OFF TOPIC:

What is happening to this place.  It was really abuzz a while back but it seems that it is withering and dying for some reason.  It is strange

/END of OFF TOPIC

I just watched a really mentally ill movie.  If you haven't seen it it is a Disney/Pixar animation movie called Brave and a girl "Merida" who is asked by her mom to get married and she doesn't care about it and doesn't want to.  Since her childhood she was fascinated with archery and she was vey skilled, however her mom, the queen, tells her that she can't be doing that because she is a female (story of our lives).

It is amazing.  It is so good I was going to cry so many times by the first 45 minutes of the movie.  It had great music, great CG scenery and I felt great watching it.  At one point I felt that I was reborn! It is this good.  Here is the image I had in my mind:

The movie made me feel like a 5 year old girl watching a Disney movie about life and learning something about it.  I totally identified with the heroine.  By the way it was marketed as the first Disney movie with a female as the star of the movie.  So I felt that I was transported in time to a period when girls start learning about themselves and I felt I was learning something new and I was living the movie with the female star.  It is a really strange, and absolutely amazing, experience where I felt that I was in my uncle's living-room in New York (I think that I chose NY because I felt that it was the land of opportunity as a kid), being educated about life by a Disney movie.  Like a girl's dream.  I am not a person who easily cries (I don't know if it is the extra testosterone or the low levels of estrogen in my body) but I was so moved that I was really worried that my sister would turn to look at me and see me crying.

However at one point of the movie, it became a tragedy, as the scene shows how the mom takes the bow of her daughter and in a fit of anger throws in the fireplace.  It was gut wrenching and I knew that the movie would turn out really badly and that the writer actually lost it and didn't know how to continue writing this movie.  I don't know why the writer decided to change from the really positive and uplifting message of the movie, that the girl is choosing her way and enjoying something that is not conventional for a female to do (archery), and drag the movie into a tragedy that the mom has her way and wants to destroy her daughter's life.  Why would a movie steer into this direction?  What is the point of the movie?  That tragedy happens.  Why start it with a really strong message about a girl carving her way into the mom stepping all over the female star's ambitions and crushing them?  Is the writer projecting their miserable life on the movie?  What! are we supposed to watch the movie and feel for the writer? ->-bleeped-<- YOU movie writer, just make a good bloody movie and leave your therapy session out of it !  It really turned into a tragedy.  So I was pissed and I started to move around in my chair (like a little boy ?  ) and I was willing to go through this movie as a tragedy when it seems that the writer actually lost it and started to lose their mind.  It turned into the girl turning her mom into a bear! (idiots) and a story of a girl in a zoo.  So stupid.  From there on, it started to become a collage of stupid stories such as the girl trying to sew a knitting that she tore showing her making a rip between an image of her and her mom, so weird, some Olympics ->-bleeped-<- about her dad and his clan running after a bear in the woods and eventually the clans who came to find a suitor for the girl went back to their homes empty handed as the girl and the mom made up and the wedding story was no longer important anymore?!  ->-bleeped-<-!

Really psychotic ->-bleeped-<-!  Like how do you move from a girl wanting to get married to the ships sailing back without a suitor or even an interest of one.  Really weird that they spoiled the movie this way.

----------------

So as the post explained my emotions of the movie changed as the emotions of the movie changed.  It was really beautiful then it turned into psychosis.  Really sad when I felt so connected and at home with the movie into feeling repulsed by it.  I am not repulsed of my life though.  See how ->-bleeped-<-ed up the movie is.  It managed to  ingrained a feeling of guilt and self-consciousness in me.  God bless their heart the writes of the movie, they are absolutely clueless.

So my recommendation is to watch the first 45 minutes of the movie, and I also wanted to share this magical feeling that I felt finally at home watching a Disney movie, which eluded me a long time as maybe I was trying to relate to the characters such as Peter Pan and Teenage Mutants Ninja Turtles.

WTF Disney writers !?  Seriously W.T.F.?  Please writer go and die or try to erase the memory of watching this really scary movie.  I am really contemplating sending the writers of the movie an email telling them that the jokes not on me!  What are they trying to prove? That life is ->-bleeped-<-? We already know that.  OK I am getting worked up, but screw you Disney writers.

