This Will Explain Some Of Indian Dance Methodology.

Reblog if you utterly and without hesitation support gay rights

It’ll mean a lot to my friend, who’s having a tough time with bullies lately.

There’s no way that EVERYBODY was Kung Fu fighting.

Tonight I am contemplating the intimacy of someone borrowing my headphones without asking

Like. In many cases that would be somewhat annoying. In this case I'm all 🥰 about it. I think it's for the same reason either way--there's this intimacy to borrowing something without asking

Unwelcome intimacy is uncomfortable, a violation even if minor, like someone asking a question you don't want to answer, but welcome intimacy is just a, like, look how close we are kind of thing

She borrowed my headphones because she knew I'd say yes if she asked (because I'd give her anything (because I love her))

Source

Have you not seen Mad Max, Inside Out, & The Martian?

You know it’s a bad year for film when you don’t even have a definite Top 3.

This view that all too many hold in the church is infuriating. Jesus absolutely understood the systemic nature of poverty and totally depended on the generosity of family, friends, and strangers. There's a reason so much of His teaching is about helping the poor and in need.

From Matthew 25:

33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did itto one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand,‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

44 “Then they also will answer [b]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do itto one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

There are some absolutely blood boiling quotes in here, but I think it’s still worth a read even if it’s just confirming what you already know.

palpatine straight up told anakin he was a sith lord and anakin was like well. this is a lot to process so im going to go fetch my boss and we’ll come back in about half an hour and murder you so don’t go anywhere and palpatine didn’t you have to admire the man

While $7.25 is low, at least part of the issue is that in a lot of small towns or rural areas, it actually can be a livable wage. It’s easy, living in big cities, to forget how small towns work.

That’s, at least theoretically, why the national minimum wage tends to be pretty conservative; it’s trying to come up with a number that wouldn’t screw over small businesses in small towns. That’s not to say the number can’t be higher, but the necessary minimum wage to survive is substantially different in a metropolitan city than it is elsewhere. (and differs from city-to-city) So individual states and cities, in theory, should set their own minimums where they need to be for the area.

Theoretically.

Zach Snyder Sandwich

I originally posted this on the cracked forums in a discussion about the new Justice League movie, in particular the very mixed reaction to Man of Steel and Zach Snyder's work in general.

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I think the things that make Snyder both loved and reviled by such a variety of people can be explained in a metaphor. Movies are like sandwiches. There are basically three layers on which movies work:

Style. The visuals, the music, the pacing, the swell of emotion, etc. This is the bread – it won’t singlehandedly save a bad sandwich/movie, nor is it absolutely necessary that it’s brilliant, but it adds a lot to the experience, and some people experience a movie primarily like this. 

Text. What the characters actually say and do, the story itself, and so forth. This is the meat, cheese, vegetables, condiments, all the substance. The actual quality and depth of the dialogue belongs here. 

Subtext. What the writer/director is actually saying under the surface, whether intentional or not. This is the nutritional content. You usually have to be looking for it to properly appreciate this level of storytelling (or sandwich making), but it makes it a richer experience. 

Most people experience movies in a mix of the first two levels. But people who really love movies and take the time to examine them tend to appreciate the third level a lot more. And different people care about different things. The film critic known only as Vern is the guy who wrote Seagalogy, which examined the movies of Steven Seagal for their themes, both individually and running, and took them seriously and critically as art. (It’s one of the best and most entertaining works of criticism I’ve ever read.) Like many Zach Snyder fans, Vern tends to be most interested in Style and Subtext, and wrote both a positive review and a later counter-post about some of the common arguments against it. The same goes for Phil Sandifer, who wrote an interesting defense of Man of Steel primarily on subtextual ground.

These levels can mix together different ways. Steven Spielberg movies are very consistent: the Style, Text, and Subtext are all doing exactly the same thing, and the result is a very smooth experience, regardless of quality (which is generally excellent).

But you don’t have to be that consistent to make it work. Take the Somewhere Over the Rainbow scene from Face/Off. The Style is beautiful and magical, while the Text is a kid watching a bunch of people getting brutally murdered. Consequently, the subtext is about how the pervasive tragedy and horror of violence affect even those who aren’t involved and may not even understand what’s happening, and the jarring contrast makes this all the more provocative.

