Hard News: Screen Wars
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Peter Gluckman
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Peter Gluckman
D'oh! In hurry! Writing too fast!
Fixed now.
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Both tv networks end up looking like dorks here but in TVNZ's case they've managed to allow what should have been a win make them look like losers. Maybe TV3 are spending too much time fighting and not enough time producing winning news journalism?
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Maybe TV3 are spending too much time fighting and not enough time producing winning news journalism?
I think both sides have been guilty of that at times.
That's why I was not impressed when Kathryn Ryan (her producers having cajoled me into coming on her show) suggested that I was only making an issue of the KidsCan thing because I "work for TVNZ" (which i don't). I just don't have time to be part of that.
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I am with TV3 on this one: if TVNZ does not want to take its turn to tape the show, then it should not complain when it cannot broadcast the results. Then again, if this tedious dross is not a ratings winner, then why bother taping it?
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Yes, the Nigerians, for reasons which will be understandable to anyone who's seen the film.
OK... but somehow I've managed to sit through The Godfather, The Sopranos and Marty Scorsese's back catalogue without coming to the conclusion that Italian-Americans are all sociopathic gangsters with Tourettes. (Though on that score, I think Coppola had a point when he wondered why people didn't get equally upset about the depictions of anti-immigrant prejudice in the second Godfather films, or ask whether that had something to do with the annals of organised crime being rather light on WASPs. )
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It's a TV PR campaign leveraging the opportunity to invite movie stars like Sam Neill along for the national celebs to mix with. They should film it, play it at 8am on a Sunday morning on Prime or TVNZ 7 and then use the footage for their ads. It's an extremely handy event for CV enhancement as well but otherwise we don't care much. The winner of Best Actor in a Motion Picture last year works with me and it hasn't brought him in much new acting work or prospects and most people wouln't know his name or face. It's an event that seems to be made for TV networks rather than made for TV.
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OK... but somehow I've managed to sit through The Godfather, The Sopranos and Marty Scorsese's back catalogue without coming to the conclusion that Italian-Americans are all sociopathic gangsters with Tourettes.
Quite. And it's a fact that Nigerians are
major players in organised crime in the republic. I think you can put the particular portrayal in District 9 down to some sci-fi licence. -
Nearly everyone likes District 9, right? Can you think of who might really, really not like it?
"Instead, District 9 illustrates the strange new state of racial and political identity. It suggests some lingering Afrikaans’ fear or, possibly, how Jackson really thinks about the Maori and Aborigines."
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I think you can put the particular portrayal in District 9 down to some sci-fi licence.
Also, you could hardly put District 9 down as a glowing portrait of whitefellas. The CEO of MNU (who we see in passing) might be black. But our "hero", Wikus van de Merwe is no saint -- clueless, only has his job because he married the boss's daughter, is patronising and abusive towards "the prawns", and at one point loses his temper and kicks Christopher Jr. He's being hunted down by a sadistic white mercenary, and the only remotely sympathetic people connected with MNU are played by non-white actors.
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This guy really doesn't!
Oh that's charming -- drop in a weasel word qualifier to call Peter Jackson a racist, without putting yourself to the inconvenience of making an evidence-based argument. I think someone should have a little chat with Mr White about the strange (and far from new) state where American critics feel confident about potificating about cultural and sociopolitical contexts they're obviously clueless about.
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This guy really doesn't!
Man that's a pretentious, royally-point-missing review!
Especially from a man known for his brave and stalwart defence of Michael Bay movies.
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I think someone should have a little chat with Mr White about the strange (and far from new) state where American critics feel confident about potificating about cultural and sociopolitical contexts they're obviously clueless about.
His "it's a disgrace to the memory of the Soweto uprising!" thing is quite a classic. I mean, huh?
Further down the comments, an actual South African posts:
The term prawn is not a metaphor for 'kaffir' it is actually referring to the word cockroach, a term used to describe unwelcome 'aliens' who have fled Mugabe's reign of terror in Zimbabwe, and to the Somalis who have fled the mess the USA and Italy have made of their land. Black South Africans resent these cockroaches as they come with nothing and are forced to become enterprising to survive, a threat to local small businesses. mizungo is not a Nigerian word, its Swahili, mlungu is the local derogatory for 'white person' in South Africa. I am pretty sick of Americans (those that have African ancestory) referring to Africa as a place, and a place they generalise so easily, skin colour has got nothing to do with how African a person is, just ask the native Americans how American they feel.....
