Hacker Cinema
Superman
2025 · Film · 130 min
Directed by James Gunn
Science FictionAdventureAction
Superman, a journalist in Metropolis, embarks on a journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent.
6 positive6 negative39 neutralfrom 51 commenters
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52 comments on Hacker News
You're basically describing the structure of the most popular manga and anime genre in the world, and some of the top sellers in that genre have been able to keep the power scaling up for years if not decades. It isn't a problem if you do it right.
Also few superhero movies that I'm aware of actually follow that format. Even the long runners like Superman and Batman tend to only focus on one or a few familiar villains and essentially rehashing their hero's origin story every time, and in the MCU Thanos was always in the background, but the heroes themselves consisted of wizards and demigods. And Hawkeye was also there.
Batman beating Superman in any universe is just stupid, I'll grant you that much. I don't care how much prep time you have, you're not defeating a being that can bench press the moon and slice cities in half with eye lasers like Ramiel in NGE. And you're literally just a rich asshole dressed like a bat.
Disney can do whatever it wants if it restores and releases a 4K version of the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy, something the fan base has wanted for decades at this point. I won't hold my breath.
Very large companies are generally very bad at consistently producing original content because everything in a corporat eenvironment skews towards not taking any risks. Big companies want a repeatable formula. It's why we get to many sequels and reboots with depressingly few new properties. HBO has been the exception to the rule. I would've also said Apple TV tends to corporatize content into being inoffensive. Modern Family (even though it wasn't an Apple production) is kind of like the perfect Apple TV content. But we have things like Severance and Silo so maybe there's hope.
Anyway, the retconning and corporatization around Star Wars has been depressing to watch. The whole "Han shot first" was a line in the sand more than 30 years old that seemed to stem from George Lucas's desire for a lighter classification for the films. The Phantom Menace of course was very much aimed at a younger audience even though the plot revolved around a tax treaty dispute of all things.
The sequel trilogy was for me, as an original Star Wars fan, deeply depressing. I honestly haven't even watched the last one where Carrie Fisher did her best Mary Poppins. And honestly the whole prmise of midichlorians (from the original trilogy) and inheritance of Force ability was really offensive and against the original spirit of Star Wars. I mean as anyone example of corporatization the name "Rey" was chosen to be easily pronounceable in many languages.
Look where we started. The inspiration for Star Wars was the Viet Cong resisting American imperialism in Vietnam (direct from George Lucas) [1].
Disney produced beloved classics like The Jungle Book, Aladdin and Snow White. In the 2000s, they seemed unable to continue this creativity and it became an amalgam of Pixar and the MCU (and later Lucasfilm). Pixar was a culturally antiestablishmment company started by Steve Jobs (yes, yes, he bought a London computer graphics division). The MCU took decades of creativity in the superhero space and basically turned into 2000s era patriotic films. You can guess why the timing.
Oh it's worth adding the Star Wars originally had an expanded universe that was kinda managed by Lucasfilm. Disney abandoned this on purchasing Lucasfilm and some fans were very upset. This included Chewbacca having a wife and family back home. It was all fan fiction, basically.
Disney could very much use the Star Wars milieu to tell stories relevant to our times. The 2025 Superman movie did this for example. and it made some people very upset. But Disney absolutely will not do that. So I really don't think it matters what they try and do.
[1]: https://screenrant.com/star-wars-george-lucas-vietnam-war-inspiration-explainer/
When I read the phrase "it's cool to care", the first thing that popped into my mind was this line from the recent Superman movie: "Maybe that's the real punk rock". Like Alex's story landed for you, that phrase really landed for me, especially in the backdrop of how non-badass the Corenswet Superman was compared to the Snider character. (Spoilers follow) He allows himself to care enough to a point that would make him vulnerable: he gets flustered when aggressively questioned by Lane, he feels despondent during captivity, and he loses his temper when the dog is abducted. But the important thing is that he recovers quickly and shrugs off the experiences rather than brood on them. Perhaps the lack of that skill is what leads some people to adopt being aloof/disinterested as a defense mechanism.
Art Decó, on the other hand, would look pretty Americana and elegant for your buildings. It's basically the classical American city depiction for Europeans (noir movies, Superman, old comic strips from newspapers...)
Myself during the pandemic I was really turned off by the idea they were going to keep doing concessions the way they usually did because the idea of a popcorn and coke mess would turn my stomach.
