Comment by recuter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by recuter | Hacker News Reader

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I was going to recommend a masterpiece of cinema to you called Blind Fury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Fury

The realization that it would be pointless, alas, came to me too late. Let me just give you a taste:

  While serving in Vietnam, American soldier Nick Parker was blinded by a mortar explosion. Rescued by local villagers, he recovered his health and, though he remains blind, was trained to master his other senses and becomes an expert swordsman.

So, he wears 80s sunglasses and wields a goddamn katana. He is also a hobo. Like Caine from Kong Fu he roams the earth and lowlifes always pick fights with him because they underestimate his... err... blind fury.

There is an "adorable" little kid aptly named Billy, and one dimensional baddies, 'etc. The character is masterfully portrayed by one of the best b-movie actors of all time -- Rutger Hauer (best known for the best bit of Blade Runner).

Anyway I think it is a shame woke imbeciles who run movie studios would refuse to make such a thing today because when I saw it as a kid it made me realize being blind is really not the end of the world. Here you are posting on HN and your insights about society are more astute than the majority of the population. So I just wanted to say that you certainly see what is going on accurately.

P.S. - if you wish to visualize the language police people, they typically look like vogons and pull ugly faces when they speak.

Hehe, thanks, I know about Blind Fury, Daredevil, and See No Evil, Hear No Evil...

As I am embedded in a visual culture, I do consume movies from time to time, so there is actually no reason to be self-conscious about mentioning media products like that...

Not self conscious at all my dude (I'm not one of those insensitive woke people who get off on making everybody feel like shit to try and elevate themselves at all costs), glad I made you chuckle. How do you consume movies? I didn't know that the ̶a̶c̶c̶u̶r̶s̶e̶d̶ "visually impaired" do that. Dope.

Don't know why I'm surprised. I bet blind fury would watch movies somehow too. Also, you should obviously change your username. :)

P.S. - Daredevil sucks so bad it makes me wish I was blind. You aren't missing out on anything there.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a classic. Yet another example of something great that currently wouldn't get made.

I've decided I want a blind friend. Prank potential off the charts.

Regarding how to "watch" movies: Its actually as simple as turning the TV on and listening to what comes out the speakers... In the 80s, movies were actually much more story-driven then today. Even if you missed something happening because you didnt see the visuals, you would get it typically a few seconds or minutes afterwards, because somebody was refering to the event and therefore uncovering the riddle. Something like "Hey, did you see the car explode back there?" These days, there is the concept of audio description.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_description

You might have noticed a second audio channel with some movies or sports broadcasts, depending on what country you are in. Even Apple TV has an ability to configure such a descriptive audio channel, and have it played back when the movie actually comes with one.

Makes sense actually. Now that you mention it I can imagine Casablanca to be enjoyable to "watch" even with my eyes closed. A lot of the black and white stuff. I guess they were (better) written, more like plays, with actors projecting their voices. Now they do the mumble whisper thing, even native speakers are forced to turn on subtitles for increasingly terrible plots.

BTW you should know my comments had a +5 and now are being downvoted by the woke mob, who know what is best for you.

Edit: And its back to very positive. I only remark on this when the cowardly woke losers try to bully people with downvote brigading otherwise the points don't matter. Bet there's a lot of screeching on a Mastodon somewhere.

Off topic but have you noticed a trend in modern movies that it's harder to hear dialogue?

I find the music and background noise is so loud in modern movies that I struggle to hear some of the characters talk.

I thought I was just getting old but recently watched some older movies and found they were much easier to hear.

Well, now that you mention it. My take on this is pretty subjective because I am not a native english speaker. While I watch a lot of english-movies these days, I was brought up with a rich world of overdubbed movies in my native language. These overdubs tend to have a very good quality when it comes to clarity because they are always done in a studio afterwards. When I started to watch english movies, I was thrown into an abyss of very hard to follow dialogue, but that was mostly because I was not used to hearing the actors speak on set during whatever they were actually doing.

However, that said, I do also feel it is getting harder with more action-loaded productions, which is basically everything in the past 10 years or so.

Afaik, a lot of modern AAA dialogue gets re-recorded in the studio these days, and is then mixed to be inaudible in post because fuck us I guess.

