I’m not usually much of a “pop culture commentary” guy, but it sure seemed like the movie Licorice Pizza contained an intriguing message about the potentially evolving sensibilities of Hollywood.
No, it's not a rejection of the #metoo stuff. Remember that these people operate under the rule of "It's OK when we do it!" Remember Virginia had Northam - either in blackface or a klan hood, and the lt. gov was a serial woman beater. Nothing happened. No protests, no nothing. It's OK when we do it! Woody Allen is the poster child for this too. Did he get metoo'ed?
So no, it's simply more hollywood attempting to move the overton window and get the idea of pedophilia more acceptable. They've been working on this for decades.
Being born in the early 70's, I've seen the global warming / climate change fearmongering for so long now it's not even funny. It was "the greatest threat EVER!!" back when I was in high school in the late 1980's. According to them, Britain shouldn't exist, Florida would be underwater, and there would be NO ICE in the Arctic. They were very clear.
These nonsensical and dangerous court jesters shouldn't be taken seriously, in any fashion whatsoever.
Back when you were born the impending climate doom was a new ice age. People didn't scare as much back then but Google "1970's ice age" and you will see how much fear mongering was going on about the world freezing over.
That was solved by putting in scrubbers and other desulfurization mechanisms. It was a comparatively easy problem to fix, because it just required adding a small extra stage to the various associated industrial process at a relatively minor additional cost to the overall processes in question. Added bonus was most of the technologies needed to do it were more or less available at the time anyway, it just needed the will and social impetus to require them.
Thus, acid rain was a serious growing problem at the time the fear mongering about it started, but the second it seriously came on people's radar it was a relatively fast, easy, and eminently affordable one to fix. I am not suggesting climate alarmism isn't over-the-top, but because it is a much more complicated, intractable, and expensive problem than acid rain to try and combat, the acid rain solution of fear mongering isn't working this time (but obviously people remembering that fix are still trying full tilt, because "it worked last time.")
The press always prints "doomsday" stuff because that's what sells. But there really wasn't that much "doomsday" over a coming ice age. Mostly it is propaganda being exaggerated to make people think scientists are idiots.
If you go a bit further back, it was an imminent ice age. Been there, done that. Not to sound too fatalistic, but we all gotta go. Most of us don't even get to choose how and when.
No it wasn't. There were some scientists that looked at certain data about earths orbit and studied the cooling affect. The press wrote about it without consideration of those scientists who were studying CO2. If you want to suggest the press were idiots, sure, but Science also published stuff like this: https://dpiepgrass.medium.com/1970s-agw-consensus-3123a34e5105
Don't confuse the narrative with silly repetition of stupid articles meant solely to gain eyeballs.
Well, I enjoyed your review, but it sounds absolutely hideous. So sick of Hollywood moralizing -- though you seem to think they are criticizing Me Too and the over-moralizing, the climate thing is another lecture in which opposing views are silenced, people are fired. No conversation. Nobody can argue with leftists. Gees, we need movies with NO messages right now. We're exhausted. They've ruined sports. You can't go to the bathroom without politics. I don't even want to give them a dime of my money because leftists are controlling the major sources of influence: media, entertainment, and education. Makes me tired.
Dude. I wish your comment were easier to save. I want it framed. Mounted. Backlit. Maybe put it on its own wall like the Mona Lisa. Charge admission. Get Tom Hanks to star in a movie about it.
We found the person to lead our deprogramming camps. Camps we ALL need, both sides, middle, outside. You’re a fucking awesome person of this is a representative sample.
I keep looking it up but after dozens of attempts, I still see "woke" and wonder WTF? Its like some ultra-secret label that no one really understands but think is cool. It has been bent and distorted and misused (if there ever was a definition) so often that it has become a meaningless slogan to drop in the middle of a tirade to "prove your point" even though that point is unprovable.
Basically, what you've just said, no one is telling "us" anything. They make up new words and phrases and dangle them out there like a fly fisherman might entice trout.
I second the commenter who said they would enjoy commentary on contemporary film.
My biggest complaint about new movies and TV especially is that they make so many unrelentingly, loathsome characters. When you hate all the characters you don't care what happens to any of them. Compare these against The Sopranos, for example, where they reveled in each character's quirks and humanity. Oh, sorry, went off on a tangent.
