A funny thing I saw on Twitter:
Wife: Don't touch the deviled eggs in the fridge, they're for company.
Me: pic.twitter.com/nuLg9GUvAb— Steve vs Ninjas (@stevevsninjas) July 19, 2017
Also, never change, Florida. (H/T: Valued commenter Jack the Second.)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Dunkirk is very, very good. It isn’t as impactful for me as other Chris Nolan films, simply because I am so character driven in my tastes. It isn’t that characterization is done badly; it’s that it largely isn’t done at all, as a deliberate creative choice. A lot of the significant figures in the movie are never named, and the primary focus of one of the three plotlines is just called “Tommy,” which makes it more of a descriptor than a name. (For those unaware, “Tommy” is the slang for a British soldier, and so all of those on the beach could be described that way.) Over the course of 106 minutes, we learn exactly one fact that has occurred to any of them prior to the start of the movie.
It’s about the experience, not the characters. It also isn’t about heroism, though it has heroic moments. It’s about survival, and some of the moments have British troops behaving quite unheroically. It does a very good job of what it sets out to do.
One interesting thing about the movie’s structure is that it plays games with time. That’s nothing new for Nolan, but he does it in a different way in each movie. Here, he has three main plotlines: one on land built around Fionn Whitehead’s Tommy; one on the sea built around Mark Rylance and his sons; and one in the air, with Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden as Spitfire pilots.The first takes place over the course of a week, the second over a day, and the third over an hour, but they are all shown currently and mixed together. All converge at a single point, but if you haven’t figured out what’s going on, it can be jarring to see Cillian Murphy’s unnamed character intersect with the land storyline after we’ve seen him at sea at a moment that is chronologically later. On the whole, this structure works, but I knew about it going in. Someone trying to figure it out during the movie might have a harder time.
It is very accurate in its depictions, including the presence of French forces holding the perimeter of the beachhead to allow the British to escape.
I saw it in IMAX, and that was a good choice. However, more important than the screen is seeing it with the best sound system possible. I could feel bombs fall and the sound of Stukas diving is unnerving, as it should be. That will really maximize the experience.
rikyrah
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Thanks for the review!!!
I wasn’t going to see it. But, I will go see it in the theater, if not this week, then next week.
schrodingers_cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Seriously, you liked Interstellar?
Immanentize
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Thanks, TTP! I am hoping to take my son to see it Sunday in IMAX in the comfy seats at our local hellplex
oatler.
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Might be a great movie but I’m satisfied with my memories of “The Snow Goose” ( the one with Jenny Agutter) and Camel’s lp.
rikyrah
What Happened to ‘Buy American, Hire American?’
by Martin Longman
July 21, 2017 12:55 PM
Some people have a problem with the fact that Donald Trump doesn’t staff up his own resorts exclusively with American citizens. Others are more bothered by the hypocrisy:
Should Trump try harder to find American cooks, housekeepers and waiters? Couldn’t he post on Twitter that he’s seeking qualified applicants and fill these positions easily? I think that would probably work, don’t you?
Major Major Major Major
Snakes are weird.
I’m feeling pretty glum right now. Helping host this conference is eating my weekend, and I’m not actually doing anything more than maybe an hour total of tech support over each 12-hour day (starting at 7am). And tech support is depressing, and of course my actual work isn’t getting worked on. It’s also very, very cold inside this hotel.
I guess I could write, but I don’t quite know what the next scene is. I guess I should just throw words at it until something sticks.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, I did. I like a well done, long, slow paced story, where I can linger over character development.
And Hans Zimmer’s score for Interstellar is amazing.
chris
Love the snek.
For some reason your second link is not working for me, there’s just a blank. Maybe it’s just me but here’s the LINK
ETA: Never mind, there’s the link
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Trump insists on only the finest staff from his adopted homelands, Russia and China.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Creating, hosting and working conference are truly labors of love because no one ever gets the credit they deserve for the time invested. On behalf of all attendees, although they are unlikely to say iy — thank you!
Meanwhile, I am a Clinical Legal Professor and my ‘trade’ organization — The American Association of Law Schools (Clinical Section) — just pulled our annual conference out of Texas because of the number of discriminatory laws they have passed. Our conference is always between 5 and 6oo people…. It cost the AALS some scratch, but BRAVO! We are going to Chicago instead (OK) but instead of Austin (a small boo hoo because I love Austin as I once lived there but back when Ann Richards was Governor). If more big organizations would do this maybe we could change some things in these States where the people with money think the legislature’s actions are cute until they start losing margin.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Isn’t one Huckabee Sanders bad enough?
Immanentize
@chris: No Step on Snek!
ruemara
Sitting near Ballroom 20 & planning my next Thing To Do while my phone charges super slowly. It’s like the power at SDCC is made of molasses or something. Fairly productive professional con, but this year the cosplay seems lackluster and boring. Not gonna bring back my usual haul of photos this year.
schrodingers_cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I couldn’t get past the shitty physics and science in general. Plus, Matt Damon.
raven
@ruemara: My niece’s hubby does the signage for that.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, that’s kind of a prerequisite to enjoying the movie.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: My sister and SIL are medical professionals, and if a TV show or movie is medically inaccurate, that ruins it for them.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@schrodingers_cat: Kip Thorne disagrees with you about the physics. And Matt Damon was only in about 20% of the movie, maybe less. If those were the reasons you didn’t like it, you were looking for reasons not to like it.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
…can I confess that I think RompHim garment itself isn’t a terrible idea?
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: Here is a great (longish) discussion on youtube with Neil deGrasse Tyson about the good and bad science in Interstellar. For a movie, not all that horrible….
schrodingers_cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: The process of how science happens was pretty inaccurate. Kip Thorne was only involved in the visualization of the black hole, which was awesome.
lgerard
@rikyrah:
But the workers they want to hire come from Romania, which means they are more loyal to trump.
Immanentize
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Indeed — Damon was not even credited on the film. I think 20% is a bit of an overestimation, although he is a critical character. The final room of cubes, however, did pull me out of the narrative a bit….
chris
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): You can, but are you sure you want to?
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: I didn’t like it, so sue me. Same with Inception. Good visuals, but too many loose threads and lots of mumbo jumbo..
ETA: Also too, Matt Damon sucks. He bores me to death, Syriana, Good Shepherd, you name it. He even managed to make a movie about spies and counter intelligence boring. YMMV.
TenguPhule
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Heretic! Burn him!!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@schrodingers_cat:
This is not true.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: That’s fine, I wasn’t saying you should like it. Movie tastes are personal. For example, I cannot stand law movies because they are ALWAYS not right. Busman’s Holiday and all that….
chris
@rikyrah: Money, money, money. Bet you can get 2 foreign workers for the price of one American. Also the foreign workers must obey or be sent home.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@schrodingers_cat: There are perfectly good reasons not to like it. It is very slow paced, which, as much as I often like it, is very much not true of everyone. Parts of it are pretty sappy, which I bought into because I was so invested in the characters, but could definitely be a turn off for many. It’s 169 minutes long, which is past what a lot of people are willing to put up with. The final resolution requires a lot of suspension of disbelief for several reasons.
It’s just that the reasons you gave initially are pretty weak.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: Kip Thorne seemed ok with the physics, but what does Caltech know?
Walker
@ruemara:
The cosplay pictures on Kotaku today did seem really sub par. I wonder if it is a case of SDCC is now ridiculously expensive and there are a lot of other cons out there supporting cosplay.
TenguPhule
Okay, now I know why Jennifer Rubin is sounding so reasonable these days. She’s on drugs. The really good stuff.
All of which start with “Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits,” or “Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller.”
She must be smoking bongs the size of a 747.
schrodingers_cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That’s what I remember. Its been while since I saw it. It just didn’t make much of an impact. Weak reasons? Because you say so?
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: OK, I am testing the Damon theory — The Departed? Yes or No?
Fun fact — the apartment where the dirty cop lived was actually a conference room at my school….
Robert Sneddon
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: “Tommy” comes from Thomas Atkins, the made-up name on a sample pay and records book for British soldiers that was being introduced back in the early 1800s and later popularised by Kipling in the poem “Tommy“. It’s a bit like the American “John Doe” in its derivation.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: i meant in the not caring sense.
