With me, I'll actually get pretty far (making out, even sex) and then later on they realize they're gay (or bi, and they want a guy). But I guess this doesn't so much happen for gay guys with the straight guys they're crushing on.
Sigh, I hear you Eric. Sometimes I think relationships would be much easier if sex wasn't involved.
Ten Best Films of 2007
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Eric
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Well, I'm not quite deluded enough to actually fall for too many, much less force the issue. The lack of sexual tension allows for such a fast, easy camaraderie that it's a shame that's all the further it goes.Steph2 wrote:Aww, poor Eric! A sad story or just a recurring theme? (you've mentioned this before) Honey, if you replace straight with gay/bi, I totally know how you feel.
Oh, Eric, I've been there, too. Painful stuff.Steph2 wrote:Eric wrote:A film about a gay man who lusts after a straight man ... could be that it cuts a little too close to the bone for me.
Hmm, this has come up before. A sad story or just a recurring theme?
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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Eric
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A film about a gay man who lusts after a straight man ... could be that it cuts a little too close to the bone for me. Really, my biggest problem with the film was its ponderous arty-blahness.Penelope wrote:*
The Man Of My Life (Zabou Breitman)
Eric, I'm curious to know why only one star to this movie? I saw it this afternoon and while I didn't think it was entirely successful (the second half really does start to drag, as it becomes increasingly pretentious, with plot developments that don't make sense), I thought Charles Berling's wonderful performance and the gorgeous cinematography should at least merit ** 1/2.
I wrote a snarky review for Slant.
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The Man Of My Life (Zabou Breitman)
Eric, I'm curious to know why only one star to this movie? I saw it this afternoon and while I didn't think it was entirely successful (the second half really does start to drag, as it becomes increasingly pretentious, with plot developments that don't make sense), I thought Charles Berling's wonderful performance and the gorgeous cinematography should at least merit ** 1/2.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
Johnny Guitar wrote:learning almost nothing of worth outside of practical skills in math & science. Our culture is eating itself.
This is true, and what's even worse is that we're not even excelling in THOSE limited areas either. The education system in India and the British West Indies similarly prioritize Math and Science -- the emphasis is a capitalist evaluation: get a job, not get an education -- so the problem is not limited to the U.S., but the funny part is, they at least do WELL in the limited areas they're focused on. Americans are performing poorly on the global scale in terms of Math and Science as well, so I think it's time to admit even with our screwy priorities, our system is failing. And of course there are historical/colonialist reasons and implications for the practical/vocational approach to high school education in India and the British West Indies -- namely the British. America with all its wealth, power, influence and resources really has no excuse.
Johnny Guitar, I'm convinced that the American education system doesn't merely hobble our intellectual stride, but actually WANTS to hobble it. If you accept that we live in a stifling turbo-capitalist society with the requisite base and superstructure dynamic that limits pluralist choices to "A" and "B", and then applies pressure on the individual to choose one of them (and how could you not accept that this is true?) then universal norms like education are merely tools to defend the status quo. The last thing you want if you're benefiting from the status quo -- if you're a fat cat -- is an education system that would encourage philosophical questions or any questioning of the status quo. Other economic alternatives would have to be eradicated and independent thinking would have to be replaced with capitalist evaluations (so instead we get questions like, "How much is my education worth in terms of dollars?" "How much money can I make after school?") and the only way to ensure this is a streamlined education system -- one that focuses on exactly what you need from workers and nothing else.
Furthermore, banks and other hideous institutions often lobby the gov't so that financial aid is NEVER taken to the logical place it should be taken. A country as rich as ours could have made education universally affordable a long time ago. The fact that financial aid always includes loans (with interest rates rising) is a way to trap the individual after college. If you burden the average student with loans after graduation, the student is forced to choose one of the two A/B options that includes securing a job that can help pay off the loans. Think of the effect this then has on the entire system. Economics and business are among the most popular majors in U.S. colleges (if not the most popular) and this is partly because of the cultural value assigned to these majors when one is ensconced in a turbo-capitalist society, but it is also a result of students who know they must secure jobs after graduation that will help alleviate their debt. So even as you are choosing your major, choosing classes, choosing what programs and fellowships you will take advantage of -- even as you are making basic decisions that should normally be about your growth as a student and an intellectual person -- even THEN, without being aware of it, you are pressured to choose one of the A/B options. This limits the number of non-practical, non-vocational leaning classes that the average student can and will take. And once he or she graduates and enters the workforce like a good worker bee, he or she is already too busy working to pay off student loan debt to consider any other alternative in life.
Essentially then, the system of student loan debt prevents students from becoming radicals or activists. It really does. Consider that your 20's are the time in your life when activism and radicalism would be most strongly incited (typically before you've married and settled into a "comfortable" life) and then you see how cleverly the fat cat as secured himself against the threat of radicalism, social change and activism by limiting your options in college, limiting your options after college, and basically setting the individual on a narrow path that helps to secure the working underclass needed to maintain the societal power-balance without threatening the elite upper class at all.
Oh and chiseled abs aren't my thing. It was your straight-guy smile. Bi guys can't get enough of that shit.
Edited By Akash on 1199055814
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FilmFan720
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I'll second that.Big Magilla wrote:Of course the educational system in the U.S. is a mess. It's been a mess for at least fifty years, but it's less of a mess now than when I was going through it.
The main problem is education is under-funded. Teachers are underpaid.
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
- Minor Myers, Jr.
Loved this! Thank God I know you well.Be more daring, Big Magilla. You may discover the coprophiliac in you, it's never too late in life.Big Magilla wrote:ITALIANO wrote:And "Pinocchio is a bad movie", something which Big Magilla always repeats without ever having seen it. This is America.
If it looks like shit and smells liek shit I don't have to step in it to know it's shit.
As for the problems of teachers being underpaid, etc. - we have all this in Europe, too, still our educational system is very good. Maybe there are other reasons.
Don't worry about how I use it. This doesn't have anything to do with what I say about the school system in the US being true or not.Bog wrote:I cannot speak to a violent attack about our educational system, knowing my own limitations for the years prior to my liberal arts college coursework for 6 years following...it just seems you have used this as a referendum on how "we" have no taste in film and are mere lemmings of another board poster here