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broomhead
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4 months ago
in Swifty Reviews 'Watchmen' on Swifty, Writing
Watchmen was decent. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan were definitely the stand-out characters. I did find myself incredibly bored with Silk Spectre and Silk Spectre 2, and to a lesser degree Night Owl. I don't want to say that they didn't have depth. It was the passion behind Rorschach and the compelling story of Dr. Manhattan that overshadowed the other three.
As for the music being hit or miss, the Simon & Garfunkel was a big miss.
My theater experience was trash as well. For the 3-5 minutes that Danny Woodburn was on screen, a woman in the row behind me was struggling with trying to recognize him. "Oh! I know him! He was that midget in... in, uh, uhhhh." Eventually, she figured it out (Seinfeld, which I should have just told her right away). I can't stand these people.
For the first 2 hours of the film, we are shown very violent images, an attempted rape scene, man on women violence and a glowing blue penis. But it was the nipple in the Silk Spectre-Night Owl sex scene that drove a mother to drag her child out of the theater. This was less an incident as it was puzzling. Well, I guess it isn't so puzzling, there is usually more tolerance to violence than sex.
Really liked your review. Usually I don't care for a person's theater experience in their review of the film. Your frustrations with this kid sort of mirrored your frustrations (too strong of a word but whatever) with the movie. I enjoyed it.
As for the music being hit or miss, the Simon & Garfunkel was a big miss.
My theater experience was trash as well. For the 3-5 minutes that Danny Woodburn was on screen, a woman in the row behind me was struggling with trying to recognize him. "Oh! I know him! He was that midget in... in, uh, uhhhh." Eventually, she figured it out (Seinfeld, which I should have just told her right away). I can't stand these people.
For the first 2 hours of the film, we are shown very violent images, an attempted rape scene, man on women violence and a glowing blue penis. But it was the nipple in the Silk Spectre-Night Owl sex scene that drove a mother to drag her child out of the theater. This was less an incident as it was puzzling. Well, I guess it isn't so puzzling, there is usually more tolerance to violence than sex.
Really liked your review. Usually I don't care for a person's theater experience in their review of the film. Your frustrations with this kid sort of mirrored your frustrations (too strong of a word but whatever) with the movie. I enjoyed it.
1 reply
4 months ago
in thoughts on a subway. an atheist…bus…subway. whatever. on johpanonline
I remember when this ad made a big splash when it first dropped. Its effectiveness is certainly debatable. Either way, I think it is a great thing that this advertisement can be hung. This is a message that wouldn't have been accepted - by companies as well as society - many years/decades ago.
"There are no PROBABLYs when it comes to what you believe"
I don't agree with this though.
Sure, at certain moments in our life, we assume some information as absolute truth. This applies to religious and non-religious people. However, it is very dangerous to accept that a belief can be concrete. When you believe in something, it becomes a part of your personality. If you believe there is a god, it (typically) makes up a part of who you are. When you don't believe there is a god, the same personality shaping occurs. At this point, it becomes difficult - and eventually futile - to argue/debate the issue.
And yes, this is a problem. The beliefs of people end up shaping societies and the laws of these societies. If you can't debate against a person's belief when the debate is over a law (like gay marriage), then how can your society ever hope to progress? And if we accepted moral absolutism, then we accept the beliefs of a particular generation to be true throughout history. You can see why this is dangerous. If you can't, some politicians used to use the Bible as reasoning for why slavery was justifiable.
There are very few concrete beliefs that we have in our personal lives. And all of these beliefs are formed by a number of factors. How we individually perceived the world, what our parents teach us, what are respective society and culture teaches us, how difficult our lives are, what tragedies we end up facing, any number of situations. The most staunch of the religious can turn away from their gods and the atheist can change their mind. This doesn't say that they didn't truly believe in whatever in the past. It's too simple to say that. But our beliefs (as well as our ideas, knowledge and the amount of hair we have) change over time.
"There are no PROBABLYs when it comes to what you believe"
I don't agree with this though.
Sure, at certain moments in our life, we assume some information as absolute truth. This applies to religious and non-religious people. However, it is very dangerous to accept that a belief can be concrete. When you believe in something, it becomes a part of your personality. If you believe there is a god, it (typically) makes up a part of who you are. When you don't believe there is a god, the same personality shaping occurs. At this point, it becomes difficult - and eventually futile - to argue/debate the issue.
And yes, this is a problem. The beliefs of people end up shaping societies and the laws of these societies. If you can't debate against a person's belief when the debate is over a law (like gay marriage), then how can your society ever hope to progress? And if we accepted moral absolutism, then we accept the beliefs of a particular generation to be true throughout history. You can see why this is dangerous. If you can't, some politicians used to use the Bible as reasoning for why slavery was justifiable.
