The Bird
tEM IS GUD...RITER!
- Location
- In that den of villains and scum, OKLAHOMA
Look man, it's a scientific fact that numbers was invented by the devil and that math is witchcraft. So don't blame me if I don't numbers well.
Neat!
Project Ludovico
- Thread starter Athene
- Start date
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- Tags
- athenemas film media movie review
Look man, it's a scientific fact that numbers was invented by the devil and that math is witchcraft. So don't blame me if I don't numbers well.
Neat!
Well it's a historical fact that algebra was invented in the Middle East, so I've long done my part in the War on Terror by boycotting it.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So it is the Emoji movie?
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's close enough to it
But if it's not out yet, how can she review it?
Emote Control
Plenty of genius, not enough sense.
You'll have to do more. Even as we speak, the Al-Gebra organization is seeking weapons of math instruction! We must coordinate against the axis of evil!
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Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Trying this for the third time and hoping its the charm this time. I think each time I am forced to start from scratch I get blunter so I'll start this off here:
Pleasantville is a takedown of the political idea of "The Good Old Days". Finely crafted like a vorpal blade, it portrays uncritical nostalgia as being hand in hand with fascism. The only thing more than change that people fear is the freedom of others. It's a movie I classify as "A Delightful Betrayal" in that it abandons its own pitch to you in order to deliver an entirely different experience. The premise is simple enough: Two teenagers from now get stuck in a fifties TV show via Deus Ex Don Knots. Pleasantville is, well, its pleasant. Its bland, inoffensive and idealized. Its the amalgam of every safe 50s sitcom out there and is basically the zeitgeist of 50s Nostalgia. David becomes Bud, the nerdlinger son of George and Betty, the perfect parents in the perfect home with the perfect family. Dinner is always ready when a man comes home, a woman appears when you need it, nothing has calories, the drama is all lame and solved in minutes. David, hereafter Bud, is a huge fan of the show. He knows every person, every plot, every detail. He uses the show to escape from the all the doom and gloom he's taught every day and his parents divorce at home. On the show, everything is perfect, all the time. The home team makes every shot, there's no rain, fire is non existent (firemen only exist to get cats out of trees), and the whole world is just this one town, looping endlessly back on itself.
His sister gets sucked in with him. He's dedicated to trying to preserve the order of the universe but she doesn't give a shit, aside from trying to get with the captain of the basketball team. She's bringing sex to a twin bed, sleep with the lights on universe. Third base in this town used to be "eat a cheeseburger" sans metaphor. Going all the way was exchanging pins and kissing was the equivalent of a Cleveland Steamer. She gives a guy the universe's first boner and he reacts at first like its a chestburster.
They get the hang of it soon enough, and sex has been introduced and with it, the first outbursts of color. Now, with the use of color, a lot of people jump to a direct comparison to Jim Crow and the treatment of black people. Its not so simple as that though. The color is a breakaway from the traditional. Its the collapse of a black and white world and the herald of complexity. The home team misses shots, hell they lose a game. The previously blank books start to fill in. All sorts of new ideas filter in. The clinky clank score of a TV show is replaced by new and exciting and visionary jazz music. New, exciting and challenging art emerges.
And dinner isn't ready on time.
Now, there are definitely references to people of color with the...people of color, but they're a metaphor for individualism and growth. People who don't fit in with this society's 'traditional' values. They stand in for every person who's different, free thinking or developed. While Jennifer gives the world sexual freedom, Bud begins subverting things with intellectualism. His boss at the soda shop initially lacks free will and agency. His existence exists only within his relationship to Bud. Deviating from that causes him confused and angst culminating in existential dread. Bud tries to play along with the workings of the universe but eventually introduces him to art. Modern art, challenging art. Free thinking art of beauty. He gains agency and power, even though all he wants to do is create.
Betty discovers her own sexuality (Thanks to learning about it from her daughter in a reverse of The Talk) and begins a tryst with him. Sexual agency of women in this time period was damn near apocalyptic and we're still feeling the backlash against it today. She develops color and tries to hide it at first, wearing makeup to disguise her newfound sexuality. Metaphors abound.
The teens and young adults have their sex, their learning, their thinking. Sex alone isn't a guarantee of color, as plenty of the soon to be fascists remain black and white, and so does Jennifer until she develops as a person. Its about agency and growth. The world is changing, fast as entire areas are beginning to erupt in color. Then, things hit the fan as Pleasantville gets The Rain. The rain is viewed with awe and wonder by those who have found their personal color. By the establishment that is afraid of the loss of tradition, it is a grim harbinger and a sign that change must be stopped. George is still with those in black and white. He like all the other men at mysterious and unseen "work" arrives home, with his suit, hat and briefcase filled with who even knows what. He opens the door to find the house dark.
"Honey I'm home" he says, his catch phrase (its a boring as fuck show)
Nothing happens. No wife. No dinner. This is an Outside Context Problem, so he repeats it again.
"Honey I'm home"
Nothing happens. He begins wandering from room to room.
"Honey? I'm Home?" He says, trying to figure out what he's doing wrong that a wife doesn't spring forth from the other room with dinner ready. George has no dinner. Its not on the table. Its not in the oven, hell, its not even in the bread box! He stumbles through the rain to the bowling alley as tradition becomes fascism in response to change.
Bill has created a nude of Betty for his soda shop window in the style of Matisse. The black and white people react with anger and break the windows, go into the store and begin breaking everything. People with hue are attacked on the street. Books are burned by the firemen ("I clapped because I know what that is"), it's Kristalnacht in Pleasantville.
But don't worry, the Mayor is going to prevent all this unpleasantness.
There's a town meeting to discuss all the unpleasantness and some nice clean cut guys from the basketball team are going to come by and ask why you're not going to the meeting. We're going to stop all this mob violence and solve this by setting rules: Art must be in black and white. The newfangled double beds are banned. The only allowed music is " Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Jack Jones, the marches of John Phillips Sousa or The Star Spangled Banner." No unpleasant or intemperate music will be allowed. No forbidden books. No umbrellas or preperations for inclement weather. Things will be pleasant again. The "changist" view of history will be banned and only "continuity" will be taught.
Yeah its not subtle. While subtlety is appreciated, sometimes you need to be heard. I mentioned before that character growth is one of the items that brings upon the change of color. For Bud, its defending Betty when she's attacked on the street by the Basketwaffen. Defending an attacked minority against his former escapism is his test of character. Jennifer's is reconciling intellect and sexuality, with her color coming after embracing higher learning. Insert 1950s Tumblr joke here, but owning both her body and mind is where she grows.
Eventually things come to a final head when Bud and Bill rebel and paint an evocative mural about what has happened to the town and are arrested. Lawyers aren't pleasant, so they don't have legal representation. Gonna just keep it all pleasant by not having to deal with laws. They eventually succeed of course but what makes it great is that their victory is everything is complex. What do they do now? They don't know, they'll have to figure it out. Life isn't easy, its complicated. When returned to our world, that's what David comes to. Yeah, there is a lot of bad things in the world. We're going to have to deal with them. Ignoring them won't help, pining for simple times steamrolls everyone that doesn't fit. You have to figure shit out in an imperfect world. The metaphor of the apple comes up (its even Telestrated when it happens) because, well, I'll let God explain it:
"And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. "
Pleasantville is a takedown of the political idea of "The Good Old Days". Finely crafted like a vorpal blade, it portrays uncritical nostalgia as being hand in hand with fascism. The only thing more than change that people fear is the freedom of others. It's a movie I classify as "A Delightful Betrayal" in that it abandons its own pitch to you in order to deliver an entirely different experience. The premise is simple enough: Two teenagers from now get stuck in a fifties TV show via Deus Ex Don Knots. Pleasantville is, well, its pleasant. Its bland, inoffensive and idealized. Its the amalgam of every safe 50s sitcom out there and is basically the zeitgeist of 50s Nostalgia. David becomes Bud, the nerdlinger son of George and Betty, the perfect parents in the perfect home with the perfect family. Dinner is always ready when a man comes home, a woman appears when you need it, nothing has calories, the drama is all lame and solved in minutes. David, hereafter Bud, is a huge fan of the show. He knows every person, every plot, every detail. He uses the show to escape from the all the doom and gloom he's taught every day and his parents divorce at home. On the show, everything is perfect, all the time. The home team makes every shot, there's no rain, fire is non existent (firemen only exist to get cats out of trees), and the whole world is just this one town, looping endlessly back on itself.
His sister gets sucked in with him. He's dedicated to trying to preserve the order of the universe but she doesn't give a shit, aside from trying to get with the captain of the basketball team. She's bringing sex to a twin bed, sleep with the lights on universe. Third base in this town used to be "eat a cheeseburger" sans metaphor. Going all the way was exchanging pins and kissing was the equivalent of a Cleveland Steamer. She gives a guy the universe's first boner and he reacts at first like its a chestburster.
They get the hang of it soon enough, and sex has been introduced and with it, the first outbursts of color. Now, with the use of color, a lot of people jump to a direct comparison to Jim Crow and the treatment of black people. Its not so simple as that though. The color is a breakaway from the traditional. Its the collapse of a black and white world and the herald of complexity. The home team misses shots, hell they lose a game. The previously blank books start to fill in. All sorts of new ideas filter in. The clinky clank score of a TV show is replaced by new and exciting and visionary jazz music. New, exciting and challenging art emerges.
And dinner isn't ready on time.
Now, there are definitely references to people of color with the...people of color, but they're a metaphor for individualism and growth. People who don't fit in with this society's 'traditional' values. They stand in for every person who's different, free thinking or developed. While Jennifer gives the world sexual freedom, Bud begins subverting things with intellectualism. His boss at the soda shop initially lacks free will and agency. His existence exists only within his relationship to Bud. Deviating from that causes him confused and angst culminating in existential dread. Bud tries to play along with the workings of the universe but eventually introduces him to art. Modern art, challenging art. Free thinking art of beauty. He gains agency and power, even though all he wants to do is create.
Betty discovers her own sexuality (Thanks to learning about it from her daughter in a reverse of The Talk) and begins a tryst with him. Sexual agency of women in this time period was damn near apocalyptic and we're still feeling the backlash against it today. She develops color and tries to hide it at first, wearing makeup to disguise her newfound sexuality. Metaphors abound.
The teens and young adults have their sex, their learning, their thinking. Sex alone isn't a guarantee of color, as plenty of the soon to be fascists remain black and white, and so does Jennifer until she develops as a person. Its about agency and growth. The world is changing, fast as entire areas are beginning to erupt in color. Then, things hit the fan as Pleasantville gets The Rain. The rain is viewed with awe and wonder by those who have found their personal color. By the establishment that is afraid of the loss of tradition, it is a grim harbinger and a sign that change must be stopped. George is still with those in black and white. He like all the other men at mysterious and unseen "work" arrives home, with his suit, hat and briefcase filled with who even knows what. He opens the door to find the house dark.
"Honey I'm home" he says, his catch phrase (its a boring as fuck show)
Nothing happens. No wife. No dinner. This is an Outside Context Problem, so he repeats it again.
"Honey I'm home"
Nothing happens. He begins wandering from room to room.
"Honey? I'm Home?" He says, trying to figure out what he's doing wrong that a wife doesn't spring forth from the other room with dinner ready. George has no dinner. Its not on the table. Its not in the oven, hell, its not even in the bread box! He stumbles through the rain to the bowling alley as tradition becomes fascism in response to change.
Bill has created a nude of Betty for his soda shop window in the style of Matisse. The black and white people react with anger and break the windows, go into the store and begin breaking everything. People with hue are attacked on the street. Books are burned by the firemen ("I clapped because I know what that is"), it's Kristalnacht in Pleasantville.
But don't worry, the Mayor is going to prevent all this unpleasantness.
There's a town meeting to discuss all the unpleasantness and some nice clean cut guys from the basketball team are going to come by and ask why you're not going to the meeting. We're going to stop all this mob violence and solve this by setting rules: Art must be in black and white. The newfangled double beds are banned. The only allowed music is " Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Jack Jones, the marches of John Phillips Sousa or The Star Spangled Banner." No unpleasant or intemperate music will be allowed. No forbidden books. No umbrellas or preperations for inclement weather. Things will be pleasant again. The "changist" view of history will be banned and only "continuity" will be taught.