Since then I've seen Barbie and Superman and it was cool but I'm not in a rush to see more movies in a theater. We were worried that the chain theater in town was going to go out of business because it had been leveraged by an Israeli company just before the crisis. The art house theater downtown is starting to show those tentpole movies but the art house movies in the trailers seem all the same to me and don't catch my eye. If they wanted to get me in they should have shown Ne Zha 2. The big chain theater is actually getting interesting because they show all kinds of unusual thing such as live opera performances, anime movies, etc.
Just can't see it beating streaming though, also I think somehow television has outpaced movies in terms of the scope of stories it can tell. I find it so boring that they keep making three-packs of superhero movies and then reboot and tell the origin story over and over again, one thing I liked about the latest Superman was that they didn't retell his journey from Krypton and his upbringing in farm country but just jumped into it -- I mean, Superman has been around 87 years we know his origin story.
In a TV show they couldn't get away with rehashing the origin story and the first few books over and over again -- I could care less if Spiderman was bit by a radioactive spider or a GMO spider, I just want to seem him slinging webs and punching bad guys and mostly being loved by the community and occasionally feared.
A few recent Warner Bros films / coproductions
Imagine if these had not had theatrical releases, or, had only had 1 week limited releases just to qualify for awards..
Tenet
Dune
The Batman
Barbie
Furiosa
Twisters
Minecraft
Sinners
Superman
Weapons
One Battle After Another
Breathe a sigh of relief WB wasn't bought by David Ellison.
Cry softly the next Superman movie will barely be in theaters...
Surely there will be a kpop-demon hunters X DC universe X mortal kombat game that comes out of this...
Netflix will adapt AI-driven Streaming on demand content. But, critically, it will now be backed up by the entire IP catalogue of WB. Wanna watch a new Superman movie where he meets Harry Pitter? Ok. Wanna see the Matrix as an animated version that includes the Flintstones? Ok.
Warner Bros has had their best summer in years (Sinners, Superman, etc). HBO still makes highly regarded prestige TV series (The Last Of Us, Task, etc). This is just false.
I have the Samsung Frame TV (great TV btw) and decided I didn't want to pay the $5 / month to have curated art in the room and when Superman the movie came out a few months ago it was only displaying Superman comics on the screen. Was super annoying bc was subtle but not subtle enough. I uploaded family pics instead so I don't have that anymore but it was still pretty annoying. I have samsung washers / dryers / dishwasher etc all connected to the internet and I love the notifications when a load is done but I don't know how useful the data is... I assume data brokers are like, "Oh Aj uses his washing machine 7 times a month let's hit him with Tide ads", but I assume everyone uses the machine that much. I'm fine having my machines tell Samsung use bc it's normal usage (i think?)
I did note, to my fascination, that gpt-5 was happy to agree that in The Suicide Squad from 2021, the fictional island nation of "Corto Maltese", at least as portrayed in that particular film, was an obvious amalgam of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Haiti. But was very hesitant to accept that there were similarities between "Boravia" and Israel in the newest Superman movie.
I thought printed papers were all but dead even in the US
In its last financial statement, the New York Times reported 600,000 print subscribers. (Plus something like 20 million paid online subs.)
Newsstands are mostly gone (though there are a few), but my experience over the last few years is that outside of tourist areas, print newspapers are available at most chain drug stores, book stores, and some gas stations. The more urban you are, the more likely you are to find them. They also remain popular in ethnic communities. I recently picked up a monthly printed newspaper in Japanese that is distributed in the DC area.
I can think of five places with six blocks of me that sell newspapers (two drug stores, two bodegas, and a bookstore).
The latest Superman movie even did a PR stunt where the movie company printed up thousands of Gotham newspapers with Superman headlines and distributed them to newspaper racks. I saw them at Walgreens.
> keep objects consistent
I think this is not nearly as important as most people think it is.
In hollywood movies, everyone already knows about "continuity errors" - like when the water level of a glass goes up over time due to shots being spliced together. Sometimes shots with continuity errors are explicitly chosen by the editor because it had the most emotional resonance for the scene.
These types of things rarely affect our human subjective enjoyment of a video.
In terms of physics errors - current human CGI has physics errors. People just accept it and move on.
We know that superman can't lift an airplane because all of that weight on a single point of the fuselage doesn't hold, but like whatever.
