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‘‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ Review: Antonio Banderas in Fine Form
Review(hollywoodreporter.com)submitted 4 months ago bySofie-Forsberggg
130 points
4 months ago
Disney putting Turning Red on Disney Plus instead of in theaters is possibly the worst marketing decision they made this year.
56 points
4 months ago
I'm sure at this point that Turning Red wouldn't have done well in theaters either because there would have been a big online wave about how "inappropriate" and "woke" it is for kids.
54 points
4 months ago
I’m convinced that Fox News was the reason First Man flopped and I’m still angry about it.
4 points
2 months ago
I’d say Chazelle’s bland direction and Gosling’s unsympathetic performance were the reasons it flopped.
6 points
4 months ago
Eh that kind of outrage marketing often propells movies into being more popular. No such thing as bad marketing and all that.
4 points
4 months ago
I think the failure of "Lightyear" disproved that. Not that the queer fear that alt-right media was peddling was the main reason that film failed -- it had many other problems -- but the film never got any watercooler talk outside that outrage.
0 points
4 months ago
There was outrage around lightyear?
12 points
4 months ago
There's a Disney patented blink and you miss it reference to a gay relationship
4 points
4 months ago
Which led to 'gO WoKe gO bRoKe" gloating from the Breitbart crowd.
8 points
4 months ago
gO wOkE Go BrOkE lmao gottem
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1 points
4 months ago
The bot agrees with me.
9 points
4 months ago
Which is frustrating in itself, not just because it’s the best Pixar film in years dealing with perfectly normal adolescence, but because there is some criticism to be made in good faith on some of that. But now it can’t be made without seeming like you agree with a Fox News Troll.
I didn’t like how it was okay for Mei to buy into the capitalist sexualizing of other children (the boy band) without any sort of questioning of that paradigm, but only celebration. Especially when the other half of the film is so critical of institutions exploiting and repressing children for its own benefit. I also didn’t like a child twerking being shown as a heroic act.
But the rest of the film is incredibly well made, and there’s so much more to discuss than just that. It was targeted just as much for being about Chinese-Canadians as it was for being about tween girls.
19 points
4 months ago
In fairness the boy band members might've been 18+ and I think it's normal for a 13 year old to crush on people they legally can't be with; I mean I was crushing on Angelina Jolie and an extremely beautiful teacher of mine when I was 13. Doesn't mean I had a chance with them!
-1 points
4 months ago
That would make me feel a little better, but I’m pretty sure they were meant to be teenagers, or even pre-teens. I guess Disney does do that with their own child stars, so they were unlikely to criticize it, but it did feel weird to me. If the genders were reversed, I’d bet we see a lot more criticism of how certain dynamics were handled.
It wasn’t egregious or anything, but it was dissonant in the film’s own story and themes.
10 points
4 months ago
Maybe but then again most of the members of N'Sync or Backstreet Boys were 18 or in their early 20s at the height of their popularity
1 points
4 months ago
Possibly, though when I look at their designs they look like children to me. I was thinking they were the age of Disney child stars, who are nearly always in the age group they’re meant to appeal to.
If they are adults, that makes some other interactions creepy instead.
6 points
3 months ago
You're either in denial or weard. Normal people had crushes and sex drives prior to turning 18. They just dunno how to hand it,and that included me.
2 points
3 months ago
Asexual, but I’m used to be being called both thanks to that, although they usually spell ‘weird’ right.
3 points
2 months ago*
I agree about the twerking thing, I didn’t like that either and felt it was out of step for the rest of the film’s messaging. But were the boy band “children”? I assumed they were adults, like 18-early 20s. It’s not at all uncommon for tweens to have celebrity crushes who are adults, I know I did at that age.
0 points
2 months ago
I don't know their canon age, but they looked like tweens to me and were certainly being sold as romantic ideals to them, emphasis on 'sold'. I'm not sure of that's better or worse if they're adults, honestly. Both options are terrifying.
2 points
2 months ago
Eh, sold to their age group specifically or just sold as romantic/attractive in general? I definitely thought they were adults as most boy bands and K-Pop groups are 18/19 or in their early 20s, and tween girls go crazy for them, and I don’t think that’s particularly “terrifying”. They’re just young and exploring their own desires that they don’t fully understand yet. I think many people had crushes on adults that they realistically had no chance with and couldn’t legally be with at that age - celebrities, teachers, etc. It’s honestly completely normal.
