[Crazy Rich Asians (2018)]

9 hours ago, aghst said:

This was an okay movie but I don't understand the broad appeal, a story about a one-percenter family, which is suppose to represent how Asians want to be portrayed in the Western media?

Especially after all the hate crimes endured by Asian-Americans since the onset of the pandemic?

 

AAs are aspirational and at least as brand-conscious as any other group.  But they're also hard-working overachievers, whose successes are earned, not inherited through generational wealth, though I guess the children in this movie are portrayed as wildly successful despite coming from a family which is going to pass down generational wealth to them.

But is this true?  Scions of very rich families are often slackers, not driven to succeed.  Many have guilt about their inherited wealth and try to compensate by doing a lot of charitable and non-profit work.

None of this is depicted in this movie.

It just seems hard to identify with people who are worth what, 8 figures, 9 figures, maybe billions, even if they're the same ethnicity?

 

 

 

I think it's worth pointing out that Rachel is really the only Asian-American character in the movie (and she was technically born in China).  Her Chinese mother immigrated to the US, but the rest of the characters are Singaporean.  That's really the culture that's being portrayed in this movie; it is distinct from any iteration of American culture, so projecting anything about Asian Americans onto these Singaporean characters isn't really fair.

Also, I think it's just as much of a stereotype to say that Asian Americans are hard-working overachievers who earn their success as it is to say that scions of very wealthy families either are slackers or have guilt over their inherited wealth.  There are plenty of Asian Americans who are lazy and/or who come from extremely rich families and inherit wealth and/or who work hard for their success, etc.; there are also plenty of children of extremely wealthy people who do work hard and are driven to succeed and/or who don't have guilt over their inherited wealth and/or who are lazy and entitled monsters, etc.  One size does not fit all with any group, which is why stereotypes can be misleading and unfair.

[S04.E14: A Hard Way to Go]

So, that finale, especially post-car crash?

And that's all the effort I'm putting into it since that's roughly the same amount of effort the writers put into it.

[Figure Skating]

5 hours ago, emmawoodhouse said:

Triples took out Tara at a very young age.

That's because her jumping technique was utterly horrendous.

[Tennis Thread]

If you hate Wimbledon's decision so much, Djoker, you should boycott the tournament!  Forever!  That'll really show 'em!

[MLB Thread]

11 hours ago, emmawoodhouse said:

Butt goes viral. 🤡

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

The closet kills, Will (and Jada).

[The NBA]

2 hours ago, Lady Whistleup said:

The reason was actually the Yankees and Mets, which had reportedly many more players unvaccinated.

 

Mmm-hmmm, and I can't imagine why.  It couldn't possibly be because the vaccine might negate the effects of all the steroids baseball players pump into their bodies.  No, definitely not because of that.

[Figure Skating]

2 hours ago, healthnut said:

I don’t blame Vanessa for Morgan Cipres being an idiot.

Morgan Ciprès is not an idiot; he's a predator.

[NFL Thread]

Fuck Cleveland.  Fuck Cleveland for throwing an ungodly sum of money at an abuser of women (I don't, in fact, believe all twenty-two women are making this shit up), and fuck Cleveland for making me feel just the tiniest bit of sympathy for that entitled douchebag Baker Mayfield.

[NFL Thread]

4 hours ago, Fukui San said:

Jimmy takes teams deep into the playoffs and his teammates like him, so yes. 

I might alter that first half slightly to "excellent defenses take Jimmy deep into the playoffs," but I also believe my home the world would be a better place if he played shirtless.

[NFL Thread]

1 minute ago, Carey said:

 

That seems like a lot of money to spend to be one-and-done in the playoffs for four years.

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

That's a good point, and it makes me wonder something. Let's take Nomadland. How many people streamed it compared to how many saw it in a theater? My guess is that many more people saw it at home. But we don't know how many, because the streaming services are very mysterious about their numbers. It could be that when you add streaming to other forms of viewing, Nomadland actually was a big popular hit!

Theaters were still largely closed because of COVID when Nomadland was released, so I'd wager very, very few people saw it in the theater.  I wish I could've seen it on the big screen since it was so gorgeous to watch even on my TV, but no theater was open here in LA at that time.

[Gymnastics]

It's wonderful, though, that even with Kuliak's shitty demonstration, he still lost to Ukrainian Illia Kovtun, the gold medalist in the event.  One can only hope the same denouement will occur in the war itself.

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

On 3/5/2022 at 3:21 PM, yowsah1 said:

I disagree with this attitude, but it is typical of the thinking amongst Oscar voters that has made their awards show virtually irrelevant to any serious discussion of movies as a popular art.  If they want to to continue to push their cramped, narrow, insular view of what constitutes "merit" in cinema, they need to accept that vast numbers of people will simply not care about or respect what they have to say on the matter.  They are doing this to themselves.  They are making their institution obsolete.

