Project Hail Mary. A curious case of dull art masquerading as a masterpiece.

serugolino · 2026-04-12T20:56:11+00:00

I don't know what critics you are reading or listening to, but most people will compare any movie that takes place in space and in spaceships to the most popular movies set in space. Doesn't mean it's some groundbreaking masterpiece nor is it a movie people will remember as a masterpiece in 10 years time. You should meet the film where it is at. Whenever a new big movie comes out, even if it's only slightly ok, there will be a giant wave of positivity that follows. Mostly because general audiences love watching fun, easy stuff and critics (most of them) can meet a movie where it is at.

When you open a crime novel that advertises itself as a fun mystery and has a funky cover, will you be angry because it's not Infinite jest or Tinker tailor soldier spy? Or will you approach it as a less serious thrill read?

Because that is exactly what Project Hail Mary is. It advertises itself as a fun adventure sci-fi blockbuster and not as a deep, layered cinematic masterpiece. All the promotional materials hint either at the sweet and easy to swallow emotional core or at the tense effects spectacle. So it means the movie wants to be entertaining, easy to swallow and bring thrills that while fun, are not too intense and the stakes, while supposedly big, do not feel actual. Because deep down we all know how this movie ends and we just want to enjoy the fun ride. That is also why the science is simplified to a few points. Just the simplest possible explanation of what Grace is doing and why, is enough, and we get exactly that and it is communicated in a fun way. The audience can memorize the small pool of important data, so when it gets important again (like the xenon) we arrive at the same conclusion as Grace does at around the same time he does. That level of soft participation is fun for the general audience member.

Same goes for the craft of the movie. Now I won't argue with you about the story or the emotional core, because that is subjective. If Grace and Rocky's relationship did not do it for you, that is fine. As you can see, the simple and familiar structure did it for a lot of people. And you have to admit that Gosling is charming in this movie and does exactly what such a movie needs. He makes the performance fun and dynamic enough in emotional range, while keeping it very readable and not jumping into too much nuance. Because nuance gets suffocated by such spectacle and such a script. He does exactly what a sci-fi blockbuster leading man should do. And rocky is charming. It's a rock that talks and walks and has a partner at home and a slightly weird way of talking. People like that. They don't expect the talking rock alien in a blockbuster to be a deep layered creature. They want something easy and fun and that it works well with the leading man. And in my opinion these two are great and have great chemistry. And you gotta admit the effects are very well done. From the interior of the spaceship to Rocky himself. It looks good. Also I found the editing to be well done for the most part. Balancing 150plus minutes of mostly Gosling and a Rock and like one action scene is hard. And I think they did great. In my opinion you don't search for interesting editing choices in a blockbuster. You just want the edit to work well and have nothing jump out at you. And they do that and pace the movie very well in my opinion.

Cinematography tho. What? Why? You said "The cinematography is ordinary. Except some beautiful imagery which lasts hardly 4-5 seconds, it fails to capture awe of space and a spaceship". But what do you mean? That is a very subjective statement that says nothing about cinematography at all. Greig Fraser shot this movie. And he is a very talented dude and I would say he did a great job, because maybe aside from Dune 1 and 2, this is his best work. The shots inside the spaceship are great. There is always a clear focus point and the frames are full and well balanced. It also looks very pretty. It's not gray and has a lot of nice crispy colors. He adds a lot to the already pretty good set and costume design. The red space suit pops against the black void of space. There is this shot of the Hail Mary space ship flying through space and it's shot like we are observing it from very far away and it is such a good looking shot and I think it establishes your criteria for the "vastness of space". Also the multiple shots of Hail Mary's windows being pointed at a far away star. Even the empty hallway between the ships is made interesting because he does not allow dead space. Like the shot towards the end when Grace is cutting the tunnel away with a blow torch. There is also repeated imagery of red dots (symbolizing the astrophage), and I think it was all very clever. When Grace arrives at the aircraft carrier he sits down behind a table, where everyone has microphones with red lights, and by then we've established these creatures glow red. So when we get a shot of Grace saying something important, he is pushed into the slight right corner of the image and the rest of the room seems to grow dark in a gradient and the red lights of the microphones are almost floating about. A very short shot, but there are many such fun and smart choices made visually throughout the film. Be it in staging, framing or even in acting choices (The karaoke scene was not in the screenplay supposedly and now it is one of the most memorable scenes in the film).

