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sychonic's rating
The next documentary some other channel is going to make is "Woke Hot: The Rise and Fall of Netflix". It will be about how a channel that started with a pretty good marketing angle decided to start ramming identity politics down people's throats in one disaster unpleasant project after another and crashed and burned.
Here it is Abercrombie & Fitch. I really thought they were going to tell the story of a venerable company, the once high quality brand that went too postmodern, lost its way, started producing its clothes in China and hence lost both its respected old world name and reputation for quality clothes. That might have been an interesting story.
Nope. Not even close. It turned out to be yet another (how many is it now?) story about people complaining that some company isn't nice to them, and whose brand was "too white" and actually glorified good looking people, and where does that leave the ugly and fat people out there? Excluded. This is where my niece would come in an say "do you want some cheese with that whine?" For me, the new stock phrase is that these are now "The Days of Whine and Poses".
It did have one salutary effect -- it shows pretty clearly what is wrong with the civil rights laws in this country. If some company wants to push a particular "look", a "brand" -- something that involves a message that appeals to a particular demographic, what business is it of anyone but their stock shareholders? A Hip Hop/Rap fashion magazine might push African themes, or Urban themes, with the corresponding black people to sell them. Country and southern whites might want the same, or someone wanting to tap into the Laplanders ethnic group might want to find some Lapps to have as spokesmen (shriek, "but, but you should say 'spokespeople', grief, I'm feeling faint.") It's all too boring and silly.
To be fair, me and the wife had decided the day before to cancel Netflix, but in wandering around the channel seeing if there was anything I wanted to watch before it turns off, this came on, and it simply confirmed why Netflix is utter garbage now. It's too bad, it used to not try my patience every night, but it's too much.
Here it is Abercrombie & Fitch. I really thought they were going to tell the story of a venerable company, the once high quality brand that went too postmodern, lost its way, started producing its clothes in China and hence lost both its respected old world name and reputation for quality clothes. That might have been an interesting story.
Nope. Not even close. It turned out to be yet another (how many is it now?) story about people complaining that some company isn't nice to them, and whose brand was "too white" and actually glorified good looking people, and where does that leave the ugly and fat people out there? Excluded. This is where my niece would come in an say "do you want some cheese with that whine?" For me, the new stock phrase is that these are now "The Days of Whine and Poses".
It did have one salutary effect -- it shows pretty clearly what is wrong with the civil rights laws in this country. If some company wants to push a particular "look", a "brand" -- something that involves a message that appeals to a particular demographic, what business is it of anyone but their stock shareholders? A Hip Hop/Rap fashion magazine might push African themes, or Urban themes, with the corresponding black people to sell them. Country and southern whites might want the same, or someone wanting to tap into the Laplanders ethnic group might want to find some Lapps to have as spokesmen (shriek, "but, but you should say 'spokespeople', grief, I'm feeling faint.") It's all too boring and silly.
To be fair, me and the wife had decided the day before to cancel Netflix, but in wandering around the channel seeing if there was anything I wanted to watch before it turns off, this came on, and it simply confirmed why Netflix is utter garbage now. It's too bad, it used to not try my patience every night, but it's too much.
If you understand the reference made in the intro line above, then know that this will be a negative review. The 1980s saw a surge of Sword & Sorcery movies, some good (The Sword and the Sorcerer) and some abysmal (Ator the Fighting Eagle, et seq.). The vast majority fell in the latter category, but the one that stood far on top, the one that started the entire genre, or rather latter day incarnation of it, was Conan the Barbarian from 1982.
The movie had two things going for it: It was directed by John Milius, and scored by Basil Poledouris. Milius had an R-rating to work with, so didn't have to tone down anything, and was given enough free reign to allow characters to develop, some Zen anarcho-fascist philosophy to support the reasons as to why all the violence was necessary (honor and vengeance, that kind of thing). It had a great villain in James Earl Jones, though purists would, and have, taken a disliking to the movie for departing from Robert Howard's books (Thulsa Doom is a Kull bad guy, and not in the Conan books).
Conan the Destroyer, on the other hand, seeking to follow up the massive success of the first one, jettisoned Milius. They brought Poledouris back, and the music is quite good, but other than that, the entire thing was a mess. It was dumb, the comic relief was relentlessly vapid, and they blur who the bad guy actually is -- Wilt Chamberlain might have been an interesting choice, but looks and acts mostly buffoonish throughout even as one wonders what he's supposed to be doing there at all.
