Respond to the last movie you watched

[Thief]

I don’t remember Jasmine being underage.

They never establish her age. Either way, it's a children film and I don't see it any different than any other cartoon where a characters bats his/her eyes at a bad guy to distract him/her. It's inoffensive.

As for the film as a whole, I'm a fan. It's probably my favorite Disney film. I think Williams' Genie manages to keep a good balance between manic and over-the-top, and earnest and friendly. Anyway, the performance I enjoy the most is Jonathan Freeman as Jafar. Plus, the songs are great and the animation is top-notch.

[MartinTeller]

I had to look up her age, it seems to be "almost 16". Apparently all of the official "Disney Princesses" range in age from 14 (Snow White) to 19, except Elsa who is practically a senior citizen at 21. One on the hand, yes these are children's films and to kids anyone over 12 is a grownup. But also... kinda creepy, especially when you consider that in a lot (probably most) of these stories, the princesses are getting married or have an eye in that direction. Would it KILL Disney to have some older princesses? Surely a woman of, say, 25 could still be a relatable character for children and also have a little more wisdom about getting married. although I would be remiss if I didn't point out that I was 36 when I first got married and that was a terrible, terrible decision

Nonetheless, the "seduction" of Jafar didn't really bother me as it wasn't overtly sexualized.

[Corndog]

In a lot of these fairy tales and princess stories, 25 would be an old maid.

[Teproc]

The idea that women were wed extremely young in medieval times is slightly overblown. A normal marrying age in, say, 13th century Europe would be around 18, which is certainly younger than even a century ago, but not as young as people imagine. And men tended to marry much later, often in their late twenties, at least in most of Europe. I don't know about Persia, and actually that opens a whole other can of worms about where Aladdin is supposed to take place exactly, since One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of tales that originates from India and then went through Persia, but were brought together in their most well-known form in the Arabic world.

If Disney cared so much about historical accuracy, or being faithful to the original tales... well, they wouldn't be Disney. So I would assume Jasmine is, like, 19-20 at the least to accomodate for modern sensibilites, though I don't remember age being stated in, well, any Disney film really ?

[MartinTeller]

though I don't remember age being stated in, well, any Disney film really ?

Ariel says she's 16 in the movie.

I found multiple sources saying that Jasmine is on the verge of her 16th birthday, but none of them say where they're getting that info from.

[smirnoff]

They all seemed like grown women when I was a kid. I mean when you're seven, even a nine year old seems a LOT older. 16 is like an adult, and 30 is like a grandad. If we're gunna try and judge it's appropriateness for kids, it probably helps to think like a kid. Just sayin' I wouldn't worry about it.

[Bondo]

Burning

It's funny, early on when the initial interaction between Jong-su and Hae-mi ends, and it becomes clear we are going to be firmly entrenched in his boring personality, my first thought was of Nick in The Great Gatsby. Then the film name drops the story in reference to Ben's wealth. As it developed into a three-hander, it then struck me more with a Jules and Jim vibe. Still, even Ben, once he talks at any length, reveals a pretty tedious personality under the appeal of his wealthy poise. In contrast, Hae-mi seems more interesting. It is a pity then that she is largely reduced to manic pixie dream girl, and mostly absent at that. Leaving so much unsaid and offscreen is certainly a common enough technique for building intrigue/suspense, I think this pushes that boundary, at well over two hours, into tedium. A slight improvement over a few of the other catch-ups of late.

North Country

A rewatch, this feels at least as relevant a decade later in light of #metoo, and seemed fitting for this meme:


Unlike many things, this should be legally open and shut, though part of that is based on this precedent. Still, you get harassment and then she tries to take the proper steps and the result is greater retaliation and so on and so forth. They make damn sure that you'd have to be a masochist to fight it. Like, there is the series of workplace issues, but then even after litigation has started they have the union meeting where right in public they provide all the evidence one would need to prosecute a hostile environment case. You get so much talk about whether things have gone to far to chill workplaces re jokes and then you look at just how awful it was when they didn't feel any pressure to self-censor at all.

The other thing that caught my eye in this viewing is the cast. Theron, McDormand (obligatory in a Minnesota film), Bean (didn't die), Spacek and Harrelson were all very established names but I think since then many more here have broken further to the fore like Richard Spencer, Jeremy Renner (big reach playing a sexist asshole), Corey Stoll, Michelle Monaghan, even a young Amber Heard.

Anyway, second viewing solidifies its place as part of my top-100 conversation.

[smirnoff]

The Rider (Chloé Zhao, 2017)        ⁶/₁₀

Reminiscent of Fish Tank in a lot of ways. I wish I enjoyed it as much. There's something to the storytelling here that's just too monotonous for me. The tone of a dramatic scene is the same as that of a transitional scene or an exposition driven scene. Front to back there's no change of pace, no development. I guess it's meant to be real fly on the wall type stuff... "this is the way life actually is". I mean fair enough, but there's very little of interest to watching this protagonist brood. And that is the bulk of the film. He broods at home, he broods at work, he broods with friends... and he has every reason to. Things are not going his way. He's a good character. A great character actually. But his story does not fill the time given to it, it just exists in it.

This character's arc would find a better home on TV imo, where it could be spread out, and broken up with several other stories. Like one of 20 arcs on Deadwood say. Isolated and assembled into one film though, I don't particularly care for the result.

[1SO]

The Nun (2018)
★ ½
I'm all good with a Horror Movie Universe revolving around The Conjuring, but these spin-off films need to have a similar attempt at realism. This comes off like they purchased a script that was kicking around unwanted and threw in a couple of Conjuring-adjacent scenes to get the money machine flowing. Most of the time... the filmmakers will call it "atmosphere" but it's cheap tricks, jump scares and nonsensical, disconnected moments of shock. (There is one good moment where a person takes a snake bite to the eye. Ouch!) I've watched a ton of crappy horror films these past few years and this is worse than most of them.

[smirnoff]

Oof. That bad huh. Horror movies always have the most promising covers. It's a shame they can't all live up to them.