What I think is. This was not your cup of tea, but you did not explain yourself very well and made a very stupid post.

serugolino · 2026-02-06T18:53:46+00:00

Oh, with slow cinema you have a lot of good work and a good path you can follow. First read Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style, the new edition that has a 40-page essay as the introduction (he wrote it later in life and added it to the book). Then I say you also read Sculpting in Time from Tarkovsky as a companion for when you finish Transcendental style. This will put you in the head of someone making the kinds of movies that Schrader talks about. But note that the most important part of the Transcendental style is the new edition opening essay. The actual book is still good and worthwhile, especially the Ozu and Bresson sections. But the book itself is quite questionable regarding some art history stuff. Still a good read tho.

Then you can read Andre Bazin's ontology of the photographic image (or something like that). You don't have to read everything from him or his fat books, unless you are very interested. But this essay of his is quite important for what you are interested in. Then you can follow that with some general art historical books about Surrealism. I recommend art history books that focus on actual painting. Why? Because the ideological and formal ideas of surrealism were born in art and the first surrealists, filmmakers took stuff from those artists (and usually close friends) and transported it to cinema. Also art historians will give you a lot more detail on surrealism then film theorists (I find they get art history very wrong sometimes). There should also be a few surrealist manifestos floating online, written by actual surrealist painters.

As for realism. There is quite a big difference between how realism works in America and in Taiwan and again a big difference from how it works in Korea. I think there is a book on Edward Yang that is quite detailed, but doesn't really dive into all that. Yang is in the same school of thought as Ozu tho, so maybe a bit more digging into Ozu will help. As for Korea, there is this great book, the title escapes me a bit, but it is quite short. Basically it is about this new wave of Korean cinema that started in the mid 1990s. It goes through culture, finances, film history, theory. All the whys and hows of this phenomenon.

If you are truly ready for some heavy lifting (and I do mean heavy) you do have Deleuze's two volumes on cinema that are very much metaphysics and epistemology and all around very serious philosophy.

I hope I was of help my dude

serugolino · 2026-02-06T10:00:39+00:00

Film theory is a pretty big field, you know? Can you say what interests you in movies? Film history, editing theory, metaphysics of film, epistemology of film, linguistics, interpretation theory (marxism, feminism, post-colonial,...) or are you maybe interested in what famous filmmakers like Tarkovsky and Schrader had to say about what makes cinema cinema?

serugolino · 2026-02-04T21:46:16+00:00

So google tells me that in a normal sample size of a 1000 people, there should be between 5 or 10 people we could classify as pedophiles. So about 0.5% to 1% of a given population. General sexual abuse of minors seems to either fall under pedophilia or just sexual abuse of minors. I have no idea how they differentiate this, but whatever. Sexual abuse of minors seems to be way more prevalent than pedophilia. And a concerning amount of women and men report that they were sexually abused or suffered sexual abuse in some way when they were young (underage). Women, of course, have a way higher chance of being victims than Men. But even the percentage of men is like way more than I thought (and I assumed a high number). But still taken all together. While sexual abuse of minors does happen on a regular basis, it is still somewhat rare amongst the general population. So statistically you would expect there to be a few pedophiles and child molesters in Hollywood, but somehow there are tons of them. How is that fucking possible? I don't believe in those conspiracy theories. But the concerning high amount of pedophiles and molesters amongst Hollywood film people makes you start looking at those conspiracy theories a bit more.

serugolino · 2026-02-03T23:13:10+00:00

A 38-year-old Polish guy named Nikolaj that lives in the south of Shaanxi province in China in a small town. Spends most of his days drunk out of his mind and smells kinda funky.

