MerrySkeptic

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

Space: Above and Beyond

Set in the 2050s as mankind has learned to predict and use naturally occurring wormholes for interstellar travel, they are drawn into a war with a new alien species that destroyed a colony. The show focuses on a squadron of fighter pilots in space. One of them is a cloned, enhanced human used to fight in an earth bound war against synthetics and is seen as subhuman by many.

The show had a very good plot, a serialized story but also self contained episodes, interesting moral dilemmas. But it was horribly marketed by Fox so it died after a season or two. The final episode was a huge cliffhanger too.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

A coodle doodle do! A coodle doodle do!

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 days ago

It forces the administration to keep looking at the problem. They can't pretend things are back to business as usual. The administration has to decide how to respond. Will their response continue to alienate students and faculty who have an ounce of empathy? Or will it begin to address their previous mistakes in a meaningful way. Either way, these students are forcing the conversation. Even if the administration does nothing at all, that is in itself a message.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 days ago

I tried to watch Downton Abbey with my wife. I can appreciate the acting, costumes, and sets, but I could really not have cared less about the minutiae of the lives of 1910s British upper class and their servants

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

Buttery males

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Just finished the latest season of Invincible. Overall I enjoy it, even is sometimes the animation is meh. This season really did a good job of showing the tension between taking a principled moral stand vs practical realities. Sometimes you can be a good person, or you can save the world, but you can't always have both

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Love The Expanse. If you haven't tried them, I highly recommend the audiobooks. The narrator is fantastic and obviously there's so much more detail

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

From the article:

Brian Cullen, an attorney for the school district, said Monday he was pleased with what he called a well-reasoned ruling that affirms that school districts can and should protect students from harassment from adults on school grounds. And he noted that the ruling doesn’t prevent the plaintiffs from expressing their views in other ways.

“It simply prevents them from bringing their protest to the sidelines of a game being played by kids. That should not be a controversial limitation,” he said.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yes, private organizations can set their own rules. That doesn't change the basis of this ruling.

If a private club league had their own rules that said (among other things) "We do not tolerate promoting views that exclude on the basis of sexual identity during league events," then the league would be within its rights to remove anyone violating that rule. Absent that, free speech applies. Especially for wearing something as vague as a pink bracelet.

Re: your example, there are many organizations that exclude on the basis of religion and sexual orientation. The Boy Scouts, for example, still require that members sign a Declaration of Religious Principle saying that they believe in some sort of higher power. This excludes atheists and agnostics. They also used to exclude homosexuals. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor back in the late 90s or early 00s that as a private organization they had the right to exclude whoever they wanted. They changed their stance on homosexuality voluntarily, but the SC ruling still applies. It is public institutions that cannot exclude, not private.

As far as this ruling goes, it's not about the message it's about the target and the fact that it was at a school function.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Don't misunderstand, people. The key here isn't that it's hate speech. All kinds of unpopular views are protected by the First Amendment. This is why you can still see Trump supporters waving Nazi flags in parades. If it was just because it was deemed hate speech, well then we should all be worried because Trump's government is now saying that anyone who preaches hate against America is subject to deportation.

The key is that it happened at a school event. The FA doesn't apply to non-students at school events if students are the target of speech meant to harass or demean. If this had happened at a club soccer game as opposed to a school event they would have been protected.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The real answer will be that the Bible doesn't mention aliens, or that people's reported encounters with aliens are actually demons

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Keefe spotting Kelvin on the bench press

7
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Not sure how to spoiler tag so if I need to do that please let me know how.

I really liked this movie. I didn't know much about it going in and highly recommend it that way for anyone else. However for anyone reading this that hasn't seen it (apparently you don't care about spoilers), know that this is graphically violent thriller, and there's a pretty intense scene that could be a sexual assault trigger for some.

Right off the bat when they started us off in Chapter 3, I knew that things were not as they seemed. I think most people will be able to guess fairly early on that the "victim" is actually the hunter and the "hunter" is actually the victim here simply because the nonsequential storytelling is a tipoff. In less capable hands, this would be a gimmick that cheapens the movie. But it was executed so well I don't even mind that I could see the twist coming.

The director, JT Mollner, wanted this to be a movie that was primarily felt, and he succeeded. I was viscerally uncomfortable in the rape scene that turned out to be consensual role play, and I wasn't even sure it was consensual because they faked us out with the mock disappointment with the choking early on! When she said her safe word I exhaled with relief. I felt angry at how the Lady played on the wounded female tropes, and especially angry at the female deputy for not listening to the older male cop. But then I realized I would have probably done the same thing she did, seeing a bleeding, handcuffed woman with her pants down, so I couldn't be too mad. Mollner does an excellent job creating tension between the story as it plays out challenging a lot of modern gender sensibilities.

The cinematography was fantastic, and I was surprised to learn that actor Giovanni Ribisi was Director of Principal Photography for this movie. Excellent use of color, contrast, and focus. It may not pay as much as acting, but he has talent and I hope he keeps this up.

Speaking of acting, the two leads were flawless. Willa Fitzgerald showed an incredible range, from victim, sexpot, insane killer, etc. Kyle Gallner has a believable, quiet intensity, with flashes of sexy charm but also murderous rage. I expect to see a lot more of both of them. Their characters are smart and the emotion-driven choices are pretty believable for the most part (I'm also factoring in the drugs).

There's little details that are fun to contemplate, like the juxtaposition between the scene of Chapters 1 and 2, the Blue Angel Motel, and Gallner's character's name, the Demon. This name, by the way, is another great misdirect, as it is prominent in the opening credits but only later do we learn that he's named so because the Lady is crazy and thinks she sees and is killing devils.

All in all, great movie, highly recommend and I can't wait to watch it again so I can have all the context when I watch the first half again.

 
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