I apologize for an irrelevant hijacking, i just really really want to share this
I was going through the archive to see the ethan+danny tags to refresh myself, and whaddaya know, they were last together at amber/sal’s fight. So that sent me down the rabbit hole. Anyway…
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this already, but Asher, during the robbery gave sal the knife he just used. So not only did he call the cops on her, but he used the knife to frame her.
We did talk about it when we found out Asher called the cops, but it’s not that clear. It’s not actually Asher, but the other dude (Asher’s brother?) and he gives her a share of the money and tells her to “keep the knife”. We don’t see her being given the knife. That suggests she’d had a knife for her lookout job and thus that it wasn’t the one they had in the actual store.
That said, yeah, he absolutely set her up, though we don’t know why yet.
According to all known laws of paleontology, there is no reason a dinosaur shouldn’t be able to teleport. The fossil record simply doesn’t have enough hard evidence to reject the null hypothesis that ancient feathered lizards were capable of instantaneous translocation through magical and/or extradimensional means.
Zach
Or technological. I’ve seen them as a slave race to aliens.
Jamie
Actually, according to Schlock Mercenary, they were teleported off Earth before the asteroid hit. By aliens. And they still live there.
Marsh Maryrose
Just a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at The Thing museum off I-10 in southeast Arizona. For anyone who is into weird roadside attractions, this wouldn’t be a destination but it is definitely worth a stop if you’re passing by.
Anyway, there is a very elaborate backstory behind The Thing: there were aliens (good ones and bad ones) who came to Earth and domesticated the dinosaurs, until the mutated dinosaurs rebelled and the bad aliens threw a meteor at the earth to get rid of the dinosaurs and the good aliens. There’s more, but: dinosaurs and aliens.
Roborat
Actually, that is why we find them in rocks. Those aren’t fossils, those are teleportation accidents where they missed their target and ended up in the rock. That is where Anne McCaffrey got the idea in her books.
nooB
Actually yes, there is
We have fossils of dinos who died from getting stuck in things (tar pits? quicksand? swamps?)… if they could teleport, they could have teleported out
ktbear
Ah, but if your average dinosaur was restricted in how often it was able to teleport then it would still be possible for it to drown in tar pits or whatever. After all, the energy required for instantaneous translocation would be huge and renewing it after a successful teleportaion event could take some considerable period of time.
CJ
Spoilsport ?
Can we try with „some dinosaurs might have been able to teleport, because their kind of fossil where never found in tar pits or other places with increased finds because of animals getting stuck there“? It’s such a nice ridiculous idea to speculate about.
davidbreslin101
There’s a book called “The Earth After Us” about what evidence would be left of human civilisation after 100 milllion years. Apparently, very little. So…. maybe there was once a super-advanced dromaeosaur civilisation with teleporters, which we just haven’t found yet. And maybe they had enough warning of the asteroid to… dammit, now I want to re-write “Seveneves” with teleporting dinosaurs.
thejeff
It’s possible and there would be little evidence – but there would be evidence. Not casually observable stuff, but stuff we’d be able to find today. For an unpleasant example, the extinction event we’re causing would be visible in the fossil record long after our cities are dust.
MatthewTheLucky
Ah, but wouldn’t a dinosaur moving on foot be less likely to fall prey to unstable ground than one teleporting?
CJ
Depends on what you think are the bounds of teleporting. If teleporting only teleports the body itself and never anything touching it, teleporting species could teleport out of any tar pit they landed on. If, as teleporting concepts for humans often do, things being touched by the body are teleported as well, it gets tricky. If only a thin coating of tar could be teleported with the dinosaur, the coating would fall off and no problem there. If, on the other hand, teleporting works for the whole of what they touch (or didn’t work above a certain total mass) the teleporting dinosaurs would be more at risk than their walking or flying counterparts.
Seriously, all concepts of teleporting I came across have an uncanny internal intelligence as to not trying to teleport the ground the person is standing on but all their gear and clothing. ?
Ok this is a good opportunity to come clean on a few things. Danny can tell Amber of coming out of the closet and his attraction to her ex/best friend and Amber can tell Danny she’s moving on and hooking up with the guy his other ex led him for.
Rule number one of the Floorsitters Club: we don’t talk about the Floortsitters Club.
