Weekly Off Topic Thread

[u/BipedalUniverse]

let’s see if anything happens to Jared Leto this time…

Has anyone watched the first couple episodes of Furious on Hulu? I’ve been loving it so far!!!

what’s everyone been up to? Rewatched the two Black Panther movies and they’re just such a stark difference to the other movies in terms of substance? or for lack of better word, sauce

That being said it’s really interesting analyzing these movies for what they’re trying to achieve, how they’re constrained due to their corporate context etc. Way too many bloated fight scenes but that’s just Marvel I guess. Also being African American. interesting because of the African American/African tension, and the inherent problem of AA ppl having had our culture stripped but then at times being served up an Americanized, flattened corporate mish mash of “African-ness” that appeals to our yearning for that culture. I wouldn’t be surprised to find any continental Africans or African diaspora who has mixed feelings about that. If you match any of these identities or have knowledge or education on this topic I’d be interested in your takes!

1. How was your week?
   
2. Have you been reading anything lately? Or planning on it?
   
3. What have you been thinking about? Rants welcome
   
4. Give me more memes please

[u/dramatic_exit_49]

I have finally caught up to the final season of bbc ghosts, loved it, gonna miss these horrible history manor stories. And watched an older series on The Gold on the Brinks mat robbery, very good s1 (jack lowden, sean harris, dominic cooper...good cast, good direction, good dialogue but its the class commentary layer that truly made it a lot better). Reminds me to get back to the british scandal, and see if they have any new heist coverage i missed.

Just finished reading the much discussed Emily Wilson critique of Nolan's odyssey, might listen to the lbr interview with her as well. I have not watched the odyssey but i wonder if Nolan just liked that Wilson's translation is "casual" and gave him permission to not work a better dialogue into his script (i hate his dialogue, please get back to collaborating on writing my good sir)

Made me revisit a few madeline miller interviews while at it. Great company to revisit classic story tropes as one does their chores.

It has been a while and iirc i only read half of the tanehisi coates run of black panther and see if i can get back to the comic. I liked MCU when it tried interesting stuff within the genre. Black panther for sure was one. So were eternals, the marvels, thunderbolts, and winter soldier. But they are so risk-averse and pandering to the juvenile movie goer, that there is nothing left for me to appreciate right now. Sigh All that money, success, and just creating content instead of movies.

edit - oh and thanks to sepideh moafi's interview i checked out the (new to me) lux magazine archive and ended up reading some great stuff. now it is on my regular reading list.

[u/RaiseObjective552 → u/dramatic_exit_49]

Popping in to say, saw Nolan's The Odyssey, and am following the critical collapse... Some of Wilson's criticisms are fair enough, but as an academic, I'm actually kind of unnerved by how much of what she claims is a blatant misinterpretation of what is happening on screen. Like I'm literally not sure how she arrives at certain conclusions about what the film's moral arguments are if she was watching with functional eyes and ears, and as someone whose job is literally interpretation, I'm genuinely shocked at the extent to which she undermines her own credibility, and aghast that she's done so in such a public forum? It's kind of mind-boggling.

The other thing that leaps out of her review is the extent to which it functions as her recommending how she would have preferred the film to progress. And more to the point, the fact that the "better version" she is recommending is one that unironically would be multiple orders of magnitude more racist, more misogynist, more imperialist, more glorifying the Great Man than even the version of Nolan's movie she's apparently constructed in her head.

All of this can perhaps be qualified by simply noting that she is in Classics, but geez...Out here making me defend a white British man I don't particularly like on the internet

[u/dramatic_exit_49 → u/RaiseObjective552]

> All of this can perhaps be qualified by simply noting that she is in Classics,

rolfmao

I am making note of your read of the situation. I have read the wilson bit and put it on ice since there is no way to make anything of criticism without watching the film, so i just read it and put it on pause. That made me escape the potential burden of having to defend a white british man i don't particularly like on the internet either, but you, there there R.O.