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[Heartofice]

28 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Compare that to Fury Road for instance, where all the villains are men, almost all heroes (including the lead) are females who do amazingly brave stuff. The subtext is there and its far more powerful because they don't hammer you on the head with it.

Its interesting that you brought up Fury Road, because I was also thinking about that movie at the time. It is doing similar things, and actually at times ireally isn't all that subtle about it either. It's noticable that it really is part of a general trend of narrative in Hollywood, and even the good movies are doing it.

28 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I attended a lecture on the rise in importance of beauty ideals in the 20th and 21st century and there they made a similar point. Instead of reducing the focus on female beauty and releasing women from the tyranny of attending to their looks, the only thing that has been achieved so far is that men are now also being confronted with ever-increasing beauty standards and assorted problems. On these two particular issues it seems like we are strapped to a train during a race to the bottom. Luckily this is more the exception than the rule.

Yeah, though I think a lot of that is due to the huge commercialisation of looks and social media. It's combined to make everyone deeply self conscious about what they look like.
What it really reminds me of is the Girl Power movement in the 90s, and specifically how one way in which girl power was displayed was by just copying what women thought men did. So you ended up with this 'ladette' cultural celebration of women going out getting drunk and fighting, being sick in the street.

So female empowerment  is only enacted if women get to act more like their expectations of what men are (or at least thats Hollywoods idea of empowerment). So you try to create these idealised female power fantasy individuals who are basically just the standard male power fantasty characters but cast as women. These things are still coming from a place of being seen through a male lens, which is why I guess the people in charge are probably guys, even if the director or writers were women.
 

21 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, we're at the point (explicitly) where that line seems to be confused between 'these characters exist within and struggle against a patriarchal society' and 'this film is about women violently killing men (and that's boring)', which was HoI's original contention. If he is unable to see a clear line between those two things, I certainly can. And if he decides not to watch a fun action movie with an awesome cast because it offends him ideologically, fair enough. I'll watch it.

My point is that on an individual level this film wouldn't be worth talking about. As a general trend in movie narrative I think it is interesting, so over saturated are we with movies with female action heroes fighting back against bad men. 
 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

As a general trend in movie narrative I think it is interesting, so over saturated are we with movies with female action heroes fighting back against bad men. 

Are we though? How many can you name off the top of your head, and how many is too many? Are these movies even 10% of the big budget action movies being released? Liam Neeson and Vin Diesel aren't having to badger their agents for work quite yet.

[Heartofice]

18 minutes ago, mormont said:

Are we though? How many can you name off the top of your head, and how many is too many? Are these movies even 10% of the big budget action movies being released? Liam Neeson and Vin Diesel aren't having to badger their agents for work quite yet.

Well I put this in a previous thread in terms of female led action movies:

Quote

Atomic Blonde (you can call it a spy thriller but its really just John Wick with fancier direction)
Red Sparrow
Haywire
Widows
Salt
In the blood
Lucy
Hanna (movie and tv series)
Old Guard
Annihilation

Those are just ones off the top of my head

Then if you also want to accept the reality that original stories don't get told any more, for anyone, you can spend forever listing out all the female led action movies, from franchises like Star Wars (sequel trilogy, Rogue One), Hunger games, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Charlies  Angels, New Terminator movies, Ghost in the Shell, Underworld movies, Lara Croft, Resident evil movies, Aliens + all recent crap remakes.. even Mad Max is really a female led action movie. 

The more pertinent question is when ISN'T there a female led action movie being made.

There are varying degrees where each one of those characters are fighting against ‘bad men’, though I’d note it’s almost entirely men who are the baddies in those movies, and in movies like Captain Marvel or Wonder Woman there is usually a scene or two that overtly illustrates male sexism and showing how women are fighting back. 
 

Unless you think that Star Wars, Captain Marvel and Wonder Women are low budget movies I have no idea what you are talking about. Plus John Wick is a low budget movie, one of the reasons for its success

[mormont]

I mean, that list is ten titles released over ten years. It's not much.

The original John Wick was a $20m budget, and Gunpowder Milkshake is a $30m budget.

This clearly annoys you, but honestly, we're discussing a small fraction of the market here. Let other people enjoy what they want. You're still well served if you want to avoid female-led action movies.

[Veltigar]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Its interesting that you brought up Fury Road, because I was also thinking about that movie at the time. It is doing similar things, and actually at times ireally isn't all that subtle about it either. It's noticable that it really is part of a general trend of narrative in Hollywood, and even the good movies are doing it.