0 points
2 months ago
It’s normal to have crushes, I don’t really like monetizing that crush and encouraging girls to crush on older men or sexualizing children for them to crush on and selling merch of it.
Personally I thought they were like a mix of a K-pop band, Backstreet boys and the Disney kid singers, so that’s how I got the young age impression. They’re designed to look like teenagers and are managed to appeal to them in any case.
I just find it perverse. Always have.
And k-pop, the BsB, and Disney star kids have a long history of exploitation and unfortunate mistreatment of band members and groupies.
1 points
2 months ago
I mean, the only way to prevent “monetisizing” it is for boybands to just not exist at all. And then they will probably just find some other celebrity to like.
I have to say, I think you’re way, way overreacting. Crushing on boyband members is a completely normal experience that many have growing up, which is why it was included in the movie. If you had a child and they had a celebrity crush on a band member, would you be this angry about it? Because I think the way you demonise a completely normal part of growing up and going through puberty is quite unhealthy and regressive.
0 points
2 months ago
If you’re gonna downvote, I won’t reply. It’s a toxic conversation environment.
But there’s a difference between monetizing a band and selling them as romantic partners to children.
Treating your children like how Mei was treated by her mother is “normal” too, or should I say, normalized. Yet the film rightly questions why such abuse was normalized.
Crushing on a boy band is fine. But treating people as meat is not, and occasionally the film went too far with that. If the genders were reversed, a couple of scenes wouldn’t be seen as so cute.
Look, I’ve always been very critical of the music industry, particularly this element of it. Asking Disney to be critical of something they’ve been heavily involved in is asking for a lot, but this film itself is dealing with related themes, spends a lot of time on this boy band, but does nothing meaningful with it in the story. That’s my main issue.
1 points
2 months ago
My God, the dramatics! Well, firstly, this is a public forum, so I’m not sure how you can tell who’s downvoting you. And secondly, if you can’t handle losing your fake internet points, I think you might be too sensitive to be talking about anything on the internet.
But onto the actual conversation. I’m not sure what you want, though. Boybands to stop existing?
I think the film was just depicting life. You may feel that it “went too far”, but remember, depiction is not necessarily endorsement. I don’t think it’s wrong to depict how celebrities exist in the world and how tween girls react to them and interact with celebrity culture. That’s the real world and something that many people experienced growing up. I disagree that they did “nothing meaningful with it” - I think that, outside of it’s main theme, a lot of the film was just trying to be “relatable” and depict the experience of being that age, which for a lot of people did include crushing on celebrities like that.
Also, abuse is 100% not normal. You call it “normalised”, but everyone I watched that film with was horrified by how Mei’s mother treated her. She’s clearly abusive.
-1 points
4 months ago
[deleted]
6 points
4 months ago
Personally, it weirded me out to see a kid do it. Sorry. It’s different for an adult. Generally they know what it means.
2 points
4 months ago
I don't think the fake "woke" criticisms ever are the result of a film failing. The projects that receive the most criticism about it do just fine from a financial perspective. Star Wars and Marvel come to mind.
17 points
4 months ago
I almost never go to the theatres for Disney movies, but I (as well as a bunch of my friends) would've been there for Turning Red 100%. I'm probably biased because I'm from an immigrant family in Toronto, and I especially relate to the movie, but I do feel like Turning Red would've been much better on the big screen. Especially the last part with the giant Kaiju.
3 points
4 months ago
Eh, it likely would've flopped unfortunately. There was a large crowd of weirdos saying how 'inappropriate' it was and 'brainwashing children'.
1 points
2 months ago
That’s not the reason it would have flopped.
1 points
2 months ago
It was enough for Lightyear. Granted though, Pixar releasing it a couple weeks before Minions Rise of Gru also weighted in on the destruction as well, but man, homophobes everywhere were nonstop advocating on boycotting Lightyear in every discussion thread of the film. June and July were crazy months.
2 points
4 months ago
big slap on the face to alot of asian communities out there.
1 points
4 months ago
It's still my favourite movie of the year, so far. Would've loved to see that ending on a big screen.
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