Disqus - Latest Comments for grayzip

Re: So some people will pay for a subscription to a news site. How about two? Three?

grayzip — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 15:12:42 -0000

The perceived value of call-brand news sites like New York and Quartz is in large part due to their centrality to the discourse. Hidden behind a paywall, their content will cease to be widely seen, tweeted, discussed, and thereby encountered by potential readers. The sites will become less essential, and their essential-ness is what they're selling

Re: Its Bond. Black James Bond. But Batman Should Stay White FILM | MARC BERNARDIN

grayzip — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 18:57:59 -0000

Shaft is a private detective. I've seen that work with a white guy once or maybe even twice

Re: Its Bond. Black James Bond. But Batman Should Stay White FILM | MARC BERNARDIN

grayzip — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:21:14 -0000

You wanna blame that mess on casting?

Re: Burnout Paradise: Remastered Makes Us Yearn for a True Burnout Sequel

grayzip — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:17:49 -0000

On the one hand it was just a racing game, but Burnout Paradise always had something extra. I remember its team would do basically Burnout TV where they would talk about the free dlc and improvements they made long into its release, and thinking then it was a level of commitment you don’t often see. Then they basically sold their expertise to EA and made Need for Speed games, for I bet unimpeachable business reasons. I would even say those games contained every single refinement and new idea they would have put into a BP2. The lunkheaded NFS vibe hurt some but mainly all those games lacked was that something extra, which whatever it was is 90% of what made Burnout Paradise great

Re: Its Bond. Black James Bond. But Batman Should Stay White FILM | MARC BERNARDIN

grayzip — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:42:13 -0000

The Batman argument is very superfanny. I have seen all the movies and if the idea that the Waynes founded Gotham and were once evil but had a change of heart is in any of them, it’s undersold to the point of invisibility. In the movies his parents were murdered and he’s rich. He fights clowns and penguins. He could be any race at all and the franchise as actually executed would lose nothing

Re: CBS Films President Terry Press Breaks Silence on Les Moonves: "Story Generates as Many Questions as Answers"

grayzip — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 03:50:10 -0000

What A Difference Her Pay Makes

Re: What Does The New Star Wars Series Mean For The Star Wars Story Movies?

grayzip — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 21:10:44 -0000

It could also be that easily-spooked Lucasfilm is just developing a back-up trilogy in case they bail on Johnson after the bleh fan reaction to "Last Jedi"

Re: TV Writers Launch Anonymous Pay Survey Amid Push for Salary Parity

grayzip — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 13:24:26 -0000

No one need cry for TV writers, but going by this spreadsheet pay has gone waaaaay down since the 90's.

Re: Megyn Kelly vs. Jane Fonda: a ratings winner drenched in irony

grayzip — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:27:48 -0000

Is it okay if I don't download Grace and Frankie from Netflix and just stream it?

Re: Alec Baldwin Defends Woody Allen Against Sexual Assault Accusations

grayzip — Tue, 16 Jan 2018 16:21:37 -0000

Believing the woman is a very different proposition from believing the 3 year-old. That's not to say Woody Allen is innocent or guilty, just that 3 year-olds aren't yet cognitively able to be trustworthy witnesses, nor are an adult's memories from when they were three reliable (if they have any at all; I don't.) Withholding judgment on anything if the only evidence is the word of a toddler, let alone an adult attempting to recall memories of being one, is a perfectly reasonable position. It also doesn't absolve Woody Allen. He basically married his other daughter. That's enough for me

Re: Star Trek: Discovery is rebooting itself. I'm cautiously optimistic.

grayzip — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 05:01:25 -0000

The thing about the mirror universe I can never tale seriously is its 1:1 relationship with ours. In an brutal empire where murder is basically legal a lot more people are going to die than in a peaceful one. A million things are going to be and go differently. So how are all the same people alive — let alone born — in both? I mean, I know why obviously but it’s pretty cheesy.

Re: Star Trek: Discovery is rebooting itself. I'm cautiously optimistic.

grayzip — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 04:59:03 -0000

I keep wondering if they’ll remember to give the Klingons a decent reason to have gone to all the trouble of creating Ash. It seems to be timing out where he’ll be discovered without ever really executing or even revealing what his purpose was to begin with. I’m sure they aren’t that careless though

Re: Liberalism Demands That We Treat People Fairly, Even When It’s Hard

grayzip — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 04:49:58 -0000

You see this attitude a lot from generally straight white men whenever a given mistreated group is gaining ground. They love to cite things like ‘the poor college kid who was just wearing a sombrero at a keg party!’ Never mind the injustice the group in question was dealt by the millions for decades. Nope, if one innocent white/straight/male is meted injustice in righting a wrong they are off that train. No one wants anyone to be dealt an injustice. But movements are messy. An innocent man might get swept up in the tumult of women demanding respect. If the thought is too much to bear then take solace in all the women who have been raped with no recourse over the centuries

Re: Google And Facebook Push For $3 Toll Increase On Bay Area Bridges

grayzip — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 20:42:11 -0000

So Facebook and Google want higher tolls on bridges their employees don't use in order to ease congestion between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, got it. On the other hand $3 a trip is nothing, right? Doesn't everyone make $500K a year?

