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 Necroshea wrote:
1. The portrayal of vampires from monsters battling eternal thirst to teenage heart throbs.

There was an interesting article I read once that was all about how vampires are portrayed in film, and documented their steady change through the decades from monster (Nosferatu), to older European gentleman (Dracula), to younger less European Gentleman, to young man, to teen heartthrob. In each successive generation the representation of vampires has slowly been defanged and more and more romanticized to the point where this is the start:



to this:

 Necroshea wrote:

Selym wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Maybe the best way to approach this thread is to give Selym ideas for more movies to watch to broaden the ol' cinematic horizons...?

Twilight, of course.

I was being mostly serious.

You're in the wrong place for wanting that.

I suggest Shawshank Redemption, Donnie Darko, Inception, Full Metal Jacket, and Cheech and Chongs up in smoke.

I never knew how badly critics hated up in smoke until I looked it up recently.

I've seen Donnie Darko, and it's not particularly great. And I've seen Inception, and that one really shouldn't have even been called "intelligent", it even assumed the audience was too stupid to work anything out for themselves...

There's still Shawshank, FMJ, and Up in smoke!

Also eternal sunshine on the spotless mind wasn't too bad.

For a change of pace I also recommend watching cabin in the woods.

Here's a list of films to watch:
Lawrence of Arabia
Jaws
Casino
Godfather
Mutiny on the Bounty (the one with Marlon Brando)
The Wild One
Rebel Without a Cause
Creature from the Black Lagoon
African Queen
Alien
Psycho
Forbidden Planet
Ran
King Lear (with Lawrence Olivier)
Hamlet (with Mel Gibson)
A Bridge Too Far
Hell is for Heroes
Waterfront
Wait Until Dark
The Rear Window
Andromeda Strain
True Grit
Unforgiven
Glory
Dr. Strangelove
Seven Days in May
One Flew Over the Coockoo's Nest
A Raisin in the Sun
To Kill a Mockingbird
Seven Samurai
The Magnificent Seven ( )
The Wrestler
Animal House

Vampires vary hugely in depiction and background

I love the Underworld films (and the divine Ms Beckinsale) - the Vampires are not supernatural at all.

Also a huge fan of Vampire Diaries.......Angel, Buffy, Supernatural which all have slightly different but valid takes on the myth.Conversely I thought Stakeland was awful as was John Carpenters Vampires......

"evil" is often portrayed as seductive and Vampires can certianly portray this or they can be raverning monsters - or even both.

Back OT - we can all list loads of great films and rubbish films - but its all only our opinion and so means nothing - in the end, to my mind there are only two types of films:

Films you like.
Films you don't like.

and Sucker Punch is a film I like for reasons stated previously.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Matrix sequals

I'm confused by this one. I'm pretty sure I would have heard if they made a sequel to the Matrix.

Princess Bride

You may have no soul.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Vampires vary hugely in depiction and background

I love the Underworld films (and the divine Ms Beckinsale) - the Vampires are not supernatural at all.

Also a huge fan of Vampire Diaries.......Angel, Buffy, Supernatural which all have slightly different but valid takes on the myth.Conversely I thought Stakeland was awful as was John Carpenters Vampires......

"evil" is often portrayed as seductive and Vampires can certianly portray this or they can be raverning monsters - or even both.

Back OT - we can all list loads of great films and rubbish films - but its all only our opinion and so means nothing - in the end, to my mind there are only two types of films:

Films you like.
Films you don't like.

and Sucker Punch is a film I like for reasons stated previously.

I liked Anne Rice's Vampire books (and Brad Pitt's Interview with the Vampire flick). But that's it for modern day Vamp flicks.

I liked the Vampire Lestat and Queens of the Damned but pretty much gave up after those

 pretre wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Matrix sequals

I'm confused by this one. I'm pretty sure I would have heard if they made a sequel to the Matrix.