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: Not seen that one. Saw that Damon was in it and put it back on the shelf.
schrodingers_cat
Say Kip Thorne thrice and all inconsistencies in Interstellar disappear. Magic.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: You are serious about that actor! Respect.
It is actually a very good Boston mob film. I do recommend it, except….
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I guarantee you that the reason they need to bring in outside labor is that they’re paying far below market rate for those jobs.
I could see applying to get a specific star chef from overseas, but housekeepers and waiters? Are you fucking kidding me?
dr. bloor
“Charges against Mr. Stiles included Filming in Portrait Mode.”
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Probably hard to get too excited about writing when you are feeing glum. Is the conference over soon? Just a couple more days? This seems like a particularly long conference.
P.S. Who did you piss off that got you assigned to tech support for the conference? Or is this some dues you have to pay during your first year at the new job?
Brachiator
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I’ve read that IMAX 70mm is the only way to go. There are other IMAX formats, but not as good.
A little something about it here, along with a list of theaters.
I’m hoping to see it tomorrow.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@schrodingers_cat:
If you’re reduced to arguing that an actor in a small role is a complete deal breaker, yes, that’s weak.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: Perhaps this is the first step in interviewing for the next Melania?
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Sadly no. And dollars to donuts that they’re all employed by other nation’s IC.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Mike J: Kip Thorne was in fact the reason I went to see the movie. Read an article about the movie, read that Thorne was the technical consultant and he’d worked very hard to make sure the science was accurate, and said “That’s good enough for me. I want to see what a Hollywood movie looks like when they actually hire a science advisor, let alone pay attention to him/her.”
Haven’t seen Dunkirk, but did see another film that recently came out which, oddly enough, is (indirectly) connected to the events at Dunkirk. It’s called Their Finest, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to. Bill Nighy is outstanding; one of those guys I always like to see on screen but this was a wonderful role he richly deserves (playing an aging actor getting a wonderful role he richly deserves).
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: they put all the programmers on IT duty.
Wednesday was getting materiel schlepped around, yesterday was the first afternoon of the preconference, today is that and this afternoon is checkin for the real conference which kicks off tonight and ends Sunday at lunch.
Mnemosyne
I love Neil de Grasse Tyson’s movie reviews. Especially his admission that if you distract him with walking trees, talking raccoons, and green-skinned babes, he’ll stop worrying about the science. ?
catclub
@TenguPhule:
How about: “Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions ignores his so-called recusal and fires Mueller”
What is so hard about that? Session has already ignored his so-called recusal when firing Comey.
schrodingers_cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I am not reduced to anything. It doesn’t hold together logically. YMMV.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
Like I said, Rubin appears to be on some serious drugs. None of her scenarios even begin to approach reality.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I never worry about the science in Star Trek. Nolan’s movies dazzle but they never grip me. I wonder why it gives the fanbois a sad?
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
SOP for Trump properties. Import cheap – nearly slave labor.
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Wait, really? There’s no actor you dislike so much that his or her mere presence in a movie ruins it for you?
Matt Damon is not my personal movie kryptonite, but I understand the sentiment. Plus SC is an actual real-life physicist, so I can see why she would get distracted by small things other people wouldn’t.
MattF
@TenguPhule: She’s certainly fueled by something special these days. I’m guessing anger.
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
This kind of thing is soooo beside the point. I understand why people like to follow this thread sometimes, but stuff like this never impacts my enjoyment of a SF film which, after all, is fiction.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
I understand why other people like Nolan, but he’s not my cup of tea. Even Memento kind of annoyed me, because I sympathized with Teddy’s frustration by the end of the movie, and I thought it was a cheap cop-out to hint that Leonard was faking everything.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Brachiator:
YEAAARRRRGH!!!!!
If you’re going to ignore science and introduce magic that violates the laws of physics, don’t call it “science” fiction. Call it fantasy or something.
Sorry, pet peeve. “It’s fiction, it doesn’t have to follow rules”. In fact, even in stories where magic is allowed, having rules and limitations is important for story-telling purposes. If you change or discard the rules, you’re cheating the reader.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: if it’s hard SF that bills realism as a selling point then I care, but otherwise it’s just a bonus for me if it coheres.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Internal logic is important but if you have to fudge some science, meh.
cmorenc
@rikyrah:
Simple answer is that Trump wants foreign workers because they are willing to work far cheaper than the wage rate at which he could attract American workers. No surprise he cannot find enough American workers to staff his resort at gut-bottom wages and benefits.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I think it’s normal to get distracted by stuff in a movie that you know is factually wrong because it’s in your field of expertise.
I mean, if TTP went to a hockey movie and they got everything wrong (like claiming that Iceland is an international hockey powerhouse on the level of Canada or Russia), I would expect him to grouse about it.
Anne Laurie
Mart
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I have reached the point where I cannot watch a war movie. It is always war porn to me – always have war is glorious and heroic moments. Dunkirk is tempting me, but not going to do it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne:
Not when they don’t show up until the movie is an hour and a half old and then die twenty minutes later. Yes, there are actors who I find irritatingenough that I’m very leery of a movie in which they are a lead. This is one of the main reasons for not enjoying the one Nolan film I don’t like, namely Insomnia. Al Pacino is the biggest collection of annoying tics and mannerisms this side of Eric Roberts, and watching him for a whole movie drives me to distraction. In a bit role? I can take pretty much anyone.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@TenguPhule: @chris: Oh yeah, the douchebro aesthetic surrounding & advertising it is terrible, but the garment itself isn’t that bad – it has a distinctly North Indian feel about it.
Major Major Major Major
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I kind of agree. Hate it when a product’s users and ad team ruin the product.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: The pace should pick up a bit once the actual conference starts. There’s that, at least.
The Golux
@dr. bloor:
If only there were such a law, or an unchangeable setting that disabled phone cameras when attempted.
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Well, you’re a better man than I am (metaphorically speaking). I can’t think of a specific example right now, but I know that I’ve turned against movies in the middle of watching them because an actor I particularly disliked showed up and I was like, Oh, Jesus, who decided to put this asshole in the movie?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Don’t discount loyalty, one slip up and you’re headed back to the old country.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@cmorenc: It’s a win-win because it allows a golden opportunity for foreign intelligence agencies to slip people in where they (a) have keys and all kinds of access and (b) aren’t noticed, are treated as invisible. Win for hostile intelligence, win for Trump (who gets to save a few bucks).
Lose for those of us concerned about national security but hey, omelets, eggs, amirite?
cmorenc
@schrodingers_cat:
Matt Damon was terrific in The Martian – he was perfect for that part, and played it perfectly. Also, the science was mostly spot-on in The Martian, all except for the scenario in the opening scene whereby the other Astronauts assume Damon is dead and leave him behind to escape a supposedly lethally strong windy Martian sandstorm. The science problem with that is that the air is so thin on Mars that even 200 mph winds don’t carry enough force to blow a spaceship (or even a man) over, although the sand would still be intrusively annoying. Also, the final element in his escape sequence from Mars to rendez-vous with the rescue spaceship is rather improbable to actually pull off – c’mon- you can make a controlled leak in your suit and actually direct yourself with it to meet up with a moving target a few hundred yards away with the required exact two or three second timing needed to not miss your target with zero chance for a second try?
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Every watched an imax projector? Ours has an observation window showing the works, which are fascinating. Film is on giant reels (duh) and the path seems to travel the entire projection booth. “But why is everything sideways?” On inspection each frame is printed sideways on the 70mm stock with the y-axis spanning the film, making for a much larger frame size than “normal” 70mm. It’s like watching a strip of postcards whiz past.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Somebody proposed writing a spy farce that would all take place at Mar-A-Loco, with spies from every country filling all of the employee slots. Hijinks would then ensue. I can’t remember who had the idea, though.
trollhattan
@cmorenc:
We could hold a Matt Damon-Sandra Bullock improbable physics-off with the main event grabbing onto a ship you’re hurtling past. :-)
I liked Damon fine in The Martian, he didn’t overact and held my interest from start to finish.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne:
Me too. There’s one actor I simply cannot stand in any amount whatsoever. If this person is in a film, even for five seconds, it’s a no for me.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne:
My rule, which applies to all elements (science; history; economics; anything), is that a writer should keep their work as true to the real world as possible for the story they are trying to tell. When I am bothered, it is because a writer clearly didn’t take the time to understand their subject, and just started spewing bullshit because they are too lazy to research and too lazy to care. If it’s obvious that they took the subject seriously and made decisions to set aside reality deliberately, for dramatic reasons, and did so sparingly, I’m a lot more forgiving.
This is what separates something like Interstellar, which clearly did engage with actual science and made choices to set it aside where necessary, from something like Wonder Woman, where the writers clearly never bothered to research either World War One or chemistry at all, and just threw a bunch of bullshit at the wall.*
*To be clear, there were parts of Wonder Woman that I liked a lot. Pretty much anything that involved neither the war nor the Germans.
Spanky
Not from the Onion:
Robert Sneddon
@cmorenc:
Not exactly. They pay the Romanians or whoever the same wage they’d pay an American busboy or chef or waitress (not that much to start with). Two things differentiate the H2-B visa foreign workers from American wait staff and servants.
1. They will be live-in and won’t leave at a moment’s notice for another job elsewhere nearby. Job churn in the hospitality business is intense and managers spend a lot of time just running around agencies to staff events properly with temp workers. Places like the upper-rank establishments need a large full-time crew that can be relied on week to week, with top-ups of agency workers for special events (weddings, bar mitzvahs etc.) The H2-Bs are full-time workers. Florida is a right-to-work state so if they hired US workers for the core hospitality teams they’d be at risk of losing them at a day’s notice leaving a hole in their operations. The H2-Bs can’t move on to another job elsewhere in the neighbourhood quite so easily.
2. They are more willing to work overtime on demand (even paid overtime) when a US citizen might well tell them to fuck off and go home after pulling a 12-hour shift on the clock, because they know they can get another job somewhere else at a moment’s notice unlike the H2-Bs.
It’s a lot of administrative effort and it costs money to bring in foreign staff for this sort of work. The reasons are there but they’re not as simple as they work cheap, that wouldn’t make up for the thousand bucks of air fare and the cost of an H2-B visa (usually paid by the employer) etc.
trollhattan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I could entertain a Jim Carrey lifetime ban.
A lot is overexposure and the studios deciding actor X is the thing. Carrey was once the world’s top-paid actor–ponder that for a sec.
Brachiator
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Bullshit. Star Trek violates the laws of physics. Star Wars doesn’t even come close.
No one cares. And some of the most “accurate” science based fiction is boring shit.
What you are mentioning is not a pet peeve. It’s just your personal preference. And a common one. There is a wide variety of SF. Always has been. Is Ray Bradbury SF or mere fantasy? Or just a damned good writer?
When I went to the Huntington exhibition about the work and notes of Octavia Butler, I noted that she made a lot of notes about making sure that stories were compelling and that you make the reader “feel, feel, feel!”, and getting grounding details correct. But very little about the “need” to be accurate with respect to science.
My view of what makes SF is very broad. And I’ve been reading it for centuries. My pet peeve is people who have a rigid, narrow view of what SF is or is supposed to be. And I have very little patience with hard science people. SF is not a pseudo-documentary or an essay. It’s a goddam story.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@cmorenc:
To his credit, Andy Weir, author of the book, is well aware of this. But he couldn’t figure out any other way to put his character in the predicament. Since he’s publicly admitted to his error, I’ll allow it for the purposes of entertainment. Despite my gripes about bad science in sci-fi movies, I am in fact willing to let it go if it’s a good movie otherwise. Though sometimes it bugs me for a VERRY long time. I could still get revved up about the nonsensical basic dilemna of Gravity. Which was a damn good movie.
Precisely the point made (correctly) by his commander, which is why in the book not only is he ordered not to try, but HE COMPLIES. Here it was the story-telling rather than the science that bugged me. The movie makers changed some important plot points at the end, for no reason I could see and not to positive effect.
schrodingers_cat
@cmorenc: I would have seen this movie if it didn’t have Damon. I did like Apollo 13.
Gelfling 545
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Rompers on anyone of any gender who is over the age of 6 is a bad idea imho.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: At this point does anyone question that a significant portion of Trump’s foreign hotel workers are spies from various countries around the world, both allies and not? it doesn’t really matter to them what they’re paid since they really work for their government. Or another one. Or someone else.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Preach.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ve been there, 4M, at a conference where you’re sort of not super essential, the material isn’t of great interest… you feel sort of ghost-like or inter-dimensional. Try to write or sketch.
Robert Sneddon
@cmorenc:
Well apart from the fact that Martian soil is highly toxic (high levels of perchlorates) and you can’t grow vegetables in it without a lot of processing of the soil. He’d have been better off setting up some kind of hydroponics rig instead. It’s not the only hole in the science in the movie although I will give the writer and film creators some kudos for at least making an attempt.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: @MattF: She’s pretty on-point here that there’s no likely scenario where the situation improves for Trumpov and he goes on to govern in any way, shape, or form. If there were nothing there, he’d already have welcomed the investigation and the chance to be exonerated.
From here on out, it’s just GOP leaders guessing how bad the collateral damage will be to them and their party (they clearly don’t care about the country). Let’s have that March for Shame, and soon!
Brachiator
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
None of this made a damn bit of difference to the story in Wonder Woman. And writers will research stuff, and know exactly what happened, what might have happened, etc, and deliberately ignore it because it gets in the way of the story.
I remember reading some technical adviser to a medical TV show often noting that he would tell the producer about the accurate detail of a procedure, get a pat on the head and then be gleefully ignored. That’s show biz.
chris
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I wouldn’t wear it but to each his own. I have worn coveralls that were a little small and…OW! Make sure it’s sized right or you will at some point hurt your dangly bits. A kilt now…
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: 2001 A Space Odyssey comes to mind. I never figured out what the giant space baby is supposed to mean? Was that a look into the future, when a giant baby would become President?
Yarrow
@Spanky: Dali would be so pleased.
jl
@rikyrah:
” Some people have a problem with the fact that Donald Trump doesn’t staff up his own resorts exclusively with American citizens. Others are more bothered by the hypocrisy ”
I don’t have time to skim all the comments, so maybe someone mentioned it. But the problem is also the corrupt policy. I heard on the news that Trump is cracking down on other visa programs, and trying to limit foreign student visas (of course). But for some weird reason, Trump thinks we need an expansion and streamline of the H-2B visa program. Expanding and streamlining just that one visa program is very important. Huh? So strange. Who wudda thunk?
Hard to justify that, since it seems to me to be the one where it is relatively easy to rip off the workers, and also the kind of work that is probably easier to find willing and able US workers. Agricultural work visa programs also high probability of rip off of workers, but can be argued that harder to find US workers in some areas and for some jobs.
But, then, probably there is exactly one weird reason Trump likes the program: it’s been, and continues to be, very good to Trump’s private bottom line, and same for his corrupt cronies.
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
Ace Ventura Pet Detective, The Mask and Liar Liar would like to have a word with you in a dark alley.
Gelfling 545
@TenguPhule: And I can think of one reason for it all, even if he had nothing to hide, though I do think he’s hidind a lot. It could be just pure arrogance. “How dare you question me, sir?”, etc.
schrodingers_cat
@jl: What was the visa that brought the first and thrid Mrs Ts to the United States?
TenguPhule
@jl:
Looking at it from the wrong angle.
It is wonderful for the businesses as they now have a captive workforce that can’t just quit when treated badly.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Brachiator:
Not too egregiously. But there were certainly many times when they would just make up some physics-sounding words to solve a technical dilemna. The scripts in fact had placeholders in those sections, “put something technical here” or words to that effect. And the result was, yes, irritating.
There we agree. I have never for a minute considered Star Wars to be anything even close to science fiction. Come on! Princesses, evil sorcerors, sword fights? What genre has those elements?
Star Wars is a very, very BAD attempt at sci-fi. It’s like the worst, most amateurish “space opera” of the 1930s. But paradoxically, it created an appetite for actual science fiction, in all media. So despite not even coming close to science fiction (as we agree), it has nevertheless been an enormous boon for the sci-fi market.
You’ve made the logical error of equating “I don’t care” with “no one cares”. People care to different degrees. You’ve made the second logical error that because some people have written hard sci-fi which is boring, therefore it is the accuracy in science that makes it boring.