Oh Michael. You decided to go down the same rabbit hole as me. Being an individual who was born and grew up VERY CLOSE to the setting in LICORICE PIZZA (My mom would have been pregnant with me in 1973, I was born in 1974), I have been at war with some of the You Tube and online reviewers of this movie. The absolute worst example is the accusations of racism against John Michael Higgins character. I do not dispute that the character is a racist. I have a problem with accusing the director of hating Asians and the movement on some media channels to boycott the film. The kid who wrote this article looks like he is still in college. There is no way he has the life experience necessary to understand the beautiful subtlety that exists throughout this movie.
What is even more ironic about Higgin's character is that he treats his wife terribly and if you know a little Japanese, he was not translating either of his wives words correctly (Because he was a con man). These subtleties are completely missed by the people complaining about this movie.
As I have mentioned over and over again to many of these youth (Because the problem is very specifically related to their strong sense of social and moral justice and their insistence that they are on the right side of history), the filmmaker is actually showing a scenario that was quite common during that timeframe. Also, there were many people who I grew up with who mocked and tormented Asians for their strong accents. Were they racist? Absolutely. But this was very common during my childhood. And I hate to say this but ALL RACES DID IT. Relationships between teenagers and people in their 20s was also quite common. As an example, I lost my virginity at 18 to a 27 year old woman? If I was a year younger, she would have been considered a pedo by this younger generation. Never did I once ever think this woman was a pedo. She told me her motivation and I went along with it.
To me, our culture seems to lack two important factors. One, a general misunderstanding of history and American culture. If you can remember the 1970s, you will absolutely understand the people in LICORICE PIZZA. This is the way people acted back then. Second, our education system has made this younger generation into these entitled kids who believe that their opinion on these matters trumps the entire experience of human history. They are evolved and their wisdom is on a level that many of us "Old" geezers just don't understand. If only this was true.
In terms of DON"T LOOK UP, I will admit to loving many aspects of the satire (Especially the tech 'genius' played by Mark Rylance). But like his previous movie VICE, I feel like McKay is trying to propagandize me. Dick Cheney was an asshole. But the cruelty of the movie bugged me especially when you find out that Jesse Plemons character was the one that gave Cheney his new "heart." He is a man with a wife and two daughters. Despite how many of us think about him, he is still loved by individuals that are important to him. I had the same feeling about DON"T LOOK UP. Making fun of the media, the egoism of the tech industry, and "trusting the science" (The same science that made a vaccine that very well may not work) made the movie feel out of touch. Like McKay was living in a bubble where Donald Trump was still president. It was missing key elements due to his own intrinsic bias that could have put the movie on the same level as one of the best satires of the past 30 years, WAG THE DOG, which just obliterated the national security and defense industries.
I agree that it's a reasonable enough depiction of how people likely acted in the 70s, but the passage of time doesn't absolve people of moral crimes by contemporary standards. We're always instructed to have "reckonings" about the abuses of past eras. So the relationship's depiction as non-controversial struck me as notable, and gets to a message that seems like it must have been intentionally sent by the filmmakers -- who crafted a narrative around an "age gap" that today would get any adult (regardless of gender) totally obliterated.
Open secret that Hollywood is filled with pedophiles hamhandedly trying to normalize pedophilia. Much of the public has been aware of it for a while which is one of the many reasons the film industry is so widely hated. The ruling class in general seems to resent not having access to any human of any age for any reason they want. Always remember that pedophilia is just a particularly vicious kind of rape.
What I think is most hilarious about Hollywood is how when they make absolute crap they start bitching about how it is all the fault of racist viewers, entitled fans, stupid religious prudes, angry critics, and evil Nazis that their movie failed. Guess what? You are supposed to be making movies people want to pay to see. If they hate your movie, they tell their friends and you loose money. Preachy political movies that shit on half the country, franchise movies that hate their own franchises and fans, pure Hollywood sleeze that makes you want to take a shower (pedophilia seriously!?), generic action movies that are boring, and any so called "comedies" involving Seth Rogan or Sarah Silverman are monetary disasters! Stop making them! Why is this so hard to understand?