I really liked that feeling of imagining being a 5 year old girl appreciating a Disney movie.  I hope you understand what I am trying to convey.

Bye for now.

It does have a tendency to slow to crawl at times. What I find disturbing is the lack of drifting in threads.
They can be so insightful of the individuals who post like that. I miss it.

I'm always checking in here, even if I don't post.
Sometimes I don't think my mood would allow an appropriate response.
Other times, I'm just watching how some threads play out.
Which is something that is happening more than usual, at least the usual I'm used to.
There just doesn't seem to be many responses to topics.

Lately I've been working on my photos, trying new media. It's working out well.
I'm also using different techniques to give the photos a color pencil or pen and ink look.
I've sold some, again. This gets me going to do better and stay with it.
I'm also going to start some t-shirt painting.
I now have a huge supply of different paints that will work on cloth.
But more importantly, I have some really good ideas of what I want.
As opposed to just winging it like I usually do...

Metroland... I think everyone is just being quiet for their own reasons, but are still around.
At least I hope so. It just goes this way sometimes.
I've even been pretty quiet on FB, which is unusual for me.
So, that's about it.
Yep, it's quiet.
I'm reading posts.
Sorry the movie turned out so bad.
I really hate it when I relate to something, only to have it turn out to be something else.
I can relate to that, very much.

Ativan

I really like pixar movies but I think they are loosing there touch.
I havent seen Brave....I was going to but maybe not now haha.
Im dreading Finding Nemo 2....I love the first I hope they dont ruin it.

I have not seen Brave, but I shall.  I also like Pixar movies.

Please don't let me persuade you from watching the movie.  I was really happy though to get the feeling of connectedness with the protagonist of the movie.  A girl.  It was a beautiful moment.

As I bushy red-headed type, I liked Brave. Me and my friends watched it in preparation, we then jumped on a bus to the Highlands and climbed Ben Nevis.

The stuff with the bear and that was plot, you could also call it metaphor. In becoming a bear the mum had to realise her animal side, and in trying to keep her human Merida had to realise her controlled side. It was this that brought the two together to be reconciled at the end. It also added humour and jeopardy, because the husband was a famous bear hunter.

I personally loved the end, it was a very androgyne end. The suitors were not suitable, they were rubbish so packed off home and our heroine allowed to ride wild through the forest her hair flowing with her mother, hair also flowing, free to choose for herself.

We all loved it. one andro and three males - and we all identified with Merida. She was a good character.



As for a decline in the forum, I've been on here 6 years and it seems to go round in a circles a little. What we need is someone to ask difficult questions and not take any BS answers the way Nero used to.

I miss it, the way that Nero used to...

I shall watch the movie.
With the reviews all you have written, how could I not?
(not a substitute for a difficult question)

Ativan

Quote from: Pica Pica on August 29, 2012, 06:53:20 PM
In becoming a bear the mum had to realise her animal side, and in trying to keep her human Merida had to realise her controlled side. It was this that brought the two together to be reconciled at the end. It also added humour and jeopardy, because the husband was a famous bear hunter.

I don't think that this is the point of the story.  Why the hell do we care about the mom.  It was a beautiful story about the complex (and quite a gender rebel) girl and it turned into some kind of story about the mom and how she is a bear? Really this is what the story is about?  Really it reveals the complex the writer has about their mom.  I wished that they'd continue the story of the girl.  Even if it was a tragedy (although preferably it would be a more thought out plot) it would have been nicer to convey the point of view of the girl throughout.  It felt a little schizophrenic.

I thought mother and daughter was the whole point.

The story was told from her perspective and was all about the difficult relationship between a mum and her daughter.
There was the ease of the relationship when she was a little girl at the beginning, the difficulty with living up to her mum's standards in the middle which lead to the bear stuff, and then the grown up relationship at the end.

Quote from: Pica Pica on August 29, 2012, 07:15:30 PM
I thought mother and daughter was the whole point.

I didn't see it that way.  So why did it all start when the mom becomes a bear, 45 minutes into the film.  The movie was marketed as the girl.  There was an emphasis by pixar to portray her as the first female protagonist by Disney/Pixar.  I am not sure if they really wanted to shed a light about the relationship.  If it did, then it was very dichotomous because the story about the girl for the first hour or so.  That is what annoyed it.  If it was about the relashionship throughout then I would have be ok, but it wasn't.

