Movie/TV recommendations

[Gormongous]

That, that right there, that is the attitude that makes talking about anything with you torture. And that's the last I'll say on that.

 

I've got no dog in the "Godzilla vs. Pacific Rim" fight, but a proper argument can't happen if one side refuses to acknowledge valid points made by the other, whether by ignoring them, misconstruing them, or moving the goalposts away from them.

[Twig]

Yes.

[Merus]

Also it's not like I'm going to learn anything from the discussion, which by definition requires the other person in the argument to actually respond to points raised.

 

ANYWAY

 

I saw 52 Tuesdays, which is this arresting movie about a teenage girl whose mother comes out as trans. He asks her daughter to live with her father during that period, and they end up negotiating to spend time together every Tuesday. It's an excellent movie about stress and coping and change - obviously the transition is an important part of the movie, but in a lesser film that'd be the point of the movie, and 52 Tuesdays aims higher.

[BusbyBerkeley]

I've not seen Godzilla yet, but I did watch the director's previous movie, Monsters, over the weekend. It's pretty awful. The titular, uh... monsters are neat, and I like the idea of the huge beasties NOT being the focus of the movie, but it has a fucking awful script. The characters make no sense at all. I can't imagine a human behaving/reacting to things like they did. And the dialogue was bad and the acting was bad and the editing was bad. There were traces of stuff that I kind of could dig, but I would not recommend it. It made me not really care if I miss out on Godzilla. 

 

Also, I didn't like Pacific Rim very much either, despite Ron Perlman being in it and the sick-ass monster fights.

 

Wait, those are recommendations. Hm. The Simpsons is a very good tv show.

[Ucantalas]

 Hm. The Simpsons is a very good tv show.

Yes. Yes it is.

[tegan]

I would argue that The Simpsons is not a very good TV show since at this point the ratio of bad to good episodes is now about 3:2.

[Ucantalas]

I personally feel that the last few seasons have started getting much better than they were for a while, though still not anywhere near the "golder years" of the show.

Although they still pump out a few real stinkers each season. Like the episode revealing Carl Carlson is from Iceland... that was kind of weird, and discredits a lot of other episodes detailing Homer's childhood.

[tegan]

I've found all of the recent episodes I've seen to be pretty lousy, and feel that any improvement would still be overridden by the fact that there is an episode where Bart switches places with an identical-looking rich boy, guest starring Joe Montana.

 

[clyde]

This describes much of my movie-watching experience:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jOdJhPET8sg&list=PLD7nPL1U-R5o_GHb3XEx8XKCjzgCFCTuF%5B/media%5D'>

Separately:

I've got no dog in the "Godzilla vs. Pacific Rim" fight, but a proper argument can't happen if one side refuses to acknowledge valid points made by the other, whether by ignoring them, misconstruing them, or moving the goalposts away from them.

Personally, I have a hard time balancing this. I'm willing to make this accomodation, but I don't want to look like I'm pandering.

To compound the problem, I often assume that others know I'm conceding points if I move on from them. Maybe this is an unhealthy solipsism that I should buffer with an equal quantity of " I agree on [point A], but still disagree on [point B]". I want to encourage conversation, but I don't want to look like I'm consumed with niceties.

Any recommendations?

[Merus]

When I argue, I generally focus on what I think I can learn from the other person. If I don't think I'm going to get anything from a particular point, I abandon it with relish, and usually people on the Internet don't notice. If it comes up, I'll usually say I don't think it's worth arguing over.

[clyde]

When I argue, I generally focus on what I think I can learn from the other person. If I don't think I'm going to get anything from a particular point, I abandon it with relish, and usually people on the Internet don't notice. If it comes up, I'll usually say I don't think it's worth arguing over.

I think I do this too (except for the not-worth-arguing part) but I'm becoming concerned that it may appear that I am moving goal-posts or cherry-picking.

I also see the value of poking a bit or focusing on the portions where we disagree. I'll poke when I suspect that different things are being said with the same words. My favorite example of this was one conversation about Dragon Age 2 on Neogaf where many people were saying that Dragon Age 2 sucked. After pushing against each particular person's argument, I found out that they thought it sucked for a different reasons, but the general language made it seem as if this was a consensus.

