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ZattMurdock

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ZattMurdock last won the day on October 3 2017

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  1. Just leaving this here: There are actual THR writers pissed off at the article talking about it privately. Won’t name names.
  2. Basically, what I was talking about on the Marvel’s thread is this: Film Twitter and the film bros discourse these days — from both sides of the Stuckmann / Willems or Grace Randolph / Nerdrotic spectrum — have become even more white oriented and clearly not beneath clickbait shit like this. DaCosta attended the actual film premiere one day before. She was celebrating her birthday that happened to be the same day of the film’s opening and same day that the actors and crew were finally able to promote the film. This kind of discourse isn’t Marvel’s fault, and the discourse here on THR is not as bad as that Variety article released days before the film’s release — but as much clickbait non-sense as that one. Which is unfortunate, to say the least.
  3. Here’s the thing: in my opinion, Scorsese is an useful idiot here. It’s not that film bros or the online discourse truly cares about what he thinks. Hell, judging by Killers of the Flower Moon’s box office, they clearly do not. Our culture doesn’t really care about Scorsese’s films or what he has done for cinema. I’m well aware that he is an absolute cinema nerd, and I know that people like you and me will write walls of texts that are well intentioned and with the heart in the right place. But what our culture actually cares about is the discourse, it’s the online clout, it’s liking what is ‘cool’, it’s the ‘absolute cinema’ meme. I think you are misunderstanding what I’m saying here, I’m very much against anti-intellectual attacks on film critics, the issue is that RT clearly muddled the waters with what kind of shit is allowed there as film criticism these days. With all due respect, if you think my criticism for Snyder’s joints is any different than my criticism to the MCU, you clearly don’t understand me. I think those were legitimately bad films, that’s my opinion on them. I think The Marvels is middle to lower tier MCU, I think Marvel Studios failed Nia DaCosta and her cast by not delaying the film to 2024 because despite all its flaws and issues that I do have with that film, I think that there is an actual heart and chemistry there that could benefit from a proper promo tour with the whole cast. And this isn’t about me worrying about the future of the MCU or DCU either, btw. I don’t think they are going absolutely anywhere, they are here to stay. What is unfortunate is that when a film like The Marvels or Birds of Prey fail to engage with the box office — and I’d rank both of them very similarly — is that this complicates the chances for future films like those. It is what it is. I’m talking about a much broader issue, which is the lack of understanding that our streaming overlords — unlike a lot of the film buffs optimists here think — aren’t going anywhere either. What I’m worried about is the future of the movie theaters as a popular experience. What I’m worried about is how dumbed down our discourse is, how tribalistic it is and how clearly even you that took the time to write this well thought out reply see me as an ‘enemy’ or inside ‘team Marvel’ when I’m team ‘superhero genre’. I’m ‘team’ blockbusters. I’m team cinema as a popular moviegoing experience to everyone. When a place like this becomes toxic to people that just want to see themselves represented in the big screen, when this place gets to a point that it will laugh at the face of its admin because she is an woman that is pointing out how fucked up this board has become, it’s an issue that I cannot overlook. And I’m a straight 42 year-old dude. Imagine women and other minorities that only browse around here. The kind of discourse that this place has descended it’s not something I’m comfortable to engage with, and no, bigotry isn’t justified. My whole point about Scorsese is that the film bro discourse made him the poster child, with every single film that break out or get ‘hyped up’ to break out since the pandemic started being very much white centered stories, from No Way Home to Barbie and Oppenheimer. Nevermind the fact that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a future lead by Black women mourning the death of an Afro-American that became both a hero in the big screen and real life did break out one year ago but people keep putting these imaginary metrics against the MCU films to justify that is declining. I don’t think the MCU is dying. I don’t think Gunn’s DCU won’t be profitable. What I think is that we are getting more and more influenced by a kind of vitriol criticism that doesn’t help movie theaters, and Scorsese, even if not voluntarily, became a poster child of that movement. It’s gamergate tactics, just like we’ve seen with how politics across the globe since 2013. ‘Absolute Cinema’ is the kind of harmful rhetoric just like ‘ethics in videogame journalism’ back in the day, even if film bros fail to realize that they do play a part on validating the ‘go woke, go broke’ discourse.
