Movie, TV, Web Series, and Music Hot Take(s).

[thebobmaster]

Michael Eisner used to be CEO of Disney with whom Katzenberg had a very tempestuous relationship. Some of it was Katzenberg's fault cos he nearly screwed Disney hard when he deliberately went against Robin Williams' wishes regarding advertising Aladdin using the Genie (and Williams didn't work with Disney again until after Katzenberg resigned), some of it was both of them being stupid like nearly totally fucking up Toy Story and some of it was all on Eisner because he was a cockwit to people to a legendary degree and would shoot down Katzenberg's ideas. Basically it was personal and office politics runamock and Katzenberg decided to use Lord Farquaad (which is basically a bad phonetic prounciation of 'Fuckwad') and Duloc as a hit piece against his former employer.

Mind you, Katzenberg more or less got the last laugh because once founding DreamWorks - along with Steven Speilberg - they made Shrek which was a colossal smash hit and eventuated in Eisner's removal from Disney due to a lack of proper response to Shrek, which itself more or less put Disney's traditional formula in the ground until Frozen.

On the flip side, for every good decision Katzenberg made at Disney, he pushed for 5 or 6 bad ones. He tried to have "Part of Your World" cut from The Little Mermaid because he thought it was boring the kids in the audience, he put his focus on Pocahontas over The Lion King, he tried at first to have Bill Farmer be replaced by Steve Martin as Goofy for A Goofy Movie, and then asked Bill Farmer to use his normal voice, it was his idea to have the main character in Rescuers Down Under be a young blond kid in Australia rather than an Aboriginal character to "connect with the audience", the list goes on.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Michael Eisner used to be CEO of Disney with whom Katzenberg had a very tempestuous relationship. Some of it was Katzenberg's fault cos he nearly screwed Disney hard when he deliberately went against Robin Williams' wishes regarding advertising Aladdin using the Genie (and Williams didn't work with Disney again until after Katzenberg resigned), some of it was both of them being stupid like nearly totally fucking up Toy Story and some of it was all on Eisner because he was a cockwit to people to a legendary degree and would shoot down Katzenberg's ideas. Basically it was personal and office politics runamock and Katzenberg decided to use Lord Farquaad (which is basically a bad phonetic prounciation of 'Fuckwad') and Duloc as a hit piece against his former employer.

Mind you, Katzenberg more or less got the last laugh because once founding DreamWorks - along with Steven Speilberg - they made Shrek which was a colossal smash hit and eventuated in Eisner's removal from Disney due to a lack of proper response to Shrek, which itself more or less put Disney's traditional formula in the ground until Frozen.

That's interesting... but how is Farquaad like Eisner? Looking at pictures, they don't really look that much alike.

On the flip side, for every good decision Katzenberg made at Disney, he pushed for 5 or 6 bad ones. He tried to have "Part of Your World" cut from The Little Mermaid because he thought it was boring the kids in the audience, he put his focus on Pocahontas over The Lion King, he tried at first to have Bill Farmer be replaced by Steve Martin as Goofy for A Goofy Movie, and then asked Bill Farmer to use his normal voice, it was his idea to have the main character in Rescuers Down Under be a young blond kid in Australia rather than an Aboriginal character to "connect with the audience", the list goes on.

What?! Part of Your World my absolute favorite Disney song! That's crazy!

 

[Gordon_4]

On the flip side, for every good decision Katzenberg made at Disney, he pushed for 5 or 6 bad ones. He tried to have "Part of Your World" cut from The Little Mermaid because he thought it was boring the kids in the audience, he put his focus on Pocahontas over The Lion King, he tried at first to have Bill Farmer be replaced by Steve Martin as Goofy for A Goofy Movie, and then asked Bill Farmer to use his normal voice, it was his idea to have the main character in Rescuers Down Under be a young blond kid in Australia rather than an Aboriginal character to "connect with the audience", the list goes on.