They made two.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234215/?ref_=sr_1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242653/?ref_=sr_2

 rubiksnoob wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Matrix sequals

I'm confused by this one. I'm pretty sure I would have heard if they made a sequel to the Matrix.

They made two.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you are wrong about this one.

There was never a sequel to the Matrix.

 pretre wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Matrix sequals

I'm confused by this one. I'm pretty sure I would have heard if they made a sequel to the Matrix.

Matrix reloaded, and matrix revolutions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pretre wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Matrix sequals

I'm confused by this one. I'm pretty sure I would have heard if they made a sequel to the Matrix.

They made two.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you are wrong about this one.

There was never a sequel to the Matrix.

there were.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Matrix-Reloaded-Disc-Edition/dp/B000062V91/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361912255&sr=8-1

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Matrix-Revolutions-Keanu-Reeves/dp/B00064X5W0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361912248&sr=8-1

I think he is refusing to recognize their existence, which is understandable, if deluded.

Selym wrote:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Matrix-Reloaded-Disc-Edition/dp/B000062V91/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361912255&sr=8-1

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Matrix-Revolutions-Keanu-Reeves/dp/B00064X5W0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361912248&sr=8-1

Those definitely were not sequels to the Matrix.

I came in here wondering how the hell this thread made it to 6 pages, and then I saw vampires. I have hereby decided to never enter again.

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
I came in here wondering how the hell this thread made it to 6 pages, and then I saw vampires. I have hereby decided to never enter again.

good call

Ratbarf wrote:

Captain Avatar wrote:

This was a movie that dripped with misandry. The story portrays all men as evil users/abusers of women while trying to deliver this message in a manner that was an insult to both male and female intelligence.
Really, the movie was like, "Hey, here are pretty girls dressed skimpily and action scenes with guns, swords, explosions, Steampunk(gotta try to cash in on that fad), WWII planes and even a Dragon." "You people are so easily distracted that you will not notice the primary message of male gender hate." Thing is, If shineys and explosions don't distract a person from the story then the movie becomes a horrible insult

Try imagining that all of the roles are reversed in the movie. That it is an asylum full of teen boys being used and abused by grown women and the fantasy scene is from a 1 to boys point of view. Would the story still have the same appeal for you?

Imagining it reversed comes across as a porno in my mind. Men are dicks by and large because we have them. I don't really see how that makes this film Misandry. In case you didn't notice, the only female roles in the film were either a nerds wet dream or a bumbling and utterly incompetent doctor/psychologist who had never realised that her orderlies, a) had a rape room and b) were forging her signature on lobotomy papers. Can't say either scenario screams female empowerment at me.

OK, about to get into a bee hive here, hope the honey of truth will be worth it.

First), I want to mention the terms sexism and sexist and that they have a strong feminist bias that is innappropriate for a civilization seeking true equality.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism

I feel that the definition of sexism needs to drop the ironically sexist "especially against women" line.

Fortunately, the definition hasn't been completely rewritten to exclude people who discriminate against men.


Second), I bring this up because your comment about men being dicks because they have them comes across as highly sexist. Taken as posted your reply sounds like it is right to depict men as evil users of women only. It doesn't matter if you are a man, women or something in between, such a statement still could be seen as discrimination or prejudice based upon sex.
If a male holds a hateful attitude towards other men then it is much like women who used to echo masogynistic beliefs or black people who hate others of their race. It falls under the self-hating category of sexist.

So, if I take your statement, at face value, then you believe that men are horrible and deserve to be hated. If this is true, I can see how to the message of Misandry(Men are deserving of womens hatred) might be missed.


Third), As to the womens empowerment that you don't see.

It is like the "we will overcome" civil rights stories/movies. A heroic epic, that if done well, is supposed to inspire one group that they will overcome the oppression of an evil overlord group.

