SnotFlickerman

I got caught up with the John Wick series, watched 3 and 4.

I kind of wish these movies had more actual plot to them, despite really appreciating how well put together the fight choreography is, and the general evolution of gun-fu in film due to the influence of these films.

All the major characters in these movies say the only thing John Wick is good at is being a killer, and each movie seems intent to just... prove that. There's no nuance, no growth from characters, just an endless stream of killing by Mr. Wick. It's hard to believe Wick's character even ever actually had a wife... It all feels empty and performative, none of it feels sincere... Because we've never been shown Wick being tender like the "loving husband" he wants to be remembered as. We're only shown the cold killer everyone keeps telling him he is and that's the only thing he will ever be. Seems like the filmmakers agree.

Sure, that can be fun... to an extent... but fuck me John Wick 4 was nearly three fucking hours of almost nonstop on-screen fights with nary a moment for character development or any true feeling of depth for any of the characters. I feel nothing for any of them because I know so little about any of them. There wasn't time for me to get to know any of them well enough to care about them at all. If characters who made it through to the end of the film had died instead... I would not have felt any great loss, just as I felt no great loss for the ones who did die.

Also, let's be real, naming the blind guy "Caine" was just a little fucking on the nose, was it not?

Anyway, these films could really do with some tension other than "Wick continues his murder spree" because the complete absence of character development does the rest of the quality filmmaking a disservice. The choreography and cinematography are top tier, but to be endlessly paired with such weak writing is disappointing. I know they are just action movies, but come on give me something to hold onto other than just violence.

I did like seeing Jason "Heynong Man" Mantzoukas in Part 3.

Let's be real, most conservatives are still all onboard this hate train and the only tempers flaring are from liberals who keep thinking they can somehow speak reason to fucking fascists.

The only conservatives who have even come close to questioning any of it are the ones impacted by it. The ones who change their mind won't show up at town halls, they'll do just what they did when they finally turned on Bush... They'll go quiet and stay dark until the consequences are far enough in the past for them to start pretending they never supported it to begin with.

Conservatives kind of prove that in a lot of ways, power really is the only thing that matters. Smarts mean nothing if you can't leverage them and use the power you have when you have it. They pursue power for powers' sake and then use it, even if they do it hamfistedly.

"Lack of political will" could be used to describe every shitty thing in the USA for the last god damned fifty years.

"Lack of political will" is why we have avoided trying to finalize whether or not a President is actually above the law since Nixon, and now it's biting us in the ass with full-on authoritarianism.

Lack of political will is why we have all these trucks and SUVs built to run over people instead of follow any sane safety standards.

Lack of political will is why Teslas are still on the road despite being deathtraps more dangerous than the fucking Ford Pinto.

Lack of political will is why we can't import small, cheap EVs from Europe.

Lack of political will is why we don't have good public transit or bullet trains crosscrossing the country.

China knows what it has and isn't afraid to be the new big-dick-swinging-bully in town now that the USA has blown it's wad.

You know what, good for them. When you got it, flaunt it.

The way these Trumpian dipshits might put it is "They hold all the cards."

Of course the NYT couches it all in language of panic over divisiveness.

Fuck that, good for Hogg. This is the energy we've fucking needed for two fucking decades now.

Instead for twenty years we got the old guard playing dumb fucking rhetorical games, doing dumb shit like trying to appear "tough on terrorism" by supporting Bush's unfounded war of aggression in Iraq. Doing dumb shit like saying "We need to look forward, not backward" when it came to prosecuting war crimes. We couldn't even get anyone with the balls to prosecute war crimes, why did anyone expect them to have the actual balls to prosecure Trump for things less damning than war crimes?

Okay, sure, that's all valid, but that means nothing when it comes to endless articles wishcasting about the current price. I've seen these articles for almost two months now, when Tesla hit its lowest point in 2025 on March 10th. Sure, this could be a dead cat bounce, but until it actually starts crashing, it isn't anything other than wishcasting.

I'll give a damn when it drops lower than its lowest point in January of 2023 at $113. It's got a loooong way to drop before it passes that point. Below that is when the stock will potentially become terminal. Tesla is rigged and being floated by foreign interests, and it's going to take a lot for it (and the rest of the market, frankly) to come back down to reality. Talking about the reality of how useless Tesla is has almost fuck-nothing to do with how the market acts anymore.

What's that saying? "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

Works fine every time I've used it in Windows, but I do mostly live in Linux now, so your mileage may vary.

Lowest it was in 2025 was on March 10th and it's been slowly creeping back up since then.

Still $100 above what it was a year ago, this is more bullshit wishcasting. It was $157 this time last year. Sits at $254 right now.

What even are these articles?

I fucking hate Tesla but I hate living in a fantasy land when your oppressors "are just about to get their just desserts... it's just around the corner... we promise." It's a joke of a fantasy preying on people who justifiably want to see these power hungry morons suffer as much as all the people they purposefully hurt.

Beans. They make Lemmy work.

This one always gets a chuckle out of me.