I'd say you have this backwards: studios have a cramped, narrow, insular view of what moviegoers want to see and fill theaters with the same remakes, sequels, superhero and franchise films.  There's no creativity there at all, and the entertainment value for me is a series of diminishing returns since these films are so homogenous; any discussion of "merit" that applies to popular art as embodied by blockbuster films needs to start there.  And the Academy does nominate blockbuster/popular films: Joker, 1917, Little Women, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, and A Star Is Born all did incredibly at the box office and all were nominated for Best Picture; the last two years are unfair to judge on that front because of COVID.

Moreover, I think the films that are highlighted by the Academy now are much less homogenous than they used to be.  We are two years removed from a Korean film and one year from a film centered on an older woman dealing with life in the aftermath of the Great Recession winning Best Picture.  I think that's fantastic, and I found more "merit" in either of those films than I did in, say, the remake of The Lion King or the Bad Boyz sequel – or even Endgame.

I watched Drive My Car last night – a three-hour meditation on art, language, grief, and love.  The Batman is also three hours.  Guess which one made the viewing feel effortless and which one was bloated and dragged?  The incredible, and often incredibly quiet, power of the former is rare and unique and much more meritorious than the parade of franchise films that occupy the top of the box office charts, and I'm thrilled the Academy recognized it as such now because it would never have been nominated for Best Picture even five years ago.

[The NBA]

No one should feel bad for Bron-bron since the sorry state of the Lakers is due to his massive entitlement.

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

It definitely is subjective as I can't think of any Will Smith performance I've enjoyed more than most Andrew Garfield performances (and I did vote for Garfield for the SAG award this year).  Will is Will in most of his roles.  He's a good movie star, but he's not an interesting actor and doesn't seem interested in challenging himself as an actor.  That's been true ever since Denzel convinced him not to kiss a guy in Six Degrees of Separation back in 1993; from that point onward, his choices of roles and his acting choices in those roles have been dictated by what he thinks audiences will like.  That has certainly worked for him since he's pretty well-liked by audiences, but I don't think he's a great actor since that outward focus makes his acting feel inauthentic.

I'm not going to get too worked up over his inevitable Oscar win; there have certainly been worse choices (hell, he won't even be the worst – or second worst – Best Actor winner in the last five years!).  If he can somehow drag Aunjanue Ellis on his coattails with him to the winners' circle, I will happily support his win because she was phenomenal as Oracene.

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

2 hours ago, Crs97 said:

I'm really hoping that Will Smith's SAG win does not translate to the Oscars.  He is barely third in my vote, and I don't look at his film history and think he is "due."  Andrew Garfield (especially - he is my number 1 choice!) and Benedict Cumberbatch are revelations;  Will played a variation of characters he's played in the past.  Alas, I am sure to be disappointed yet again.

I agree pretty much with every word (although I'd rank Denzel ahead of Smith), but we need to prepare ourselves for disappointment.😕

[Figure Skating]

28 minutes ago, healthnut said:

This would be HUGE. Especially in women and pairs. 

 

Excellent.  This is happening in football (soccer), too, with national teams flatly refusing to take the field against the Russian team in the upcoming World Cup qualifying rounds.  If international sports governing bodies like FIFA and the IOC are going to continue to be greedy, corrupt, cowardly, amoral crooks, then national sporting bodies should absolutely take matters into their own hands.

[The Annual SAG Awards - General Discussion]

1 hour ago, ShadowHunter said:

I remember this Luke Grimes guy from True Blood. Something happened behind the scenes and they recast his role in the next season. 

Yes, his character (like ALL characters on True Blood) was going to have a storyline involving gay love scenes.  I believe his character was going to have an affair with Lafayette.  He quit the show because he didn't want to kiss another guy.  He did play a closeted cop in the 2015 movie Freeheld (which I never saw but is based on a true story); presumably, though, that role was fine because he didn't have to kiss a dude to play it.

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

5 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

The first is that the Editing winner often goes on to win Picture so it's a good award for foreshadowing. 

The second is that Dune is the frontrunner to win for Cinematography as well as getting nods for Picture and Adapted Screenplay but also earned nominations in the "lesser" categories like Editing, Costume Design, Makeup/Hairstling, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects, and Score. Let these awards stay in the broadcast and Dune winning some/most/all of them will build momentum going into Best Picture. If it wins it will be the culmination of a triumphant night and if it doesn't it's a twist. You'd think these network guys, who puts twists into every show they greenlight these days would be all over that possibility but it sailed right past them.

For what it's worth, the predictive power of the Editing Oscar has diminished greatly lately.  The last Best Picture winner that also won Editing was Argo, which was nine years ago.  I don't think this year's Editing winner will necessarily presage anything about the BP winner.

Also, I think it's exceedingly likely that Dune will win the most Oscars by racking up those "lesser" wins and not win BP.