"It’d obviously be most incendiary if the adult was a male and the minor was a female ..." Yes, that is obvious. But on what grounds do we allow that discrepancy? Put another way, why do we allow The Woke to scream that we must have laws to protect women from male violence and sexual predation, for example, even as they scream that gender is a oppressive social construct and that Roberta, the bearded 295 pound weight lifter who used to chew tobacco and call himself Billy Bob, is a woman and must be allowed to compete in women's sports? The Woke may be insane but they are not stupid; we are the stupid ones.
Feel free to continue your 'theme of unexpected movie reviews', anytime you like.
I skim & gloss over political commentary all the time, including yours. But I would really enjoy reviews not only about the content & meaning of cinematic storytelling ; but also how you felt about it, how immersed you were in story, and whether you think it was worth the trip.
We need some new blood, after nobody has lived up to the Siskel/Roeper & Ebert style of commentary.
As far as the predictable moralizing and knee-jerk attempts to cancel the livelihood of the Producers & Players of Licorice Pizza that will surely arise - screw these prudes. Private Lessons was one of my favorite flicks growing up, and all of its cult fans should experience no shame over it.
And fully immersive Virtual Reality, when it gets here, should have no limits. If a fantasy takes place in the mind or the Silver Screen, they should be fair game for Entertainment or Reflection.
Thanks for the reminder about this flick, looking forward.
The Golden Globes were held behind closed doors last night for fear of being insufficiently woke. An awards show! Genuflect or perish, the successor ideology is enforced with a fearsome earnestness and even it’s adherents like limousine liberals are loath to transgress. They daren’t broadcast the Golden Globes for fear of incorrect racial quotas. The successor ideology is going to destroy itself with fusillades of recriminations that ricochet around and hit the accusers in the ass. That’s Maoist fear.
No, it's not a rejection of the #metoo stuff. Remember that these people operate under the rule of "It's OK when we do it!" Remember Virginia had Northam - either in blackface or a klan hood, and the lt. gov was a serial woman beater. Nothing happened. No protests, no nothing. It's OK when we do it! Woody Allen is the poster child for this too. Did he get metoo'ed?
So no, it's simply more hollywood attempting to move the overton window and get the idea of pedophilia more acceptable. They've been working on this for decades.
Being born in the early 70's, I've seen the global warming / climate change fearmongering for so long now it's not even funny. It was "the greatest threat EVER!!" back when I was in high school in the late 1980's. According to them, Britain shouldn't exist, Florida would be underwater, and there would be NO ICE in the Arctic. They were very clear.
These nonsensical and dangerous court jesters shouldn't be taken seriously, in any fashion whatsoever.
Back when you were born the impending climate doom was a new ice age. People didn't scare as much back then but Google "1970's ice age" and you will see how much fear mongering was going on about the world freezing over.
Don't forget "Acid Rain!!!"
That was solved by putting in scrubbers and other desulfurization mechanisms. It was a comparatively easy problem to fix, because it just required adding a small extra stage to the various associated industrial process at a relatively minor additional cost to the overall processes in question. Added bonus was most of the technologies needed to do it were more or less available at the time anyway, it just needed the will and social impetus to require them.
Thus, acid rain was a serious growing problem at the time the fear mongering about it started, but the second it seriously came on people's radar it was a relatively fast, easy, and eminently affordable one to fix. I am not suggesting climate alarmism isn't over-the-top, but because it is a much more complicated, intractable, and expensive problem than acid rain to try and combat, the acid rain solution of fear mongering isn't working this time (but obviously people remembering that fix are still trying full tilt, because "it worked last time.")
The press always prints "doomsday" stuff because that's what sells. But there really wasn't that much "doomsday" over a coming ice age. Mostly it is propaganda being exaggerated to make people think scientists are idiots.
https://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/06/04/the-1970s-ice-age-myth-and-time-magazine-covers-by-david-kirtley
If you go a bit further back, it was an imminent ice age. Been there, done that. Not to sound too fatalistic, but we all gotta go. Most of us don't even get to choose how and when.
No it wasn't. There were some scientists that looked at certain data about earths orbit and studied the cooling affect. The press wrote about it without consideration of those scientists who were studying CO2. If you want to suggest the press were idiots, sure, but Science also published stuff like this: https://dpiepgrass.medium.com/1970s-agw-consensus-3123a34e5105
Don't confuse the narrative with silly repetition of stupid articles meant solely to gain eyeballs.
The greatest threat faced by humanity today is the fragile psyche of the left.