There are very few concrete beliefs that we have in our personal lives. And all of these beliefs are formed by a number of factors. How we individually perceived the world, what our parents teach us, what are respective society and culture teaches us, how difficult our lives are, what tragedies we end up facing, any number of situations. The most staunch of the religious can turn away from their gods and the atheist can change their mind. This doesn't say that they didn't truly believe in whatever in the past. It's too simple to say that. But our beliefs (as well as our ideas, knowledge and the amount of hair we have) change over time.
1 reply
johpan
May I rephrase the statement in question with:
"There should be no PROBABLYs when it comes to something you believe in enough to start an ad campaign over."
That is where I went wrong with this opinion piece: I assumed that the woman who wrote this actually wanted this change. Ariane Sherine said it herself in one of her many follow-up articles that "Given that the blog also featured killer orange juice, lions on the loose and a sticky dog, I didn't think anyone would take it very seriously." She wasn't looking to start a revolution with that article and with that, my frustration shifts away from her and to the more people that actually gave money to support that flimsy statement.
I, too, see that a problem lies within believing in something so much that it shapes your personality, but if it shapes you enough that it becomes a danger to society, that's when we start using the term "fanatic". The stereotypical fanatic is so narrow-minded that they forget that they might have to defend from attacks all around. Some dangerous fanatics do their homework, or at least look like it a la Jack Thomson, but a lot of his arguments were so specialized, well, he was just so batshit insane that no one could take him seriously yet no one could just let his flakiness go unanswered.
I'm not going to get into a gay marriage debate but I have my views on how those kinds of laws should be passed but that'll be a post for another time. I see how dangerous moral absolutism is but I'm guessing that the same politicians that used the Bible to justify slavery are the same kinds of people that think the world was created in 7 days. (I know you just threw gay marriage in there because it's a hot topic but I fail to see how not allowing gay marriage prevents the progression of society. Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for gay marriage but is it really that much of a keystone in the structure of society that we can't continue to grow without it?)
I'm also not saying that people can't change their minds. I do it on a daily basis. I even question my religion at times. But is it logical to have a "probably" spearheading an operation like this one? I know I'm in no position to start a revolution of any kind (maybe except a dance dance revolution...) and that's why I just stay out of the pool. On the flip side of a different coin in the same jar, Bush's belief that Iraq had WMDs, though false, managed to fool enough of his country and the world for an investigation. It turned out to be an epic failure but he stood by his belief until the bitter end. Now that's dedication.
"There should be no PROBABLYs when it comes to something you believe in enough to start an ad campaign over."
That is where I went wrong with this opinion piece: I assumed that the woman who wrote this actually wanted this change. Ariane Sherine said it herself in one of her many follow-up articles that "Given that the blog also featured killer orange juice, lions on the loose and a sticky dog, I didn't think anyone would take it very seriously." She wasn't looking to start a revolution with that article and with that, my frustration shifts away from her and to the more people that actually gave money to support that flimsy statement.
I, too, see that a problem lies within believing in something so much that it shapes your personality, but if it shapes you enough that it becomes a danger to society, that's when we start using the term "fanatic". The stereotypical fanatic is so narrow-minded that they forget that they might have to defend from attacks all around. Some dangerous fanatics do their homework, or at least look like it a la Jack Thomson, but a lot of his arguments were so specialized, well, he was just so batshit insane that no one could take him seriously yet no one could just let his flakiness go unanswered.
I'm not going to get into a gay marriage debate but I have my views on how those kinds of laws should be passed but that'll be a post for another time. I see how dangerous moral absolutism is but I'm guessing that the same politicians that used the Bible to justify slavery are the same kinds of people that think the world was created in 7 days. (I know you just threw gay marriage in there because it's a hot topic but I fail to see how not allowing gay marriage prevents the progression of society. Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for gay marriage but is it really that much of a keystone in the structure of society that we can't continue to grow without it?)
I'm also not saying that people can't change their minds. I do it on a daily basis. I even question my religion at times. But is it logical to have a "probably" spearheading an operation like this one? I know I'm in no position to start a revolution of any kind (maybe except a dance dance revolution...) and that's why I just stay out of the pool. On the flip side of a different coin in the same jar, Bush's belief that Iraq had WMDs, though false, managed to fool enough of his country and the world for an investigation. It turned out to be an epic failure but he stood by his belief until the bitter end. Now that's dedication.
But I find it quite amusing that so many of us had crappy theater experiences during that film! I wonder when those who actually contributed to messing up other people's experiences would actually had a chance to check this blog post out.
To all: This is an interesting WATCHMEN postmortem worth reading, after the less than spectacular responses and box-office results of the film.
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/watchmen-...