Yeah its not subtle. While subtlety is appreciated, sometimes you need to be heard. I mentioned before that character growth is one of the items that brings upon the change of color. For Bud, its defending Betty when she's attacked on the street by the Basketwaffen. Defending an attacked minority against his former escapism is his test of character. Jennifer's is reconciling intellect and sexuality, with her color coming after embracing higher learning. Insert 1950s Tumblr joke here, but owning both her body and mind is where she grows.
Eventually things come to a final head when Bud and Bill rebel and paint an evocative mural about what has happened to the town and are arrested. Lawyers aren't pleasant, so they don't have legal representation. Gonna just keep it all pleasant by not having to deal with laws. They eventually succeed of course but what makes it great is that their victory is everything is complex. What do they do now? They don't know, they'll have to figure it out. Life isn't easy, its complicated. When returned to our world, that's what David comes to. Yeah, there is a lot of bad things in the world. We're going to have to deal with them. Ignoring them won't help, pining for simple times steamrolls everyone that doesn't fit. You have to figure shit out in an imperfect world. The metaphor of the apple comes up (its even Telestrated when it happens) because, well, I'll let God explain it:
"And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. "
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- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Aww, you didn't even mention the stinger scene where they imply Bill, Betty, and George have elected to try a polyamorous trio as a solution to their situation. In the 50s.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
- Location
- Land of Bureaucracy
- Pronouns
- Plural/They
By Death Wish 3, they were really stretching things. Death Wish was a love letter to fascism in response to street crime. You could at least point to some ideas in it, even if they were abhorrent. Death Wish 2 was a skeevier Death Wish. Michael Winner is himself abhorrent but there wasn't any actual ideas at play except "Street Justice is best justice" and "PCP is a hell of a drug". I mean, it was a hit, because of course it was, but it had no substance. Instead of being Goebbels it was the guy in front of you at the Filibertos with a tattoo of the SS planning the final solution: What's the point?
In Death Wish 3 it had turned street crime into Mad Max. Aside from demonstrating why Marina Sirtis thanks God above for The Next Generation, it has street gangs being gunned down with a .30 machine gun. Oh and a rocket launcher to finish off the bad guy because its Cannon in the 80s and every bad guy needs to be rocketed to death. It made wholesale slaughter of poor people a festive occasion, as well as fridging anyone the character might become attached to.
We're not doing Death Wish 3, we're doing Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.
The Crackdown is about Cocaine but the powder kind white people like because Cannon isn't going to ask you to feel anything for some /minority/. Paul Kersey is back in LA with a 33 year old girlfriend for his 66 year old ass. She has a daughter that is given the legal minimum requirements of development. She's a woman in a Death Wish movie, so she has a life expectancy of 5 minutes. She dies. Michael Winner isn't director so there isn't a rape scene but she overdoses on cocaine she got from some guys, one of whom is Tuvok. Janeway and Sulu would be disappointed Tuvok. Damn disappointed.
Oh hey though, I got ahead of myself. The movie opens with a dream sequence of a woman being almost raped in a parking garage. Woah there Kersey, what the fuck? I dream of photoshop and infinite loops of bejeweled clones. You dream about women in peril. Fix your fucking issues. Especially since after executing two of the men, the third has his face. Holy shit, Freud dropped his notepad in horror and Jung is puking his guts out in a potted plant. At this...revelation, a pair of grips off stage slowly bolt him out of bed. He has to think about what has happened but he also has to throw his underwear in the laundry like a 13 year old.
Anyway, she dead. Paul defaults to his default programming and kills one of the guys responsible (not Tuvok!) at an amusement park, his body falling onto the electrical net above the bumper cars, scarring all the children below for life at his screams of agony. Justice has been served.
But oh no, someone saw! The owner of a local newspaper named White wants Kersey to kill all the drug dealers in town using his precise intel. That's not any kind of suspicious and his murder boner medication is kicking in, so Kersey is on board. He begins a campaign of very slow terror against the LA drug cartels.
I have to mention that because someone is old, doesn't mean they can't do action. Many actors have done actiony and/or violent movies into their 60s. Harrison Ford, Stallone, Michael Caine, etc. my adoptive father built a barn by himself in his 70s. Older people who have taken care of themselves can be capable of plenty of physicality and we shouldn't rule out older stars. They often turn in amazing performances in this kind of movie.
This is not one of those times.
