Tag: movies

Gamma reviews

This is not a Gamma review:

Gamma Reviews: Advanced Review Copies

Advanced Review Copies, or ARCs, are the books that the publishers print out early with ordering information including print run size & co-op information instead of a back cover blurb. These are given out to bookstore buyers, professional reviewers, (and, in the case of Baen, lucky people at the Baen Roadshow.)

Now THIS is a Gamma review:

What I thought of the new Ghostbusters: I liked it, and would happily rewatch it. It’s definitely the second-best Ghostbusters movie, and much closer to the original in terms of enjoyment than the willfully forgotten Ghostbusters 2. There are legitimate criticisms to make of it: the plot is rote to the point of being slapdash, the action scenes are merely adequate, and Paul Feig is no Ivan Reitman, in terms of creating comedic ambiance. But the film got the two big things right: It has a crackerjack cast that’s great individually and together, and it has all the one-liners you can eat. And now that the origin story of these particular Ghostbusters is out of the way, I’m ready for the sequel.

But what about the Ghostbusters being all women?!??!?? Yes they were, and it was good. If you can’t enjoy Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones snarking it up while zapping ghosts with proton streams, one, the problem is you, not them, and two, no really, what the fuck is wrong with you. The actors and the characters had chemistry with one another and I would have happily watched these Ghostbusters eat lunch, just to listen to them zap on one another. And in particular I want to be McKinnon’s Holtzmann when I grow up; Holtzmann is brilliant and spectrum-y and yet pretty much social anxiety-free and I honestly can’t see any sort of super-nerd not wanting to cosplay the shit out of her forever and ever, amen.

BUT THEY’VE RUINED MY CHILDHOOD BY BEING WOMEN, wails a certain, entitled subset of male nerd on the Internet. Well, good, you pathetic little shitballs. If your entire childhood can be irrevocably destroyed by four women with proton packs, your childhood clearly sucked and it needs to go up in hearty, crackling flames. Now you are free, boys, free! Enjoy the now. Honestly, I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that one of the weakest parts of this film is its villain, who (very minor spoiler) is literally a basement-dwelling man-boy just itchin’ to make the world pay for not making him its king, as he is so clearly meant to be. These feculent lads are annoying enough in the real world. It’s difficult to make them any more interesting on screen.

But this is just the latest chapter of man-boys whining about women in science fiction culture: Oh noes! Mad Max has womens in it! Yes, and Fury Road was stunning, arguably the best film of its franchise and of 2015, and was improbably but fittingly nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Oh noes! Star Wars has womens in it! Yes, and The Force Awakens was pretty damn good, the best Star Wars film since Empire, was the highest grossing film of 2015 and of all time in the domestic box office (not accounting for inflation. Accounting for inflation, it’s #11. #1 counting inflation? That super-manly epic, Gone With the Wind).

And now, Oh noes! Ghostbusters has womens in it! Yes, and it’s been well-reviewed and at $46 million, is the highest grossing opening for its director or any of its stars and perfectly in line with studio estimates for the weekend. Notably, all the surviving principals of the original film make cameos, suggesting they are fine with passing the torch (Harold Ramis is honored in the film too, which is a lovely touch), and Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd are producers of the film. If your childhood has been ruined, boys, then your alleged heroes happily did some of the kicking.

I’m an 80s kid; my youth is not forever stained by a Ghostbusters remake, any more than it was stained by remakes of Robocop or Point Break or Poltergeist or Endless Love or The Karate Kid or Clash of the Titans or Footloose or Total Recall and on and on. I think most of these remakes were unnecessary, and I don’t think most of them were particularly good, or as good as their originals, and I question why film companies bother, aside from the “all the originals were made before the global movie market matured and there’s money on the table that can be exploited with these existing brands,” which is, of course, its own excuse.

But after a certain and hopefully relatively early point in your life, you realize remakes are just a thing the film industry does — the first Frankenstein film listed on imdb was made in 1910, and the most recent, 2015, and Universal (maker of the classic 1931 version) is planning yet another reboot in 2018 or 2019 — and maybe you get over yourself and your opinion that your childhood is culturally inviolate, especially from the entities that actually, you know, own the properties you’ve invested so much of your psyche into. It’s fine to roll your eyes when someone announces yet another remake, tweet “UGH WHYYYYYY” and then go about your life. But it causes you genuine emotional upheaval, maybe a reconfigure of your life is not out of the question.

