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Post by XAsstCoach on Aug 14, 2018 1:13:58 GMT -5
Watched Pacific Rim 2: Uprising while on the flight to the US. Loved the first one...very entertaining. But as I was watching the sequel, dawned on me that Hollywood is basically bending over to play up Chinese characters just so they can tap into the Chinese market.
Rewind several years ago...was rumoured that Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End had about 10 minutes cut out because the Chinese censors felt the character Sao Feng (played by Chow Yun-Fat) depicted the Chinese poorly. I watched it in Shanghai, but did not notice anything was cut because I saw the theatrical release in Shanghai before I bought the Blu-ray release...and I could not make any comparison by then.
Another not known fact is there is a quota of foreign films allowed to be shown in China...unless its co-produced by a Chinese company. So now you will see a bunch of films with Alibaba Production, Tencent production, etc.
So what I am seeing now is that Hollywood is trying to play up the Chinese characters as savoirs. In Martian it was a Chinese firm that helped speed up production of space ships to save Matt Damon's character. In PR2:Uprising, a Shanghai firm who was portrayed as a possible villain turns out to be the ones who almost single handedly saved the world by their young female boss...who is more likely a Shanghai princess instead of the head of a high tech conglomerate (no offense meant towards women, just that I don't buy that she could have been the head of this tech company). Shoot, she saved the two main characters by piloting a home built jaeger (built by one of the main character...a kid) but afterwards she was not seen as the two "heroes" were walking down Mt. Fuji.
Kind of interesting to see Hollywood suck up to the Chinese censors.
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Aug 14, 2018 1:17:03 GMT -5
Post by XAsstCoach on Aug 14, 2018 1:17:03 GMT -5
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
HILARIOUS!!! Jack Black takes the cake with his portrayal of a teenage girl changed to an old fat man's body. Was laughing so hard on the plane that tears were rolling. Definitely would watch this again...probably on the flight back to Shanghai.
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 14, 2018 10:30:05 GMT -5
In Martian it was a Chinese firm that helped speed up production of space ships to save Matt Damon's character. This was faithful to the book, so has nothing to do with Hollywood. And your memory is wrong. The US sends up a rocket with food supplies needed to return to Mars to save the stranded spaceman, but the rocket fails. It looks like everyone is now doomed to die until the Chinese offer up one of their rockets which happens to be nearly ready to launch.
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Aug 14, 2018 12:52:05 GMT -5
Post by gnu2vball on Aug 14, 2018 12:52:05 GMT -5
In Martian it was a Chinese firm that helped speed up production of space ships to save Matt Damon's character. This was faithful to the book, so has nothing to do with Hollywood. And your memory is wrong. The US sends up a rocket with food supplies needed to return to Mars to save the stranded spaceman, but the rocket fails. It looks like everyone is now doomed to die until the Chinese offer up one of their rockets which happens to be nearly ready to launch. Maybe so, but the narrative with the Chinese threat sounded better.
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Aug 18, 2018 9:51:09 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by ironhammer on Aug 18, 2018 9:51:09 GMT -5
Was planning to watch Mile 22, but wife had other ideas and made me watch Crazy Rich Asians instead. It's a romantic comedy, and rom com is usually not my...preferred genre. I can't think of any good ones recently, and I have to go way back to find rom coms I truly enjoy (i.e. When Harry met Sally, Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, Four Weddings and a Funeral).
But I had read the book (well kinda forced to, again, by my significant other, who is a huge fan of the novel), so I have an idea what it is about. The novel is a biting satire on the mega wealthy world of elite Singaporeans and the hijinks that those rich and shameless engage in, seen through the eyes of Rachel Wu, an ordinary middle class New Yorker engaged to a man from that world. I found the novel mildly engaging, a sort of trashy novel you buy at those airport bookstores and indulge in while waiting to board the plane.
So I went in watching the movie without much enthusiasm or high expectations, but came out surprised that I enjoyed it. In fact, in some respects, the movie is an improvement upon the book. Michelle Yeoh for example, who plays Eleanor, the antagonist to Rachel, gives a more nuanced performance than the book character. In the novel, Eleanor was more of a 2 dimensional over-the-top villain, whereas in the movie, you kinda understand where Eleanor is coming from and why she hold certain views, even if you disagree with her. And Awkwafina was hilarious as Wu's best friend.
Some of the things I don't like, the movie toned down some of the satire on the rich and the overall plot is kinda predictable. A sort of modern day Cinderella but in an Asian setting. But all in all, I had a good time watching it, which is more than I can say with most rom com these days.