Watching Warner Brothers fail to learn this lesson for a decade before finally releasing a good Superman movie was frankly a little sureal.
They're saying 'Superman' is really about Palestine (and/or Ukraine) because there's a scene set in Africa. (But I think that says more about National Review than the movie...)
I've just never liked "Superman" stories. It seems like they first have to show all the evil that his various villains are performing... so Superman can then be "good" (by punishing those evil-doers). This movie did a better job of giving Superman an actual personality/social life -- but he still has to get back to being "good" in the face of "evil". And I've just always found that a little tedious.
(Although old-timers may remember that Seanbaby.com hated the Superfriends more than anyone...)
Superman is the Joker from Batman's perspective (dressed like a clown, always with a smile on the face, etc).
Batman is Lex Luthor from Superman's perspective (rich, creates megalomaniacal inventions and gizmos).
This movie corrupts (or subverts? depends on whether you like it or not) these classical dynamics by having Superman have technological gizmos, and a "bat-cave" he retreats to when defeated.
It's very weird. Any writer working with these characters should know that. I doubt that AI was used though.
It feels like Batman trapped in an illusion.
Having seen all 3 summer blockbusters (Jurassic World: Rebirth, Superman, and Fantastic Four: First Steps) after years without moviegoing, I think Covid has a lot more to do with the changes in movies than AI.
By any measure, movies were pretty bad before Covid. Then, people stopped going entirely. I think this caused the studios to rethink what they have to sell.
We're getting storylines that wouldn't be in previous versions of these films, like dogs and pregnant women. Pacing is also changing and storied franchises are being mercilessly rebooted with their entire canon tossed or disrupted because it doesn't appeal today.
We're also seeing more large format feature films (IMAX and XD) where these used to be reserved for documentaries or special events. I watched all of the mentioned films in large formats and paid extra to do so.
Rather than AI, I think these changes represent the response of people at the studio to changes that customers want to see at the movies, lest they stay home and watch standard fare on streaming.
>$75 for two seems perfectly reasonable in LA, SF or NY once you include concessions.
Perhaps it's reasonable for a very occasional and special event, but it's not actually that expensive for anyone that cares about seeing movies in theaters. I'm paying $27/mo for effectively all-I-can-watch[1] movies via a subscription in SF, and includes IMAX. When I travel to LA I can use it there too, and it's available in NYC. I saw Superman for the cost of popcorn because I saw Elio earlier this month, it's a great deal.
If one doesn't go to theaters that often or cares for IMAX, there's other chains that offer 1 2D-only movie for $12/month and the tickets roll over.
[1] 4x movies/week, which is indeed more than I have time for.
The next Superman movie might correctly conclude that you’re going to go see it anyway, so advertising it to the hypothetical you isn’t very valuable.
Batman, Superman and Spider-Man are not real. And that does matter. It is super normal to watch a movie and sympathize with what would be clearly bad guys in real life.
So yes, batman in particular would be considered bad by most people. He is just another gangster cause quite a lot of damage to the city on the regular. We do not care, because it is made up movie city.
Superman and Spider man afaik do not go around randomly assassinating people, but it is a long time since I watched that.
The new Superman movie seems to be built on such checkboxes.
>Terrible advice for a potential reader.
Your quotation left out the context of that advice which explains the reasoning. The paragraph before it states:
>, I would recommend familiarizing oneself with the main characters and the basic outline of the story. This may sound like strange advice, since readers of contemporary fiction are often accustomed to avoiding “spoilers,” but developing prior knowledge of the characters and story actually brings one closer to the experience of ancient audiences, who, as I have said, would have already known the broad outlines of the myths the epics tell before they went to a performance of them.
A rough analogy would be today's audiences already being familiar with comic superhero characters and stories like Superman, Wonder Woman, etc in DC Comics, or Spiderman, etc in the Marvel Universe -- before watching any of the movies about them. Sure, there might be a few in the audience who are totally oblivious to the background of the Superman mythology before the movie starts but for the most part, everybody is familiar with Clark Kent, kryptonite, and so on. (Cue up the famous Jay Leno skit of asking random people in the street, "what is the chemical composition of salt?", and they don't know to answer "sodium-chloride" ... but when he then asks "what's the name of the rock that hurts Superman?" and they immediately say "Oh, that's kryptonite!")
The idea is to bring that level of cultural knowledge into the reader's brain before reading Iliad/Odyssey.
