[Traveller]

Briar King, on 02 October 2020 - 10:20 PM, said:

Watching End Game for the 2nd time just to see if it is still the piece of shit I found it the 1st time around.

I might even get around to watching it at some point.

[HoosierDaddy]

QuickTidal, on 03 October 2020 - 11:04 PM, said:

Macros, on 03 October 2020 - 10:37 PM, said:

If you have Netflix, you should really watch The Social Dilemma.
It's scary how much information the social media networks have about us all.

Just watched it tonight.

I mean, I knew all the stuff.

But damn it's scary seeing it laid out like that

Yep. I watched it too. Really messed up stuff!

When deep industry insiders are as concerned as they show here (I watched it too), I think it speaks to the severity of the problem. And it grows unchecked.

I logged onto facebook to alert long-time and old friends about the passing of my father. Let them know I was never on there, posted a message to his facebook for his old friends and colleagues, and logged right back out.

Facebook is a dumpster fire.

I can guarantee Google knows me inside and out. I accept that they do. They probably have an affect on me, I realize this. The convenience to my everyday life is worth it because I am AWARE of how intrusive and insidious it is and can actively seek out countermeasures. But, it STILL worries me some.

People need to break some chains.

[Macros]

It should be compulsory viewing in schools and for parents

[Tsundoku]

Fuckerburg et al tried to hit back at the doco ...

https://www.news.com...b298b4e392f0c81

https://about.fb.com...-Gets-Wrong.pdf

... and missed, IMHO.

[QuickTidal]

Finally got around to watching JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM...what's weird is it's not a TERRIBLE movie in concept.

Spoiler

The opening sequence and betrayal is fine and makes sense...the LONG and BORING ride to get the Dino's to the mainland/heal sick Blue plot line drags hardcore, but is thankfully juxtaposed against Mills and Co at the Lockwood estate trying to organize the selling/auction which is entertaining. The estate fight is GREAT, and felt really Spielbergian (even though this is not Spielberg, Bayona definitely aped that style). The denouement of Lockwoods granddaughter being his daughters clone and the reason Lockwood and Hammond fell out al those years ago is great too. It also gives them a reason to let the Dino's escape at the end...which happens not becuase it needed to for DOMINION....the embryos are obviously already gone so Dinos are going to be in the world...but that escape gives a good reason for the GOOD Dinos (Blue, T-Rex ect.) to get survive.

But the problem is that this whole movie exists as a sort of holding pattern...it exists to get from JURASSIC WORLD (which I like immensely) to JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, which feels like the movie Trevorrow has wanted to make the whole time.

so that makes for a lot of boredom and repeated plot points from previous films

Which reminds me, there is only two things I want from JW:D as far as the characters are concerned. I want Dr. Grant, Ellie Satler, and Ian Malcolm in the same room/scene again together. And I KNOW Trevorrow will do it because he was one of the ones who bemoaned JJ not getting Han, Leia and Luke together in a scene in the sequels. The second thing is that I want Malcom or someone to comment on the fact that no matter what...with Dino DNA on the table there will NEVER be peace. Someone is always going to come around and fuck with it for profit (or mad science)...Dennis Nedry, Peter Ludlow, Billy Brennan, Vic Hoskins, Henry Wu, and finally Mills and Ken Wheatley...ebven in JP III which is mostly a rescue movie, Grants assistant turns bad at the prospect of a fortune. I want this mentioned and dealt with in some way.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 October 2020 - 01:40 PM

[Malankazooie]

Facebook is the messaging tool for genocide. So as you're swiping through your racist uncle's timeline or stalking that high school head cheerleader who never even knew you existed, I hope your conscience can settle with that.

[Slow Ben]

QuickTidal, on 05 October 2020 - 01:38 PM, said:

Finally got around to watching JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM...what's weird is it's not a TERRIBLE movie in concept.

Spoiler

The opening sequence and betrayal is fine and makes sense...the LONG and BORING ride to get the Dino's to the mainland/heal sick Blue plot line drags hardcore, but is thankfully juxtaposed against Mills and Co at the Lockwood estate trying to organize the selling/auction which is entertaining. The estate fight is GREAT, and felt really Spielbergian (even though this is not Spielberg, Bayona definitely aped that style). The denouement of Lockwoods granddaughter being his daughters clone and the reason Lockwood and Hammond fell out al those years ago is great too. It also gives them a reason to let the Dino's escape at the end...which happens not becuase it needed to for DOMINION....the embryos are obviously already gone so Dinos are going to be in the world...but that escape gives a good reason for the GOOD Dinos (Blue, T-Rex ect.) to get survive.

