wednesday

wednesday OP wrote

as if these versions are twisted forms of cuisine gnarled by imperialism and that is what they mean by toxic

even if this is true (and i'm dubious about that), i disagree. if Chinese people cook food in a particular way, and then they migrate to another country and the way they cook food changes as a result of that, that doesn't make the new way of cooking food is wrong, or "twisted", it's just a different way of cooking food.

perhaps you could argue it's "caused by" imperialism, but even if so, does that mean all US Black culture is somehow bad or wrong because it only exists as a result of the transatlantic slave trade?

people adapt to all kinds of external influences, including imperialism, forced migration, etc. even if something only exists as a result of imperialism, that doesn't mean the thing itself is inherently bad.

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wednesday OP wrote

Reply to comment by ziq in what are you watching this month? by wednesday

okay, i think i understand what you mean in principle: what you call a 'mood movie' is, i think, what i call a 'visual movie': a film that is interesting in itself, because of the visual medium, without having a story or plot or whatever.

i personally can't include The Batman in that category though, because visually, i found it quite boring: the only aesthetic was 'dark' and it didn't seem to explore any visual aesthetic that previous Batman movies hadn't already done.

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wednesday OP wrote (edited )

this is a nice set with Dennis: https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=7yg-ANvukFo - he starts off doing a basic 1-5 then it gets more interesting, but never overwhelming the melody.

and i've posted this one in f/irishtrad before, but John Doyle is another great Irish guitarist: https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=XFDtF-78rQ0

edit: why i like Doyle here: firstly, keeping in time with an air in free time on the guitar is impressive by itself (although these two no doubt practice together a lot), and secondly, his choice of chords is sublime: he's often choosing chords that are really not implied by the melody, yet they fit perfectly as a harmony, without turning the tune into a blues or something like a bad guitarist might do.

i feel like the guitar gets overlooked in Irish music because, frankly, a lot of people play it badly, but when it's played well it really works.

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wednesday OP wrote (edited )

Tenet

oh my god, i fucking hated this movie, and it completely killed any lingering respect i might have had for Nolan. it was trying so hard to be clever and "make-u-think" like Memento (still an excellent movie), but it just completely failed: the story was nonsensical, the characters were boring, the action sequences were tedious. it felt like Nolan was playing a trick on me by getting me to watch this crap.

i will say that the torture scene at the beginning was really well done, but that was basically the only scene in the movie that was remotely interesting.

edit: it reminded me of Southland Tales, and not in a good way. in fact, i think Southland Tales was the better film of the two.

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wednesday OP wrote (edited )

  • John Wick

i didn't particularly love this film, but i found it extremely interesting because of the "video game" vibe in the action sequences. i don't watch that many action films, so perhaps this is more common nowadays, but i don't think i've ever seen a film where i could almost imagine controlling the protagonist with the mouse as he shot people. is this something the director was specifically aiming for?

the film as a whole was overshadowed for me by the dog murder scene at the start. i understand the point was to shock the viewer (which was certainly successful) but it disturbed me enough that i couldn't really enjoy the rest of the film.

  • The Final Girls

not a particularly deep film, but as an affectionate tribute to 80s horror movies, i found it quite enjoyable. hard to say more about it because, well, it is what it is. worth a watch if you like that kind of thing.

  • Repo! The Genetic Opera

this felt like it was trying a little bit too hard to be "The Rocky Horror Picture Show 2"; the story wasn't really long enough to justify the length, and the songs weren't quite good enough to make up the time. but i didn't hate it; it felt like it achieved mostly what it set out to do.

if nothing else, it deserves credit for being a movie starring both Tony Head and Paris Hilton, which must be the most unlikely casting decision in the history of filmmaking.

  • Logan

this is one of the best films i've seen in a long time. most superhero movies are incredibly boring (and often, borderline fashy), but this managed to do something interesting and different: it took existing characters the audience knows, and put them in a new situation that made us look at them differently. i actually cared about what happened to the people in the film, and i was very surprised by the ending, both of which are unusual for superhero movies.

the film was obviously inspired at least in part by Unforgiven, but it wasn't a remake; it did its own thing and felt like it had its own voice. comparing this film to something like the MCU or DCEU really highlights how terrible those franchises are.

  • The Batman

based on the (good) reviews this film got, i was hoping for something like Logan. instead, it was... well, i don't even know. it wasn't a "detective" film because all the clues just fell into the heroes' laps via deus ex machina. it wasn't an action film because there was no interesting action. it wasn't a character study because it said nothing at all about Batman as a character beyond "tortured and angsty". the romantic B-story was so laughably bad, it could have come straight from the MCU.

why was this film even made? why did anyone, especially film critics, enjoy it? i find this absolutely perplexing. this is one of the worst films i have seen for a long time.

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wednesday wrote

What does 'morality' mean to you?

a system of decision-making whereby some actions are considered more correct and some are considered less correct based on a pre-defined set of acceptability criteria.

that's a bit of a vague definition, but i think it more or less covers how i approach morality. i think this definition also covers both "morality" and "ethics" as they're usually discussed. (i'm not interested in a nitpicking a definition, but i will engage in interesting discussion about that definition.)

I was motivated towards ethics because I'm precisely uncomfortable basing my decisions on just how I 'feel that day.'

i understand that position... however, i feel like having a moral (or ethical) framework is the worse option of the two because that predisposes you to particular outcomes regardless of the specific context that applies today. my suspicion is that nearly all morality decisions are in any case based on "how i feel that day" and are post-hoc justified by twisting those feelings to fit into a moral framework, a process which is hidden by confirmation bias.

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