My list of Katzenberg's shit ideas was by no means exhaustive, but the Aladdin one is especially egregious because it wasn't just a bad idea, it was an outright betrayal. Like even if Michael Eisner is an asshole he'd have had every right to lose his shit over it.

That's interesting... but how is Farquaad like Eisner? Looking at pictures, they don't really look that much alike.

I presume this is because doing that would have taken the matter from unflattering piss take to something closer to libel or slander and leave them open to legal action, however pointless, from Eisner.

 

[Hades]

it was his idea to have the main character in Rescuers Down Under be a young blond kid in Australia rather than an Aboriginal character to "connect with the audience", the list goes on.

That was certainly an uninteresting idea. However it can be argued it was a decent enough bussiness idea. Perhaps american audiences in the 80's(?) really would connect more with a white kid than a foreign black kid of an oppressed minority.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I've been enjoying A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms quite a lot lately. It stars a child actor whose performance I find very impressive. But lately I've been seeing a bunch of promo material focusing on him, and it's made me a little sad. The kid is 11 years old, but they have him doing interviews and styling him in ridiculous clothes. That can't possibly be healthy for someone that young. I'm not against child actors but they really should be kept out of the public eye as much as possible in my opinion.

 

[Hades]

I've been enjoying A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms quite a lot lately. It stars a child actor whose performance I find very impressive. But lately I've been seeing a bunch of promo material focusing on him, and it's made me a little sad. The kid is 11 years old, but they have him doing interviews and styling him in ridiculous clothes. That can't possibly be healthy for someone that young. I'm not against child actors but they really should be kept out of the public eye as much as possible in my opinion.

This probably sums up the general mood around it


Egg's good but I think lord Baratheon also deserves some credit for looking so unlike his character but still capturing him perfectly all the same. The small stature made me think he was a bit miscast at first

 

[Bedinsis]

On the flip side, for every good decision Katzenberg made at Disney, he pushed for 5 or 6 bad ones. He tried to have "Part of Your World" cut from The Little Mermaid because he thought it was boring the kids in the audience, he put his focus on Pocahontas over The Lion King, he tried at first to have Bill Farmer be replaced by Steve Martin as Goofy for A Goofy Movie, and then asked Bill Farmer to use his normal voice, it was his idea to have the main character in Rescuers Down Under be a young blond kid in Australia rather than an Aboriginal character to "connect with the audience", the list goes on.

Whenever I see lists of iconic scenes being considered scrappable or some hypothetical alternate route the movie could've taken that sounds horrible I am reminded that we look at that with the power of hindsight. It's entirely possible that the version of the film the behind-the-scenes-folks would've made had they had their will come through would've been even better.

 

[thebobmaster]

Well, there's also the fact that one of the earliest Disney movies where Katzenberg did get his way for the most part ended up nearly killing Disney animated films. The Black Cauldron.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

This is probably only for like 1 maybe 2 at best people here now, so please trust and take heed of these words....

Do not

Look

At the time


Sorry, I meant sickos, not people. Sickos like me

00:00 - I Built a Table
02:19 - Why Tyler Perry is Different
18:00 - Part 1 - The Problem of "Black" Media
37:26 - Part 2 - Tyler Perry's origin story
01:03:04 - Part 3 - Tyler Perry's "movies"
02:49:42 - Part 4 - Tyler Perry Built a Table too...

 

[BrawlMan]

This is probably only for like 1 maybe 2 at best people here now, so please trust and take heed of these words....

Do not

Look

At the time


Sorry, I meant sickos, not people. Sickos like me

I stopped caring for Tyler Perry after his third movie. I don't even like the "parodies" done by Boondocks nor South Park. Though ironically enough, the SP parody is more tasteful by comparisons. The Boondocks parody comes off as homophobic. Albie unintentionally, but I hated that episode and I had been done with TP by that point.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Trying really, really ,really hard not to be sexists here, but as someone who enjoys standup comedy, it's hard to find a female standup comic I consistently enjoy. I've tried several, and I can only make it about through maybe 15-20 minutes before deciding it's not getting any better. I actually just finished Taylor Tomlinson's latest standup ("finished" being a feat for me,) and only because it was the exception wherein she didn't immediately get into the signature raunch most female comedians defer to for cheap laughs.