Hence, all that, being said -- the 2011 movie learned none of the lessons from what made the first one good and how they screwed up a good thing. They instead decided that they could keep the first one's violence, since they figured, that must have been the mistake made by the process of "Destroyer". No, that wasn't it. They might have learned by the second try at redoing the Conan franchise, though it was "Kull the Conqueror" in the late 1990s, and also failed to figure out what made the first one so good and all the imitators so dreadful.
In this one, Jason Momoa has the size and physique, but does not manage to overcome the lousy script. He is very good in other things, and had he managed the better performance he gave a few years later as a semi-similar character of Drogo in "Game of Thrones", he might have improved the Conan attempt, but to be honest, there was no saving it. Ron Perelman shows up as Conan's father, and the one that could have managed William Smith's appearance in the original, but he's given nothing to say or do. He just throws out bad lines and may have decided a paycheck was worth dressing up in furs and spending some time reading lines that mean nothing.
The plot meanders on, and I won't go into the spoilers since without much of a plot it's hard to spoil it. There's a mask, the bad guy is boring and appears once in a while, to do mean things, but his daughter is a little more appealing in the dark villainous area. Oh, and the comic relief is relentlessly vapid.
This was a well motivated attempt, but they keep trying to figure out what made people want to see Arnie with sword in hand, and they haven't even scratched the surface. Part of it is that they don't know how to tell a story, part of it is that they don't care at all about the characters they create, and part of it is that the fantasy world they create seems a variation on our own, without the techno-gizmos. In the 1982 version, Conan has a short conversation with his friend Subatai the archer/thief, where they talk about the Gods. It doesn't last long, but contributes an enormous amount to the story, it tells us who they are in a small way, and no, not a serious conversation, but one that is in fantasy world. Here they don't really have conversations, but they have gory violence and stupid bad guys doing rotten things for no apparent reason.
I'd say it's a must watch for Conan fans, just to get it out of the way, and see the failure in all rich detail. For the everyday movie fan, who really doesn't care about the backstory of Robert Howard or the genre, or this kind of alternate world, but just wants an decent action movie, then there is nothing for you hear. Even Jason Momoa fans will be disappointed, since, while not familiar with everything he's ever done, I've never seen him put in a less convincing, less committed performance. The entire exercise was a waste of time, and a waste of chance to reinvigorate an ancient story concept -- one that has appeared since the beginning of Western Civilization with the Nordic Sagas, the Greek Epics, the Medieval Chivalry, one that has appeared in stories like Beowulf and the Song of Roland. Unfortunate.
The movie had two things going for it: It was directed by John Milius, and scored by Basil Poledouris. Milius had an R-rating to work with, so didn't have to tone down anything, and was given enough free reign to allow characters to develop, some Zen anarcho-fascist philosophy to support the reasons as to why all the violence was necessary (honor and vengeance, that kind of thing). It had a great villain in James Earl Jones, though purists would, and have, taken a disliking to the movie for departing from Robert Howard's books (Thulsa Doom is a Kull bad guy, and not in the Conan books).
Conan the Destroyer, on the other hand, seeking to follow up the massive success of the first one, jettisoned Milius. They brought Poledouris back, and the music is quite good, but other than that, the entire thing was a mess. It was dumb, the comic relief was relentlessly vapid, and they blur who the bad guy actually is -- Wilt Chamberlain might have been an interesting choice, but looks and acts mostly buffoonish throughout even as one wonders what he's supposed to be doing there at all.
Hence, all that, being said -- the 2011 movie learned none of the lessons from what made the first one good and how they screwed up a good thing. They instead decided that they could keep the first one's violence, since they figured, that must have been the mistake made by the process of "Destroyer". No, that wasn't it. They might have learned by the second try at redoing the Conan franchise, though it was "Kull the Conqueror" in the late 1990s, and also failed to figure out what made the first one so good and all the imitators so dreadful.
In this one, Jason Momoa has the size and physique, but does not manage to overcome the lousy script. He is very good in other things, and had he managed the better performance he gave a few years later as a semi-similar character of Drogo in "Game of Thrones", he might have improved the Conan attempt, but to be honest, there was no saving it. Ron Perelman shows up as Conan's father, and the one that could have managed William Smith's appearance in the original, but he's given nothing to say or do. He just throws out bad lines and may have decided a paycheck was worth dressing up in furs and spending some time reading lines that mean nothing.
