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Well re. women in film: your mother needs to make better movies.

Considering how long I have to stand with my siblings to get the right picture sometimes, I cringe at the idea of how many takes she'd need to do to feel satisfied.

R0lf wrote:I read Cameron's statements as an extension of his previous comments about not liking comic book movies. For a woman to succeed and be included in the most generic lowest common denominator of movies isn't progress and it doesn't elevate women. We need to make better movies.

But isn't Wonder Woman important precisely because it is the first big dumb superhero action movie directed by a woman? Women have already been making "better" movies. Of course there should be more female directors for all kinds of film, but I don't think there is anything particularly novel to most people about a great female-directed art film. How many think pieces are written about how the latest Reichardt or Denis movie is a big deal because it was directed by a woman? There are still important conversations to have about the embarrassingly low percentage of women directors in indie or art film, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than mainstream Hollywood releases.

So if there are going to continue to be big dumb superhero action movies (and of course there will be, just like there were DeMille epics in Classic Hollywood), then it would be nice if a good chunk of them were directed by women. That is progress. The fact that Wonder Woman happens to be much better than most of them is a nice bonus, too.

Just to revert to THE GAY AGENDA again:

It's progress in the way making LeFou gay in Disney's live action BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is progress when in 1946 we had BEAUTY AND THE BEAST directed by a gay man and starring his boyfriend.

I hardly think that is an equivalent case.

But yes, I think it is a good thing that Disney movies now have gay characters in them. That doesn't make the new Beauty and the Beast in any way comparable to Cocteau's film. Nor does Patty Jenkins have to measure up to Akerman or Duras when we are talking about the specific achievements of her film. I'm not arguing that Wonder Woman is "progress" for women filmmakers, I'm arguing that it is progress for mainstream Hollywood to have a massively budgeted superhero film with a female director.

Of course I'd take Cocteau and Duras over contemporary Hollywood blockbusters. But that isn't a decision we have to make. We can celebrate the past accomplishments of queer and female filmmakers while still taking note of and even enjoying recent films as well.

Anyone else find it hilarious, in light of the film's socially aware marketing, that they somehow managed to make Muslims the villains and change the comic's mythology so that it can be more Christian friendly?

Which villain is Muslim, the Spanish scientist, the German general, or the Greek god in disguise as an English cabinet minister?

I must have misheard. I thought they said she was Turkish (though even that would make confusing why her notes are in Arabic).

Werewolf by Night wrote:Which villain is Muslim, the Spanish scientist, the German general, or the Greek god in disguise as an English cabinet minister?

Is this film the Burger King Kids Club?

She's Spanish, though in the scene I think you're thinking of (the raid with Chris Pine in the chemical factory early on) she's working in an Ottoman lab with Turkish test subjects and scientists.

And as to Domino's comment, that description isn't even mentioning the good guys, consisting of a Greek demigoddess, Chris Pine, a French Arab spy (because of course the sneaky stealth guy that doesn't fight fair is French,) a hard-drinking Scottish sharpshooter, and a Native American shaman/demigod.

EDIT 2: Knives and I share a brain!

Yes, that's what gave the impression. They emphasized it a lot in the scene and I must have not heard when they said she was Spanish.

domino harvey wrote:

Werewolf by Night wrote:Which villain is Muslim, the Spanish scientist, the German general, or the Greek god in disguise as an English cabinet minister?

Is this film the Burger King Kids Club?

That's nothing compared to the heroes.

knives wrote:I must have misheard. I thought they said she was Turkish (though even that would make confusing why her notes are in Arabic).

Ah, right, the notes. Doctor Poison herself is (allegedly) Spanish, but her notebook is in, according to Wonder Woman’s own translation, in Sumerian and “Ottoman.” The latter is apparently not really a language (according to this person), but she could have meant Ottoman Turkish.

My guess is the notebook is written in dead and/or obscure languages/scripts as a form of code, which was smart since nobody but Wonder Woman could decipher it.

Werewolf by Night wrote:

knives wrote:I must have misheard. I thought they said she was Turkish (though even that would make confusing why her notes are in Arabic).

Ah, right, the notes. Doctor Poison herself is (allegedly) Spanish, but her notebook is in, according to Wonder Woman’s own translation, in Sumerian and “Ottoman.” The latter is apparently not really a language (according to this person), but she could have meant Ottoman Turkish.

My guess is the notebook is written in dead and/or obscure languages/scripts as a form of code, which was smart since nobody but Wonder Woman could decipher it.

There's a close up on them when she hands them over and they're clearly in Arabic which could never by mistaken for Sumerian to make this all weirder.

Yeah, look at that thing I linked to. The guy says the alphabet is in the Arabic script family, but not actually Arabic because it uses a letterform not used in Arabic. The Sumerian uses different letterforms, and you can see a screencap of that.

I... don't... understand why the press is taking this like it's not a totally normal thing to just put literally everyone you have in every movie for your consideration? The only ones that matter are the ones they bother to advertise in the trades, which will be far more limited. Literally tab over to the Lego Batman movie's page on the WB website and see it's being submitted for Best Director.