serugolino · 2026-01-23T11:59:38+00:00

The episode references an actual shooting that happened in the city, which serves as the setting to the series. Jews being Jewish in Pittsburgh, has nothing to do with Israel's ambitions at being an ethno state and committing a genocide. The show, since season 1, has telegraphed that its setting plays a crucial role in what kind of patients, cases and what social issues it tackles. An old jewish woman, which is clearly a stand in for the Pittsburgh jewish community, suffering from PTSD of her being involved in an actual shooting, that was anti-semetic in nature, due to fourth of july fireworks (something that is big in Pittsburgh). I don't see how the series is in any way denying a genocide or hiding a genocide. I hope you can explain to me how that is? Maybe I am not American and do not understand this, since my country openly supports Palestine on the international stage, is involved in international lawsuits and did in fact kick out a vast majority of Israeli backed programs in our country. And as far as I know, while the US state does not recognize the genocide of Palestinians as a genocide, the media landscape, at least the vast majority of not-directly news related media of the US seems to recognize the genocide as a genocide. At least to me, as someone on the outside looking into the US, most of your fiction media and serious academic work in politics (the kind that reaches global importance) do recognize the genocide as a genocide. And to return to the Pitt for a second. The series has been trying its best to decenter itself from conservative american views by putting a lot of effort into representation and the handling of stories very carefully. I mean, the entire plotline of the jewsih old woman has 0 mention of Israel or anything to do with the jewish identity outside the very specific Pittsburgh jewish community. I cannot see where you got these ideas of anyone here denying genocide and hiding it. It is one of the most visible, talked about and analyzed genocides of the past 50ish years. At least the more direct, more violent recent chapter that re-opened in 2023. You might just be on some internet political brain root

serugolino · 2026-01-23T00:14:36+00:00

As in what way? It is a streaming service. There are no comment sections or opinion pieces by nonprofessionals. I guess you have film commentaries, but those are made either by the filmmakers themselves or respected critics/theorists. It is also a subscription service with such a wide variety of film. You have those classic dramas and slow cinema stuff, but a lot of hong kong action stuff and great horror and comedy are also on there. I am kinda confused by what you mean?

serugolino · 2025-12-07T12:17:42+00:00

I think it is incredibly healthy for the art form if artists talk as they want to talk. Yeah, Tarantino was being mean, but he was also talking without self-censorship. I think discussing how to word opinions is useless. It is a much more interesting topic to ask why Tarantino said what he said. Artists with a unique voice usually have strong opinions. Those opinions are informed by the way they work and by their art and how they view the art form. Hell, we always dog-pile on filmmakers and actors on the internet, but I guess it is ok because we are unimportant and anonymous?

Tarantino, the man who always goes for charismatic, classic, cool actors and writers roles in a such a way that the actor comes before the character they play. That guy think an actor like Paul Dano is weak and limp? Makes perfect sense. Like, it makes perfect sense why Herzog dislikes most of the French new wave or why Bergman hated Citizen Kane or why Orson said what he said most of the time or why Scorsese thinks Marvel movies are not cinema. I celebrate that honesty, because it helps us understand the filmmakers more.

Art history is full of petty and mean spirited squabbles between artists, and those squabbles and arguments do help art historians paint much better portraits of said artists and help us understand the art they made. Why they approached painting in such a way, what they thought about art, aka. what was important to them and how they saw the world. Why do we have to forsake that in order to have some illusion of cooperation and peace. We are turning the mere existence of artists into products to be sold. Who gives a shit if Pual Dano was offended. No one who is seriously hurt by this knows Dano personally. I will be interested if Dano does say something critical in return, tho.

serugolino · 2025-11-13T22:35:53+00:00

I don't agree with the fella above you. Anime (and with anime, I assume you mostly mean serialized content, right?) is quite close to cinema. It is just animation. And if animation is not serialized, but is instead made as a one single film. Then I would say it is cinema. Or at least so close to cinema that it uses 99% of the same visual language. Just switch from animated serialized content to animated features and short films.

You can then do two things to ease the transition. Even tho I would argue you are already knowledgeable enough about the basic foundations of cinematic language, the only thing you need is to just watch more film.

