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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2017 12:24:32 GMT
The Supergirl television series has a lesbian romance in it and it's probably one of the best representations I've seen of the lifestyle because after a whole season of this particular development, there still hasn't been a sex scene, and I honestly hope there never is. And the reason for that is because the depiction of this relationship focuses exactly and specifically on that -- the relationship, rather than the physical aspect of it for visceral and lascivious reasons, which would be besides the point of the overall TV show anyway. That's what I love about it. It's a well-written and well-acted depiction of two lesbians in a growing, loving, committed relationship, warts and all, without resorting to hot and heavy sex scenes, especially just for the titillating sake of it. While I like that they have included some LGBT characters the problem with the ‘Supergirl’ show is it makes all the same mistakes the horrible adaption of ‘Birds of Prey’ made over a decade ago and has very little in common with the majority of Supergirl comic books of the past 30 years and is more like a Superman TV show with a female lead. Supergirl (both Kara and Linda) have long been portrayed as edgy and aggressive characters who in Kara’s case was pissed off over her planet being destroyed and was searching for answers and the remains of Kandor. She was way less trusting of humans than Clark and more Kryptonian ‘cause she spent more years on the planet. Those were some of the main differences that separated Supergirl from Superman along with people not seeing her as a symbol of hope and the government actually seeing her as threat ‘cause she was a loose cannon and more powerful than Superman. She also didn't hold back in fights and would use her heat vision to light their arms on fire and fly criminals up into the sky and threaten to drop them and drop them and fly down and catch them before they hit the ground while they were screaming but the ‘Supergirl’ TV show is nothing like that.
Instead of getting a badass female superhero they made Kara into a geeky character and surprise, surprise (just like a million other movies and shows) put her love life at the front and centre of the show with Mon El getting more screen time than Kara ‘cause God knows we can’t have a show about a female character that is about her and not her love life even though it was such a tiny nonexistent part of the comic books and her longest love interest was Nightwing. That is another one of the things I liked about ‘Atomic Blonde’ ‘cause as Charlzie pointed out the writers didn’t make the movie about her love life or have her gushing over a male character like a schoolgirl who becomes the centre focus of the movie. They wouldn’t dare make a ‘Batman’ show and make it all about his love life with Vicki Vayle and have Vicki Vayle have more screentime than Batman but ‘cause it is a ‘female’ superhero there is a different set of rules...
On top of that we have all the unnecessary side characters like Alex, Winn, James, Cat Grant, Maggie and Martian Manhunter – two that were created for the show, two Superman characters, a separate superhero who had his own series and a Batwoman love interest who could have been fantastic and historic if they used her to set up a ‘Batwoman’ TV show but they didn’t and all of them have taken a large amount of screen time from Kara with their storylines. Supergirl didn’t have side characters like Superman had Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Cat Grant, Chloe Sullivan (Smallville) etc and the closest thing she had to any reoccurring characters apart from Superman were Powergirl, the Legion (who she was a member of for a while), Comet and Twilight and they haven’t even been in the show but back to the point, in the majority of ‘Supergirl’ comic books Supergirl is alone and spends most of her time flying around in the sky and up in space.
