More links found on reading list worth mentioning...

[shadowkat]

1. Uhm...whoa? A demonstration of what happens when a country's democracy implodes.

What’s it like to watch a country implode? To see a democracy destroyed and an economy crater?

Since 2014, American journalist Hannah Dreier has documented just that in Venezuela, once one of the world’s wealthiest nations and still home to what are believed to be the planet’s largest oil reserves. She wrote for the Associated Press about what it was like to live in a place with the world’s highest murder rate—and the world’s highest rate of inflation. About the breakdown of hospitals and schools, and how the obesity epidemic that plagued a rich country was quickly replaced with people so hungry they were rooting through the garbage on her doorstep.

Most of the time, few paid attention, at least in part because Dreier was the last U.S. journalist even to get a work visa to live in Venezuela; when she moved there to cover the story, she says, “I felt like I had walked across a bridge as it was burning behind me.”

2. Ugh.

Rise of the Valkyries

Lokteff, who is in her late thirties, addressed an audience of a few hundred people seated in a room with beige walls, drab lighting, and dark-red curtains. The location, a building in the historic Södermalm neighborhood of Stockholm, Sweden, had been secured only the previous night, after several other venues had refused to host the event, billed as an “ideas” conference. Lokteff wore a white blouse and a crocheted black shawl over her trim figure, with a microphone headset fitted over her long blond hair. In addition to the attendees seated before her, she spoke to viewers watching a livestream. “When women get involved,” she declared, “a movement becomes a serious threat.”

Since Trump’s election in November, that same idea had inspired more than 4,000 women to contact EMILY’s List, an organization that backs female pro-choice candidates across the United States, about running for office. It had compelled women to organize a series of marches that brought millions of anti-Trump protesters into streets around the world.

To Lokteff, however, those women were the enemy. She is a member of the “alt-right,” the insurgent white-nationalist faction that backed Trump’s campaign. A motley coalition of online provocateurs, the alt-right opposes political correctness and multiculturalism. Many of its supporters rhapsodize about the eventual creation of white ethnostates in Europe and North America. The group is the offspring of various extremist ideologies — the European New Right, identitarianism, paleoconservatism, and Nazism, to name a few.

The alt-right is widely considered a movement of young white men, and Lokteff was trying to rally women to the cause. “It was women that got Trump elected,” she said. “And, I guess, to be really edgy, it was women that got Hitler elected.”1 The crowd applauded and cheered.

Ugh, and here I thought it was going to be a cool article about Norse Mythology. Not so much. Instead it's an article about demonic female nazis.

3. And just in case the above article wasn't bad enough...here's more fodder.

The usually quiet university city of Charlottesville, Virginia, declared a state of emergency Saturday morning, and three people died in events related to the melee surrounding a scheduled "Unite the Right" gathering of far-right extremists that led to violent clashes with counterprotesters.

The state of Virginia declared the gathering unlawful and ordered both rallygoers and counterprotesters to "disperse immediately," but tensions boiled over in the city's streets well into the afternoon Saturday.

The Virginia State Police posted videos on Facebook of officers breaking up the Unite the Right gathering and counterprotest. Warning: The videos contain some offensive language and images.

One video shows an officer in announcing to milling crowds: "This gathering has been declared as to be an unlawful assembly; in the name of the Commonwealth, you are commanded to immediately disperse; if you do not disperse immediately you will be arrested.” Another video shows some of the crowd.

This is the Science Fiction and Fantasy community's response.

Yes, these examples are fictional. And yes, it’s far more important that we fight white supremacy in the real world, by donating to organizations like the NAACP, having tough conversations with our family members and friends, showing up to protests, calling our representatives – or just refusing to shut up when we see bigotry. However, fiction can make us feel less helpless, and it can remind us what we stand for. With science fiction, fantasy, and comics in particular, these imagined worlds and heroes can remind us what kind of person we want to be, and what kind of future we want to create. We need those reminders, and those inspirations, on days when it’s easy to despair at humanity.

As Jemisin tweeted before she signed off to do some work, “Ideas can change the world.”

Hmmm...this is another answer to a previous post that I wrote pondering the artist and writer's responsibility to inspire change and to write about this things in a constructive manner. (As opposed to a destructive one.)


4. 2019 - two women superhero films in a 30 day span

Hmmm...they are making a movie with Silver Sable and Black Cat, two lesser known female superheroes in the Spiderman books.

The movie is set to hit theaters on February 8, 2019 – four months after Sony’s Venom, and exactly one month before Captain Marvel arrives on March 8, 2019.

