Cult movies, classic movies, horror, cult tv of the 60s and 70s, vintage genre fiction
Joined October 2021
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d4doome retweeted
Novelist, screenwriter, and Culture War correspondent Lou Aguilar hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “It’s not that women can’t write good films. It’s that feminists can’t.”
Exhibit A: the feminist remake of Jane Austen’s "Sense and Sensibility," whose screenwriter Diana Reid, costume designer Grace Snell, and production designer Francesca Di Mottola are celebrating that it’s “GRITTIER.”
The sisters wear unpressed gowns and stained dresses that look like they’ve been “picked up and worn the next day,” reflecting how far they’ve fallen since their father’s death.
Their cottage is so small that someone has to give up their room when guests arrive.
The feminist screenwriter even ages down Colonel Brandon to make him “less of a father figure” and portrays the Dashwoods as “a bit unconformist, a bit less uptight” and at odds with the conventions of their time.
And all the promotional materials make it look like a LESBIAN LOVE STORY!
And the ONE MALE cinematographer lights everything by candlelight because, “What those girls were living through was super hard and harsh.”
He explains that the darkness makes the audience feel something heavy, so they’ll feel more liberated at the end, and it feels "real,” he says.
IN OTHER WORDS, YOU DON’T EVER FEEL GOOD WHILE YOU’RE WATCHING IT.
Fun fact:
PEOPLE DON’T PAY MONEY TO ESCAPE INTO ENTERTAINMENT JUST TO WATCH MORE MISERY - WE WANT TO BE TRANSPORTED SOMEWHERE BETTER.
And the box office reflects that.
Google reports that the “grittier, candlelit Focus Features adaptation struggled to pull in large audiences” against its $25 million production cost.
Maybe audiences wanted Jane Austen, not another exercise in feminist misery.
d4doome retweeted
Astrosex, by George Shaw. Midwood Books, 1970.
Basically it's a racy version of that sci-fi staple "Let's have R&R on a pleasure planet!"
How exactly do you intend to achieve this? If more people wanted to read literature they would do so. People wanting to read literature could try doing things like buying books. The fact that they don't do this indicates that they don't want to.
Of course if you spent billions of dollars rebuilding the entire school system from the ground up that might help. Possibly. Of course you would first have to gain control of the government.
Other than that all you're left with is pious hopes. And probably a great deal of money spent to no purpose.
Insignificance (1985) is far from being my favourite Nicolas Roeg movie but it's a pleasingly eccentric absurdist comedy with characters looking for answers but maybe there aren’t any and there are games with time. Theresa Russell is superb.
My review: dfordoom-movieramblings.blog…
d4doome retweeted
Jane Bond and Peggy Steffans in The Curse of Her Flesh (1968)
#sexymonday
d4doome retweeted
York cobblestones. 2006 vs 2026.
Well maintained in 2006. Can’t be arsed to maintain properly and just plaster with tarmac patches in 2026. British civic pride decay in a nutshell.
d4doome retweeted
I know that we had a dry summer, but to run out of water in ENGLAND, especially now it's been raining almost constantly for about 3 weeks, takes a special sort of organisational genius. It's like Egypt running out of sand
Exc: Ministers have been secretly warned that some English reservoirs are at risk of running dry, hitting water supplies to homes in the run-up to Christmas.
The government’s emergency committee, known as Cobra, is meeting up to twice a week to discuss the situation in the southwest of England and Sussex.
A secret “reasonable worst-case scenario” was drawn up, anticipating that several reservoirs’ water stocks could fall to 0 per cent — dubbed “day zero” — within weeks.
Officials warned that without action, supplies to some homes could be affected, along with disruption to the construction of a nuclear power station and operations at a prison.
Steps have been taken by ministers and water companies to try to mitigate the risks, which insiders stressed were already starting to push back the “day zero” dates.
Experts on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have also been brought in to help review water companies’ modelling for protecting stocks for the weeks ahead.
Heatwaves over the summer left half of England in drought. Sussex and the southwest were the most severely affected.
Wimbleball reservoir, which supplies more than 400,000 people in Somerset, has 13 per cent of its capacity, while Ardingly, which serves 280,000 customers across West Sussex, is at 17 per cent, figures from yesterday show.
Reasonable worst-case scenario plans were drawn up by the government, setting out a “day zero” envisaging Wimbleball and Ardingly reservoirs’ stocks being completely depleted by December.
Subsequently, the government privately said it was told by South West Water that it did not anticipate Wimbleball running dry due to measures it had put in place. South East Water is also taking action that has shifted Whitehall “day zero” forecasts at Ardingly into next year. Even if the reservoirs did run completely dry, water companies would probably be able to transfer supplies from elsewhere.
However, significant concerns remain in government about water disruption to properties supplied by Devon’s Venford reservoir in early November. “Day zero” risk monitoring has also started for Cornwall’s Stithians and Drift reservoirs.
Water companies were asked to model the impact of water-saving measures, which have been scrutinised by members of Sage. Ministers were told that shortages could affect daily operations at HMP Exeter and the construction of Hinkley Point C, a nuclear power station being built in Somerset.
Normal levels of rainfall over autumn and winter will not be enough to counteract the effects of the drought, which was extended to cover Yorkshire this month. Officials have calculated there will need to be 120 per cent of long-term average rainfall over the next six months for a nationwide recovery.
Many people today are so poor they cannot afford to upgrade to the latest model smartphone every six months. Some people struggle to afford more than three streaming services. Some cannot even afford to have gourmet meals delivered to their door every day.
What's considered a minimal quality of life today would have been unimaginable luxury to most people throughout history.
Indoor plumbing, electricity, refrigeration, modern medicine, instant communication, and access to food from around the world.
Much of what ordinary people enjoy today was once unavailable even to the wealthiest.
Capitalism has made yesterday's luxuries today's necessities.
And somehow, this extraordinary progress is presented as evidence of failure.
But Hollywood makes three-hour movies. Movies are on average much longer than they were in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. Presumably enough people are sitting through these long long long movies to justify the spending of hundreds of millions on dollars on them. Which seems inconsistent with the thesis that attention spans are getting shorter.