In a lot of series she doesn’t even have a secret identity ‘cause she spends all her time as Supergirl in her Supergirl costume and when she did she wore a wig NOT glasses!! Lastly, it is only now they are finally going to use some Supergirl villains like Reign instead of Superman villains and while I don’t hate the show as it might seem from my post and I can see why some people might like it BUT as a long time Supergirl fan who got into comic books after reading the Linda Danvers/Supergirl series which is still one of my favourites I just tend to have a problem with a TV show that takes a strong and edgy female character and degrades her down to a geeky character who is secondary to her male love interest and find it quite misogynistic.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2017 13:04:02 GMT
@deblovesbec I am aware the LGBTQ community has been asking for bigger/better representation on the screen, and I am all for it whenever it makes sense in the context of the movie or brings anything to the movie other than the "marketing" effect (here of two hot women having sex). to me this felt cheap/gratuitous/random. Charlize says it makes sense and it suited the character. How? How? We knew NOTHING about the character. Therefore nothing or rather ANYTHING she did "made sense/suited her". We learned only ONE thing about the character during the entire movie. That she is a lesbian or bi. Thats all. So to me, no, it did not "make sense" (as in "could have been expected, or fit well within the characters behavior/world). It felt random. Also the way that scene was shot was (to me) also screaming "marketing". Don't get me wrong, I like and admire both of those actresses. But I felt that scene was added there and shot this way simply to ( pls take a deep breath I don't mean to offend) please men and maybe add some shock/twist value. Not to represent an under-represented community. It was no Carol, no Bound, no Heavenly Creatures moment. But I am glad that Charlize (and you and thus probably others also) see it as something good that helped an unrepresented community be more visible. If that truly was the film makers goal, then mission accomplished I presume. PS: a lot of heterosexual scenes in many movies are put there and shot this way with very similar motivation and effect and I "mind" just as much. I love to see sex scenes in the movies, but I appreciate it more when it doesn't feel like I am just watching a sex commercial or a ticket selling point. One of the things I actually liked about the ‘Atomic Blonde’ movie compared to some other movies and TV shows with female leads is they kept her character mysterious and they didn’t try and weaken her down by making her overly emotional or having her life revolve around her love life which is one of the worst tropes in Hollywood and the TV industry when it comes to portraying female characters and a great example of this is the ‘Supergirl’ TV show I mentioned above. We have had around 20-30 Bond films so far and we know very little about the character or if the characters Sean Connery, Pierce Bronson, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Daniel Craig and George Lazabey played are even the same person or the name ‘James Bond’ is just an alias multiple characters use like ‘M’ and ‘Q.’ That seems very likely at this point with the constant changes of his personality and him getting younger in the movies.
It is no secret ‘Atomic Blonde’ was influenced by James Bond so I think the writers were deliberately going for the ‘mysterious’ angle with her character and I don't really see a problem with that 'cause we have hundreds of mysterious male characters and no one ever nitpicks at them. I also think there wouldn't be such a problem with the sex scene if it was a male lead having sex with a female character and whether it was intended for LGBT or male viewers there is a double standard when it comes to female characters having no strings attached sex and sex with multiple partners and we saw this in full swing on the 'True Blood' forum when Sookie started sleeping with multiple partners and we got hundreds of 'Sookie Is A Slut' threads while her brother was allowed to sleep with hundreds of characters and nobody said a word about that. This is a problem, not just in movies or TV shows but in real life and is actually worse now than it was when I was younger which is why we need more movies that normalise this whether it be with male or female characters.
As for representation, no, I agree with you. 'Atomic Blonde' is no 'Carol', 'The L Word' (which is returning soon due to the lack of representation of lesbians in movies and TV shows), 'Lost Girl' or even 'Wynonna Earp' for that matter which is why I strongly support a lot of the fans who want a 'Sunstone' movie 'cause it is one of the best LGBT graphic novel series to come along and breaks new ground but as far as female representation in comic book movies I think Rob Cohen's 'Razor' is going to be the movie the smash the glass ceiling and Rob Cohen has already said there will be a sequel and a spinoff of 'Strike.' 'Razor' has a reputation for being one of the most violent comic books ever made and was created in the image of Everette Hartsoe's real life deceased sister who was murdered being a vigilante when he was only 15 and in the comic book series when Razor (Nicole) comes back to life she is invincible and impervious to pain and becomes a superhero to not only get revenge on those that murdered her but to save other people from becoming victims. Unlike other superheroes Razor has no problem killing villains and kills them in very graphic ways with her blades and she is openly bisexual and unashamedly promiscuous. Rob Cohen is describing it as one of the most empowering superhero movies ever made and has acknowledged the problem with the lack of female lead comic book movies which he wants to change.
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Aug 16, 2017 16:22:05 GMT
I had very high expectations for Atomic Blonde and was disappointed. From the preview it looked like it was going to be an all-out action movie, but that was not the case (even if the action scenes were fantastic). An action movie that is light on action only works if the story is very good, which again is not the case here.