But the problem is that this whole movie exists as a sort of holding pattern...it exists to get from JURASSIC WORLD (which I like immensely) to JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, which feels like the movie Trevorrow has wanted to make the whole time.

so that makes for a lot of boredom and repeated plot points from previous films

Which reminds me, there is only two things I want from JW:D as far as the characters are concerned. I want Dr. Grant, Ellie Satler, and Ian Malcolm in the same room/scene again together. And I KNOW Trevorrow will do it because he was one of the ones who bemoaned JJ not getting Han, Leia and Luke together in a scene in the sequels. The second thing is that I want Malcom or someone to comment on the fact that no matter what...with Dino DNA on the table there will NEVER be peace. Someone is always going to come around and fuck with it for profit (or mad science)...Dennis Nedry, Peter Ludlow, Billy Brennan, Vic Hoskins, Henry Wu, and finally Mills and Ken Wheatley...ebven in JP III which is mostly a rescue movie, Grants assistant turns bad at the prospect of a fortune. I want this mentioned and dealt with in some way.

The wife and I just watched his last night for the first time also.

You’re right it was, fine. I think it will depend on how good the next is. If Dominion is solid then it works. If it’s a flop then we had a solid first entry followed by meh.

[HoosierDaddy]

But I am a big Jake Gyllenhal (however the hell you spell that) fan. Love that guy for some reason.

Edit: Maybe he just really comes off as earnest. As in I buy into him as the character. Hmm. Maybe.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 06 October 2020 - 08:33 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

Oh, I met that as in general. I am a Jake fan in general. Yeah, Spiderman: FFH was one of the weaker entries I think in the MCU. I think I reviewed it earlier in this thread as such.

[Slow Ben]

I don't care what the option is after "or" in that question. The answer is always Lonesome Dove.


"Heres to the sunny slopes of long ago...."

[Slow Ben]

Briar King, on 07 October 2020 - 08:22 PM, said:

I'm so shedding tears when the news comes that Robert DuVall is no longer amongst us. One of the greatest. And no one even comes close to capturing Augustus McCrae like him.

I wonder if this will ever be remade? It doesn't need it but the tv wheels are always turning.

I sure as hell hope not. He IS GUS.

Although Steve Zahn didnt do a horrible job in Comanche Moon.

[Slow Ben]

Briar King, on 07 October 2020 - 11:49 PM, said:

Fucking David Arquette...

Exactly.

Fucking David Arquette.


Yeah. That was rough.

[Macros]

Wife had never watched Forrest Gump, so watched it last night. I forgot how many choke up moments were in it. Still a superb film

[Malankazooie]

Brightburn.

Question for those who've watched it: is it supposed to be the horror version of the origin of Superman?

"Take the World."

[QuickTidal]

So Patty Jenkins Is making a Cleopatra movie, and she's cast Gal Gadot, and the world has exploded with outrage as a result calling it Whitewashing.

Let's talk about it.

There are factions.

1. People who understand history, and who the Ptolemaic's were, and have utterly no problem with this casting.
2. People who don't understand history who think that all the Egyptian Pharaohs were all Upper Kingdom or Nubian. AKA dark skinned.
3. People who do know about history, but don't trust it at all and refuse to believe it so that they can die on a hill trying to make Cleopatra mixed or full tilt Nubian and claim that history has obscured this (nevermind that no obscuration exists about the rest of the Egyptian Pharaohs being darker skinned)...but they apparently did it to the Ptolemaic's...

Anyways. Cleopatra was an 8th Generation descendant of Ptolemy I Soter. Soter was the son of two Macedonian/Greek parents and he was one of Alexander the Great's personal bodyguards who divided up and ruled his lands after his death. In this case, Egypt (Alexandria) was the centre of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. The Ptolemaic's were so intent on keeping Egypt Hellenistic that they exclusively practiced inbreeding and sibling marriage. So for all intents and purposes Cleopatra was at least mostly (if not fully) Macedonian Greek (barring some dallying with Syrians and Persian aristocracy).

The historical 'weeds'...so people who don't care about this bit can ignore it I've spoiled this part.