Rule number two of the Floorsitters Club: we don’t talk about the Floortsitters Club.
Rule number three: we become anarcho primitivist/atheist/romaticist/anti consummerist/terrorist assholes and dress like Tsukasa from Dr. Stone.
This remake of The Floorsitters Club looks better than the original. We have two girls, one of whom is Japanese American, versus the all white, all male cast of the original.
It’s probably just because I’ve been following Mara Wilson since she was writing a blog, but I first assumed that the Floorsitters Club was a reference to The Babysitters Club instead of Fight Club.
I was vaguely thinking of it being a Breakfast Club reference, or an ’80s teen movie in general. Beats me why people were thinking of Fight Club when none of these characters fight with each other, or are likely to.
…are you calling out Fight Club for a lacking gender diversity in a movie about people beating the shit out of each other? If it had diversity, you’d be mad about the inevitable scene involving a man beating up a woman. Or, if the cast was all women, you’d be mad about the clear fetishization of women assaulting one another.
Like seriously, absolute diversity can’t be applied to certain works without either irreparably damaging the concept entirely or coming up with a result that’s problematic in another direction.
If I got whooshed, I apologize, but I’m really tired of this. If you want diverse movies, write your own and make the diversity actually a point of interest instead of just a marketing gimmick.
Can we call out babysitters club for lack of gender diversity? Asking for a friend.
Yumi
There was only one male babysitter, he was only in it occasionally, and he was only included in the first place because he was someone’s boyfriend.
thejeff
True, but I think there’s something of an exception for kid’s books, especially formula series like that. lt’s intended to be for and about girls. I guess we could argue that such gendered fiction shouldn’t exist, but I’m not really sold on that.
Yumi
I feel like this could be interesting to discuss, but also my previous comment was meant in a joking tone.
Huh, I haven’t seen either film. Is that the reason i‘m totally mystified as to how your train of though went?
We could write great scripts for films on all kinds of topics with all kinds of people in them. Getting a company behind the idea to finance them is the point where structural oppression kicks in.
Could someone please do remake of Charlie’s Angels with the original series’s amount and depiction of violence with an all male cast instead of the angels on a rampage kind of thing they are doing lately? Just like the marvel universe was kind of innocent when the punisher was the only character who found killing ok, Charlie’s Angels isn’t worth watching when it’s all about one more brutal action scene.
CJ
Which reminds me, they thought about a spin-off with an all male cast at that time, named Tony‘s boys but it didn’t take off.
“If it had diversity, you’d be mad about the inevitable scene involving a man beating up a woman.”
Why? Women in combat sports do it all the time. Most women in martial arts trained with more men than women until relatively recently. Let me assure you, they don’t practice on dummies. Women join shit like fight clubs. I don’t recall anyone complaining about any of the women in Marvel or DC movies fighting with men.
“Or, if the cast was all women, you’d be mad about the clear fetishization of women assaulting one another.”
Sure, if the film is creepy about it, but shockingly it is possible to film women fighting in ways that isn’t creepy.
“Like seriously, absolute diversity can’t be applied to certain works without either irreparably damaging the concept entirely or coming up with a result that’s problematic in another direction.”
Very very VERY few stories are like this. More often than not, this is an excuse given by writers, and it’s long since gotten old. Sometimes it’s true when the movie’s about a specific group’s experience (like, for example, stories about toxic masculinity).
“If you want diverse movies, write your own and make the diversity actually a point of interest instead of just a marketing gimmick.”
A) You don’t need to be the cook to talk about ways you can make food better – you also don’t need to be a screenwriter to talk about the ways film can improve. Shocker.
B) It’s real rich you assume every remake that’s more diverse than the original is purely for a marketing gimmick.
C) Not sure what you mean by ‘point of interest’ but if you mean plot point, then nah – people just exist. You don’t need to make it about diversity necessarily. Nothing wrong with it if you do, but it’s not a prerequisite for having a more diverse cast.
Nono
I think common populace don’t necessarily know about women in fight clubs, so they’d just see a man hitting a woman and immediately go into sperg overdrive.
I am trying to think of good Men vs. Woman fight scenes in movie and for some reason the only one that comes to mind is… Daphne vs. Nameless Thug in Scooby-Doo?! Which is more hilarious than anything.