Everyone becomes a producer.
The AI will write, paint, render, stylized, mix, match, re-mix, denoise, film-grain, celebrity voice, etc.
But since it is drawn from a relatively fixed swath of culture, patterns will emerge. I don't mean extra fingers or other anomalies, but the things "left over" from over-engineered prompts. Flying heroes always show a copyright friendly Superman analogue in crisp HDR lighting, group photos will always have a mix of skin tones to avoid lawsuits of racism, etc. Scrubbed head to toe of offense or legal issues.
Ever visit some of the bigger cities in Texas? Concrete empires filled with various food and store chains on flat land to the point pics of Houston look interchangeable with Dallas. Art, as we know it, will start to look like that.
The curriculum consists of reviewing the history of comic books, reading a lot of comic strips, and watching several graphic novel driven movies such as Superman and Watchmen.
It is a consumption course. Kids don’t actually learn how to write graphic novels. That might actually might be worthwhile.
> You pitch a movie, you make the movie, you deliver the movie. There are stories of extreme change in requirements, but they seem rare.
It's probably more likely to happen on too-big-to-fail movies with terrible writing. Superman's upper lip[0] is a fun example.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yKoE9Tld10
The page displays the movie title logos for Superman I-III but not Superman IV or Man Of Steel. I suppose that's a selection bias from the website owner Reagan Ray.
Here's his page on Marvel Comics title logos: https://reaganray.com/2021/04/06/marvel-lettering.html
No, like it has absolutely no give initially. Then it briefly opens and air floods in, and then force you were exerting is no longer held back by the force of the atmosphere on the suction sphere (treat the opposing force of the other team as horses as being symmetrical, despite it not being so, they communicate with their force on usually a man getting torn apart, the basis for the experiment, science being stronger than the human body). Horses don't want to put their poor specially adapted (for riding) backbone into a prank. When they sense weird shit, they don't pull the same way, looks like it but eh, if you could go back in time and put a spring measuring newtons of force (which this contributed to developing, hence back in time, Hooke came later), they're not going for it like an executioner's horse quartering a man told to die. Then yes and I think the opposite forces of horses in both directions is based on quartering, tearing limbs apart, tearing the sphere in two. That's what it's based on. Horses don't frequently pull things apart except those told to die. Like to work it has to be antagonistic, like there ought to be a bet of some sort. Bets as challenges have their place, it can be very little money or mutually desired rivalrous good. The setup is a huge thing, like how do you cast the ball, how thick is the metal (this makes it give initially when pulled, that comes into play), not just how much pressure and how good the seal, which are of course the figures of merit. The measurement, how much you can pull, what the limit is.
This was good science overall, but beware using living things in experiments like this.
The experimenter and participant can switch places.
Changing the subject a bit, the scientist must have made smaller brass balls for himself to try to pull apart. And it's so subjective, like the puppies that were smarter than the shrinks electrocuting them, knew it was torture and being a dog.
Spesh a puppy, according to the shrinks because then they learn faster which was what the learned helplessness experiment was about, also blank slate for reproducible experiments, and finally a bit of cruelty. I've seen the faces they make sometimes, in sick mode. Again, might as well switch places, me telling them what's up. They were practicing for humans later, the industry for electric dog collars is nothing like the industry around torture. Torture is very expensive to administer, huge losses. What 1984 outlines is incredibly expensive if that's the only form of oppression. But it's not, that's only for the patsy, the hero, whatever you prefer to call him. Even in Chile, where it was massive, they just couldn't torture such an incredible number of people because it's so dirty and it takes a lot of people to run the torture apparatus. Couldn't torture four million people, that would require four hundred million people just to operate at a loss, meaning all of humanity as its slave class subsidizing it, and then who tortures all humanity? No, that doesn't scale. What scales is fear. And never revealing their own fear, like they did to me, never being exposed as being the only true bitch in the system. Like in 1984, which it turns out I live-action-role-played, you read it and at some point it's like, O'Brien is a complete bitch. He needs a full-on Egyptian pyramid (inefficient for space, good for monuments though, which is what Miniluv actually is), with a dungeon, tons of guards for a mile on all sides, no getting out no getting in (secret passages), no Brotherhood. And logistically it's a crazy money-loser. Says so right in the book, they're very wasteful.