(Not, mind you, that I think these shitboys are genuinely that invested in Ghostbusters, per se; they’re invested in manprivilege and, as noted above, would have wailed their anguished testeria onto Reddit and 4chan regardless of which cultural property had women “suddenly” show up in it. This is particularly ironic with anything regarding science fiction, which arguably got its successful start in Western culture through the graces of Mary Shelley. Women have always been in it, dudes. Deal.)

The happy news in this case is that, whether or not this Ghostbusters reboot was necessary, it’s pretty good, and fun to watch. That’s the best argument for it. I’m looking forward to more.

So brave. But having finished demolishing his own reputation as a movie reviewer in the interest of virtue-signaling his feminist superiority to “manboys” and “shitboys”, whatever they are, McRapey also had to be the first to comment on his own post on his shrinking little blog.

John Scalzi says:
JULY 17, 2016 AT 12:15 PM
To get ahead of any potential “but there are women saying their childhood was ruined too!” nonsense: Maybe there were? But if there were, and they weren’t gamergate-like sockpuppet accounts, a) I didn’t see much of them, b) they were swamped by the wailing boys, c) the advice to them is the same as to the whining dudes: Remakes happen, maybe get over it.

To get ahead of “it’s sexist to bag on the men here,” argument, leaving the whole larger argument about power stuctures and sexism and all the stuff you recognize play into sexism when you think about sexism on a level higher than “this is a playing card I can slap down in this game called Rhetoric,” you can imagine me in that Wonka meme pose, saying “Tell me again as a man how I can’t criticize men, that’s adorable.”

Finally, to get ahead of any “beta cuck” stupidity, I’m not the one who just spent half a year wailing about the ruin of my childhood, boys. I do find there’s an correlation between the sort of dude who questions my masculinity and the sort of dude who whines excessively about how mean the world is to him, waaaaaaaaaaaah. And this is me in the Wonka pose again.

All of which is to say, Mallet is out for general whiny male bullshit. Behave, children.

Spacebunny cracks me up. Her entire response: “Isn’t he married? Why is he trying so hard?” Sadly, despite his brave and heroic efforts, Scalzi got it wrong in the end. You see, the official feminist line is that Grrlbusters is not only better than the original, but seeing it is important.

The nerdy guy doesn’t get the girl. That was a standard trope in the 80s, and the Ghostbusters of 1984 was no exception. The lack of consent factor that makes all of the Zhoul-possessed Sigourney Weaver scenes difficult to watch is not an issue here, because there is no romance in the new Ghostbusters, creepily possessed or otherwise. Yes, Erin (Kristin Wiig) awkwardly hits on Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) but it’s generally met with disapproval from her fellow Ghostbusters (if not laughter) and Kevin seeming to be oblivious to it. And even better than the nerdy guy being the hero is the fact that the nerdy guy is the villain and the nerdy girls save the world. Boom.

An appreciation for their receptionist by the Ghostbusters. I loved Janine as a kid. As a child, I thought that Janine pining quietly for Egon was romantic. Now it pisses me off. That and the fact that nobody paid any attention to her, generally speaking, because she was competent and therefore invisible. As doofy and dumb as Kevin is, and even though Erin hits on him, the team still values him and learns to work with him because they genuinely care about him. That’s not subtext. That’s actual text.

Using the “ghost” as an allegorical commentary. One of the themes in this movie is the importance of being believed. Yes, in this movie, it’s about being believed about ghosts. Erin talks about how she saw a ghost when she was 8, every night for a year. Her parents didn’t believe her, and she went into therapy. Abby (Melissa McCarthy) was the only one who believed her, which was one of the reasons they became friends. It’s not that much of a stretch to think about all the things that women are also often not believed about, as children or as adults. And that part of the movie, thankfully, and pointedly, doesn’t devolve into comedy. It lets the moment of remembered trauma be serious.

Real friendship between the Ghostbusters. The other moment of seriousness that is allowed to be serious is at the very end, when Jillian (Kate McKinnon) stands up to give the gals a toast. Up to this point, the majority of Kate McKinnon’s screentime has been devoted to sight gags and making straight girls question their sexuality, both of which she excels at.

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that sequel, Johnny. I expect it will be out around the same time that Paramount releases the Old Man’s War movie.  But at least we’ll have that television show based on Redshirts to look forward to.