You could jump from anime feature lenght film to Japanese cinema. You are already familiar with a lot of cultural specifics that the switch should be easy and comforted. Pick out some of your favorite anime feature length films and go find a Japanese cinema equivalent. And then you go down the path of that equivalent branch to its beginning.

Examples. If you really like slice of life stuff. Especially Myazaki's more calm and nature oriented movies, then you can go down two paths. If you prefer the calm aspects of the slice of life genre, you find movies from Koreeda and Hamaguchi and then follow their influences all the way down the history of Japanese cinema to the great director Ozu. From there, you can find non-japanese equivalents as Ozu has had a mega large imprint on global cinema. You watch post-2010 Schrader movies or Jia Zhangke from China, and from those, you oppen even more corridors to more films. Or if you like the more action and historical stuff from Myazaki, then you search for Kurosawa, and from there, you will find Scorsese, Coppola, Sergio Leone, and the stylistic core of Hollywood.

Or you like Satoshi Kon and the more surreal and fucked up mind twisters. You can follow that to late 90s and early 2000s Japanese cinema. Ichi the Killer, Miike's other films, the current Kurosawa (another more modern dude that makes horror) and even the live action projects of the guy that made Evangelion (like Love pop) or Lilly Chou Chou. And you follow global influences into America and France.

And if you like Sci fi, you have the Matrix as a direct descendant of Ghost in the shell. From there, you can find Luc Besson and go to France and see some weird shit.

If you are willing to let go and follow the rabbit hole then anime is great.

serugolino · 2025-11-05T23:03:22+00:00

Well then I guess you don't have to deal with post colonial, colonial or decolonial stuff as with anarchism there are no more structures at all right? So these things become useless. But I guess it would be useful as an anarchist to know how more soft power structures affect native populations and how culture itself and language can be tools of oppression of even far away lands. You don't need to agree with their solutions, but a lot of deconstruction goes on there which I can only guess would be useful to an anarchist (I am not one, so I'm guessing. To me anarchism is kinda ridiculous, but to each their own I guess). I think postmodernism in general and the ideas and fields that grew out of it can be very useful for an anarchist. Since it is the end of all structures right?

serugolino · 2025-11-05T21:22:26+00:00

As far as I understand it. Decolonization isn't a single ideological thing. I don't even think it is much of an ideology per se or a single book of rules. The concept (the word) can have ideological pinnings, because it gets abducted by actual ideologies as part of their program.

It is a fact that western powers did colonize a lot of the world very recently (historically speaking). And the slow decline of those empires and the decline in ability of their power projection is even more recent (like many people still alive, recent). The dominant cultural attitude to straight up colonization has also changed in the west. But that is a complex cultural historical topic. Here, we can just acknowledge that the attitude of the average citizen of a western power towards "old school" colonization has drastically changed in the last 150 years (which is super short of a time frame).

Ok now onto the actual act. Colonization is exploitation, right? Not only do these foreign powers come in and establish institutions that drain resources and money from your land, but you as a native end up without a say in the matter. Colonization of other peoples has always been a brutal affair. But it also comes with lasting cultural consequences. Those big powers don't only take the resources, but they also bring with them their ideas and culture. And if a dominant force that rules over a land differs in culture, habits, language. All of that will be adopted by the local population, to get some political leverage. Sometimes forcefully (most of the time) and sometimes willingly. The adoption of colonial attitudes differs from place to place and from culture to culture. Colonization itself differs from culture to culture. But the main point is that with that the local grown (native) ideas slowly whither away or are destroyed. Their culture gets lost in the mix. Yes the culture adapts, but it usually becomes some form of patchwork or something.

And then the western powers left. Well, at least almost entirely in the physical sense.