While not as bad as Death Wish 5, which was a shocking 7 years after this film, he's still not actually capable of much action. Most of the kills in the movie are "Blandly shoots a gun", "Sucker punches someone" or "Outright idiocy". At one point, he goes into a restaurant posing as a wine salesmen with a bomb hidden in a fake wine bottle. Danny Trejo recognizes him though as the bomb counts down and he needs to escape, so he tosses a glass of plain water in the guys face and slides off camera before it blows. That's it. That's the action scene. Throwing water in Danny Trejo's face without any dignity and then sliding off camera so we can assume he was running away.
"Should I cut this a bit closer so you can't see they're dummies? Nah, why mess with perfection!"
Kersey sidles or slow walks between intel briefings and lame Uzi firing. Cops ineffectually attempt to stop him. Repeat until both factions are wiped out in a final lame gun battle with each other and you look to your partner and go "Well that was early?" and you check the run time again. "Wasn't this supposed to be an hour and forty minutes long?". Aha, but there is a twist coming! See, Kerseys habit of just trusting some random asshole with suspicious intel might actually prove to be a mistake! As a call from White tells him to go to the middle of nowhere and meet a random guy for "reasons" and "just trust me its cool bro". Kersey lamely shoots his way out of a car that he's been trapped in and goes after this White guy for incriminating him!
Arriving at his mansion, he muscles his way in with his pistol only to find that it wasn't the real White at all! He's been helping a complete rando drug dealer eliminate all the competition! Its ok, how was he supposed to know that it was a fake? He only didn't check anything related to the guy and took him at his word. Oh and his girlfriend works for the real guy. There was really no way to know. However, !White wants Kersey dead because he "knows too much" and could go to the cops.
Fucking what? He doesn't know a single fucking thing until you try to kill him. He would have retired to some wrinkly, sweaty grandpa sex none the wiser that he did absolutely fucking nothing to stop drugs. He doesn't even know your name and has zero ability to find you, because you assumed someone elses identity and fucked off. You in fact have to keep reaching out to him because he can't find you! Good job Moriarty! He sends fake cops with a fake cop car out to arrest him even.
They pull him over and start rudely arresting him.
"What did I do?" says the country's most prolific mass murderer
"We're taking you in!" they say, refusing to explain
"But there has to be a reason!" he cries, ignoring the fact that he's killed a police officer.
"We're here to give you 30 seconds of what a Minority in the US experiences" says a modern audience.
Yeah they're fake cops but they literally know what he's done for their boss, so why don't they just say literally any of that? He figures out they're fake because they as LAPD officers aren't respecting his civil rights-Yeah, that's a sentence alright. The LAPD, noted defenders of civil rights. Anyway, they won't give any information and haven't done any fake cop research going in, so Paul makes them crash by being annoying. That's not a joke, he starts kicking the back of a dudes seat and the divider and they crash the car from annoyance. He has the exit strategy of a 7 year old. Can't he wait until he can limply sucker punch them like everyone else in the movie?!
Its a good thing that ramp was there
After this thrilling escape, he goes home. Angered that this man who knows nothing might get away, !White has Tuvok call his girlfriend at the paper and tell her he has a hot scoop for him and to meet him in a parking garage. As she steps out the door of her office, she's immediately kidnapped as step 2 of this plan. Step 3 is to call Kersey at home. When he doesn't pick up because an ineffectual cop is there for revenge for his dead partner that didn't matter, he leaves a message on the machine. A message saying they've kidnapped his girlfriend. To avoid him going to the cops. They leave a message admitting to a felony. Excuse me but are we sure this is some criminal mastermind? Are we sure that this isn't some douche from Redondo Beach with an MBA and big dreams? Because you are your own Birnam Wood here friend.
After knocking the cop out with a sucker punch, he grabs his M203 from behind the Fridge (?!) and goes to the meeting place. Things quickly go bad as the man you hired for his ability to kill people, starts killing all their people with bottle rockets fired out of an M203. Alas, Tuvok and his car that isn't the RX7 he said he had, are among the first to go. This leads to a shootout at a skating rink and arcade, as Kersey ventilates people with 5.56mm as they stand in front of crowds. As he sprays from the hip. Should he be worried about his backstop? Of course not, this is the 80s and such concerns are for liberal pusses and\or "fags" as the decade would tell you. Kersey has no need to worry about spraying a crowd with bullets, his gun knows its own.