This release date means Silver and Black comes out only 28 days before Captain Marvel (thanks, February!), so we get two women-led superhero movies in less than 30 days. Yessss.

Aside from that, though, I’m not sure what to make of this choice. On the one hand, February is traditionally a cinematic “dump month,” when studios release their films with lower box office expectations. I don’t love the idea of Sony dropping this film – with its two female leads, helmed by the first black woman to direct a big-budget superhero movie – in a cinematic graveyard. After D.C.’s lackluster marketing for Wonder Woman, I’m out of tolerance for studios constant underestimating and underselling of women-led and women-created films. Prince-Blythewood, who’s doing a rewrite of Thor: The Dark World scribe Christopher Yost’s script for Silver and Black, wrote and directed an honest-to-goodness modern classic with Love & Basketball. Maybe have a little faith in her?

5. New NASA Space Training Video Featuring Gina Torres Makes me wish I was a whole lot younger and could train to be an astronaut. Well almost. I'm claustropic and 6 feet tall, not conducive to astronaut training.

6. Hollywood Summer Blockbuster Films Flopped at the Box Office via the Guardian. (Hmm, should tell Hollywood, they don't think they flopped.)

The defining lesson of this year’s flop crop: there’s no such thing as a sure thing. We’ve watched studios incrementally move away from original, creator-driven projects seen as “risky” (meanwhile, the first-time director Jordan Peele’s Get Out is the most profitable film of the year, with a $175m payday on a measly $4.5m budget) towards franchises and other projects ostensibly boasting built-in audiences through brand recognition. But this summer, audiences drew a line under what they’ll buy into on simple merit of nostalgia or the sunk-time fallacy, and now the chickens of failure have come home to roost.

2017 was the year that moviegoers finally rejected presumption. This year saw a crop of films boldly positing themselves as franchise-starters crash and burn on arrival, learning the hard way that audiences don’t want to spend 90 minutes on what feels like setup for something they’ll get in two years. The Dark Tower condensed seven novels of knotty Stephen King prose into one incomprehensible package that then positioned itself as Act I in a grander, dumber vision with its final minutes.

................

While public discourse continues to rage over the position and utility of identity politics – the championing of marginalized groups along lines of gender, race and sexuality – executives have found that the topic isn’t so embattled in cineplexes. Girls Trip, Wonder Woman and Get Out all earned public goodwill by offering someone other than a white man their moment in the spotlight, and proved that audiences aren’t afraid of diversity. Quite the opposite, in fact; white men have been calling their bankability into question left and right. Once upon a time, the mention of Will Ferrell, Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp would have been enough to sell The House, a Mummy revival or another lackluster Pirates of the Caribbean flick. But with no wattage to hide behind, The House face-planted and the latter pair failed to meet earnings expectations, despite objectively large sums.

Which leaves the confounding case of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. On paper, it should have been huge: an unfamiliar story in a time when audiences grumble over Hollywood’s lack of creativity, a ravishing sci-fi spectacle with enough CGI to make Avatar look like a student film, a cast featuring a supermodel and a pop star bringing their huge followings to the table. Perhaps in practice, it was all too outré to sell to the American people, an incoherent mishmash when compressed into ad form.

Maybe critics wield more power than conventionally assumed, as the majority of reviews warned that the complete bafflement of the ad campaign carried over to the film itself. Either way, the most expensive independent production of all time had to rely on overseas markets to make its money back, settling for a $37m haul in the US. (Things are just peachy in China, Hollywood’s twin to the east; its entertainment economy keeps growing as US films develop a foothold, with Wolf Warrior II’s nearly $600m take setting the national record for highest-grossing film of all time.)

Hmm...rather interesting. I admittedly have only seen one film in theaters this summer, and that was Wonder Woman. Nothing else really appealed to me. And movies cost $20 bucks, without treats. Cheaper to rent on demand or subscribe to HBO monthly.