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Aug 19, 2018 21:28:06 GMT -5
Post by XAsstCoach on Aug 19, 2018 21:28:06 GMT -5
Watched "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" again. Seriously, I think Jack Black should get some award for playing a teenage girl turned into an "overweight middle aged man", as she would put it.
Also thinking this is actually a sequel to the original with Robin Williams, and not a reboot. Thought at the end of the 1995 version the Jumanji board ended up on a beach to be picked up by an unsuspecting person. Well, "WttJ" started off with an unsuspecting person picking up the Jumanji board from the beach in 1996. And there was a reference to the house Allan Parrish built in Jumanji. And of course, Van Pelt is the bad guy in this movie...though he looks a whole lot different than the small stature Van Pelt with the pith helmet seen in the 1995 movie.
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Sept 4, 2018 1:43:18 GMT -5
Post by XAsstCoach on Sept 4, 2018 1:43:18 GMT -5
Went to watch Mission Impossible: Fallout. Good action film, and glad they continued the story-line from #3 with his ex-wife, though I think they made it too obvious as to who the secret terrorist is. At least to me he outed himself too early in the movie, but they tried to keep it a secret until the last 40 min.
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Sept 23, 2018 1:23:43 GMT -5
Post by Wolfgang on Sept 23, 2018 1:23:43 GMT -5
I, Tonya
Watched it this evening. Didn't watch it till now because I already lived through the Tonya-Nancy drama back in 1994 and I didn't think I would enjoy reliving it. Turns out, the movie was actually quite good and entertaining and, at times, hilarious.
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Sept 27, 2018 0:17:08 GMT -5
Post by XAsstCoach on Sept 27, 2018 0:17:08 GMT -5
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Sept 27, 2018 8:01:46 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Sept 27, 2018 8:01:46 GMT -5
Sadly, I think Rowling would have done better to have stayed with what she knew. Setting these new stories in America was a mistake because she doesn't know the path through the cultural minefield. She also faces the problem that every writer of prequels faces -- we know Dumbledore eventually duels and defeats Grindelwald. We know Nagini ends up being servant/slave/lover/pet of Voldemort and then gets her head chopped off by Neville. It is constraining to work within that sort of framework. Anyway, a big part of the complaints is that there was a grand total of one character of Chinese ancestry in the entire first series. Then we are introduced to our first-ever Korean character and she is an evil serpent lady? Or if not evil now, at least a will-be evil serpent? It also means that through the whole first series, whenever they were treating Nagini as an animal they were really dehumanizing an Asian woman?
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Sept 27, 2018 20:27:48 GMT -5
Post by ironhammer on Sept 27, 2018 20:27:48 GMT -5
Sadly, I think Rowling would have done better to have stayed with what she knew. Setting these new stories in America was a mistake because she doesn't know the path through the cultural minefield. She also faces the problem that every writer of prequels faces -- we know Dumbledore eventually duels and defeats Grindelwald. We know Nagini ends up being servant/slave/lover/pet of Voldemort and then gets her head chopped off by Neville. It is constraining to work within that sort of framework. Anyway, a big part of the complaints is that there was a grand total of one character of Chinese ancestry in the entire first series. Then we are introduced to our first-ever Korean character and she is an evil serpent lady? Or if not evil now, at least a will-be evil serpent? It also means that through the whole first series, whenever they were treating Nagini as an animal they were really dehumanizing an Asian woman? It could have been worse, Fantastic Beast was alright, not as great as Harry Potter of course, but not a bad film. At the end of the day, what matters is not the restrictions of a prequel but the almighty dollar that counts. Warner would not be making these films if they don't think they can make a buck off of it. The same logic applies to those Michael Bay Transformer movies. Those were dreadful movies by any conventional yardstick of measurement, but there was a demand (and money to be made) for it.
