Movies
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Kovenant84
T-369 days
Family Guy was great back in the beginning. Back when it got cancelled three times in a row due to viewer complaints and brought back by popular demand.
Guess they never really understood that the show insulted everyone equally.
Haven't watched it in quite some time, now. Partially because she hates cartoons of all kinds (but respects my obsession with old-school cartoons like Tranformers/GIJoe/Thundercats/etc.). But then again, we're talking about ms.unhealthy-obsession-with-Star-Trek, here, so to each their own. (To be fair, The Next Generation was possibly the best TV series of all time. It's gotten to the point now, though, where I could tell you the plot of every episode, along with a funny line or two from it.)
~kov.
Guess they never really understood that the show insulted everyone equally.
Haven't watched it in quite some time, now. Partially because she hates cartoons of all kinds (but respects my obsession with old-school cartoons like Tranformers/GIJoe/Thundercats/etc.). But then again, we're talking about ms.unhealthy-obsession-with-Star-Trek, here, so to each their own. (To be fair, The Next Generation was possibly the best TV series of all time. It's gotten to the point now, though, where I could tell you the plot of every episode, along with a funny line or two from it.)
~kov.
"...then I will be a black guy!" Fucking geeks 
I love Family Guy, it pushes so many envelopes so far - it couldn't be better (or could it?) I'm picking up first 2 seasons then - I've seen some of 3 and 2 and whole 4th (both volumes).
"Are those two pigs vomiting up there? [...] Lois, turn off the wipers, they are not helping, they're only making it worse."
"Who wants some chowder?"
I couldn't remember myself laughing so hard =)
I love Family Guy, it pushes so many envelopes so far - it couldn't be better (or could it?) I'm picking up first 2 seasons then - I've seen some of 3 and 2 and whole 4th (both volumes).
"Are those two pigs vomiting up there? [...] Lois, turn off the wipers, they are not helping, they're only making it worse."
"Who wants some chowder?"
I couldn't remember myself laughing so hard =)
Kovenant84
T-369 days
"The Road to Rhode Island" is one of the single best FG episodes ever. All Stewey and Brian.
"Are you drunk?" "No, I just have a speech impediment. <vomits> And a stomach virus. <collapses> And an inner-ear infection."
And I still die every time I see the scene in the van. Hehehe. "Que?"
The other one I loved had to do with 'Leafers' - can't remember the name of it for the life of me, though.
~kov.
"Are you drunk?" "No, I just have a speech impediment. <vomits> And a stomach virus. <collapses> And an inner-ear infection."
And I still die every time I see the scene in the van. Hehehe. "Que?"
The other one I loved had to do with 'Leafers' - can't remember the name of it for the life of me, though.
~kov.
:.::zamijackyl
New Metal Member
- Jan 18, 2007
- 58
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Saw Borat today and it surely cheered up my day. I know it shouldnt be taken seriously and it was good as it was, as a parody. Sure had a good laugh. My fav scene was the hotel incident with Azamat, it left me laughing for 5 minutes or so
My fav scene was the hotel incident with Azamat, it left me laughing for 5 minutes or so
Kovenant84
T-369 days
Wow. Watched the pilot for the Black Donnellys. Really quite good. Of course, it's only the one episode, but still. It's like a non-cable version of The Sopranos, filmed/told with some very Snatch/LS&2SB moments, about at bunch of Irish brothers.
The method of storytelling is actually quite interesting, and the story is fun, if a tad bit predictable. So much happens in just the first episode, though, that I'm unsure of what else they're going to do to keep the pace up.
Oh, and the pilot is available on iTunes for free for a limited time, so if you missed it and don't want to pay...
~kov.
The method of storytelling is actually quite interesting, and the story is fun, if a tad bit predictable. So much happens in just the first episode, though, that I'm unsure of what else they're going to do to keep the pace up.
Oh, and the pilot is available on iTunes for free for a limited time, so if you missed it and don't want to pay...
~kov.