Anyway, in the genre, I’ve seen people use the term “speculative fiction” for SF when they admit they’re going to be bending the rules of the universe.
Look, you pretend to have a principle that fiction has no rules. Suppose you were reading an ordinary mainstream novel, nothing magic or mysterious going on, and you were told in Chapter 1 that the main character’s husband died in a car accident 10 years ago. In Chapter 2 you are told that the main character’s husband is alive and went to work that morning. In Chapter 3 you are told that the main character’s husband died of cancer last week. In Chapter 4 you’re told that the main character has never been married.
Would you start to get irritated? But why? Why do we need to be consistent? It’s fiction, right? All lies? So how can any of those chapters be “wrong”?
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Prostitution?
Robert Sneddon
@Yarrow: Do you think that patriotic American jus solis citizens working 12-hour room-cleaning shifts in a hotel for eight bucks an hour and no health insurance aren’t amenable to providing information about who is doing what to who in room 305 to agents of a foreign government if they get five hundred bucks in untraceable bills for the info? How precious…
TenguPhule
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Laser guns, laser swords, Space Fighters, big stuff blowing up.
Check boxed everything our inner child wanted.
Major Major Major Major
@West of the Rockies (been a while): you feel sort of ghost-like or inter-dimensional.
Try to write or sketch.
jl
@schrodingers_cat: Smokin’ hot European model visa program? I would think that I would have long had an intense interest in that program, but for some reason, never thought about it before.
@TenguPhule: Yeah, that is my guess at the probable one weird reason that speaks to Mr. Trump
TenguPhule
@Robert Sneddon:
Actually a lot of them wouldn’t. Pride can be found even among the lowest of the low.
TenguPhule
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Time travel by slinging around the gravity well of the sun.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Finally, somebody else who hates Beckett.
Quinerly
For what it is worth, MSNBC is telling me that Scaramucci is personally worth over a billion dollars. Probably worth more than Trump.
TenguPhule
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
And the stinger is that all of the above are true, but the main character suffers from alzheimer’s and each chapter is a different moment in her life that she is reliving with no control over it.
Given the odds, this book may actually exist.
schrodingers_cat
@Quinerly: Money doesn’t buy you taste or good sense.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Brachiator:
Yes, it did make a difference. And, no, a lot of the problems with Wonder Woman would not have created any story problems to fix. It had a number of other problems that weren’t just inaccuracies. If you look at the writing credits for Wonder Woman, they’re convoluted and point to it going through too many rewrites with different teams.
[spoilers]
That’s how you end up with things such as Ludendorff having no motivation once it’s revealed that he’s not Ares; they forgot to make sure that the character held together after the reveal. He’s reduced to nothing more than a frothing maniac, which does not an interesting villain make. It’s how Dr. Maru ended up with no background and only one interesting scene. It’s how you end up with the heroes saving a town behind German lines, killing a bunch of Reichswehr soldiers in the process, and the Germans never bother to send any reinforcements to find out what happened. It’s how you end up with the German Army hosting a huge soiree near the front in the middle of their biggest military crisis of the war, one that has them ready to surrender within 24 hours.
There’s a shit ton of stuff in Wonder Woman that doesn’t make any fucking sense, and I have no use for people who try to justify it by saying that audiences don’t care. All that means is that lazy fucking audiences enable lazy fucking writers, and so far too many movies are lousy.
TenguPhule
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
This is true of every DC movie ever made. Why did you ever expect something different?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Depends. Some people make a huge deal about it, so much so that they ruin to movie for everyone else.
A good friend was always taken out of a movie because she was extremely knowledgeable about horses and could immediately recognize that an actor was not an expert horseman. She would also note when the wrong kind of horse was used for some activity.
Living in LA, a car nut city, I can’t stand it when morons go ballistic over the “wrong model” of a car being used in a period film, or wasting my time noting that the cars used are more cleaned up than an actual car from the period might be.
I was discussing the Romantic movie “Belle” with someone who absolutely loved the film. I deliberately withheld a mention of a historical detail that was glaringly wrong to me, because it was irrelevant to the other pleasures of the film.
There are also passive aggressive people who use historical or scientific errors as a hammer to beat a film or tv show that they don’t like. I also often find that these people have no aesthetic sensibility and have nothing to contribute about a film apart from nitpicking.
Hell, what was the movie about Americans capturing some German submarine with an Enigma coding machine? Fun movie, even though historically Americans were never involved. Loved the Guardian take on the film.
But you know, if some pre teen who likes action flicks had a good time, more power to ’em.
Omnes Omnibus
The crankiness in this thread is palpable.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
We have so much in common.
rikyrah
Disabled and disdained
In rural America, some towns are divided between those who work and those who don’t
jl
@Quinerly:
” For what it is worth, MSNBC is telling me that Scaramucci is personally worth over a billion dollars. Probably worth more than Trump. ”
How much did the asshole president make Scaramucci divest before he’d hire him?
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
Get off my flying car with lawn attachment.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus:
Seriously! I think it’s making me even crankier.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: To me its simple, if I forget myself, its a good movie. If I keep checking my watch, its not.
Quinerly
@schrodingers_cat:
Agreed. My take away was a bit different. The guy is half Trump’s age and worth more. I’m hoping that someone points that out to Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: We are all cranks here.
geg6
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
To you maybe. But anything that has the name Tom Cruise associated with it in any, even the most minor, way is automatically on my “never will see it” list. There is nothing he’s connected with that I want anything to do with in any way.
Ruckus
@Robert Sneddon:
It may not be that they wouldn’t do the deed for the money, it’s making a secure connection that is harder to violate. I’d bet that a lot of the people who come here have family back in the old country. That’s a point of control.
Yarrow
@Robert Sneddon: Of course some people can always be corrupted, but it’s contemptuous of people who work hard at crap jobs making low wages to say that because of that they’re easily bribed to be traitors. Sure seems like our current batch of traitors (the ones running the country) aren’t in that category. Donald Trump may have been facing bankruptcy without Russian money, but he’s never worked a crap job in his life. Or any real job.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
I hate his films. Never saw one that I liked. And his Batman series is tragically bad.
ETA: Actually, I’m pissed he made this film. I have long thought a great modern film could be made of the Battle of Dunkirk. But I won’t be seeing this one. He’s awful. I think only men like him.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: Good god.
Robert Sneddon
@jl: Trumnpwife number 3 came to the US on a regular tourist visa and was doing centrefold and high-end clothing photoshoots by the weekend of her arrival in New York. It’s a well-known pipeline in an industry requiring a lot of turnover of fresh faces to keep the magazine readers fed and Eastern Europeans have been especially sought-after for the Slavic high-cheekbones look (the skin colour can be dealt with by makeup and Photoshop). Yes it’s illegal but no-one cares enough to make an effort to crack down on it, a bit like all the Irish “tourists” who have been living and working in New York and Boston for decades.
Quinerly
@jl:
Scaramucci said in that briefing that he has to take care of some conflicts of interest before officially on board. I’m just hoping someone points out to Trump that his new Communications Director is 1/2 Trump’s age, Harvard Law, and worth more than his boss. SAD!!
TenguPhule
@geg6:
Edge of Tomorrow.
Where else can you see Tom Cruise’s character get brutally killed dozens of times and have a good laugh about it?
raven
@geg6: Born on the 4th of July was great.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: I considered linking that story earlier, but it was too depressing a read. Absolutely no hope there.
Cheryl Rofer
BACK TO THE PHONES!
The zombie Republican “healthcare” legislation is rising from the dead again. A vote is planned for next week on something that is being kept secret until the vote.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
At this point, who in their right mind ever left them?
jl
@rikyrah:
Thanks for link. Interesting human interest stories.. But,
” in the aftermath of a decades-long surge in the nation’s disability rolls”
That is complete BS. There has been no decades long surge in disability rolls. Simply false.
Most notable rise has been fairly discrete steps upward during 2001 and 2007/8 recessions, and probably due to the subpar macroeconomic management following both (miserable macroeconomic management on Dub’s watch, and OK but not great on Obama’s watch, though the Obama admin gets credit for salvaging a situation that cojld have been worse than the Great Depression).
Anyway, a number of reasons for otherwise very gradual and lose increase in macroeconomic burden of disability. None of them clearly or directly caused to people falling out of habit or work because they can get enough money to live when the can’t work.
