the Disney-Fox merger and film/TV production/exhibition hegemony in general

For those of you who are curious about how antitrust works, this is the textbook definition of Robert Bork's consumer welfare standard. pic.twitter.com/JEQZi6DSKW

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) June 30, 2021

OTOH this is going to be the first Simpsons episode I voluntarily watch in a decade.

I guess they're forgetting about all those Family Guy as Star Wars TV movies Fox put out.

https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2009/12/familyguy_somethingsomethin.jpg

is that simpsons thing real? holy fuck.

https://i.imgur.com/PuqtXQV.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PuqtXQV.jpg

fucking hell, the joke is that there's no joke i suppose

the whole business of dressing up characters from one chunk of intellectual property as characters from another chunk of intellectual property is so painfully hollow and meaningless. like even as fanservice - okay, ralph's the Hulk and Milhouse is Hawkeye and Lisa's teacher is Gamora. would it really make any difference if Comic Book Guy was the Hulk and Hans Moleman was Hawkeye and Lisa was Gamora? it's like a Colorforms Dress-Up Set; anything can be combined with anything, but what statement results? what's the commentary, what's the "joke"?

bet you’re fun at halloween

tbf, moleman is moleman so they got that right i guess.

the whole business of dressing up characters from one chunk of intellectual property as characters from another chunk of intellectual property is so painfully hollow and meaningless

Would you say it's a New Jersey?

peter-griffin-dressed-as-darth-vader-saying-do-not-want.gif

ok i'll give you Moleman/Moleman

but as for Halloween, what do the two things have to do with each other? these aren't people coming up with costumes, and nobody in the image even looks like they're having fun being in the costumes.

they surely could've thought a bit about connecting the archetypes rather than going Black character=Black character. Explain another reason beyond melanin why Doc Hibbard is Falcon.

Explain why any of this is happening at all. You can't. No one can.

I mean yes, $$$, but otherwise why

Yep. At the risk of being booted off of WB's A-List (emails promoting the corporation'$ late$t product)...a week or so ago I got an email inviting suggestions for WB's 2023 centennial. (My idea was lavish restoration of one or more of their surviving 1923 films, and if that does happen...I might as well have requested a 4K Director's Cut of The Devils.)

One idea the survey floated was crossovers of Animaniacs with assorted other WB properties (Friends was the only IP that stuck in my mind). And the forthcoming Space Jam sequel is already crossover city--I saw King Kong in one ad, and paying just a little more attention would probably have revealed other familiar figures.

twas synergy killed the beast

DC could have cut that post after the first sentence. If you’re doing a Simpsons Halloween episode set piece you can have some sort of meaningful joke (The Shining parody was a total lay-up, really) but there’s… nothing here

I didn’t hate the pre-canceled Family Guy (what was it, two seasons?) necessarily, but the premise to me was “The Simpsons is coasting and we’re going to show how parody is broken now by making it lazy and spiteful” and then they revived it without changing the format and making it an even lazier take on the same crap.

So much of this crap I just sit here wondering who it’s for, and then wonder if my sad take that people just want to feel happy they recognize a cultural reference that every single person watching will get is a sales point for the producers, audience, someone

The crossover stuff is def money-driven and "synergistic" but I do think many fans genuinely love it. Probably why it gets done so much. I loved the Simpsons/Critic crossover as a kid even though Matt Groening spoke out against it

that seems so lazy and low-stakes in retrospect! it also seemed like a weird tonal crossover at the time, but today it’d be just.. this week’s episode

I don't think my brain, or the brains of many fans now, are doing much beyond "I like A, I like B, A + B = !!!". it's primal

the Simpsons already had its own comic book universe in radioactive man and fallout boy etc. this just seems like that but without the trademark avoidance dance

In fairness, the Loki thing is 4:30 minutes long, and the 'plot' finishes after 2:30 - the credits has a bunch more colorforms - Comic Book Guy is Thanos! The other Simpsons are Guardians of the Galaxy! It would be fine on Tumblr.

