The Discussions Around Whether Or Not To Vote For Kamala Keep Being Dominated By Very Loud Voices Shouting

Zach Snyder Sandwich

I originally posted this on the cracked forums in a discussion about the new Justice League movie, in particular the very mixed reaction to Man of Steel and Zach Snyder's work in general.

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I think the things that make Snyder both loved and reviled by such a variety of people can be explained in a metaphor. Movies are like sandwiches. There are basically three layers on which movies work:

Style. The visuals, the music, the pacing, the swell of emotion, etc. This is the bread – it won’t singlehandedly save a bad sandwich/movie, nor is it absolutely necessary that it’s brilliant, but it adds a lot to the experience, and some people experience a movie primarily like this. 

Text. What the characters actually say and do, the story itself, and so forth. This is the meat, cheese, vegetables, condiments, all the substance. The actual quality and depth of the dialogue belongs here. 

Subtext. What the writer/director is actually saying under the surface, whether intentional or not. This is the nutritional content. You usually have to be looking for it to properly appreciate this level of storytelling (or sandwich making), but it makes it a richer experience. 

Most people experience movies in a mix of the first two levels. But people who really love movies and take the time to examine them tend to appreciate the third level a lot more. And different people care about different things. The film critic known only as Vern is the guy who wrote Seagalogy, which examined the movies of Steven Seagal for their themes, both individually and running, and took them seriously and critically as art. (It’s one of the best and most entertaining works of criticism I’ve ever read.) Like many Zach Snyder fans, Vern tends to be most interested in Style and Subtext, and wrote both a positive review and a later counter-post about some of the common arguments against it. The same goes for Phil Sandifer, who wrote an interesting defense of Man of Steel primarily on subtextual ground.

These levels can mix together different ways. Steven Spielberg movies are very consistent: the Style, Text, and Subtext are all doing exactly the same thing, and the result is a very smooth experience, regardless of quality (which is generally excellent).

But you don’t have to be that consistent to make it work. Take the Somewhere Over the Rainbow scene from Face/Off. The Style is beautiful and magical, while the Text is a kid watching a bunch of people getting brutally murdered. Consequently, the subtext is about how the pervasive tragedy and horror of violence affect even those who aren’t involved and may not even understand what’s happening, and the jarring contrast makes this all the more provocative.

Paul Verhoeven is a master of this sort of thing. Robocop, on the surface, is one of the most badass action flicks of the ‘80s. The text strongly resembles an unusually well-done Superhero origin story, with strong characters, memorable dialogue, and taut plotting. But the Subtext is a rich and hilarious satire of American culture that’s constantly criticizing its own story. It's a terrific movie on any of those three levels, but put together they become something truly special. It's like Judge Dredd enacting the life of Christ.

So a Spielberg Sandwich tastes different every time, but it’s always a perfectly balanced mix of ingredients, and it tastes exactly as healthy as it is (which also varies). A Verhoeven Sandwich tastes like junk food, but is surprisingly nutritious. A Michael Bay Sandwich is actually an entire bag of Oreos. The first bite is so delicious, but by halfway through you start to feel sick, by the end you actually are sick, and Heaven help you if you try a Bay marathon.

On those three levels, Zach Snyder is brilliant at Style, very clever at Subtext, but utterly clueless about Text, and ignorant about how the three fit together. Take Watchmen. It’s a gorgeously stylized realization of the comic, and all the rich themes are intact. But the violence (for example) is all wrong; one of the main themes is the awful pointlessness and tragedy of violence, and in the comic, it’s horrifying. That theme is still there, but Snyder shoots it fetishistically, Rodriguez-style, reveling in long fight scenes and beautiful splashes of blood and gore. The result is less provocative than confounding. Like, are we supposed to be having fun, or not? Similarly, the casting seems spot-on, yet the acting is incredibly uneven, because Snyder doesn’t adapt the dialogue to the rhythms that work when spoken aloud, and doesn’t adjust the flaws in the comic. Malin Ackerman got a lot of crap for her performance, but she plays Silk Spectre II perfectly as written. SS2 is a poorly-written character in the comic, spouting comic-book style dialogue.

