#movie-industry

[pal1cam]

Pieces of media to watch to educate yourself on the Palestinian cause :

“Jenin, Jenin” a documentary by Mohammad Bakri (available on Youtube)

“200 meters” a movie by Ameen Nayfeh (available on Netflix)

“Born in Gaza” a documentary by Hernán Zin (available on Netflix)

“Samouni Road” a documentary & animation by Stefano Savona (available on Netflix and Palestine Film Institute’s website)

“Edward Said on Palestine (1988)” a TV documentary style film by Christoper Skyes (available on Youtube)

“To My Father (2008)” a documentary style film by Abdel Salam Shehada (available on Palestine Film Institute’s website)

“Salt of this sea” a movie by Annemarie Jacir (available on Netflix)

“Children of Shatila” a documentary by Mai Masri (available on Netflix & Youtube)

“The Present” a short movie by Farah Nabulsi (available on Netflix)

“Frontiers of Dreams and Fears” a documentary by Mai Masri (available on Netflix & Youtube)

“The Crossing” a short film by Ameen Nayfeh (available on Netflix)

“Tantura” a documentary by Alon Schwartz (available on Youtube)

“3000 nights” a movie by Mai Masri (available on Netflix)

“Farha” a movie by Darin J. Sallam (available on Netflix)

“Arna’s Children” a documentary by Juliano Mer-Khamis (available on Youtube)

“Ma’loul celebrates it’s destruction” a documentary by Michel Khleifi (available on Youtube)

“A World Not Ours” a documentary style movie by Mahdi Fleifel (available on Netflix)

“Like Twenty Impossibles” a movie by Annemarie Jacir (available on Netflix)

“Omar” a movie by Hany Abu Assad (available on Netflix)

“Mars At Sunrise” a movie by Jessica Habie (available on Netflix)

“5 Broken Cameras” a documentary by Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi (available on Youtube)

“Aida Returns” a film by Carol Mansour (look for upcoming screenings through this link)

“Soraida, a woman of Palestine” a documentary style film by Tahani Rached (available on Youtube)

“Palestine In The Eye” a film by Mustafa Abu Ali (available on Youtube)

[this list will constantly be updated with more movies & documentaries that i’m reminded of, or with new pieces that i find and watch… if you have any suggestions please send them my way]

PS ; as this is a personal list coming from a Palestinian person, i will only be adding the movies and documentaries that i feel are MOST important and effective in transferring the message of the Palestinian cause… so all recommendations are highly appreciated yet this is just a personal list and doesn’t include all types of Palestinian (or Palestinian related) visual media 🙏

[vivicendium]

i think something that elevates the hunger games franchise is not just the quality of writing but the integrity of it. tbosas isn’t just a cash-grab by suzanne collins in the age of sequels and reboots (though i won’t pretend that didn’t play a part), it’s a character study of the main antagonist with a different structure than the main trilogy. and importantly, it doesn’t just re-hash the same old themes and beats the main trilogy had, it expands on not just the world of the hunger games but the themes as well, it actually has something new to say about the trilogy’s themes about class, capitalism, power, and control, in a way that couldn’t be explored with the main story because the protagonist of that story simply did not have access to the world that’s being explored in tbosas.

i understand the people who call for books/movies to be made about haymitch, finnick, johanna, different years of the games — we love those characters and want to see more of them! i’d kill for a novella on finnick’s days mentoring tributes, or katniss’s parents falling in love. but at the end of the day we probably wouldn’t be very satisfied with those stories being fleshed out if they had absolutely nothing new to say about the world, they’d be enjoyable, but not as interesting and engaging as tbosas has been.

[noknowshame]

always a fun time when real life people are doomed by their own narratives. like guys you know it doesn’t have to be like this right? this isn’t a stageplay the foreshadowing isn’t real until you make it real

[starlit-mansion]

there's something so poetic about coyote vs acme being the thing that causes wb's 'the producers' ass scheme of shitcanning movies for tax breaks to blow up in their face and cause them to turn to the camera, blink twice, and dissolve into a little pile of ash that their eyes fall down into with a little bounce

[alpaca-clouds]

Why the media CEOs will always learn the wrong lessons

Yesterday a friend and I talked about how the entire (AAA) game industrie looked at BG3 being as popular as it is and going: "Oh, we need to produce 100+ hour games, I guess! Those sell!" Which... obviously is not why it is popular. The game is not popular because it has 100+ hours of gameplay, but because it has engaging characters, that are well-acted and that work as good hooks for the players. Like, let's face it: The reason why I so far have sunken 160 hours into this game is, because I wanna spend time with these characters - and because I wanna give them their happy endings.

