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Aug. 11th, 2013 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. YA writer, Kristin Cashore discusses two articles she read on how to discuss polarizing topics with people with who you will never agree (in this case abortion, but it be applied to anything actually), and women's weight issues.
Here's an excerpt from the first one, entitled "Talking with the Enemy":
And the second one, A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A multiracial view of women's eating problems, by Becky W. Thompson, released in 1994.:
2. Finished watching Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino, last night.
It's more or less in the same vein as Tarantino's last film Inglorious Bastards - in which Christoph Waltz also won an Oscar for best supporting. A bloody revenge fantasy focusing on the consequences of racism and bigotry. In this regard, if no other, Tarantino reminds me a little bit of Mel Brooks - who also poked fun at racism and bigotry, as well as Trey Parker and his writing partner whose name presently escapes me. Tarantino is also similar to Brooks in how he parodies/homages old movies or rather old movie tropes. In Inglorious Bastards he homaged the pulp WWII movies. Here he homages the spaghetti westerns (westerns that were filmed in Italy during the 1960s and early 1970s featuring Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel, or Charles Bronson.). These tended to be fairly gritty and bloody westerns, with melodramatic music rolling through the background. Tarantino goes all out - with the music homages - covering everything from classics like The Outlaw Josey Wales to Jeremiah Johnson and El Dorado.
While the film was enjoyable, much like Bastards, it is difficult to watch in places. Actually more so - because Tarantino does not flinch at showing the horrors that Django experiences. Django makes Sergio Leon's Once Upon a Time in the Old West seem rather tame and G rated in comparison. In short, if uber-violence, blood and guts spattering, makes you want to cover your eyes or flee the room - this flick is not for you. But if you have ever watched a Tarantino film - you probably already know that. For example - in one scene, a runaway slave is depicted being torn apart by dogs. This is important - because it's a motivational turning point for Christoph Waltz's character. So I wouldn't call it gratuitous.
The scene is necessary to the plot and it also depicts the horror of slavery in technicolor.
The difference between Sergio Leon's Spaghetti Westerns and many of the Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s is Leon did not romanticize or white-wash the West. Instead Leon exaggerated the violence and the horrors of the time period. Tarantino does the same thing with at times, comic effect. Instead of slow-mo body twists, we have comical blood spurts. And screams of pain. Making fun of the fact that in many Westerns you rarely saw blood or heard pain, so much as a grunt.
You do hate the villains, even if they are almost comical in their over-the-top skating thisclose to stereotypical portrayals. I was yelling at them at one point - "Die Screaming! You Bastards!" Like I said it is not an easy film to watch in places, but none of Tarantino's films are necessarily for the weak of tummy. And he does like to blundegon you over the head a bit - subtle he's not.
That said there are a few rather comical bits in the first half that had me roaring with laughter. One dealt with the KKK. The first half of the movie is actually rather funny, it's the second half, after Leonardo Di Caprio's Calvin Candy pops up that is difficult to watch at times with one too many cringe moments, although since this is a Tarantino flick based on a spaghetti Western, you sort of know it'll end well, with the villains obtaining their just awards.
Overall...a mixed bag. I can see why it got nominated for awards, but rarely won.
3. Pop culture bits...
* Rather like the casting of
Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor. He's comical and a rather good physical comedian.
Shame he couldn't have been the Doctor in a relationship with River Song - that would have worked better for me. I can see him being an older version of Ten. But other than that, I like the casting choice. (Let's face it - they'd never in a million years go with my preference - which is Helen Mirren, Miranda Richardson, or Idris Elba - the Brits are just as sexist and racist as the Americans when it comes to pulp icons, sad but oh so true. But hey, look on the bright side, at least they aren't into age discrimination or requiring an attractive buff boy).
* CBS vs. TWC battle continues. I've given up. Wrote a letter to Congress about the cable blackouts, wrote posts to TWC, and still no changes. Beginning to see why so many people have cut their TV cable subscriptions. Except I like NY1 News and the convenience of cable.
It's how I watch tv - requires less keeping track of things. And I really don't want to buy tv shows. Oh well, the only tv show that CBS carries that I really care about is The Good Wife - I can probably stream it on Amazon Prime for free.