A)You show a group under the heal of an oppressor.
B)The downtrodden overthrow the horrible overlords.
C)They overcame by a virtue/trait of how they are different from their oppressors. (Because the sides are depicted in a manner that is so black and white it sends a message that because the hero was female that it is a virtue of her sex rather than her individual character)

For me, the movie failed to inspire. It came across as a Taylor Swift "all men treat me bad" song.


Finally), For me, there is a difference between the surface depiction and the underlying story. Thing is, that many people are unable to get past the setting and how the girls are depicted visually. All they ever see are girls mistreated and dressed skimpily. These people view the movie as misogynistic.
I can see how the movie is, in some ways, both misogynistic and misandrist.

Point I'm getting to here is perspective.

You said that imagining the roles reversed comes across as a porno in your mind. This begs the question, "Why it doesn't come across as a porno of some sort now?".
Is it because women are somehow morally superior?
Is it because their is a difference between men and women that makes it ok to portray the girls like this without it being porn-ish?
Or do you see a porn element in it now that is rationalized as ok because of the everyone is in a role you understand?

Not trying to imply anything, I'm trying to understand your perspective on a comment that came across as a bit of a double standard.

Imo, you should be able to reverse the roles and while likely to be very different movies/stories, both should be equally legitimate.

 Captain Avatar wrote:
First), I want to mention the terms sexism and sexist and that they have a strong feminist bias that is innappropriate for a civilization seeking true equality.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism

I feel that the definition of sexism needs to drop the ironically sexist "especially against women" line.

Fortunately, the definition hasn't been completely rewritten to exclude people who discriminate against men.

Dude, the dictionary describes words in terms how they're used in the real world. Saying 'especially against women' is just accepting the reality of how it is used in the world - most times the term is used in the real world it is to describe sexism against women.

Trying to see that as some political ideology that is oppressing men is really reaching.



And for the greater message of Sucker Punch, it was an attempt at telling a story of powerful female heroines. To give these heroes villains to struggle against it created a group of horrible, despicable men. That isn't because the director hated men, but because that's how storytelling works.

That those men were just generic characatures with no motivation beyond base sexual lust is one of the reasons it's a crappy movie. That the supposedly inspiring female characters had very few admirable personality traits, and in their 'heroic' scenes they were dressed up like a man's fantasy is another reason this was a crappy movie.

sebster wrote:

Dude, the dictionary describes words in terms how they're used in the real world. Saying 'especially against women' is just accepting the reality of how it is used in the world - most times the term is used in the real world it is to describe sexism against women.

Trying to see that as some political ideology that is oppressing men is really reaching.

Dude, maybe its not a problem in your country but Gender bais in clinical terminology is getting to be a real problem. As women have progressed to being equals there is getting to be less need for the especially line and in some ways is hindering progress.
Rather than drag this thread off-topic, I'll start another thread. It will be "are women morally superior" or "Feminine bais in language". I think the first will draw more to the discussion.

sebster wrote:
And for the greater message of Sucker Punch, it was an attempt at telling a story of powerful female heroines. To give these heroes villains to struggle against it created a group of horrible, despicable men. That isn't because the director hated men, but because that's how storytelling works.

That those men were just generic characatures with no motivation beyond base sexual lust is one of the reasons it's a crappy movie. That the supposedly inspiring female characters had very few admirable personality traits, and in their 'heroic' scenes they were dressed up like a man's fantasy is another reason this was a crappy movie.

We both agree that the movie sucked. It is our personal perspectives that lead to how we view the stories failed message.

I do very much agree with your last sentence.

 Captain Avatar wrote:
Dude, maybe its not a problem in your country but Gender bais in clinical terminology is getting to be a real problem. As women have progressed to being equals there is getting to be less need for the especially line and in some ways is hindering progress.

No, please just read what I said. It's a dictionary. It is describing the word as it is used in the real world. It is saying it used more to describe sexist treatment of women than sexist treatment of men.

There is no ideology there. You're trying to find a slight against men that just isn't there.