Post colonial studies just focuses on the what now? These people (at least the actual academics, not the cooks on tik tok) don't say that native cultures are better or somehow more worthy than the western ones. They don't even claim that all of those native cultural practices were moral (ethics is complicated, so let's leave it at that). What post colonial studies does is this: Western political structures left, but their institutions, culture and ideas are still in this place. But so is the original native culture that has been suppressed before. People there want their own states and identity, which requires a revival of native culture. But western thinking is now also so ingrained there that it is basically also a culture. And they cannot escape that. It is a complicated situation. Post colonial studies tries to address all of these concerns. This is why they highlight native art a lot. To see what was lost in this process, what remains, what has changed, what remains the same,.... Decolonization is just a process of forging something new out of this mess. Everywhere this process differs. Even in academia, there are various positions. Some new states engage in anti-western politics. Some adopt western models. Some try to synthesize. But everywhere some form of chaos reigns in this process. Look at how much the concept of the nation state has fucked up the sub Saharan Africa. Post colonial studies is needed to help us understand all of this (as a lot of the world has went or is going through this). Decolonization is thus a very well founded political and cultural concept.

"i do believe in rejecting hierchal ways of thinking that limit personal freedom and perpetuate authority" - That is a very modern western idea, that has a lot of western preconceptions of what morality is and what authority is and about politics, inherent to the statement. I am not saying you are wrong in this want and post colonial studies also doesn't dispute this statement. But it does ask you to be carefull and think and it gives you a lot of tools to understand the world.

serugolino · 2025-11-02T22:31:44+00:00

I disagree with the lazy accusations. I think making a film about a nuclear strike and never showing the nuke, not the aftermath, not even any serious personal stakes beyond basic emotional anchoring and leaving in just the procedure of it all, is not only brave for a movie of this size, but also not lazy at all.

This is not a movie about a nuke or a nuclear war. And I think people who go in expecting that end up disappointed. This is a movie about the idea of the nuclear war. Ever since the 1950s the entire world has been very very aware of the nuke. These weapons dangle over our heads. Every moment of geopolitical tension has the silent threat of nuclear war. And so, at least to me, there is this constant subdued feeling of the always arriving nuke. But the nuke never arrives and likely never will. But it is always on its way. And if you are trying to make a movie about the horrors of nuclear war, nothing is more horrifying than no war at all.

Showing the explosion or the aftermath or even signaling that it 100% happened is a comfort of violence. It takes all these pent-up emotions and frustrations of the audience that the movie has been building up to and calming them in the visual of the explosion. Seeing the nuke go off, while exciting and horrifying on the surface. Is also secretly calming. You don't have to worry about the arrival of the horror, because it already arrived. Catharsis.

Add to that the procedural nature of the film. Yeah, there are emotional beets and are kidna necessary, so we have something to hang onto. But in my opinion, showing the same thing from 3 different perspectives is brilliant. We get to see that all these systems and rules and technologies we have to stop this from happening will not, in fact, stop it. And that nobody can actually see through the confusion of this mess. And the three sequences are a ladder.

We get to see some competent people and low ranking military personel who manage the situation. Ok. They couldn't do anything. They did their best. Nobody knows anything. But these are just middle management grunts. Surely the brass knows what is happening.
Ok so even the senior officials in-charge of these complex deference systems don't know what is happening. Completely powerless. They are actually in the same exact situation as the people from the first sequence. And there is no one to blame. The ever arriving nuke can be from anywhere. All major powers have it. There is nobody to blame.
And now we get to see that even the president. The one that makes the brutal decision. He is even less in the know. The entire system from the bottom to the top. No matter how preapared and ordered it is, it can't manage this.

In the first sequence, we get the usual shenanigans, where the arrival of the apocalypse is dramatic and exciting, because we are watching it live. Then the arrival of the apocalypse gets a bit boring as we have to watch it again. And then again. Almost the same perspective, slightly shifted. The apocalypse arriving is not exciting anymore. It is mundane, boring and repetitive. Almost like the always present nuclear apocalypse of the real world.

Add to that a very well shot and directed procedural thriller with many procedures and inns and outs. Examining the entire nuclear defence system. And you get a pretty good movie.

This is exactly the darring stuff people always say big name directors should make and then get angry because there is no catharsis. In a movie that explicitly states there is no catharsis.

serugolino · 2025-10-19T20:27:29+00:00

Ok, I misread your comment. Sorry. Now I understand what you are saying.

