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Unfortunately most movies these days are more about "the message" than a coherent story. But GOOD NEWS! This weekend I actually found a use for Netflix and wa

Unfortunately most movies these days are more about "the message" than a coherent story. But GOOD NEWS! This weekend I actually found a use for Netflix and watched "Hustle". Adam Sandler's latest offering for the platform. It is an astoundingly good movie. Even more so because normally I'm not really into basketball. But it was WELL written, intelligent and there were plenty of challenges for them to overcome, right down to the very last 30 seconds of the movie. Edge of the seat stuff that keeps you engaged every moment. The thing missing from many movies these days with "the message" is that the protagonists generally have no obstacles. No problems to deal with. No hurdles to cross. No challenges. There is generally no danger to the heroes. There is just a lot of ass kicking without any preliminaries. And that's the reason why movies mostly suck these days. It's a shame really. It's all about politics these days and making sure there is some race/gender/cultural representation (I'm saying this as a black guy).

geerlingguy 4y ago
This comment reminds me a lot of The Critical Drinker on YouTube. Sometimes a bit biting, but often accurate in analyzing what went wrong in some movie's plot. One of the most egregious and frequent is having characters who basically have zero or backsliding character arcs.
- throwaway14356 4y ago
  He ruined movies and series for me. I now keep seeing horrific mistakes. like: The team of heroes has 1 character without a back story so he was designed to die.
  - kinghtown 4y ago
    His zone is mainstream hollywood action movies, for every brilliant action movie that gets it you’ll have like 100 BS ones. I think what really annoys me about the critical drinker, and others like him on youtube, is that his essays focus on complaining about the most common denominator mainstream entertainment with very little awareness of art house films or international cinema. It seems that all he wants are cooler action movies.. which, yeah me too for sure but the criterion collection/channel is a thing as well. I’m not feeling his complaining in general. He’d be easier to love if he would champion some cool underground films like Film Comment or whatever will.
- hnhg 4y ago
  He makes some decent points but I can't watch his content without cringing at the persona he makes use of. I find it very painful, but I guess it has an audience. I can also imagine people saying the same thing about redlettermedia, which I do enjoy.
- kinghtown 4y ago
  He likes to do alt right click bait and I mainly ignore him these days.. like I would tag him as a leftie and I mainly agree with him in terms of how obnoxious and cynical corpo-hollywood is in its execution of inclusion and diversity (to be clear: I want more diversity in entertainment) but he does play it up quite a bit and exaggerates “the message” thing he pushes. Months ago, I watched a ten minute video/rant on Loki where he complained about forced inclusion and gender politics ruining the show.. though I finally saw the show this week and I found it to be very good and no where near as annoying as he made it out to be. He’s part of an alt right baiting group of youtubers like Nerdroitic who all flirt with this notion of white culture being under siege. Like I don’t believe any of these guys swing that way (as in MAGA) but they like the views on their channels.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    It seems like these creators and others like Tim pool, have found a sizeable niche audience that really supports them (in part they are alienated by the mainstream and the alt right welcomes them). It’s weird how hippies have become conservatives if they didn’t go woke.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      >>It’s weird how hippies have become conservatives if they didn’t go woke. Except they dont... Conservative has a very specific political meaning, and to consider everyone that is "not woke" either conservative or alt-right shows a massive ignorance of the political landscape Classic Liberal, or libertarian people still exist, we are here. The 1990's and 00's the battle was against conservatives wanting ti suppress speech, blame violence on video games, and all other manner of BS. Today it seems the far left has also taken up the mantra of speech suppression, and blame video games for all manner of social ill's, It is the Horseshoe Theory of politics manifest in reality.. One can be "not woke" and at the same time, not conservative... the " sizeable niche audience" is actually the sane people, the middle of the road people, the people that think both Extreme Conservatives, and Extreme "Leftists" are crazy....
thinkingemote 4y ago
Dr Who is a good example. There has always been a message in the shows but the story took precedence. Now the message takes precedence and the story and show suffers. It's unwatchable even with the audio muted! Terry Pratchett's work is a good example of progressive ideas told so well that the story is all that anyone cares about.
- BoxOfRain 4y ago
  >Dr Who is a good example. I'm actually a bit sad about Doctor Who, I've not watched it since the Capaldi era which really wound me up because he's a fantastic actor who was dealt a crap hand with crappy scripts that have crawled entirely up their own arse.
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    Yes, Capaldi should have been a great doctor, but the scripts... This is also when I stopped watching.
    - sumtechguy 4y ago
      I totally agree. There were glimpses of Capaldi just chewing through the script. It was amazing. Then it would just derail and become odd.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    I made it through Capaldi and a season of Whitiker before quitting. How can a show keep hiring such talented actors and wasting them with such consistently garbage material? No wonder they're talking about rebooting the whole thing.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      >>No wonder they're talking about rebooting the whole thing. I am pretty sure to most fans the current era is the "reboot", and they would prefer them to go back to just before Capaldi era, start from their and pretend Capaldi/Whitiker era shows where another universe.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
valdiorn 4y ago
Someone's been watching The Critical Drinker - but I totally agree with him as well :) The lack of obstacles to overcome and the general saint-like presence of protagonists these days is miserable. It's the same thing you see in political discourse these days; if you're not COMPLETELY with us on every issue, you are a fascist devil. Can't have that in your movies so you end up with perfect moral beings with no flaws.
- native_samples 4y ago
  That's why the new Top Gun is such a monster at the box office. It's a "woke zero" movie in which you believe the characters are actually competent because you watch them train. They're believable and you want them to succeed. It's just a fantastic action movie and is even better than the original. A great reminder of what Hollywood can do when it's firing on all cylinders and isn't distracted by trying to do ideological brainwashing.
  - harpersealtako 4y ago
    I think you're right. A lot of times in modern movies, the plot, setting, and characters exist solely to advance the ideology it is trying to push. Because ideology is a ideal of real life that almost by definition is incomplete, the plot/setting/characters feel inconsistent, and the illusion of internal logic is broken. For example, a character might do or say something that is inconsistent with reality purely in order to push a certain message, and it's really obvious what's happening. It's like if you're watching an action flick and the actor suddenly turns to the camera, smiles, and says "and that's why kids shouldn't do drugs". It pulls you out of the story -- even if you agree with the ideology.
  - takinola 4y ago
    Oh what I would give to be able to experience a world where the movie flopped. The same people claiming it was successful because it didn't try to be woke would have said it failed for being too woke (female pilots, multi-ethnic crew, unnamed enemy, etc).
    - 4y ago
noisy_boy 4y ago
Adam Sandler has been hitting it out of the park lately. Uncut Gems[0] showed what an excellent actor he really is. [0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/

