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I always thought it was a fun coincidence that people get paid in "exposure", which is exactly what it's called if you die homeless on the sidewalk.
Happy Halloween!
Two anecdotes to illustrate what I mean:
I just listened to a podcast that branded Black Adam as the worst movie of the year. And I absolutely follow their arguments - without having seen the film. And yet, it is the #1 film at the box office right now (at least in the US) and already at #13 for the whole year. You can go through the box office topping films of the weekend and there are loads of films that have been absolutely panned by critics or just largely ignored. Don't Worry Darling. Bullet Train. Jurassic World Dominion. Fantastic Beasts. Morbius. Uncharted.
The second part is in TV. Again, at least in the bubble I am in, I've been hearing all about how great of a show Andor is. Breathes new life into Star Wars. Actually better than both House of the Dragon and Rings of Power and so on and so forth. And then I read a piece about how great this show is and how important for the Star Wars franchise and it just casually mentions at the end that not only is it much less watched than the other two big genre shows of the fall, it's the least watched of the life-action Star Wars shows (Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi). And that is just it's own little microcosm of genre streaming shows. The real most watched scripted programmes? That's stuff like Yellowstone or the various NCIS shows, which absolutely noone I know is talking about at all.
So yeah. There's no capper to this rambling collection of thoughts, I'm just kind of mystified by the whole thing.
Movie box office is all marketing. Of course word of mouth is an important part of the marketing of a film, and that does depend on quality more or less, everyone wants to go see whatever latest movie Dwayne is in. All of those films you mention had enormous marketing campaigns.
It's somewhat similar to books, where when a book comes out they sell it at 30%, 40%, 50% off right away so that it gets on bestseller lists. It's all marketing, and no indication of quality whatsoever.
So how is the rithm of your day more pleasant in this half-year compared to the other half-year? Nature doesn't rebalance the times of sunset or sunrise. Hence your argument that it is more 'enjoyable' makes little sense. Anything that follows nature's rithm, from little kids to cows (has nothing to do with any pick-up times of factories, but with full udders) doesn't change, hence their surroundings (parents, farmers) have to adjust to an unnecessary adjustment. Our son still awakes now every morning at 5 instead of six. He goes to bed at the (new) seven, but is hence far more exhausted, yet still wakes up at 5.
I can't help it if you haven't heard the argument before as it is as old as the discussion itself, which rages every year since the introduction of 'daylight saving time'. You could also suggest that those who want to have a bit more light at the end of their shifts just go to work earlier. That wasn't possible 40 years ago but by now thaat isn't much of a problem.
It's just bad, deadly, and unneccessary
https://www.popsci.com/daylight-saving-time-effects-accidents-health/
The Internet, meanwhile, keeps telling me that APOCALYPSE NOW is one of the best movies ever. It probably is, and I respect the film, but I've seen it several times now and I rate it "average" at best, thinking it a bit tedious, uninteresting and overlong. Then again, I wasn't in that war, nor a part of the anti-war movement of the day, nor even born at the time of its release, so my opinion comes from a different place than that of many orher people. On the other hand, the Internet keeps telling me that Michael Mann's BLACKHAT isn't worth my time, yet that's a film I really enjoy. What is considered "good" and what I myself consider "good" are two completely different things, at least half the time. Sometimes I get what reviewers are saying, and sometimes I don't.
With that in mind, what is considered "good" or "popular", and by whom? We know for example that BO results are poor barometers of a film's quality (e.g. BLADE RUNNER). Some films make money hand over fist, but are practically forgotten two years later. We also know that hypes can cloud judgements. Some Academy folks have apparently admitted that ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN probably deserved the best picture Oscar better than ROCKY, despite the latter's commercial success. If given the chance to revote, the outcome would probably be different today. And what about "the" websites, like imdb and RT? Again, we sometimes seem to agree and sometimes anything but. Am I gravely mistaken if I like a film with a 13 % score on RT? Of course not. And I shouldn't even care.
The problem is that every attempt at constructing an objective quality assessment is inherently flawed. Which criteria does one use? Will the system grade on a curve? The most honest method is probably the "majority vote", and even that is a famous logical fallacy. The fact that most people consider a film good, doesn't make it so, nor does it imply that I should consider the film good.
So both the "popular" and the "good" markers are untrustworthy and unpredictable. The gap between them is more a logical probability than a strange dichotomy. Also, popularity is dictated by more than quality. THE ROOM is a very popular film, not because it's good but precisely because it isn't. Almost everything Marvel releases under Disney is usually very popular, not necessarily because it's good but because the entire Avengers project is extremely popular as a whole. Several films that are now thought of as "great", weren't so well received at the time of their release, by critics, audiences, or both--and sometimes for strange reasons. Just think about THE THING, a film that is now heralded as one of the best sci-fi flicks ever, but was largely ignored in 1982 because people wanted more cuddly E.T. in their sci-fi diet, while critics felt that Carpenter was a "pornographer of violence". Whatever the reasons, popularity can change overtime.
