Topic: Close Encounters

Bum. Bum. Bum. Bum. Brawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

That video educated the Christ out of me. (Chryst?)

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

So, you'd recommend Christians watch it?

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Just when I thought I had a pretty good handle on the whole British thing; that one's getting bookmarked.

(Curious to see what bearing this has on the commentary, but it's informative nonetheless.)

Re: Close Encounters

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/5411/englandhk.th.jpg <- info in picture form smile

Jason doesn't teleport.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

If Hitler had his way, that diagram would be whole lot simpler. Just "Germany" from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Geography class would be a breeze.

not long to go now...

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

what about Canada and Australia?  They still swear allegiance to the Queen right?

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

They're part of the "British Commonwealth" I do believe... along with other bits and pieces of the former Empire.

Re: Close Encounters

I'm Australian, so speak for yourself. I'm not swearing allegiance to someone who just happened to be born in the right family. I'd much rather live in a Republic where the head of state is someone we've all voted in, like George W Bush... no wait...

not long to go now...

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Kinda related - but it bugs the hell out of me that whenever I join a web-group, or sign up to Amazon or other online shopping channel, they don't have England as an option on their pop-up country selection thingy, just United Kingdom. And don't even mention the widespread reluctance to flying the George Cross (flag of England  smile ) thru fear of being labelled an evil nazi person. roll

Jason doesn't teleport.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

12

Re: Close Encounters

Yeah, swearing allegiance to stuff/people is a USA thing. We in Canada just have the Queen on the money and sometimes she visits so we have a party.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Stephen Fry makes the point that if you look at the United Nation's Human Development Index that ranks all countries based on their standard of living (literacy, longevity, income & gender equality, infant mortality, crime rates, income per capita, secularism, etc), then countries such as Norway and Sweden consistently dominate the top #5, and they're actually monarchies.
The idea of dynastic succession is absurd and against enlightened principles (and you'd never have it today if you were building a society from scratch), but it's curious that its no impediment to a modern enlightened functional society.

not long to go now...

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Close Encounters - I listened to the commentary and enjoyed your discussion about how didactic movies have become since the 1970s. In mainstream big budget American movies, evildoers are punished, and the virtuous are rewarded. In indie films and in European films, you can have moral ambiguity that reflects life i.e. bastards can prosper without getting a come-uppance and the innocent can suffer.

There must be some budget level (e.g. $1 million? $5 million?) where suddenly studio execs insist 'no that child/kitten cannot die' and that villain has to be killed/jailed at the end.

not long to go now...

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

rtambree wrote:

Close Encounters - I listened to the commentary and enjoyed your discussion about how didactic movies have become since the 1970s. In mainstream big budget American movies, evildoers are punished, and the virtuous are rewarded.

Yeah, Slate ran an article a while back about the new release of Fletch about how Fletch himself was kind of an asshole, apparently missing the point.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Close Encounters

I think it comes back to the William Goldman definition we've quoted more than once:  A "Hollywood movie" tells us what we want to hear, while an "indie movie" tells us what we don't want to hear.  It's more of a content thing than a budget thing, but nowadays it tends to be the same thing anyway.   

It's always a risk to make a movie that makes the audience sad, or angry, or think about things they don't want to have to think about, etc... unless you fix everything by the end, and leave them with a tidy "love conquers all" or "good always beats evil in the end" moral to take home.  There are people who can appreciate a movie that dares to say the opposite, and once in a while a movie like that can even become a mainstream hit, but let's be honest... it's rare.

Studio movies are so darn expensive now that they're reluctant to risk investing in a movie that a lot of people won't like.   Hence the sterotypical studio notes that always want the good guys to be gooder, the bad guys to be badder, the endings to be happy, and everything in between be simple enough to follow. 

As much as we like to complain about that, I dunno if I can really blame them... if it was ME who was about to place 70 million on the table, I'd be inclined to play the safer odds, too.

