I thought about jumping into this, but it would take too much energy to catch up on the racial politics of a show I stopped watching after the fourth episode of the first season. Having done a couple of quick Google searches, all I can add is that the dude looks pretty white to me, but as redxavier pointed out, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is described as pale-skinned in the books,

But it's hard for me to go along with the the accusation that the show is guilty of whitewashing when clearly most of its problems in that regard derive directly from the source material.

If I recall correctly, GRRM worked in television for many years before he turned to writing, and only did so because he felt the stories he wanted to tell couldn't be made for television. It's only now that he's able to do those kind of sophisticated stories on the small screen. Given how much energy he's devoted to the show thus far, I'd be very surprised if he actually finished writing the books, which is the main reason I still haven't bothered reading A Dance with Dragons. I remember seeing him on some behind the scenes footage during filming for the first series and thinking that he looked way too happy behind the camera for the rest of the books to ever have a realistic chance of getting done.

I like this idea 'cause it may encourage folks on the forum to write more fixes, which are usually pretty awesome. Plus I think it would encourage more discussion of movies that you guys haven't done a commentary on yet.

No Netflix in Japan, unfortunately  , but as Fish Story is a Japanese movie, I'll just go down to the nearest rental place and pick me up a copy .

Yeah, that's definitely something that would never happen over here. In addition to the social stigma, everything at a Japanese wedding is so scripted and organized that it's simply not possible to walk in uninvited. In the Wedding Crashers, the guys were doing it for free food and booze and the chance to get lucky, but one of the first things you do upon arriving at a wedding here is hand over an envelope with a predetermined cash gift (usually around $300) for the happy couple, and there's not much opportunity to socialize with other wedding guests until the after-party, which is going to cost you another $50-60. There are so many profound differences in the way things are done here that audiences would just be baffled, particularly since many Japanese are unaware that there are any differences.

First off, I find it amazing that this woman was an editor for The New York Times, 'cause I find her writing style damn near unreadable.

Secondly, I'm confused as to why she seems so ignorant of the economics of her own industry. Certainly, I can understand being caught off guard by the speed of change Hollywood has been experiencing in recent years, but she started making movies before DVDs came to dominate a film's profit margins. I can't think of a single thing Peter Chernin tells her in his Santa Monica office with the ocean view that she has any right to claim is "mind boggling." The whole article makes her seem really, really dense.

I don't know if this is outside of your areas of expertise, but I would love for you guys to do an Intermission on international distribution, how it works (or doesn't work), and how it's influencing the industry. That was definitely the most interesting part of the article for me. The limited number of familiar faces and stories that are going to be able to sell a movie abroad could be really constraining for the big tent pole movies if they were to become more dependent on the international box office to make up for some of what they're not getting from lackluster DVD sales.

Fully agree on this point. In the beginning, I really liked the way the movie was being woven together, and I wasn't confused by the jumping around. But I didn't find that the individual stories stood out on their own as compelling pieces of storytelling. Every single one of the six stories played out exactly how I expected them to play out, and because it was so predictable, I found myself continuing to nit-pick little things throughout the movie (like how much limestone cliffs in Spain really, really don't look anything like volcanic mountains in Hawaii, or how there's not going to be enough water pressure on the windshield of a rapidly flooding car to cause it crack like that, assuming that it would've survived a headlong crash into the ocean in the first place). Overall, Cloud Atlas left me underwhelmed and I couldn't get invested in what was going on.

The way I see it, Cloud Atlas wants to have it both ways: it acknowledges the importance of race on one hand, while trying to completely disavow its importance the with the other. I didn't like that they were asking their audience to accept the visual cue of one actor playing multiple characters, while denying what the actors actually look like. No one seems to be saying that the race-bending was convincing, and in many cases, it was very distracting. It makes me wonder why they didn't decide to make the movie color-blind. I can easily imagine a version of Cloud Atlas where the directors make no visual accommodation for the race of the actors, but otherwise let us know that what we see as the audience and what the characters see may not directly correspond to each other (if necessary).

Okay, so this post is based on me having re-watched portions of the movie. In an earlier post, I said that we're given no reason to suspect that the kids might turn on each other, which isn't quite true. We do get a small hint from Sitterson right after he's been stabbed when he tells Dana to kill Marty. The exposition dump at the end is still really clumsy and unconvincing, though.

My impression wasn't that Dana and Marty made a logical choice to end the world. But they also didn't strike me as two tortured souls caving into human weakness. They both seem fully aware of the consequences of their actions, but act as if they're not personally invested, which doesn't make any sense.

I kinda agree with Marcus. Because the overall tone of the movie is so flippant, Dana and Marty's choice does make them seem a bit like a couple of kids flipping the whole world the finger.

I mean, I don't know if I could kill my friend under those circumstances either, but I would at least give a thought to my family and friends and what might happen to them as a consequence if I didn't. Dana says, "The whole world, Marty." and yet her words seem to fail to sway him in the slightest. And then later, in a complete turnaround, Dana says, "It's time to give someone else a chance." This s a thin justification at best, but my biggest problem is that this attitude comes completely out of left field. She seemed pretty distraught when her other friends died, but unless those were the only people in the whole world she cared about, why is she so disinterested in the fact that everyone else is going to die?

