Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
Javi Milei Defunds the Bureaucrats Tasked with Reducing Violence Against Women and Yet the Murder Rate of Women Somehow Drops 10% Anyway
America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100 THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 12/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 December 2024 Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof] Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition! Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven! First-World Problems... Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Chess Thread 12-22-2018 |
Main
| Saturday Overnight Open Thread (12/22/18) Holiday Stuff Edition »
December 22, 2018
Saturday Evening Movie Thread 12-22-2018 [Hosted By: Moviegique]It's A Wonderful Life
I've probably seen this It's A Wonderful Life more than any other movie, and I've certainly written about it more than any other. The noir photography, the depths of depression it plumbs, the libertarian Pottersville-is-better-than-Bedford-Falls nonsense, and most recently, the weird stuff on Potter's desk. The Flower, who saw it for the first time in 2016, wanted to see it last year and again this year. Bert would be the most bad-ass cop in a Christmas movie till Al Powell shows up. What struck me this time was how deeply flawed all the characters were, with the possible exception of Mary (Donna Reed, From Here To Eternity), and yet how George's little acts of grace (however begrudingly he accept his role) gave them the room to express the better angels of their nature.
One is supposed to like these people. And, shockingly enough, one does. Mr. Gower buys George his getaway luggage (that he never gets to use) but is also seen leading the bond effort to support the war at home. Sam, once he's contacted, is ready to float George a $25K loan. Violet sticks around to help George, and apparently to brave out rehabilitating her reputation. Spanish flu was a bitch. In other words, these people are good in spite of their occasional (or even frequent) sins. They're real people. For all the broad stereotyping here, there's more life in each character who passes through Bedford Falls than in any big-ticket modern Hollywood movies. They've all sinned, sometimes gravely, yet all are shown to be worthy of redemption. But the current media ethos is that there are good guys and there are bad guys—not even in the fun Star Wars way, but in a dreary universe where right-thinkers are untouched by sin and wrong-thinkers are condemned to, well, whatever hell the right-thinkers have in their power to create. It's weird to think we've seen more mainstream Korean and Chinese movies than we have top 40 Hollywood films this year. (Usually we see about half of the top 40, this year we've seen, or will see, about 5 out of our over 130 theater screenings.) And surely part of the reason is sheer novelty, since Asians have different tropes and archetypes which make things seem a little fresher. But part of it is that the characters are more human, probably because they're not worried about oversensitivity. (Korean films, in particular, tend to be exclusively Korean. Even Koreans who spent some time in America are suspect.) Gloria Grahame was aggressively heterosexual. But I remember the characters. For all my crustiness about superhero movies, there was a lot of impressive stuff in Avengers: Infinity War—but not, ironically enough, the characters. Whereas I remember the down-on-his-luck boxer who slugs his autistic brother once (in a moment of panic) and spends the rest of his movie trying to regain that brother's trust. I remember the girl who rediscovers her vanishing mom through cooking. Even typing the trope makes my eyes roll, but I remember the soft, greedy businessman who finds love with the sensitive scientist at the south pole. The thing is, to have a character arc, you have to have a character who can change. The change has to be personal and material, and it has to reflect a reinterpretation of how the world works—generally the admission that one's previous view was wrong somehow. (You can have the character change badly, of course, but that's more a horror trope or ultra-edgy indie drama conceit.) But if there's only one correct way to think ever, only one correct way to be, there can be no meaningful change. And if there can be no forgiveness, a character who was wrong once can never re-enter the ranks of good guys: Old Man Gower and Uncle Billy can't sell war bonds, Mr. Welch should be sent to jail for punching George, Violet deserves to be slut-shamed (or shamed for thinking she should be slut-shamed?) and Clarence may as well have let George jump. You don't have to like this movie to see that it deals more with genuine human issues than anything turned out of Hollywood in 2018. I was going to make an "every time a bell rings" #metoo joke but it just wouldn't be in the spirit of the season. | Recent Comments
[i]Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM)[/b][/i][/s][/u]:
"
James Earl Carter was a meddlesome twat ... The ..."
scampydog: "June Lockhart in Lassie. What the hell is wrong ..." Citizen Cake: ">>>The natural gas thing was among the regionally ..." SMOD: "On July 15, 1979, then president Jimmy Carter went ..." blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1): "Young gals in pj's at the store I sort of get. Guy ..." The ARC of History!: "[i]What kind of mean shit can the executive branch ..." Thomas Bender: "@311 >>For details, see the Law & Order episode ..." TheJamesMadison, trying to figure out Joel Schumacher: "332 Decency, yet Biden fingerbanged a staffer. Po ..." naturalfake: "[i]Airline deregulation gave us people wearing paj ..." Quarter Twenty : "268 Why do I suspect Biden's "eulogy" will involve ..." eleven: "They'll try to rub the Carter funeral ball sack i ..." Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "Decency, yet Biden fingerbanged a staffer. ..." Recent Entries
Javi Milei Defunds the Bureaucrats Tasked with Reducing Violence Against Women and Yet the Murder Rate of Women Somehow Drops 10% Anyway
America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100 THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 12/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 December 2024 Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof] Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition! Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven! First-World Problems... Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |