tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post3376906128429033387..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: "Shrek Forever After"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-14760522248034360962010-05-28T10:40:10.780-07:002010-05-28T10:40:10.780-07:00Corporate rock sucks. So does corporate opera.
It...<i>Corporate rock sucks. So does corporate opera.</i><br /><br />It's a little easier to start your own rock band than your own opera company though.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18719544704666568042010-05-27T14:07:33.793-07:002010-05-27T14:07:33.793-07:00Have just now read an awful puff piece on a young ...Have just now read an awful puff piece on a young opera diva (details withheld to avoid embarrassing anyone) in which she declared: "I realize I'm not being paid to please myself."<br /><br />Tellingly, buried in the article is the anecdote that an elder teacher, judging her audition, told her, "You have nothing to offer artistically."<br /><br />Now supposedly this remark of the teacher spurred the diva to work hard and develop her art. Nevertheless, her statement betrays the abiding philosophy of the no-talent: namely, that art (music, movies, whatever) is primarily a money-getting racket, the artist is an automaton programmed to please audience taste, and personality (thinking, feeling) on the part of the artist is "self-indulgent." My cruel hunch is that this diva still has nothing to offer, and that no one will be speaking of her five years from now.<br /><br />For those without connections, going into the arts is a strange way to pursue money. There are easier ways to make a lot of money. (Unless you're a superstar grant writer, that is.)<br /><br />Most people go into the arts because they have something to say and want to say it. Can you imagine the mentality of someone who goes into them without this qualification, the person whose personality is so bad his first rule is "I'm not being paid to please myself"? (I'm not referring to technicians, who are legitimately proud of the intelligence they can exercise in tastefully employing technology.) Other than capital-N narcissism (look at me! I'm on stage! I'm lead singer!), their motive seems unfathomable.<br /><br />The irony is that narcissists call the sincere people narcissists for being sincere.<br /><br />Corporate rock sucks. So does corporate opera. Both lead to the withering and death of a formerly living form.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2076472857146513732010-05-26T19:13:37.384-07:002010-05-26T19:13:37.384-07:00Billy West of Futurama has commented on how lousy ...Billy West of Futurama has commented on how lousy celebrity voice acting is and how it takes away jobs from people whose profession is actually voice acting. The producers would actually take his audition video and play it for a celebrity to copy.<br /><br />http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Billy_West,_voice_of_Ren_and_Stimpy,_Futurama,_on_the_rough_start_that_shaped_his_life#The_use_of_celebrities_for_voiceoversAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69856456529371106262010-05-26T18:29:10.067-07:002010-05-26T18:29:10.067-07:00"...And a pro-interracist movie."
What ...<i>"...And a pro-interracist movie."</i><br /><br />What happened to the concept of freedom of association?DAJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-73729202539862976662010-05-26T16:45:00.500-07:002010-05-26T16:45:00.500-07:00I have no trouble finding wholesome quality entert...I have no trouble finding wholesome quality entertainment with enough moral ambiguity to keep the adults engaged for my children. There's Miyazaki; there are older children's movies; there are movies like the Secret of Kells; if you have the internet you are spoiled for choice. What is nearly impossible is replicating the social experience of movie-going back when people still had manners.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67000844458622628902010-05-26T11:40:22.441-07:002010-05-26T11:40:22.441-07:00I like a lot of movies. Didn't mean to come of...I like a lot of movies. Didn't mean to come off like a grouch about it.<br /><br />But denying that quality is scarce in this area of human life as in all others is not populism, but evasion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58510376005967147282010-05-26T11:30:52.957-07:002010-05-26T11:30:52.957-07:00I agree with your point about voice actors in cart...I agree with your point about voice actors in cartoons. Big-name actors rarely make a difference. Off of the top of my head, form Disney, only Robin Williams (the genie) and Jeremy Irons (Scar) are the only ones that I couldn't see replacing. <br /><br />When I saw the first Shrek movie, I initially thought that Billy Connolly was Shrek's voice, and I'm sure that he'd do as well, or better, than Meyers.Geoff Matthewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07335872605196107867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17474659313827142332010-05-26T10:48:59.026-07:002010-05-26T10:48:59.026-07:00Just one example, but it used to be everywhere. Th...<i>Just one example, but it used to be everywhere. The sexual counter-revolution of the early '90s, part of the larger family values revolution, banished all of that from popular culture. Now the hit movies are about little kids flying on brooms.</i><br /><br />Part of the reason is those of us who grew up exposed to that stuff remember being freaked out and confused by it. It's a normal generation change. Children raised in an atmosphere of sexual permissiveness grow up into adults who create a prudish, sexless environment for their children, who in turn grow up into adults who get a big bang out of violating the norms they grew up with, lather rinse repeat.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42536314331213211242010-05-26T09:39:31.434-07:002010-05-26T09:39:31.434-07:00"As a, in poor internet taste, follow up to m..."As a, in poor internet taste, follow up to myself: they did Leasure Suit Larry, a video game about bedding hot chicks, and it went nowhere. There was never a similar game ever after."<br /><br />Except for the seven sequels?Sidewaysnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88251539589019881902010-05-26T09:30:19.156-07:002010-05-26T09:30:19.156-07:00agnostic: Not for sex, by a longshot. I've loo...<b>agnostic:</b> <i>Not for sex, by a longshot. I've looked up the top 10 movies by box office revenue from the late '60s to present, and the presence of T&A in movies fell off a cliff in the late '80s / early '90s...</i> <br /><br /><b>Whiskey:</b> <i>Nudity etc? Did anyone SEE Bruno? Hilarious but icky male nudity all over the place for shock humor...</i> <br /><br />But that's just the thing: instead of giving us good, wholesome, arousal-inducing shots of female mammary glands [<a href="http://www.google.com/images?safe=off&q=ingrid+pitt+vampire+lovers" rel="nofollow">Ingrid Pitt</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/images?safe=off&q=britt+ekland+wicker+man" rel="nofollow">Britt Ekland</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/images?safe=off&q=helen+mirren+savage+messiah" rel="nofollow">Helen Mirren</a>] - which might actually inspire a budding young shkotzim stud to go out there and make some progeny with a young woman - the nihilists who shove all of this horrible propaganda down our throats give us endless shots of male nudity, male-to-male kissing, male-to-male fondling, flatulence, excrement, the act of discharging excrement, people standing around smelling excrement [or flatulence] after it's been discharged, etc etc etc.<br /><br />[There's a relevant quote from the Talmud, which I could throw in here for emphasis, but my experience with Komment Kontrol has been that talmudic references are strictly verboten in these parts.]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76467150864087370442010-05-26T07:42:23.312-07:002010-05-26T07:42:23.312-07:00"Anonymous said...
isteve readers are mostly..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />isteve readers are mostly clueless with regards to the arts."<br /><br />We're not talking about art. We're talking about movies.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6680409639566614472010-05-26T04:17:11.038-07:002010-05-26T04:17:11.038-07:00isteve readers are mostly clueless with regards to...<i>isteve readers are mostly clueless with regards to the arts.</i><br /><br />How annoying, the rest of your incisive, and no doubt illuminating, comment seems to have been lost by blogger.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58606842580435660882010-05-26T03:22:43.685-07:002010-05-26T03:22:43.685-07:00Re screen nudity - in the UK female nudity vanishe...Re screen nudity - in the UK female nudity vanished from tv and cinema (except for occasional 'serious drama') ca 1990 due to feminist Political Correctness, not a revival of family values. Was it different in the US? <br /><br />Re Shrek - can someone explain how the human king & queen have an ogre daughter? I've watched all 3 movies (*sigh*) and this was never explained AFAICR. The first movie seemed to indicate she was a natural-born ogre cursed into human form. They retconned that for 2+, but without any explanation AFAIK.Simon in UKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59461609799280062302010-05-26T02:27:02.046-07:002010-05-26T02:27:02.046-07:00isteve readers are mostly clueless with regards to...isteve readers are mostly clueless with regards to the arts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-52135119042991922682010-05-25T21:50:46.675-07:002010-05-25T21:50:46.675-07:00How to Tame Your Dragon, according to the FT, is m...How to Tame Your Dragon, according to the FT, is making most of its money from ... TOYS! and licensing.<br /><br />That's the indication that the Movie Business is not making money from operations. Not from tickets sold or current DVD/Blu-Ray discs sold or rented.<br /><br />But TOYS! and licensing bed-sheets. Its like GM in the 1980's, making most of its money off GMAC not selling cars.<br /><br />As far as AVATAR goes, that won't make much money for News Corp/Fox. Why? Because 60% of the revenues go to the Private Equity partners who financed it. The movie was so expensive that Murdoch had to give up the upside to get it made. Which is the primary reason I guess Cameron takes so long between films -- financing is a major hurdle.