The Big Picture: The Terrible Twenty Films of 2014 Part 2

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Strain42 said:
I think the thing that personally bugs me the most about the ASM movies (aside from me just personally not liking them) is that I have yet to see anybody give reasons why they thought they were good that aren't either trying to badmouth the Raimi movies for comparison, or just gushing about how much they love Andrew Garfield because his ass looks amazing in the Spidey suit (I have a lot of female friends...)

But it's weird because I've listened to the criticisms people have for the Raimi movies when trying to praise the ASM movies and they usually don't match up.

I hear things like "Spiderman 3 was over cluttered with way too many villains." Now admittedly it's been a while since I've seen that movie, but it had 3, right? Sandman, Hobgoblin, and Venom. ASM also had 3 with Rhino, Electro, and Green Goblin, while ALSO setting up more villains for future movies like Vulture and Dr. Octopus. And yes, I know Rhino wasn't in the film much, but he was heavily advertised as if he was going to be.

Then I've also heard complaints that Raimi's Peter Parker was so stereotypically nerdy that it was actually offensive to nerds. And to those people I ask...did you watch ASM2? Electro's human character was so off the rails nerdy it made Duayne Dibbley look like Buddy Love.

I know a lot of people who have enjoyed the ASM films, and y'know what...that's totally fine. They did, I didn't, that's fine. That's how opinions work.

I just wish I could hear people explain why they find them good that don't boil down to badmouthing the Raimi movies. Because that doesn't explain why it's GOOD, that just explains why they find it better than the Raimi ones.

A slap in the face is better than a kick in the balls, but I'm not gonna say a slap in the face is my idea of a good time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBjWXXeMpjA

It's more a discussion then explanation of ASM in itself, but it might help with the "why people like ASM" thing. I don't count myself among them (only seen ASM1, but I hold each of the Rami films above it), but to each their own.
 

hentropy

New member
Feb 25, 2012
737
0
0
Thomas Hardy said:
hentropy said:
It's a little disingenuous to suggest there was open hostility toward atheism- on one hand it's true, atheism was more or less illegal in the Christian west- on the other hand there wasn't really any attempts to discredit or attack its ideas, why would you waste your time on something that doesn't exist in any kind of significant number? Atheists still existed because you don't have to wear it on your sleeve and you can still go and perform any kind of ritual required of you by society.

It's markedly different now, now that there is a significant open atheist population. Atheism has attempted to become a "brand" like all the other religions, with organizations pushing atheist views and secularism. Since it is, at its heart, a blank slate, it makes it more threatening than other religions that come with their own set of issues and things to learn. Someone can become an atheist with little to no effort. But now you see Christians trying to define the character of atheists as a group in a similar way as other religions. That cold science is their religion and Charles Darwin is their prophet. It's not something that is super recent, but it has ramped up in recent years as Christians see the rise of organized and pushy atheism.
From my perspective, this looks less and less like "pushy atheists" and more and more like "atheists pushing back". Take many Christian groups lobbying several U.S. States to change the science curriculum to teach "intelligent desigh" rather than evolutionary biology.

Maybe I'm misreading your tone but I'm hearing you say that atheism is only okay so long as you're a "closet" atheist. In North America atheists (or Deists in my case) have the same right to publicly share their beliefs (or in this case, rejection of a belief) as any of their other neighbours. Respectfully sharing one's thoughts on a subject is not an attack upon the beliefs of one's religious neighbours. It is simply expressing your own beliefs. Unfortunately, it just so happens that many of one's neighbours are often scared or insulted by the idea that the diety or dieties they believe in very strongly don't exist. After all, to reject the existence of dieties involves directly or indirectly asserting the universe is a cold and empty place where nothing but other unreliable humans can stop bad things from happening. Followed by death. And then nothing.