Another piece of evidence is that the US has an extremely stingy disability relief program compared to other comparable countries. And they have higher prime age population to employment ratios (usually defined 25-54, or 25-64 years old). OECD stats has harmonized statistics, but no evidence over generous US disability insurance is the cause of these human interest stories.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@TenguPhule:
I didn’t, really. I went because I enough people said good things about it that I was hoping that there would be parts done well enough to make it worth a matinee price. And there were. The whole “beautiful naive woman with no understanding of civilization and so the handsome male lead will introduce her to it” story is very hard to do well, and full of all sorts of hideous pitfalls. Wonder Woman did that well enough to justify having gone. But it’s a good thing we saw that part before they arrived at the trenches, because the movie went downhill badly once they did, and there was only so much Gal Gadot could do to rescue it, though she tried valiantly.
Yarrow
@Quinerly: I saw about ten seconds of Scaramucci speaking and YUCK. He’s so slimy he made my skin crawl.
jl
@Robert Sneddon: So, lemme get this straight. There is no Smokin’ Hot European Model visa program? And sounds like no Smokin’ Hot Foreigner of Any Kind Model visa program? I figured this visa stuff is a boring topic, and looks like I was right. But, thanks for the info.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
First I agree with you. It’s a movie. I rarely go to one expecting to learn anything, I go to be entertained. I don’t expect them to be real.
But, historical movies should be reasonably accurate and U 571 was about as far from that as possible, other than there were U boats and enigma machines. It might be better if reasonable history was taught in schools, so that kids might know that U 571 was not in any way real. SF movies and books are presented as fiction, war movies a lot of times are not. And adults should know they are fiction, but then a lot of adults voted for drumpf, so there is a valid question about how much a lot of adults know about anything.
Robert Sneddon
@Yarrow: Who said anything about them being traitors (in US terms that’s giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war, a very specific set of circumstances written by foresworn traitors)?
There’s this guy, he says he’s from a newspaper and he’s offering five hundred bucks just for the details of the bimbo who’s boffing a guy I never heard of who’s in room 305. Bargain! If he ever wants to pay me for more information like that I’ll be happy to pass it on, here’s my mobile number. Call me any time! Hell, for a thousand bucks I’ll plant a bug for him!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
I did…
schrodingers_cat
@Robert Sneddon: IIRC you can’t work on a tourist visa. I thought in T land immigration violations are the worstest offence ever.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: We watching him for about that long over lunch. Ewwww. We all agreed he was hella punchable.
@TenguPhule: Do the commenters here who’ve been saying it’s a lost cause the whole time count?
TenguPhule
I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for this. //
Government by the bribe, for the bribe and only a bribe is where the Republicans want to steer the ship of state.
And they’re just piling on the coal.
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
[Spoiler Alert!]
Well, there wasn’t much point in sending reinforcements to a town that had just been wiped off the map with a gas attack. What were the reinforcements supposed to do, interrogate the corpses?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Brachiator:
And now there are a bunch of teens who have been taught bad history.
On the other hand, the British butthurt over it was pretty amusing, since their retellings of the Ultra story usually leave out that it was the Poles who initially cracked the Enigma machine (and whose officers never cracked and told their German captors about it) and got their reverse engineered machines to the French before the war started. Then the French made some advances on it before passing it on to the Brits. So, they don’t have a lot of grounds for complaint here.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
I couldn’t watch any of them even with a liter of bourbon and a barf bag. “The Truman Show” didn’t have me slinking out of the room, so I’ll allow that.
A Ghost to Most
@Yarrow:
Too soon to call him skeevy-moochie?
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Its the difference between a fighting withdrawal to break contact and a rout.
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
The night before Waterloo, Wellington and all of his generals had to be pulled out of a ball they were attending that night. You’d be surprised at how much entertainment goes on behind the lines.
ETA: The Duchess of Richmond’s ball
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
Did he do the fan-dang-go?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Cheryl Rofer:
Do they have enough votes this time?
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: So, now even what the bill is, is secret?
When people call they have to fricken order, instruct, and command, their GOPer moderate sadsack to not even participate in the charade.
I think a good opener would be ‘Listen, you idiot shitforbrains, are you planning to vote on some shit you don’t even know what it is? My goddamned dog can be trained to do that. I want to see your ass on the local news denouncing this whole corrupt asinine bullshit, or I’m going to see to it that your sorry ass is out of your cushy gummint job after the next election. ”
Good to be polite at the opening. Then you can move to ‘direct’ and if he or she won’t listen, then dial it up to ‘rude’.
Brachiator
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: RE: None of this made a damn bit of difference to the story in Wonder Woman. And writers will research stuff, and know exactly what happened, what might have happened, etc, and deliberately ignore it because it gets in the way of the story.
Yawn. Writing credits sometimes reflect who is officially credited, and who gets paid, but do not reflect who all who actually contributed to a script. There as some DC credit where a person got a writing credit because they had been attached to an earlier unproduced version of the movie, but that’s all.
It sounds like you had a story problem that most viewers did not. This does not invalidate your observation, but it does diminish the significance of it.
[spoilers]
I agree with you to some extent about Ludendorff and Dr Maru, but to me Ludendorff’s motivations are tertiary at best to the overall story. Of all the most recent comic book movies, the one villain I truly thought was handled well was Michael Keaton in “Spiderman Homecoming.” Helps that he is a good actor whose allowed to run with the role.
I think this is a great example of a detail that is irrelevant to anything other than a “realistic” film about World War I. It would be a pointless distraction in this film.
That’s not quite what I’m saying. There is a lot of stuff in Wonder Woman and other comic book films that make dramatic sense.As always, your mileage may vary.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne: The gas attack at least 36 hours after the fight in the town. Any military that completely loses communications with a unit like that and does absolutely nothing to find out what happened is made up of idiots. Which the Germans weren’t.
Yarrow
@Robert Sneddon:
We’ve had quite the discussion here about the use of the world “traitor.” It has a specific legal definition and and also has a common usage. I was using the latter.
As to your question, my original comment was about foreign governments having spies working at Mar-a-Lago. If Americans spied for foreign governments, they would be traitors. In the common usage sense, of course.
TenguPhule
@jl:
This time its something within the bill.
So like Harry Potter Book 7 then.
Ruckus
@geg6:
This.
There are a few actors that I don’t appreciate their work, there are a few who personalize a role and render it out of character of the work, but this one hits all the buttons.
Robert Sneddon
@jl: Well there is a Smokin’ Hot Model Visa program (of sorts) but it’s expensive and takes time and effort to process and the folks wanting to bring the models in have to prove to INS they can’t get an American citizen or existing green card resident to do the job. It’s cheaper and easier just to pay their airfare, sort out ESTA and a tourist visa for a three month stay and then do as many shoots as you can before they have to go back, or have them overstay their visa and do more shoots.
Someone I know slightly works in magazine and glamour production in New York. He is quite cynical about the business which pays him very well for not a lot of work.
jl
@TenguPhule: $12 Triump prayer towels (TM) to backstop the Medicaid slashes?
TenguPhule
@jl:
Republican: “You and what special interest donors, loser?”
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
They knew what happened — the unit got wiped out by the townspeople. That’s why they then killed all the townspeople.
Yarrow
@trollhattan: Whatever he did, he oozed slime. His demeanor was entitled, rude and oddly casual and familiar. He was just disgusting.
TenguPhule
@jl: I’m certain that any solution they come up with to solve the problem of 32 million uninsured will be the final one.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Brachiator:
Remember Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor? Japanese Zeros attacking civilian targets? The most disgusting thing about that movie, especially considering it was America Fuck-Yeah Michael Bay who was the director as well as producer.
The Imperial Japanese were nasty enough. Bay didn’t have to lie to make them worse.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: All the female scientists in that movie (Interstellar) were simpering dolts.
jl
@Robert Sneddon: Would that Smokin’ Hot Model Visa program be the H-2B or H-1B, or could it be both? Trump had found out another new thing, which none us stupid people knew before, which is that the H-2B is very important for some reason and needs to be expanded and streamlined, while the others need to be cut back.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
“Special interest donors won’t prevent you from ceasing to breathe.”