Paul Verhoeven is a master of this sort of thing. Robocop, on the surface, is one of the most badass action flicks of the ‘80s. The text strongly resembles an unusually well-done Superhero origin story, with strong characters, memorable dialogue, and taut plotting. But the Subtext is a rich and hilarious satire of American culture that’s constantly criticizing its own story. It's a terrific movie on any of those three levels, but put together they become something truly special. It's like Judge Dredd enacting the life of Christ.

So a Spielberg Sandwich tastes different every time, but it’s always a perfectly balanced mix of ingredients, and it tastes exactly as healthy as it is (which also varies). A Verhoeven Sandwich tastes like junk food, but is surprisingly nutritious. A Michael Bay Sandwich is actually an entire bag of Oreos. The first bite is so delicious, but by halfway through you start to feel sick, by the end you actually are sick, and Heaven help you if you try a Bay marathon.

On those three levels, Zach Snyder is brilliant at Style, very clever at Subtext, but utterly clueless about Text, and ignorant about how the three fit together. Take Watchmen. It’s a gorgeously stylized realization of the comic, and all the rich themes are intact. But the violence (for example) is all wrong; one of the main themes is the awful pointlessness and tragedy of violence, and in the comic, it’s horrifying. That theme is still there, but Snyder shoots it fetishistically, Rodriguez-style, reveling in long fight scenes and beautiful splashes of blood and gore. The result is less provocative than confounding. Like, are we supposed to be having fun, or not? Similarly, the casting seems spot-on, yet the acting is incredibly uneven, because Snyder doesn’t adapt the dialogue to the rhythms that work when spoken aloud, and doesn’t adjust the flaws in the comic. Malin Ackerman got a lot of crap for her performance, but she plays Silk Spectre II perfectly as written. SS2 is a poorly-written character in the comic, spouting comic-book style dialogue.

Or Sucker Punch. It looks great, and thematically it’s an angry and brilliant condemnation of misogyny and sexism, but the characters are one-dimensional, the plotting is video-game level, and it fetishizes the characters too much for the criticism to actually stick correctly.

There’s probably no better representative of the good and bad points of Man of Steel than Jonathan Kent. Stylistically, Snyder’s vision of this small-town Kansas farmer is beautifully realized, full of gorgeous imagery and inspiring-sounding speeches about hope, all climaxing in his mythic death by tornado while saving others. And Kevin Costner pours his heart and soul into the role. But textually, he’s a stubborn jackass who tries to convince Superman to not save people. He dies because he goes back to save the dog, while telling Superman not to save him for no damn reason whatsoever. Meanwhile, the subtext is a provocative condemnation of the concept of small-town middle America being the heartland of the country; it’s turned ultra-conservative, and conservatism has degenerated into moral bankruptcy while loudly proclaiming its morality. So either the American heart is deeply corrupt, or Kansas ain’t in Kansas in more, if you catch my drift. (I’m not sure I catch my drift)

For some people, that imagery combined with Costner’s soulful performance makes the character work. For others, that subtext is intriguing enough to make it worthwhile. For the rest, it’s absolutely infuriating for obvious reasons – you hate him for being awful, and you subconsciously hate him for making the story so slow and pointlessly grim.

And, more to the point, doing all three of those together just doesn’t work. He can’t be the inspirational heart of the movie, and one of the principal antagonists, and also a satirical take on American Conservatism, while having anything remotely to do with god-like aliens punching each other over whose genocide is the morally correct one. The other problems largely fall into that.

So some people eat their Man of Steel Sandwich and go, “Man, this bread is off the hook!” (or whatever you kids are saying these days) Others say, “For something with this much junk in it, it’s surprisingly nutritious, and wrapped in a crust that’s quite exquisite.” And everyone else is like, “This is a terrible sandwich! Sure, the bread is good, but it doesn’t go with these ingredients at all! The meat is month-old bologna! The cheese is great (the cheese is Russell Crowe), but it’s only on the first half. There’s way too much lettuce, the tomatoes are bad, and the jalapenos somehow aren’t even spicy! And even if, for some insane reason, you actually want mustard, ketchup, mayo, and salsa on the same sandwich, you don’t drown the entire thing in all of them. By the end, you can’t even taste the bread!”

But hey, at least it’s not a bag of oreos.