I actually found the theme of the girl doing something non-traditional kind of tired. It was done better in Mulan and a bunch of other movies. Heck, we've seen the bow-wielding female in Hunger Games without batting an eyelash.

A movie where a male does something gender-variant, now that would be bold. Could Pixar ever have the prunes to put something like that out?

Quote from: agfrommd on August 29, 2012, 08:22:39 PM
Heck, we've seen the bow-wielding female in Hunger Games without batting an eyelash.

Not a Disney movie

Quote from: agfrommd on August 29, 2012, 08:22:39 PM
A movie where a male does something gender-variant, now that would be bold. Could Pixar ever have the prunes to put something like that out?

Males suck. They think that they rule the world.  It is about time to show things from the perspective of the female.

OK folks.  Metroland did not like the film.  That is a given.  But lets be careful about bashing guys, please.   Rule 10.

Quote from: Ms. OBrien on August 29, 2012, 08:38:13 PM
OK folks.  Metroland did not like the film.  That is a given.  But lets be careful about bashing guys, please.   Rule 10.

I am not sure if you were referring to me, but I was making a point.  Sorry if I was rude or if I offeneded anyone.  This was not my intention.

Pixar think special effects at high speed will cover up a rubbish storyline?

Everything can't just go hunky-dory in a movie. There has to be a conflict to resolve. The mother didn't accept her daughter's individuality which included crossing the gender barrier. They had to go on a journey together to grow and learn something about each other so they could heal their relationship. That's just my take from your description. I haven't seen it.

I generally don't like movies, but especially ones with a female lead...she is almost always doing something "non-traditional" (which is cool), but she does it in a way that uses most of today's far-left cliches about womanhood.

Mulan, while a good movie in itself, posits that a woman can be the equal to men in battle, while retaining her delicate femininity...in the days when brute strength and endurance determined battles.

What I didn't like was Merida's crazy selfishness toward her mother when the spell was taking effect.  No sense that maybe she screwed up and was harming her (perhpas misguided but obviously well-meaning) mother.  She lost a lot of my sympathy at that point and the story became her mother's.

(I'd argue that the mother showing some remorse right after destroying the bow made her a bit more likeable than Merida was.  I had the sense she was trying to be something she wasn't, just as she was trying to force Merida to be something she wasn't.)

I didn't like that all the males in the movie were parodies of men -- incompetent, immature, and  violent -- and the only competent people in the story were women.  Can we have a story that's positive toward women that does it without reducing men?  The trope that men aren't capable is so often just an excuse to make women do more work, and vice versa.

Quote from: foosnark on August 30, 2012, 12:14:29 PM
What I didn't like was Merida's crazy selfishness toward her mother when the spell was taking effect.  No sense that maybe she screwed up and was harming her (perhpas misguided but obviously well-meaning) mother.  She lost a lot of my sympathy at that point and the story became her mother's.

For me things went downhill when the mother threw the bow in the fireplace.  At that point the movie turned into a tragedy.  A little bearable (no pun intended ) but when the bear story came in things really started to become psycho.

It was a little funny when the girl didn't show any remorse for her mom.  She was like eat it eat it eat it.  But seriosuly what can a girl do after being crushed that way by her mom who she totally puts her faith in (didn't we all live through that with our parents or guardians at some point)?  Really I felt so bad for the girl and of course at that point I projected so much of my life on the movie.  I go to movies to enjoy them, not to relive my painful past through the protagonist. But I agree that scene was a little psychotic.  Very sad.

Quote from: foosnark on August 30, 2012, 12:14:29 PM
(perhpas misguided but obviously well-meaning) mother.

I doubt that her mom was well-meaning. No one who is well meaning does such a cruel thing.  This comes out of a really stone cold heart.  It seems that the mom was reliving some kind of trauma (maybe her mother did the same thing to her?) and the collateral damage was her daughter.  Again where is the joy in the movie when we get so philosophical about it instead of enjoying it?

Films are strange that each viewer's experiences are different. I thought it was a lovely film about a complicated relationship. Didn't see any pain or psychosis in it.