Was worried for a moment that this post was going to be about Gaben (who I rent all my games from) revealing a hard right shift. Like Gaben really obviously doing a 2018-era Musk slide to the right. “You don’t gotta hand it to them, but some Republicans are alright. Also, I love MAGA and Gordon Freeman would’ve marched at Charlottesville and Chell would’ve defended freedom on Jan 6.”
To all social reformers this poster, who is held in good standing except for those times badposts were made, doth say this: I am a loyal subject of the Good King Gaben, most venerable and wise and just, whose reign shall be eternal. No darkness can enter into these bountiful lands so long as those who hold fast to the King remain faithful.
This year they released a direct-to-digital animated adaptation of Watchmen, in two parts. Part two doesn’t come out until November. But I paid the five dollars to watch part 1. It was good, voice acting was great, the animation style was a little odd but it worked. But it was an extremely faithful adaptation. They even included the pirate comic-book-within-a-comic-book interludes. On one hand Watchmen is one of the greatest comic books ever made and it deserves a better adaptation than Zack Snyder gave it (though I do kinda like Snyder’s movie anyway), so a faithful adaptation is nothing to complain about. On the other hand, after I got done watching it I sorta felt like I could’ve just read my copy of Watchmen rather than paying five dollars to see it in an animated form. I think ultimately the art direction and voice acting add enough that I don’t regret it and will probably rent part 2 when it comes out, but I can’t quite shake the feeling I would’ve been better served by doing a re-read.
I guess regardless of if it was supposed to be implied SA or just regular abuse, it is a humiliation for Arthur. If I remember it right, Arthur gives his speech about how he’s the Joker, he’s free, he’s better than bullies and prison guards. Then the prosecution calls Gary Puddles to the stand, and when Arthur gets to have his cross-examination, Puddles calls Arthur out on becoming a bully himself. So Arthur’s Joker persona takes an emotional blow there. Then he gets abused by the guards, which is another blow to Joker as well. Then immediately the next day is when he gives up the Joker altogether and takes responsibility for the murders.
It’s a little unfortunate because it’s easy to read the scene as the Joker getting tortured into not wanting to be the Joker any more. Whereas I think the read the movie wants us to have is something like: Joker taunts the prison guards, but when they seek retribution it is Arthur who feels humiliated. Joker takes revenge on bullies, Arthur gets seen as a monster by one of the only people he genuinely likes. The Joker fantasy loses its appeal for Arthur.
I think if I were making the movie, I’d have the guards’ abuse come before Gary Puddles takes the stand. Because for me Gary Puddles short scene was the best part of the whole movie, which is kind of undercut by immediately following it up with (possibly sexual) prison torture.
I have seen Joker 2 and I liked it a lot. Just a fun, hilarious movie.
I saw some people say that the movie was misogynistic. Now, I’m not necessarily the best judge of what is and isn’t misogynistic, but it’s my feeling right now that the movie isn’t. Sure, Arthur’s mom wasn’t good to him, covering for his abuser when he was a child. And in this movie Lady Gaga’s Lee is a real piece of shit. But the movie doesn’t blame them for what Arthur did. In fact the movie ends with him dropping the Joker persona and taking responsibility for what he did.
Thank you!
Hearing and reading libs says shit like “See, Dick Cheney knows that Trump is even worse than he was, that’s why we have to vote blue” is infuriating. How can’t they see what’s really happening here?
Total bi cultural victory.
I think I’ve posted about this before, but the Knives Out movies fit within this paradigm of movies that I think exists where the movies are decently fun on the first watch but are largely insubstantial and there’s nothing to really think about, movies that if they’d been made 15 or 20 years ago would’ve been entirely forgotten about after the end of their theatrical run, even if you’d seen them you wouldn’t chance to think about them again unless you happened to catch them on cable, but now, because movies seem to be on the whole worse and unhealthy somehow compared to where we were (I assume because of streaming or the slow decline of movie theaters) these sorts of little-to-offer films sit at the center of a permanent discourse as if they are the great films of our time.
Then again, maybe if we’d had Twitter in 2005 we’d still be talking about fucking Wedding Crashers.
No you don’t understand. It’s an arms deal, not aid. Israel has to pay for those guns. Which means that, on the US’s part, there’s no moral quandary whatsoever. The Biden Admin is just acting as a totally neutral arms merchant, and it’s definitely not Biden’s fault that Israel will use those weapons to massacre an entire people. There’s no culpability at all! Vote Blue!