Here you and I differ. Fury Road is like 2 hours long and I can't really recall any moment that stands out as really on the nose. Fury Road is a film that pits its characters against a patriarchal society (to borrow Mormont's terminology), but it doesn't give you the message that patriarchy = men and that patriarchy = bad, so therefore men = bad. It might be that the action movie of which the trailer kick started this discussion is equally subtle but I'd wager based on that trailer that they do not understand the difference.

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Well I put this in a previous thread in terms of female led action movies:

There are varying degrees where each one of those characters are fighting against ‘bad men’, though I’d note it’s almost entirely men who are the baddies in those movies, and in movies like Captain Marvel or Wonder Woman there is usually a scene or two that overtly illustrates male sexism and showing how women are fighting back. 
 

Unless you think that Star Wars, Captain Marvel and Wonder Women are low budget movies I have no idea what you are talking about. Plus John Wick is a low budget movie, one of the reasons for its success

Here I have to agree with Mormont. Salt and some of the other stuff on the list are like 10 years old. You could easily make a list of male-dominated Hollywood action flicks that is just as long in just one or two years. And that's without taking the B-movies and other film producing clusters in the world into account.

We absolutely need more films with a woman or women in the lead. They just need to be more like Fury Road and less like Ghostbusters (to be fair, that also goes for male-lead films. Less Vin Diesel in Bloodshot and more Tom Hardy in Fury Road).

 

 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Here you and I differ. Fury Road is like 2 hours long and I can't really recall any moment that stands out as really on the nose.

Agreed on this. I don't get the Mad Max: Fury Road thing. It is a brilliant action film with a strong thematic core and that works just fine and dandy for me (and many people). I rather suspect Gunpowder Milkshake isn't going to be considered as being in the same league as Fury Road.

ETA: And you're right, has a lot of Kingsmen to it, though I'll stick by the Wick thing, re: secret underworld society of assassins turning against one of their own, plus the whole "clever arming scene" thing. And the Library looks like it's basically the Hotel...

[mormont]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

Agreed on this. I don't get the Mad Max: Fury Road thing. It is a brilliant action film with a strong thematic core and that works just fine and dandy for me (and many people). I rather suspect Gunpowder Milkshake isn't going to be considered as being in the same league as Fury Road.

I don't think anyone thinks that it would - even the producers of Gunpowder Milkshake!

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Here you and I differ. Fury Road is like 2 hours long and I can't really recall any moment that stands out as really on the nose. Fury Road is a film that pits its characters against a patriarchal society (to borrow Mormont's terminology), but it doesn't give you the message that patriarchy = men and that patriarchy = bad, so therefore men = bad. It might be that the action movie of which the trailer kick started this discussion is equally subtle but I'd wager based on that trailer that they do not understand the difference.

Yeah I think my post was badly worded because I agree that Fury Road is not on the nose in the same way a lot of much lesser movies are. Part of that is because it features real characters instead of tropes, and they are less like power fantasies, and feel a bit more grounded. There’s still a lot the themes in the movie which pit men vs women though.

 

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Here I have to agree with Mormont. Salt and some of the other stuff on the list are like 10 years old. You could easily make a list of male-dominated Hollywood action flicks that is just as long in just one or two years. And that's without taking the B-movies and other film producing clusters in the world into account.

We absolutely need more films with a woman or women in the lead. They just need to be more like Fury Road and less like Ghostbusters (to be fair, that also goes for male-lead films. Less Vin Diesel in Bloodshot and more Tom Hardy in Fury Road).

Well that original post was in reply to a comment someone made claiming that there were hardly any female led action movies, and my point is that there are lots of them. It’s also noticeable that pretty much every major franchise has plumped for a female action lead in recent years. So anyone claiming that that hollywood isn’t representing women in action movies isn’t looking too hard.

In terms of this conversation my main point is that you are right, having more female leads in movies is a good thing. Where I’m diverging here is that Hollywood seems to think that the only image of a strong female lead ( why does she have to be strong?!) is to just copy what male leads were doing. A bit more imagination and bit less heavy handed messaging would be quite good IMO

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah I think my post was badly worded because I agree that Fury Road is not on the nose in the same way a lot of much lesser movies are. Part of that is because it features real characters instead of tropes, and they are less like power fantasies, and feel a bit more grounded. There’s still a lot the themes in the movie which pit men vs women though.

It pits patriarchal, chauvinist men against people. 

Nux and Max are kind of a big part of the movie. 

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well that original post was in reply to a comment someone made claiming that there were hardly any female led action movies, and my point is that there are lots of them. It’s also noticeable that pretty much every major franchise has plumped for a female action lead in recent years. So anyone claiming that that hollywood isn’t representing women in action movies isn’t looking too hard.

This reminds me of the study that states that men think that when women talk the same amount as men they are 'dominating' the conversation, or when women comprise about 20% of the team that the team is equal. 