Like get this: they actually have a guy carefully putting dust back on Winston Smith's book exactly like he did with in one second, taking like an hour very very carefully, that's a career path for some total loser. It's 3600-to-1 and they brag about it anyway.
O'Brien gets a great wage let me tell you, and everyone in that building is at least in their own view handsomely paid for blind loyalty, and their sadism really, job requirement, like the sadism bribes of government land Pinochet handed out for pittances to the most sadistic and abstracted political supporters, in the elite of course, way below market prices. And they loved him forever, set up a flight Santiago to London direct motherfucking Pinochet airlift, again the inefficiency plane after plane of sychophant must have been weekly or biweekly, just to get the one asshole out without any consequence. Call it 100 airplanes to lift that fat ass out of London, just to clean up after his shit. All the people that the operation required, duh yes lawyers but so much more behind the scenes, so many specialists, each with their field working together as a team.
Like in 1984 there's a guy preparing the heroin for the hero to him addicted to giving in just a tiny bit, you know that bartender went to an institute to specialize in getting the measures right, just enough heroin (it's heroin, it's real heroin in the Miniluv, uncut) to seduce him into thinking he can think he is a bitch, but not that much, they're still mostly torturing him. The funhouse mirrors with screens behind them, same thing, that's a national security first priority getting those special effects built to the highest standard, like there's a make-up crew to paint Winston Smith horribly when he's passed out to make him believe that he really is being bitched in his heart of hearts. Dude and nobody does any work in that book, tells you how privileged Orwell was in a way, he thought he could be a writer or intellectual, yeah. Yeah an intellectual who participates in torture, O'Brien, then yes. Need that degree though, very into the certificate and especially the prestige. Typically, though, intellectuals are persecuted just as Salvador Allende predicted in his final radio address, when the Republic of Chile announced it was operating under the same name, but a change in management due to treason. Still in power, a long golden age for traitors, and it seemed like it would last forever...
Or let's put it another way.
Your choice.
Be a bitch or die being a hero. Die under torture. Or be a bitch.
And in the end, people get what they want. Ends up being, the subtext, is millions of Chileans were subjected to the threat of torture, millions of cases of extortion, because most people aren't so...stupid, as the shrinks put it. They're smart, they let someone else take the fall. But don't underestimate yourself! There is absolutely some threshold of abuse (eg making you eat dog meat, or human feces, or force you to penetrate another victim) at which you wouldn't try delegating the dying to someone else. Don't think there's not a hero in there somewhere! Why else would you watch those movies? That Batman Superman Joker shit resonates with you because in fact most of the genome comes from heroes. It's a remote possibility but that's the entire genome, heroes and heroines. Like most of the genome, like 66% is from the Cambrian explosion, that's the basic outline of vertebrates, crazy era, the Justice League, so idealistic. So every so often, and you can tell age of fossils with this because it's like a clock, a mutation brings about a new protein. Molecular clock, literally. Like 10,000 years. A defect within a defect, in fact. There is a local maximum, this is a departure from that, hence defect, with the stigma, defect. Then, something happens and you go even farther out--and attempts to go with the herd are hopeless. And this protein made him different. It's rare but it's like the whole genome, apart from that it's remixes, like deciding in what order to watch Batman and Superman movies for the millionth time.
But don't think those actors with their special effects are the heroes! You're more of a hero for watching that movie than they are for starring in it, by a lot. And they aren't actually heroes in a Roman Law capacity as they , people confuse actor with character. On the contrary, Heath Ledger! I actually did that exact same shit to a real gangster, made my getaway just like Heath Ledger, like a glitch in the system. Declared a hero, told what I did was perfect. And that was just the beginning, long weekend, long ten years of silence. But what happened ultimately? Justice, the dungeon being put to original intended use. A bitch in the system.
> I have fond memories of many 2600 titles that are contenders for the title of “worst video game”: E.T., Superman, and Pac-Man
A lot of famous movie themed games sucked back then because of the same reason: game producers wanted to easily cash on fans wanting to purchase anything with that movie title on, and with usually a very short time span at disposal before the craze waned, they put together the smallest crap necessary to allow that title on the box. I soon learned to ignore any game taken from famous movies, except the Indiana Jones themes ones later on the Amiga, but they already had a functioning engine and making a point and click adventure was just a matter of design following some movie parts plots and aesthetics.
Was the first game I ever played on a cousins Atari in 1982, I loved it and Superman, was absolutely fascinated by the game on the TV.
