But talking about how alcohol is 'liquid courage' is original and fresh!

@avclub-4c37107b9dedb73b90f677930bf7728b:disqus You are so adorable!!

@avclub-57652471447d6e893403b3287bbbe11e:disqus You're absolutely right, which is why I am dismayed about the state of films. I am not sure if it's even possible to create a film that doesn't tighten the swirl of the bad dialectic. And I never meant to suggest that I thought the "showing of alternatives" would be a…

Ahh a man with things to say! All fascinating views. Please continue.

@avclub-8cdafdef7b9b5675e19adcaa79f58d04:disqus I'm not going to explain the entirety of the philosophical tradition to you. If you want to know why phenomenological freedom is important I'd suggest Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It might help you actually understand my posts and therefore not mistakenly claim…

@avclub-832d86d3a05e2b4973c329471ee9d6c4:disqus Ahh, nihilism! Cute. An earthquake on Mars is nothing but particles moving around. An earthquake in New York City is mayhem and destruction. You need more than the scientific standpoint to explain the complexity of our situation. Ever heard the term 'scientism' or…

It doesn't have to be explicit, but it does have to be there. People don't come out of those movies thinking 'now we've seen how low we can go, let's try to find a way to get out of this situation,' they come out thinking 'this is the way it is, let's retreat into irony and give up on politics'.

@avclub-8cdafdef7b9b5675e19adcaa79f58d04:disqus 1. I used the word fallacy, then proceeded to argue for my position, I didn't just use the word fallacy and stop there.

@avclub-472d722b57a4ed37e41e70c9c9d7d0f3:disqus …. Of course we can all do this if we pull together. If that's "juvenile enthusiasm", then sign me up… you should read more….

@avclub-57652471447d6e893403b3287bbbe11e:disqus Yes, you are obligated to show the alternatives to capitalism in your artistic works, otherwise you undercut your criticism by suggesting that there are no alternatives. If this is all hopeless, then why the fuck are you critiquing in the first place? Just to bum people…

@ShrikeTheAvatar:disqus Exactly.

I agree completely, but let's not try to pretend that PTA doesn't think Plainview = America. This is his critique of society, we've gone the way of Plainview and not the way of HW and Mary. Remember that those moments of other-than-Plainview last for like 45 seconds. The film is unrelenting in its despair. It is…

The universe doesn't care about you, but please, let's not collapse human society into what rocks think about us. There is more than just physics bro. What, did you stop at Kant's first critique and skip the other two? There are multiple standpoints fuckjob.

No, film theory is a disaster. I take my queues from critical theory. What are your thoughts on Hegel? I ask because I think you might be a neo-Heideggerian of some sort. Just curious.

@avclub-472d722b57a4ed37e41e70c9c9d7d0f3:disqus Ahhh! A realist! No, there is much more than reality bro, there are things called imagination and negation, look into it. Nice job conforming to the intense pragmatism of late-era capitalism though, that's totally sweet!

@avclub-6a2ec3076bb494e5c64eb1a422d9fe3d:disqus Are you by any chance an anti-intellectual? i.e. let's not think too hard about things and just have some fun, i.e. fuck the smell of those burning Jews, et al.

No, I'm not killing the bearer of bad news, I'm killing the bearer of wrong-headed news. See my response to Dr. Dastardly.

Yeah, but then the message is that society is finally irredeemable, that it has destroyed itself, that it is kaput. Plainview is America, he's not just Plainview. This is following prey the present is eternal fallacy - we are not irredeemable, this shitty situation is just a manifestation of social relationships gone…

I used to think that movies like There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men achieved a vision of the transcendent through their very construction. These films were so well-made that instead of just wallowing in the despair of modern America, the films themselves were something outside of that despair, because they…

It is kind of a "Monopoly guy," but I never understood Harmon's a priori rejection of that. That scene is awesome, and as long as "Monopoly guys" are just used as small jokes, they can be fun.