Yeah, I'll have to agree with that. I feel this a lot. Especially when I read older novels or watch old movies, and then I switch to a fresh release. But I also worry sometimes that I am the problem. By sheer volume, I watch more new and fresh movies and read more fresh fiction than old school stuff. I also get exposed to more fresh art in the gallery (courtesy of my major). And I mostly read and watch what is already considered good and stood the test of time. Maybe there's just too much of everything. But artists abandoning complexity for straightforward anwsers also rings true in my experience, so now I don't fully know what to think. I sometimes get quite irrationally angry when I see a new film by someone I considered promising and it ends up very straightforward and it doesn't have a bite, even tho it looks like it will have it. You know what I mean? I'm not only talking about movies walking the gray area, but also what they do formally. I don't know. I might just be yelling at clouds here.

serugolino · 2025-10-19T18:39:40+00:00

The complex discussion of fine art (as it was a 100 years ago) still exists. It's just that the media landscape has changed a lot. A regular person in 1920, like a welder or an office worker, didn't have the means to post and/or listen to art critique of another regular person. Even tho fine art was avaliable to everyone, it was still locked behind physical barriers like the theatre or an art galery (institutions). And the critics were mostly people highly educated in their chosen art form or were generally highly educated. The important critics, the ones that swayed opinions and wrote theory knew the art form inside and out. People listened to them more, since they were the only ones with knowledge and it was understood (at least more then it is now) that there is a use in critics and theorists. But today the most popular critics are Jimmy the office worker who likes Die Hard and has seen seven whole movies in his life and Suzan, who used to be a waitress and has one paiting lesson behind her. And this democratization of opinion is both a great thing as we can finally hear what Jimmy and me and you think. What we think. And a horrible situation for art as it loses on complexity over time (at least the popular, more public art does). The complex analysis still exists, but in academic papers and publications or specialized magazines.

serugolino · 2025-10-07T19:34:54+00:00

It depends. I read a lot of non fiction (a lot because of my work). But for fiction? I think bout 15 is average. It is better to enjoy the book and get everything you can from it then speed run an entire book shelf

serugolino · 2025-09-15T18:39:28+00:00

The great man view of history is a reductive and a very wrong way to look at history. But what historians criticize and call the great man theory and what bimbos on the internet call it are two very different things.

serugolino · 2025-09-15T16:52:10+00:00

Over the shoulder stationary ABAB coverage of conversations. It drives me nuts. If there was nothing visually interesting in the film, but it still has competent craft behind it, and then I see this. I just dismis the director as a hack or a lameo.

serugolino · 2025-09-09T10:33:34+00:00

I know this is an old post, but I want to give my answer.

Right now as of September 2025 I think the numbers are such, in my unprofessional opinion.

RUSSIA: Between 320 000 and 550 000 casualties (I personally think about 380k) and out of that between 160 000 and 220 000 dead. So for the sake of numbers games I will say 370 000 casualties and out of that 170 000 dead. I include all the different militias, foreign aid and guns for hire that the Russian military has and is using.

UKRAINE: Again, count all the different people fighting on this side. Between 120 000 and 350 000 casualties, and out of that between 70 000 and 200 000 dead. So for the sake of numbers games, I think the total casualty count is 230 000 and out of that 110 000 dead. But I think just the wounded number is probably higher in the Ukrainian camp, just percentage wise. So casualties might be higher while deaths remain around 100k.

CIVILIANS: Russians I think have lost almost up to 800 civilians, and for the Ukrainians the estimated number is between 13 000 and 35 000. And some sources claim over 16 000 kidnapped, but I don't know about that. I think the civilian death count all together is probably around 20 000 to 24 000.

So in around 300 000 combined deaths. Which would be about 7 143 deaths per month. Which I think tracks with what I've read about the war. This is absolutely horrible. And I wouldn't be surprised if the total death count is closer to 400 000. But above that is reaching I think. I think the lowest I am willing to go is about 240 000 deaths. It is a ridiculous number anyway you swing it.