Got an Atari shortly after for Christmas.
The genre of movie based games has now completely turned on it's head, games are now made from movies.
Ah, "testimony" and "personal narrative"!!! Okay:
Gee, finally: Early in school, I was very interested in learning good information. For "fiction", my summary was that it was by definition and its own admission not true so definitely not the information I was interested in.
Later I guessed that maybe fiction could have some value as information if viewed it as suggestions or hypotheses about people, maybe actually valuable if the author had some unusually good insight -- information about people stands to be important, but people can be complicated and good insight when available might be about the best information we can hope for so far. For academic research in psychology, my brother tried that through his masters but changed to political science for his Ph.D. because of his summary of the psychology research -- had some solid results that applied to rats but not to humans.
Then I complained: Reading fiction, (A) I was not sure what the author was claiming to be true and, (B) even if there was a good guess about the claims, the evidence is not very good.
Then I noticed that I have some guesses about humans, and when I see fiction that agrees with such a guess I can start to conclude that at least the fiction writer was guessing that lots of his audience will agree with his guesses about humans. So, at least a reader of the fiction can come away with some evidence that some audience agrees with the guess about humans.
Finally I settled on the description that mostly fiction was about entertainment, call it vicarious escapist fantasy emotional experience entertainment (VEFEEE)! Yup, and movies about Superman, Batman, and Spiderman can get a lot of revenue!
Superman movies were mainstream blockbusters already 40 years ago, cool action movies were never nerdy.
Citizens are conditioned to believe that police will solve all the crimes from shows like True Crime, CSI, etc.
And when said criminals are such masterminds that even the police can't catch, they are then conditioned by superhero movies from Marvel, Superman, Batman, etc. that someone should rise up to catch such criminals, this is the end state.
See, every kid is taught and empowered growing up that they should stand up for what's right. And when the justice system is imperfect, everyone is trying to fix it in the best way they know how. Some are doing it politically, socially, physically, etc.
Are you sure about the hair color? My feeling is that movie villains tend to have black hair while the good guys are more often not black. It isn't a strong association though. Superman has black hair while Cersei is blond.
Black has a natural association with night, darkness, and shadows. While white is associated with day and sun light. This is deeper than the English language.
Anyone else disappointed the quartz glass isn’t shaped like the stick-like storage units that appeared in the Superman movies?
I wrote this five years ago on reddit on the same topic and it's too long to embed:
http://txti.es/ocean-acidification
TL;DR: [T]his isn’t a train that stops for anyone, regardless of all the radical idealism, all of the futurist woo, the green colored packaging or compact fluorescent light bulbs, or all of the liberal sentimentality and conservative denialism.
This is not a movie. There is not a plot line. There is no salvation at the end of the hour. You are not a survivor in the zombie apocalypse. This is real. There are no adults secretly or overtly in control waiting to step in. Superman isn’t coming to save us from ourselves. You are in the middle of an extinction event that just so happens to include you.
Because these movies being public domain just means these specific movies are public domain, nothing more. You can recut and remix them, if you wish.
You can’t do whatever you want with the character of Superman and the many elements of his stories that exist outside these works, however.
Superman's origin story in both Movies and Comics is absolutely based on Moses.
But I don't think Superman really acts like Jesus, or Moses would in any situation.
I'm curious how you think the comics express Superman's personality or actions differently than the movies?
The original Superman , the comics one is more like Moses, now the movies are "converting" him in Jesus-alike.
It reminded me that one of the most enlightening things I realized about superheroes was when I noticed that recent Superman movies try too hard to tie the Man of Steel to Jesus with a bunch of transparent cinematic metaphors. The best way to imagine Superman is as a messiah, but explicitly not Jesus: He is the messiah as imagined by a Jewish kid raised on mid-20th-century science fiction.
I noticed the same in the last Avengers and Superman movies. After a while I had no idea what was going. I am not sure if the action scenes are just some cool looking scenes added to arouse as much emotion as possible without making sense.
As a father of daughters, I'm waiting for the series of articles that will help me understand the proper way to have a conversation with them about the fact that their boyfriends, when they are old enough to have them, do not have the muscular build nor the attractive looks of common comic book characters such as Batman, Superman, and so on that they constantly see. Never mind when they see movies with all those overly attractive male stars.