Or Sucker Punch. It looks great, and thematically it’s an angry and brilliant condemnation of misogyny and sexism, but the characters are one-dimensional, the plotting is video-game level, and it fetishizes the characters too much for the criticism to actually stick correctly.

There’s probably no better representative of the good and bad points of Man of Steel than Jonathan Kent. Stylistically, Snyder’s vision of this small-town Kansas farmer is beautifully realized, full of gorgeous imagery and inspiring-sounding speeches about hope, all climaxing in his mythic death by tornado while saving others. And Kevin Costner pours his heart and soul into the role. But textually, he’s a stubborn jackass who tries to convince Superman to not save people. He dies because he goes back to save the dog, while telling Superman not to save him for no damn reason whatsoever. Meanwhile, the subtext is a provocative condemnation of the concept of small-town middle America being the heartland of the country; it’s turned ultra-conservative, and conservatism has degenerated into moral bankruptcy while loudly proclaiming its morality. So either the American heart is deeply corrupt, or Kansas ain’t in Kansas in more, if you catch my drift. (I’m not sure I catch my drift)

For some people, that imagery combined with Costner’s soulful performance makes the character work. For others, that subtext is intriguing enough to make it worthwhile. For the rest, it’s absolutely infuriating for obvious reasons – you hate him for being awful, and you subconsciously hate him for making the story so slow and pointlessly grim.

And, more to the point, doing all three of those together just doesn’t work. He can’t be the inspirational heart of the movie, and one of the principal antagonists, and also a satirical take on American Conservatism, while having anything remotely to do with god-like aliens punching each other over whose genocide is the morally correct one. The other problems largely fall into that.

So some people eat their Man of Steel Sandwich and go, “Man, this bread is off the hook!” (or whatever you kids are saying these days) Others say, “For something with this much junk in it, it’s surprisingly nutritious, and wrapped in a crust that’s quite exquisite.” And everyone else is like, “This is a terrible sandwich! Sure, the bread is good, but it doesn’t go with these ingredients at all! The meat is month-old bologna! The cheese is great (the cheese is Russell Crowe), but it’s only on the first half. There’s way too much lettuce, the tomatoes are bad, and the jalapenos somehow aren’t even spicy! And even if, for some insane reason, you actually want mustard, ketchup, mayo, and salsa on the same sandwich, you don’t drown the entire thing in all of them. By the end, you can’t even taste the bread!”

But hey, at least it’s not a bag of oreos.

I'm 34 but feel like this

Reblog if you’re 30 or older

This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!

My attempt to reduce the US Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Amendments as tweets.

*curtsies* So, I really, REALLY don't want to offend anyone, Duke, but a question has been bothering me for a really long time and I was afraid to ask it because I didn't want to piss off anyone and since you're really eloquent and knowledgeable, I thought I'd ask you. So here it goes: you always say that arts and sciences are equally important, but how can analysing Chaucer or ecopoetics or anything similar compare to biomedicine or engineering in improving human lives? I'm genuinely curious!

*Curtsies* All right. Let me tell you a story: 

When I lived in London, I shared a flat with a guy who was 26 years old, getting his PhD in theoretical physics. Let’s call him Ron. Ron could not for the life of him figure out why I was wasting my time with an MA in Shakespeare studies or why my chosen method of providing for myself was writing fiction. Furthermore, it was utterly beyond him why I should take offense to someone whose field literally has the word “theoretical” in the title ridiculing the practical inefficacy of art. My pointing out that he spent his free time listening to music, watching television, and sketching famous sculptures in his notebook somehow didn’t convince him that art is a necessary part of a healthy human existence. 

Three other things that happened with Ron: 

I came home late one night and he asked where I’d been. When I told him I’d been at a friend’s flat for a Hanukkah celebration, he said, “What’s Hanukkah?” I thought he was joking. He was not.

A few weeks later, I came downstairs holding a book. He asked what I was reading and when I said, “John Keats,” he (and the three other science grad students in the room) did not know who that was. This would be like me not knowing who Thomas Edison is.