4. Beginning to get burned out on Romance Novels, yes, I know...finally. But I can't find anything else I want to read or ache to read. Right now - if it's not work related, I only read what I crave. Less intellectual and informative, the better. In short - I'm on an extended pulp kick. But a decidedly "non-violent" pulp kick. This does pose a problem however, since the only pulp genre that is not extremely violent is romance. Annoying that.
I suppose I could switch to cozy mysteries...or family sagas.
5. Was able to walk a little bit in my sneaker, no boot yesterday. Foot is a little weak and sore. This is going to take a lot of time and patience. On plus side, I appear to be losing not gaining weight...mainly because it requires way too much effort to go buy a lot of food.
Here's an excerpt from the first one, entitled "Talking with the Enemy":
For six years, leaders on both sides of the abortion debate have met in secret in an attempt to better understand each other. Now they are ready to share what they have learned.
In the morning of Dec. 30, 1994, John Salvi walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline and opened fire with a rifle. He seriously wounded three people and killed the receptionist, Shannon Lowney, as she spoke on the phone. He then ran to his car and drove two miles down Beacon Street to Preterm health Services, where he began shooting again, injuring two and killing receptionist Lee Ann Nichols.
Salvi's 20-minute rampage shocked the nation. Prochoice advocates were grief-stricken, angry, and terrified. Prolife proponents were appalled as well as concerned that their cause would be connected with this horrifying act. Governor William F. Weld and Cardinal Bernard Law, among others, called for talks between prochoice and prolife leaders.
We are six leaders, three prochoice and three prolife, who answered this call. For nearly 5 1/2 years, we have met together privately for more than 150 hours - an experience that has astonished us. Now, six years after the shootings in Brookline, and on the 28th anniversary of the US Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, we publicly disclose our meetings for the first time.
How did the six of us, activists from two embattled camps, ever find our way to the same table?
In the months following the shootings, the Public Conversations Project, a Boston-based national group that designs and conducts dialogues about divisive public issues, consulted many community leaders about the value of top-level talks about abortion.
Encouraged by these conversations, the project in July 1995 invited the six of us to meet together four times. The meetings would be confidential and we would attend as individuals, not as representatives of our organizations.
Our talks would not aim for common ground or compromise. Instead, the goals of our conversations would be to communicate openly with our opponents, away from the polarizing spotlight of media coverage; to build relationships of mutual respect and understanding; to help deescalate the rhetoric of the abortion controversy; and, of course, to reduce the risk of future shootings.
And the second one, A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: A multiracial view of women's eating problems, by Becky W. Thompson, released in 1994.:
Vera's experience raises the question of whether there is something inherently wrong with using food as a comfort when something terrible occurs. If it soothes someone in a time of extraordinary grief – why not? For some of the women, a sign of recovery was coming to see eating as a reasonable way to cope with adversity given other "choices." These questions bring the discussion full circle, since answering them rests on social and political analysis. The "just say no to food and yes to life" approach to eating problems, like the "just say no to drugs" ideas of the Reagan-Bush years, reduces complex issues of social justice and access to resources to psychological issues of self-control and will power. As long as the violence and social injustices that women link to the origins and perpetuation of their eating problems exist, women may continue to binge, purge, and starve themselves.
2. Finished watching Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino, last night.
It's more or less in the same vein as Tarantino's last film Inglorious Bastards - in which Christoph Waltz also won an Oscar for best supporting. A bloody revenge fantasy focusing on the consequences of racism and bigotry. In this regard, if no other, Tarantino reminds me a little bit of Mel Brooks - who also poked fun at racism and bigotry, as well as Trey Parker and his writing partner whose name presently escapes me. Tarantino is also similar to Brooks in how he parodies/homages old movies or rather old movie tropes. In Inglorious Bastards he homaged the pulp WWII movies. Here he homages the spaghetti westerns (westerns that were filmed in Italy during the 1960s and early 1970s featuring Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel, or Charles Bronson.). These tended to be fairly gritty and bloody westerns, with melodramatic music rolling through the background. Tarantino goes all out - with the music homages - covering everything from classics like The Outlaw Josey Wales to Jeremiah Johnson and El Dorado.
While the film was enjoyable, much like Bastards, it is difficult to watch in places. Actually more so - because Tarantino does not flinch at showing the horrors that Django experiences. Django makes Sergio Leon's Once Upon a Time in the Old West seem rather tame and G rated in comparison. In short, if uber-violence, blood and guts spattering, makes you want to cover your eyes or flee the room - this flick is not for you. But if you have ever watched a Tarantino film - you probably already know that. For example - in one scene, a runaway slave is depicted being torn apart by dogs. This is important - because it's a motivational turning point for Christoph Waltz's character. So I wouldn't call it gratuitous.