But all I get are articles about how certain comic books, that they probably shouldn't be reading anyway, gives them unrealistic expectations of what their bodies should look like. Plus the fact that will somehow prevent them from getting a career they want to have.
Anyway, I often take my daughters to the local comic book store that I feel has an adequate range of comics for all ages and gender. I let them loose to get what they want. The older one goes for things like Monster High and My Little Pony. The younger goes for those as well as TMNT and Transformers. I just let them decide for themselves what kind of comic book reader they want to be. I feel they'll mostly work it out for themselves. Some people shouldn't worry so much over such details because in the end it only stifles your kid's growth as a person. Trying to shield them from the world they live in doesn't help them in the long run.
Agreed. And "just wear headphones" isn't a solution for those of us who'd rather not have to trade one type of background noise for another.
My current startup follows the "open floor plan" model epitomized by Twitter. To be honest, it's great when I want to socialize, and pretty terrible when I want to put my head down and concentrate on something.
After realizing that I wasn't the only freak/outcast/weirdo who preferred to work in a quiet(er) environment, we implemented a "quiet room" at our office. Basically, we converted a conference room into the equivalent of a library. So far it's working out pretty well.
I know offices are pretty much relics of a bygone era at this point, reserved only for the likes of Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and other tech giants who came of age before the 2010s. But there's something to the office that we've lost in its passing. Offices may not be cost efficient, and they may not inspire "collaboration" or foster "culture." But it's nice to have a place to go to get shit done.
[For the record, I suffer from a condition known as misophonia, which is sort of like a hypersensitivity to certain sounds. I have exceptional hearing, but I can't tune out background noises the way most people can. For those of you who've seen the new Superman movie: those scenes in which Clark Kent suffered from all the background noises involved in "super hearing" really hit home with me. I know I'm not alone here, but unfortunately, people like me are kind of screwed in the new workplace paradigm.]
You bring this up when the subject includes Superman... a nearly invulnerable alien wearing Red and Blue spandex who can absorb the sun's energy, and who's only weakness is a rock that was found inside of his spaceship from when he was delivered to earth.
Yeah, right. Most movies aren't known for correct representations of the real world. But good movies explore human emotions: romance, tragedy, adventure, etc. etc.
I think that's where we're headed. Theaters are learning to appeal to distinct audiences. The Alamo Drafthouse, for example, takes pride in kicking out noisy people, and they don't allow children at most screenings. They also have special screenings where infants and children are welcome, so they're already specializing for more than one audience. Some theaters achieve a similar specialization through their location and their programming. In the long run, I don't think the commodification of blockbusters will kill movies for the minority who want something different, any more than McDonald's makes it hard to find great food. Formulaic, standardized mediocrity will be a choice. A popular one, to the frustration and grief of progressive people everywhere, but still a choice that can be declined by those who prefer something else. And the internet will come to the rescue of those poor souls who in the past would have been limited to whatever showed up at their local two-screen theater.
There may be a couple of drawbacks to this future, though. It may mean that big franchises like Star Trek and Superman are doomed to be mutilated on this 15-beat bed of Procrustes, because a producer who intends to produce an industry-standard movie to tight tolerances can outbid anybody who wants to do something creative with it. And it may mean that most "mainstream" theaters give up on the idea of watching a movie quietly in the dark, simply because they don't have the will or the means to enforce it. I can see movie theaters turning up the lights a little bit, moving the concessions into the theaters, and changing the seating to make it easier for people to move around like they're in a club. I think the outcry against that would be a big screaming silence, because people who don't like hearing teenagers talking on their cell phones or noisily sucking face have already stopped going to big cineplexes, at least in places where there's an alternative. I call it a drawback only because I'd hate to see most of the country deprived (via price or distance) of the experience of being immersed in the big screen and transported for an hour or two into a movie, even a bad one. But there may be enough demand for such an experience to keep "quiet" theaters running even in small cities.
He didn't say anything about 4 or 0 stars in his review.
> I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-human-centipede-2010
I haven't read most of Ebert's reviews, but I would be quite surprised to read a 4-star review in which he clearly expresses that he didn't like the movie. Maybe Ebert is not typical of connoisseurs? He did say that giving 4 stars to Superman is not the same as giving 4 stars to Ben Hur (or something similar), but he still liked both of them.
I assume you're a connoisseur of something. Pick two things that you dislike, one that is good, one that is bad. Do you dislike them equally?