Is what I would want to say, but know better not to
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Brachiator:
No, it’s not. It’s asking for a movie to have human beings that behave like human beings. It’s asking for a movie in which things happen for a reason rather than just being randomly strung together events. It’s asking for movies in which the writers have actually thought about the subjects their stories are about.
Robert Sneddon
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: The Enigma machine was a Polish invention but they sold it to everyone including the French as well as the Germans, both of whom modified and improved the original design. Reverse-engineering Enigma messages in near-realtime was the Bletchley Park speciality with heavy automation of the process resulting in Colossus and a number of other remarkable achievements. Some other codes were also worked on there but the sheer quantity of Enigma texts broken quickly over the period of the war was the real miracle.
The U-571 incident was due to the Kreigsmarine’s insistence in improving their Engima machines by adding extra encoding wheels to the original Wehrmacht design which otherwise stayed remarkably standard throughout the war. Breaking submarine radio intercepts was a high priority and getting hold of a U-boat’s Enigma machine and its manuals was a big help in cracking the codes.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
We’re not allowed to say that yet.
schrodingers_cat
@jl: H-1B, A lot of Russians also come here for temporary work or study on J-1 (Exchange scholar)
Unlike F-1 or J-1, H visas are dual intent visas so you can start the naturalization process if your employer is willing to sponsor you or if you can self petition.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
A very special place in Hell.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: Incredible. BTW, against the backdrop of this story, the whole Trump thing about bringing back jobs… it’s calculated to appeal not to the person who doesn’t have a job and doesn’t know what to do, but to the person who has one and thinks people who don’t are lazy and, if they’re white, humiliating in that ‘Shanda fur die goyim’ way, like they’re embarrassing the whole race. (Well, without the Jewish part.)
Brachiator
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: RE: But you know, if some pre teen who likes action flicks had a good time, more power to ’em.
Anyone who goes to the movies for history is doing it wrong.
In fact, my spidey sense is always set off by the words “Based on a true story,” or “inspired by true events” that precede a lot of movies. Sometimes the movie’s creators deliberately do this knowing that it is not true, in order to better sell the movie to the audience. And the Coen Brothers made fun of this nonsense in the opening of the movie “Fargo,” which includes the following:
Joel Coen noted “If an audience believes that something’s based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept.”
Ironic, ain’t it?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
[More Spoilers]
It was made pretty clear by the movie that both Ludendorff and Maru were under Ares’ influence and even being controlled by him to some extent. One could argue that it’s boring for the red herring villains to turn out to have been mind-controlled, but that’s why they were acting that way and didn’t seem to have deeper motivations. They were not characters who had free will, unlike Diana and Steve.
Ruckus
@jl:
A lot of people think that the over generous US disability insurance is exactly that. How much money do they think people get on disability? That they are making payments on a million dollar house, a new Mercedes and only shop at wholepaycheck? That guy probably can make more money panhandling than working, what kind of a job can he get, being disabled, especially in the coal mining industry?
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
It’s a movie that ends with a battle between two genuine Greek Gods. See my point above about which characters are revealed as having been under mind control by one of the Gods.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne:
No. That’s not what happened at all. What the higher level German headquarters knew was that there was a very odd and very successful British attack at the front, after which a garrison behind the lines ceased all communications. That they were just massacred by the civilian population would have been an illogical assumption on their part, though, if they had made it, that would have been even more worrisome.
Your idea about the retaliation also is at odds with what is shown in the movie. The only person in the German Army who knew that the town was going to be subjected to a gas attack was Ludendorff. Operational level commanders couldn’t have relied upon that as their method of payback. Aside from which, the time delay in that bombardment was too great for a situation in which they conducted no reconaissance of the area.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
That’s not even taking into account his abortions of the Transformers movies. Especially the second one and the racial stereotypes
MisterForkbeard
@cmorenc: It helps that in the book, they explicitly say that the “Ironman” maneuver is a terrible idea and they don’t do it. :)
Robert Sneddon
@jl: IIRC it’s a “talent” visa, it’s not usually meant to be for a permanent job doing forty hours a week at a desk or in a factory which is what the H1-B is used for. It’s more for actors or other creative professionals such as journalists, film-makers etc., usually self-employed[1] or contracted for a particular limited-period operation (like a photoshoot).
[1]I know a couple of actors who work in Britain and around the world on films, TV shoots, theatrical performances etc. They both have limited companies whose only real asset is their acting ability. Anyone who hires “them” contracts with their company to do specific work, usually via a casting agency hired by the theatre or film company to deal with that side of things. It’s all very Byzantine hands-off especially when it comes to the money.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Mnemosyne:
If by “made pretty clear” you mean “Ares explicitly said the exact opposite,” sure. Central to Ares whole character is that humans don’t need to be mind controlled to use the tools he provides them in the most horrific ways possible.
bystander
Not that I was enjoying “Victor Victoria” but once Robert Preston bought Julie Andrews a meal in lowdown eatery in 1920s Paris. On every table were salt and pepper shakers. That killed it for me. Hated itever since unequivocally.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
If ever I am given a chance to do remakes of the Transformer movies, a Michael Bay stand-in will be stomped on by a Transformer at some point in every single film.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Brachiator:
Really, let’s see, the plot of that movie the way to survive a global climate disaster is to wish hard enough and only a doomed fool tries rally society to fix the actual problem. Why I am reminded of a certian political movement?
jl
@Robert Sneddon: Thanks for the info. My interest in the economics of visa programs is now officially perked.
Quinerly
@Yarrow:
Rumor is he is auditioning for Chief of Staff.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
You mean killing the Emperor and blowing up the Death Star will not magically make the universe come together in celebration and good will?
Brachiator
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: RE: I think this is a great example of a detail that is irrelevant to anything other than a “realistic” film about World War I.
Comic book movies, like mythology, ain’t about human beings. And dramatically heightened events are not the same thing as randomly strung together events.
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Honestly, that movie was so bad, I was forgetting it as I was watching it. But your point is noted.
Must admit I liked “Bad Boys.”
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: So you’ve not watched any of the Jason Bourne movies then, I assume. They’re really great (at least the first three were). Interesting that you have such a strong aversion to Damon.
raven
@Brachiator: I never watched it but it seemed to be the thing that triggered late onset PTSD in my dad. I guess the battle scenes were vivid enough to take him back to the WW2 Pacific.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you! I was debating between pointing out all the crabbiness and asking everyone who was cranky to please raise their hand so we could do a head count.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
This is who they are
OldDave
@trollhattan:
Comparison of IMAX 70mm (15-perf) vs. 35mm film.
eric
@Immanentize: The Verdict turns on the best evidence rule. correctly.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Brachiator:
If you want a good laugh, check out the Nostalgia Critic’s review of it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=11zZiL5YnYc
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Robert Sneddon:
This is, at best, an incomplete description, and borders on just flat out wrong. Commercial level cypher machines had existed for a while, but starting in 1932, the Poles made progress is breaking the military level machines, which added the plug board to the rotors. They were able to reverse engineer the specific machines the Germans were using. In July, 1939, they passed these to the British and French.
The Poles lost the ability to read Enigma transmissions in the last few weeks before the war, when the Germans added two additional rotors to their machines. The British undoubtedly did immense work at Bletchley Park in turning what they were given into something that could usually produce large scale intelligence in something close to real time. But the leg up that the Poles gave them was invaluable.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
I know I keep repeating this, but this is kind of shit that leads to Iraq style government.
Where you have to bribe everyone to get any work done because their job doesn’t pay enough for them that they have no choice but to accept bribes in order to make a living.
And once it gets in, it entrenches.
Yarrow
@Quinerly: Do you think Trump knew he said all this stuff about him? (Warning: Scaramucci is talking in the video and he’s disgusting to see and hear.)
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: I have watched one of them. Not too bad.
Watching Syriana and The Good Shepherd, back to back cemented this opinion. Both movies were pretentious and incredibly dull, with Matt Damon playing himself in both.
raven
@WaterGirl: Everybody is a fucking expert.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
The Spoils System of the 19th century was rooted out
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Know it all jackals know it all. Also too, fuck LBJ and Winston Churchill.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Brachiator:
Huh. I didn’t realize that all of the characters in Wonder Woman were gods. I thought it was just two of them, which is why I expected the rest to behave like human beings. My mistake.