And for God's sake can't anybody write a spy movie without the plot device of the list of secret agents? That has been done to death!
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Post by Nora on Aug 21, 2017 15:21:39 GMT
I had very high expectations for Atomic Blonde and was disappointed. From the preview it looked like it was going to be an all-out action movie, but that was not the case (even if the action scenes were fantastic). An action movie that is light on action only works if the story is very good, which again is not the case here. And for God's sake can't anybody write a spy movie without the plot device of the list of secret agents? That has been done to death!preach it
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Post by miike80 on Aug 23, 2017 6:34:34 GMT
Well, for me this movie shits all over John Wick. Granted, i hated John wick 1 and 2
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Post by Nora on Aug 23, 2017 18:13:24 GMT
Well, for me this movie shits all over John Wick. Granted, i hated John wick 1 and 2 interesting. why would anyone hate John Wick movies (and liked Atomic Blonde at the same time). Wanna tell me more? What was so bad about John Wick films?
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Post by miike80 on Aug 23, 2017 19:00:29 GMT
The ultra-repetitive action sequences, the bad story and the ridiculousness.
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Post by Nora on Aug 24, 2017 1:08:53 GMT
The ultra-repetitive action sequences, the bad story and the ridiculousness. interesting. By ultra-repetitive action sequences you mean the fact that there were a lot of action scenes in it, quickly one after each other? That I would get. Not everyone likes high-action movies. But if you mean "they are the same scene" - that I cannot agree with. Because literally none of them were the same, or even had the same sequence, style and weapon of killings. I have actually devoted a lot of time to "studying" (and reviewing) both John Wicks. I know the body counts in both (shot on film vs actually used in the movie too), I know most of the action sequences by heart including the ways different people were killed. And what I found truly remarkable was actually how diverse YET skillfully it was done. Take just the club scene from first John Wick. Thats a pure martial art/killing ballet art. The way he kills some of those man is a real expert in this field. He actually uses military / hitman style, and no I don't man just the fact he shoots them repeatedly and both in head and chest. Just look at the knife death here at 0:50. The way its done is so beautiful! And I don't only mean that there is the sexy music and good timing but I mean how realistic the stabbing sequence is, how a real pro would do it. So I was told, not that I have killed people before. And in my eyes nothing in Atomic Blonde comes even close with it. In Atomic Blonde you can actually see guys kinda "waiting around" to be hit in a few scenes. And her fighting style while decent is nothing compared to the one Keanu pulls off. Plus she is too small to be delivering punches and kicks as powerful as they make it seem in the movie… The story is simple, yes. The ridiculousness is there too, yes, but to me it is a big part of the appeal of John Wick. Because in no way was John Wick trying to convince the viewer this is the real world. They enjoyed the ridiculousness. They went all out on it and made it the movies point. Whereases Atomic Blonde tries to convince the viewer "this is how things really were in East Berlin and in the Spying world" but then they pile up a scene after scene that doesn't hold up with the concept… Just my 2 million cents :-)
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Post by miike80 on Aug 24, 2017 4:47:35 GMT
The ultra-repetitive action sequences, the bad story and the ridiculousness. interesting. By ultra-repetitive action sequences you mean the fact that there were a lot of action scenes in it, quickly one after each other? That I would get. Not everyone likes high-action movies. But if you mean "they are the same scene" - that I cannot agree with. Because literally none of them were the same, or even had the same sequence, style and weapon of killings. I have actually devoted a lot of time to "studying" (and reviewing) both John Wicks. I know the body counts in both (shot on film vs actually used in the movie too), I know most of the action sequences by heart including the ways different people were killed. And what I found truly remarkable was actually how diverse YET skillfully it was done. Take just