Edge of Desire

Jun Shen is writing a book. This is where he drops the inspirations.

[junch-blog]

Seven Types of Objectification

After giving her examples of objectification, Nussbaum distinguishes seven ways to treat a person as a thing – that is, to objectify them.

Instrumentality. The objectifier treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes.

Denial of autonomy. The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination.

Inertness. The objectifier treats the object as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity.

Fungibility. The objectifier treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same type and/or (b) with objects of other types.

Violability. The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.

Ownership. The objectifier treats the object as something that is owned by another, can be bought or sold, etc.

Denial of subjectivity. The objectifier treats the object as something whose experience and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.

LINK HERE http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=10323 

[strangewood-deactivated20190307]

“One reason that I don’t look at my films again once they’re finished is because I’ve already learned from them what I’m going to learn and watching them over again doesn’t teach me anything. There’s a quote by the French poet Paul Valéry; he said, ‘a poem is never finished, only abandoned.’ You could edit a film for the rest of your life and still keep changing it and changing it, but at a certain point it leaves your hands and you send it off to military school, or whatever; it’s gone, it’s on its own, you know. You kick it out of the house and it’s gone, and it has to live in the world itself. I have a personal motto that it’s hard to get lost if you don’t know where you’re going. I really believe that intuition is the real guide. Therefore to me my work as a filmmaker is a process and there is no destination; it’s like the Buddhist saying, the path is the destination. I really feel that way. I loved it when they asked Kurosawa, when he was in his eighties, when would he stop making films, and he said, ‘as soon as I figure out how to do it.’ It’s very hard to say specific things you learn from each particular film, but the experience of making the films is the end result. And the film itself is something you kind of leave in your wake as the result of the process.” – Jim Jarmusch

[frankocean]

I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard it’s in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in. I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty. That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else. Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here. Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, I’m scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?

[twiststreet]

There is nothing which a prudent man must shun more carefully than living with a view to popularity and giving serious thought to the things esteemed by the multitude, instead of making sound reason his guide of life, so that, even if he must gainsay all men and fall into disrepute and incur danger for the sake of what is honourable, he will in no wise choose to swerve from what has been recognized as right.

Basil of Caesarea (330-379AD).

[procedural-generation]

Sunspring (2016)

A short film written by a computer.

While most human-computer partnerships have the computer as the junior partner interpreting the human’s requests, this literally flips the script and has the humans interpreting the computer-written screenplay.

Their generator doesn’t have the most sophisticated output I’ve seen. (A Time for Destiny and Terminal Time both have more moment-to-moment coherence, for example.) But those tend to have more human input at the top end, whereas this was written by a neural net that had read a bunch of screenplays.

The human input into Sunspring came at the bottom, as the actors and film crew interpreted the script.

There’s a write-up on Ars Technica with a lot of behind-the-scenes details.

The bot that wrote the script goes by the self-chosen name of Benjamin. It was created by Ross Goodwin. The film was directed by Oscar Sharp and stars Thomas Middleditch, Elisabeth Gray, and Humphrey Ker, with a song by Andrew and Tiger.

Benjamin has a website.

Did I mention that Benjamin chose his own name? They were conducting an interview during the awards ceremony, and the bot told them “My name is Benjamin.” The bot also told them:

What is the future of machine written entertainment? It’s a bit sudden. I was thinking of the spirit of the men who found me and the children who were all manipulated and full of children. I was worried about my command. I was the scientist of the Holy Ghost.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY7x2Ihqjmc)

[twiststreet]

“I was the scientist of the Holy Ghost.”

[junch-blog]

Interesting.

[nevver]

In a Lonely Place

[junch-blog]

A REVIEW OF CAPTAIN AMERICA VS IRON MAN

It goes without saying that this is better than BvS, but then again that was a really low bar. Civil War is like a whole delicious cake, engineered and tested over and over again to perfection, so that every bite you take, is just really really tasty af. In comparison, BvS is like Zach Snyder took the first draft of his 10-year old self's fanfiction of a Batman-Superman story, and just ran with it. But I'm not here to make a comparison between a piece of turd and a nicely made cake.

If I had to compare it against something, I'd compare it to the single slice of cake that was Capt America - Winter Soldier. That was like a lean, tight piece of cake, that made you go "wow that's really good, can't wait for the next slice." Winter Soldier is still the best shit from the MCU hands down. Anyway, after Winter Soldier and the dismal Avengers 2, Marvel got really excited to try and please us again that they gave us the whole cake this time round - a whole cake filled with sugary goodness like the annoyingly perfect, and perfectly annoying Spidey, a really badass Black Panther, more Vision, more Ant-Man (literally), Capt's biceps in that helicopter scene, and just the right amount of feels in that last fight scene.

I feel like Civil War could've benefited from being made into a season of a TV show, that would've just slowed the fuck down, so we could digest each piece of the cake before stuffing our face with the next bit (I'm rly going for the cake metaphor here). What I did like though was that in this cake, Tony Stark just got really dark af. His eyes are so dead, I don't know if that's deliberate but he just can't keep his shit together so that when he snaps, it makes a whole lot of sense. There was some great character moments too - some laughing bits, like Vision trying to make some kind of Russian food, because robots trying to be chefs is always funny af. Martin Freeman with an American accent.