[Tennis Thread]

I'd point anyone who doubted or maligned Zverev's ex and her claims of physical abuse to that video of him attacking the chair umpire; it's legitimately scary.  He is an abusive asshole, and he should be in jail.

[The Annual Academy Awards - General Discussion]

This idea is completely stupid, and I hope everyone realizes this change will not, in fact, do anything to make the show shorter or more entertaining.  In lieu of airing these eight awards live, the producers will fill space with more bits, more performances, more montages, more bullshit.  Kind of like the Grammys, except that the Grammys can be a glorified concert since they exist to award musicians.  Having Billie Eilish or Beyoncé perform or having a montage of superhero films (seemingly the only films people go to theaters to see now) is not suddenly going to increase viewership.  The people who don't watch the Oscars (which, to the producers, would be boys and young men in the middle of the country) are never, ever, ever going to watch them – doesn't matter what they do to try to attract that audience.  Many people who do watch the Oscars are going to be alienated by making the Oscars less about the awards and more about the "show."  I don't give two shits about all of the extraneous crap the Oscars stuff themselves with, and I prefer having exactly zero hosts – that actually moves things along much more quickly.  Beyond feeling insulted that they're giving out score, production design, and (especially) film editing pre-telecast, I actually do want to see the short awards given out live and hear the winners' speeches; they worked much harder than, say, Will Smith (as an actor, I can tell you with 100% confidence, they worked a LOT harder than Smith and every other actor nominated; actors spend 95% of filming sitting around), and it feels so elitist and gross for the producers to decide that these awards are fine for the telecast but those are not.

The ratings are going to suck this year, no matter what, because no one saw the movies nominated, because the nominated films aren't superhero films, because COVID changed everything, etc.  Also, there just weren't that many good films or great performances in 2021, so even I, an Oscars junkie, feel very unenthusiastic about most categories (I do still have a few films to watch, so I guess that could change).  All these changes will cause me to do is to DVR the telecast and fast-forward right through everything that isn't an award, so good job, AMPAS/Disney/ABC/producers.

[Figure Skating]

On 2/20/2022 at 6:29 PM, sweeks said:

Ashley Wagner is a different story. Whenever I've heard her do commentary, she talked nonstop. Also, and this is definitely shallow on my part, I can't stand Ashley's voice.

I told Ashley what you said, and this was her reaction:

I told her you were right, though, and she...did not like that:

The truth hurts.

[Freestyle Skiing]

The racism directed at Gu is beyond disgusting; it also completely obfuscates legitimate criticism of Gu.  The issue for me where Gu is concerned is not that she chose to follow the money; to be fair, I think it's very reasonable to assume her mother had a huge hand in this decision.  However this decision came about, though, she isn't being honest that she followed the money and, as part of the deal, has allowed herself to be used as a propaganda tool for an authoritarian regime that is currently committing mass genocide and enforcing slave labor.  She is THE face of the Olympics in China and is getting massively paid for it, so good for her.  I wonder if the girls she proclaims so loudly to want to inspire include any Uyghur girls, as they're being enslaved, raped, and murdered by the government with which she made this lucrative business deal.  She'll get to return to the US now, go to Stanford, and enjoy the freedoms that come with living here, like continuing to post on social media about sociopolitical issues in the US (which is good); however, she won't say a single word about any of the Chinese government's policies.  It's completely hypocritical, and it's completely fair to criticize her for it.

[Figure Skating]

16 hours ago, ShellsandCheese said:

American women have been struggling since Sasha Cohen and since before the Russians started winning - and the Russians aren’t nearly as dominant  as people think. They’ve won the last three OGM, which has happened over a span of 8 years; since 2014 when Adelina won Olympic gold Russian women have won five world championships and two of these were Medvedeva.

Prior to Tuk winning at World’s in 2015, they hadn’t won at Worlds since 2005. I find it frustrating that now folks want to blame the Russians for the American womens overall poor performance in international competition since 2006 (last American world champion Kimmie Meissner). Because the facts and American skaters placements don’t support that and it gives US Figure Skating an out. Instead of trying to figure out what can be done to improve - folks now just want to throw their hands up and be like wah wah wah we can’t win because the Russians are cheaters.

That's misleading about the recent Russian dominance.  Russians have won five of the last six world championships, the last eight European championships, and the last three Olympic gold medals.  I don't know how one downplays that unless it's to point out that all of these wins were aided by PEDs (and terrible judging) and should therefore be vacated.  Which would be completely valid.

I really don't like dismissing the justifiable anger over doping in this sport as just Americans being sore losers, nor do I think that's what's happening here since I don't really see anyone blaming the Russians for the Americans' performances (and I didn't personally think Gracie was doing that in her article).  What I see here is people wanting doping athletes and abusive coaches to be banned from competition, clean skaters with beautiful technique to be duly rewarded (no matter what country they're from) by actually competent and non-biased judges, and immediate changes that will end the abuse these girls are suffering.  In all of those categories, Russia fails.