Consequently, since atheists keep talking about scary things, religious types tend to protect their beliefs by framing the "God Debate" as "science vs religion" and misrepresenting atheists as worshipers of science. This despite the fact that atheists by definition don't "worship" anything! Atheism is not a religion! Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. Period. While we're at it, while you might find the odd atheist "club" or something, you'll never find "organized" atheism in the same sense as church groups or other forms of "organized" religious belief. What you're seeing is more and more high-profile individual atheists getting public recognition of and for their beliefs.

Or, to put this another way (I'm a Neil deGrasse Tyson fan): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy5yWdVHv3o

I just wish that for once that scriptwriters for these religious movies would actually let God linger on the other side of the "gaps" rather than outright "prove" his existance. It would probably make for a much more effective narrative. But then again, these movies aren't for me.
The "pushy" atheists I refer to are the kinds that make "The Ten Commandments of Atheism" and file lawsuits to remove crosses and nativity scenes and various other religious imagery. Having to drive by the baby Jesus on the way to work is not systematic oppression, but neither is the lawsuits oppressing Christians. There's no oppression anywhere on this issue. It's just the customs of the vast majority of people who live in local areas. Someone can caw all they want about the separation of church and state (something that's not really explicitly part of law), but the fact is that if someone is confident or secure in their religious beliefs or lack thereof, the baby Jesus really should offend or threaten them so much. And vice versa.

When it comes to science and the teaching of it, the fact is that evolution in general is a difficult subject to teach to small children in any case, to the point where evolution is only talked about in broad senses and most kids just get confused and gravitate towards the creationist stories anyway. To a young child, the big bang is as plausible as god did it, because the theory hasn't been properly built up to, and they're told to just put their faith in smart scientists who figured it all out. Like priests.

Personally I'm not sure why the origin of species and of the Earth is imperative to even teach in early grades. In later grades, evolution can and should be taught as a building block of modern biological theory, and it should focus on its connections to other aspects of biology (such as the evolution of the eye or other organisms), rather than try to pit it "against" creationist theory as if the two are competing. There is no reason an atheist should view themselves as being on a different team or congregation compared to religious folk.

In the plain, I just think the "when in Rome" principle should apply. Religious minorities in other countries tend to go to lengths to respect the culture and customs of the majority, and yet it seems some, maybe not a majority, of atheists are more interested in trying to discredit or attack the religion of the majority population, trying to make petty complaints and arguments look like the civil rights movement because Tom Jefferson wrote a letter to one church like 200 years ago.
 

Reasonable Atheist

New member
Mar 6, 2012
287
0
0
scw55 said:
I'm hoping for a good Christian movie or movie based from Biblical narratives that is actually good.
I'm tired to evading giving reasons to my sister why I want to not watch certain films because I lack the heart to tell her "It looks awful and terrible". I respect her opinions on certain films and I don't want to influence her perception of them if she sincerely chooses to watch them. I'm just tired of finding an honest way to explain "PLEASE DON'T FORCE ME TO WATCH IT" without being a dick.

I'm confident it is possible to do good Christian movies. I suppose the lack of funding could be an issue since there seems to be a "that's lame" stigma attached to the idea of faith.

We live in hope. It's most likely also quite a mega irony to benefit financially from Religion.
Kingdom of heaven was pretty awesome, and certainly not lacking in budget. Maybe its not Christian enough? It does portray other faiths, but that just makes it not propaganda right?

Also, I seem to remember a good film about heaven being in Robin Williams' backyard?

Perhaps watching those movies with your sister would give you a good talking point, or conversation starter about why you do not want to see bad movies with her.
 

Reasonable Atheist

New member
Mar 6, 2012
287
0
0
hentropy said:
Thomas Hardy said:
hentropy said:
The "pushy" atheists I refer to are the kinds that make "The Ten Commandments of Atheism" and file lawsuits to remove crosses and nativity scenes and various other religious imagery. Having to drive by the baby Jesus on the way to work is not systematic oppression, but neither is the lawsuits oppressing Christians. There's no oppression anywhere on this issue. It's just the customs of the vast majority of people who live in local areas. Someone can caw all they want about the separation of church and state (something that's not really explicitly part of law), but the fact is that if someone is confident or secure in their religious beliefs or lack thereof, the baby Jesus really should offend or threaten them so much. And vice versa.