But there is a final showdown to be had. To let you know the stakes, the movie fridges the girlfriend with less than two minutes of movie remaining. Yep, 97% of the way through, it ices the love interest and has the villain jam his weapon in the process. Its so short I was able to capture the entire ending in one gif
"Man if I wasn't white, that cop might have shot me"
Much like every other attempt to tug at your heart strings, its pointless and stupid because of how pointless it is. Drop a line about how a bad guy is a child pornographer but have the main character only chastise him over drugs? That's a Cannon Film. As is having the reporter go to the morgue to look at drug related deaths (why do you need to see the bodies?!) and have the final victim be a 13 year old streetwalker that had her throat slashed by a John over drugs.
What makes Cannon Films a goldmine is because they're a lurid schlockworks with pretensions. They believed in every movie they ever made and this one was no different. There is no way this could have worked in all seriousness but they thought it would. Hell, Menachem would come back to it for 5th move, at a point when the actor needed a stunt double to throw groceries as people. No bad idea remains untouched! Today's purposely bad or mediocre movies can't compare with the pure joy of an insanely sincere Israeli guy just glad to be in Hollywood.
A 13 year old
I'm going to have to do Death Wish 5: The Face of Death (no really) now at some point aren't I? D:
I saw something rather horrifying today.
Cyrus 21
Kamen Rider/Spirit of Chaos
- Location
- Canterlot
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
" You don't become a good communist by going to meetings, or by memorizing the manifesto; you do it on the streets, you do it with your fists. The rest is bullshit and you know it."
[Synthwave intensifies]
Comrade Detective might be one of the most perfect parodies I've seen in years. The show is allegedly a restored masterwork of Romanian agitprop ( Tovarăș Miliţian ) created to counter American brought to the United States by its dedicated fans. What it actually is of course, is a pitch perfect parody of American jingoistic 80s culture.
Comrade Detective is a buddy cop show about two good communist cops, Gregor Anghel and Iosif Baciu. Gregor is the grizzled, womanizing grizzled cowboy cop. Iosif is the small town intellectual with a family. Together they fight crime. They're trying to find the Man in the Reagan Mask who killed their partner and uncover a conspiracy to import corrupt American Propaganda.
The single biggest asset that Comrade Detective has is that it's Romanian. The actual fake show was shot in Romania by local talent, starring local talent. Then in the process of "bringing" it to the US, it has been dubbed over by a collection of A and B list actors. Its actually an incredibly well shot and well realized show within a show, and kudos all the way there. It gives it authenticity which allows it to better sell the parody. Before talentless hacks ruined it with "LOOK A REFERENCE, LAUGH GOD DAMN YOU", Parody knew that you have to play everything dead serious to get the biggest laughs. The most famous actors of the genre were washed up dramatic actors that could deliver a ridiculous line like they were in a dramatic film rather than a farce.
The show being Romanian is what sells the parody. I don't want to besmirch the land but it wasn't exactly a great country in the 80s. The inherent, well, shittiness of it combined with American style chest beating is effective. Especially when it makes the target audience the target of its jingoism, while praising the Romanian state. Everything is off, everything is surreal but it follows all the same beats and plot points, only from a demented angle.
When the chief asks if Gregor suspects a corrupt cop, he replies of course not, Romanian police are incorruptible. The chief laments that its not the good old days when he could have everyone at the scene randomly shot in the hope that they're the killer. Bucharest is portrayed as the most glorious and modern city in the world. A character is brought out of a coma with a Party anthem. At every turn the countries virtues are praised which when juxtaposed with the fact that its Romania, expertly spoofs the jingoistic style.
On the flip side, American culture is portrayed as horrific, vile, corrupt and debauched. Everyone is a prostitute, there is crime everywhere (Unlike Romania which has no cultural history of crime!) and everyone has AIDS. Americans seek to export their "culture" to destroy other countries and turn them into prostitutes as well. A subversive seduced by the west tries to convince his friend of the glory of America with stories of a man with ornate towers and his name in gold upon them.
"But it takes many workers to build a tower."