Just saw this thread on Twitter claiming that Biden is a genius for flanking Republicans to the right on the border issue. Gotta say, I don’t see it. By tacking so hard to the right on such a key issue, surely he risks pissing off not just the marginal left fringe voters but also actual core dem voters? Meanwhile, there’s no way he’s actually picked up anyone who would vote Republican. People whose sole politics is that they hate democrats and love republicans aren’t suddenly going to switch teams just because a democrat is promising to be as racist and cruel as his opponent.
Seems to me that between this, inflation, Palestine, and all the other issues that, whether real or imagined, the American president ends up being blamed for that this strategy can only hurt Biden, only cause more of his voters to stay home when what he desperately needs is for as many of them to turn out as possible.
Even if Biden ended up actually shutting the border down it’s not like Trump’s voters will care. Trump’ll say “Biden’s weak on the borders” and the fact checkers will scramble to say “actually, President Biden installed the drones that kill anyone who comes within 10 miles of the border, he’s not weak on the border at all.” And Trump voters won’t give a shit. But it will cause some people who would have otherwise voted for Biden to stay home. I guess the question is, is that a significant enough number of Biden voters to matter?
I’ve had this same conversation with a lib I know three times now.
It starts with them saying that they don’t understand why leftists* and also Muslims are threatening to withhold their vote to Biden over the Palestinian genocide. Israel is their own country, they say, and Biden isn’t president there. Biden is doing everything he can. He’s giving humanitarian aid to the Palestinians!
The only thing Joe Biden has said he’s done to stop the genocide is asking his good friend Bibi to please stop. And as far as the aid goes, I’m curious how much of that Israel is actually allowing to reach the Palestinians.
They reaffirm that Biden is doing everything he can.
Being ludicrously generous and ignoring for the moment that Israel is a client state of the US that if abandoned by the US would likely quickly cease to exist - but let’s pretend for the moment that Israel truly is an independent state - Biden could then still wield the enormous powers vested in him as the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of the world to force Israel to stop if asking sternly isn’t getting it done. He could stop selling them weapons. Stop sending them aid. Stop supporting them at the UN. He could level trade embargoes or deny visas. He could do as has been done to Russia and Iran, with a regime of sanctions. He could declare a police action, if he wanted to.
They switch tack. Biden won’t do those things because Israel is our ally.
You can’t have it both ways. Biden is either doing everything in his power to stop a genocide, or he is an active participant in that genocide.
They say well, so what, do these people want Trump to win? He won’t do anyone any good. Plus, if Trump wins, democracy is over.
At this point the argument usually peters out, because what good is Biden doing anyone? He claims he is forced to build the border wall because of norms and procedures. Forced to take a hardline stance on immigration to appease Republicans and pass the budget or whatever. Forced to watch and sell weapons to Israel as they do a genocide. Biden can’t even fire the guy who is actively trying to privatize the Post Office, one of the only good American institutions. And also, what democracy?
Sometimes they’ll rejoinder with “Well the job reports have been good” or “the Dow is up” or “Biden hasn’t actively called for the slaughter of striking workers” as some sort of proof that Biden’s actually a great President, as if the Dow wasn’t bullshit and the job numbers are also largely bullshit and Biden saying a few pro-union things has just been a way to score some points while also working against unions behind the scenes, without getting into a long digression about the removedd state of unions/the corporate-captured business unions that Biden is talking about when he says he supports unions.
*To this particular person leftist seems to mean anyone in the country to the left of Joe Manchin, so I’m never sure who exactly they’re talking about when they reference leftists
I know no one here will be surprised by this, but tonight’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Elon Musk was not nearly as critical of the man as he deserves. Real kid gloves there.
It’s only rap if it comes from the __________ region of France, otherwise it’s just rhyming musical theater.
I had to blank out the name of the region for privacy concerns, not because I couldn’t think of a joke. The citizens of that unnamed region of France are entitled to some peace.
Just a few months ago I saw so many people salivating online that once Trump was defeated and then dies or else is too old and senile to run by 2028 that the Republican party would collapse, that Trump voters are all going to either go third party or else just not vote, and then the Republican party won’t be competitive with the dems anymore in national politics.
How’s that working out? Completely insane cope. Yeah, man, I bet the bottom will just magically fall out of the Republican party and then Dems will seize on the opportunity to finally make good on the dream of the Great Society and build a welfare state, because the only thing holding them back from that goal was the Republicans.
Not that the GOP is in a healthy state right now, and I’m sure when they eventually lose Trump it will hurt them. But they probably won’t collapse into nothing and scatter away on the wind like Sauron. Instead it’ll probably look a lot like the Dems post-Obama: rudderless, struggling to find a new center.