Mr.Duck on 5/4/2013 at 19:15
Forget it, dema. It's ZylonBane.
demagogue on 5/4/2013 at 19:42
I haven't had a good ZB fight in what feels like years.
Just trying to re-live good old times, even if I have to force it a bit.
Also fixed:
Quote Posted by MrDuck
Forget it, dema. Its ZylonBane.
(¬¬)
Harvester on 5/4/2013 at 19:46
Quote Posted by demagogue
Re: Ebert, I was never the biggest fan of criticism for the masses. I always admired the old-school highbrow criticism from like the '30s-'50s, sans the pretension and arrogance; but I liked how it recognized the stakes & how art and media connected to the culture as a whole.
Oh, I like in-depth criticism and intelligent deconstruction of movies as much as the next guy, but highbrow film critics often only discuss arthouse movies and dismiss mainstream movies. One of the things that characterized Roger Ebert is what he said "it's not what the movie is about, it's how it's about it". He always asked: "how well does the movie accomplish what it sets out to do?" Instead of dismissing mainstream stuff like simple horror or action movies, he approached it with an open mind and just told us whether it was a
good simple horror or action movie.
But I also wouldn't dismiss his reviews of the more artful movies. For example, he mostly got what the big deal was with 2001: A Space Odyssey right away, when most critics at the time didn't get it.
One of my favorite reviews of his was of Almost Famous. It's one of my favorite movies and I love how passionate he was about it.
Mr.Duck on 5/4/2013 at 19:49
Quote Posted by demagogue
(¬¬)
You sure? :o
To be fair I c&p it and just changed the names :)
In regards to the thread: R.I.P. Mr. Ebert :( I loved Sulphur's post in Fb about Ebert, which I think he should c&p here too.
demagogue on 5/4/2013 at 19:55
Also, if we have a thread on Ebert on this forum, it has to be mentioned that he was the main face behind the argument that games can't be art, at least not for the foreseeable future.
While this position is anathema to me -- at least for what's possible. Most actual games are rather shallow; still fun but not particularly artistic. And the gaming culture isn't giving devs much incentive to change that. But there's nothing stopping games from the kind of depth you get in films and novels, and every year a few scratch that line. -- But I do respect that he stuck to his guns on it, even though he should have known he'd be made a punching bag to pop culture for it. And I'm even sympathetic with a strand of it to the extent it's fairly calling BS on a lot of the attempts to claim some games as art that just aren't really. (Not to start that debate now...)
It's just unfortunate that he didn't live long enough to see some games that pretty indisputably break new ground into high artistic territory, which I feel like is an era we are just getting the potential to really enter into. I would have liked to read a column of his where even he would have acknowledged a game breaking boundaries on that.
Edit:
Quote Posted by MrDuck
You sure? :o
If the goal is to incense our house robotic grammarian as much as possible then yeah.
Otherwise, no. The quote was fine.
Mr.Duck on 5/4/2013 at 21:08
But the quote's innocent, how can I dare hurt it? :(
Your* wrong!
*This might do the trick better, no? A bit obvious, but we can't go wrong with the classics, neh?
ZylonBane on 5/4/2013 at 22:26
Quote Posted by demagogue
Nobody cares what colloquial terms mean anymore.
By your definition apparently ALL terms are colloquial.
The devolution of "begging the question" is particularly galling because it's obviously used by people trying to sound smart, because they've heard smart people using it without actually understanding what it means. So yes, this swing-and-a-miss interpretation of the phrase will get roundly mocked.
faetal on 6/4/2013 at 16:55
Calm it down with the pedantry. Words like irony and theory have their technical meanings and their more common usage, which while being based on a derogation of the original meaning, do actually confer a separate meaning, because over time language follows usage, not rules. You kind of hope that in conversation, intelligent people can have the linguistic savvy to be able to switch between the two without meaning being either lost or confused, rather than going down the "actually, that's not irony.." route, which just makes you seem like you're splitting hairs in order to secure a horse which bolted long ago.
Begging the question / petitio principii the logical fallacy is not the same thing as the conversational mechanism of requesting supporting information which is arguably used more often by more people. It's not wrong, it's just a linguistic variant which has been reinforced by being well-suited to its latter use. Language evolves. The dictionary definition of irony and theory reflect the common usage as well as the original usage.
june gloom on 6/4/2013 at 19:41
Quote Posted by faetal
Calm it down with the pedantry.
Dude, I don't think he can.
demagogue on 6/4/2013 at 20:33
If ZB stopped being a pedant robot, I think I'd cock punch him myself for losing his spine, going soft & backing down.
A man only has his reputation in the end.
Somehow that seems a fitting thing to say in an Ebert thread, since not backing down on his standards was something he was famous for, despite the abuse he sometimes got for it.