  4. Here is the thing: fillm criticism - and the whole film bro discourse and the online tribalism that Cap has mentioned - is part of the whole online eco system. Tribalism is the founding block of the online culture, and it’s not a coincidence that in our online forever war ouroboros, YouTube and Twitter actively favor content that is based on outrage, look no further than the exaggerated YouTube thumbnails that became a staple on YouTube about literally anything, including film ‘criticism’. Even if we don’t mention the obvious presence of an ever growing culture war, shit like this ended up validated by film bro discourse — or the dumbification of discourse, that spreads either in culture, politics or literally anything: When we validate Grace Randolphs of the world, we made a whole generation of Armond Whites types. And that’s not even the bigger issue. Our time on Earth is finite. Our time online comes with a cost, that it is doing anything else other than not being online. YouTube and Twitter, social media in general do not want us at the movies. Films, blockbusters or not, are funded with a shitload of money, when social media generates content for free for them. They want us embroiled with our culture wars and close to our devices, so it’s easy for Apple to fund quixotic ‘absolute cinema’ endeavors, because they do understand that the endgame is online, not at a movie theater. Cinema is cinema. Marvel is cinema. Scorsese is cinema. Going to the movies is absolute cinema. It doesn’t matter if it’s Nolan, the Russo Brothers, Greta Gerwig, Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels and Five Nights At Freddy’s? Absolute Cinema. Do you know what isn’t cinema though? Our slow descent into a NPC culture isn’t cinema. Instagram stories aren’t cinema. Twitch streams aren’t cinema. YouTube’s whole eco system, from our quixotic cinema saviors Stuckmann or Willems to the Grace Randolphs and Nerdrotics of the world aren’t cinema. Our dumbfication isn’t cinema. Unfortunately, we are still descending into it, and I don’t see it changing. Cinema will survive. Movie theaters, unfortunately, as we came to know them at least, I do not think so.
  5. The problem isn’t @SpiderByte. The problem is how hard this message board has a problem recognizing they have a fandom wars issue. I don’t post here anymore, I think BOT has fallen to 4Chan/NeoGAF levels of discourse — not that other places don’t have a similar issue either — but when you get a more civilized discourse on the seventh sphere of hell that is Twitter than here, you can’t expect people to stick around, especially when the moderation team has an obvious blind spot for what goes on here. You have Marvel and DC fans here, with loads of film bros discourse in between. Lots of them are fans of both, like myself. I don’t post or talk about film here anymore not because I’m not passionate about Marvel, not because I’m not excited for its future, but when users shit even on the actual forum’s admin for calling out a lot of the sexist shit spewed around The Marvels, regardless how one can feel about the film or not, no wonder that people don’t see BOT an welcome place to talk about these films. Not only it’s not worth to ‘debate’ with people that I wouldn’t discuss absolutely anything, but when the moderation team — that clearly has some Marvel fans, that’s not really the issue — goes out of their way to over compensate not being called "Marvel shills" by silencing the very few sticking around here to talk about these films, it becomes pointless. You can see "brave soldiers" fans of Superman Legacy on this very page, and I don’t think you needed me to point that out, it’s just to point out that this holier than thou attitude here against the one dude still sticking around that is passionate enough to talk about Marvel Studios films is pointless. Film bros are as much annoying and passionate as the most staunch Marvel or DC fans. It’s franchise wars all day, every day, while we are slowly seeing the popular experience of moviegoing die, with lots of pointing fingers thrown around. I saw this Stuckmann video here days ago and I don’t think film bros or Stuckmann which I actually respect understand what is going on: Not only Scorsese was wrong, but this whole film bro discourse about Marvel and blockbuster is the reason why movie theaters are doomed to become niche and go the way of live theater. What makes movie theaters is the POPULAR EXPERIENCE. When you have film bros echoing misguided criticisms by an old man that doesn’t accept that the times have changed, no wonder that the few people that still used to care about going to the movies will stop caring. If anything, Scorsese is the enemy, not the MCU. He is the one employed by Apple, Netflix, Amazon and etc. He is the one working for those with an actual vested interested on killing cinema, regardless how much I’m a fan of the man. Tragically, what is killing the movie theater experience is the complete lack of vision from film bros that don’t get that in order to movie theaters to survive as they are, they need to be popular. Shaming people for loving the MCU or whatever other franchise that puts butts at movie theaters seats isn’t helping. Unlike Stuckmann’s optimism, I don’t believe the ‘westerns’ analogy and narrative that is thrown around here. I don’t think movie theaters can survive with Barbie, Super Mario Bros and Oppenheimer every other full moon. I don’t think that literally anything other than Deadpool 3 will break out next year and with that, we keep marching to the moviegoing experience slow death and a handful of films can’t save the movie theaters of becoming more and more like a live theatre expensive and boutique experience. The irony is that blockbusters will survive. The Avengers, Star Wars, Spider-Men and Batmen of the world will survive. What we are speed running is the death of movie theaters, while Apple is happy to fall in the film bros good graces by funding $250m vanity projects to Scorsese. I’m not sure if there is something to be done about it. Same for climate change. Maybe it’s already too late, but then again, who cares am I right? I’m sure that a lot of film bros would love to see movie theaters die before acknowledging that Marvel carried a lot of the water up until 2019 and that a MCU film single-handedly reignited the box office less than two years ago with Spider-Man: No Way Home. Other than that, @SpiderByte is right. It will be two years of hell, even Deadpool 3 blowing up while everything meltdowns at the box office. And if Marvel Studios gets an excellent turnaround leading to Secret Wars, it will be declared dead after that, just like