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   Michael W Lucas :flan_on_fire: (mwl@io.mwl.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 09:05:30 JST Michael W Lucas :flan_on_fire:

   Too exhausted to hit the dojo.

   SWMBO is in the basement in an online class for three and a half hours.

   I think it's time to watch "Escape from New York."

   • Embed this notice
     tech? no! man, see... (technomancy@icosahedron.website)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 09:05:16 JST tech? no! man, see...

     in reply to

     @mwl I was really surprised watching this after my only other Carpenter exposure was They Live, because EFNY kinda leans into the whole "criminals are dangerous degenerates!" reactionary shit; like ... how did this come from the same mind as They Live?

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     Michael W Lucas :flan_on_fire: (mwl@io.mwl.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 09:05:18 JST Michael W Lucas :flan_on_fire:

     in reply to

     Okay, laundry here so I can be "productive," and a big bottle of water.

     Let's do this.

     The #efny music is classic Carpenter synth work. The voiceover intro just flat-out tells us what the world is in fifteen seconds. Lots of movies wouldn't have the guts to just put it out there like this.

     Also screamingly built atop Reagan-era fears. Without Reagan, we wouldn't have this film.

   • Embed this notice
     silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 09:27:47 JST silverwizard

     in reply to
     @mwl the *other* movie set in the 90s to flash back to 1988. The main one being (of course) Hackers.
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     tech? no! man, see... (technomancy@icosahedron.website)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 13:31:47 JST tech? no! man, see...

     in reply to

     • 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     @enkiv2 @mwl it just seems so utterly ineffectual

     like if the person being satirized can watch the film and not get angry at it, what have you really accomplished?

     at least with starship troopers the director had the excuse that he was european, he could be forgiven for not understanding how deeply fucked up the US popular conception of the military is

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     𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e (enkiv2@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 13:31:49 JST 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     in reply to

     • tech? no! man, see...

     @technomancy @mwl

     I always thought it was an over the top parody of conservative fears. (Like, Escape from LA clearly was -- I figured that twenty years earlier, EFNY came off as much sillier)

     A lot of 80s movies have the problem that they were aimed at adults and starred over the top satires of toxic masculine behavior, but then became popular with (and targeted at) kids who didn't get the joke, whose interpretation dominated the cultural memory. (Like: Star Wars was supposed to be an allegory for the Vietnam war from the perspective of the Viet Cong -- did intelligent adult viewers at the time pick up on this? A lot of the time, the adults don't catch on to particular interpretations either, or don't "get the point" for 20 years -- we all basically accept that The Matrix is partly about the trans experience, but imagine trying to convince someone of that in 2005.)

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     tech? no! man, see... (technomancy@icosahedron.website)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 13:38:23 JST tech? no! man, see...

     in reply to

     • 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     @enkiv2 @mwl I guess it's subversive in that Reagan fans will see Snake as being cool as hell and want to be Snake, but Snake hates cops

     but he is a cop in the end anyway, so the point ends up being ... that you can't resist them? I'd take Roddy Piper going out in a blaze of glory any day

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     tech? no! man, see... (technomancy@icosahedron.website)'s status on Sunday, 08-Sep-2024 04:50:48 JST tech? no! man, see...

     in reply to

     • 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     @enkiv2 @mwl (guy who's only watched 2 john carpenter movies voice) basically the way I see it is that if you're carpenter there's only 2 stories you can tell about post-reagan america; either the protagonist resists and goes out in a blaze of glory or he is inescapably drawn into collaboration with a system he hates and is stripped of all meaningful agency, forced to be a pawn of the powerful in order to survive

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     𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e (enkiv2@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Sunday, 08-Sep-2024 04:50:50 JST 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     in reply to

     • tech? no! man, see...

     @technomancy @mwl

     Yeah, I get the impression that when Carpenter made Escape from New York he *thought* he was making Escape from LA but he was accidentally too subtle. Certainly a mistake!