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Aram

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About Aram

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  1. Another thing I realized set this movie apart is the moment where Max and Furiosa decide to be allies instead of enemies. This is one of the most cliched developements in action and we all knew it was coming and the film knew we all knew it was coming and didn't **** around with all the usual steps. A lesser movie would have had Max see the cars rushing up on them and hesitate. Furiosa would have yelled "Give me a gun!" Bad guys would take shots at their tires as Max struggled with his inner demons. Then he'd have given her a gun reluctantly and as soon as they fought off the baddies they'd smile at each other but then frown and point their guns at each other. Finally one of the women in back would have said "STOP IT STOP IT Can't you see we'll only survive if we work together as a team!" And they would finally, reluctantly lower their guns, and the audience would sigh with relief because finally the movie could get back to being a movie. In this film, Max sees the bad guys coming up, says "**** it" and gives her a rifle. And I am so, so, so grateful for that.
  2. Point Blank is a great, great, great film but I'm not sure I'd call it an action film. Maybe just a crime/noir film though obviously there's considerable overlap there. A great Lee Marvin film from that same time that is straight up action is Prime Cut. A man gets turned into sausage. Gene Hackman plays a guy named Mary Sue and sells a naked Sissy Spacek at a cattle auction. Lee Marvin takes her to dinner in a completely see through dress and dares anyone to complain about it. Then he has a giant machinegun battle in a sunflower field. Crashes a truck through a giant greenhouse, survives a redneck trying to stab him to death with a hot dog, and feeds Mary Sue to pigs. Great beyond words. Another is Emperor of the North. Lee Marvin and Ernie Borgnine have Mortal Kombat on the top of a train for an hour and a half, and somehow it's an hour and a half of pure bliss. Borgnine gives the meanest and most fearsome performance I might have ever seen, second only perhaps to the giant shark in Jaws or maybe Godzilla. Sends a hobo underneath the wheels of a train with a blow to the head from a giant hammer. The final battle between him and Marvin on the train might be the most brutal and cringe inducing five rounds ever fought.
  3. Well i'll try to explain simply if you wish, though i'm confused by your stated apathy and yet obvious passion and judgement on the matter. Gamergate is a response to years of corruption, unethical behaviour, nepotism, and demonisation of the diverse millions whom play games recreationally. It arose when a proven case of ethical misconduct involving Mr Nathan Grayson was swept under the rug, conversation was censored on the matter, and those wishing to discuss it were accused of harassment. This was followed by a coordinated attack on gamers by twelves articles with the base theme that "Gamers are Dead," and it was at that point that the last twig broke. Consumers had had enough of being demonised by corrupt, unethical, spoiled largely white upper class children, accusing them of being racist, sexist, and various other perjorative terms. So a consumer revolt started, that aimed to make journalists and their publications accountable and fit for purpose, because at the moment they are currently not. It was opposed by lies and misinformation, and painted as an harassment campaign by those with access to the media, that was just white children opposing the inclusion of women and other races in gaming. This was partly disproven by the "Not Your Shield" campaign which showcased the vast diversity of Gamergate and gamers, and now has been totally disproved by an independent third party whom monitor Twittter and have rubbished the harassment claims. So basically the real actors on the stage are: Social justice fascists (game journalists and those whom support them,) a hate group whom despise all races and genders except those whom buy into their sick ideology, which consists of such peaches as #Killallmen, advocation of Nazi style death camps, the abolishment of free speech, the sending of bomb threats to those whom dare to have parties where free speech and discussion is held, and the belief that abusing women is something to be proud of. A very small proportion of trolls and abusers whom are either mocking both sides or sending real abuse to people, doxxing and trying to harm innocent parties job prospects, though it must be mentioned that the SJF's have indulged in this also and regard it as perfectly justified behaviour. Gamergate, a consumer revolt whom are fighting for reform and ethics in the game journalism industry so that a multi billion dollar industry has a public serving media that is truthful, principled and fit for purpose. This is the only side that are actively trying to curb trolls and harassment and propagate a movement for accountability and morality. At the current moment Gamergate has done much, major news sites have been forced to implement ethical codes of conduct, sack those whom led the hate mob against those whom play games recreationally and some sites such as the Escapist have actually started to serve the customer. However more is needed: Gamergate is still being misattributed as a harassment campaign, despite this being factually incorrect, and so we know that game journalists are still commited to lying and libel. The hatred and mockery of consumers is continued, such that even after a bomb threat one of the writers of Rock, Paper, Shotgun insulted those threatened. The ethical abuses of certain individuals have still not been dealt with, and there are years of ethical abuses that must be brought to book with heavy fines and possibly revocation of their journalism degrees. Personally i'd like to see an independent Ombudsman formed, with the power to bring the industry to book, levy heavy fines, force retractions and enforce a code of moral and ethical behaviour. The game journalists have proven time after time that they need supervision, that they are liars, unethical, corrupt, far too involved with the industry they are supposed to watchdog and prone to nepotism and flagrant abuse of their powers, they cannot be trusted to monitor themselves. As for the moral relativity, I can support numerous causes and do, my involvement in Gamergate does not inhibit my participation in anything else. Just my personal opinion however. I am someone who hoards huge numbers of guns, makes his own booze, and raises bullfrogs in his swimming pool, and this all strikes me as completely bonkers.
