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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • No. I think the whole community has only had three deleted posts, two of which were spam. But I could have tried to encourage what members we have more by taking some initiative and sharing memes, starting discussions, things like that. I’ve seen other mods who helped grow their community in that way, but it’s not what I’m built for at the best of times.

    I do thank you for the words of encouragement, though.






  • One of the things that made me really like Sanders when he was first campaigning for president was when I looked up his record on American war and he had a voting record that tended to follow a quote from him that amounted to something like (paraphrasing), “War should be the last resort, but if a war is started, we need to see it fully see it through.”

    It’s not like siding with Ukraine and getting into that conflict is supporting warfare. It’s seeking to prevent warmongers from profiting off a senseless war. The idea that abandoning Ukraine to just be invaded and allowing Russia to get whatever they want by force is an, “Anti-war,” stance is fucking absurd.


  • It’s weird to me that he’s lumping all comic book movies together and acting like they’re the problem. We keep having trash movies churned out by studios because they make money. That’s been true since at least the nineteen-forties if not earlier. Hell, I’m really just talking about the ones where enough of them still survive that you can go find them. Earlier, in the silent era, yeah, you had trash get made quickly and churned out so that people would pay a dime to watch it. I don’t get how a single genre is supposed to be the culmination that’s ruining cinema.

    But, here’s the thing. Have movies changed over the years? Absolutely. Scorcesie’s movies have changed over the years! His style has changed, his vision has changed. What sells tickets has changed. How studios are producing films based on what they think will make them money has changed. It’s been discussed before that the fall of video rentals and the rise of streaming has changed what kinds of movies studios are willing to put their money behind and how they’re less likely to take a risk on something than they used to be. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem because it’s reduced the number of small-budget and medium-budget studio films. None of that can be blamed on comic book adaptations.

    And there’s nothing inherently wrong with a comic book adaptation. Marvel movies are overly formulaic and especially since Disney bought them overly safe. Even in the ones I like, I can just feel that Disney touch that makes me go, “Ew,” sometimes. DC’s movies have been mismanaged with an unfit vision helming its original run from the start. So the big series, yes, I’ll admit, they’re kind of shit cinema. I still enjoy some of them, but they’re kind of shit cinema. There are plenty of shit crime movies and thrillers and other things like that, but I’m not going to start yelling about how they’re killing cinema and we have to fight against them. Why do comic book adaptations get singled out as artless trash when there’s a constant stream of hollow feel-good romance films that get churned out every year? Do those formulaic vacuous sap-fests (some of which I love and will watch whenever I need a good cry, I’m really not knocking them) really merit a pass yet for some reason comic books require this war be waged by filmmakers against them? I really don’t see how they’re the problem.

    And you can come in and say things like, “He’s just stirring the pot to promote his film,” but I don’t think so. Scorsese has had a lot to say about modern filmmaking even when he doesn’t have a project on the table. He’s talked about his feelings on modern film culture, comic book adaptations, using the word content to describe any form of media, and more. I really don’t think he’s doing it to bring attention to any project so much as he just really feels very strongly that movies have changed and change is bad? Is that really what it is? Because some of the stuff he sees as a problem, yeah, I agree, it’s an issue. But other stuff like this, even if there is a problem, your aim at what the problem really is is just completely off.










  • I don’t fetishize them and I don’t have animosity against people who use CGI responsibly.

    My problems come with a sacrifice of art and a sacrifice of the workers.

    Let’s start with the workers. Technical jobs in filmmaking have always been kind of shitty, working long hours and usually not getting a whole lot of credit with very little job security. And you don’t have to go back that far to see a lot of techs getting themselves hurt because there weren’t as good of safety standards for them. So it’s not like it’s a new thing. But a lot of studios have been treating CG as a miracle cure ever since it was first used, and it’s created a real problem for the people actually making these movies. A lot of the CG is rushed and its creators underpaid for the work being asked of them. And this leads into the point about art because while CG can look great or it can look shit, when you rush it, the chances of it looking terrible are far greater. That’s true for practical effects as well, yes, but people seem to accept that practical effects will take time while they’re pushing CG studios to produce faster and faster with ever-worsening results.