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

In terms of this conversation my main point is that you are right, having more female leads in movies is a good thing. Where I’m diverging here is that Hollywood seems to think that the only image of a strong female lead ( why does she have to be strong?!) is to just copy what male leads were doing. A bit more imagination and bit less heavy handed messaging would be quite good IMO

I think if you're looking for more imagination and less heavy handed messaging from a movie called Gunpowder Milkshake that's on you, dude

[Heartofice]

21 minutes ago, Kalebear said:

This reminds me of the study that states that men think that when women talk the same amount as men they are 'dominating' the conversation, or when women comprise about 20% of the team that the team is equal. 

I think if you're looking for more imagination and less heavy handed messaging from a movie called Gunpowder Milkshake that's on you, dude

Not sure if this actually applies to anything I said but ok.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not sure if this actually applies to anything I said but ok.

It means that you're looking at like 10% of action movies and thinking that it's LOTS of representation when it's, well, 1 in 10. 

[Corvinus85]

Dumb premise, but it's on Prime so I'll watch.

[Mexal]

20 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Dumb premise, but it's on Prime so I'll watch.

Same.

[Ran]

Just to touch back on the action movie thing, I tallied up action movie releases in 2021 -- used Wikipedia for this -- and after filtering out the foreign (mostly Indian) and animated films on the list, I came up with 5 female-centric action films (where the primary leads are female), in a total of 32. Those 5 are Black Widow, Gunpowder Milkshake, Kate, The Protégé, and Thunder Force (more an action-comedy, admittedly). Two of these are superhero films, where it's been a long-running convention that yes, superhero women can kick ass, while the other three feature female assassins in the Wick/Kingsmen/Bond mode.

That doesn't seem untoward to me, personally. Last year, my count is 10 in 38 films, FWIW.

[Veltigar]

6 hours ago, Ran said:

Agreed on this. I don't get the Mad Max: Fury Road thing. It is a brilliant action film with a strong thematic core and that works just fine and dandy for me (and many people). I rather suspect Gunpowder Milkshake isn't going to be considered as being in the same league as Fury Road.

Probably more in the league of Kingsmen 2. A stylized mess

6 hours ago, Ran said:

ETA: And you're right, has a lot of Kingsmen to it, though I'll stick by the Wick thing, re: secret underworld society of assassins spies turning against one of their own, plus the whole "clever arming scene" thing the umbrella, lasso. And the Library looks like it's basically the Hotel... the tailor shop

You can easily fill in Kingsmen's details into the things you put emphasis on  They are such generic details for so many action films. Wick just does them better which is probably why it is more salient. Stylistically this screams Vaughn to me though. Wick is sort of classy, while this, just like Vaugn's work, tries to hard to be edgy and funny with cartoonish violence (that scene in the milkshake place, the cringe-inducing humor like when Lena Heady tells her movie daughter that she's the most fun person she's ever killed with, etc.)

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Just to touch back on the action movie thing, I tallied up action movie releases in 2021 -- used Wikipedia for this -- and after filtering out the foreign (mostly Indian) and animated films on the list, I came up with 5 female-centric action films (where the primary leads are female), in a total of 32. Those 5 are Black Widow, Gunpowder Milkshake, Kate, The Protégé, and Thunder Force (more an action-comedy, admittedly). Two of these are superhero films, where it's been a long-running convention that yes, superhero women can kick ass, while the other three feature female assassins in the Wick/Kingsmen/Bond mode.

That doesn't seem untoward to me, personally. Last year, my count is 10 in 38 films, FWIW.

That's rather more then I would have guessed. I thought Mormont's guess of 1/10 would be more accurate.

[Veltigar]

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Dumb premise, but it's on Prime so I'll watch.

I have been ignoring this trailer for a while. At this point I feel like Pratt is stalking me. For you Corvinus I shall give it a shot. Now that I watched it, I can say that it looks terrible, but I'm glad that someone decided to make a knock-off of Edge of Tomorrow. That film doesn't get the love it deserves. 

 

[WarGalley]

Th

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Dumb premise, but it's on Prime so I'll watch.

Yeah exactly. I hated pretty much all of the dialogue in that trailer but I'm a sucker for sci-fi and I already have Prime so will likely give it a shot at some point.

[Leofric]

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Dumb premise, but it's on Prime so I'll watch.

Chris Pratt, JK Simmons, Yvonne Strahovski, time travel and aliens.  I'll watch it.

[Corvinus85]

I have a feeling there won't be any point to discuss the complexities of time travel in this one.

[A True Kaniggit]

4 hours ago, Veltigar said:

but I'm glad that someone decided to make a knock-off of Edge of Tomorrow. That film doesn't get the love it deserves. 

 

I’m glad you used its real name, and not its money name.