Re: Close Encounters

Regarding that video about the UK- I do laugh when people say UK or Britain/British when they actually mean English  big_smile

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Jimmy B wrote:

Regarding that video about the UK- I do laugh when people say UK or Britain/British when they actually mean English  big_smile

You go big_smile but I go mad

Last edited by Fido (2012-01-27 19:03:59)

Jason doesn't teleport.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

On the topic of vista vision there's a old story about how that format becoming a costly thing because of star wars and close encounters. I believe its was Richard Edlund who remembered seeing some of the old 1950s cameras at a particular camera shop as they were gearing up for episode one . When they went sure enough far in the back of the store were half a dozen units including one used as a coffee table! So he bought what at the time they could afford, two units which became the backbone of star wars effects. After all the hallaballoo over the movie gets to the point of knowing there going to make a sequel decides to buy a few more units goes back to the same shop, only now the vista visions are on velvet in the front window with each now costing double what it would have cost to have bought all of them before....ops.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Fido wrote:
Jimmy B wrote:

Regarding that video about the UK- I do laugh when people say UK or Britain/British when they actually mean English  big_smile

You go big_smile but I go mad

Why? smile

Last edited by Jimmy B (2012-02-01 19:05:24)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Jimmy B wrote:

Why? smile

Because it reminds me how scared the English are of celebrating their nationality. Yes we see flags flying galore during major sports events, but (and I've timed this) from the moment the event is over and when 99% of the George Crosses disappear is 4-8 nano seconds. To fly the flag at any other time and you run the risk of being branded a racist so best not do that. The amount councils spend celebrating St. George's day is less than they spend on bluetac. Though in a few hundreds years that will be mute as there won't be any English people around to put out the bunting. (wish we were like America)

Jason doesn't teleport.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Wow. I had no idea England had such a bad rap, or was so self-conscious about its nationality.  Where does the "evil Nazi person" stigma come from?

Over here we have folks who still like to display the Confederate flag.  While there are some who genuinely believe "the south will rise again," mostly it's either tongue-in-cheek or simply folks who are genuinely proud to be from those states.  They have to contend with some degree of "racist" stereotypes, not necessarily undeserved (some really are), but I don't know of anyone who would hide those colors on that basis.

Re: Close Encounters

Considering that the Confederacy arose pretty much exclusively because they wanted to own human beings with dark skin and were mad that they weren't going to be allowed to do so, anyone who is proud to display the flag of that movement and root for that side is celebrating racism practically by definition.

/close encounters

Fido wrote:

(wish we were like America)

Frankly I think we could stand quite a bit less blind rah-rah nationalism over here.

/so very on topic

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

They try to hide that behind the more modern argument of 'states rights', if they're actually displaying the flag for that reason. I live in 'Bama, so I see them a lot, and for the most part I think people just associate it with 'The South' in general, rather than all the politics and negative implications of that time.

People also call it the Stars & Bars, but it's actually the confederate naval flag. The Stars & Bars was the first official flag of the confederacy, and looked nothing like the southern cross at all. The army's battle flag was very similar, but was square. You can tell the different versions of the flag here. If you live in or have traveled through the south, you may have seen several variations of the flag and wondered what the differences were. http://www.usflag.org/history/confedera … dbars.html

It should be noted that toward the bottom of that page, the author makes the State's Rights argument I was talking about. I think state's rights are great, but if that's what you're all about, it would almost make more sense to fly the old Gadsden flag.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-02-01 23:50:26)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Close Encounters

Matt Vayda wrote:

Wow. I had no idea England had such a bad rap, or was so self-conscious about its nationality.  Where does the "evil Nazi person" stigma come from?.

iirc all it took was for a small bunch of "England is for whities, everyone else should just go home" people to drape themselves in the flag. Then England, as a country, seemed to willingly accept the flag no longer represented "yay England" but "yay White England". Which is a darn shame as my working thesis is that many of the current woes of society (highest teen pregnancy being one) could be solved/helped if the country was given a boost to its selfworth/self pride, and this could be achieved with the mass flyings of the flag EVERYWHERE.
As for the being like America - current (iiuc) anyone born here to nonUK nationals is considered British (even if they are born in England and go on to live their whole lives in England). I'd love to see England adopt the Americanism of "if you're born in England then you're English. This would quickly remove the easily laid charge that George Cross wavers are celebrating their Whiteness because we'd have a multitude of skin colours waving and proclaiming their "yay England" ness - which'd be awesome. smile.

Jason doesn't teleport.

Thumbs up Thumbs down