  4. Just off the top of my head: Some very early ones to see are The General with Buster Keaton, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and a French film called The Wages of Fear, three films that still have yet to be outdone for pure perfection and art. I'd say great modern action started in the 60s, more as scenes within other films. Bullitt is still the best car chase of all time, not because of the speed or craziness of it but for the use of landmark techniques to create the feeling of movement for the viewer. The Train, for similar reasons. The Wild Bunch created the crazy action shootout. Most all the Hong Kong films of John Woo, which while messy at times and responsible for some bad imitations, were exceptionally well filmed. The films of John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard), Walter Hill (The Driver, 48 Hours, Extreme Prejudice etc), John Frankenheimer (The Train, Grand Prix, Ronin), John Carpenter (Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York), Paul Verhoven (Robocop, Total Recall), James Cameron before he went wierd (Terminator, Aliens, etc), Spielberg (Indiana Jones, etc.). I'm pretty sure I just typed out a bunch of movies everyone here has already seen. A great action movie tends not to be something that stays obscure. And this list of course ignores the hundreds of western, samurai, war, adventure, and thriller films in which the techniques for filming action actually originated.
  5. Some random trivia: the original Alien 3 screenplay written by William Gibson, author of neuromancer, had Ripley going off her own way with Newt and the story then following Hicks and Bishop as the two leads. Instead, we got...the movie we got, where everyone is miserable and then dies.
  6. This movie is a sort of a triumph and a sort of film I have been wanting and wanting and haven't recieved in a very long time from Hollywood action cinema. But that anyone thinks there's anything here worth talking about politically is baffling to me. There is not some complex discussion about gender politics going on in this movie. It's a simple, straightforward action movie plot that has been told a hundred times before in exactly the same way -- so common because it serves an action movie pacing so perfectly well when done right. There are a dozen films out every year that could have books written about the way they examine gender, and none of the people talking about Mad Max will ever watch any of them. The great thing about this movie, and the thing everyone should actually be talking about, is that no matter how much commotion is on the screen at once, or how fast everything is moving, or how frantic everyone is behaving, I did not at any point feel like I was having trouble following it. This is a big, big deal today. The Bourne films, the Taken films, the Transformers films, the like six movies where aliens blow up a city and nothing else happens, and just about every single super hero movie that has come out, they have all somehow managed to train their directors and cinematographers to painstakingly unlearn every important technique directors have carefully crafted to ensure that the audience's brains can easily and effortlessly follow the action as it flows on screen. Every fight scene in the last ten years has been between people who shouldn't know karate doing crazy karate moves while the camera darts around them every which way and cutting approximately every quarter of a nanosecond. Characters swapping places. Blows you only know connect because of the sound effects. Nobody ever seeming to get tired except the viewer. No indication at all of which side is gaining ground and which is losing it. Battles are editted where they should be chereographed, and choreographed where they should be editted. Methods of conveying this information have been around and perfected for almost a century. Buster Keaton made probably the most perfectly filmed action chase movie ever filmed in goddamn 1926 with The General, and this is probably the first movie I've seen in over a decade where I could tell the director had actually seen and studied that movie and others like it. I felt like I was moving in one direction watching this movie, the direction of the chase, and I felt that the film and its pacing and its plotting were going in that same direction and at the same breakneck speed. It's sad that it has become exceptional for a film to achieve this today, and that it isn't just the norm for any high quality film, but since it is then this film is definitely that -- exceptional. I liked that the movie had just the right blend of practical effects and CGI, with the CGI serving more to enhance the imagery rather than create it from scratch, or to create the otherwise completely impossible like that nuclear dust/fire storm. (I would bet 50 dollars whoever designed the look of that storm was inspired by those John Martin paintings on some level.) And that the practical effects were used to ensure that this was a world that felt real and lived in. So many things came together to make this a world that felt lived in. Little details like the embossed metal detailing of the headliner of the main vehicle. The just right amount of wear and slashdash look of the SKS rifle they rely on. Just too many little things like this to list but the things that turn a dumb action movie into a piece of extremely fine craftsmanship. I liked that the whole movie could have been in Cantonese without subtitles and I wouldn't have had the slightest trouble understanding what was going on. An action movie that can achieve this by the strength of its plot and pacing rather than its weakness is a marvelous thing. This is not some kind of revolutionary film. In fact I could name you a dozen 80s and a few 90s action films in the same vein as this one that do all these same things at least as well and most better. But those are films I would be extremely excited to see if I could for the first time again, and this is one of very few action movies I've seen in a very long time that would rank among them and the action classics, and that's reason enough to be excited for me. Maybe they'll finally get back to making movies this way.
