DJariya

I watched 3 of the 7 Police Academy movies yesterday on HBO Max. I had not seen them in many many years. 1 and 2 are very funny. 3 is okay. I know it gets worse from 4 onwards.

DJariya

Gone with the Wind pulled from HBO Max

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...e-wind-1297806


Apparently WB got complaints about it being there and also director John Ridley wrote an editorial on the LA Times saying that while he doesn't believe in censorship, he thinks this is the wrong time to have that movie available to watch. Especially with how the film depicts slavery and the confederacy and what's going on now. You can read his editorial below.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...the-wind-movie


While I'm sure most of you probably had no plans to watch this movie, what do you think? You think this is a paranoid knee jerk reaction?

Decker

But that's the President's favorite movie!

mwbmis

There is a whole slew of problematic movies viewed through a 2020 lens. Are we going to relegate them all to history?

DJariya

So it sounds like the movie will return at a later date with a disclaimer

Twitter

davidh777

I think it’s an overreaction. It’s not like we’re talking Birth of a Nation here.

RichC2

I'm indifferent to it, I assumed most older movies had disclaimers these days -- it's been a trend in previous years.

fujishig

Whew, I can go back to not watching it and forgetting it's even on there once it's back. Crisis averted!

Why So Blu?

^ Likewise. I've never seen the film, nor care to. Sounds like a borefest of epic proportions.

LorenzoL

This.

davidh777

I think it’s worth seeing from a film history perspective, but yes, I rarely rewatch it. Not enough payoff for its running time.

E Unit

Ask a black person if it's an overreaction then get back to us. To many, it's in the same league as BoAN.

davidh777

Fair enough. I haven’t seen it in at least 10 years.

cultshock

This. I've never seen it and have no desire to, it indeed looks like an epic length borefest to me. I'll just take everyone's word that it's a "classic" and continue to ignore it.

Decker

It felt more dated in the 1970s than the other classics from that era (Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Citizen Kane) feel today.

DJariya

E Unit

In case you forgot, it has a lot of slaves and romanticizes slavery.

Decker

No doubt, it's a problematic film. But it always has been. I just find it a little weird that we should be more offended about it this week than a month ago. If it were a movie that glorifies police brutality like Dirty Harry (not on the service at the moment, BTW), I can see the sensitivity of removing it now. But GwtW is nothing new and far from the only movie that is terribly dated on the racial front on the service.

And while it does portray slaves in a glamorized light, it also is historical for being the first movie to honor an actor of color with an Oscar. (I am still amazed that a fourth black actor didn't win an Oscar until Denzel Washington in 1990! -- and he got it for a character who was publicly whipped)

atrium

I think it's less about this specific movie, and more about what statement we are making.

As mwbmis pointed out, tons of historical movies (and books, music, paintings... should I go on?) have problematic social values depicted. Do we add disclaimers to all these, or do we exercise a little common sense and perspective? I can't imagine too many impressionable young kids are going out of their way to watch Gone with the Wind. Could be wrong though...

If the disclaimer is going to make people happy during this time of heightened tension, I don't have a problem with it. Just seems like a knee jerk thing, and I don't see why HBO should be the one to educate me on historical context.

But of course everyone is afraid of bad PR right now.

davidh777

Honestly I mostly remember the classic quotes and certain visuals, not how certain issues were presented. The reason I compared it to BOAN is because I just remember that for glorifying the Klan, but I’ll grant that comparisons are probably best left to those more familiar with both films.

E Unit

I’m just ribbing you, but it’s interesting because I had a conversation like this years ago with a friend of mine who was black. It was enlightening hearing from him his perspective about movies, and GwtW in particular.

fujishig

Ugh, who decided to do it like this:


Nobody else does this with their own content except for DC Universe, which is also owned by them. Like what is it about DC that they want to rotate things instead of just have a consistent library?

Meathead

Well that explains why all those DC films I listed are leaving on the 1st. But yeah who thought this was a good idea?

davidh777

I could see rotating their animated films, but the live-action films makes no sense. It’s not like there are THAT many that people will want to watch.

fujishig

Doesn't seem like it's just DC. The Hobbit movies are leaving soon (including the one they just put up), as is Titanic, Braveheart, the Lego Movie, Lego Batman, etc. None of these are leaving because they are leaving HBO (the channel), these are their own properties.

Maybe they're just preexisting agreements, but it seems to me like either this is some kind of stupid strategy so that people don't just cherry pick the service every few months (which is so insanely dumb) or they still want to milk money out of their properties and don't have faith in this service to be the destination for people seeking their properties out.