But the same has happened too, just a bit earlier this year, right? When Barbie broke the 1 billion and every Hollywood CEO went: "Oh, so the people want movies based on toy franchises! Got it!" To which the internet at large replied: "... How is that the lesson you learned from this?"

Well, let me explain to you, why this is the lesson they learn: It is because the CEOs and the boards of directors at large are not artists or even engaged with the medium they produce. They mostly are economists. And their dry little hearts do not understand stuff more complex than numbers and spread sheets.

That sounds evil, I know, but... It is sadly the truth. When they look at a successful movie/series/game/book/comic, they look at it as a product, not a piece of art or narrative. It is just a product that has very clear metrics.

To them Barbie is not a movie with interesting stylistic choices that stand out from the majority of high budget action blockbusters. It is a toy movie with mildly feminist themes.

Or Oppenheimer is not a movie to them with a strong visual language and good acting direction. No, it is a historical blockbuster.

And this is true for basically every form of media. I mean, books are actually a fairly good example. In my life I do remember the big book fads that happened. When Harry Potter was a success, there was at least a dozen other "magical school" book series being released. When Twilight was a big success there was suddenly an endless number of "teen girl falls in love with bad boy, who is [magical creature]" YA. When the Hunger Games was a success, there were hundreds of "YA dystopia" books. Meanwhile in adult reading, we had the big "next Game of Throne" fad.

Of course, the irony is, that within each of those fads there might have been one or two somewhat successful series - but never even one that came even close to whatever started the fad.

Or with movies, we have seen it, too. When Avengers broke the 1 billion (which up to this point only few movies did) the studios went: "Ooooooh, so we need shared universe film series" - and then all went to try and fail to create their own cinematic universe.

Because the people, who call the shots, are just immensely desinterested in the thing they are selling. They do not really care about the content. All they care about is having a supposedly easy avenue of selling it. Just as they do not care about the consumer. All they care about is that the consumer buys it. Why he buys it... Well, they do not care. They could not care less, in fact.

So, yeah, get ready for a 20 overproduced games with a bloated 100+ hours of empty gameplay, but without the engaging characters. And for like at least 15 more moves based on some toy franchise, that nobody actually cares about.

And then get ready for all the CEOs to do the surprised Pikachu face, when all of that ends up not financially successful.

Really, I read some interviews yesterday from some AAA-studio CEOs and their blatant shock and missing understanding on why BG3 works for so many people.

Because, yeah... capitalism does not appreciate art. Capitalism does not understand art. It only understands spread sheets.

[sparrowlucero]

thoughts on The Sea Beast 2022 (if youve seen it)

when I was ever so briefly at netflix for concept work that movie was in pre production (?) and I was actually hoping they'd put me on it, they did not 😅

but yeah I like it! weirdly I find the first third of the movie (when they're killing the dragons) way more engaging, the tone and pacing falls off a bit once they befriend the sea monster. Kind of goes from "traditional high seas adventure movie" to "cute kids movie where not a ton happens"; if they had kept up that former tone while still telling a story about a sea monster hunter realizing the value of conservation when he befriends one of the monsters, it would be a 10/10. Oh well, still pretty good for what it is.

Creature design wise, I think a lot of the concepts for the titular sea beast are a lot more cool and charming. It feels very possible they just couldn't render markings or complex details because of the size of the character? Who knows.

The final design never really escapes the knockoff toothless look to me. I guess it's a bit hard to do a toothed whale inspired dragon with front facing eyes that doesn't look a bit like that, but yeah, it doesn't quite click and feel like it's own thing.

also i hate the way it walks on its flippers. I think they wanted to avoid having it look awkward like a seal and accidentally made it look way worse

am i being too mean here or does the way it walks look crazy stupid to everyone else

[br3akfestattiffanys]

Zendaya in custom Jacquemus ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

[asexualdindjarin]

@pscentral event 09: comfort → comfort movie: pride (2014) dir. matthew warchus

And why should gay people like me support the miners? Because miners dig for coal, which produces power, which allows gay people like you to dance to Bananarama till 3 o'clock in the morning.

