"Beneath This Mask Another Mask"
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 23:22 (eighteen years ago) link
Perhaps I don't understand the problem with granting 'absolute moral superiority' to a guy opposing (essentially) the Nazis? I can understand how doing so could make for a boring movie, but I don't really grasp the moral objection.
― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post to kf...
there are some older classics. don't fret too bad. as a music fan tho, i'm a little on the fence still about cp+aatj's classic status in 15 years from now. at least he didn't get jiggy with "my humps" or some mediocre boy band of the moment.
m.
― msp (mspa), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link
i'm suddenly reminded of the spawn soundtrack... featuring metal/hip hop hybrids i think... coworkers subjected it to me.
it's nowhere near that bad.m.
― msp (mspa), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 23:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Shame about Portman's accent...she has a great English accent actually, but it's a little posh girl voice instead of a wee urchin.
David Lloyd was there, giving a little talk about how happy he was with the film, and pleading with fanboys of the original to 'just go with it' and recognise that while some things have been changed, the essential spirit is still there.
That newsweek quote up there is really annoying: "the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia". Well perhaps the reason it seems 'clumsy' is that actually, no, it's isn't just about fucking america!
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 01:12 (eighteen years ago) link
Supremely ironic considering the book was a reaction to Thatcher's England. :D
Seeing all these reviews condemning it for portraying a terrorist as a hero make me really curious--in the comic, V was never the out-and-out hero. Anarchy was presented as the ideal form of government (real anarchy), but the fact that V was killing innocent people, torturing Evey, and making things a lot worse before they were better wasn't dismissed. Also, it was made pretty clear that he was absolutely insane. Does the movie gloss over all this, or are these reviewers merely very dense and hypersensitive to any image of a man blowing up a building?
(Completely unrelated aside: so is a "freedom fighter" just a terrorist who has more of a goal than just scaring people, or just one who is fighting a "bad government"?)
― Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 02:08 (eighteen years ago) link
And James Wolcott's peevish dismissal of Denby's drift towards (ahem) "neo-conservatism":
I anticipated that my Upper West Side neighbor David Denby--such a trial for him, bumping into me wherever he goes--would render a negative verdict on V for Vendetta, and so he does, rapping his gavel with stern monotonony as he pronounces sentence. With this review and his pan of Why We Fight, I fear David is drifting toward neoconservatism, a doctrine more congenial to the sort of principled stands he likes to take, offering more room for rhetorical heroism. I pray I am wrong.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 03:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― gunther heartymeal (keckles), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 05:01 (eighteen years ago) link
I think they know that. Their point was that times have changed and the film launches at a time when Cameron is reforming the Tory leftwards.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 07:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 07:56 (eighteen years ago) link
Hah!
― Soukesian, Wednesday, 15 March 2006 08:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 08:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 09:51 (eighteen years ago) link
the book (am just re-reading this) has WWIII happening in about 1987, nuking of africa, nuclear winter over europe, fascists coming to power due to lack of anything else. book is set in 1997-1998. he's just sent out valentines. it is a very english book, am quite annoyed that it's been repositioned as anti-american.
(is great to see lloyd's art on buses btw)
(in an interview at the time moore said words to the effect of 'we had supposed that it would take a nuclear war to make england veer towards fascism. in the end all it took was giving people the right to buy their own council house...')
― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 09:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 10:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 10:42 (eighteen years ago) link
No, it doesn't. V is still morally very dubious and at times is frightening, and Evey is much more resistant to him and his ideas than she was in the book. The relationship ends up being kind of similar to that of Jack and Tyler in Fight Club, actually, and I think the film manages to maintain a similarly detached attitude to its 'hero'. Whichever review it was that said "She kisses him, therefore the film agress with him about everything" was just mindless.
am quite annoyed that it's been repositioned as anti-american.
I don't think it has. It's still very british, and politically is perhaps more believable than the original. The ruling government is explicitly shown to be a third party (not labour or tory) who gained power on a wave of post-terror fear and a swing to the right in the electorate, not the ruling power, ie yes, people did bring it on themselves. Unlike the book, this didn't require anything as drastic as a collapse-then-rebuilding of government after a nuclear war, just (what appeared to be) a large scale terrorist attack followed by the promise of protection. So the society they end up with (in the film) does feel less removed from where we are now, and that strengthens the story a lot I think. The feeling is that the people haven't had their freedoms forcibly taken away, so much as they've willingly given them up in return for their security. Which for my money means that the film is definitely anti-British rather than anti-American (Hello ID cards, etc).
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 10:58 (eighteen years ago) link
Again though, this meant it felt closer to reality, and therefore, I think, better. The acceptance of dictatorship was an insidious, electorate-approved thing, not a seizing of control by an unpopular power.
everyone in the movie seemed well fed and well dressed and pretty content.
Kind of like in modern day China, perhaps? It doesn't make sense for a dictatorship to keep its subjects miserable, that just inspires revolt. Much more sensible and dangerous to keep them reasonably happy with one hand, whilst with the other hand you take away their freedoms.
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:03 (eighteen years ago) link
The last time I looked, London seemed more like a prosperous pleasure garden
Jesus wept...
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:14 (eighteen years ago) link
"England's not-quite 9-11 (a pretext for a crackdown on Catholics and foreigners), this thwarted conspiracy—celebrated every year as Guy Fawkes Day—has an even more hysterical significance. Had it been successful, the explosion would have vaporized half of London and thus, in its state-of-the-art carnage, offered a foretaste of Hiroshima."
i'm not an expert on explosives but: o rly?
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:38 (eighteen years ago) link
Um. No. There was a show last year at a MoD range, presented by Richard Hammond, where they exactly replicated the blast (down to authentic gunpowder). It would have been a very big bang, and certainly would have as good as destroyed parliament and caused fairly significant damage for about a mile radius (through the blast wave and thrown rubble), but wouldn't have caused that sort of effect.
― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 12:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link
"It doesn't matter that they all have funny accents, this movie is CLEARLY an attack on america and the president!" etc
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link
i hope the movie isn't demonized... because a) we all need to be reminded that our country isn't this bigbro+nazi++ totalitarian regime... and b) where our country is like this country, we need to be thinking hard about that...
i wish people would see a movie like this and not dismiss it.m.
― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 17:00 (eighteen years ago) link
haha, xpost!
um, 'newsflashes and stuff about america' != CCTV
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 17:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 17:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 17:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 17:33 (eighteen years ago) link
that's what I meant. is there an updated thing in the flick that takes the place of the threat/symbol of CCTV circa 1980?
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 19:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― JimD (JimD), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 19:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 19:20 (eighteen years ago) link
yeah, there are little nods to stake out vans... and "88% of conversation indicates that people still think xyz".... and office rooms being bugged, so the good cops pull out some kind of jammer device or something... etc.m.
― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 15 March 2006 19:33 (eighteen years ago) link
yeah, maybe my opinion is awful. what do i fuckin know? it was free and i had a good time.m.
― msp (mspa), Friday, 17 March 2006 16:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Friday, 17 March 2006 16:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 March 2006 16:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Friday, 17 March 2006 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link
That's what I felt it was missing - ok so maybe today's dictatorship ensures its citizens have some degree of comfort, but if there's *no* privation or repression - and I didn't get much of a sense of any from the movie - then what is the point in rebelling?
― ledge (ledge), Friday, 17 March 2006 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― ledge (ledge), Friday, 17 March 2006 17:02 (eighteen years ago) link
Don't answer that...
― ledge (ledge), Friday, 17 March 2006 17:03 (eighteen years ago) link