One night we got into an argument about the issue of gay marriage, and at one point he actually said, “It doesn’t affect me so I don’t see why I should care about it.”

Now: If Ron had ever read Number the Stars, or heard Ode to a Nightingale, or been to a performance of The Laramie Project, do you think he ever would have asked any of these questions? 

Obviously this is an extreme example. This guy was amazingly ignorant, but he was also the walking embodiment of the questions you’re asking. What does art matter compared with something like science, that saves people’s lives? Here’s the thing: There’s a flaw in the question, because art saves lives, too. Maybe not in the same “Eureka, we’ve cured cancer!” kind of way, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Sometimes the impact of art is relatively small, even invisible to the naked eye. For example: as a young teenager I was (no exaggeration) suicidally unhappy. Learning to write is what kept me (literally and figuratively) off the ledge. But I was one nameless teenager; in the greater scheme of things, who cares? Fair enough. Let’s talk big picture. Let’s talk about George Orwell. George Orwell wrote books, the two most famous of which are Animal Farm and 1984. You probably read at least one of those in high school. Why do these books matter? Because they’re cautionary tales about limiting the power of oppressive governments, and their influence is so pervasive that the term “Big Brother,” which refers to the omniscient government agency which watches its citizens’ every move in 1984, has become common parlance to refer to any abuse of power and invasion of privacy by a governmental body. Another interesting fact, and the reason I chose this example: sales of 1984 fucking skyrocketed in 2017, Donald Trump’s first year in office. Why? Well, people are terrified. People are re-reading that cautionary tale, looking for the warning signs. 

Art, as Shakespeare taught us, “holds a mirror up to nature.” Art is a form of self-examination. Art forces us to confront our own mortality. (Consider Hamlet. Consider Dylan Thomas.) Art forces us to confront inequality. (Consider Oliver Twist. Consider Audre Lorde. Consider A Raisin in the Sun. Consider Greta Gerwig getting snubbed at the Golden Globes.) Art forces us to confront our own power structures. (Consider Fahrenheit 451. Consider “We Shall Overcome.” Consider All the President’s Men. Consider “Cat Person.”) Art reminds us of our own history, and keeps us from repeating the same tragic mistakes. (Consider The Things They Carried. Consider Schindler’s List. Consider Hamilton.) Art forces us to make sense of ourselves. (Consider Fun House. Consider Growing Up Absurd.) Art forces us to stop and ask not just whether we can do something but whether we should. (Consider Brave New World. Consider Cat’s Cradle.) You’re curious about ecopoetics? The whole point is to call attention to human impact on the environment. Some of our scientific advances are poisoning our planet, and the ecopoetics of people like the Beats and the popular musicians of the 20th century led to greater environmental awareness and the first Earth Day in 1970 . Art inspires change–political, social, environmental, you name it. Moreover, art encourages empathy. Without books and movies and music, we would all be stumbling around like Ron, completely ignorant of every other culture, every social, political, or historical experience except our own. Since we have such faith in science: science has proved that art makes us better people. Science has proved that people who read fiction not only improve their own mental health but become proportionally more empathetic. (Really. I wrote an article about this when I was working for a health and wellness magazine in 2012.) If you want a more specific example: science has proved that kids who read Harry Potter growing up are less bigoted. (Here’s an article from Scientific American, so you don’t have to take my word for it.) That is a big fucking deal. Increased empathy can make a life-or-death difference for marginalized people.

But the Defense of Arts and Humanities is about more than empirical data, precisely because you can’t quantify it, unlike a scientific experiment. Art is–in my opinion–literally what makes life worth living. What the fuck is the point of being healthier and living longer and doing all those wonderful things science enables us to do if we don’t have Michelangelo’s David or Rimbaud’s poetry or the Taj Mahal or Cirque de Soleil or fucking Jimi Hendrix playing “All Along the Watchtower” to remind us how fucking amazing it is to be alive and to be human despite all the terrible shit in this world? Art doesn’t just “improve human lives.” Art makes human life bearable.