"BUT ONLY ONE MAN GETS HIS NAME IN GOLD"
Too soon Romania, too soon.
Christianity gets the same treatment that other religions get in the US. The atheist Romanian filmmakers portray Christianity as an insane cannibalistic death cult, with a catholic mass being filmed like they're worshipping Kali. Cops that don't bat an eye at a man slitting his own throat vomit all over the place at the sight of a mural of Jesus Christ. It expertly parodies how any facet of a foreign culture is rendered down into base, ignorant stereotypes and then demonized. It flips the narrative and by juxtaposition of its humble, lets go with that word, purported country of origin, it expertly satirizes the in built assumptions of the genre.
I'm not sure how effectively I can sell this show without it self demonstrating and me just quoting it as I go. You know, like how I reacted to watching it by running to my friends and breathlessly praising it while posting lines from the show.
Maybe this will help: By sheer coincidence, we happened to watch Rising Sun before I wrote this. It is literally everything that this show parodies. The movie came out in the early 90s but is pure 80s, and is fearful of Japanese competitiveness. The movie depicts Japanese culture as dangerously foreign and incompatible with American mores. The movie depicts the Japanese somewhere between space aliens and bears. KEEP STARING, ESTABLISH DOMINANCE. Simple, universal concepts like "Letting someone win at a game to make them like you more" are portrayed as arcane and foreign. The junior partner comes off as the worlds worst detective as he has to have the simplest concepts explained to him, just to make them more foreign.
The general thrust of the movie is that they're taking over the country with their strange ways, fanatic fervor and extreme technology. They're buying up defense contractors and shipping entire buildings from Japan so they don't have to hire a single American. They are depicted with such innate terror that it borders on parody itself. The movie is like they took every racist relative talking about the Japanese and locked them in a room and yelled "NOW BRING MY THRILLER TO LIFE!" The complete and utter lack of a Japanese America really belies how ridiculous it was, as it has Japanese executives engaging in Katana battles in the suburbs of LA. Its like someone got so fucking baked that they combined Harakiri and The Dead Sleep Well into one movie and then had a racist pantomime it to a screenwriter.
But don't see it, its trash. It is however so self demonstrating of the negative aspects of 1980s culture that I can't not reference it. This was the exact shit!
Real Talk: Comrade Detective is a great show. It has A-List talent, an amazing concept and top tier writing. It takes absolutely everything about itself seriously, even the narrative of it being a forgotten classic. It's on Amazon and its great. It is either going to be your thing or its not, but if it hits your buttons its so amazing that Saoirse and I kept laughing while I was making gifs.
If it sounds like your thing, watch it. Its going to be better than me trying to explain such a rich parody. Don't let my lame attempt to sell it get in the way.
[Synthwave intensifies]
Comrade Detective might be one of the most perfect parodies I've seen in years. The show is allegedly a restored masterwork of Romanian agitprop ( Tovarăș Miliţian ) created to counter American brought to the United States by its dedicated fans. What it actually is of course, is a pitch perfect parody of American jingoistic 80s culture.
Comrade Detective is a buddy cop show about two good communist cops, Gregor Anghel and Iosif Baciu. Gregor is the grizzled, womanizing grizzled cowboy cop. Iosif is the small town intellectual with a family. Together they fight crime. They're trying to find the Man in the Reagan Mask who killed their partner and uncover a conspiracy to import corrupt American Propaganda.
The single biggest asset that Comrade Detective has is that it's Romanian. The actual fake show was shot in Romania by local talent, starring local talent. Then in the process of "bringing" it to the US, it has been dubbed over by a collection of A and B list actors. Its actually an incredibly well shot and well realized show within a show, and kudos all the way there. It gives it authenticity which allows it to better sell the parody. Before talentless hacks ruined it with "LOOK A REFERENCE, LAUGH GOD DAMN YOU", Parody knew that you have to play everything dead serious to get the biggest laughs. The most famous actors of the genre were washed up dramatic actors that could deliver a ridiculous line like they were in a dramatic film rather than a farce.
The show being Romanian is what sells the parody. I don't want to besmirch the land but it wasn't exactly a great country in the 80s. The inherent, well, shittiness of it combined with American style chest beating is effective. Especially when it makes the target audience the target of its jingoism, while praising the Romanian state. Everything is off, everything is surreal but it follows all the same beats and plot points, only from a demented angle.