the club scene from first John Wick. Thats a pure martial art/killing ballet art. The way he kills some of those man is a real expert in this field. He actually uses military / hitman style, and no I don't man just the fact he shoots them repeatedly and both in head and chest. Just look at the knife death here at 0:50. The way its done is so beautiful! And I don't only mean that there is the sexy music and good timing but I mean how realistic the stabbing sequence is, how a real pro would do it. So I was told, not that I have killed people before. And in my eyes nothing in Atomic Blonde comes even close with it. In Atomic Blonde you can actually see guys kinda "waiting around" to be hit in a few scenes. And her fighting style while decent is nothing compared to the one Keanu pulls off. Plus she is too small to be delivering punches and kicks as powerful as they make it seem in the movie… The story is simple, yes. The ridiculousness is there too, yes, but to me it is a big part of the appeal of John Wick. Because in no way was John Wick trying to convince the viewer this is the real world. They enjoyed the ridiculousness. They went all out on it and made it the movies point. Whereases Atomic Blonde tries to convince the viewer "this is how things really were in East Berlin and in the Spying world" but then they pile up a scene after scene that doesn't hold up with the concept… Just my 2 million cents :-) oh, i love action movies, but to be fair i find the lest exciting action scene in any Raid better than all of JW combined. and much more exciting. give the same shitty screenplay to a John Woo in his prime and we might have an action classic. Garreth Evans would also be a good choice. As would any Hong Kong action director
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Post by SciFive on Dec 16, 2017 19:22:46 GMT
Well, I just saw this movie and I liked it, but I thought too much went into making her noticeable (as at least one other person said already).
I loved her style - but so would everyone else so she wouldn't exactly blend in.
It was better when she had dark hair a couple of times.
8/10
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2017 1:26:29 GMT
Atomic blonde was so boring. It's really great for if toiu wanna take a nap in a dark room for a couple hours.
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Dec 18, 2017 8:15:06 GMT
July must have been a month of the biggest disappointments for me, at the cinema. Dunkirk, Baby Driver and Atomic Blonde. Atomic Blonde was probably the smallest disappointment of the 3, but still. Here is what bugged me about it: 1. Not enough James McAvoy whose character had the most impact on the story it seemed 2. We knew virtually NOTHING about the main character. I mean I dont need a bible on each character, but even Wick at least showed us "he loved his wife and his puppy". Case closed, I would have been happy to take as little as that with Therons character. 3. I understand the appeal of lesbian scenes including two hot women but it felt too forced and marketing-driven.
4. The visuals looked like John Wick, its characters talked like those from John Wick but yet somehow it was feeding us a story as complicated as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, in its ambition? What the hell was that?
5. the ridiculous ending
6. Theron was not a strong enough action lead for me. I dont mean she didnt do her own stunts or stuff like that, I know she did a lot, but her on-screen presence didn't fit the part. Spy in Berlin during that time wouldn't have dressed and styled as her, as that would instantly get her noticed and killed. Again, I get it, its marketing, but you know, unlike Kingsman or Wick where there was this additional part of the world so their spies could have pulled off wearing what they did and acting like they did, this story was saying its in a normal world. So she just looked ridiculous to me most of the time, with her facial expressions, those hair and clothes.
7. I am all for female power, but when a 115 pound girl is wrestling with and punching a 230 pound guy, (or two!) it does look ridiculous no matter how much martial art and corkscrews you throw in there. Especially since the scenes didn't show her using flexibility or speed as much as pure "horsepower" often. Ugh..
8. useless and story-breaking scenes from London, and a waste of John Goodman.
BUT - I am totally sold on the idea of crossing the Atomic Blonde and John Wick universes and have them meet. And I do believe in second chances so I hope for the best for the director as well as the sequel if it gets made.