The plot meanders on, and I won't go into the spoilers since without much of a plot it's hard to spoil it. There's a mask, the bad guy is boring and appears once in a while, to do mean things, but his daughter is a little more appealing in the dark villainous area. Oh, and the comic relief is relentlessly vapid.
This was a well motivated attempt, but they keep trying to figure out what made people want to see Arnie with sword in hand, and they haven't even scratched the surface. Part of it is that they don't know how to tell a story, part of it is that they don't care at all about the characters they create, and part of it is that the fantasy world they create seems a variation on our own, without the techno-gizmos. In the 1982 version, Conan has a short conversation with his friend Subatai the archer/thief, where they talk about the Gods. It doesn't last long, but contributes an enormous amount to the story, it tells us who they are in a small way, and no, not a serious conversation, but one that is in fantasy world. Here they don't really have conversations, but they have gory violence and stupid bad guys doing rotten things for no apparent reason.
I'd say it's a must watch for Conan fans, just to get it out of the way, and see the failure in all rich detail. For the everyday movie fan, who really doesn't care about the backstory of Robert Howard or the genre, or this kind of alternate world, but just wants an decent action movie, then there is nothing for you hear. Even Jason Momoa fans will be disappointed, since, while not familiar with everything he's ever done, I've never seen him put in a less convincing, less committed performance. The entire exercise was a waste of time, and a waste of chance to reinvigorate an ancient story concept -- one that has appeared since the beginning of Western Civilization with the Nordic Sagas, the Greek Epics, the Medieval Chivalry, one that has appeared in stories like Beowulf and the Song of Roland. Unfortunate.
Envy.
The writers, the producers, the actors, nor the actors probably intended that one word to be the defining feature of the film, but that is what it is. Envy. As much as they wanted to create a rich fabric, a tapestry of social commentary of the current state of political affairs, they failed.
Though they dress it up with stock themes from left wing fantasies, the plot is simplistic. In about 140 years from now, the Earth has fallen into ruin. Why that happened is not explained, simply that Earth is now polluted, diseased, and overpopulated. As this degradation occurs, the rich and successful flee the planet and build a habitat in the sky, an "Elysium" – a variety of heaven from Greek Myth.
One can hardly blame them, since what they have left behind has become an admixture of the Road Warrior movies and the Gaza Strip. The story never quite explains what happens to most of the planet since the scenes only occur in southern California. That is of course offset by plot lines involving heartless and Machiavellian politicians, mindless robots, a faceless profit driven corporation, and a protective nativism (if one can call a space habitat refuge a native home).
Among the many parallels between this fiction of the future and the facts of the present, the denizens of this earth have little inclination to better, to improve, their own places, but would rather look to a place others have built in the sky, or look over the walls, and try and get there any way they can. Perhaps they believe it is easier to climb in through a window to illegally live in someone else's mansion than to build one's own home.
The writers, the producers, the actors, nor the actors probably intended that one word to be the defining feature of the film, but that is what it is. Envy. As much as they wanted to create a rich fabric, a tapestry of social commentary of the current state of political affairs, they failed.
Though they dress it up with stock themes from left wing fantasies, the plot is simplistic. In about 140 years from now, the Earth has fallen into ruin. Why that happened is not explained, simply that Earth is now polluted, diseased, and overpopulated. As this degradation occurs, the rich and successful flee the planet and build a habitat in the sky, an "Elysium" – a variety of heaven from Greek Myth.
One can hardly blame them, since what they have left behind has become an admixture of the Road Warrior movies and the Gaza Strip. The story never quite explains what happens to most of the planet since the scenes only occur in southern California. That is of course offset by plot lines involving heartless and Machiavellian politicians, mindless robots, a faceless profit driven corporation, and a protective nativism (if one can call a space habitat refuge a native home).
Among the many parallels between this fiction of the future and the facts of the present, the denizens of this earth have little inclination to better, to improve, their own places, but would rather look to a place others have built in the sky, or look over the walls, and try and get there any way they can. Perhaps they believe it is easier to climb in through a window to illegally live in someone else's mansion than to build one's own home.