geerlingguy 4y ago

This comment reminds me a lot of The Critical Drinker on YouTube. Sometimes a bit biting, but often accurate in analyzing what went wrong in some movie's plot. One of the most egregious and frequent is having characters who basically have zero or backsliding character arcs.

throwaway14356 4y ago
He ruined movies and series for me. I now keep seeing horrific mistakes. like: The team of heroes has 1 character without a back story so he was designed to die.
- kinghtown 4y ago
  His zone is mainstream hollywood action movies, for every brilliant action movie that gets it you’ll have like 100 BS ones. I think what really annoys me about the critical drinker, and others like him on youtube, is that his essays focus on complaining about the most common denominator mainstream entertainment with very little awareness of art house films or international cinema. It seems that all he wants are cooler action movies.. which, yeah me too for sure but the criterion collection/channel is a thing as well. I’m not feeling his complaining in general. He’d be easier to love if he would champion some cool underground films like Film Comment or whatever will.
hnhg 4y ago
He makes some decent points but I can't watch his content without cringing at the persona he makes use of. I find it very painful, but I guess it has an audience. I can also imagine people saying the same thing about redlettermedia, which I do enjoy.
kinghtown 4y ago
He likes to do alt right click bait and I mainly ignore him these days.. like I would tag him as a leftie and I mainly agree with him in terms of how obnoxious and cynical corpo-hollywood is in its execution of inclusion and diversity (to be clear: I want more diversity in entertainment) but he does play it up quite a bit and exaggerates “the message” thing he pushes. Months ago, I watched a ten minute video/rant on Loki where he complained about forced inclusion and gender politics ruining the show.. though I finally saw the show this week and I found it to be very good and no where near as annoying as he made it out to be. He’s part of an alt right baiting group of youtubers like Nerdroitic who all flirt with this notion of white culture being under siege. Like I don’t believe any of these guys swing that way (as in MAGA) but they like the views on their channels.
- newsclues 4y ago
  It seems like these creators and others like Tim pool, have found a sizeable niche audience that really supports them (in part they are alienated by the mainstream and the alt right welcomes them). It’s weird how hippies have become conservatives if they didn’t go woke.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    >>It’s weird how hippies have become conservatives if they didn’t go woke. Except they dont... Conservative has a very specific political meaning, and to consider everyone that is "not woke" either conservative or alt-right shows a massive ignorance of the political landscape Classic Liberal, or libertarian people still exist, we are here. The 1990's and 00's the battle was against conservatives wanting ti suppress speech, blame violence on video games, and all other manner of BS. Today it seems the far left has also taken up the mantra of speech suppression, and blame video games for all manner of social ill's, It is the Horseshoe Theory of politics manifest in reality.. One can be "not woke" and at the same time, not conservative... the " sizeable niche audience" is actually the sane people, the middle of the road people, the people that think both Extreme Conservatives, and Extreme "Leftists" are crazy....