Regalli
Um, could you maybe not use ‘sperg’ as an insult?
Thanks. /autistic
BBCC
Why would you assume that? Nobody went into critical overdrive over Marvel or Wonder Woman. Hell, so far as I know, nobody cared about it regular old martial arts movies like Kung Fu Panda or Karate Kid 4 either. I think people overestimate the public’s sensitivity to inter gender fights.
thejeff
There’s definitely a “Violence against Women” trope that’s really problematic. Some people appear to misunderstand that and think that any violence involving women falls into the same category.
Often, but not always, this appears to be an intentional misunderstanding.
BBCC
There definitely is, but as for people confusing the two, willfully or otherwise, I must not be looking in the right places, because I haven’t seen it.
thejeff
That last point is the key one, in my mind. Diversity doesn’t have to have a specific “point of interest”, any more than making a character a straight white male has to have a specific point of interest behind it. They’ve been treated as the default, along with women as the love interests, all along and that’s the problem. The point is to get rid of the default and make more roles open to anyone, even if it’s not specifically about the diversity of the character.
Sometimes of course it’s not appropriate – maybe you’re looking at toxic masculinity or you’re doing a period piece or whatever. Other times it doesn’t matter, so why not run with it?
I mean, Fight Club was about all white dudes because it was literally about a specific type of toxic masculinity, so amusing choice of defense there but concept does kinda factor into it? But that doesn’t mean people have to enjoy watching it or even think it was a good film.
Unusually Angry Hippie
It’s a great film. Full stop. The lowest-common-denominator likes it because of the well choreographed action, while people with critical thinking skills can realize, and appreciate, the deconstruction of the brand of masculinity represented.
What I’m not seeing in a lot of modern movies is any of that all-important subtle deconstruction. Actually, scratch that, what they lack is any understanding of the word ‘subtle’. Instead, they fall into two fairly broad categories.
The first is a focus entirely on the mass appeal, that’s where your blockbusters fit in. Bland everything down to the point that making any point at all. Wonder Woman/Cap Marvel both just said ‘Hey, women can kick ass in CGI too!’ and called it a day.
The second is using ‘social awareness’ as a business model. You choose a popular, slightly controversial-but-not-really point, make it, and then make it again, and then fifteen more times before hitting the viewer in the face with a brick with that point written on it in glitter. The majority agree with the point and heap praise upon the studio for making it, while the vocal minority that oppose it can’t help but mention it every fifteen minutes on the internet and thus give you free advertising by being part of the discission. This is what Disney is doing right now with the Little Mermaid…using racist trolls as a marketing tool.
thejeff
Am I the only person who got Fight Club and still didn’t like it?
141 thoughts on “Tastemakers”
Ana Chronistic
open the door
get on the floor
everybody sit the DINA SARUyama
abysswatcher1993
Dina probably hates the Ice Age movies from the second to the last.
Mordecai
I apologize for an irrelevant hijacking, i just really really want to share this
I was going through the archive to see the ethan+danny tags to refresh myself, and whaddaya know, they were last together at amber/sal’s fight. So that sent me down the rabbit hole. Anyway…
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this already, but Asher, during the robbery gave sal the knife he just used. So not only did he call the cops on her, but he used the knife to frame her.
Jesus.
Mordecai
…this is common knowledge, isn’t it.
Lingo
Well it’s the first time I’ve realized it, so thanks!
ǝ snow ʍousɐ
whoooa that is fucked up
thejeff
We did talk about it when we found out Asher called the cops, but it’s not that clear. It’s not actually Asher, but the other dude (Asher’s brother?) and he gives her a share of the money and tells her to “keep the knife”. We don’t see her being given the knife. That suggests she’d had a knife for her lookout job and thus that it wasn’t the one they had in the actual store.
That said, yeah, he absolutely set her up, though we don’t know why yet.
Fasuhn
W-wait, has dina’s name always been a stealth pun…?
my life is a lie
Needfuldoer
You bet Jurassic was!
Geneseepaws
Plus 2 well done.
djaevlenselv
Oh yes. Two different variations on the same stealth pun even.
In Walkyverse she is Dina Sarazu.
ValdVin
Is Amber taking teleportation lessons from Joyce?