What did you think?I viewed Atomic Blonde twice in the theater; both times, I found the film enjoyable and entertaining, but both times, I ultimately considered the film just "decent." The action is pretty spectacular while still suggesting human vulnerability and an actual toll on both the body and the mind, and the agent's concluding soliloquy about Berlin is intriguing. Unfortunately, the emotional payoff fails to occur because—and the film is similar to Dunkirk in this regard—there has not been enough sustained character development and thematic exploration all along. Like Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde is preoccupied with spectacle. But as with Dunkirk, the spectacle in Atomic Blonde is spectacular. Jonathan Sela's cinematography, with its shady or exotic lighting, elegant closeups, and gliding camera movements, is impressive, as is the deft editing by Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir. The score, with its mix of techno and New Wave, is dynamic, and the action is memorable—exaggerated in a way that fits with the source material (a graphic novel) yet not so heightened as to lack a sense of visceral impact and physical or emotional harm. Plus, I love the "classic" opening credits sequence, with the credits tailored to the presentation of a star, something that we almost never see nowadays. While what you say about a female spy not dressing in that extremely sexy and stylish manner and not being able to physically triumph against men twice her size is undoubtedly correct, Nora, those aspects do not bother me because Atomic Blonde is hardly supposed to constitute a realistic espionage movie. Instead, the film is supposed to be a postmodern, stylized action-spy film that represents the cinematic translation of a graphic novel. In other words, the stylistic choices—while dubious or ridiculous from a realistic perspective—fit the film's tone, intentions, ambitions, and source material. Likewise, while I concur that the ending feels overextended or overwrought, it is unsurprising given the sub-genre. Atomic Blonde is not supposed to be Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015) or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt, 1965). Its ambitions are largely different, yet with a little more character development and thematic rigor, the movie could have proved that much better.
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Post by hi224 on Dec 18, 2017 10:11:34 GMT
July must have been a month of the biggest disappointments for me, at the cinema. Dunkirk, Baby Driver and Atomic Blonde. Atomic Blonde was probably the smallest disappointment of the 3, but still. Here is what bugged me about it: 1. Not enough James McAvoy whose character had the most impact on the story it seemed 2. We knew virtually NOTHING about the main character. I mean I dont need a bible on each character, but even Wick at least showed us "he loved his wife and his puppy". Case closed, I would have been happy to take as little as that with Therons character. 3. I understand the appeal of lesbian scenes including two hot women but it felt too forced and marketing-driven.
4. The visuals looked like John Wick, its characters talked like those from John Wick but yet somehow it was feeding us a story as complicated as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, in its ambition? What the hell was that?
5. the ridiculous ending
6. Theron was not a strong enough action lead for me. I dont mean she didnt do her own stunts or stuff like that, I know she did a lot, but her on-screen presence didn't fit the part. Spy in Berlin during that time wouldn't have dressed and styled as her, as that would instantly get her noticed and killed. Again, I get it, its marketing, but you know, unlike Kingsman or Wick where there was this additional part of the world so their spies could have pulled off wearing what they did and acting like they did, this story was saying its in a normal world. So she just looked ridiculous to me most of the time, with her facial expressions, those hair and clothes.
7. I am all for female power, but when a 115 pound girl is wrestling with and punching a 230 pound guy, (or two!) it does look ridiculous no matter how much martial art and corkscrews you throw in there. Especially since the scenes didn't show her using flexibility or speed as much as pure "horsepower" often. Ugh..
8. useless and story-breaking scenes from London, and a waste of John Goodman.
BUT - I am totally sold on the idea of crossing the Atomic Blonde and John Wick universes and have them meet. And I do believe in second chances so I hope for the best for the director as well as the sequel if it gets made.
What did you think?I heard it was average as well.
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Post by Nora on Dec 18, 2017 13:09:02 GMT
July must have been a month of the biggest disappointments for me, at the cinema. Dunkirk, Baby Driver and Atomic Blonde. Atomic Blonde was probably the smallest disappointment of the 3, but still. …. because Atomic Blonde is hardly supposed to constitute a realistic espionage movie… No? You see, thats where we see it differently. I WISH it was that way. I wish they threw in a bit of open humor/ exaggeration bravado like they did in John Wick, where they openly admitted "this is not a serious spy movie, or any spy movie at all". But to me Atomic Blonde was trying to be serious. Maybe not "bridge of spies" serious, but it gave off "we want it to feel realistic" vibe. And thats what killed it for me. I wish they went a bit overboard with the action or humor, to indicate it was not trying to pull of a realistic vibe. Like Kingsman do so well.