[scum-man-of-pesto]

This is SO REAL like first of all, the matriarchy they initially had was still this hyper-feminine mess where all the barbies still had to look perfect and attractive and have their hair and makeup done etc wereas the Kens simply, did not. Not to mention Alan even. And then still the only pressing harm of the Barbie-run society was that Barbie didn't give Ken much of her time in the way that he wanted her to, and as a result he subjugated every woman in the world?? He made all the Barbies ramp up the performance of the male gaze, spoke down to them, stole their literal houses and hard work, and enslaved them, and then the message was still like "uwu Barbie should've given more time to Ken so he didn't react this way" like no FUCK OFF are you kidding? The Barbies should've just systematically eliminated the Kens because at best they're useless and at worst they're clamoring to cause actual material harm. I WISH the movie lived up to "deeply bizarre and anti-man". It's actually really telling where we are in society that so many see this as an actually radical perspective filled with man-hate when it was literally so coddling to men. Don't get me wrong either, I did enjoy it for what it was like I know it wasn't going to go into an actual deep leftist analysis or anything but this reaction to it as though it had is making me nuts

[frostedpuffs]

every time someone makes a point to say that "Marinette doesn't wear makeup, she isn't like other girls" I want to SIGH because not only does Marinette Actually Wear Makeup in canon, it is exhausting that it is 2023 and people are still doing the "not like other girls" thing

[spectroscopes]

The Abyss (1989)

[dean-winchesters-clit]

Gods, can I gush about the CGI in the Percy Jackson show for just a minute??

All of it is so fucking good!

The work was gone by ILM or Industrial Light and Magic, who are an incredible effects house and also one of the oldest effects houses there is. ILM was founded in the 1970s by George fucking Lucas to make the effects for the original Star Wars trilogy. They are the reason the original Jurassic Park had CGI in the first place! They worked with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal and Tobe Hooper on Poltergeist, which has sone crazy awesome effects if you've never seen it. A part of ILM broke off in the 1990s and became fucking PIXAR!!

And Percy Jackson has had just the best looking effects I've seen in a long time. The creature work alone is worth so many awards. The minotaur was amazing.

And the illusion of Chiron is never broken, it's just seamless and perfect.

And don't get me started on Medusa's snakes. They're PERFECT. THEY ACT LIKE REAL SNAKES!!!

And the chimera was beautiful. I loved the decision to give it a cobra's frill.

Also, water is a notoriously difficult effect to do and all the water looks amazing in this show. I bet they pulled some people from the Avatar sequel to help with it.

And Grover's legs never look bad. They're always perfect. I love the decision to keep them exposed the whole time, it adds to the magical feeling of the world while also showcasing how powerful the Mist really is.

And one of my favorite effects HAS to be the way Mrs. Dodds' coat turned into her wings. I saw that and had an out of body experience.

But this most recent episode just blew me away. Specifically with this (these next gifs are by @stevenrogered) :

So, if you didn't know, tracking an effect onto someone's body is incredibly difficult. It's so difficult that CGI artists will often replace someone's body with a 3D model in order to make it easier. That could be what happens here in part, but they can't fake Walker's face.

Props to Walker for sitting as still as humanly possible during this incredibly emotional scene. Him sitting still helps make the tracking of the effect easier since the artists don't have to adjust the effect every frame to account for the slightest movements. Which brings me to the face.

It is so hard to animate human faces and not fall into the uncanny valley, and yes this effect applies to that. Look at the way the gold conforms to the shape of his mouth as he speaks. Look at how it follows the movement of his chin, his cheeks. It's PERFECT. This is an incredibly impressive effect and I wanna just worship whichever overworked and underpaid VFX artist spent hours of their life working on it.

Okay, that's all, rants over, everyone go home!

[piplupcola]

Writers trying to convince Disney execs not to cancel Nimona, Owl House, and many other IPs:

It's almost laughable how ironic this scene is with what a dumpster fire Wish turned out to be

[idiot-trashpanda]

just saw The Creator and i am having thoughts

a lot of reviews seem to focus on the sci-fi aspects, the fact that there's a war against A.I. and saying "this is a glimpse of what our world could be" without any hint of understand that this is what the world already is

sure, there's no war against A.I. but i think the more important part of the film is the depiction of U.S. imperialism and the wanton destruction and murder the U.S. military leaves everywhere it goes. in there muerderous quest to destroy all A.I. in revenge for something that was actually a human error, they murder thousands of innocent humans, adults and children alike. U.S. imperialism doesn't care how many it leaves dead, as long it achieves its objective.

to many people around the world watching this movie, where American missiles are launched at distant targets with no regard for who they kill, this film will be saddly familiar. over here in the imperial core, we have no idea what it feels like to be helpless in the face of such cruel destruction, but hundreds of millions of people around the world do.

so, like all good sci-fi, this wasn't a look at what the world could be if we let A.I. keep developing, but a look at how the world already is because we let the U.S. military industrial complex run amok

[pharawee]

Yoon Phusanu my beloved never disappoints and has indeed hired a gaggle of lawyers to go up against Y.Entertainment.