Well, I enjoyed your review, but it sounds absolutely hideous. So sick of Hollywood moralizing -- though you seem to think they are criticizing Me Too and the over-moralizing, the climate thing is another lecture in which opposing views are silenced, people are fired. No conversation. Nobody can argue with leftists. Gees, we need movies with NO messages right now. We're exhausted. They've ruined sports. You can't go to the bathroom without politics. I don't even want to give them a dime of my money because leftists are controlling the major sources of influence: media, entertainment, and education. Makes me tired.
You'd probably enjoy the reviews of Critical Drinker or Cyn's Corner, on YouTube.
I find the Drinker's Why Modern Movies suck series to be great.
Agree mostly but
>raw on his misogyny
Try to hear yourself sometimes.
Dude. I wish your comment were easier to save. I want it framed. Mounted. Backlit. Maybe put it on its own wall like the Mona Lisa. Charge admission. Get Tom Hanks to star in a movie about it.
We found the person to lead our deprogramming camps. Camps we ALL need, both sides, middle, outside. You’re a fucking awesome person of this is a representative sample.
Clap, clap, clap.
I keep looking it up but after dozens of attempts, I still see "woke" and wonder WTF? Its like some ultra-secret label that no one really understands but think is cool. It has been bent and distorted and misused (if there ever was a definition) so often that it has become a meaningless slogan to drop in the middle of a tirade to "prove your point" even though that point is unprovable.
Basically, what you've just said, no one is telling "us" anything. They make up new words and phrases and dangle them out there like a fly fisherman might entice trout.
I second the commenter who said they would enjoy commentary on contemporary film.
My biggest complaint about new movies and TV especially is that they make so many unrelentingly, loathsome characters. When you hate all the characters you don't care what happens to any of them. Compare these against The Sopranos, for example, where they reveled in each character's quirks and humanity. Oh, sorry, went off on a tangent.
Oh Michael. You decided to go down the same rabbit hole as me. Being an individual who was born and grew up VERY CLOSE to the setting in LICORICE PIZZA (My mom would have been pregnant with me in 1973, I was born in 1974), I have been at war with some of the You Tube and online reviewers of this movie. The absolute worst example is the accusations of racism against John Michael Higgins character. I do not dispute that the character is a racist. I have a problem with accusing the director of hating Asians and the movement on some media channels to boycott the film. The kid who wrote this article looks like he is still in college. There is no way he has the life experience necessary to understand the beautiful subtlety that exists throughout this movie.
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/licorice-pizza-faces-criticism-scenes-involving-fake-asian-accent-rcna6603
What is even more ironic about Higgin's character is that he treats his wife terribly and if you know a little Japanese, he was not translating either of his wives words correctly (Because he was a con man). These subtleties are completely missed by the people complaining about this movie.
As I have mentioned over and over again to many of these youth (Because the problem is very specifically related to their strong sense of social and moral justice and their insistence that they are on the right side of history), the filmmaker is actually showing a scenario that was quite common during that timeframe. Also, there were many people who I grew up with who mocked and tormented Asians for their strong accents. Were they racist? Absolutely. But this was very common during my childhood. And I hate to say this but ALL RACES DID IT. Relationships between teenagers and people in their 20s was also quite common. As an example, I lost my virginity at 18 to a 27 year old woman? If I was a year younger, she would have been considered a pedo by this younger generation. Never did I once ever think this woman was a pedo. She told me her motivation and I went along with it.
To me, our culture seems to lack two important factors. One, a general misunderstanding of history and American culture. If you can remember the 1970s, you will absolutely understand the people in LICORICE PIZZA. This is the way people acted back then. Second, our education system has made this younger generation into these entitled kids who believe that their opinion on these matters trumps the entire experience of human history. They are evolved and their wisdom is on a level that many of us "Old" geezers just don't understand. If only this was true.
In terms of DON"T LOOK UP, I will admit to loving many aspects of the satire (Especially the tech 'genius' played by Mark Rylance). But like his previous movie VICE, I feel like McKay is trying to propagandize me. Dick Cheney was an asshole. But the cruelty of the movie bugged me especially when you find out that Jesse Plemons character was the one that gave Cheney his new "heart." He is a man with a wife and two daughters. Despite how many of us think about him, he is still loved by individuals that are important to him. I had the same feeling about DON"T LOOK UP. Making fun of the media, the egoism of the tech industry, and "trusting the science" (The same science that made a vaccine that very well may not work) made the movie feel out of touch. Like McKay was living in a bubble where Donald Trump was still president. It was missing key elements due to his own intrinsic bias that could have put the movie on the same level as one of the best satires of the past 30 years, WAG THE DOG, which just obliterated the national security and defense industries.