<br /><br />Can Hollywood play with Private Equity? Nope. Obama's rewrite of Wall Street regs has heavy hands on Hedge Funds and Private Equity. Europe is doing the same, regardless of UK protests (that's probably the point). Funds can domicile in the Bahamas or Geneva, but to raise money from the US and Europe, they'll have to play by the new, risk-averse rules.<br /><br />So a lot fewer funds to make the next $500 million AVATAR.<br /><br />[Shrek 4's 3-D and IMAX revenues were off DRAGON's, which in turn were off ALICE's -- suggesting that people are tiring of the 3-D tax and experience. If they wanted to see it, they'll see it in 2-D, cheaper. The 3-D craze is not saving Hollywood.]<br />-------------------<br />Nudity etc? Did anyone SEE Bruno? Hilarious but icky male nudity all over the place for shock humor -- see the Hangover, Sarah Marshall, etc. That's typical for R movies.<br /><br />Most of Hollywood is leaving money on the table, constantly. Damon can't make a simple war thriller, he has to make an anti-Military/US Iraq movie and wonder why Green Zone bombed, so hard it killed the Bourne Franchise. Who would go to see turkeys like Stop-Loss or Rendition? Or the Plame movie? Or race-baiting, anti-White Machete?Whiskeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01854764809682029464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6889758860347929112010-05-25T20:49:28.266-07:002010-05-25T20:49:28.266-07:00I think the anti-white theme present in every Shre...I think the anti-white theme present in every Shrek needs to be teased out.<br /><br />Anyone going to volunteer to sit through the lot and do a write up?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-45540256901687945742010-05-25T19:10:57.731-07:002010-05-25T19:10:57.731-07:00As a, in poor internet taste, follow up to myself:...As a, in poor internet taste, follow up to myself: they did Leasure Suit Larry, a video game about bedding hot chicks, and it went nowhere. There was never a similar game ever after.<br /><br />For sexual stimulation of males I expect pictures of real people without accompanying "quests" or puzzles are preferred. Its the females who like the chase. Putting in strong language and sexual situations probably does not increase sales an iota, even among late teens.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40222281121583293062010-05-25T18:48:21.920-07:002010-05-25T18:48:21.920-07:00Don't know if mass media producers are just gi...Don't know if mass media producers are just giving the people what sells. My son wanted to play Red Dead, but I doubt that the nudity and strong sexual content are intrinsic to the attraction of the game. I'm sure he is interested in nude girls and sex, but I would bet he is not very interested in the sex lives of the characers in his video game. It is almost as if they put it in to spite us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19740934729152104162010-05-25T17:11:45.306-07:002010-05-25T17:11:45.306-07:00"I think the "Shrek Forever" box-of..."I think the "Shrek Forever" box-office may be poor"<br /><br />What about Avatar; how do you see that one doing?Truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17286755693955361308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81873771194431037412010-05-25T17:02:51.050-07:002010-05-25T17:02:51.050-07:00"I think that the film industry reached some ..."I think that the film industry reached some sort of transition point in the late 90s/early 00s when standards really went to crap."<br /><br />Not for sex, by a longshot. I've looked up the top 10 movies by box office revenue from the late '60s to present, and the presence of T&A in movies fell off a cliff in the late '80s / early '90s.<br /><br />If you haven't noticed, movie-goers have a greater taste for and demand more family-friendly movies. Competitive movie studios have responded to this demand by supplying nudity-free movies for two decades.<br /><br />You have to watch older movies to remember what it was like. Nudity all over the place, even when not required, like when Dirty Harry is chasing a criminal across rooftops in The Enforcer. The criminal falls through a glass skylight and lands -- in the middle of a porn orgy being filmed, with about 4 fully naked guys and 4 fully naked girls, everything shown. We see this same mess of naked bodies when Dirty Harry jumps down there in his turn.<br /><br />Just one example, but it used to be everywhere. The sexual counter-revolution of the early '90s, part of the larger family values revolution, banished all of that from popular culture. Now the hit movies are about little kids flying on brooms.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77165875912541734312010-05-25T16:36:32.765-07:002010-05-25T16:36:32.765-07:00Steve is right. For all the complaining out there...Steve is right. For all the complaining out there about Hollywood pandering to the lowest common denominator, there are way too many cases of consumers voting with their dollars to reward things like Shrek, Transformers 2, or Indy IV. Yes, Pixar has managed to take the high road, but that's largely been by establishing themselves as a brand that parents can trust.