You can watch his whole press conference (with English subs) here.

It includes highlights such as:

Yoon would like to be fairly compensated because he has to provide for his family. His family are seven cats. He's brought pictures.

He's now officially gone freelance and Y.Ent are no longer allowed to use his name.

Yoon hasn't been paid in a very long time, even though he's tried to negotiate and reach an agreement. He's tired of having to run after his money.

He's "only" owed about 100.000 baht (~2.555€ / 2772$ / £2,192) but Yoon's lawyer states that this is a systematic problem and lots of actors in Series Y (Thai BL) aren't fairly compensated. Several actors have reached out to him personally. He also says that he doesn't put blame on the companies because Series Y is a very competitive field. Still, young actors should be careful about who they work with and stand up for themselves if they aren't treated fairly.

They're showing pictures of Yoon's cats again. Yoon has to provide for them, after all:

Yoon doesn't have acting work lined up right now but he's actively looking for new projects and is in talks to join a new agency.

I'm not sure if this only affects Yoon or the other actors who are owed money by Y.Ent as well but apparently the cut-off date for payment was 11 March. He was offered money after that date but didn't take it because he already knew that he wanted to terminate the contract. Apparently, he had been with Y.Ent for over 4 years and the contract was supposed to be a six year contract (I'm not too sure about this one since the subs are terrible and so is my Thai lmao). Because he's been with them for so long, the whole thing pretty much blindsided him.

Yoon's mother is supportive of him acting in Y Series.

Many other Thai BL actors have talked to Yoon about being treated unfairly and he wants to spread awareness about that.

Apparently, Y.Ent never stated a reason for not paying him. They only told him that he'd be paid at a later date.

Yoon's lawyer says that he has every right to sue but for now he only wants to negotiate. He again urges young actors to thoroughly check who they're working with.

Yoon is asked if this disagreement will cause him problems with other companies down the line but he says that he doesn't believe it will negatively affect him as he's trying to solve the issue peacefully.

Yoon's lawyer again says that actors should read their contracts very carefully. Some contracts don't give the actors any rights but only duties. They might then have to hire a laywer to be able to break contract.

Yoon then says that sometimes he wasn't sent the script before filming and when arrived on set all he'd be given was an old brief that he'd already read. He was then asked (by other crew etc) if he'd practiced his lines which of course he couldn't. This embarrassed him.

The lawyer also adds that there is often a discrepancy between the number of episodes in a series and queues for a shoot. I'm guessing that he means that the actors won't realise that they actually have to work more hours for less money (since compensation seems to be based on episodes rather than hours worked?). This is very difficult to renegotiate and almost no actor in their 20s can afford to settle this in court.

This isn't the first time Yoon has spoken up against the mistreatment of himself and other Thai BL actors in the industry and I'm so glad he has the means to stand up for himself when so many other actors obviously can't.

Fans are so quick to blame bad shows and weird behind-the-scenes stuff on the actors themselves when in reality it's so often due to mismanagement and mistreatment. Imagine not even having a script on shooting day (yes, I'm aware this is common practice in soap entertainment but these are rookie actors without the experience and support that seasoned soap actors have - also in this case it seems to have surprised even the crew on set). No wonder things were awkward in Unforgotten Night. Do you really think actors who don't have a script get to practice and negotiate their intimate scenes together?

And judging by what Tor Atagorn has spoken up about recently (and many other actors have alluded to in the past) this is only the very tip of the iceberg, with young and inexperienced actors deliberately trapped in contracts that they have no way of getting out of on their own.

Yoon's lawyer urged young actors to be more aware of who they're working for in order to better protect themselves. In a similar vein, BL watchers should ideally be more aware of whose shows they're watching and what companies have a shady track record.

If nothing else, do it for the cats! These actors have children they need to provide for, after all!

[misscammiedawn]

As an avid "break my spine at 90mph" roller coaster enjoyer I was kinda put out by Jenny taking a pot shot at Six Flags in the opening moments of her new Star Wars Hotel video but the distinction between Amusement Park and Theme Park felt fair and I kinda just let it go.

4 hours later I realize that the entire thesis of the video rests upon that sentiment. If Disney are price locking the theme part of the theme parks then they're basically transforming into themed malls with a couple of tame fairground rides. That's pretty dang inexcusable. Disney Parks are going to cut costs until the point of which Jenny's opening barb at Six Flags will be a *compliment* in comparison... and that's inexcusable.