Kovenant84
T-369 days
It's a bit better, actually. There's no real bit of 'killing people for justice', but more of the 'family first' style out of Sopranos. And I'll be damned if Joey "Ice Cream" couldn't have been a character right out of Snatch. One that took place in NYC, of course.
~kov.
~kov.
just watched death of a president. it surely kept me riveted to the screen. i'm not sure whether the idea is completely loony or rather brilliant, but it certainly is gutsy. after the first thirty minutes, the intent of the director is quite clear, but nevertheless carried out with a certain measure of equilibrium, and it is realistic, which is a lot for a film based on something that doesn't make any sense to start with. i'd love to hear opinions from those of you who watched it.
marduk1507
Member
Went to the cinema after some time, on Wednesady I saw Lost in Translation (a very enjoyable film, Bill Murray is teh man) and Atame! from Almodóvar on Friday (ridiculous as usual, but very very good).
i was looking at IMDB information about the good shepherd, which - as many of you will know - is a movie about the history of the CIA. imagine my surprise when I found out that the first keyword to which the movie is associated is "breasts"
Kovenant84
T-369 days
I'm actually unsurprised. Typical, usually, over here for any movie Angelina Jolie is in.
~kov.
~kov.
just watched this film is not yet rated and it didn't convince me at all. the director's thesis: the MPAA does a dreadful job, too much sex yields an NC-17 rating, too much violence at most yields an R, sex is a part of life and should be looked upon positively, not censored, while violence on the screen produces violence in real life, and should be kept under tighter control.
now, i am no fan of violent films, and even something as inspired as 'saving private ryan' can make me feel sick because of the gore. but let's face it, people don't routinely shoot each other, while the very 'sex is a part of life' argument leads to conclusions that are exactly opposed to the ones put forward by the director. exactly because sex is a part of almost every person's life, maybe we should be careful when exposing teenagers to it. i am completely glad that the first man i saw naked was my boyfriend and not some actor. i'm also glad that i became sexually active before getting access to internet porn: my bedside manner was not shaped by a multitude of images i had acquired in my head regarding how sex should be, but rather by my partner's and my own inclinations. i am worried that if kids take in too many sexually explicit images they will merely transfer the stereotypes they have seen to their own behavior when they get the chance to experiment in person. and since sex in films is rarely credible or scripted with an educational purpose, they're just going to think they should measure up to some ridiculous blue-light standard rather than just enjoying the experience.
now, i am no fan of violent films, and even something as inspired as 'saving private ryan' can make me feel sick because of the gore. but let's face it, people don't routinely shoot each other, while the very 'sex is a part of life' argument leads to conclusions that are exactly opposed to the ones put forward by the director. exactly because sex is a part of almost every person's life, maybe we should be careful when exposing teenagers to it. i am completely glad that the first man i saw naked was my boyfriend and not some actor. i'm also glad that i became sexually active before getting access to internet porn: my bedside manner was not shaped by a multitude of images i had acquired in my head regarding how sex should be, but rather by my partner's and my own inclinations. i am worried that if kids take in too many sexually explicit images they will merely transfer the stereotypes they have seen to their own behavior when they get the chance to experiment in person. and since sex in films is rarely credible or scripted with an educational purpose, they're just going to think they should measure up to some ridiculous blue-light standard rather than just enjoying the experience.
Umm.. what? Every year, about 12000 people are shot in the US. In Germany it's about 300. Compared to the size of the population, that's about a 15th of the US' rate, so I think it's a pretty valid point. Imagine the rate of people shooting went up 1500%, you'd be in the front row of people shouting for less violence on tv
Philly is pushing 400+ homicides a year - terrible rate. Why? Fucking drug dealing blacks shooting each other for zones of influence OR just being under influence, and not even drug "lords" - small time fucks, in fucking schools, people.
I work in the most dangerous city in America across the river from Philly - Camden, NJ (it's official 3rd year in a row, based on homicide and other rates), going there - it's like going to Vietnam on day-to-day basis. The station I take off is infamous for a rape and murder of a young woman a couple years ago by two blacks, which happened in daylight... boy, did they increase number of policemen there.