WB's going to have to make a choice to have either this or Blade Runner as their supplemental campaign for a BP nod after Dunkirk and I'm increasingly convinced it'll be this.

(It's not really related to this in anything more than the most superficial terms and in fact kind of contradicts my point, but I was very surprised to see in an old Variety issue this past week that the FYC campaign for Se7en literally only put forward Morgan Freeman for Best Actor with no other actors in any of the other categories.)

I hope they will campaign for Blade Runner and not for this

The whole appeal of this campaign is that people saw the movie - which Blade Runner has failed at. I just really don't see much awards season narrative behind BR other than "it's good!" Wonder Woman has the commercial success / first superhero movie to be nominated / female talent things all in its favor (and also it's good), whereas Blade Runner pretty much has just whatever goodwill Denis Villeneuve might have developed (the Academy, of course, also does not particularly care for Harrison Ford and thus has only ever nominated him once). It's commercial failure has really hurt it from this perspective, in my opinion anyway.

Ribs wrote:The whole appeal of this campaign is that people saw the movie - which Blade Runner has failed at. I just really don't see much awards season narrative behind BR other than "it's good!" Wonder Woman has the commercial success / first superhero movie to be nominated / female talent things all in its favor (and also it's good), whereas Blade Runner pretty much has just whatever goodwill Denis Villeneuve might have developed (the Academy, of course, also does not particularly care for Harrison Ford and thus has only ever nominated him once). It's commercial failure has really hurt it from this perspective, in my opinion anyway.

I'm sure the push for BR2049 will be for Roger Deakins for Best Cinematography, which would be another aspect it could share with its predecessor.

dda1996a wrote:I hope they will campaign for Blade Runner and not for this

Why? Why shouldn't a studio campaign for whatever films they deem to qualify for awards considerations? As Ribs said above, this conversation is so absurd.

I said my personal hope would be that they would push BR. I also disliked WW so there's also that. But I was voicing a very personal opinion that I hope they also invest in BR because I think it's a very worthy picture and I hope they won't let the box office influence its chances.

That isn't what you said, though. You said that you hope they campaign for Blade Runner and "not for this." When something is as inconsequential in the long run as a FYE campaign, it seems odd to be investing in a studio not campaigning for a particular film, when they could just campaign for both. We're talking about a few web ads and ads in trade magazines, they're don't have to ignore one film to campaign for the other.

Satori wrote:

R0lf wrote:I read Cameron's statements as an extension of his previous comments about not liking comic book movies. For a woman to succeed and be included in the most generic lowest common denominator of movies isn't progress and it doesn't elevate women. We need to make better movies.

But isn't Wonder Woman important precisely because it is the first big dumb superhero action movie directed by a woman? Women have already been making "better" movies. Of course there should be more female directors for all kinds of film, but I don't think there is anything particularly novel to most people about a great female-directed art film. How many think pieces are written about how the latest Reichardt or Denis movie is a big deal because it was directed by a woman? There are still important conversations to have about the embarrassingly low percentage of women directors in indie or art film, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than mainstream Hollywood releases.

So if there are going to continue to be big dumb superhero action movies (and of course there will be, just like there were DeMille epics in Classic Hollywood), then it would be nice if a good chunk of them were directed by women. That is progress. The fact that Wonder Woman happens to be much better than most of them is a nice bonus, too.

I think a lot has been made about a woman finally being able to direct a blockbuster, but would that still be news if the movie was bad? Twilight and 50 shades were also blockbusters directed by women, but most people thought the movies sucked so it was like the media felt it was inappropriate to emphasize them being directed by woman, as if that would be negative for female directors in general. But it's been a trend for a while now to get a female director for big-budget movies aimed at/starred by women. Wonder Woman did nothing new there. Yeah, it's the first superhero movie directed by a woman, simply because it's the first one starring one. That doesn't mean Catherine Hardwicke will be asked to make the next Avengers film.

mfunk9786 wrote:That isn't what you said, though. You said that you hope they campaign for Blade Runner and "not for this." When something is as inconsequential in the long run as a FYE campaign, it seems odd to be investing in a studio not campaigning for a particular film, when they could just campaign for both. We're talking about a few web ads and ads in trade magazines, they're don't have to ignore one film to campaign for the other.

Well, they can't (or even shouldn't) necessarily campaign for both. These campaigns cost a lot of money (rightly or wrongly), and take up a lot of resources. Now Warner Bros. has deeper pockets than say someone like A24, but then there's also the fact the campaigns for both WW and BR could end up cannibalizing each other, if they're both pigeon-holed into the "token genre picture" nomination. So I think there's some justification is someone hoping that a studio campaigns for one film over another.

felipe wrote:I think a lot has been made about a woman finally being able to direct a blockbuster, but would that still be news if the movie was bad?

Sadly, it was much worse than bad.