  7. I've tried to figure out what all this fuss was about any of this gamergate nonsense several times and every time I've just been hit with a giant brick to the head of "don't give a ****." This is the stupidest controversy I've ever seen, and anyone who has put any effort into fighting for it in either direction needs badly to realize that we live in a world where a third of the population is going to be in prison soon for no objectively identifiable reason and that the oceans are going to be devoid of life within our lifetime and none of this ****ing matters. The fact that volourn feels strongly about any of this is all the evidence I need that I have absolutely no reason to care about any of this, and anyone who does is profoundly stupid.
  8. I'm playing an obsidian game at the moment so I'm back baby. Deal with it.
  9. Also...no? Just...no? Unless you're "just letting it drop" out of an airplane or something? On a gun made largely out of aluminum and plastic, or on any gun really, the barrel is going to be the last thing to give up under abuse. I saw an AR driven over by a John Deere pulling a massive rotary tiller once. Upper and lower recievers were both shredded. Barrel was fine. I'm not sure what you mean about the M1 either. I've only ever seen them babied as relics but that bolt handle is surely stronger than the drop weight of the rifle itself. I'd see the front or rear sight sheering off or the stock cracking before anything else breaks.
  10. Well I can't argue with your three friends. I've only been around literal thousands of them that have worked absolutely fine.
  11. The prevalence of the AR-15 I think probably has more to do with it esentially functioning as a glorified erector set for adults. There are a hundred different manufacturers all making a dozen different variations of every individual part of an AR-15 platform, and all those parts will fit easily together without so much as minor fitting. You can make it into a short barreled silenced 9mm SMG or a heavy match barreled .308 that'll shoot half MOA groups at 800 yards and all the parts to make it do either will easily interchange between both. But it also comes down more to little things: if you don't like something about the trigger or the weight or the ergonomics of some particular handle or lever on an AR-15, you drop 20 dollars on the same part that feels the way you want it to, and completely change the feel of the whole system. Compare this to, say, H&K, which is so utterly determined to treat their customers like ****, charge $200 for every simple little part, and make damned sure that the owner only owns the gun that they want for him, rather than the one he wants. This explains more it's prevailence among civilian shooters than miltiaries. It doesn't really apply to the plain-jane issue rifle you might issue your military. It does, however, explain why extremely well funded small groups like the SEALS or SAS will still prefer an AR-15 platform over some newer design. They get to choose not just the rifle but the exact way they want to configure theirs individually, so they will choose the one that gives them the most options for individualization. The idea that they are prone to jamming is completely exagerated and more or less a remnant of the first year and a half of Vietnam, and even that myth has mostly died off. I've only handled a Steyr Aug once. I did rather like it, but I've never really liked the balance of any bullpup gun, and I have to say that I've fired toy squirt guns with better triggers. The thin stamped construction of the StG44 meant that you could render an StG44 completely inoperable by standing it up and letting it fall over on its side, at least until somebody could machine the dent back out of it. I love my M1, but that design isn't great either, honestly. Every military in the world almost had already fielded a better semiautomatic design, because most of theirs had a detachable magazine. The en bloc clip nonsense was obsolete long before the first M1 was ever built. Hell, even the Brits had thought to put a detachable magazine into their Enfield, which was a piece of anachronism that belonged in the Victorian age. It makes no sense that it took 20 more years for someone to cut a hole in the bottom and create the M14, which was then itself only more obsolete by the time it came around.
  12. Except this conversation is specifically about the difference between an AR-15 and a Steyr Aug or whatever.
  13. As a guy who obsesses over the tiniest, littlest imaginable details regarding the firearms he collects, my opinion on the various combat rifle systems fielded throughout the world is this: they're all pretty much the same and anyone who actually believes which one a military happens to use makes a difference in whether they're going to win a war or something is a nonce.
  14. Hillarious as it may be, I'd give at least as much props to those Khyber Pass smiths churning out fully functioning pistols and rifles on anvils out of railroad spikes as I'd give just about any overpriced, high end gun manufacturer in business today.
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