Part of the problem with modern movies is they're designed for surround sound 5.1 systems or similar. In those systems, the middle front channel is generally used for dialogue, but that channel often gets entirely dropped when remixing for stereo systems. This predictably results in inaudible dialogue.

This was discussed on HN a few months ago, but I can't find a reference to that thread.

That’s one problem, not the only one.

If there’s a root cause it is that they make movies to get Oscars, not to be watched by the audience.

Some receivers have “dialogue boost” or otherwise let you adjust each channel individually.

More and more we just leave subtitles on, as too much dialog is easy to lose in the rest of the sound. I think it’s also a difference in how movies are made now; compare the pacing of Rocky with anything modern. Older movies stop the action to dialog; modern movies have quips over explosions

I've noticed my kids watch movies with the subtitles turned on because of this.

When I first got Disney+ because an ex-girlfriend wanted to watch Wanda, the app was misconfigured to have the audio description turned on. It's a pretty weird show, so it took me 3 episodes of being confused by the weirdness of the show to realize something was really off and it wasn't meant to be watched like that. Took me forever to find the setting to turn it off; and it got a bit more watchable after that.

The “subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing” on modern videos are a wonder and amazing. We regularly use subtitles because it can be hard to hear the movie over the kids, but SDH is great if you are mainly listening. Highly recommend everyone try it sometime.

Sometimes it is even a separate “language track” that describes what’s happening.

As you mention Blind Fury, do you know of the Zatoichi movie franchise [1], which is about a blind swordsman wandering Japan around the Edo to Meiji period? Really good films! (Blind Fury is a reimagining of the 17th movie in the series, Zatoichi Challenged.)

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/Zatoichi

Following up on this I wonder if Tropic Thunder (2008), a relatively new movie could be made today.

Could You Make Tropic Thunder Today? w/Robert Downey Jr. | Joe Rogan (12m views, from 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugC3TXSKoE

tl;dw - Nope.

Ain't that some shit?

Monty Python said the same thing about Life of Brian, another great classic for the ages!

So back in 1979 when it was released this rather infamous debate transpired between them and a bishop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgKFWnZLgdc

Exact same sort of asshole and arguments as today. He called them blasphemers and tried to cancel them. During the commercial break he would lean in to John Cleese and say "this is great television" with a wink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Stockwood#Later_life_an...

The two ### (you forgot the "journalist") had not seen the (whole) movie, they arrived at the theater late.

The Life of Brian was banned in Ireland until 1987

A shame because Les Grossman is without question Tom Cruise’s greatest work.

Someone asked Mel Brooks the same about Blazing Saddles once.

"Today? You couldn't even make it then!"

We overestimate the effect the this sort of thing has.

I imagine someone reading that line is about to talk about the cancelling of some so-and-so, but in almost all cases that is either just a lot of hot air from Twitter or the so-and-so in question is legitimately and obviously actually a bigot.

"Chapelle was canceled!!!" which is why he is selling out stadiums and making millions right?

it is definitely seems a patterns that alot of people who claim to be "canceled" or complaining about "canceling" are usually very well-off people who usually get thousands of re-tweets/posts and millions of subscribers on youtube or sell-out whenever they make an appearance somewhere...

People who say you can't make movies as offensive (or playing as much with offensiveness, anyway) as Tropic Thunder or Blazing Saddles anymore need to look into some of Lloyd Kaufman's output with Troma... the 2020 Shakespeare's Shitstorm is about as wildly-offensive (but maybe to good purpose? I'm still not sure, LOL) as it gets, and even directly targets the (in the pejorative sense) "woke" crowd (plus, like, a lot of other groups, including stuffy conservatives, big business, and shitty bigots) which is one of the riskiest moves a film could make these days, and that's just one of several risky moves it makes. Like, the movie's basically built of risky, boundary-pushing creative choices relating to very-relevant topics, which... might serve some greater, noble whole? Maybe? I think it's trying to, at least.

Now, a wide-release, mainstream movie, that might be true.

Ben Stiller himself has commented on the blackface in the movie being a satire of blackface in cinema. There would be no problem with a popular director making that kind of movie today.

I would note (and this was true at the time, too) that there are people that would either fail to make the distinction of “satire” or fail to find its invocation in the case of the particular work a convincing excuse.

I suspect there would be more resistance to the same film now, but its well within what could be made.

Ah, damn, another one of Rutger's great films! Now I have something to watch over the weekend!

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