I usually like focusing on the portions I disagree with because I want to see if I'm missing something, but sometimes it's because they don't seem to understand what I am saying. In a longer argument, this can create the appearance that I'm extreme and suffering from tunnel-vision. And then to confuse the matter, sometimes I do have extreme views because the center's paradigm on the issue seems unjust or unobservant.

I don't know. I just see antagonism as helpful towards disclosure in some situations, but I don't want to be perceived as an arrogant wall.

[Bjorn]

Super late to the Pacific Rim talk, but that's my favorite action flicks from the last year or so.  Sooo good.  The thing I liked about the script/tone of it is that it defied my expectations.  I went in expecting it to be intentionally cheesy and "wink" at the camera occasionally, but the whole thing is just played completely straight, which is one of the things that makes it work for me. 

 

I'm not going to call it a good script, but I did appreciate that element of it.

[BusbyBerkeley]

Bjorn, I don't what else you like, but if you dig martial arts stuff and can handle some ultra-violence I have to recommend checking out The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2. The Raid 2 was probably the most exciting thing I've seen in theaters in the past five years. Or ever. It's really fucking good as an action movie.

[Twig]

Saw X-Men. It's fiiiine. One of the dumbest time travel conceits of all time, but it was a fine action movie. The best scene in the movie involved Marvel's Flash (whoever that is) pretty early on, and then he disappeared for the rest of the movie. Probably for the best, because had they kept doing it, it would've gotten old real fast. Too bad the rest of the movie was about X-Men. I think the X-Men are my least favorite group of superheroes.

[clyde]

Quicksilver? I will forever remember his description of his power being like having to wait in the grocery store's express-lane for someone who takes their time and has an amount of items over the limit.

[Argobot]

Here are two pretty good articles about the comic book movie bubble (the first deals specifically with X-Men and the second is a more general overview):

 

http://grantland.com/features/x-men-days-of-future-past-brian-singer-sequel-review/

http://grantland.com/features/comic-book-movies-marvel-x-men-batman-dc-comics/

[Twig]

Quicksilver? I will forever remember his description of his power being like having to wait in the grocery store's express-lane for someone who takes their time and has an amount of items over the limit.

Yeah quicksilver sounds about right!

[TheLastBaron]

I would argue that The Simpsons is not a very good TV show since at this point the ratio of bad to good episodes is now about 3:2.

I would argue that the first 9 seasons and especially the first 5 or so are as good if not better than anything that has ever been on television.

[Ben X]

I'd argue that TheLastBaron and Tegan are both right!

 

I really enjoyed X-Men DOFP. It was story-heavy but still managed to spend a lot of time on the characters, and it had a load of cool action scenes. The only disappointments for me were that the modern-day versions only amounted to extended bookending cameos (though this is probably only because I didn't know anything about the storyline from the comics - if you go in expecting a sequel to First Class first and foremost this isn't an issue) and that Dinklage has nothing to do as Trask.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I liked the XMen movie overall. I liked the dumb comic book moments with the overall serious plot, it's kind of what I like to get out of a comic book movie. I just want there to be a decent collection of bits where I'll laugh, think something is cool and then the occasional "Oh nice, that's Bishop from that cartoon I watched!"

It delivered on those alright. My main problem is that it barely mattered that it was a time travel movie, the future sections were relatively superfluous. Which was particularly annoying when it was shown as such a dramatic post apocalyptic place. Though I guess it'd be hard to do much if they wanted to still show Sentinels as unstoppable killing machines.

Also the floating stadium but was wonderful cheese. It reminds me of my minor head cannon that Magneto is more flamboyantly attention seeking than he is all about mutant superiority.

Haha, get it?

I have a head cannon.

It shoots things.

It's a joke.

[Ben X]

You have a minor head cannon?! Cool, what's your superhero name?

[SuperBiasedMan]

You have a minor head cannon?! Cool, what's your superhero name?

 

The same as my username.

[Ben X]

Hmm, needs changing to Super Blasty Man or something.

[Erkki]

He is so super biased that the head cannon is really a minor feature.

[SuperBiasedMan]

He is so super biased that the head cannon is really a minor feature.

Errki gets it.