    But then let’s really talk about the art of it. There’s a lot of art that going into CG, and I think that’s wonderful. There are things it can do that almost nothing else can. It has been used to great effect for decades now! CG isn’t an inherently bad thing. But there are also things it doesn’t do as well. And one of the problems I have with CG-heavy films isn’t really that they use CG but that they use it when it isn’t the best tool for the job. Or they rush it or cheap out on it as talked about in the previous paragraph. There are different types of directors and some prefer tightly controlled sets while others let things come up naturally and then find ways to incorporate that. Practical effects, they’re never fully controllable. They’re not made in a sterile environment. They create a little unpredictability. They make a little chaos. And that chaos can bring a lot of personality to things. It’s usually really small, but it’s there. The best CG also has personality, sure, and I’m not certain how to describe it, but it’s different. Because in CG, every frame is hand-crafted like you’re doing animation. And I love animation, but if you’re doing something in live action anyway, I feel you should lean in to your medium and use its strengths. And one of the strengths of live-action is that there are things, physical things, and if you take all that away, I mean, come on. My feeling on a lot of the films that are basically done entirely on digital sets and almost entirely CG except for maybe an actor’s face here and there, and sometimes not even then, it’s, why not just stop living the lie and make it fully animated?

    So, yeah, summary, for me, I don’t like the culture around CG at the moment which has become notoriously harsh, and I miss the personality that practical effects bring to some things as well as disliking the feeling of hegemony in a lot of films when it comes to their effects. It’s not an inherent dislike of CG, it’s disliking how it’s being misused.




  • Walt J. Rimmer@lemmy.worldtoAsexual@lemmy.worldHow do I date?
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    1 year ago

    mostly the people seem to date in order to find a compatible match for sexual relief, rather than a deep relationship

    I find that to be a very pessimistic and dismissive view of most people. While sex is important to a lot of people and a lot of relationships, to say that most people just want sex and not a meaningful relationship is wrong and paints most people in a very negative light. In my experience, most people are looking for something meaningful. It’s hard to succeed at finding that, but it’s what most people are searching for.


  • Certainly something I’d considered as well. Though, I would say that kind of strategy hasn’t generally proved successful in television in the past, at least not over the average. However, streaming kind of makes that a little foggier. Futurama, along with The Office, were some of the most repeatedly streamed shows on Netflix before their contracts got canceled and they were moved to Hulu (The Office eventually moving to Peacock). So while that strategy tends to not work very well, every time that it does work may be a big enough boost to retention that it’s considered a viable strategy. I don’t know, of course, since I don’t work for Hulu or in any relevant field, so it’s all amateur speculation.


  • To everyone saying, “That’s a stupid take,” or, “But who cares?” Probably Hulu.

    It’s a numbers thing. You have fans of Futurama, that’s one market, and you’re likely to get a good percentage of those as people coming in to watch the reboot, but not 100% of them. But if they’re the only ones who stick around to watch the full new season, that’s a really limited market. That’s a relatively teeny tiny audience. There are plenty of shows that tried to continue marketing themselves in their later seasons, especially episodic (as opposed to serial) shows. Because you always want your numbers to grow. You want to bring in new fans.

    I also don’t see it being a huge thing because I don’t think a lot of people who have never heard of Futurama before are going to be particularly interested in the reboot, but the thing is that some would be. And hitting them with inside jokes that they’re not going to get without having watched the rest of the series, yeah, it’s going to make some of them turn the show off instead of going back and watching the older stuff or keeping going. We’ve seen that happen before. And that risks making the audience shrink instead of grow. That’s bad. That will probably lead to it getting canceled again. If the creators are fine with that, I as a long-term fan am going to watch the new season anyway and would prefer a good, clear artistic vision to shine through than something that’s simply looking to draw in the widest possible prospective audience, but from a publisher standpoint, from the viewpoint of a new fan, and even from the viewpoint of someone who simply wants more seasons, I can kind of understand why potentially alienating new viewers would be seen as a concern.


  • Walt J. Rimmer@lemmy.worldMtoBisexual@lemmy.worlddo you like being being bi?
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    1 year ago

    Hmm. That’s an interesting question that I’m not entirely certain how to answer. There’s a lot about myself, including my personality, that I would change if I could. But being bi isn’t one of them. It’s also something that when I accepted the label felt somewhat freeing. I no longer denied certain things about myself. I wouldn’t want to go back to before that. But it’s also not something that I did choose, it’s just something that I am.

    As for the prejudice against bisexuals, even in the community, my feelings on it are that some people will simply be hateful. There are plenty of reasons people might be hateful towards you. Your sexuality is only one of many. One of the baseless ones, too. You know that if someone hates you for being bi the kind of person they are at that point. The kind that will judge you based on how you were born rather than the choices that you’ve made in life. I don’t see appeasing those kinds of people worthy of changing something about myself. Again, I have much that I regret and many things I would change about myself. But being bi, no. Does that mean I like it or dislike it? Neither. It’s just something that… Is.