SiubhanDuinne
Please would someone enlighten me so I don’t have to look it up on the Googlez? I keep seeing thing about the new Communications Director Scaramucci and whether he can dance the fandango — not just here but on FB and various twitter threads — and honestly, I can’t make sense of it. I know about the Commedia dell’Arte character, Scaramuccio (Scaramouche), but the “fandango” thing makes no sense. Is it some kind of pop culture reference, which I am guaranteed not to get? What does it even mean?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
Winston Churchill > Adolf Hitler
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Yes, by the Civil Service Act. Which is what these crazy fucking Republicans are trying to effectively destroy.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: That’s a low bar.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree with you about forgetting yourself in a movie. But a poorly made movie will induce me to start imagining a better movie as I’m watching the crappy one.
@Mnemosyne:
[More Spoilers]
Yep. I agree though that Dr Maru just kinda drops out of the film, and this is a weakness of the movie.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Point is, it can be removed
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne: In a previous thread, I posted the following, about Spicer resigning and being replaced:
I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango…
Nothing really matters, anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me
— Spicerian Rhapsody
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
Maybe. I guess my point was no historical figure is 100 percent perfect and should be viewed in context. Ghandi had problematic views on women, but he still had valid things to say and was very important for Indian independence, which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Okay, thanks. I have heard of Bohemian Rhapsody, but to the best of my knowledge have never actually heard it. Maybe I should do that.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Not quickly or easily once the mindset changes.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Gandhi was not responsible for millions of gratuitous deaths. Gandhi was a particularly effective politician with many human flaws.
ETA: Flaws including paternalistic views about women and untouchable castes.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I’m a big fan of The Rock.
@WaterGirl: At least I have an excuse!
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Here you go.
WaterGirl
@Quinerly: If true, that could be why Priebus was pissed about the hire.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: I remember 10CC’s “One Night In Paris” came out around the same time as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and I heard it on the radio almost as much, and yet today it is not part of the… how should I say? zeitgeist. Is it because Mike Myers never sang it in the movies?
Baud
@WaterGirl: I am cranky.
@schrodingers_cat:
I can meet that standard.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
Fair enough. Winston Churchill was the leader the UK needed at the time to win against the Axis, along with the rest of the Allies. The Axis, as evidenced during the war and before would have been far worse
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Mahatma Baud!
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Baud, your week old socks could meet that standard.
Probably.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Like.
WaterGirl
@raven: Completely agree with you about Born on the 4th of July, by the way. I never liked Cruise and thought he was just a pretty boy (though I don’t find that classic look attractive) until I saw that movie. That’s when I realized he could really act.
Still not his biggest fan, but I wouldn’t avoid a movie because he is in it.
germy
@Baud: Will that fit on a bumper sticker?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: The proper term among polite company is escorting.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Millions of dead Europeans==monster
Millions of dead Indians == Savior of the world.
BTW the allies would not have won the war without India’s contribution in men and resources.
Baud
@TenguPhule:
OT. Politico today
Quinerly
@WaterGirl:
Priebus will be gone before Labor Day.
Baud
@germy: Baud! 2020!: No genocide. You’re the genocide.
jl
@Baud:
” I can meet that standard. ”
If can fit on the bumper sticker, but Baud campaign needs to be very careful about promising to meet any standards.
How about ‘I’ll think about meeting that standard, but shit happens, you know?’
Edit: gotta shorten it for bumper, but can tweet it out.
Sab
@Mnemosyne: I feel that way about Jack Nicholson. He just sets my teeth on edge and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I’ve seen a lot of his movies and he just ruins it for me. I don’t know why. It’s just weird.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: महात्मा बॉड
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Absolutely! I wasn’t actually including you in the crankiness head count. Big difference between feeling glum and being cranky with the fellow jackals.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s not what I think at all. I won’t make excuses for the British Empire, but the world would have been a far worse place
India was a very important, yes. That’s why the UK promised them independence during the war
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, you and I are thinking of Stewart Granger.
Quinerly
George Will is concerned about the tendency of Scaramucci to “over flatter.” It’s ” unseemly,” he says. I guess he also lost count of the # of times Scaramucci said “I love the President.” I counted 10. Someone else has said it was 14.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Churchill was a good PM during WWII for the war effort, but his record is not blemish free, that’s all.
WaterGirl
Am I the only one here that occasionally sees a comment and thinks something like “I think that, too” only to realize that it was a comment by me that I had made earlier? In my defense, it only happens in long threads and if I’ve been away from a thread and then come back to it.
it always makes me laugh when I do that, just checking in to see if I”m the only one.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Nope Winnie was against it. India got its independence because Tories lost the election after WWII was over.
We have Atlee (as the British PM) to thank for India’s independence.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I am horribly chagrined to admit that I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Seriously, I fall apart on anything “Pop Culture,” starting in about 1960, maybe even a few years earlier (I was in high school 1956-60, FWIW). I regret it now, and to a little extent am trying to familiarize myself with the touchstones of my era, but it’s not the same as having been there at Woodstock, or getting stoned at Queen or Grateful Dead concerts. I did get stoned, and frequently, but it was more likely to listen to Tristan und Isolde or all six Brandenburg Concerti than anything in the then-current Zeitgeist.
I’ve missed out on a lot, I know.
Patricia Kayden
Jennifer Rubin is done with Trump. She’s 100% right that it’s downhill from here for Trump (and us).
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
Was he really so crucial? Weren’t there other old men in the UK who could go on the radio and say “Fight! Fight! Fight!” ?
I remember reading about an actor who was hired to go on the radio and imitate Churchill during WWII.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Frankly, I have no idea. The British left India because the British Indian Army finally turned against them. There was no way they could rule India after that.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m the same way, actually. I know what I know, but there are huge gaps in my pop culture knowledge. Nothing wrong with that.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
बॉड! 2020!: अगर आप इसे पढ़ सकते हैं, तो आप बहुत करीब गा रहे हैं
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh he was an asshole conservative no disagreement there. Sorry if I seemed like an Empire apologist.
Omnes Omnibus
@germy:
I would guess that the prime minister of a world power would do a bit more than that during a world war.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes I can read this, but the second half of the sentence makes no sense (you are singing very close?)
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
Agree. And I’m already on record as having Trump himself gone, or at least going, by mid-October (12-19th, I’m not fussy as to the precise date).
MomSense
I’m making kebabs, the kids are watching the Tour, and the beer is cold. The dog is in heaven with all her boys here, and life is good in my little corner of the world. Happy Friday everyone!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@schrodingers_cat:
And the best British general of the war (and, to my mind, the best army level commander produced by any country during the war) commanded primarily Indian troops.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
How’s this?
अगर आप इसे पढ़ सकते हैं, तो आप बहुत बारीकी से गाड़ी चला रहे हैं
ETA: Driving too close.
germy
@Omnes Omnibus: I guess I’m grumpy because I’m sick of seeing dolt45 do his “serious face” impressions of him.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: If you can read this you are driving the car carefully?
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Gets awkward when people are picking teams for Trivial Pursuit, thoug.
smintheus
The WSJ editorial writer Joseph Rago is dead. I’m not celebrating the poor guy’s death, but he struck me as a characteristically smarmy, know-it-all Dartmouth conservative.
He won an (undeserved) Pulitzer for his contrarian editorials railing against Obamacare. They weren’t impressive at the time, and have aged badly. Two of the editorials the Pulitzers cited were absurd critiques of the FDA’s decision to revoke agency approval of Avastin for breast cancer (based on its scientifically proven ineffectiveness). The ridiculousness of a third of Rago’s Pulitzer-winning editorials is summed up in its title:
Though Rago was an American History major, and all his WSJ pals described his work as “richly reported”, he apparently neglected to consider that the first Congress did in fact pass a law mandating people buy medical insurance. Oops.
Brachiator
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Thank you!!! Hilarious.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I blame google translate.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@germy:
Yes, he was that crucial. If not for the entire war, then certainly for a thirteen month period from May, 1940 through June, 1941 when the Soviets suddenly became a part of the Allies. No one combined both his political credibility (as much as it wasn’t really deserved) and determination to stay in the war after the fall of France.