Spoiler

Egypt of antiquity was not a black or white civilization. It was a mixing plot of various cultures of the upper and lower kingdoms and Nubia, and over the years those intermingled depending on who was in power. The insertion of Greek rulers at the tail end of what was ancient Egypt just melts into this pot. Thus Cleopatra is deemed by most scholars as majority Greek, with some strains of Selucid Persian and possibly Syrian blood in her based on some familial "stepping out" of the inbreeding as it were as I mentioned above.

But we can easily go further to remove the notion that Cleo was Nubian fully or in a mixed way. The sources that some recent-ish articles have used to make the case for this are both spurious and easily disproven. They largely refer to Cleo being noted as Black in the New Testament Book of Acts...the problem being that Cleo died 60 years before Jesus Christ supposedly lived. So that's a complete non-starter. Then there was an Austrian woman in the 90's who tried to use a skeleton found in Ephesus who she claimed was Cleo's half sister Arsinoe, that she had North African ancestry, when 1. The skeleton has never been proven to be Arsinoe in any way and has even been proven to be a decade too young to BE Arsinoe, 2. Arsinoe's mother was unknown but was not Cleo's mother, so there is no way to tie Arisnoe's heritage, whatever it was, to Cleo and lastly 3. The Austrian woman used Craniotomy to make the her claims about the skeleton/skull...a process that is deemed scientific racism and complete pseudoscience these days. More than one essay have been written using these two "sources" as reasons to believe that Cleopatra was Nubian or mixed. Neither holds up to the remotest scientific scrutiny. Not especially in the face of all the evidence that she was Greek, which includes actual descriptions penned down by both Caesar and Marc Antony that she was olive/fair skinned.

The bottom line is that the phenotype of Cleopatra could be found in most of the cultures of the modern day eastern Mediterranean, this especially includes the people of Israel (where Gadot is from), literally a jog over from where Cleopatra ruled.

And it blows my mind that confronted with this knowledge about the Ptolemaic's, the people getting outraged about this casting then jump to "Well, if she was Greek they should cast a Greek, not an Israeli!"...completely misunderstanding that the entirety of the Eastern Mediterranean was a mixing pot of phenotypes in Antiquity to a level that a modern day woman like Gadot would be at least as close to Cleo as an actual Greek would be.

But this is where we are though. The good and valuable fight to get more representation in Hollywood films has at times splintered into an outrage war that is slicing down to damned Phenotype to prove that it's "okay" for Gal Gadot to play Cleopatra. When in actuality, the fact that she's from Israel puts her closer to a Greek Queen of Egypt of Antiquity than people who are actually from modern Macedonia.

It's a non-issue made into an issue because a bunch of idiots on Twitter refuse to do their homework about the history they claim is being re-written.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

QuickTidal, on 14 October 2020 - 01:30 PM, said:

So Patty Jenkins Is making a Cleopatra movie, and she's cast Gal Gadot, and the world has exploded with outrage as a result calling it Whitewashing.

Let's talk about it.

There are factions.

1. People who understand history, and who the Ptolemaic's were, and have utterly no problem with this casting.
2. People who don't understand history who think that all the Egyptian Pharaohs were all Upper Kingdom or Nubian. AKA dark skinned.
3. People who do know about history, but don't trust it at all and refuse to believe it so that they can die on a hill trying to make Cleopatra mixed or full tilt Nubian and claim that history has obscured this (nevermind that no obscuration exists about the rest of the Egyptian Pharaohs being darker skinned)...but they apparently did it to the Ptolemaic's...

Anyways. Cleopatra was an 8th Generation descendant of Ptolemy I Soter. Soter was the son of two Macedonian/Greek parents and he was one of Alexander the Great's personal bodyguards who divided up and ruled his lands after his death. In this case, Egypt (Alexandria) was the centre of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. The Ptolemaic's were so intent on keeping Egypt Hellenistic that they exclusively practiced inbreeding and sibling marriage. So for all intents and purposes Cleopatra was at least mostly (if not fully) Macedonian Greek (barring some dallying with Syrians and Persian aristocracy).

The historical 'weeds'...so people who don't care about this bit can ignore it I've spoiled this part.