Violence in movies and games has little to do with that - stop glorifying way of life those black fucks have - nothing better to do than sell dope and hump ho's - they have a fucking TV channel on a basic cable for that.
Man, I gotta move far, far away.
La Rocque
I am that I am
^^ The way to do a comparison (United Nations Standard) is occurrence per 100,000 residents
If you do it this correct way, the USA is not even in the top 10. BTW, Lesotho is #1
@ plintus, its all about the benjamins -
If you do it this correct way, the USA is not even in the top 10. BTW, Lesotho is #1
@ plintus, its all about the benjamins -
It still doesn't come close to what I was saying. When I said routinely, i meant routinely. People routinely have sex means that they do it, say, at least once per week/fortnight/month etc. - it's something that happens to most people, with relatively high frequency, etc. What I want to say is that sex is a crucial part of everyone's life so we should form our own opinions based on experience rather than being led by some TV stereotype. On the other hand, committing violent acts against others might be a crucial part of a criminal's life, but most people are not criminals, and they do not commit violent acts; moreover, I don't see the necessity to protect people from experiencing their first violent act in a fake and stereotyped way, which I see in the case of sex.
Of course you were not talking about this but rather the link between televised violence and real violence. The point is that it's not been proven - there's a vast literature out there, in psychology and even psychiatry, and they just can't point the finger on the link, mainly for reasons akin to the ones singled out by Michael Moore - you have the same TV programs everywhere, in this day and age, but you don't have the same level of violence everywhere, so it must not be the TV per se. Say, Japanese kids are exposed to HUGE amounts of televised violence, because international programs are topped up with their own tradition of violent cartoons and gory teen flicks, but they don't go around shooting anyone, as a rule.
Shouldnt the parents provide you with an appropriate opinion long before you would see the first sex on tv? Also, how much sex is there on regular tv? Hardcore porn does not air at all on german tv and softcore only after midnight.. how excessively can one watch tv after midnight before a strong opinion on sex is formed I wonder? Of course, if you download hardcore porn off the internet and expose yourself to it over years, it will change your ideas of sex, relations and love.
Anyway, I didnt mean to say tv was the cause for any violence, but maybe it's not about what you do routinely? With a murder-rate 15 to 20 times higher than in Europe, the question must be allowed whether violence is really what should be on tv. Not that Im in favor of banning content in general, but Im also not in favor of parents not taking care of their children or of tv taking the main role during a kid's upbringing..
I completely agree with the last statement. Parents should by all means not leave TV to do their job. And as Kirby Dick aptly states in the movie I mentioned, it all boils down to the individual child's level of maturity and ability to filter contents critically. I sneaked behind my parents' backs to read a famous horror comic through my teenage years and I do regret it, because it definitely was responsible for worsening a certain gloomy inclination I naturally have. I know there was a clear link, because images and words from that comic still pop into my mind unbidden when I'm feeling particularly sad - it's not the gore that got to me, but rather the sense of impending doom and devastation.
On the other hand, sex on TV and on the internet. That's probably two different things. As you say, repeated exposure to hardcore porn does probably impact on a person's view of relationships, and this is easier to verify because people get way more chances to infuse their normal sexual activity with suggestions from pornography than they do, aside from deranged cases, to practice their drive-by shooting (but i'll get back to that later). There is medical literature on the averse long-term impact of porn on healthy sexual functioning, but even barring these situations we hear everyday on the news about teenagers mimicking porn flicks and shooting videos with their mobiles. Now, as I have said in the past, I do not believe that today's teenagers are more obsessed with sex than we were as teenagers, but I reckon most of them are going about it in a different way. When pornography was harder to get one's hands on, people branched out in the territory of sexuality interacting - at least a little - with people of their preferred gender. True, there still was a lot of solitary pleasure and frustrated desires, but if you wanted to satisfy your curiosity about how naked bodies really looked you still had to try and socialize. And of course during socialization one also got side-tracked by factors that were not strictly inherent to genitalia, such as personalities and relationships, which is the way it should be if we want to subscribe, as I do, to the idea that sex is a normal part of life: yes, it is, and it normally happens in the context of people interacting socially, be it for a one-night stand or for a relationship ending in marriage and children. Sex is a part of getting to know other people, and if sexual information hits people before they actually engage in the process everything is going to come out fairly skewed. You mention parental responsibility, but do you think you're really going to be able to stop your kids from looking at internet porn? I know I won't be, even if I'm pretty much of a nerd and know stuff about current file-sharing technologies; by the time I have a teen under my roof, however, I will be probably hopeless, and even if I manage to keep up with evolving technology, I don't have eyes in the back of my head. And honestly, I'd rather my son be smart and be able to cover his tracks than be dumb and get caught in the act. Faced with someone way younger and with more time on his hands to learn about e-concealment, I will stand no chance in a battle of wits. Of course there's where trust comes into play, but I don't really expect a teenager to resist the lure of online sex only because his parents say he should.