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Post by maxwellperfect on Dec 18, 2017 20:24:52 GMT
it seemed to me that the writers thought that by changing the Bond-style, ultra-resourceful and deadly woman-chasing secret agent character to a woman, that would be enough of a twist to distract us from the by-the-numbers, hit-every-spy-movie cliche story. it was dead easy to spot who the villain was going to be. On a more nit-picky note, the movie is set in 1989, but the movie has a more early 80's aesthetic, down the mohawk-coiffed street punks you see and the soundtrack choices, which were almost embarrassing in their obviousness. "99 Luftballons"? If "Atomic Blonde 2" is set in Mexico, will they use the "Mexican Hat Dance" in the soundtrack?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2017 6:32:51 GMT
July must have been a month of the biggest disappointments for me, at the cinema. Dunkirk, Baby Driver and Atomic Blonde. Atomic Blonde was probably the smallest disappointment of the 3, but still. Here is what bugged me about it: 1. Not enough James McAvoy whose character had the most impact on the story it seemed 2. We knew virtually NOTHING about the main character. I mean I dont need a bible on each character, but even Wick at least showed us "he loved his wife and his puppy". Case closed, I would have been happy to take as little as that with Therons character. 3. I understand the appeal of lesbian scenes including two hot women but it felt too forced and marketing-driven.
4. The visuals looked like John Wick, its characters talked like those from John Wick but yet somehow it was feeding us a story as complicated as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, in its ambition? What the hell was that?
5. the ridiculous ending
6. Theron was not a strong enough action lead for me. I dont mean she didnt do her own stunts or stuff like that, I know she did a lot, but her on-screen presence didn't fit the part. Spy in Berlin during that time wouldn't have dressed and styled as her, as that would instantly get her noticed and killed. Again, I get it, its marketing, but you know, unlike Kingsman or Wick where there was this additional part of the world so their spies could have pulled off wearing what they did and acting like they did, this story was saying its in a normal world. So she just looked ridiculous to me most of the time, with her facial expressions, those hair and clothes.
7. I am all for female power, but when a 115 pound girl is wrestling with and punching a 230 pound guy, (or two!) it does look ridiculous no matter how much martial art and corkscrews you throw in there. Especially since the scenes didn't show her using flexibility or speed as much as pure "horsepower" often. Ugh..
8. useless and story-breaking scenes from London, and a waste of John Goodman.
BUT - I am totally sold on the idea of crossing the Atomic Blonde and John Wick universes and have them meet. And I do believe in second chances so I hope for the best for the director as well as the sequel if it gets made.
What did you think?While what you say about a female spy not dressing in that extremely sexy and stylish manner and not being able to physically triumph against men twice her size is undoubtedly correct, Nora, those aspects do not bother me because Atomic Blonde is hardly supposed to constitute a realistic espionage movie. Instead, the film is supposed to be a postmodern, stylized action-spy film that represents the cinematic translation of a graphic novel. In other words, the stylistic choices—while dubious or ridiculous from a realistic perspective—fit the film's tone, intentions, ambitions, and source material. Likewise, while I concur that the ending feels overextended or overwrought, it is unsurprising given the sub-genre. Atomic Blonde is not supposed to be Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015) or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt, 1965). Its ambitions are largely different, yet with a little more character development and thematic rigor, the movie could have proved that much better. The problem with realism and female characters in Action movies is there are double standards when it comes to the portrayal of them and a male character in a Steven Seagal movie can walk into a room where they are surrounded by 20 men with guns and take all of them down in 5 seconds with his fists and nobody will say a word even though the movies are set in a realistic world and are meant to be realistic but the second a female character does something similar we have a particular group of people up in flames even when it is in a Sci Fi or Horror movie and that female character is half cyborg (as seen on the old 'Dark Matter' board) 'cause she is a woman. I could care less about realism in movies like this especially in the Spy/Action genre where most of them would be dead in 2 seconds if they were real. The amount of times James Bond has survived in movies and the things he has survived are unrealistic to say the least and it reminds me of the people who constantly whinged over the things Sydney Bristow did in 'Alias' but were always giving a free pass to Jack Bauer in '24' when both characters were unrealistic.