<br /><br />The only bright spot is that a lot of genuinely good movies like How To Train Your Dragon have longer box office legs and end up doing well in the long run.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7947662586841122842010-05-25T16:22:17.788-07:002010-05-25T16:22:17.788-07:00Actually, Steve, Hollywood is filled with degenera...Actually, Steve, Hollywood is filled with degenerates who think Polanski ought to get a pass because he made Chinatown. This includes, most major directors including Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Michael Mann, and Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman, and other big names.<br /><br />Moreover, most of Hollywood's time and energy goes to movies like "Margot at the Wedding" or "TransAmerica" or other stuff that is so edgy and hip that it is utterly repulsive to the viewer, like say "the Reader" (Oscar winner, about a female concentration camp guard who has an affair years later with a teen, and is excused for genocide because she was illiterate). <br /><br />Or take "Machete" which Big Hollywood labels a call for anti-White race war, and a ode to Mexican racial superiority over Whites.<br /><br />That's Hollywood.<br /><br />The WSJ reported that ticket prices, rising with inflation and 3-D, were not off-setting the falls in DVD / Blu-Ray sales. Ticket revenue was up, but attendance was down 6% from the prior year. Evidence strongly suggest that people are substituting Hulu or already owned DVDs or $1 Redbox rentals for Hollywood new releases.<br /><br />Think about that -- Redbox has established the market for new releases -- $1. That to me screams most of the audience does not perceive value, and is perfectly willing to wait about five months for a movie, or perhaps never see it at all.<br /><br />Consumers are under stress. Income is not rising, savings by all measurements are. Discretionary spending has been cut back. Some slack has been cut since 2009, but not much. Same-store sales by Wal-Mart dropped, last quarter, to the prior year's quarter, and "survival bias" seems to infect the rest of retail land (i.e. Same-store sales biased by lots of closures funneling customers to remaining ones). If you have 100 DVDs, you don't need a 101.Whiskeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01854764809682029464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47231014469845646362010-05-25T15:21:13.981-07:002010-05-25T15:21:13.981-07:00Off topic, but did you catch this Steve:
CIA unit...Off topic, but did you catch this Steve:<br /><br /><a href="http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/05/cia_group_had_wacky_ideas_to_d.html" rel="nofollow">CIA unit's wacky idea: Depict Saddam as gay</a><br /><br />"During planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA's Iraq Operations Group kicked around a number of ideas for discrediting Saddam Hussein in the eyes of his people.<br /><br /><b>One was to create a video purporting to show the Iraqi dictator having sex with a teenage boy,</b> according to two former CIA officials familiar with the project.<br /><br />“It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera,” said one of the former officials. “Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session.”"<br /><br /><b>"The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys,</b> one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69151165971738388882010-05-25T15:15:16.306-07:002010-05-25T15:15:16.306-07:00Why do Hollywood/Disney movies for kids have to pr...Why do Hollywood/Disney movies for kids have to present such UGLY creatures? Did you see UP? Lots of fun stuff, but the old man and the kid looked gross beyond belief. <br /><br />Lots of wit, lots of action, but ugly, ugly, ugly, gross, gross, gross.fasddsfasdfasfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15458730360362943572010-05-25T14:56:12.121-07:002010-05-25T14:56:12.121-07:00David provides the clearest illustration of the lo...David provides the clearest illustration of the loser artist's mindset. Notice how little there is that champions that common man and his ways. Instead it's some rant against rival culture-makers-and-controllers that we'd expect not from a Romantic but some tiresome paternalistic dork like Dickens.<br /><br />Quality is in short supply? Cute remark for scoring points against your rival culture-makers, but get real. Information goods like movies are not like McDonald's hamburgers. If a good movie is out there, it can be reproduced and distributed incredibly cheaply.<br /><br />So as far as the actual watchable movie goes, and not the human talent that created it, there is no such thing as a shortage that leaves the hogs with mostly slops and a lone unrecognized genius truffle.<br /><br />In reality, if a good movie were out there and the public wanted it, it would go from shortage to abundance within a couple weekends. If we don't see that happening with whatever you consider good movies, it must therefore be because the public doesn't care for it.<br /><br />Deep down, they really don't like your culture. They're not going to wake up and start inviting your culture to their parties once you lift the veil.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.com