Screening

BaconLettuceMayo, Entertainment

I see that Amazon Prime has added a movie category:

…etc.

Of course, putting a “Black” identifier also allows Eeeevil Raycissss to put their own filter on the thing (“I’m not gonna watch any of that shit” ), which is kinda sad.  What it does do is help identify which “Black” movies are decent movies in their own right (Flight, Out of Time  etc.) in that the movies are watchable and the appearance of Black lead actors is incidental and not an essential part of the movie.  It also helps identify which movies are just BLM-style agitprop (e.g. Hurricane , which is to actuality as Braveheart  was to Scottish history or Inglourious Basterds  was to WWII — a wild approximation).

Speaking of wild approximations and Nazis, last week I watched the first episode of Amazon’s The Hunters  (about hunting down old Nazis in the 1970s), and won’t be watching any more of them. (The episode synopses alone in that link should justify hanging for whoever wrote such shit.)  Fucking hell, what a load of bullshit.  Never mind casting Al Pacino (!) as an old Jew — his thick Noo Yawk accent covers a multitude of sins — but the plot seems to have been written by a teenager, full of holes, glaring historical inaccuracies — inspired by true events my ass — and improbable situations.  (Quentin Tarentino has a lot to answer for.)  Worst of all, it’s positioned as comedy — which it is, a little — but frankly, it is to its subject matter as Blazing Saddles  was to the settling of the West.

I read a meme a couple weeks back which stated despairingly:  “I finished Netflix” and I’m starting to get there myself.  The problem with movie streaming is that the demand for fresh content is insatiable, which means that a lot of shit is being made that should never have got past the first read-through — good grief, the stand-up comedy show offerings alone need about a 70% culling, what a load of unfunny people — and just because Amazon and Netflix have more money than the Vatican doesn’t mean that they should be turning out all this dreck.  I can just see the executive meetings:

“We need ten new movies by next month.  Any new scripts?”
“Yeah, there are two which talk about rednecks fighting Blacks and Jews.”
“Documentaries?”
“Could be, if we need docs instead of features.”
“Okay, greenlight both.  We’ll decide where to put them later.”

I’m not even going to mention the outright propaganda movies which talk about eeevil banksters and Global MegaCorp, to name but two favorite topics of AmaFlix’s offerings.

The nice thing about modern technology is that we’re given lots of choice when it comes to entertainment.  Unfortunately, the choice is often between a plate of dogshit and a bowl of cold puke.

24 comments

  1. I lasted exactly 4 days with Netflix. Signed up for the 30 day free preview last week then cancelled 4 days later. Their massive email spams was the worst part. Nothing they showed me in the emails was of interest to me and some of it was mostly offensive shit. I was getting 3 of those emails a day. Thing is, I must have had a momentary lapse of reason, cause I just don’t have the time to watch much TV. So I cut em loose. In that 4 days I didn’t even watch anything, so yeah, I have no use for them.

    1. Precisely. CASABLANCA was released in 1942. Everybody talks about how great movies were then. I’ve looked at lists of what was released that year. 90+% was absolute dung, and much of the rest was pablum. And that’s what we have surviving records of.

      In the early ‘70’s my folks had worries about drug references in popular music. I reminded them of COCAINE BILL AND MORPHINE SUE, which had had a popular release in the 1920’s, during their childhood.

    2. ghostsniper,

      Did you repeat the phrase “I don’t like this advertisement.” while scowling?

      The microphones built into the television set (‘included at no additional charge!’) listen, listen, listen to your conversations.
      The cameras built into your television set record and analyze your body movements and expressions (aka ‘face-expressions’ to the ‘face-mask’ crowd).

      Anytime your focus moves to an area of a screen image, the televisionprogramming automatically records this.
      * If you notice a fingernail polish, you will receive cosmetic advertisements hawking AmaFlix products and services.
      * If you notice the set design or exterior shots, you receive advertisements directing you to acquire their visually-oriented products and services available through AmaFlix.
      * If you flush while noticing romantic or sexual scenes*, you will receive information about match-making websites owned by AmaFlix… and humming electrical devices designed to ‘ease neck tension’ as illustrated by the photograph of a blissed supple nubile on the box.

      *****

      *Rule 34:
      If it exists, porn is made of it.

      *****

      ACK!
      Big lightbulb over my head!
      While proof-reading my comment, I suddenly realized I GET OFF ON DU TOIT POSTS.
      Rule 34 scores again.

  2. I have to disagree with your opinion of Flight. That was “magical negro” movie. According to the narrative, even a sober White pilot couldn’t do what a drunken, coked up black pilot could do with a jet airliner. Watched it once, and other than the special effects, found it predictable. Of course, the best thing about most modern movies, of any genre, is the special effects. Most of the plots seem to be written by 3rd graders, or lower.

  3. Best bet with movies is to never watch anything made after about 1970. It may be your last chance to as they will all be cancelled eventually.

  4. My wife likes to watch old TV series while she is knitting or doing word games on her I-pad thing. About once each week we sit down together and try to find a movie we can watch together and this week we saw ‘Airplane’ 1980 which is still kind of funny, at least to me. There are older silly sappy movies that are watchable some of the Westerns like ‘True Grit’, either one because the new one was rather good. A month ago we watched ‘Lonesome Dove’ several nights of that and it is still good, at least for us. I don’t care much for War movies made after 1980, I don’t like hero’s in movies who are full of angst or shit and stupid and that seems to be about all they are vomiting out now.

    We gave up on broadcast TV three years ago and threw our dish thing away because I was sick of TV news, sitcoms have become unwatchable and autopsy shows and cops shows predictable and repetitious. ‘Blue Bloods’ was fun for about one season and then it became reruns, the rest of the cop crap was good looking smart female cop in charge, bumbling goofy male sidekick and main boss smart black guy trying to deal with life and stuff. Those shows make our brains turn soft and squishy. Screw it, we are living in a real life disaster movie situation so it is a good time to have our collective heads out of our butts.

