Netflix/Prime/Hulu/BritBox Binge Watching: Coronavirus Edition

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clairecloutier said:
This is a legit question. To me, if you're an adult and see what goes on in our culture and our media, and then think about how that impacts kids, then it's pretty easy to draw your own conclusions. But ... some people may be inclined to just not notice or not think about it. Until they see it spelled out for them. So it's a valid question. Although I do personally think it's better to err on the side of not spreading or tacitly encouraging this kind of stuff.
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And you bring up a good point. If the young actresses end up being damaged in some way due to the movie, then I do think it was a mistake.
 
VGThuy said:
And you bring up a good point. If the young actresses end up being damaged in some way due to the movie, then I do think it was a mistake.
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The director said they had counselors on the set and other things to protect the kids.

I don't know. I tend to think kids acting professionally is damaging enough. But I don't see how you make a movie like this without kids.
 
Just my opinion but if people are just watching that one dance scene then I wonder if that isn't more exploitation of the children than to see the movie in whole for context. I can't imagine any scenario where just watching the dance scene provokes any positive outcome.
 
A friend vagueposted on FB about there being 10+ years of Dance Moms and various child pageant shows with little fuss, but a Black woman creates a critique and all hell breaks loose. I committed the sin of going in without understanding the topic and pointed out that plenty of people have criticized Dance Moms etc. By his response I understood he was talking about Cuties, and the resulting uproar. I had previously seen the Netflix promos for Cuties and thought it looked terrible but didn't give it a 2nd thought, and had not head anything about the backlash. But not a single person in the thread had watched the film, so I decided to.

I agree with others who say that it is not an easy film. marbri has a pretty good breakdown about the plot. It's a film about coming of age with competing cultural pressures, it's about the very real need to fit in and the brutality of girl cliques, about the desperation that creates a willingness to do just about anything to prove you're "in". How lines that seem so clear and obvious to adults can be invisible to children trying to prove themselves. There is also a subtle but very real undercurrent of class throughout the movie.

There are a lot of identities within the main character I can never understand firsthand, but I thought it was one of the most honest and real depictions of that edge between girl and woman - the way these 11-year olds flip from childlike goofiness and older-teen posturing was amazing (not talking about the dance finale, but small scenes throughout). Some of the ways in which these girls flirted with what they thought was being "mature" based on media images, while not fully understanding all the implications, went hand in hand with things my friends and I said and did when we were 12. I AM SO GLAD that there were no cell phones, there was no internet, and there was no social media until I was an adult.

When I was a dancer, my company used to perform in an annual show of the hometown dance studio of one of our members (20 years ago). The rest of the performers were maybe 7 years old through high school. One year we watched the dress rehearsal, and a group of the older girls did a dance to some rock number that was just.....awful. Afterwards, someone said, "if I was one of their parents, I would feel so proud right now" (heavy sarcasm). These girls were mimicking a sexuality that they clearly had no understanding of and the result was just...squicky. The costumes were less revealing (skintight jeans and leotard tops, so less skin showing but just as shape-focused), and the moves weren't as extreme as the dance final in Cuties - but it really wasn't that far off.

I will say that Netflix completely botched the marketing of this film. The fact that they emphasized the dance competition, which is really a subplot, and that their promo shot was from the final performance, shows a complete misunderstanding of the film, and the target audience. Whoever approved that marketing campaign should be out of a job.
 
I watched Blow the Man Down on Amazon Prime and wanted to like it more than I did. There is a lot of good in it. Margo Martindale is always great. I also liked the random shots of fishermen singing sea shanties.

It just feels like it was all unnecessary. You have a daughter of a recently deceased town matriarch killing a man in self-defense. There was plenty of evidence pointing to him being a really bad man because he had murdered another woman and left bloody evidence all over his trunk. Yet she and her sister feel the need to cover it up. The movie continues from there. I just don't see the point to covering up the initial death. If anyone was going to get away with it as self-defense, they would.
 
mpal2 said:
I watched Blow the Man Down on Amazon Prime and wanted to like it more than I did. There is a lot of good in it. Margo Martindale is always great. I also liked the random shots of fishermen singing sea shanties.

It just feels like it was all unnecessary. You have a daughter of a recently deceased town matriarch killing a man in self-defense. There was plenty of evidence pointing to him being a really bad man because he had murdered another woman and left bloody evidence all over his trunk. Yet she and her sister feel the need to cover it up. The movie continues from there. I just don't see the point to covering up the initial death. If anyone was going to get away with it as self-defense, they would.
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I adore Margo Martindale but that was one of the stupidest things I ever saw. The chanting fishermen were a ludicrous attempt to be Homeric, or something, which the movie was not, in the least. The whole thing was completely contrived. The trailer was way way better than the movie.

I still have a few episodes to watch of Signal. I don't want it to end. I'm in love with the old detective. Not the beautiful one but the dead one.
 
About Cuties,

Some cultural context (NSFW) :
Mega popular Mapouka dance in Ivory Coast at the end of the 90s which won over all of Western Africa (the video is actually a french reportage about the phenomenon) - Ivory Coast has a majority of muslim population
Soukous from Congo
Leumbeul from Senegal (95% of Senegal is muslim)
Baikoko in Tanzania

twerk is an desocialized / decontextualized avatar of african cultures
Those dances are meant for young women up to mums, if not (young) granmas
Children know the moves and mimic them from a young age.
Except they are not for show as long as they are children.
Families and enlarged families (aunties, cousins...) guide the transition between childhood and adulthood and frame what is acceptable and what isn't.

Change the social context and what is acceptable and framed becomes unacceptable and wild.
If not lost in translation.
 
Anyone else watching Ted Lasso on apple+? I can see it not being for everyone but I’m finding it to be the right speed for right now. Optimistic, doesn’t take a lot of brain power, and just skirts the line of being too ridiculous. It’s not going to change the world but I’m really enjoying it.
 
made_in_canada said:
Anyone else watching Ted Lasso on apple+? I can see it not being for everyone but I’m finding it to be the right speed for right now. Optimistic, doesn’t take a lot of brain power, and just skirts the line of being too ridiculous. It’s not going to change the world but I’m really enjoying it.
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The star is a big KU hoops fans so many KU fans returned the favor to give the series a look-see and came away liking it as something feel-good when feeling good is so needed now.
 
My friends and I watched Enola Holmes as well. We all really enjoyed it. Milly Bobby Brown was so good. Loved her little bits to camera. I am sure there will be future movies.
 
AJ Skatefan said:
I started Dead to Me. Wasn’t crazy about it at the beginning but now I’m sucked in.
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We got to Episode 3 and stopped. There were just too many other things we were trying to watch and decided we needed to focus, and this didn’t grab us right away.
 
annie720 said:
We got to Episode 3 and stopped. There were just too many other things we were trying to watch and decided we needed to focus, and this didn’t grab us right away.
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I felt like that too but by about episodes 4-5 I got into it. The characters are annoying though.
 
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