site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2233 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 5, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I was reading through some of The Dreaded Jim's archives, and I saw that he recommended a film called Kick-Ass. So I took a look, and... where has this movie been all my life?

Everything is great. The writing is great. The action is great. The music is great. This is the best Hollywood action movie I have seen since The Matrix.

The film is bold and unapologetic, working hard to earn its R rating; characters get shot, stabbed, crushed, and burned. The dialogue pulls no punches, mixing wit and profanity without ever coming across as overly edgy or performative.

My new waifu, Hit-Girl, is easily the best character in the movie; watching her mow down a hallway full of mooks to the tune of "Bad Reputation" is a delight. And that's after she infiltrates the bad guy's base by dressing up like a loli schoolgirl; I had no idea Americans could be so cultured!

The only problem is that the MC, Kick-Ass, is not nearly as awesome as Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, but that's alright; he can be the Ishmael to the latter's Ahab. And, unlike so many spineless MCs, he continually grows as a character; by the end of the film, he has gradudated from using a "gay-looking taser", as Hit-Girl rightly calls it, to dual wielding miniguns while flying on a jetpack.

I just don't understand why Roger Ebert didn't like it.

Roger Ebert had bad opinions about movies. He thought Fight Club was terrible.

I put more stock in Ebert's opinions than I do to the modal critic, but when he got it wrong, he could really get it wrong. He gave Blue Velvet one star pretty much solely because he objected to Isabella Rosselini appearing nude in it for what he considered ignoble aesthetic ends.

As much as I love Fight Club, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that it has significant pacing problems and the first half is much stronger than the second.

I think I recall loving the movie, and then hating the final scene/ending.

I vaguely remember that movie! I think I enjoyed it. I remember I loved Nick Cage in it, and somehow his trademark over performance seemed perfectly suited for his role in the film. Maybe I should give it another spin.

Have you ever seen Shoot Em Up? It's fantastic. Has some of the worst written dialog you'll ever hear, and two award winning actors chewing the scenery and giving that terrible dialog all they possibly can. Also does a great job of constantly escalating the action to increasingly outlandish and cartoonish places. It's a delight to see what absurdity they come up with next.

It was probably my favorite action flick up until I saw John Wick, and even then I should probably rewatch them both to really help me decide their ranking.

I remember very clearly how critically panned it was and how much I loved it. Need to re-watch.

A classic, to my mind. Honestly it's a rare case of the movie being even better than the source material, and the source material isn't bad! Sadly, the sequel didn't really do it for me, and it's a high water mark for Chloe Grace Moretz on film (though she has done some solid voice work since).

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats