don’t think it was a big deal in our house). But the rest were pretty much awful if I saw them or sequels to things that were awful.

[armozel]

Aside from the sarcasm, I’m glad someone didn’t write a loving review for a film. Honestly, I didn’t bother going to see it since Nolan has a problem with making his films make much sense. I’m sure something based on a book isn’t hard to keep coherent, but I always feel that certain films should be done by certain directors and Nolan doesn’t seem like the biopic kind of director. It’s not because he’s one note, but that I don’t think he can bring a critical eye that such a film needs. Some deconstruction of the biography or the subject of the biography should be part of the film since often biographies are rarely critically examined by readers. So I feel it’s the job of the director and writer for the adaption of the bio to film to give the audience a chance to see through that lens.

[anon15383236]

@robertmckenna

the rest were pretty much awful if I saw them or sequels to things that were awful.

Yeah, I think it’s often okay to say that (maybe along with “in my opinion”).

Some popular movies are filled with racism, sexism, classism, queerphobia, etc., and I think it’s okay to say that enough of that in any particular one makes it unworthy of support.

[mallyboon]

@Olympe_de_Gouges

Are the Japanese a moot footnote in the larger picture of American military imperialism?

There was a discussion thread on BB about this when Oppenheimer came out about all of the excellent films about the bombs and WWII that were made by Japanese filmmakers.

Moviegoers question the lack of Japanese perspectives in Oppenheimer | Boing...

[Otherbrother]

@Brainspore

Not to mention how ridiculous it is to have a boxy robot fly a spaceship by manually manipulating the flight stick designed for human use instead of just plugging into a data port or connecting via Bluetooth or something.

That or just have the spaceship fly itself. Putting a separate robot in the loop at all was pretty silly.

And so, so many terrible, poorly-thought-out and nonsensical decisions made by just about all the characters. There was some fun science and physics at certain points in the film but it was hard to enjoy that with all the other stuff that just made no damn sense.

[Ed_Beaty]

I started reading your review, but I figured it would be quicker to just watch Oppenheimer again.

[wgmleslie]

Subtitled audiences are at an advantage against those of us who were subjected to the whims of the sound mixer.

Nolan films make inaudible audio a “feature.”