The only thing I liked about Cabin in the Woods was that the group of college kids felt like real human beings. They were funny, smart, interesting, and nice. I cared about what might happen to them. They were really fleshed out as people who had lives beyond the boundaries the movie they were in dictated. But the ending throws all of that out of the window, and we're given another helping of cynicism that limits them and their actions to those of stock characters in a scary movie. 

I would've much preferred it if Dana and Marty were sorta partly swayed by Ripley's words, but Dana gets taken out by the werewolf and she dies before the sun comes up, leaving Marty to reflect on the end of the world alone.

An old April Fools Day gag given new life.

Thanks for this explanation!    I only ever had a vague understanding of the connection between the two songs. Or, rather, the three songs.

I didn't make the initial comparison, and I appreciate that you were being glib. However, if you're gonna make the statement that he represents the worst of film criticism, then you should have a good idea of what the guy does.

But these movies have failed to entertain him, and he doesn't have to give them a "C" for effort, especially if he feels like they didn't actually put in the effort. Confused Matthew has a pretty narrow focus on story, plot, and characters, and a movie has to tick all of those boxes for him to consider it successful. Personally, I think he gives too much credit/blame to writers and not enough to directors, but that's neither here nor there. The real question, when it comes to the quality of his film criticism, is whether or not you think he has a point. There are times when I think he goes a bit overboard, but rarely would I say he's completely missed the mark.

My own problem with Confused Matthew is that he's way too abrasive It's okay to have a minority opinion, but no one's going to listen to you if you annoy them before you get to your actual point, which seems to be exactly what happened here. If they were gonna mention him on the podcast, I wish the guys had called him out for being too obnoxious to listen to rather than claiming that there was no inherent quality to stuff that they hadn't even bothered to listen to.

This makes me think that you haven't watched much of Confused Matthew, either. Not even the review you're quoting. His The Last Samurai review is 30+ minutes long and goes into great detail about specific problems he has with the writing and direction. He even suggests simple changes that he feels would've improved the story and characterization. The "Too fucking obvious, John" line is a one-off comment he makes very early on in the review. His bigger point, which he also clearly states early on in the review, is that many of the story elements are overblown and contradictory and that they fail to support the characterization and plot.

I don't mind sharing my thoughts. Posting this here doesn't seem quite right, but I'd feel like I was derailing an interesting discussion on gender politics if I post if where it belongs. 

Anyway, I can't argue against your point, mostly 'cause I have no intention of ever watching those movies and then re-watching The Avengers in order to find out. And I think that's this movie's biggest problem. I totally get that it's a sequel and there's a lot of backstory I may not know. But this movie doesn't make me want to go back and find out what I'm missing. It's hard for me to understand why this movie so great if it can't stand on it's own in any way and is entirely reliant on a bunch of other no-so-great films to establish all of its most compelling elements. If I was confused but engaged, then I would reconsider Thor, Iron Man 2, and Captain America for the sake of The Avengers, but The Avengers itself didn't inspire me to do that.

I quite often get accused of being nit-picky, but I also like anime, which in many circles means I have zero credibility. The most important thing for me is knowing what a film is trying to say, and it needs to say it effectively without dicking around too much. Characters are important, too, but I don't worry about whether or not I like them unless their actions don't make sense in the context of the story and theme.

The reason I couldn't get interested in The Avengers is because it isn't about anything. Stuff happens, characters do stuff, and so more stuff happens, but at its core, this movie feels hollow.

It being called "The Avengers," you'd think it would be about the team, but it isn't. Not really. I mean, it starts off with a bunch of individual superheroes bickering with each other for no reason, and then later on, they form a team. Not for any actually compelling reason, however, they just get tricked into it. At the end, they go their separate ways, but I guess they'll get back together in the team again at some point, 'cause the next movie has already been green-lit. Sure there are some good character moments in the mix, but overall I have no idea why I'm supposed to care.

Sorry about that. I previewed that post twice and managed only one fuck up. I guess I'm improving! 

Hmm. I'm not sure if I agree with that. This movie isn't a direct sequel in the same way as, say, the sixth Harry Potter movie. I never felt lost watching it; the plot didn't escape me and I was roughly familiar with most of the lead characters. There must be plenty of people who saw and enjoyed The Avengers without seeing all of the previous films. And I personally gave The Avengers a lot of leeway because I was unfamiliar with the other movies. But despite the best efforts of Joss and his writing partner, I thought this movie was pretty bad. Bad in the same way that Trey expected it to be bad (I'm guessing), except that I'm not as charmed by Mr. Whedon as he is, so there was less there to win me over.

Confused Matthew, on the other hand, has said many time that he only likes one superhero and that's Batman. So I highly doubt watching the inferior series of films that lead up to The Avengers would have improved his opinion of it much. Really, this movie never had much chance of winning him over, and he should've just told his fans, "No."

I'm of the opinion that a reviewer should have more foreknowledge going into a movie than the average audience member/reader of their reviews without hitting insane, internet fanboy levels of awareness. If your job is thinking deeply about the movies you watch, then I think you should prepare yourself to be able to do that.