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Sept 27, 2018 21:06:11 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Sept 27, 2018 21:06:11 GMT -5
Sadly, I think Rowling would have done better to have stayed with what she knew. Setting these new stories in America was a mistake because she doesn't know the path through the cultural minefield. She also faces the problem that every writer of prequels faces -- we know Dumbledore eventually duels and defeats Grindelwald. We know Nagini ends up being servant/slave/lover/pet of Voldemort and then gets her head chopped off by Neville. It is constraining to work within that sort of framework. Anyway, a big part of the complaints is that there was a grand total of one character of Chinese ancestry in the entire first series. Then we are introduced to our first-ever Korean character and she is an evil serpent lady? Or if not evil now, at least a will-be evil serpent? It also means that through the whole first series, whenever they were treating Nagini as an animal they were really dehumanizing an Asian woman? It could have been worse, Fantastic Beast was alright, not as great as Harry Potter of course, but not a bad film. At the end of the day, what matters is not the restrictions of a prequel but the almighty dollar that counts. Warner would not be making these films if they don't think they can make a buck off of it. The same logic applies to those Michael Bay Transformer movies. Those were dreadful movies by any conventional yardstick of measurement, but there was a demand (and money to be made) for it. I actually liked the first movie, except for a couple of things that mainly involved her obvious misunderstanding of the subtle aspects of US culture and history. It was clear that she wanted to show the American predilection for the death penalty as morally wrong, and she had the method of execution be "the chair" (an obvious reference to the electric chair, although her chair dipped a person into some sort of magical death fluid). And there was a "Magical Congress" instead of a "Ministry of Magic". But this Magical Congress Of The USA was founded in the 1690s ... when there was no "USA". Her writings about native Americans have generally shown that she has no fricking clue about either 1) how different the different tribes were, and 2) how little the Hollywood stereotypes (even the supposedly good ones about natives being mystically sensitive to nature) reflect reality. And the few times she even came close to approaching THE great United States social issue -- race -- she shows absolutely no understanding for the complexity with which it is woven into US culture. She also seems to have no clue about just how big and diverse the US is.
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Sept 27, 2018 21:13:55 GMT -5
Post by ironhammer on Sept 27, 2018 21:13:55 GMT -5
It could have been worse, Fantastic Beast was alright, not as great as Harry Potter of course, but not a bad film. At the end of the day, what matters is not the restrictions of a prequel but the almighty dollar that counts. Warner would not be making these films if they don't think they can make a buck off of it. The same logic applies to those Michael Bay Transformer movies. Those were dreadful movies by any conventional yardstick of measurement, but there was a demand (and money to be made) for it. I actually liked the first movie, except for a couple of things that mainly involved her obvious misunderstanding of the subtle aspects of US culture and history. It was clear that she wanted to show the American predilection for the death penalty as morally wrong, and she had the method of execution be "the chair" (an obvious reference to the electric chair, although her chair dipped a person into some sort of magical death fluid). And there was a "Magical Congress" instead of a "Ministry of Magic". But this Magical Congress Of The USA was founded in the 1690s ... when there was no "USA". Her writings about native Americans have generally shown that she has no fricking clue about either 1) how different the different tribes were, and 2) how little the Hollywood stereotypes (even the supposedly good ones about natives being mystically sensitive to nature) reflect reality. And the few times she even came close to approaching THE great United States social issue -- race -- she shows absolutely no understanding for the complexity with which it is woven into US culture. She also seems to have no clue about just how big and diverse the US is. True, but it is kinda unrealistic to incorporate all those things in a 2 hour fantasy film...
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Sept 27, 2018 21:24:50 GMT -5
Post by mikegarrison on Sept 27, 2018 21:24:50 GMT -5
I actually liked the first movie, except for a couple of things that mainly involved her obvious misunderstanding of the subtle aspects of US culture and history. It was clear that she wanted to show the American predilection for the death penalty as morally wrong, and she had the method of execution be "the chair" (an obvious reference to the electric chair, although her chair dipped a person into some sort of magical death fluid). And there was a "Magical Congress" instead of a "Ministry of Magic". But this Magical Congress Of The USA was founded in the 1690s ... when there was no "USA". Her writings about native Americans have generally shown that she has no fricking clue about either 1) how different the different tribes were, and 2) how little the Hollywood stereotypes (even the supposedly good ones about natives being mystically sensitive to nature) reflect reality. And the few times she even came close to approaching THE great United States social issue -- race -- she shows absolutely no understanding for the complexity with which it is woven into US culture. She also seems to have no clue about just how big and diverse the US is. True, but it is kinda unrealistic to incorporate all those things in a 2 hour fantasy film... It was just glaringly different than the other books. From the standpoint of an American, she rather smoothly integrated magical UK culture into real UK culture, including either directly or by analogue many cultural issues like British social classes and attitudes about the rest of Europe. And of course her quiddich was football (soccer). I just don't feel like she understands the US at all.
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Sept 27, 2018 21:32:44 GMT -5
Post by ironhammer on Sept 27, 2018 21:32:44 GMT -5
True, but it is kinda unrealistic to incorporate all those things in a 2 hour fantasy film... It was just glaringly different than the other books. From the standpoint of an American, she rather smoothly integrated magical UK culture into real UK culture, including either directly or by analogue many cultural issues like British social classes and attitudes about the rest of Europe. And of course her quiddich was football (soccer). I just don't feel like she understands the US at all. Not disputing that, but I'm saying it could have been worse.
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