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Dec 21, 2017 12:16:38 GMT
…. because Atomic Blonde is hardly supposed to constitute a realistic espionage movie… No? You see, thats where we see it differently. I WISH it was that way. I wish they threw in a bit of open humor/ exaggeration bravado like they did in John Wick, where they openly admitted "this is not a serious spy movie, or any spy movie at all". But to me Atomic Blonde was trying to be serious. Maybe not "bridge of spies" serious, but it gave off "we want it to feel realistic" vibe. And thats what killed it for me. I wish they went a bit overboard with the action or humor, to indicate it was not trying to pull of a realistic vibe. Like Kingsman do so well. I understand what you mean—there is a certain hardened edge to Atomic Blonde—but I would not say that the film aspires to "realism" per se. It does aspire to a sense of vague gravitas that it probably fails to achieve, hence my earlier points about insufficient character development and thematic focus. But the aesthetic manner is deliberately exaggerated and full of stylized (if dour) "bravado," befitting the movie's source material (a graphic novel). Now, Atomic Blonde is not exactly a parody, like Kingsman seems to be. (I only viewed the trailer for the latest version, not any of the actual films.) But it is a sort of edgy fantasy—a fantasy with a hardcore sex-and-violence edge, if you will. The film suggests its postmodern intentions early on with the clip of Reagan's famous speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987, followed by the "that is not this movie" (or something like that) epigraph. In other words, Atomic Blonde is literally suggesting that this film will not constitute a realistic representation of Reagan-era Cold War geopolitics, but rather something like a delirious exaggeration—with a mean streak. I would also suggest that an espionage film with a techno/New Wave score does not aspire to realism. Rather, the score suggests postmodernism and irony—or at least an attempt at those qualities. For me, the attempt basically works in terms of entertainment yet not intellectually. For the record, I have not seen John Wick.
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Dec 21, 2017 12:30:49 GMT
While what you say about a female spy not dressing in that extremely sexy and stylish manner and not being able to physically triumph against men twice her size is undoubtedly correct, Nora, those aspects do not bother me because Atomic Blonde is hardly supposed to constitute a realistic espionage movie. Instead, the film is supposed to be a postmodern, stylized action-spy film that represents the cinematic translation of a graphic novel. In other words, the stylistic choices—while dubious or ridiculous from a realistic perspective—fit the film's tone, intentions, ambitions, and source material. Likewise, while I concur that the ending feels overextended or overwrought, it is unsurprising given the sub-genre. Atomic Blonde is not supposed to be Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015) or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt, 1965). Its ambitions are largely different, yet with a little more character development and thematic rigor, the movie could have proved that much better. The problem with realism and female characters in Action movies is there are double standards when it comes to the portrayal of them and a male character in a Steven Seagal movie can walk into a room where they are surrounded by 20 men with guns and take all of them down in 5 seconds with his fists and nobody will say a word even though the movies are set in a realistic world and are meant to be realistic but the second a female character does something similar we have a particular group of people up in flames even when it is in a Sci Fi or Horror movie and that female character is half cyborg (as seen on the old 'Dark Matter' board) 'cause she is a woman. I could care less about realism in movies like this especially in the Spy/Action genre where most of them would be dead in 2 seconds if they were real. The amount of times James Bond has survived in movies and the things he has survived are unrealistic to say the least and it reminds me of the people who constantly whinged over the things Sydney Bristow did in 'Alias' but were always giving a free pass to Jack Bauer in '24' when both characters were unrealistic.... very true; action movies in general over the last thirty years have utterly dispensed with the slightest concern for realism and what is humanly believable.
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Post by Nora on Dec 24, 2017 11:26:21 GMT
For the record, I have not seen John Wick. No? So what ARE YOU doing with your life??
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2017 15:20:28 GMT
For the record, I have not seen John Wick. No? So what ARE YOU doing with your life?? John quick was awesome.
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