“A horrifying mess”

The verdict is in: Grrlbusters is even worse than anticipated:

For months, controversy has swirled around the new “Ghostbusters” movie. The trailer was reportedly the most hated in YouTube history, for what that’s worth (or not worth), which led to some pundits saying some of that hate was rooted in sexism.

Others said the fact the Leslie Jones character wasn’t a scientist and seemed to have a role that called for her to play into stereotypes smacked of racism.

Of course, people were voicing these opinions without having seen the entire movie. Well, I have seen it — and while I believe the concerns about racial stereotypes were overblown, “Ghostbusters” is one of the worst movies of the year for multiple other reasons, including:

Bad acting.

Uninspired directing, editing, cinematography and music.

Cheesy special effects.

A forgettable villain.

A terrible script.

SJWs always destroy everything they converge.

Grrlbusters: lamer than expected

That’s not offensive to men, it’s just stupid, predictable, and not even a little bit funny.

When the punchline of your very expensive Grrrl Power movie, designed to prove that Women Can Too Be Funny in spite of the evidence to the contrary consisting of the entire written history of Man, builds up to a visual riff on… wait for it, wait for it… A WOMAN KICKING A MAN IN THE CROTCH, I think it’s safe to conclude that it’s going to fail.

And do so in a positively epic manner.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you’re dumb enough to let SJWs infest your organization. The problem isn’t that it’s going to be a failure. One has to take risks from time to time. But this failure was guaranteed from the very moment it was conceived.

As Stickwick observed, girl power is literal Idiocracy. A large collection of women spent $154 million to make a Ghostbusters-flavored OW MY BALLS.

SJW-convergence in Star Trek

Who would have thought that Star Trek, which has always been at the forefront of SJWism, could be further converged?

In the summer of 1968, George Takei attended a pool party at the Hollywood Hills home of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. The actor, then 31 and famous for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, swam up to his boss and “had a conversation with him, a very private one. I was still closeted, so I did not want to come out to him.”

Nevertheless, Takei — who announced he was gay in 2005  — was fully attuned to the gay equality conversation gaining momentum at the time. He felt it was a topic worth exploring on the socially minded science-fiction series, which had previously tackled issues like the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War through keenly observed allegory.

But the show had recently seen its lowest ratings ever, with an episode featuring TV’s first interracial kiss between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, which NBC affiliates in the South refused to air. While sympathetic to his star’s pitch, Roddenberry felt he was in no position to take those kinds of risks.

“He was a strong supporter of LGBT equality,” recalls Takei, now 79. “But he said he has been pushing the envelope and walking a very tight rope — and if he pushed too hard, the show would not be on the air.” Alas, the show was canceled the following season anyway.

But Star Trek has lived long and prospered for studio home Paramount, spawning six TV series and 13 feature films. True to its title, the latest big-screen outing, Star Trek Beyond, has gone where none have gone before: Star John Cho — who assumes the Sulu mantle for the third time in the reboots — has told Australia’s Herald Sun that the character is revealed to be gay….

Except Takei wasn’t overjoyed. He had never asked for Sulu to be gay. In fact, he’d much prefer that he stay straight. “I’m delighted that there’s a gay character,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

Takei explains that Roddenberry was exhaustive in conceiving his Star Trek characters. (The name Sulu, for example, was based on the Sulu Sea off the coast of the Philippines, so as to render his Asian nationality indeterminate.) And Roddenberry had always envisioned Sulu as heterosexual.

Straights attempting to virtue-signal on behalf of gays do their best, but they never get it right. I don’t know a single gay man who likes the Saint Gay couples that pervade Hollywood entertainment or think they are anything but dressed-up suburban married couples, about as convincing as urban fantasy’s kick-ass kung fu waifs, science fiction’s men with tits, and the Magic Negroes who like nothing better than to defy gangbangers and help out white folk in distress when they aren’t busy philosophizing, providing moral instruction, or being President.

One would think, at some point, someone would have asked George Takei, or at least understood that there is an insult implicit in the idea that he could not act.