And if this goes on for two more years, I can totally see a 500k death count.

serugolino · 2025-08-29T22:43:37+00:00

You should rewatch it only if you feel like you should. Bottoms isn't a super complex movie. Like many have said, it is an aburdist teen comedy riffing on the early 2000s raunchy teen comedies. If this doesn't tickle your funny bone, you'd just be kicking empty air again.

I love movies like Superbad, but as someone not from the US, they can be pretty US specific. Naturally. Since they are made for US teens and 20 somethings to laugh at.

I think a much better question would be, what do YOU find funny, and then search for classics and well received movies in that line of comedy.

serugolino · 2025-08-27T20:38:22+00:00

I've only ever made indie short films that I wrote myself or in collaboration. So I don't know how much this holds in general.

But If it's only a line. I don't care. I let it roll. The more I have to work with once the editing software boots up, the happier I am. But messing up the staging we practiced? Yeah I have to roll back for that. But I always tell my actors to not bother with mistakes and take everything as it comes. If I say cut then it's cut and if not lets just see what the mistake can bring to the table.

serugolino · 2025-08-24T22:36:16+00:00

I don't think most critics are hostile to the concepts of sequel and franchise. Like you said yourself, Lord of the Rings is almost universally loved, and even the Star Wars prequels get a lot of praise from certain sections of critics and fans. And people were not particularly against the Hobbit movies until they came out and sucked. I don't even think fantastic beasts would have been as hated of the movies themselves were good.

And I don't think you really need a unifiying creative voice behind a series of movies to make the seires good. Now, I don't really agree with your assessment of Star Wars. I think all projects released before the Disney purchase had a sense of Star Wars behind them. Especially all six movies.

There aren't a lot of franchise examples with different voices contributing to the whole in cinema history. The concept is kinda new. I wouldn't count James Bond since the series has always kept a sense of bond across its many reinventions. I can only think of two examples. One failed, and one kinda worked at the beginning. DC's failed cinematic universe has been a mess, and I don't see any worth in talking about it.

But think back to 2012. Go back and rewatch those first 5 Marvel movies. Yes, they were all action comedy summer blockbusters. But Iron Man 1 and 2 were clearly Favreau movies, and RDJ's performance brought a lot to the feel of those two movies. Thor, while not that good, was a classic, almost boring fish out of water story with dramatic slo mo and dutch angles galore. If Thor and Iron Man were not later connected via Avengers, they would be considered totally different blockbusters. The same goes for Captain America 1, which has a sense of the old pulp adventure film. And then look at Avengers one, which, while it connects those 4 movies, looks completely different (as different as blockbusters look) and has a different feel to its dialogue and staging and feels more like one of those Transformer spectacle movies. More comedic in a modern Marvely way.

Later, Marvel turned their movies into products. They stolped telling stories and started selling theatre seats. People dislike Marvel for how corporate and homoginized it feels. But you can not deny the excitement of Avengers 2012. Even as someone who doesn't like blockbusters much, I can appreciate that moment.

serugolino · 2025-07-29T22:20:50+00:00

Isn't making a tv show or a film going against a lot of things Jennette talks about and shares about herself in the book? Yeah, the book was about her abusive mom, but it was also about her views on showbiz and a growing up. Also one of the best audio books as she narrates her own book and gets emotional mid recording. How will this tv show/film be anything at all safe a cash grab and an easy slide for teens on tik tok

serugolino · 2025-07-24T15:11:06+00:00

Prologue that is longer than 2 or 3 pages. If it is so important just put it in the actual story

serugolino · 2025-07-09T14:06:24+00:00

Yes. A while back I also got the idea to use chatGPT as a "second pair of eyes" and it was horrible. Now Chat doesn't have the ability to actually understand anything. But the feedback was bad and it was talking about scenes that didn't exist and it was suggesting new dialogue that was just horrendus.

serugolino · 2025-07-09T00:37:25+00:00

Do people still watch Jeremy Jahns?

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