FangsFirst

So...I was at work at Borders and noticed, on a random search, trades are planned for both The Family Man and the Fear Machine.

Has this news somehow not filtered into here?

I sure as hell know I'm excited considering Delano is my favourite writer of Constantine!

Well guys, although I understand the rage of opinions, I will give my two cents and a female opinion here. It’s obvious that Sin City is a movie that appeals for sexism. Really, can some of you say that for the non-comic book fans, males, the better thing in that trailer, the most selled poster and the most talked about scenes weren’t the ones involving the “sexy” Jessica Alba doing that dance and all those crazy and nude girls? Please, give me a break  if one went to see SC only because of  Rourke with that mask (that looks better than his real face BTW )  or Bruce Willis looking cool...

Actually I don't think Jessica Alba is remotely attractive and WAS far more interested in Mickey in prosthetics...(before we try and grab an easy out here, no I'm not gay either, so it isn't that). Though I do know some females who were highly intrigued by the presence of Rourke, Willis, Owen, etc....

The fact that it’s black and white don’t make it noir.

Very true; but it's not so much noir as a noir/hard-boiled hybrid.

The narration, character stylings, dialogue and so on ARE what make it noir. Or, more accurately, "noir-influenced."

Atmosphere/appearance is not the entirety of noir.

Oh and on the subject of taste, certainly. It is all a matter of taste. I, personally, was just a bit annoyed that Tears managed to categorize me as a young, horny, violence-driven, deer hunter readin', x-box playin' teen and that "women" like X type of movies. My father's the one who took my family out to see Titanic. And yes, yadda yadda, always exceptions, probably a minority, whatever, but there ARE exceptions was my entire point.

Frank Miller created a violent, bloody, sexist comic because that's the kind of thing he enjoys.

And it's sort of inherent to the noir and moreso the hard-boiled, Mickey Spillane style of writing and film that Sin City is so heavily sourced in.

And that was never fully explored in the promotions for the movie BTW...

Why even talk about the promotions? They aren't made by the film-makers, they're made by studios who pick out the most "appealing" (but acceptable) bits to try and convince the part of the audience that has a short attention span that they will get to see 800 million explosions, tits, guns and so on in a film.

Really now, it's truly irrelevant.

less to do with nudity and more to do with the fact that the beautiful women were either victims to be rescued or, if they showed any hint of having power, had to be punished for it. I have no idea how accurate this is.

It isn't terribly accurate in general; yes, there are definitely female victims, but there are also male victims and so on, and the females are (generally) strong despite all that, and no male character even remotely compares to Miho (who needs far less saving than ANY of the males).

And, of course, this is a Spillane-style convention; a violent knight rescuing the damsel in distress...(see: references to both Gallahad and Lancelot)

Buuuuuuut whatever.

I enjoyed it and saw little sexism, maybe because I read the comics and knew something others didn't...I don't know. But everyone I take to see it, I say nothing about the claims people have had, they come back and I say, "So people claim it was misogynist."

"MISOGYNIST?!" they inevitably reply with great incredulity. Female or male.

As far as nudity, uh, yeah, they're strippers and hookers with the exceptions of Lucille, Miho, Shellie and Kadie (off the top of my head)-- plus Eileen (Hartigan's wife...which is probably cheating, because she'll only be on the DVD) and Marv's mom (erm, see above).

Lucille, yes, is naked, but that's because of where she was. It comes off as quite naturalistic in the context of the book, wherein males are pretty commonly nude as well. The MPAA just tends to frown on penises, so most of those scenes were changed, or, in one case, heavily shadowed.

But, on the subject of strength:

Yes, Gayle ends up kidnapped, but that was by a truly unstoppable character (which IS background knowledge I have that non-readers would not)--one who, in fact, used to work for a truly powerful, non-hooker female...

But then, who rescues Dwight?

What happens to Jackie-Boy and company?

And as far as the prevalance of hookers...this IS the seedy side of town after all. They're doing what they do to survive in that environment.

And, for fuck's sake, it's a fantasy anyway. I personally, even as a hormone-addled teen, would not be particularly aroused by women in fishnet stockings who could rip my throat out or shoot me without thinking twice...but perhaps that's just me.

Anyway. I probably shouldn't have written this shortly after waking up, but I guess what's done is done and all that.

killing dogs

Uhm...no dogs were killed...

- killing cops by skewering their brains - sick twisted grotesuqe figures torturing young nubile prostitutes - in other words sitting through a live version of a first person shooter video game.

What in the hell games are you playing?! (--unless you mean third person, as in GTA...though even that lacks 90% of what you just listed...)

And young nubile prostitutes...sigh. Everyone misses the entire point of the Old Town girls. YES they're prostitutes, but the point is they "run" themselves and avoid the abusive portions of it. "But they're still prostitutes!"...Yes, but that's indicative of the nature of (Ba)sin City--you can't really get by on "honest" livings or doing "normal" things.

As many point out: the damn movie is CALLED "Sin City"...if you expect happy fun times with rainbows and puppies, I'm afraid that's your own fault.

And criticizing the quality of a movie for its literal content, not the performance, etc, makes no sense. Do you have to like or appreciate the violence? No. But it's not a very valid assessment all the same.

To bring it to an absurd level:

I hate dinosaurs, so Jurassic Park sucks...because it has dinosaurs.