it does every other day here for the last ten years. I’m pretty sure that the death of cinema next year will be proclaimed next year too, when BOT darlings fail to perform. Hell it might not even take that long for the next meltdown. My advice to @SpiderByte is the same I gave to myself and @Cap the other day: ‘Asgard is not a place, it’s a people’. I’m still speaking my mind on Twitter/Bluesky with my same username, I just don’t feel comfortable as the punching bag for what I believe it has become an incredible toxic place to talk about film. There I don’t need to deal with film bro types angling me at every post I make like <censored> or deal with the absolute wasteland of 40-year-olds or even older than me that get their feelings hurt about films featuring women like The Marvels revealed a lot of people here. These aren’t my peers, these aren’t people I’d want to talk with neither ‘debate’, and if it makes you feel unwelcome as well my advice is, leave. We don’t need this shit on our lives. Best of luck to BOT, but it has always been the other way around: we don’t need BOT, BOT is that it need us. If the crowd is what it is today, if they will go out of their way to mock extremely valuable users for the absolute shitfest that was The Marvels Opening Weekend thread or for just being passionate about Marvel, DC or whatever gives you a kick, know that it’s BOT that needs you, not the other way around. If the crowd that BOT will cater to its this one, I just don’t want anything to do with it, and I invite anyone that doesn’t feel welcome here anymore to do the same. TL;DR: The biggest enemy of cinema was never the MCU. MCU, contrary to what Scorsese thinks, actually makes cinema. What is killing cinema is Scorsese’s employer Apple, Netflix. It’s TikTok, YouTube, vapid and fast content. When film bros trash popular films, they are helping to speedrun the death of the movie theaters. Movie theaters wouldn’t survive in the 80s with Scorsese’s films, it wouldn’t survive now with whatever film bros hoped it was popular like it was when they were kids. If we all we do is trash the popular experience, no wonder that the public will just watch whatever at their phones. It’s hard to compete with free, a bunch of weirdos constantly complaining about blockbusters will only accelerate the complete assimilation of our content streaming overlords.
  6. I just think that definition is just to help adults to not feel that bad for you know, enjoying a bunch of characters that use the force, use laser guns or are bitten by radioactive spiders, gain powers when they hit puberty or you know, are trillionaires that decide to "fight the crime" or something.
  7. The lots of edgelord kids that go apeshit on that film would like to have a word with you. And yeah no, The Batman is 100% a kids movie, through and through. Being edgy doesn’t equal being adult oriented. Regardless how much the mystique it’s sold to kids is that "it’s an adult film".
  8. Yeah we desperately need Star Wars and Marvel general threads. But I do think you are wrong though lol. It’s absolutely okay to enjoy kids movies as an adult. Marvel, DC and Star Wars are absolutely nostalgia joints as far as I’m concerned.
  9. I strongly disagree with that way of seeing these films. I think there is a case to be made that there isn’t a single superhero film ever made to adults ever, including Nolan’s joints OR rated-r films featuring characters from the superhero genre, including Deadpool and Joker. Being edgy isn’t being thoughtful to an adult audience whatsoever. The exception that I can think of is the sequel to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, the HBO series Watchmen, but even that one is kid friendly.
  10. Who cares how anyone calls these films? I do think that people keep forgetting this:
  11. See, I might disagree hard on this. Maybe not giving a fuck about a film’s tracking might be a good thing. Marvel Studios working silently on their thing and being able to deliver might actually be a refreshing change of pace, especially with a film that is made controversial like this one due to things far beyond their control. We are in very sui generis circumstances with the strike still going on, The Marvels is easily the biggest film getting a release amid the strike that couldn’t have actors promoting it. If the film is actually good, and that’s a major all upper case IF, I don’t necessarily think that holding out close to its release is a bad idea. Trust the film, trust that the fans will come if you deliver might be seen as naive, but it can work.
  12. I understand what you are saying my man. What I’m saying is that if we ignore the bad pre-sales numbers, if they actually have a good film here, maybe starting to not give a fuck about tracking and believing in the film they have might actually be a good thing. Without actors able to promote the film, maybe having an actual good film can help the film’s legs in the end. Yes, it’s all a product in the Marvel machine, but I wouldn’t call a bad strategy to hold this one close to their chest necessarily. We know that the current climate surrounding the film isn’t good, we know that if they did fan screenings what we would get is fans either hyping or shitting the film, but who would trust the fans if they were hyping it up? It’s not going to help when it comes to the OW sure, we are used to Marvel Studios films being frontloaded yes, but maybe The Marvel can break that rule if it’s, you know, good?
  13. Eternals was a complete mess of a release and I do think that might have radically changed how Marvel deals with plot sensitive films. Whenever I think of Eternals pre-release, I don’t even think of its reception, I think of Twitter going apeshit over Variety making an article that Harry Styles was on the post credits scene. As someone that follows BOT a long ass while I get what you are saying, but at same time, would it be that bad if Marvel started to trust more in the buzz for the film closer to its release than just risk early leaks? Imagine that this film is in fact good, would it be that bad if Marvel changed their protocol to trust on legs over a big splash at the box office? If I’m remember correctly, Guardians, Vol. 3 also had an insanely late impressions and review embargo as well.
  14. Yeah I am not taking any impressions now without an insane amount of salt. I saw an Argentinian critic that did see something yesterday - it could be the only 30 minutes thing that ViewerAnon is saying - but either way I’m not worried. If the film is bad, it’s bad. If the film is good, it’s good. We will know soon enough.
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