7. The Hugos Awards are Announced

Best Novel: The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit Books)
Best Novella: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
Best Novelette: “The Tomato Thief” by Ursula Vernon (Apex Magazine, January 2016)
Best Short Story: “Seasons of Glass and Iron” by Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, Saga Press)
Best Related Work: Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016 by Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)
Best Graphic Story: Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening, written by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image)
Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form: Arrival, screenplay by Eric Heisserer based on a short story by Ted Chiang, directed by Denis Villeneuve (21 Laps Entertainment/FilmNation Entertainment/Lava Bear Films)
Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form: The Expanse: “Leviathan Wakes,” written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, directed by Terry McDonough (SyFy)
Best Editor – Short Form: Ellen Datlow
Best Editor – Long Form: Liz Gorinsky
Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon
Best Semiprozine: Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, Julia Rios, and podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky
Best Fanzine: “Lady Business,” edited by Clare, Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay, and Susan
Best Fancast: Tea and Jeopardy, presented by Emma Newman with Peter Newman
Best Fan Writer: Abigail Nussbaum
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Ada Palmer (1st year of eligibility)
Best Series: The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)


Hmmm...for once, I'm actually intrigued by the winners. (I don't really care that much about awards, highly subjective things, but this years slate of winners is rather intriguing.) Best fan writer surprised, it's the blogger I'd been following for a while on LJ, but stopped once I hopped over to DW, because I couldn't figure out how to add her blog to my reading list on DW. Abigail Nussbaum of "Asking the Wrong Questions", she does a lot of insightful reviews of sci-fi and fantasy, and meta on the above. She also edits a OnZine with sci-fi stuff, and is an Isralie programmer/coder.

I also tend to agree with the winners for dramatic presentation, best series, and they left off the one who won non-fiction memoir category -- it was Ursula Le Quinn, whose book I'm considering purchasing.

So for once, I'm intrigued. And most of the winners were women. Take that you white supremacist male asswipes. (For those not in the know? The Hugos have been plagued the last few years by a lot whingy white male supremacist types who think they can aspire to their heroes of yesteryear, but alas do not and are rather unreadable.)

Comments

[conuly]

Ugh, and here I thought it was going to be a cool article about Norse Mythology. Not so much. Instead it's an article about demonic female nazis.

Fascinating, though, in the way that all bizarre and strange things can be.

[ex_peasant441]

Sorry, I really don't want to risk another row with you but your comment about Venezuala is plain wrong. Venezuala is a textbook example of socialism. It has been held up for years by left wing extremists like Corbyn as a model socialist state. What is happening is the exact opposite of capitalism. In Venezuela, the destructive force of socialism is at work

[shadowkat]

Thank you for pointing out the error in the link title, it has been corrected. The article actually just stated "when a country's democracy implodes" it had no mention of the economic system.

[shadowkat]

I should probably point this out to avoid further misunderstandings...

While you associate socialism with Corbyn, I am beginning to associate free-market capitalism with Donald J. Trump.

Want to trade? We'll take Corbyn and you can have Trump. Heck, we'll even throw in McConnell and Paul Ryan as freebies.

[yourlibrarian]

That Guardian article echoed something I heard on NPR over the past week, about how this summer's box office take was a disappointment, with the exception of the long-running Wonder Woman. However, Petzi posted today about the response to Bonnie & Clyde and what leaped out at me was that people were reviewing it for 3 months even though the movie had supposedly been pulled from many theaters fairly quickly because the studio had no faith in it (and early reviews were scathing).

I can't imagine something like that happening today. We also had the case of movies like Princess Bride that flopped in the theater but became major hits as a result of the secondary rental market (VHS in those days) and later DVD purchases. Now even DVD sales are down and movies are crowded into a theater so that they often run 3 weeks before disappearing. My local theater has one IMAX screen and I learned quickly that if I wanted to see a movie on it, I had to do so opening week. It's quite rare for the same film to run longer than that on it. The theater is STILL offering 1 showing of Wonder Woman daily but it was never returned to the big screen.

(As a sidenote, I see they're still showing Despicable Me 3 all day in 1 screen, so it couldn't have been that big a flop)

And the glut of movies and now streaming services make it much less likely that a film will find an audience in the home viewing market. I still remember going to the video rental place and looking over the dozen or so new releases each week. Some were titles I knew, most weren't but I was likely to try some out especially if staff reviews were attached. I am apparently a really odd duck -- I've always paid attention to reviews. But as the Guardian article points out, that's apparently no help to a film. The Emoji film got horrid reviews and yet it's still in the top 5 films, how is that even possible?

I actually thought this summer was above average. I saw three movies and liked all of them, two of them a lot. Sad about Atomic Blonde, it deserved better. I feel a lot worse for a well made film that failed to get a big audience than a movie that should have had a lot going for it (Stephen King and Idris Elba) but didn't do a good job.

[shadowkat]

I agree.

In the 1930s, Wizard of Oz bombed at the box office. It did not do well at all. And Dirty Dancing shocked people, it was supposed to just air in local art houses for about a week or two, limited run, and go direct to video. Low budget art-house film. But word of mouth on it was so good, it got a broader release.