I hope this answers your question. 

To it I would like to add: Please remember that just because you don’t see the value in something doesn’t mean it is not valuable. Please remember that the importance of science does not negate or diminish the importance of the arts, despite what every Republican politician would like you to believe. And above all, please remember that artists are every bit as serious about what they do as astronomers and mathematicians and doctors, and what they do is every bit as vital to humanity, if in a different way. Belittling their work by questioning its importance, or relegating it to a category of lesser endeavors because it isn’t going to cure a disease, or even just making jokes about how poor they’re going to be when they graduate is insensitive, ignorant, humiliating, and, yes,  offensive. And believe me: they’ve heard it before. They don’t need to hear it again. We know exactly how frivolous and childish and idealistic and unimportant everyone thinks we are. Working in the arts is a constant battle against the prevailing idea that what you do is useless. But it’s bad enough that the government is doing its best to sacrifice all arts and humanities on the altar of STEM–we don’t need to be reminded on a regular basis that ordinary people think our work is a waste of time and money, too. 

Artists are exhausted. They’re sick and tired of being made to justify their work and prove the validity of what they do. Nobody else in the world is made to do that the way artists are. That’s why these questions upset them. That’s why it exasperates me. I have to answer some version of this question every goddamn day, and I am so, so tired. But I’ve taken the effort to answer it here, again, in the hopes that maybe a couple fewer people will ask it in the future. But even if you’re not convinced by everything I’ve just said, please try to find some of that empathy, and just keep it to yourself. 

To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American writer (via macrolit)

my s/o is cute and talented rb if ur s/o is cute and talented

Okay I know that Nick Cage is the Internet’s favorite movie lunatic but we really need to talk about Sam Neill

Like, sure, he’s more simmery-crazy than explody-face crazy but this motherfucker kook it up with the best of them.

Like, if all you know him from is Jurassic Park, just take the SIX INCH RETRACTABLE CLAW scene, multiply it by a thousand, and you get the rest of his career.

 Motherfucker was in a movie with Isabelle Adjani (The Queen of the movie lunatics) where she contorts herself into a miscarriage that makes her bleed from the ears and gives birth to a demon-fetus-doppelganger-monster and held his own.

He was scarier than any of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park…

Then there is this shit:

(Seriously, if you ever feel like watching the Omen series, you can skip Omen II and just go to Omen III because Sam motherfucking Neill. If you really have to know about Omen II — there is a bowl cut and some birds. That’s about it.)

The guy makes Malcolm McDowell look like Morgan Freeman.

(I just love how fucking pleased with himself he is)

In conclusion Sam Neill is an underrated mad genius thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Oscar Nomination Predictions

Once I get around to finishing up a few of the high-praised films I haven't gotten to (Selma, American Sniper, Mr. Turner, a few others), I'll do a best films list, but I don't think viewing those will change my predictions here too much.

On the other hand, finally seeing Whiplash (which is amazing) convinced me that it has a better chance than I thought, so who knows?

Best Picture The last three years have had nine nominees, so I'll put that many, more or less in order of likelihood. I'll be genuinely shocked if one of the top four doesn't show up. Boyhood Birdman The Imitation Game Selma The Grand Budapest Hotel Theory of Everything Whiplash Gone Girl American Sniper And if there's a tenth nominee, I think it'll be one of these, in this order of likelihood: Foxcatcher - [The enthusiasm for this one seems very limited, but then again, Miller's other two movies (Capote & Moneyball) were more of the "respect" than "love" kinda movies, and they got nominated anyway. He definitely has his fans in the academy. Nightcrawler -A solid Dark Horse here. Unbroken - Opinions are very mixed, and even the positive reactions seem to be in the "good, not great" category. It might get in on sheer "heroic WWII flick" factor, though. Mr. Turner - Unknown enough that it might get lost in the mix, but it's certainly universally praised. Interstellar - Probably wishful thinking to even put it as the "least likely nominee", but I imagine it'll get enough support to have a very, very distant chance. After all, it's been hanging on in the lower parts of the charts to make a good $25 million more than expected. Also, I'd love to see this get an Oscar bump at the box office, which should be enough to get it over $200 million and maybe even in the top 10 of the year. Not that box office or awards matter that much at the end of the day, but it would make this kind of crazy ambitious sci-fi - and original films in general - easier to get through the system. Also, it was awesome. Director