Kern Wallace
Don’t be ridiculous.
She’s taking them from Dina.
Doctor_Who
In fairness, there’s nothing in the fossil record that proves dinosaurs couldn’t teleport.
Pablo360
According to all known laws of paleontology, there is no reason a dinosaur shouldn’t be able to teleport. The fossil record simply doesn’t have enough hard evidence to reject the null hypothesis that ancient feathered lizards were capable of instantaneous translocation through magical and/or extradimensional means.
Zach
Or technological. I’ve seen them as a slave race to aliens.
Jamie
Actually, according to Schlock Mercenary, they were teleported off Earth before the asteroid hit. By aliens. And they still live there.
Marsh Maryrose
Just a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at The Thing museum off I-10 in southeast Arizona. For anyone who is into weird roadside attractions, this wouldn’t be a destination but it is definitely worth a stop if you’re passing by.
Anyway, there is a very elaborate backstory behind The Thing: there were aliens (good ones and bad ones) who came to Earth and domesticated the dinosaurs, until the mutated dinosaurs rebelled and the bad aliens threw a meteor at the earth to get rid of the dinosaurs and the good aliens. There’s more, but: dinosaurs and aliens.
Roborat
Actually, that is why we find them in rocks. Those aren’t fossils, those are teleportation accidents where they missed their target and ended up in the rock. That is where Anne McCaffrey got the idea in her books.
nooB
Actually yes, there is
We have fossils of dinos who died from getting stuck in things (tar pits? quicksand? swamps?)… if they could teleport, they could have teleported out
ktbear
Ah, but if your average dinosaur was restricted in how often it was able to teleport then it would still be possible for it to drown in tar pits or whatever. After all, the energy required for instantaneous translocation would be huge and renewing it after a successful teleportaion event could take some considerable period of time.
CJ
Spoilsport ?
Can we try with „some dinosaurs might have been able to teleport, because their kind of fossil where never found in tar pits or other places with increased finds because of animals getting stuck there“? It’s such a nice ridiculous idea to speculate about.
davidbreslin101
There’s a book called “The Earth After Us” about what evidence would be left of human civilisation after 100 milllion years. Apparently, very little. So…. maybe there was once a super-advanced dromaeosaur civilisation with teleporters, which we just haven’t found yet. And maybe they had enough warning of the asteroid to… dammit, now I want to re-write “Seveneves” with teleporting dinosaurs.
thejeff
It’s possible and there would be little evidence – but there would be evidence. Not casually observable stuff, but stuff we’d be able to find today. For an unpleasant example, the extinction event we’re causing would be visible in the fossil record long after our cities are dust.
MatthewTheLucky
Ah, but wouldn’t a dinosaur moving on foot be less likely to fall prey to unstable ground than one teleporting?
CJ
Depends on what you think are the bounds of teleporting. If teleporting only teleports the body itself and never anything touching it, teleporting species could teleport out of any tar pit they landed on. If, as teleporting concepts for humans often do, things being touched by the body are teleported as well, it gets tricky. If only a thin coating of tar could be teleported with the dinosaur, the coating would fall off and no problem there. If, on the other hand, teleporting works for the whole of what they touch (or didn’t work above a certain total mass) the teleporting dinosaurs would be more at risk than their walking or flying counterparts.
Seriously, all concepts of teleporting I came across have an uncanny internal intelligence as to not trying to teleport the ground the person is standing on but all their gear and clothing. ?
Cheesy1
“Maybe we should be go to breakfast as a club of some sorts.”
abysswatcher1993
Jason: “Why am I watching over you? You aren’t even in my class!”
Yumi
Being on the floor is good.
NerdHerder
I feel like Amber would probably be down to watch this, though.
Meagan
Yeah this is ridiculous. Amber is going to be supportive, especially now that she has a Walky in her life.
butts
her yaoi senses were tingling
Stephen Bierce
*plays “Get Down On It” on the hacked Muzak*
Inahc
rot13 quasi-spoiler for tomorrow: gur qnaavat pbagvahrf
Marsh Maryrose
That’s not so much a quasi-spoiler as it is an eternal truth.
Roborat
Are you having a stroke or summoning Cthulhu?
Shane Wegner
We sat on the floor before it was cool.