The scene is necessary to the plot and it also depicts the horror of slavery in technicolor.
The difference between Sergio Leon's Spaghetti Westerns and many of the Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s is Leon did not romanticize or white-wash the West. Instead Leon exaggerated the violence and the horrors of the time period. Tarantino does the same thing with at times, comic effect. Instead of slow-mo body twists, we have comical blood spurts. And screams of pain. Making fun of the fact that in many Westerns you rarely saw blood or heard pain, so much as a grunt.
You do hate the villains, even if they are almost comical in their over-the-top skating thisclose to stereotypical portrayals. I was yelling at them at one point - "Die Screaming! You Bastards!" Like I said it is not an easy film to watch in places, but none of Tarantino's films are necessarily for the weak of tummy. And he does like to blundegon you over the head a bit - subtle he's not.
That said there are a few rather comical bits in the first half that had me roaring with laughter. One dealt with the KKK. The first half of the movie is actually rather funny, it's the second half, after Leonardo Di Caprio's Calvin Candy pops up that is difficult to watch at times with one too many cringe moments, although since this is a Tarantino flick based on a spaghetti Western, you sort of know it'll end well, with the villains obtaining their just awards.
Overall...a mixed bag. I can see why it got nominated for awards, but rarely won.
3. Pop culture bits...
* Rather like the casting of
Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor. He's comical and a rather good physical comedian.
Shame he couldn't have been the Doctor in a relationship with River Song - that would have worked better for me. I can see him being an older version of Ten. But other than that, I like the casting choice. (Let's face it - they'd never in a million years go with my preference - which is Helen Mirren, Miranda Richardson, or Idris Elba - the Brits are just as sexist and racist as the Americans when it comes to pulp icons, sad but oh so true. But hey, look on the bright side, at least they aren't into age discrimination or requiring an attractive buff boy).
* CBS vs. TWC battle continues. I've given up. Wrote a letter to Congress about the cable blackouts, wrote posts to TWC, and still no changes. Beginning to see why so many people have cut their TV cable subscriptions. Except I like NY1 News and the convenience of cable.
It's how I watch tv - requires less keeping track of things. And I really don't want to buy tv shows. Oh well, the only tv show that CBS carries that I really care about is The Good Wife - I can probably stream it on Amazon Prime for free.
4. Beginning to get burned out on Romance Novels, yes, I know...finally. But I can't find anything else I want to read or ache to read. Right now - if it's not work related, I only read what I crave. Less intellectual and informative, the better. In short - I'm on an extended pulp kick. But a decidedly "non-violent" pulp kick. This does pose a problem however, since the only pulp genre that is not extremely violent is romance. Annoying that.
I suppose I could switch to cozy mysteries...or family sagas.
5. Was able to walk a little bit in my sneaker, no boot yesterday. Foot is a little weak and sore. This is going to take a lot of time and patience. On plus side, I appear to be losing not gaining weight...mainly because it requires way too much effort to go buy a lot of food.
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Date: 2013-08-11 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 09:23 pm (UTC)Baghead 1: "Who designed these bags, I can't see a thing."
Baghead 2: My wife worked all night cutting holes in these bags and this is the appreciation we get? I'm out of here.
Baghead 1: So can we take them off now, since we can't see?
Don Johnson: It doesn't matter if we, our horses can see.
Baghead 1 (who I think is Jonah Hill): But how are we supposed to do an effective ambush if we can't see anything?
Chaos ensues. So eh, apparently not that effectively. Actually, it's worth watching the movie just for that scene.
The Spaghetti Westerns usually are after the Civil War, with ex-confederate soliders becoming outlaws and sometimes protagonists. You never see the KKK in them. So I wondered where he got the idea from.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:28 am (UTC)Almost everything Tarantino does is a pastiche of or homage to something else. I think much of his popularity is rooted in his obvious love for movies. Inglorious Basterds, in particular, is as much a movie about films, film making, and the power of movies as its surface subjects.
I've got a very good friend who is an amateur film scholar... and he was very good at catching most of what Tarantino was referencing. One can gain a lot from an annotated version of Tarantino if you can handle his preference toward vulgarity.