“The Cinemateca Brasileira houses and protects the entire memory of Brazilian Cinema in its archives, from the first documentaries shot in the early 20th century to the Cinema Novo masterpieces. In its 45,000 titles, the Cinemateca holds a register of our national identity in construction, of our culture being redefined through time.”

https://core-cms.bfi.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/responsive/public/1440/0/0/2020-08/cinemateca-brasileira-masters-vault-2020.jpg

“Until recently, the Cinemateca Brasileira was considered a center of excellence for film restoration, thanks to its personnel and technical capabilities.”

Brazil’s film archive is facing wipeout, 4 August 2020

Cinemateca Brasileira, the largest audiovisual institution in South America, under threat by Bolsonaro government
The government has fired all 41 technical staff, who safeguard an important collection of more than 250,000 works

Gabriella Angeleti, 27th August 2020 23:34 BST

The imminent tragedy that so many have been trying to prevent by speaking out on the dangerous precariousness of the Brazilian Cinematheque is now a reality — BRAZILIAN CINEMATHEQUE IS ON FIRE as reported by the local media #SOScinematecabrasileira #cinematecaisburning pic.twitter.com/IMhnH1IlaZ

— Ela Bittencourt (@Ela_Bittencourt) July 29, 2021

Just this past Sat (7/24) the fired workers of #SOSCinematecaBrasileira were protesting on Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s main avenue, to alert everyone about the dangers facing Cinemateca — another call that went unheeded pic.twitter.com/YVcQy1YMUN

— Ela Bittencourt (@Ela_Bittencourt) July 30, 2021

Firemen told @GloboNews that one of the Cinemateca Brasileira warehouse rooms that caught fire was storing films from the 1920s pic.twitter.com/LVBEwoCuOE

— Ela Bittencourt (@Ela_Bittencourt) July 30, 2021

Remember the time when the gov. sent federal police to FORCE THE WORKERS OUT of the Cinemateca and to take over and lock it up https://t.co/BZI9b4hbI4 pic.twitter.com/XpG0AvKQfJ

— Ela Bittencourt (@Ela_Bittencourt) July 30, 2021

They were there for months without receiving pay, taking care of the archives https://t.co/uGBFN0oRuU pic.twitter.com/Q2L5LOA1uP

— Ela Bittencourt (@Ela_Bittencourt) July 30, 2021

good lord

fuck

Statement from the workers regarding last night's fire at the Cinemateca Brasileira (pdf)

SF Museum Of Modern Art has axed their film program, 86 years after beginning and five years after renovating their theatre, due to decreased attendance in the last year.

Damn.

Huh! I wonder why people stopped going to movies last year? There must be a reason. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Torrenting as pure responsibility

How it started How it’s going pic.twitter.com/G7LD8DshPM

— elevator to the giallos (@mxy_mabuse) July 7, 2021

Great news for Disney but tough night for Disney and Disney https://t.co/WmBLF3RBwe

— Ben Joseph (@jenboseph) December 18, 2021

lol
actually feel sorry for Nightmare Alley

The irony is that Del Toro's Blade 2 was one of the first-wave Marvel adaptations to get critical acclaim as well as box office. Same year as Raimi's first Spider-man, iirc. So in a round about way, Disney owes Del Toro.

True shit. Just got an email from my theater asking if I wanted to cancel my tickets for NIGHTMARE ALLEY because they cancelled every other show to free up the screen for more Spider-Man showings. pic.twitter.com/tpdfD7VjqG

— Reyna Cervantes (@Jfcdoomblade) December 19, 2021

sad lol

what's truly demoralizing here is that even being the second film adaptation of preexisting literary source material isn't unoriginal enough to go up against the second multiple-spider-men movie of the past three years

1 2 MCU

i got an email last week alerting me that A NEW DEVICE HAS BEEN USED TO LOGIN TO YOUR DISNEY ACCOUNT, which i completely assumed was a phishing email because i have never created a "disney account" and my old espn account was (is?) tied to a different email address. then i looked at it and realized it was sent because i logged in to the national geographic website to read an article on my phone, so due to a magazine subscription i've had since the '90s, i guess i now have a disney account. i mean, i slightly prefer natl geo content being controlled by the mouse rather than rupert murdoch, but it would be nice if neither did.