A Game of Thrones: rounding the curve

With the end of season six, A Game of Thrones is now approaching the final stretch, and indeed, it does appear to be increasing its pace now that the finish line is in sight. Since those who haven’t seen the most recent season will probably prefer we avoid any spoilers at the top, I shall begin by linking to a self-described demographics nerd’s article on the intrinsic absurdity of Westeros:

Westeros is an interesting setting for lots of reasons: characters, plot, writing, the fact that there’s a high-production-value HBO series, take your pick. There are lots of reasons for it to be popular or to capture interest. But what bothers me, as a really picky nerd, is when people think that it’s a particularly well-crafted setting. It is not. Westeros is shoddily assembled as far as political, cultural, or demographic realism goes. There is too much dynastic stability, too little cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity, the basic size of the world seems to change to fit the immediate exigencies of the plot, the cities and armies are implausibly large in many cases, and even careful analysis makes it hard to determine even a wide ballpark for population. None of these criticisms matter in a setting not trading on its claims to a kind of “realism.” But for a setting whose market value in some sense depends on its “realism,” yeah, it’s an issue.

Don’t continue past the jump if you don’t wish to encounter spoilers.


The interesting thing about the most recent season, of course, is the fact that it had to venture completely beyond the territory of the published books in Martin’s epic series. This was both good and bad, in that at times the producers seemed to have freed themselves from some of Martin’s idiosyncracies, while at others, they did so only to resort to clumsy Hollywood cliches that were even worse.

For example, the second-to-last episode was a painful exercise in grrl power combined with multiple stupidities so epic that I almost concluded the only reasonable way to bring the series to a just end was to go full SJW and full meta, have Danerys marry Yara under canopy of rainbow banners, then have Tyrion mount the stage and break the fourth wall to declare “love wins!” If nothing else, it would have made me laugh to see the show end with a bang by not merely jumping the shark, but going into orbit over it.

And then, somehow, the season was salvaged by the last episode, with Cersei wreaking astonishing havoc on her domestic enemies, only to fail in her goals yet again due to her total failure to understand anything about other people, even the people she loves most. Cersei is a truly great character, a genuinely great villainess, whose ruthlessness is consistently undermined by her pride and her narcissism.

(Sure, the unnecessary drama was ridiculous, with the Sparrow being stabbed, but left to live, so that he could crawl close to the candles, but not soon enough to extinguish them. One thing I increasingly dislike about the producers is their addiction to cheap and unconvincing drama. Trust the story, gentlemen, trust the story!)

King Tomlin’s suicide was even more shocking than the wildfire bombing, but it was entirely in character, as his despair at losing his wife was magnified by his knowledge that he would never escape the control of his ruthless mother, and by his guilt at the murder of the High Sparrow and the religious hierarchy. It will be interesting to see if the people will revolt; I doubt it, but historically, that would be the most probable outcome. The analogy is flawed, but it reminded me a little of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, which was, at least traditionally, also believed to have been instigated by a queen.

Only the scene between Danerys and her lover, Daario Naharis, was on the lame side; let’s face it, he’s coming out of it rather well for a mercenary captain, seeing as Mereen is being turned over to him for an indefinite period. Whether he loves her or not, the man is a mercenary, and frankly, it would have been more in character for him to fake dismay at being left behind, then cheerfully return to a chamber full of Mereen beauties. Regardless, the invasion fleet with the dragons flying over them was an awesome sight.

It was also interesting to note that Sansa came out and admitted what had only been conjectured after last week’s lunacy; she had known all along that the Knights of the Vale were on their way. Yes, Sansa, you really should have told your brother and his commanders that while they were planning their little battle. It was, to put it mildly, pertinent. The entire setup was, as I and many others correctly surmised, an idiot plot to set up some artificial drama to cap off the equally idiotic battle between Stark and Bolton.

The Arya plot, too, was overwrought, but at least its excessive drama was a nod to classical mythology, specifically, King Tantalus of Phrygia being served his son Pelops in a pie.

Now it looks as if everything is being set up for Danerys to defeat Cersei, join Jon in fighting the White Walkers, and just when defeat appears imminent, the Three-Eyed Raven figures out how to break the spell and magically destroy them all in the nick of time. If the story was left up to the producers, that would be a safe assumption, which would presumably end with the marriage of Jon to Daneyris. But given Rape Rape’s continued involvement, I wouldn’t entirely count out the possibility that winter triumphs over all.

That, I have to say, would make for a much more interesting end to the saga.

The Disney bait-and-switch

Disney is now making use of the same trick to sell its movies that the Pink SF crowd has been pulling for decades, in this case, selling princess movies to the public under the guise of a film for boys.