Spoiler

Egypt of antiquity was not a black or white civilization. It was a mixing plot of various cultures of the upper and lower kingdoms and Nubia, and over the years those intermingled depending on who was in power. The insertion of Greek rulers at the tail end of what was ancient Egypt just melts into this pot. Thus Cleopatra is deemed by most scholars as majority Greek, with some strains of Selucid Persian and possibly Syrian blood in her based on some familial "stepping out" of the inbreeding as it were as I mentioned above.

But we can easily go further to remove the notion that Cleo was Nubian fully or in a mixed way. The sources that some recent-ish articles have used to make the case for this are both spurious and easily disproven. They largely refer to Cleo being noted as Black in the New Testament Book of Acts...the problem being that Cleo died 60 years before Jesus Christ supposedly lived. So that's a complete non-starter. Then there was an Austrian woman in the 90's who tried to use a skeleton found in Ephesus who she claimed was Cleo's half sister Arsinoe, that she had North African ancestry, when 1. The skeleton has never been proven to be Arsinoe in any way and has even been proven to be a decade too young to BE Arsinoe, 2. Arsinoe's mother was unknown but was not Cleo's mother, so there is no way to tie Arisnoe's heritage, whatever it was, to Cleo and lastly 3. The Austrian woman used Craniotomy to make the her claims about the skeleton/skull...a process that is deemed scientific racism and complete pseudoscience these days. More than one essay have been written using these two "sources" as reasons to believe that Cleopatra was Nubian or mixed. Neither holds up to the remotest scientific scrutiny. Not especially in the face of all the evidence that she was Greek, which includes actual descriptions penned down by both Caesar and Marc Antony that she was olive/fair skinned.

The bottom line is that the phenotype of Cleopatra could be found in most of the cultures of the modern day eastern Mediterranean, this especially includes the people of Israel (where Gadot is from), literally a jog over from where Cleopatra ruled.

And it blows my mind that confronted with this knowledge about the Ptolemaic's, the people getting outraged about this casting then jump to "Well, if she was Greek they should cast a Greek, not an Israeli!"...completely misunderstanding that the entirety of the Eastern Mediterranean was a mixing pot of phenotypes in Antiquity to a level that a modern day woman like Gadot would be at least as close to Cleo as an actual Greek would be.

But this is where we are though. The good and valuable fight to get more representation in Hollywood films has at times splintered into an outrage war that is slicing down to damned Phenotype to prove that it's "okay" for Gal Gadot to play Cleopatra. When in actuality, the fact that she's from Israel puts her closer to a Greek Queen of Egypt of Antiquity than people who are actually from modern Macedonia.

It's a non-issue made into an issue because a bunch of idiots on Twitter refuse to do their homework about the history they claim is being re-written.

I've been having a similar rant on FB - Egypt nerd solidarity!

[Gorefest]

Indeed, where does it end? I bet that they'll even end up using an Arabian cobra, or worse, a Senegalese cobra (!), instead of an Egyptian one which is most likely the genus of asp that killed her. I mean, is nothing sacred anymore?

[Malankazooie]

Missed opportunity. Should have given the role to Scarlett Johansson or Emma Stone. That would have really stirred up a hornets nest. Ima disappoint.

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 14 October 2020 - 03:01 PM, said:

I've been having a similar rant on FB - Egypt nerd solidarity!

It's so strange to watch some people climb around to make this a thing when it needn't be a thing. Gadot is a fine casting for the role.

Gorefest, on 14 October 2020 - 03:21 PM, said:

Indeed, where does it end? I bet that they'll even end up using an Arabian cobra, or worse, a Senegalese cobra (!), instead of an Egyptian one which is most likely the genus of asp that killed her. I mean, is nothing sacred anymore?

I mean, you're being facetious, but the general argument I've seen bandied about is literally "How dare you whitewash Cleopatra when everyone knows she was a fine black Queen!"...and those people hold up pseudoscience as their proof.

If anything Jenkins and Gadot end up on the defence about something that should never have been a problem. And we're only talking about it because those outraged people have tried to make it a thing. It's not like they cast a POC in the role and people are annoyed and claiming it should be a Greek one (See: the Ariel The Mermaid controversy for an example of this)...they literally cast on character with Gadot and they are getting shit on for it. It's insane and worth calling out as hypocrisy.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 14 October 2020 - 03:39 PM

[Gorefest]

It is silly, but at the end of the day ot is just a few loud mouths on Twitter. Why even bother gracing them with the attention? Wcerything triggers everything these days.