BBCC
The BEST group of Kool Kids.
Newllend(henryvolt)
Ok this is a good opportunity to come clean on a few things. Danny can tell Amber of coming out of the closet and his attraction to her ex/best friend and Amber can tell Danny she’s moving on and hooking up with the guy his other ex led him for.
Shiro
I admire your optimism
Clif
Me too, but I reserve the right to make fun of it.
CJ
i think you forgot about the comic‘s name for a moment there…
ǝ snow ʍousɐ
“oh, danny, there’s something I should tell you… I TOO have dumped you for walky”
yeah, that’ll go over well
Deanatay
Next Danny will do it
Next Dina will do it
Next Joyce will – naah.
abysswatcher1993
Rule number one of the Floorsitters Club: we don’t talk about the Floortsitters Club.
Rule number two of the Floorsitters Club: we don’t talk about the Floortsitters Club.
Rule number three: we become anarcho primitivist/atheist/romaticist/anti consummerist/terrorist assholes and dress like Tsukasa from Dr. Stone.
abysswatcher1993
Rule number 4: we buy transformers on saturdays, defeating the purpose of of the third rule as an exception.
Clif
The anti-consumer part anyway. The rest still sounds feasible.
tim gueguen
This remake of The Floorsitters Club looks better than the original. We have two girls, one of whom is Japanese American, versus the all white, all male cast of the original.
Marsh Maryrose
It’s probably just because I’ve been following Mara Wilson since she was writing a blog, but I first assumed that the Floorsitters Club was a reference to The Babysitters Club instead of Fight Club.
He Who Abides
I thought it was The Breakfast Club, honestly.
tim gueguen
I was vaguely thinking of it being a Breakfast Club reference, or an ’80s teen movie in general. Beats me why people were thinking of Fight Club when none of these characters fight with each other, or are likely to.
Unusually Angry Hippie
…are you calling out Fight Club for a lacking gender diversity in a movie about people beating the shit out of each other? If it had diversity, you’d be mad about the inevitable scene involving a man beating up a woman. Or, if the cast was all women, you’d be mad about the clear fetishization of women assaulting one another.
Like seriously, absolute diversity can’t be applied to certain works without either irreparably damaging the concept entirely or coming up with a result that’s problematic in another direction.
If I got whooshed, I apologize, but I’m really tired of this. If you want diverse movies, write your own and make the diversity actually a point of interest instead of just a marketing gimmick.
Clif
Can we call out babysitters club for lack of gender diversity? Asking for a friend.
Yumi
There was only one male babysitter, he was only in it occasionally, and he was only included in the first place because he was someone’s boyfriend.
thejeff
True, but I think there’s something of an exception for kid’s books, especially formula series like that. lt’s intended to be for and about girls. I guess we could argue that such gendered fiction shouldn’t exist, but I’m not really sold on that.
Yumi
I feel like this could be interesting to discuss, but also my previous comment was meant in a joking tone.
CJ
Huh, I haven’t seen either film. Is that the reason i‘m totally mystified as to how your train of though went?
We could write great scripts for films on all kinds of topics with all kinds of people in them. Getting a company behind the idea to finance them is the point where structural oppression kicks in.
Could someone please do remake of Charlie’s Angels with the original series’s amount and depiction of violence with an all male cast instead of the angels on a rampage kind of thing they are doing lately? Just like the marvel universe was kind of innocent when the punisher was the only character who found killing ok, Charlie’s Angels isn’t worth watching when it’s all about one more brutal action scene.
CJ
Which reminds me, they thought about a spin-off with an all male cast at that time, named Tony‘s boys but it didn’t take off.
Marsh Maryrose
Come to think of it, there have been at least four scenes with man-versus-woman fighting in DoA. I don’t recall anyone complaining.
Of course, those scenes didn’t end well for Blaine or Ross or Ryan or the three doxxing guys.
BBCC
“If it had diversity, you’d be mad about the inevitable scene involving a man beating up a woman.”
Why? Women in combat sports do it all the time. Most women in martial arts trained with more men than women until relatively recently. Let me assure you, they don’t practice on dummies. Women join shit like fight clubs. I don’t recall anyone complaining about any of the women in Marvel or DC movies fighting with men.