When the chief asks if Gregor suspects a corrupt cop, he replies of course not, Romanian police are incorruptible. The chief laments that its not the good old days when he could have everyone at the scene randomly shot in the hope that they're the killer. Bucharest is portrayed as the most glorious and modern city in the world. A character is brought out of a coma with a Party anthem. At every turn the countries virtues are praised which when juxtaposed with the fact that its Romania, expertly spoofs the jingoistic style.
On the flip side, American culture is portrayed as horrific, vile, corrupt and debauched. Everyone is a prostitute, there is crime everywhere (Unlike Romania which has no cultural history of crime!) and everyone has AIDS. Americans seek to export their "culture" to destroy other countries and turn them into prostitutes as well. A subversive seduced by the west tries to convince his friend of the glory of America with stories of a man with ornate towers and his name in gold upon them.
"But it takes many workers to build a tower."
"BUT ONLY ONE MAN GETS HIS NAME IN GOLD"
Too soon Romania, too soon.
Christianity gets the same treatment that other religions get in the US. The atheist Romanian filmmakers portray Christianity as an insane cannibalistic death cult, with a catholic mass being filmed like they're worshipping Kali. Cops that don't bat an eye at a man slitting his own throat vomit all over the place at the sight of a mural of Jesus Christ. It expertly parodies how any facet of a foreign culture is rendered down into base, ignorant stereotypes and then demonized. It flips the narrative and by juxtaposition of its humble, lets go with that word, purported country of origin, it expertly satirizes the in built assumptions of the genre.
I'm not sure how effectively I can sell this show without it self demonstrating and me just quoting it as I go. You know, like how I reacted to watching it by running to my friends and breathlessly praising it while posting lines from the show.
Maybe this will help: By sheer coincidence, we happened to watch Rising Sun before I wrote this. It is literally everything that this show parodies. The movie came out in the early 90s but is pure 80s, and is fearful of Japanese competitiveness. The movie depicts Japanese culture as dangerously foreign and incompatible with American mores. The movie depicts the Japanese somewhere between space aliens and bears. KEEP STARING, ESTABLISH DOMINANCE. Simple, universal concepts like "Letting someone win at a game to make them like you more" are portrayed as arcane and foreign. The junior partner comes off as the worlds worst detective as he has to have the simplest concepts explained to him, just to make them more foreign.
The general thrust of the movie is that they're taking over the country with their strange ways, fanatic fervor and extreme technology. They're buying up defense contractors and shipping entire buildings from Japan so they don't have to hire a single American. They are depicted with such innate terror that it borders on parody itself. The movie is like they took every racist relative talking about the Japanese and locked them in a room and yelled "NOW BRING MY THRILLER TO LIFE!" The complete and utter lack of a Japanese America really belies how ridiculous it was, as it has Japanese executives engaging in Katana battles in the suburbs of LA. Its like someone got so fucking baked that they combined Harakiri and The Dead Sleep Well into one movie and then had a racist pantomime it to a screenwriter.
But don't see it, its trash. It is however so self demonstrating of the negative aspects of 1980s culture that I can't not reference it. This was the exact shit!
Real Talk: Comrade Detective is a great show. It has A-List talent, an amazing concept and top tier writing. It takes absolutely everything about itself seriously, even the narrative of it being a forgotten classic. It's on Amazon and its great. It is either going to be your thing or its not, but if it hits your buttons its so amazing that Saoirse and I kept laughing while I was making gifs.
If it sounds like your thing, watch it. Its going to be better than me trying to explain such a rich parody. Don't let my lame attempt to sell it get in the way.
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I know that you said that the movie was terrible, but this here sounds fucking rad.
And this line here was so funny I giggled for a good ten seconds when I read it.
EDIT: What the fuck, Xenforo. My post is two lines long.
I know that you said that the movie was terrible, but this here sounds fucking rad.
And this line here was so funny I giggled for a good ten seconds when I read it.
EDIT: What the fuck, Xenforo. My post is two lines long.
I think that XF warning should read "very short", but what do I know?
Edit: And my reply here was one line and didn't trigger the warning. Go figure.
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- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
- Location
- Luton Airport