Lastly, generalizations rarely hold up. "They don't make good films anymore." Sure they do. They also make bad films today, like they did half a century ago. But bad and impopular films don't bleed over into the latest DVD/Blu-ray releases quite as easily as the "big" titles, and so we lose track of them. It makes us think of the past as a treasure vault of nothing but high-quality films, despite the enormous number of bad productions that have always plagued the market. There's also the fact that "I don't like modern popular films", except that we all do, or at least some of those popular films. And that's true for most people, no matter how old or interested in film. But we tend to focus more on what we disagree with. Another generalization that doesn't hold up is that "These days, films are only made for money." Films have always been made for money; money has always been the driving force behind the "art" of cinema. Apart from a few arthouse productions and propaganda films, movies that don't do too well cause budgets to dry up for future projects. Darwinian survival theory at work. And so on.
The gap between what is considered "good" and what is considered "popular" is not always there, but sometimes it is; not just now, but always; sometimes in conflict with our own opinions , and sometimes not.
I've heard that some parts of Norway are dark for most of the year. Not sure if that's true or not.
North of the Arctic circle, it is half the year. And bright the rest of it. They still adjust the clocks like the rest. Meaningless.
Yes, I think a Norwegian member on another Bond forum posted about that once. It must be harder to sleep at night when it's still bright outside but I suppose you can block it out sufficiently.
I'd love that too, @Venutius!
I've had my share of bad experiences with logistics companies too. Luckily not for the more expensive packages though!
A little follow up: After contacting the webshop I ordered the table from, they've contacted the manufacturer which will deliver a new tabletop free of charge next week. They did not want the damaged tabletop in return, and since it's only the underside which is damaged, I have now found and ordered four table legs with clamps which will be mounted on the sides of the table rather than the underside – making it possible to make a custom lounge table to compliment the (what I hope will be) a damage free lounge table.
Have you got the mid-term blues?
24/7 political blues, exacerbated by this “holiday.”
Sorry to hear it. Hopefully matters political will go the way you wish.
I've only been on this forum and with that in the more engaged Bond fandom for a little over two years and even in that time, there are marked shifts in what is an outside opinion, what is gathering steam and what is widely accepted as in-group gospel.
This is of course just my own perception, but 2 years ago, everyone was still coming to grips with OHMSS being a consensus top-level film for a lot of people, which is now teetering somwhere between "obvious truth" and "way overstated". Since then the very strong Dalton-renaissance has kicked off, with especially LTK seemingly only rising in the estimation. And finally, albeit not necessarily here, the wider populace seems to have adopted GoldenEye as the "standard classic Bond", the spot formerly inhabited by Goldfinger. That only really happened during the pandemic, when many people where doing rewatches, I feel like.
And then for any of those points you can always find not a small number of people who are of the diametrically opposite opinion (f.e. I just don't see it with LTK. It's not horrible, but people are way over-praising that film).
Secondly, as I mentioned before, I used to be a political scientist, so I always feel like I have to wade into arguments about political structures, but frankly, I don't feel it would help if I did a long post about the strengths and weaknesses of various systems and what factors do and do not lead to extremism. I think just the point that a lot of the things we in academia hold to be to true don't penetrate to the populace is an indictment of both political science and the wider political class in general.
I have long felt that it is time for some very fundamental societal discussions about what we consider to be politics, what we want our politics to be and what that means for us. The irony is of course that the point in time where we most need to have these conversations is of course also the point in time where we are least able to come together to have them. Half the problems we have today are because we can't talk to each other anymore. So, maybe it's a very "ivory tower" idea to say "well, we just need some good think pieces and an honest conversation and this will all sort itself out".
I'm pretty much in exactly the same place as a Democrat in California. I feel like there's a wing of my party that's slowly going nuts, but the party as a whole is pretty much what I want and there's obviously no voting for the Republicans.
In a winner-take-all system you're pretty much stuck with two parties though. I actually live in Germany, which of course has a parliamentary system, so the sane and insane alike have a choice between a few options.
It's much the same in the UK where nationally the two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour have dominated politics here for the last one hundred years or so. This often happens in democracies, but I suppose the only alternative is the instability of several larger and smaller political parties in a coalition (see Italy etc.) or (even worse) the one-party state of the dictatorship where opposition parties are banned, and their leaders imprisoned or killed.
Sir Winston Churchill once said that “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.” There's definitely something in that. At least in a democracy we have the right to vote for an opposition party and change the guard every five or so years, depending on the relevant election law. I'd say it's very important to exercise your democratic right to vote and cast your vote for the candidate or candidates of your choice. Remember that every vote cast for your candidate is one less vote for the other candidates and parties and that if enough people did the same real change in politics would be assured. It's important not to give up hope and to not become cynical about the efficacy of voting as if you feel it achieves nothing then be assured that people not voting achieves even less. Hope these considerations help as you cast your vote.
But why?
I ask since this isn't the first shot you've thrown at it, so I'm interested. Is it the global film industry? The US? UK?... What happened that made you quite cynical?
That's awful. Hope you feel better soon, @Ludovico.
Get well soon, @Ludovico!
Birthdays can wait. You get better first, @Ludovico!