thinkingemote 4y ago

Dr Who is a good example. There has always been a message in the shows but the story took precedence. Now the message takes precedence and the story and show suffers. It's unwatchable even with the audio muted! Terry Pratchett's work is a good example of progressive ideas told so well that the story is all that anyone cares about.

BoxOfRain 4y ago
>Dr Who is a good example. I'm actually a bit sad about Doctor Who, I've not watched it since the Capaldi era which really wound me up because he's a fantastic actor who was dealt a crap hand with crappy scripts that have crawled entirely up their own arse.
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Yes, Capaldi should have been a great doctor, but the scripts... This is also when I stopped watching.
  - sumtechguy 4y ago
    I totally agree. There were glimpses of Capaldi just chewing through the script. It was amazing. Then it would just derail and become odd.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  I made it through Capaldi and a season of Whitiker before quitting. How can a show keep hiring such talented actors and wasting them with such consistently garbage material? No wonder they're talking about rebooting the whole thing.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    >>No wonder they're talking about rebooting the whole thing. I am pretty sure to most fans the current era is the "reboot", and they would prefer them to go back to just before Capaldi era, start from their and pretend Capaldi/Whitiker era shows where another universe.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

valdiorn 4y ago

Someone's been watching The Critical Drinker - but I totally agree with him as well :) The lack of obstacles to overcome and the general saint-like presence of protagonists these days is miserable. It's the same thing you see in political discourse these days; if you're not COMPLETELY with us on every issue, you are a fascist devil. Can't have that in your movies so you end up with perfect moral beings with no flaws.

native_samples 4y ago
That's why the new Top Gun is such a monster at the box office. It's a "woke zero" movie in which you believe the characters are actually competent because you watch them train. They're believable and you want them to succeed. It's just a fantastic action movie and is even better than the original. A great reminder of what Hollywood can do when it's firing on all cylinders and isn't distracted by trying to do ideological brainwashing.
- harpersealtako 4y ago
  I think you're right. A lot of times in modern movies, the plot, setting, and characters exist solely to advance the ideology it is trying to push. Because ideology is a ideal of real life that almost by definition is incomplete, the plot/setting/characters feel inconsistent, and the illusion of internal logic is broken. For example, a character might do or say something that is inconsistent with reality purely in order to push a certain message, and it's really obvious what's happening. It's like if you're watching an action flick and the actor suddenly turns to the camera, smiles, and says "and that's why kids shouldn't do drugs". It pulls you out of the story -- even if you agree with the ideology.
- takinola 4y ago
  Oh what I would give to be able to experience a world where the movie flopped. The same people claiming it was successful because it didn't try to be woke would have said it failed for being too woke (female pilots, multi-ethnic crew, unnamed enemy, etc).
  - 4y ago

noisy_boy 4y ago

Adam Sandler has been hitting it out of the park lately. Uncut Gems[0] showed what an excellent actor he really is. [0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/