I'm not that guy who says women can't be funny; comedy isn't qualified along gender lines; a funny joke is a funny joke. But so many female comedians fall back on graphic sex jokes and vulgarity for vulgarity's sake that it just gets tiresome and ugly. I'm not generalizing; I don't particularly like male comedians who do the same thing, but their sets tend to touch upon enough other subjects that I can power through. But these female comedians seem to think they're leveling the playing field by being as raunchy as the guys, and they simply don't have to. The first half of Tomlinson's set was a taking down of her religious upbringing, and it's really good, but the latter half, she starts in on being bisexual, preferring sex with women, sucking dick, and I just tuned out, and the hour fell apart for me. Not saying women shouldn't be edgy by virtue of being women; I just wish so many of them wouldn't hang their identity on it.

I think of comedians like Tig Notaro, Ellen DeGeneres, Maria Bamford, etc.; they are funny, but they rarely open with, use, let alone lean entirely on being gross and offensive. Funny is funny when it's clever, not because it's nasty absurdity coming out of a woman's mouth.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Trying really, really ,really hard not to be sexists here, but as someone who enjoys standup comedy, it's hard to find a female standup comic I consistently enjoy. I've tried several, and I can only make it about through maybe 15-20 minutes before deciding it's not getting any better. I actually just finished Taylor Tomlinson's latest standup ("finished" being a feat for me,) and only because it was the exception wherein she didn't immediately get into the signature raunch most female comedians defer to for cheap laughs.

I'm not that guy who says women can't be funny; comedy isn't qualified along gender lines; a funny joke is a funny joke. But so many female comedians fall back on graphic sex jokes and vulgarity for vulgarity's sake that it just gets tiresome and ugly. I'm not generalizing; I don't particularly like male comedians who do the same thing, but their sets tend to touch upon enough other subjects that I can power through. But these female comedians seem to think they're leveling the playing field by being as raunchy as the guys, and they simply don't have to. The first half of Tomlinson's set was a taking down of her religious upbringing, and it's really good, but the latter half, she starts in on being bisexual, preferring sex with women, sucking dick, and I just tuned out, and the hour fell apart for me. Not saying women shouldn't be edgy by virtue of being women; I just wish so many of them wouldn't hang their identity on it.

I think of comedians like Tig Notaro, Ellen DeGeneres, Maria Bamford, etc.; they are funny, but they rarely open with, use, let alone lean entirely on being gross and offensive. Funny is funny when it's clever, not because it's nasty absurdity coming out of a woman's mouth.

Does The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel count? Because her standup in the show is funny.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Does The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel count? Because her standup in the show is funny.

I've never seen it, so I don't know. If the standup doesn't open with how weird cocks taste, graphic depictions of vaginal moisture, or a point-by-point recounting of a messy sexual encounter with a man, then I'd offer it's probably better than a lot of what's on offer on streaming services.

My sentiment is essentially a lot of female comedians are shooting for Andrew Dice Clay levels of irreverence versus the more nuanced, clever, and genuinely funny material of, say, Nate Bargatze who can do an entire set perfectly clean and bring the house down. Or George Carlin who could be crude but intelligent, and sell a laugh because it was cleverly thought out and delivered. No, a lot (I want to say "most," but I've honestly not see the majority) are just going for "woman talking dirty like a filthy man is funny," and it's just not. And I'll further qualify that by saying men who do the same thing are equally insufferable; I just see more women going that route than men.