When it comes to science and the teaching of it, the fact is that evolution in general is a difficult subject to teach to small children in any case, to the point where evolution is only talked about in broad senses and most kids just get confused and gravitate towards the creationist stories anyway. To a young child, the big bang is as plausible as god did it, because the theory hasn't been properly built up to, and they're told to just put their faith in smart scientists who figured it all out. Like priests.

Personally I'm not sure why the origin of species and of the Earth is imperative to even teach in early grades. In later grades, evolution can and should be taught as a building block of modern biological theory, and it should focus on its connections to other aspects of biology (such as the evolution of the eye or other organisms), rather than try to pit it "against" creationist theory as if the two are competing. There is no reason an atheist should view themselves as being on a different team or congregation compared to religious folk.

In the plain, I just think the "when in Rome" principle should apply. Religious minorities in other countries tend to go to lengths to respect the culture and customs of the majority, and yet it seems some, maybe not a majority, of atheists are more interested in trying to discredit or attack the religion of the majority population, trying to make petty complaints and arguments look like the civil rights movement because Tom Jefferson wrote a letter to one church like 200 years ago.
Yes, it would seem every group has their own sect of nutjobs, some of them are just more offensive or disgustingly violent then others.
 

TheAlien

New member
Apr 18, 2014
4
0
0
I found it interesting that I went on Netflix and added 4 of these top 10 Worse movies to my queue. Mainly because when I started watching Movie Bob, the first several dozen reviews I agreed with completely. Somewhere along the way, he went all "If t's pro America, Pro God, Pro Capitalism, Pro anything other than far left crap", he hated it. I come back now, Not to get suggestions on what to watch based on his review Liking a movie, but rather finding the ones he hated and looking forward to seeing it. Well, except for TMNT, that just sucked no matter how you look at it. I like movies because they're either stupid fun, accurate documentaries, well done sci-fi (Yes, I liked Divergent better than the Hunger Games) or action movies that actually have action in them. If the story doesn't match MovieBob's opinion, it doesn't matter how good the movie is, he'll pick it apart and find a way to hate it. It's no longer "is the movie good", it's "do I agree with the politics". Kinda sad.

I could give a line by line list and explain this, but those who are smart enough to understand what I just said will nod their heads and say, "well, that actually makes sense". The rest are fanboys or just agree with Moviebob because they in the same political mindset.
 

harryhenry

New member
Jun 28, 2012
36
0
0
TheAlien said:
I found it interesting that I went on Netflix and added 4 of these top 10 Worse movies to my queue. Mainly because when I started watching Movie Bob, the first several dozen reviews I agreed with completely. Somewhere along the way, he went all "If it's Pro-America, Pro God, Pro Capitalism, Pro anything other than far left crap", he hated it. I come back now, Not to get suggestions on what to watch based on his review Liking a movie, but rather finding the ones he hated and looking forward to seeing it. Well, except for TMNT, that just sucked no matter how you look at it. I like movies because they're either stupid fun, accurate documentaries, well done sci-fi (Yes, I liked Divergent better than the Hunger Games) or action movies that actually have action in them. If the story doesn't match MovieBob's opinion, it doesn't matter how good the movie is, he'll pick it apart and find a way to hate it. It's no longer "is the movie good", it's "do I agree with the politics". Kinda sad.

I could give a line by line list and explain this, but those who are smart enough to understand what I just said will nod their heads and say, "well, that actually makes sense". The rest are fanboys or just agree with Moviebob because they in the same political mindset.
Doesn't bob really like the very right wing ''Red Dawn''? He also really liked Gran Turino. That's why he said "''Sorry'' Clint", because he's enjoyed his past work.