Re: Sense8 Still Canceled, Netflix Confirms

grayzip — Sat, 10 Jun 2017 04:01:03 -0000

As Netflix increasingly focuses on the international market, LGBTQ and POC characters will disappear from its content, much as they have from Hollywood movies. Netflix is not better than Hollywood, they ARE Hollywood

Re: Studios to Present Offer to WGA at 2 pm Sunday as Mysterious Memo Tells Strike Captains “Be Ready to Strike Tuesday”

grayzip — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 21:40:45 -0000

Advertising imperatives don't need to conflict with good-faith reporting, see most newspapers. Caving in to the impulse to be craven seems to be a delineator between small and big time operations

Re: Studios to Present Offer to WGA at 2 pm Sunday as Mysterious Memo Tells Strike Captains “Be Ready to Strike Tuesday”

grayzip — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 18:27:59 -0000

To review: Everything the studios have offered is generous, while nothing the WGA is asking for is realistic AND everyone hates them. In conclusion, THR has given up on the whole general-interest gambit and is back to being a showbiz trade and industry organ

Re: Galloway on Film: A New McCarthyism?

grayzip — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 23:52:36 -0000

I'll leave the Nazis out of this, but those blacklisted, for instance, were systemically barred from working. Neither Tim Allen nor you can come up with any present-day consequence of voicing conservative views in Hollywood past facing disagreement. Other than that, great analogies

Re: "A Dogs Purpose" Writer Calls On-Set Video "Shocking" But Claims It "Mischaracterizes What Happened"

grayzip — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 14:09:24 -0000

I believe we are saying the same thing

Re: Gavin Polone on A Dogs Purpose Outcry, What Really Happened and Whos to Blame

grayzip — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 14:08:42 -0000

Another reason to wait until the film's release to spring the video is to maximize both the financial hit to the studio and the attention the issue receives. Studios likely WILL be apprehensive about making animal-centric films now, and those that do will take extraordinary safety measures to prevent their film from becoming the next Dog's Purpose. So actually many more animals likely benefitted from things playing out as they did than would have had the individual gone just to the studio the moment the abuse occurred.

What Polone gets wrong about CG is, prices are going through the basement. In a handful of years you will be able to add dogs to videos with your phone for free. Until then we would do just fine with or without a Benji cinematic universe

Re: "A Dogs Purpose" Writer Calls On-Set Video "Shocking" But Claims It "Mischaracterizes What Happened"

grayzip — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 21:41:18 -0000

You wait 15 months until the film is about to be released in order to inflict maximal financial damage and bring the most publicity to the cause. All studios will be much more careful when using animals after this than they would have if just Universal had been approached with the video at the time of the abuse.

It also makes no difference why the dog was terrified or whether he was terrified later. Then, and there, he didn't want to go in and they made him anyway. End of story

Re: Rogue One: Final Darth Vader Scene Was a Reshoot — and Thank the Force It Was

grayzip — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 16:30:52 -0000

I guess it's just Star Wars so who cares, but that ending reduced an adult, even poetic ending to sheer camp. We already know -- knew going in -- that the Death Star plans had been received. And our two leads dying after having just saved the rebellion is both beautiful and for a popcorn film shocking; an artistic high note to go out on. Instead we now follow Darth Vader as he tries to get the plans back, and cheer as the beloved character hacks his way through again-faceless grunts the film had just humanized. It works as cheesy nostalgia -- look, that cheap-looking ship interior again! But it is a giant step back from what came before. And don't forget what it leads to, a plasticine dead-eyed CG Leiah delivering the corniest line in the film. Yay? Why? That ending makes me wonder how much better a film we would have now if Disney hadn't chickened out halfway through its production

Re: Mark Lilla’s “The End Of Identity Liberalism” Is The Whitest Thing I’ve Ever Read

grayzip — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 15:52:49 -0000

I didn't mean to come off that way. No question, plenty of cray to go around

Re: Time to Fight Like Hell

grayzip — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 15:48:18 -0000

LGBT people value kindness and tolerance too but as ever we only exist when it's about us

Re: Mark Lilla’s “The End Of Identity Liberalism” Is The Whitest Thing I’ve Ever Read

grayzip — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 14:37:27 -0000

What is particularly grating is applying the term "identity politics" to the specific ways "identity" actually impacted the 2016 Democratic politics. Latinos shouldn't be deported by the millions. Blacks shouldn't be gunned down in the street by cops. LGBT people shouldn't be arrested for using a bathroom. Muslims shouldn't be registered and banned. Most of these were actually defensive postures against Republican assaults and none of them were the sort of -- in their minds -- myopic trivial issues like campus safe spaces.

Look how he portrays coverage by the press:

"However interesting it may be to read, say, about the fate of transgender people in Egypt, it contributes nothing to educating Americans about the powerful political and religious currents that will determine Egypt’s future, and indirectly, our own."

I actually haven't read much about trangender Egyptians, but I have read a lot about Egypt's political and religious currents. What is he even talking about?

He believes ANY mention of minority populations is alienating to straight white men. And maybe he's statistically right but so what? Democrats could garner more votes still if they took stands against abortion and immigration too, maybe even win. But win what? In any case the premise is flawed on its own term; despite how much more like Republicans Democrats become, why would voters settle for an imitation when they can buy the real deal for the same price?