The first teaser trailer for Disney’s new animated musical Moana has been released online, and it’s a little short on… Moana. The film’s titular heroine is a Polynesian princess (voiced by native Hawaiian teenager Auli’i Cravalho, in her film debut) who journeys across the sea to find a legendary island, with the help of demi-god Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson). When the film opens in November, Moana will be the newest Disney princess and is expected to be absorbed into the multibillion-dollar Disney Princess franchise. So why is the trailer (below) all about Maui?

It’s not because Dwayne Johnson is the biggest-name star in the film, although that is true. It’s just the latest example of a very specific Disney marketing strategy, designed to broaden the appeal of its fairy-tale movies by making them appear less girl-centric. Because a movie for the female half of the population is a “niche” film, whereas a movie aimed at boys is fun for the whole family! Or so the thinking goes.

This all began after 2009’s The Princess and the Frog underperformed at the box office. That film had a few notable issues — like a meandering story, in which the princess spent most of her time being a frog — but per the Los Angeles Times, Disney execs came to the conclusion that The Princess and the Frog didn’t attract an audience because boys didn’t want to see a movie about princesses. 

Which brings us to Moana. To its credit, Disney hasn’t excluded the main female character in its marketing to the extent that it did with Frozen and Tangled. The first image released from the film featured the princess and the demi-god side by side and a video posted online in October introduced actress Cravalho to the world. So it’s disheartening that the first teaser essentially excludes Moana. Maybe the full-length trailer will be a little more balanced?

The bait-and-switch of the trailers is also indicative of an issue with the princess films themselves: Since 1989’s The Little Mermaid, male characters have had the majority of dialogue in Disney fairy-tale movies. Even though the protagonists of these movies are girls, they exist in a world of male sidekicks and supporting characters who get the last word.

Boys don’t want to see movies about princesses. Boys don’t want to read books about romances either. But rather than simply making movies that boys want to see and publishing books that boys want to read, the SJWs in Hollywood and in publishing think that the secret to success is making princess movies and publishing romances, then deceiving everyone as to the content.

It’s remarkable what contempt they have for their customers; one imagines they must understand that even the most dimwitted boys and parents are going to eventually figure out the bait-and-switch and simply stop buying anything from them.

SJWs always lie. Always.

Smells like SFWA

Elijah Wood speaks out about the pedophiles in Hollywood:

Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

“You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.

“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.

“It was all organised.

“There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

“There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”

Considering the physical proximity of Hollywood to the California SF scene, it would not surprise me in the least if there turns out to be links between the Hollywood coven that Wood is describing, the Breen-MZB coven, and the coven of convicted pedophiles that the Sacramento police department reported were in contact with Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka.

The truth will come out eventually. Eventually the victims will find the courage to speak out and save others from suffering their fate.

Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.

They should have listened to Bill

Bill Murray knew the feminist parody of Ghostbusters was going to be a disaster and tried to stay out of it, but Sony persuaded him to do it:

RE: Ghostbusters/Murray – Litigation Counsel [CONFIDENTIAL]
Email-ID     104704
Date     2013-11-01 00:30:57 UTC
From     mailer-daemon
To     steinberg, david, venger, leonardyankelevits, daniel

RE: Ghostbusters/Murray – Litigation Counsel [CONFIDENTIAL]
I think you are fine to stay out.  Am sure len has it on his list for us to discuss at his 1-1 tomorrow

From: Steinberg, David
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 5:29 PM
To: Venger, Leonard; Weil, Leah
Cc: Yankelevits, Daniel
Subject: RE: Ghostbusters/Murray – Litigation Counsel [CONFIDENTIAL]

FYI, apparently AG has some ideas (Harrison, of course).  I’m trying to stay out of the middle of this one but let me know if there’s anything you need me to do.

From: Venger, Leonard
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:18 PM
To: Steinberg, David; Weil, Leah
Cc: Yankelevits, Daniel
Subject: RE: Ghostbusters/Murray – Litigation Counsel [CONFIDENTIAL]

 I have some names in mind but will wait until we speak with Leah.
 
From: Steinberg, David
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:06 PM
To: Venger, Leonard; Weil, Leah
Cc: Yankelevits, Daniel
Subject: Ghostbusters/Murray – Litigation Counsel [CONFIDENTIAL]

In order to more fully evaluate our position if Bill Murray again declines to engage on “Ghostbusters”, AG requested that we identify “aggressive” litigation counsel with whom we can consult to evaluate our alternatives and strategize.  [Harkening back to his prior employer, of course, raised the name of David Boies.]