    1. If you liked “Lonesome Dove”, check out “Broken Trail”, too. I think you’ll like it, too.

      1. Got to agree, “Broken Trail” is a good-to-fine movie, well worth watching.

    2. Old Texan sed: “My wife likes to watch old TV series…”
      ==========
      Same here.
      My wife and I watch TV at suppertime, that’s all.
      We have 3 DVD players connected to the TV.
      1 Has Perry Mason, we’re on season 3 currently.
      2 Has Gunsmoke, we’re on season 15.
      3 Has Have Gun, Will Travel, we’re on season 3.
      Every few months I’ll buy the next season for them from amazon.
      No annoying commercials, just 23 or 46 minutes of fairly enjoyable stuff.
      Then, 23 hours of no TV at all till the next suppertime.
      About 10 years ago we got fed up with TV for the last time, cancelled the dish, and relearned how to live. Our TV is not “smart” and most likely never will be.

  5. I have an aphorism I call Schofield’s Law of Popular Culture; “We remember the popular culture of eras past so fondly because, mercifully, we don’t actually remember that much of it.”

    It seems to me that the various streaming services are going to change this. My Gods, what a concatenation of filmic drivel. Digging into Netflix or Amazon Prime Video is a quick way to disillusion yourself about the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’. And I had NO notion how many brain-damaged would-be directors saw THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and thought imitating it would be a good idea.

    1. Sounds like a corollary to Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crap.

      Nostalgia for music, books, movies, TV past days is primarily because we only remember the 10%

  6. Yellowstone (on the Paramount Channel) is pretty good. I have Verizon FIOS for internet and with 3 full-time college students now home for the indefinite future, bandwidth becomes important. The package I got comes with basic cable. Only the kids watch any TV; my wife works 60-100 hours a week and since I’m semi-retired I only work half-time (12 hours a day). Haven’t watched network TV in 20-25 years and if there’s a series on the free range networks (Prime, Amazon, Starz, Hulu, etc), I’ll wait til the series is over and binge watch it. Yellowstone is the exception. A little too much gratuitous violence and not enough gratuitous sex, but the scenery and the acting are top notch.
    I also like some episodes of Letterkenny. First few seasons were solid, then they got told they weren’t woke enough for Canadian TV and started wedging in LGBT story arcs that seemed forced and humorless.
    Ain’t nobody got time for that shit.

  7. Actually Hurricane, Braveheart and Inglourious Basterds are far less than wild approximations. Someone once wrote that a train schedule was at best a rough estimate and at worst a pious hope. These “based on real events” movies are like the movie 1941, or the Bugs Bunny, and Road Runner cartoons. Based on the idea of a rabbit, based on a hollow tree, based on (someone’s) idea of the desert south west. but not regarded as any little shred of real life.
    And no, I don’t have netflix or any pay per view subscriptions, and I’m not really getting my money out of pay TV with just the Sportsman’s Channel on Wednesdays.

  8. By chance, would Amazon Prime (or Netflix) be including that fine first outting of Roger Moore as James Bond in their Amplify Black Voices catalogue? /s

    1. Is that the one where he encounters a New Orleans funeral and becomes the guest of honor?
      I was also thinking of “You only live twice”, with Sean Connery as an overgrown Japanese man.
      And what are we to make of Dr. Zhivago, where Omar Sharif endured two extra hours of make-up each day to make him look more like a Russian? Or does that not count, as usual?

      1. Windy Wilson,
        Yep, you get the gold star for recognizing “Live And Let Die”, the blaxploitation Bond film which now is an interesting look into what was popular in the early 1970’s (images of war-torn Harlem, pimps and pimped rides like the Corvorado driven by henchman known as Whisper, and 1973 Corvette body placed on a similar vintage Cadillac Eldorado chassis) , but is a little cringe-worthy nowadays for some, despite the excellent performances from Yaphet Kotto and Geoffrey Holder (aka the 7up pitchman in the late 1970’s early 1980’s).

        Moore wasn’t bad in his initial Bond flic, imo.

  9. I’m noticing the same thing. I grew up in Mormon country and not being one of the brethren, got sick and tired of Brigham Young being force fed to me all the time. Amazon’s Black voices and wokeness is starting to feel the same way, ditto with the movie’s that feel like they need to check the, strongwoman-gay-minority, box. Just tell a good story for Christ’s sweet sake.

  10. I think that with most people, as events get further and further into the past, you tend to remember the very good, and the very bad. Everything in the middle falls into the gray mist until… something triggers the memory. My childhood, my high-school years, and my years in the Navy are all like that.

    As far as music and movies go, things that were popular back in the day tend to bring back those gray memories. (For me, Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summer Time” is one of those. It’s a stupid song, but it always reminds me of a first love, so when I hear it playing, I will stop and listen with a big dollop of nostalgia.)

  11. I actually liked “The Equalizer” and “Hidden Figures”

    Oh, and spoiler alert since you’re not going to watch any more of “The Hunters”. Pacino turns out to be a Nazi hunting the hunters.

  12. we some sort of dish tv services a number of years ago as the prices went up, list of watchable channels plummeted went down. We use Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu and MyOutdoorTV. Despite the special categories from Netflix or Prime, we just search out stuff we would like to watch. TYpically we watch older shows that are no longer being made, movies, or documentaries. I try to pick up DVDs of shows or movies that I like because these movies aren’t always available on the streaming services.

    JQ

  13. Oddly, I rather enjoyed Denzel Washington’s turn as the Equalizer, despite being a huge fan of Edward Woodward and the original series.

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