So a lot of his crimes are pretty far in the past now (20 years in some cases).
So I'm thinking that "never forgive, never forget" is the motto here? Rehabilitation is not possible? I think you are forgetting that many "praiseworthy" individuals in history have dark pasts. Whitewashing your past to present the most favorable version of yourself has a long and honorable tradition. Recent examples would be Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Older would be people like Rockafeller, JP Morgan and basically anyone having anything to do with the railroads.
Personally though, I am attracted to people like Kim and Jobs not because of their "good image" but because they have a dark side.
To use a super-hero analogy... I find Iron Man a much more compelling hero than superman. Why is this? Superman is basically the perfect person, he has few real moral dilemmas, nor does he have any lengthly struggles. Superman never has depression, dark thoughts, a dark legacy to overcome, and so on.
Compared to the way Iron Man is portrayed in the recent movies, Iron Man/Stark is very human, has tons of flaws, but still manages to do good all in all. Stark has a dark legacy, both in his family and personally. He suffers from depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, grandiose and offensive behavior. The interesting part comes from the struggle between the dark and the light.
Only by embracing the light and dark sides of ourselves, can we truly grow past the dark parts and do good out there. Given the way our brains work, its practically a given that we are going to screw up in our younger years.
Embrace your humanity.
>>>Indeed, the kind of content that is protected by DRM is mostly entertainment, and not very much culture.
Did you ever go see a Batman movie? A Superman movie? Iron Man? The Avengers movie? Those weren't considered "culture" as recently as the 1970s. Stop.
>While it's great to understand the psychology behind the characters, this knowledge doesn't really make the movie or knowledge that much better.
Disagree with this so much. Knowing the depth and psychology of the characters is what makes the Watchman so much more interesting than say Superman or even my favorite superhero, Batman. Watchmen is very open and honest about the fact that people who would do this are probably riddled with psychological issues. I also like the subtle suggestion the book makes that most superheroes would fall onto the reactionary side of conservatism. I doubt there would be many incredibly liberal people out there taking the law into their own hands, but for some reazon the first time I noticed this mentioned was in Watchmen. Just a brilliantly written story with incredibly deep and realistic characters.
Some good reasons, especially regarding competition with other forms of entertainment, which is one of the bigger factors IMO. But I can't believe he didn't say anything about sequels. The top 7 grossing movies of this year were all sequels (http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2011&p=.htm)
On the one hand, this suggests that sequels are successful. On the other hand, the total revenue of those sequels was much lower than other top films of comparable prior years (just change the year in the URL and do some custom math), and if you account for ticket price inflation it's even worse. I think this points to studios not wanting to take on as much risk; sequels (and the proliferation of remakes... another Superman series already? really?) are low-risk because there's already some sort of existing awareness/fanbase to tap into... but I think they are also proving to be lower reward as people get burned out and don't care about going to see these sequels/remakes because the other reasons (prices, experience, etc) outweigh existing possible interest.
Interesting... but I'm not convinced this "proves time travel is impossible." I am not sure we know enough about time, and how it operates (if that's even the right word) to really speculate about how time travel would work, if it were possible.
I mean, Superman movies, Star Trek movies and Doctor Who aside, how much thought has really been given to how we would travel in time, even hypothetically? I know there has been some but is this something serious scientific minds spend time considering???
I recently became a subscriber and even if it does not have the latest movies i dont care because like Pandora it learns what you like and thus the recommendations are great. Another thing I love about it is the random DC comic cartoon/movies Ive watched like Batman/Superman and Superman and Shazam.
Cross-border ownership rights are enormously complex; international copyright laws make tax laws look simple, and that doesn't even take into account the differences in copyright laws between countries.
You hear about the conflict over the Watchmen IP rights, or Superman, or Terminator? Those all took place entirely within one country. Now try figuring out the rights for hundreds of shows, with hundreds of different writers and producers (including dozens of each for a single show), with rights spread out over multiple holders across multiple continents and countries with different IP and contract laws.
Difference between a TV show and a Hulu show: first and foremost, Hulu is available everywhere; a TV signal (however transmitted) is not. Hulu is on-demand. TV is not. Hulu requires a conscious effort by the viewer to select what to watch. TV is entirely passive, except for turning it on (and even that requires significantly less effort than starting up a computer). Hulu streams are individualized to each viewer; TV broadcasts are indiscriminate. There are more differences, but those are the big ones.