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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
And skimming it again, it's Armond White, the man infamously known in pretty much all circles as "the most tasteless, ignorant film critic of all time." Seriously, look at his record - with exceptions that number in the single digits, every movie he likes is considered bad and every movie he hates is considered good.
Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 30th 2019 at 7:24:32 AM
There are plenty of crappy criticisms of comic books and superheroes to be made, but I think there are some valid ones as well.
I like superhero movies, but I also do feel like there’s something troubling about the way they’re fundamentally based around wanting someone(s) with a bunch of power to show up and fix everything. Does anyone else remember this Jibjab video? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94
It felt like there was a backlash against Obama just for not being able to magically fix everything. (Though there are certainly also valid critiques to be made of his presidency.) And Trump’s supporters have the same kind of ideas about him fixing everything they don’t like about the country and the world.
Then there’s underlying message that the most important/heroic way of addressing anything wrong with the world is by beating up bad people. In reality, the world’s greatest threats aren’t from “bad guys”. They’re from broader systems that we all participate in every day - vast wealth inequalities, climate change, structural discrimination - and that will never be solved by finding the ‘right’ people to attack.
The recent wave of popularity for superheroes feels kind of like us attempting to avoid the complexity of the world’s real problems, and wanting to fantasize about everything having an easy solution that we can get just by giving the right person enough power.
On top of that there’s the way ground-level superheroes distort the way we think about crime and criminals - look at the casual use of torture on Daredevil, for example. Though cop/CSI shows are pretty bad about dehumanizing criminals and normalizing abuses of civil liberties, as well.
Edited by Galadriel on Apr 30th 2019 at 10:01:15 AM
May I suggest taking that post to the Politics in Media thread in the on-topic forum?
Jesus Christ that review was painful to read. I almost want to pity the guy who wrote it. Almost.
PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/TheyAdults are only allowed to like Sports, Daytime TV and literature that's over 50 years old. Anything else is immature, and a sign that your parents were pansies who didn't beat you and make fun of your hobbies like they're supposed to.
What about comics that are over 50 years old? Viva la Golden Age!
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 30th 2019 at 7:42:07 AM
Oh my god, you really should read this review (note that the review has spoilers, though I will not be posting any). It's fucking hilarious how wrong he is. Like, it's straight-up this:
Some choice excerpts:
And the single best part, the part that made me laugh out loud:
People are absolutely right to call this hack "the most tasteless, ignorant film critic of all time".
Not just fellating Snyder, fellating Snyder while ALSO saying that the Nolan Batman movies are "nihilistic and juvenile". If he was just refusing to enjoy the MCU out of DC favoritism, that would be one thing, but he hates the actually good dark and edgy movies that the early DCCU was just mindlessly copying!
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on May 1st 2019 at 3:46:36 AM
I'm gathering that he's the kind of asshole who heard Batman v Superman's Family-Unfriendly Aesop of "Don't be a hero, don't help or save people. Saving someone always hurts someone else indirectly" and went "Yes! Absolutely! Finally, a movie that gets it!".
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on May 1st 2019 at 3:51:26 AM
And now we're talking about him... why again?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Because he did a really funny and bad review of Avengers: Endgame, and Endgame hasn't been out long enough to move the spoiler discussion from the spoiler thread to here, so there's not a lot to talk about overall.
I guess we could spitball theories about future MCU films, but there's going to be a lot of tip-toeing around Endgame spoilers in those discussions too.

What's a tailgate party?
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."