Does this mean we should censor everything? No, it doesn't. But maybe we should take a step back and rethink what we deem "normal". There's where TV comes in. Most Hollywood films have sex scenes, and although they do not show private parts explicitly, they do something that is quite worse: they portray the fact that it's perfectly normal to sleep with someone a couple of hours after meeting them, and they generally follow a plotline that is chauvinistic at best: girl is in danger, boy saves her, they fuck. Or: boy wins football match, girl fawns, they fuck. And so on. I know this is not exactly new, but I'd rather people didn't grow up with that crap in mind. And the other bell is even worse: look at Sex and the City, which is supposedly about switching the pendulum back to a more balanced position, and is fucking up everything way worse, showing women that take pride in being emotionally shallow. As icing on the cake, you have idiotic romances: delicate, flower-child boy is able to understand delicate, flower-child girl better than anyone, so they fuck. It's always about the fucking, one way or the other.
Now, I don't want to sound moralistic. I loved Boys don't cry, which featured homosexual lovemaking, heterosexual rape, detailed renditions of dressing in drag and fake penises, plus a swathe of other blunt imagery that had the censors reeling, and finally a vicious shooting. In that case, however, everything was there for a clear reason: if crude scenes will help drive home the point that hating gays is completely wrong, then I'm all for them. Especially when the plotline makes so much sense: the denouement that brings the main character to get Lara into bed is actually painful to watch, what with having to overcome resistance and prejudice, and having all the trouble that comes with a hidden identity. Their time together is the apex of a process with emotional and psychological relevance. I'm not saying that this applies to gay stories only, given their explosive potential: there are of course a lot of movies picturing heterosexual intercourse which have thousands of reasons for the sex being there, even - and especially, may i add - when it's shocking (think Lolita or Eyes wide shut, which is one of my favorite movies touching on the theme of the correct context for exercising sexuality).
To wrap up - so what we should do? Banning movies is not a solution, and it is morally revolting. But I don't think that rating them as R or NC-17 if they are overfocused on sexuality can be wrong. Damn it, I loved Ken Park, but I'm just glad I was 25 when I watched it, I would have been completely confused had I seen it at 15. Who in their right mind would want such a movie labeled PG-13? It just does not make sense. The whole point of This film is not yet rated was: too many things are rated NC-17 rather than R, and this hurts film-makers. I would however still err on the side of caution: who the fuck cares about extra profits? Nobody ever died for having to wait a couple more years to watch a movie, and I guess most watchers are going to be glad in retrospect. No adult is embarassed being caught watching NC-17 stuff, if it's not hardcore porn.
As for violence, well, following the same prudential principle, if there is too much gore then by all means make it NC-17. However, in some cases, such as the one of the documentary about soldiers in Iraq (forget the title now), the MPAA should really lighten up and realize that people need to have a realistic look at what's going on in the news, not be protected from the fact that real life is sometimes less than pretty. I wouldn't make such a movie anything worse than PG, even if there is a lot of blood, a lot of drug use, a lot of cursing, and a lot of death. It's like deciding that we're not going to tell children about modern-day concentration camps or infibulation because they're going to get ideas. Well, they should.