Personally, while I’m fine with aggressive, I think we are in much worse shape if this goes public so seems to me we should look for someone who isn’t seeking the spotlight.

Can we discuss at some point soon to provide a suggestion or two?

Thanks.

Oh, it sounds as if they’re in pretty bad shape across the board at this point. I won’t issue any spoiler warnings, because it appears it would be impossible to spoil this movie.

Even Hollywood can be further converged

Who knew that SJWs could make it even worse than it was? Milo observes that the feminist Ghostbusters is going to be an SJW-inspired disaster:

At this point, everyone who isn’t a Women’s Studies major realises that Ghostbusters is probably going to be a terrible movie. But who’s responsible? To anyone familiar with incompetence in Hollywood, the answer should be obvious. It’s Amy Pascal, of course.

Pascal is the former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. She oversaw production of dozens of blockbuster titles over the years, until she was hoist on her own progressivism. A series of  embarrassing emails in which she cracked some not-funny racial jokes about President Obama clashed with her public image as a good feminist progressive, and Pascal promptly exited the company.

“Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?” asked Pascal in a leaked email to a colleague on the topic of meeting President Barack Obama at a then-upcoming fundraising event. Her colleague, producer Scott Rudin, replied simply with “12 YEARS”, referencing ’12 Years a Slave’: another slavery film.

The two then proceeded to jokingly list numerous films concerning African-Americans. It wasn’t funny, and, considering Pascal’s public image as a Hollywood feminist, it wasn’t clever either. It was this series of emails among others that resulted in Pascal’s forced resignation from Sony.

But cinema still isn’t safe: Pascal is taking a producer role in a handful of upcoming films, including Ghostbusters. Pascal, SJW-watchers will note, is the producer behind the mooted Zoe Quinn biopic Crash Override: How to Save the Internet from Itself, which I’m sure will be at least as successful as the all-female Ghostbusters. (By which I mean: an utter disaster.)

It’s obvious Pascal is trying to recover her progressive credentials. But her movies are visibly suffering as a result.

Despite her self-proclaimed feminist values, Pascal has proven hilariously bad at pandering to her own tribe. After allegations of a pay gap at Sony, Pascal was quick to offer a tone-deaf rebuttal.

“I run a business. People want to work for less money, I’ll pay them less money. I don’t call them up and go, can I give you some more?” said Pascal in an interview at the Women of the World event in San Francisco. Pascal said actresses should learn to “walk away” if they weren’t satisfied with their jobs. “People shouldn’t be so grateful for jobs,” she said.

In a final, desperate attempt to make herself likeable again, Pascal is now producing rancid films dressed up in social justice-friendly narratives. And it’s working! Progressives are rallying to her defence, crying “MISOGYNY” whenever moviegoers object to the garbage Pascal is trying to feed them….

I suspect the film’s defenders are also aware that the movie is an
impending disaster, which is why they’ve rushed to the web to brand its
critics misogynists. There’s a lot on the line for them. If Ghostbusters
flops, it will be yet further proof that feminism and social justice
don’t sell.

Addendum to Veblen. We’re going to need a new theory to account for this new form of virtue-signaling conspicuous consumption.

SJWs ruin Watership Down

This sort of cultural and creative degradation is why I will never show even a modicum of mercy to SJWs. This is why there is no place for them in any civilized society. They are pure hraka. They are pollution. They infest every organization they are permitted to enter and they infect everything they touch.

It was the film that traumatised a generation of children, with its much-loved rabbit characters slain on screen in graphic and memorable scenes. But the story of Watership Down is to be remade for a new era, as programme-makers promise to tone down its most brutal images.

The BBC has teamed up with Netflix for one of the most expensive mini-series ever made for the small screen, and the first animated four-part drama of its kind.The show’s executive producer told the Telegraph the 2017 version will not just tone down the levels of on-screen violence to make it more appropriate for children, but give a boost to its female characters.

Female rabbits including Clover, played by Gemma Arterton, Strawberry, played by Olivia Colman, and Hyzenthlay, played by Anne-Marie Duff, will get a dose of doe power, as it were, to allow them to display their own heroics alongside their male co-stars.

This is why we need our own institutions. This is why we need to keep every single SJW out. They destroy everything in the interests of convergence. That is their sole objective and their primary activity.

This is also why I will never sell the movie rights to my books. I won’t risk putting them in SJW hands. In time, we will build our own studios. Castalia is just the start.