IntenseDebate - Stickwick

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Act of Valor' - The A... · 0 replies · +13 points

My husband (former special forces) and I went to see Act of Valor, not because we were expecting great acting or an Oscar-worthy script, but for the simple reason that we wanted to spend our $$ being entertained without having our values denigrated. If I want to immerse myself in moral relativism and nihilism, I'll take a humanities course at my local university -- I don't want it in a movie.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Poet Maya Angelou Call... · 0 replies · +33 points

If by “remarkable” she means remarkably bad, then she's right.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - The Politics of 'Star ... · 0 replies · +2 points

Or they think it's that spicy green stuff you get with sushi.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - The Politics of 'Star ... · 20 replies · +21 points

Leftists don't believe in equality, they believe in equality of outcome -- and even then, only for certain people. Leftists don't call it a class system, but hierarchy is the heart of leftist philosophy. Progressives are above conservatives. Humanists are above fundamentalists. The proletariat are above the bourgeoisie. The power elite in government are above everyone else.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - The Politics of 'Star ... · 7 replies · +22 points

Timely topic, given our current accelerated slide into "benign" totalitarianism.

I'm very pleased you chose to examine the philosophy of Star Trek, Mr. Price. I'm a huge Trekkie, in no small part because of its philosophical depth -- which these days is usually code for a brave stance on moral ambiguity; but Star Trek was wonderfully unambiguous in its embrace of traditional Western values. I remember being stunned by some lines in the episode, Court Martial, when Kirk's defender says, "Rights, sir – HUMAN rights! The Bible. The Code of Hammurabi. And of Justinian. The Magna Carta. The Constitution of the United States." Can you imagine any writer today giving a protagonist such lines? There was a time when, even if the writers and producers didn't wholly believe this stuff, they knew their audience did.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Theater of the Absurd:... · 0 replies · +1 points

That's the brilliance of the Drafthouse -- make an event out of using your cell phone in the theater! Make an event out of the desire to quote along or sing along with the feature!

I'm moving from Texas to Washington within the year, and will SORELY miss the Drafthouse.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Theater of the Absurd:... · 4 replies · +5 points

Theater owners around the country take note of the Alamo Drafthouse chain, which gets it almost perfectly right. Their theaters are always packed, and personally I won't go anywhere else to see a movie.

PROS:

- No pre-movie ads. Instead, they put on an entertaining, customized pre-movie show that's sufficiently in the background that you can ignore it and talk to your date.

- The optimum number of previews.

- Full menu with pretty good food and lots of alcohol choices.

- Friendly, efficient waiters who take your order and serve you at your seat.

- No talkers or cell-phone users. The constant presence of waiters means they often take care of talkers and cell-phone users before you get a chance to complain. Drafthouses have a reputation for ruthless enforcement of this policy, so most audience members are voluntarily well-behaved.

- Innovative content: Quote-Alongs, Sing-Alongs, HeckleVision, classic movies, theme dinners, etc.

- No little children allowed except on designated days.

- Did I mention no talkers or cell-phone users?

Only CON: you have to arrive at least 45 minutes prior to a popular show to get a good seat.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Daily Call Sheet: New ... · 2 replies · +7 points

And let’s not forget Hollywood’s non-stop, 15-year assault against the 70% of their audience that isn’t liberal.

The great thing about pop movies when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s was that just about everyone felt like the movies were speaking to them. Take the original Star Wars movies. Everybody -- conservative, libertarian, liberal -- saw themselves as the Rebellion and their adversaries as the Empire. It was a straight-on good vs. bad story that was sufficiently vague about the particulars, and devoid of dialogue that was on-the-nose references to current events, that it could be enjoyed by everyone. Another trilogy came along decades later that had this in common with SW -- The Lord of the Rings -- and it was also a smash success.

Why can't Hollyweird figure out that this is a winning formula?

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'My Week with Marilyn'... · 2 replies · +1 points

Sounds like an intriguing film. But the trailer seems to have been made for people with severe ADD.

12 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Daily Call Sheet: Week... · 0 replies · +3 points

Tower Heist: $7M — Only $53M after three weeks with that cast is a disaster. The trailer was awfully appealing to me, which is why I never predict these numbers in advance.

Maybe the heist theme is played out with American audiences. I'm personally done with movies with "Heist" in the title, movies about heists, movies that reference heists, and movies that might even look like they're thinking about heists.

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