Anyway, enough said.
I agree that it's a reasonable enough depiction of how people likely acted in the 70s, but the passage of time doesn't absolve people of moral crimes by contemporary standards. We're always instructed to have "reckonings" about the abuses of past eras. So the relationship's depiction as non-controversial struck me as notable, and gets to a message that seems like it must have been intentionally sent by the filmmakers -- who crafted a narrative around an "age gap" that today would get any adult (regardless of gender) totally obliterated.
Open secret that Hollywood is filled with pedophiles hamhandedly trying to normalize pedophilia. Much of the public has been aware of it for a while which is one of the many reasons the film industry is so widely hated. The ruling class in general seems to resent not having access to any human of any age for any reason they want. Always remember that pedophilia is just a particularly vicious kind of rape.
Wait, I thought that was Hillary with her stash of underage girls held in the (non-existent) basement of Comet Pizza.
What I think is most hilarious about Hollywood is how when they make absolute crap they start bitching about how it is all the fault of racist viewers, entitled fans, stupid religious prudes, angry critics, and evil Nazis that their movie failed. Guess what? You are supposed to be making movies people want to pay to see. If they hate your movie, they tell their friends and you loose money. Preachy political movies that shit on half the country, franchise movies that hate their own franchises and fans, pure Hollywood sleeze that makes you want to take a shower (pedophilia seriously!?), generic action movies that are boring, and any so called "comedies" involving Seth Rogan or Sarah Silverman are monetary disasters! Stop making them! Why is this so hard to understand?
"It’d obviously be most incendiary if the adult was a male and the minor was a female ..." Yes, that is obvious. But on what grounds do we allow that discrepancy? Put another way, why do we allow The Woke to scream that we must have laws to protect women from male violence and sexual predation, for example, even as they scream that gender is a oppressive social construct and that Roberta, the bearded 295 pound weight lifter who used to chew tobacco and call himself Billy Bob, is a woman and must be allowed to compete in women's sports? The Woke may be insane but they are not stupid; we are the stupid ones.
When I see "woke" I stop reading.
This kid is example number one of why I hate YouTube movie reviewers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUTga7i9RsY
Sounds like a fun movie, if I just plug in my preferred catastrophe allegory: population decline, say, or hyperinflation.
Or the new DeltaCron variant - like The Transformers, it's more than meets the eye!!
Feel free to continue your 'theme of unexpected movie reviews', anytime you like.
I skim & gloss over political commentary all the time, including yours. But I would really enjoy reviews not only about the content & meaning of cinematic storytelling ; but also how you felt about it, how immersed you were in story, and whether you think it was worth the trip.
We need some new blood, after nobody has lived up to the Siskel/Roeper & Ebert style of commentary.
As far as the predictable moralizing and knee-jerk attempts to cancel the livelihood of the Producers & Players of Licorice Pizza that will surely arise - screw these prudes. Private Lessons was one of my favorite flicks growing up, and all of its cult fans should experience no shame over it.
And fully immersive Virtual Reality, when it gets here, should have no limits. If a fantasy takes place in the mind or the Silver Screen, they should be fair game for Entertainment or Reflection.
Thanks for the reminder about this flick, looking forward.
I thought "Don't Look Up" was an allegory about the national debt.
The Golden Globes were held behind closed doors last night for fear of being insufficiently woke. An awards show! Genuflect or perish, the successor ideology is enforced with a fearsome earnestness and even it’s adherents like limousine liberals are loath to transgress. They daren’t broadcast the Golden Globes for fear of incorrect racial quotas. The successor ideology is going to destroy itself with fusillades of recriminations that ricochet around and hit the accusers in the ass. That’s Maoist fear.
Robert Malone goes full anti-science on Joe Rogan's podcast – Jan. 5, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjszVOfG_wo
Mr. McKay needs to read the book Unsettled? by Dr. Steven Koonin. However, I doubt he will.
Supposedly the title derives from a chain of record stores in the LA area in the 70s, but who knows what double entendres may have been attempted