“Or, if the cast was all women, you’d be mad about the clear fetishization of women assaulting one another.”
Sure, if the film is creepy about it, but shockingly it is possible to film women fighting in ways that isn’t creepy.
“Like seriously, absolute diversity can’t be applied to certain works without either irreparably damaging the concept entirely or coming up with a result that’s problematic in another direction.”
Very very VERY few stories are like this. More often than not, this is an excuse given by writers, and it’s long since gotten old. Sometimes it’s true when the movie’s about a specific group’s experience (like, for example, stories about toxic masculinity).
“If you want diverse movies, write your own and make the diversity actually a point of interest instead of just a marketing gimmick.”
A) You don’t need to be the cook to talk about ways you can make food better – you also don’t need to be a screenwriter to talk about the ways film can improve. Shocker.
B) It’s real rich you assume every remake that’s more diverse than the original is purely for a marketing gimmick.
C) Not sure what you mean by ‘point of interest’ but if you mean plot point, then nah – people just exist. You don’t need to make it about diversity necessarily. Nothing wrong with it if you do, but it’s not a prerequisite for having a more diverse cast.
Nono
I think common populace don’t necessarily know about women in fight clubs, so they’d just see a man hitting a woman and immediately go into sperg overdrive.
I am trying to think of good Men vs. Woman fight scenes in movie and for some reason the only one that comes to mind is… Daphne vs. Nameless Thug in Scooby-Doo?! Which is more hilarious than anything.
Regalli
Um, could you maybe not use ‘sperg’ as an insult?
Thanks. /autistic
BBCC
Why would you assume that? Nobody went into critical overdrive over Marvel or Wonder Woman. Hell, so far as I know, nobody cared about it regular old martial arts movies like Kung Fu Panda or Karate Kid 4 either. I think people overestimate the public’s sensitivity to inter gender fights.
thejeff
There’s definitely a “Violence against Women” trope that’s really problematic. Some people appear to misunderstand that and think that any violence involving women falls into the same category.
Often, but not always, this appears to be an intentional misunderstanding.
BBCC
There definitely is, but as for people confusing the two, willfully or otherwise, I must not be looking in the right places, because I haven’t seen it.
thejeff
That last point is the key one, in my mind. Diversity doesn’t have to have a specific “point of interest”, any more than making a character a straight white male has to have a specific point of interest behind it. They’ve been treated as the default, along with women as the love interests, all along and that’s the problem. The point is to get rid of the default and make more roles open to anyone, even if it’s not specifically about the diversity of the character.
Sometimes of course it’s not appropriate – maybe you’re looking at toxic masculinity or you’re doing a period piece or whatever. Other times it doesn’t matter, so why not run with it?
LeslieBean4shizzle
Bravo. Well said.
Council
Severe whoosh.
tim gueguen
Hmmm, me or everyone else?
not someone else
I mean, Fight Club was about all white dudes because it was literally about a specific type of toxic masculinity, so amusing choice of defense there but concept does kinda factor into it? But that doesn’t mean people have to enjoy watching it or even think it was a good film.
Unusually Angry Hippie
It’s a great film. Full stop. The lowest-common-denominator likes it because of the well choreographed action, while people with critical thinking skills can realize, and appreciate, the deconstruction of the brand of masculinity represented.
What I’m not seeing in a lot of modern movies is any of that all-important subtle deconstruction. Actually, scratch that, what they lack is any understanding of the word ‘subtle’. Instead, they fall into two fairly broad categories.
The first is a focus entirely on the mass appeal, that’s where your blockbusters fit in. Bland everything down to the point that making any point at all. Wonder Woman/Cap Marvel both just said ‘Hey, women can kick ass in CGI too!’ and called it a day.
The second is using ‘social awareness’ as a business model. You choose a popular, slightly controversial-but-not-really point, make it, and then make it again, and then fifteen more times before hitting the viewer in the face with a brick with that point written on it in glitter. The majority agree with the point and heap praise upon the studio for making it, while the vocal minority that oppose it can’t help but mention it every fifteen minutes on the internet and thus give you free advertising by being part of the discission. This is what Disney is doing right now with the Little Mermaid…using racist trolls as a marketing tool.
thejeff
Am I the only person who got Fight Club and still didn’t like it?