It's really not all that different; JP is about dinosaurs. It's criticism of what it IS, now how it is. Sin City is, to some extent, about violence, corruption and sin--or, more accurately, this thin thread of goodness that manages to run behind a city filled with it. So yeah, if you really hate dinosaurs, hate JP and you are justified in hating it. But that doesn't mean its a shitty film just because it contains an element you dislike.

Bah, whatever. The whole reason I felt the need to respond comes below:

And as far as Titanic - hate to say it but it is a much better film all the way around and does deserve its place in film history because it managed to connect with the FEMALE audience and coax them into emotional submission - This is a group that many filmakers simply ignore or cast off as an afterthought - or in the case of My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Terms of Endearment as a strange anomoly.

Am I completely alone in reading this and screaming "HOLY SHIT! SEXIST MUCH?!"

Maybe I am...

  Had I taken my girlfriend to Sin City she would have walked out in ten minutes and thought I was sick for sitting through the entire thing.  Does that make her a moron because she doesn;t want to subject herself to that kind of film? 

My closest friend, a 38 year old woman, absolutely fucking LOVED Sin City. Another girl I talk to saw it three times by April 3rd. I could give you loads of exceptions here.

Hell, for fuck's sake, my mother, almost 60, and a preacher came to visit me at school and we went to see...what? The Notebook? No.

Saw.

We discussed it for quite sometime afterwards as well, having both enjoyed it. I was describing Sin City and she said it sounded like something we'd enjoy (but maybe not my father or sister).

Jesus.

It doesn't mean films like Sin City should not be made - they should.  So should Kill Bill (which I loved ) and any other film that places violence and explotatiion up front as its central themes  - but to champion those films - to say they are great cinema

The presence or absence of violence is not the determinant for either of these in their being great cinema or not (for the record I despised Kill Bill v1...but it had nothing to do with the violence).

I'm, at most, slightly annoyed at the sexist implications of the post, but only mildly so, so don't freak that some random guy showed up and bitched at/about you, this isn't personal or intended as some attack...the vehemence is to outline the problem I see with the post and nothing else, so let me back off on this seeming (and ONLY seeming! :) attack and say, I DO agree with the basic nature of the post in stating that "calling people who don't enjoy the violence morons is stupid"

I'll give you that one, I quite agree. But still. It's no more a gender thing than any of these other societally created gender roles...

Anyway. Go about your business.

I'm sorry Keanu Reeves. You are Neo, and that means something. But you are not Blade. Nobody is Blade except for 1. Blade and 2. (arguably) Wesley Snipes. 

 

Thumbs up.

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This is where I go off and be an ass and say, Snipes was never, ever, ever, ever, ever Blade.

Blade was a psychopath who killed a fellow mental hospital inmate and 3 orderlies who tried to stop him because the patient had put in fake vampire fangs.

Go about your business, now :)

Dick Durock was the guy who played him in the movies and later the tv series.

I may be the only reader of Swamp Thing who enjoyed that series--considering I saw the series first, and at the age of 7-9 years old, this is hardly a surprise, I guess--but I really, really did, and loved the appearance and voice used on the series (same appearance as Return [the second film] but a different voice, if I recall correctly)

I really liked it too, Fangs.

I usually hate cover albums, but I felt that for the most part (a few really weak songs), "Perfect Circle" made most of these songs feel like their own. The only way to make a cover album work.

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Indeed it is the only way. Some were very much their own, though, interestingly, "Peace, Love and Understanding" ended up closer to the original than the well-known cover version by Elvis Costello...(ie, closer than Elvis' version)

We're not foreign.

 

*You* are.

 

;-)

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Oh drat. You're right.

Have to say that I thought the rest of the eMOTIVE album was a big pile of wank though - sorry!

I quite like the whole thing, myself, but I guess I'm not as discerning as I COULD be. That and I knew about half the songs they covered, so the new versions were interesting (then the originals were APC, who I've liked all along anyway)

What's "the land of the Blue Vest" ?

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Wal-Mart, I believe.

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Quite right.

My mistake; usually even the foreigners get those references, I shall have to curb my silly metaphors here, it would appear.

(and yes, the tongue is firmly in cheek for 'foreigners,' fear not)

I thought I had read that somewhere, after wandering on here and noting the discussion of--and occasional disgust over--the pronunciation of his name.

Couldn't remember where the hell I'd read it though. I remember that issue, oddly enough. The bloke in the hat reminded me completely of that loverly fruit/veggie/drug story.

Mmmmmyes.

Mind you, I'd be well up for two hours of Keanu Reeves slamming his head in a filing cabinet and collapsing, only to wake up and do it again.

 

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Hahahaha. oh dear lord. This amuses me to no end, though I bear no animosity toward Mr. Reeves.

Then [producer] Akiva Goldsman was like, 'No!  He wants to stop Revelations'. 

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[Cheap Shot]What's 'Revelations?'[/Cheap Shot]

:p

(My mother the preacher would kill 'em. Well. Being a preacher she probly wouldn't kill...oh screw it. You get the idea.)

Perfect Circle video is the (ahem) "perfect" promotional (ahem) "tool" to attach clips of this film to.

 

No doubt (ahem) they will edit out the line "You fucking disappoint me" thus neatly encapsulating everything that is wrong with it as an adaptation.

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Indeed.

It fucking disappoints me that A Perfect Circle associated themselves.*

Could be worse, certainly, but still.

*Sorry. I know its been done. I had to. HAD TO.

And, oddly enough, I work at the land of the blue vest, and on occasion find equal amounts of OSTs and Scores. Odd, no?

Especially considering the location of this store.

Hmm.