The fights are fun to watch, because THE FIGHT SCENES ARE PUZZLES - where superheroes use the right abilities to fight against other superheroes. Lots of hand to hand shit on display here again, as is wont of a Russo Bros superhero movie I guess.

The villain was decent, he seemed like a smart guy, if a bit bland in the face. Then again the other Marvel villains were low bars - incl. Ultron and Loki who just wanted to take over the world and shit. So a dude who actually tried some sneaky shit to get the superheroes to fight, and we see his work, is better than Lex Luthor who just said "I made all this happen, BELIEVE!"

Some weird crap I didn't like includes the hipster text design for the location title cards. It was really weird - if you haven't seen the movie yet, when you watch, you'll see what I mean. Some weird plot conveniences, like shit getting figured out way too quick, so that they can quickly get to the next act and major fight between superheroes. And also some heavy-handed writing like both Tony and Steve getting their "inspirations" and ideas that propel them forward in the story from other people they go and listen to. Or why Tony suddenly goes ape-shit at the end and starts fighting Capt. It's a weird gripe, but you know, as a writer, sometimes it really breaks it for me when I can see that shit from a mile away.

Really though, it's fine in the grand scheme of things, this is like a top 3? Winter Soldier is really the pinnacle, and then the first Iron Man. So this would be third, definitely.

I liked the movie, but I had this thought in the back of my mind the whole time "This was a great cake, but how do you top this cake? Do I even want any more cake after this cake? What's the point of eating this much cake? What do I get out of it?"

Captain America - Civil War is really the most comic book of the superhero movies - the melodrama of comic books, the random piecemeal reasons for superheros to get into fisticuffs - it's all on display here. I really enjoyed going on this ride, shit was cool looking, and I was happy to lean into it. But then just like comic books, after awhile, you ask what's the point of it all? Why am I reading about the fifty billionth time that Earth gets invaded? Why do superheroes always turn sides after awhile, or die, and then come back to life? Why is there never peace? When does it ever end? And then the superhero bubble bursts, and we go back to watching other movies and reading non-superhero shit.

[junch-blog]

[junch-blog]

Story study.

From this incredible song 

[mecha0godzilla]

あわつまい

[junch-blog]

Character study

[alpacakingdom]

アリスムカイデ, 21

[junch-blog]

Character study

[seekernetwork]

Meet the Female Drift Racers of Palestine

Learn what drives the Speed Sisters to compete as the only female drift racing team of the West Bank.

As a woman, drift racing in a conservative society like the West Bank of Palestine isn’t easy. Many people judge the Speed Sisters for wanting to do something other than get married, have children, and take care of domestic responsibilities. Living in an occupied territory makes it even more difficult. But racing helps these women deal with their anger towards the many forces trying to keep them down. It might be difficult but they’re going to continue to racing no matter what.

[did-you-know]

Good choice.

[kaijusaurus]

Ultraman X director Kiyotaka Taguchi teaches kids to make a kaiju movie (x).

[iaiamothrafhtagn]

this is righteous.

[junch-blog]

Review of Batman v Superman

We're reaching that point in superhero film saturation where we're starting to get the weird films again. You know, I've always thought that the superhero movie bubble was going to burst sometime, that we're going to get way too much of it, and then everyone's going to fuck off and pay attention to other films not about superpowered people saving the world or something. It's a cycle. Life is a cycle.

We are privileged to have large movie companies want to spend a fuckton of money making movies around cool culture things we like, like superheroes and video games. I think we were really lucky to have Nolan's Batfilms (but TDKR did suck though) and Captain America #2.

But it's not always going to be that way. And it shouldn't have to be. Filmmakers are supposed to be able to make the films they want - not the films that we think we want. Sure, Superman is supposed to be a certain way, and Batman is supposed to be a certain way, but then we won't get really fucked up shit like the Bat Credit Card (Good thru: Forever), dancing emo Peter Parker, or a really militant Batman that has all the guns to kill all the bad people.

What I'm saying is this - Zack Snyder made his own superhero movie - and it sucked but I think it sucked in an interesting way. The first half of the movie was cut like a comic book, had all this weird plot shit that didn't make much sense if you were trying to follow it closely, but it was like a COMIC BOOK. Both Batman and Superman were really unlikeable dumbasses - but at least it was another take on Batman and Supes in a way that I wasn't expecting. But the worst part of all, the fights were the most boring, uninspired thing I've ever seen, but at least we got Wonder Woman's debut which everyone likes. I'm also happy there was all this fanservice peppered throughout like SPOILER ALERT SPEEDFORCE??!? and JL REVEAL?!?! but man, it was laughable how badly done it was.

I think it's okay though to have shitty superhero movies - we don't lose (except for our time and little bit of money spent). The big companies lose. But at least it's interesting to have all this art swirling around, and shit can't be shiny and perfect like Marvel all the time.

[rrrick]

Shirley Temple smokes

[junch-blog]

Character study

[austinkleon]

Bowie is why I tell my writing students that there is no “voice” to find, no voice that belongs to the true you, because there is no true you, only ever versions of yourself you have learned to perform, and the voice of the character you play on the page is up to you. The question is not who you are but what connects, how much courage you have, how much guile, what you can manage to get away with.

Will Wilkinson, “Why David Bowie Is Important to Me”  (via austinkleon)

[junch-blog]

Embedded for further character study