 

[BrawlMan]

Snip

I can't even bother with a lot of modern stand up comedians anymore. Especially the ones that sold out to Saudi Arabia's government. I know there's a lot of older comedians on that list manly. I still try to give locals a chance or certain ones with their own youtube page that started on youtube.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I can't even bother with a lot of modern stand up comedians anymore. Especially the ones that sold out to Saudi Arabia's government. I know there's a lot of older comedians on that list manly. I still try to give locals a chance or certain ones with their own youtube page that started on youtube.

I know you've posted a lot of Josh Johnson's stuff recently, and while he is funny, his sets are so formulaic, that you can almost skip to preset timestamps given he hangs on a single joke for minutes at a time, and I find myself saying "Ok, I get it; move on" pretty much every 5-10 minutes. I still like him, and the way he ties seemingly random stories to current social commentary is clever, he's just too long-winded, i.e.: each set is so one-note, they're needlessly protracted, particularly with the visual gags where he uses the stool for a full minute to demonstrate visually what most people "got" 50 seconds ago. I'll give him this: I like him using his platform to send important messages. Yes, he goes for the laughs, but ending each set with a meaningful message that brings the audience together in laughter and finally truth is something I've not personally seen since Carlin. I also applaud him on being able to put together such topical material on a nigh weekly basis. His "Flowers" tour might as well be the nightly news for people like me who avoid the news because who needs to feel worse on a daily basis?

 

[BrawlMan]

his sets are so formulaic,

I'm so used to it or captivated by his words, the same set doesn't even bother me much. I don't mind it.Change up every now and then, but so long as he is true to himself, it doesn't bother me.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I'm so used to it or captivated by his words, the same set doesn't even bother me much. I don't mind it.Change up every now and then, but so long as he is true to himself, it doesn't bother me.

It doesn't bother me either, it's just that I'm so now used to his style, that it gets repetitive. Like Nate Bargatze's or Mike Birbiglia's signature "Uuuuhs" that signal when the audiences should laugh; it's charming on a first listen/watch, but when you find out it's their "thing" after multiple shows, you kinda get over it pretty quickly. The jokes still land, but it gets tedious. Johnson is brilliant, but I've often found myself fast-forwarding through some of his bits to get at the message. Not a criticism, just an acceptance that I don't need to hear it all when I know the meat is the last 10 minutes of a set.

 

[BrawlMan]

Johnson is brilliant, but I've often found myself fast-forwarding through some of his bits to get at the message. Not a criticism, just an acceptance that I don't need to hear it all when I know the meat is the last 10 minutes of a set.

Whatever works for you. Understandable.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I've never seen it, so I don't know. If the standup doesn't open with how weird cocks taste, graphic depictions of vaginal moisture, or a point-by-point recounting of a messy sexual encounter with a man, then I'd offer it's probably better than a lot of what's on offer on streaming services.

My sentiment is essentially a lot of female comedians are shooting for Andrew Dice Clay levels of irreverence versus the more nuanced, clever, and genuinely funny material of, say, Nate Bargatze who can do an entire set perfectly clean and bring the house down. Or George Carlin who could be crude but intelligent, and sell a laugh because it was cleverly thought out and delivered. No, a lot (I want to say "most," but I've honestly not see the majority) are just going for "woman talking dirty like a filthy man is funny," and it's just not. And I'll further qualify that by saying men who do the same thing are equally insufferable; I just see more women going that route than men.

I asked if it counted since it's a fictional character.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I asked if it counted since it's a fictional character.

That fictional portrayal of a female standup comic is fine by today's standards, though I imagine given the time period (1950s?), she was probably written to sound equally "risqué" as modern female comics. Much like comparing a 19th century frontierswoman woman showing ankle to a modern day stripper collecting dollar bills off a stage using her ass cheeks.

It's just my hot take. I don't avoid female comedians, and I'm not some pearl-clutchy prude who can't take vulgarity or who has any predilection for personal standards of women's behavior, but I'm not going to sit there for an hour while a woman talks about most things I don't want to hear out of ANYONE'S mouth, let alone a woman's, the whole time. As I said, same standard for male comedians, there's just fewer of them to make me notice the disparity.