Critics are often useless for blockbuster films -- because the demographic doesn't read the reviews or care. They decide whether or not to go see it based on the trailer and marketing campaign. Or word of mouth. None of my co-workers read film reviews and few people that I know offline do. They hate the spoilers and prefer to see it for themselves or based on their friends reports. And let's face it for a film like Wonder Woman, do you really care what a New York Times film critic thinks? It's a superhero film.

The other problem is accessibility. I know that I can see all current releases "On Demand" or by streaming in six to eight months, sometimes less, for no more than $5.99, if that, at home. Unless it requires a big screen, I'm going to wait.
That's how I felt about Atomic Blonde, Spiderman, Dunkirk, and various others. Wonder Woman -- I had at least two different people who wanted to see it - ask me to go with them. Otherwise I probably would have waited. The reason for that is we have crappy movie theaters in my area. And the audiences are rude -- they text message during the film, or use cell phones. During Wonder Woman the idiotic woman sitting next to me checked her cell phone every fifteen minutes. Finally fed up, I nudged her and asked her to stop it. And during La La Land, a bunch of rowdy kids kept checking theirs.
Luckily I had two people between me and them.

The seats are smaller. The floor sticks. And it's just not that pleasant an experience. While my parents theater has arm chair recliners and a strict ban on text messaging or use of cell phones.

I think that may have a lot to do with it. I didn't use to be this picky, but movies cost between 15-20 dollars a ticket.
It's just cheaper and more enjoyable to watch them at home.

[yourlibrarian]

I don't blame you, especially since visits to your local theater aren't pleasant. Ours is walking distance, was remodeled 2 years ago, and we go early on a weekday so there's rarely more than 30 people in a large theater. So we're never sitting near anyone.

Even so, this is a high movie viewing year for me. I said 3 movies but I forgot I went to see one during my visit to California, plus I know I'll be seeing at least 2 more movies in the theater before year's end. It's been quite some time since I went to see a movie on average every other month. Most of the time I prefer to watch at home. A big part is cost plus convenience, as well as simply not being so interested in a movie that I mind being spoiled for it by the time I see it.

And let's face it for a film like Wonder Woman, do you really care what a New York Times film critic thinks? It's a superhero film.

Well yes and no -- I don't care what the Times specifically has to say about it. But I definitely do care about its Rotten Tomatoes score, and what reviewers in general have been saying about it. I usually don't read reviews in their entirety before seeing something but I do pay attention to what they're saying a movie did well or poorly, as well as whether they recommend seeing it. That'll generally determine whether I see it at all, and if I do, how soon. After I've seen a movie I'll sometimes look up reviews as well just because I'm curious what they have to say about it, especially since I very rarely see reviews for films in fandom these days, at least within the same time frame in which I've seen something.

[shadowkat]

I admittedly read the reviews...so I meant generally. And do pay attention to Rotten Tomatoes..but also will read to determine if I agree with the reviewer first. Because my tastes are often quite different from the reviewer. (For example - I actually liked Batman Vs. Superman better than Man of Steel and the Avengers: Age of Ultron (which I thought was too busy and like watching a noisy video game.)

So, it depends.

I used to have a movie theater within walking distance, two actually. But alas, I had to move, so now movie theaters are a 20-30 minute train ride away. Neither quite worth the trip.

[yourlibrarian]

Some movies I know I want to watch beforehand, but if the advance word isn't good, I'll just see it at home. (I'm definitely going to be looking closely at reviews for the next Thor, which have not enthused me so far). Some movies are a toss up but if the reviews are enthusiastic, like for Guardians 2, I may go see it in the theater.

And some are critical to my having seen the movie at all. I'd heard nothing about Atomic Blonde until about 10 days before it was released here. The reviewer compared it to Dunkirk in quality, which was itself making headlines due to its nearly unanimous raves. I'd seen a commercial but other than knowing it was an action movie with a female lead, I'd no idea whether it was worth watching. After that review I decided to go (plus, supporting female leads, who in this case was also a producer, with my dollars). I probably wouldn't have seen it otherwise because I think no one else on my flist has watched it yet.

[shadowkat]

Hmmm, the trailers and word of mouth that I've seen to date for Thor has been mainly positive, while Guardians had a far more mixed word of mouth (too much action, not enough character, very busy and can't see it if you haven't seen the first version.) That's why I skipped Guardians 2, to be honest. Will probably catch on demand or streaming. Same with Rogue One.