These three seem pretty well locked: Richard Linklater (Boyhood) Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) Ava DuVernay, (Selma) But the last two I'm not sure about at all. I guess this is the order of likelihood to my mind: Wes Anderson - Grand Budapest was fantastic, and dazzlingly made. I imagine Anderson will finally get a directing nod on the "It's his time" vote, but it still might be too quirky to get broad support. Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game is certainly an excellent film and is going to get a lot of nominations, but the directing seems fairly straightforward. Or maybe it's just a shock that something that middle-of-the-road feeling came from the guy who did [i]Headhunters[/i]. Anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if something flashier got in instead. Clint Eastwood - apparently American Sniper is the usual "rough around the edges but highly effective" thing late-period Eastwood does, which has a way of splitting opinions. Plus, he already has two directing Oscars, so there's not exactly an overwhelming sense of him being under appreciated. Still, he'll probably get a number of votes from older members.

Damien Chazelle - Whiplash is absolutely incredible, and it might pull off the final slot on sheer quality.

David Fincher - This probably depends on how much the Academy actually liked Gone Girl. I have a feeling it's just lowbrow enough that Fincher will miss the shortlist.

Actor Michael Keaton (Birdman) Eddie Redmayne (Theory of Everything) David Oyelowo (Selma) Benedict Cumberbatch (Imitation Game) The top four there are probably locks; certain the top two are. The last slot seems like a battle between Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Jake Gyllanhaal (Nightcrawler), Ralph Fiennes (Grand Budapest), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper), and Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner). I guess I'll bet on Fiennes, but none of the others would surprise me. I'd really love to see Miles Teller get it for Whiplash, unlikely as that may be.

Actress

Since Hollywood doesn't give enough great leading parts to women, this category is a lot more likely to go to more obscure performances. Julianne Moore (Still Alice) Reese Witherspoon (Wild) Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) Jennifer Aniston (Cake) Felicity Jones (Theory of Everything) Longshots: Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond The Lights), Shailene Woodley (The Fault In Our Stars), Jenny Slate (Obvious Child)

Supporting Actor JK Simmons (Whiplash) Edward Norton (Birdman) Ethan Hawke (Boyhood) Robert Duvall (The Judge) Chris Pine (Into the Woods) Pine is probably a risky prediction; Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher might be a safer bet. I would love Tyler Perry to pull a surprise nomination for Gone Girl, and that's not entirely out of the question.

Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) Emma Stone (Birdman) Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer) Rene Russo (Nightcrawler) Meryl Streep is probably a wiser bet, but I think that would be 100% an "It's Meryl Streep" vote. Then again, she got nominated last year for exactly that. Keira Knightley might get swept in if The Imitation Game has any coattails. (she's very good, but not in a particularly flashy way) Carmen Ejogo (Selma) and Carrie Coon (Gone Girl) are longshots. I've also heard Kristen Stewart is outstanding in Still Alice, and I would love for her to get nominated the same way I want to see Tyler Perry get one.

Original Screenplay

Birdman - Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo Boyhood - Richard Linklater The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness Dan Gilroy - Nightcrawler Paul Webb - Selma

Mike Leigh might take Nightcrawler's spot for Mr. Turner. The LEGO Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller) and Top Five (Chris Rock) wouldn't shock me. Justin Simien (Dear White People) would be a surprise.

Adapted Screenplay

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn The Imitation Game - Graham Moore The Theory of Everything -  Anthony McCarten Whiplash - Damien Chazelle Snowpiercer - Joon-ho Bong, Kelly Masterson

I doubt Guardians of the Galaxy will get in (if The Dark Knight couldn't nominated), but it'd be a gas if it did.