After 1941, I’m not sure he was really that great. He remained an idiot when it came to military strategy, and Alan Brooke had to spend a lot of effort preventing a lot of his hare brained schemes from being put into effect. Still, the British public believed in him and I have no idea who could have replaced him.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I
mightwould venture a guess that the dog is not the only one who is in heaven with all her boys there. Happy weekend, MomSense.J R in WV
@Yarrow:
Don’t hold back…Who is it?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: कोई बात नहीं
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
He remained an idiot when it came to military strategy, and Alan Brooke had to spend a lot of effort preventing a lot of his hare brained schemes from being put into effect.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Nice one. And, much like Preznit Lying Littledick, the Star Child (pr whatever Clarke ended up calling it) appeared to be in a bubble.
Of course, the baby had less hair — but not by much.
And the music accompanying Lying Littledick should be the Benny Hill saxophone thing (Yakety Sax), not Strauss.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Brachiator:
Don’t mention it. Doug Walker is hilarious
trollhattan
@germy:
He was 1/Trump wrt being hands-on, and that was a good thing. His relationship with Roosevelt was utterly critical.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
You do realize, that it is only a short step from Tristan und Isolde to Twist and Shout. Hit it, Ferris Bueller.
debbie
@cmorenc:
Certainly not more absurd than Sandra Bullock’s return to Earth in Gravity? After getting knocked around and into large and immovable things, she crawls up on the beach in her skivvies — with no bruising? Ridiculous!
Timurid
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
William Slim?
The Lodger
@Quinerly: One would think a billion dollars would buy enough Do You Know Who I Am for just about anybody. Apparently, one would be wrong.
SFAW
@Sab:
Yeah, he annoys the crap out of me, too. But his presence won’t keep me from seeing a movie.
I feel the same way about Helena Bonham Carter. I know she’s an excellent actress, but something about her bugs the crap out of me. It may have been her “performance” as Bellatrix Lestrange — it was much too over-the-top, she was almost a caricature. That said, I (mostly) won’t avoid a movie she’s in, just because she’s in it.
smintheus
@Mnemosyne:
Adam Sandler?
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m surprised he even cast women. His films seem to me to only be written, cast and filmed for men and their fantasies of power and deepest fears. Women, if there are any, are ciphers.
I was just so put off by his Batman series. I hate superhero films, but I always like Batman and just loved Michael Keaton in the original films. So I was psyched when I heard that this supposed auteur was doing a reboot. Talk about bursting the bubble. Three completely shitty films and to add insult to injury, turning my beautiful city into a hellscape in the last. I despise him and will never again partake of any of his crappy films. He has nothing to offer me.
NR
@smintheus:
The first Congress required that captains of ships over a certain size have medicines on board, or to provide for crew members in case of sickness. Far from the same thing as forcing people to buy health insurance.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@geg6:
Rotten Tomatoes: 84%
Metacritic: 70%
From Wiki:
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Timurid:
Yes. His memoirs are also fascinating, in that they are as unreliable as those of any of the German generals, but for the opposite reason. Slim goes overboard giving everyone else credit and taking blame upon himself.
sdhays
@Quinerly: I don’t understand why he wants this crappy job. It has no power or authority or real influence over anything. I’m really confused about why he’s controversial enough to warrant Sean Spicer resigning over (I had a good guffaw over the line about people in the White House concerned that Scaramucci would be “amateur hour” – sounds like he’ll fit right in!) and I am baffled by why he has accepted the job.
geg6
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
There are a lot of popular films that suck donkey dick. For instance, The Godfather films. I really don’t pay a bit of attention to Rotten Tomatoes or any other movie reviews. I know what I like and Nolan’s films suck.
smintheus
@NR: Congress also required sailors to have medical insurance.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
dang, when OO is complaining about crankiness you know it’s on.
Major Major Major Major
@NR: God, go away already.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@geg6:
FWIW, I never liked Bale’s gravely Batman voice
TenguPhule
@smintheus:
He’s not that bad. Just overly type cast.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major: I pied them.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: me too, but their mere existence is grating.
Fair Economist
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: One thing that irritated me about Wonder Woman’s history was the assertion before WW went over the top that “this line hasn’t moved for years”. That wasn’t true by the armistice. The Germans surrendered because the combined arms tactics the British developed in Passchendaele were sufficient to crack WWI defenses and the allies had been advancing almost everywhere for the last three months of the war (the “Hundred Days Offensive”). By the end the Germans had abandoned the lines they’d been holding since the first few months of the war and were retreating too fast to bring all their supplies back with them. The Germans had also developed a way to deal with static defences, the stormtrooper tactics, and they had taken quite a bit of land in early 1918 before they were stopped by Allied manpower and material superiority.
The stereotype of WWI as hopelessly static had been passably close to the truth from late 1914 to late 1917 but it wasn’t true anymore by the end.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@geg6:
If that’s the way you feel, that’s the way you feel, but I’m not sure it stands up to much scrutiny. It is certainly true that his leads tend to be male, save for Interstellar (and I very much disagree with the characterization of the women scientists there as simpering dolts; that doesn’t describe Brand, and it is a gross mischaracterization of Murph), but they are not “fantasies of power and deepest fear.”
In The Prestige, Borden and Angier both exert power over women and emotionally abuse them, but it isn’t a fantasy. It’s horror, and is an expression of their self-destruction. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the interpersonal relationships in a horror movie tend to be very dark and grim.
In Inception, there’s really only one female character, Ariadne, since Mal is entirely (I think; there’s a lot of ambiguity about exactly what is going on) a projection of Cobb’s memories of the real person. She certainly represents his deepest fears, but he has to realize that it isn’t really her that he’s afraid of before he can confront limbo; it’s himself and his guilt. And Ariadne is the most useful and perceptive member of the entire team.
Memento only has three full characters, and we only see two of them through the perceptions of a guy who can’t form long term memories. Natalie takes advantage of Lenny, but so does everybody else, and she’s the only one who seems to develop actual empathy for him over the course of their encounters. There’s a lot of fear, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with women, but rather it’s about dealing with a world that one is no longer capable of comprehending.
The Batman movies, at least the first two, are more problematic, but more for a near total lack of female characters rather than their depiction, and in this regard, they are no different than the Michael Keaton Batman movies that you liked.
TriassicSands
a@geg6:
Tastes vary.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Fair Economist: There’s that. There’s also the problem that Erich Ludendorff, far from being the guy who was a fire breathing dead ender, had completely given up by August of 1918, and had resigned his post entirely in October, though that was as much to make sure the civilians to the blame for losing the war as anything else.
I think there could have been a very interesting plot that would have solved several of the movie’s problems: introducing a plotline, or at least a description background, of how it was Dr. Maru who convinced him not to give up and turned him into the person we see in the movie. It would have provided a plausible explanation for some of the historical discrepancies. It would have given Dr. Maru an actual purpose in the movie rather than being a prop in the final confrontation with Ares. And it would have established a motivation for Ludendorff.
Fair Economist
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Yeah, making Ludendorff into a cartoon villain was pretty irritating too. He certainly was a villain, later an important supporter of the Nazis, but he didn’t blow away adjuvants to keep them on their toes. Also, he survived the war by 20 years. I agree having Maru lure Ludendorff back into the war would have been better than what they did. I would have preferred using a fictional general.
Gravenstone
@Major Major Major Major:
I absolutely detest that movie. In keeping with the overweening thread of implausibility breaking even the deepest suspension of disbelief, that movie destroyed mine. So many things wrong, on so many levels.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Fair Economist: I’d be perfectly okay with them using Ludendorff, suitably explained. Having it be a real person gives the story grounding in reality. And turning him into a fire breathing dead ender wouldn’t exactly be a slander on him, considering what he was actually doing and would continue to do. The completely out of control stuff can be explained by the drugs Maru is feeding him.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus
Come sit by me. Actually there is no sitting at my place. We are dancing and singing at the moment.
TriassicSands
@geg6:
I have female friends who would disagree.
J R in WV
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Is it too much to ask for a name? (…best army level commander… during the war?)
Thanks,
ignorant hillbilly seeking knowledge.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Reality comment I see:
Why don’t you pie this ass!?? I did it days ago, thanks for the functionality you and Alain provided, And Ckeek !!!
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: I have never pied anyone, I just skip over their stuff.