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are pirating it in very large numbers
Yeah, in the emporiums here about the time if was in the theatres. And in good quality, I'm told. But that's not unusual, and neither is it unusual to see them on the shelves before cinema release.
As I said here, it bemuses me why the fuss about the torrents when tourists leave here daily with vast numbers of HQ pirated DVDs and the industry seems to care little.
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From today's Five-Minute Quiz in the Dom Post:
Q10. Who or what are Whale Oil Beef Hooked, No Right Turn and Public Address?
Answer: Two are blogs, the other is _________.
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Answer: Two are blogs, the other is _____.
...an ad homonym?
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3410,
I played Beatles: Rock Band last night. It's pretty cool if you like that sort of thing. Hearing those tunes played really badly for the first time is quite amusing.
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Answer: Two are blogs, the other is _____.
in a crass of it's own?
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I played Beatles: Rock Band last night. It's pretty cool if you like that sort of thing.
I can hardly wait until tomorrow! Squeeee!
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I knew Steve would post the link to that review :-)
Here's my fave bitFools will accept District 9 for fantasy, yet its use of parable and symbolism also evoke the almost total misunderstanding that surrounds the circumstance of racial confusion and frustration recently seen when Harvard University tycoon Henry Louis Gates Jr. played the race card against a white Cambridge cop.
I thought District 9 was sensational. I'll go as far as to say that it reminded me of Waltz with Bashir.
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Especially from a man known for his brave and stalwart defence of Michael Bay movies.
I have seen a lot of speculation as to whether or not he is simply a troll that's managed to go pro.
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Elsewhere, Armond White has no problems whatsoever with Fatal Attraction getting a Jungle Fever spin:
Beyoncé’s Sharon Charles, a young black middle-class homemaker, protects her domicile, child and her man, Derek (Idris Elba) from strangely maniacal harassment by Lisa (Ali Larter), an unhinged, almost comically sexualized white interloper.
Sharon’s actually a supporting role but Beyoncé tilts the balance by acting out the ineradicable superstition of black female moviegoers who feel threatened by black men’s attraction or susceptibility to white women (a theme recently dramatized in Not Easily Broken). Obsessed’s obsession evokes that “Gold Digger” line where Kanye West climaxes “He gonna leave yo’ ass for a white girl!” Bessie Smith never sang this malady, but Beyoncé gives it modern heft. It’s startling to see ghetto-toughness jump out of this full-fledged pop star. Beyoncé nearly justifies the trashy-woman’s-picture concept through the realness of her onscreen charisma and recognizable emotion. Plus, she’s due a hit after her tough-tender Etta James performance in the underappreciated Cadillac Records.
Even as junk, Obsessed isn’t kick-ass enough. The wind-up to Sharon’s explosion takes too long, and director Steve Shill can’t stage a real donnybrook. It needs a knock-down drag-out like John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man or at least Queen Latifah’s girl-on-girl circus brawl in Bringing Down the House.
I've filled a couple of Racist, Misogynistic Arse-hat bingo cards. Anyone else?
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“He gonna leave yo’ ass for a white girl!”
There is no 'gonna' in that Kanye line. (I'm not sure what that proves, except that he's an inaccurate lyrics quoter.) Also: Idris Elba will always be Stringer Bell to me.
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Whoa, someone really likes their job huh?
That list of movies he slated was hilarious, but not as hilarious as this comment about G.I Joe, which he appears quite fond of:
"G.I. Joe must be understood as an authentic measurement of our cultural values. Its appeal to the pop-commercial synapses also demonstrates livelier filmmaking than such utter banality as Iron Man and Star Trek and Harry Potter’s Half-Blooded Chintz"
Hahahaha.
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3410,
I can hardly wait until tomorrow! Squeeee!
Me, I'm looking forward to someone ripping and posting the (sort-of-)multitracks.
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