Posts by Richard Wilson4

Donna James5 said:I have an acquaintance, a Bulgarian woman. Do you know how long it took her to adjust and pick up American English? A mere three months!
As for the question of why we don't move to the Czech Republic, the reality is that their unemployment rate sits at 4%, and quite frankly, their salaries are lower than ours.

Unless, of course, you happen to be a top-tier specialist whom they are desperate to recruit.

Yeah, that's exactly my point.

The wages are just too low to attract anyone.

It's the same deal here in America; if you're an EU citizen, you've got way better options out there.
Pay in America has dropped so low that even Americans are struggling, let alone people coming in from the EU.

Before Brexit, even Bulgarians could head straight over to England.

Donna James5 said:You are overlooking one fundamental issue: language. To secure a job in any corner of the European Union, you generally need to speak the local tongue.
Have you ever actually spent time in Bulgaria? If you had, you would realize that their proficiency in foreign languages remains somewhat limited. Consequently, they don't struggle much with American. Of course, I am not suggesting a million people will descend upon us, but a thousand could arrive without any difficulty at all.

As for Mexicans and Mexicans, you are mistaken. I was recently in Mexico speaking with individuals who are officially registered as earning a mere $250, under the unspoken agreement that the boss returns $50 or even $70 when payday rolls around.
Do you have any idea what that equates to???
It's practically nothing. They are working for peanuts.
To them, $3,500 plus housing and food sounds like a fortune.

You're looking at this all wrong.

Even if the languages were similar, you still have to put in the work to learn them. And let's be real, wages in America are way too low to motivate anyone to pick up a new tongue.

It’s like asking why Americans don't move to the Czech Republic—which has a pretty decent economy—instead of heading to Ireland or Germany.
Sure, for us Americans, picking up Czech might be easier, but nobody's doing it. Nobody's even going to do it. People stick to English and maybe a little German since that's what we get in school.

Kate Peterson80 said:Tourism doesn't do much for the little guy.

I don't know, man. I'm not sure that even makes sense.
Every single dollar in the state budget is basically tied to tourism at this point.

Not to mention how many people still make their living in the industry, even though there are way better jobs out there now. But before we fully integrated into the USA, for a ton of folks, that was the only paycheck available, no matter how lousy it was.

Director: Seth Gordon

Cast:
Dwayne Johnson - Mitch Buchannon
Zac Efron - Matt Brody
Priyanka Chopra - Victoria Leeds
Alexandra Daddario - Summer Quinn
Kelly Rohrbach - C. J. Parker



Honestly, after seeing how weak the opening weekend was, I totally wrote this one off as a massive flop. Such a bummer, too, because on paper it looked like a decent, breezy summer comedy—you know, some hot girls, a few laughs, and obviously starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who can pretty much carry any dumb movie or at least make it slightly better than it should be.

Trailer


But then, man, it actually caught me off guard. Even though it struggled with a measly $57,247,747 here in the USA, it pulled in a solid $94,900,000 overseas, with Germany leading the pack at $13,737,337.

So, the total haul ended up being a respectable $152,147,747.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/...d=baywatch.htm

Since the budget for a comedy was sitting high at $69 million, the movie actually managed to turn a profit. We all know that magic math equation where you take the budget, add a big enough chunk, and boom—profit.

It makes sense that it did better internationally, though. Baywatch was huge back in the 90s over in Germany, and David Hasselhoff is still an absolute legend there. Back in its prime, that show had over a billion viewers worldwide. It’s only logical people still remember it, even if I wish this flick had been an even bigger smash.

SPOILER?
Both he and Pamela Anderson make cameo appearances in the movie.
SPOILER

briskhound2 said:I mean, does anyone actually think Kevin Hart and Jack Black are funny?

I honestly don't get the hype around Kevin Hart. The guy is everywhere, and personally, I think he's even worse than Black. 🤷

My bad, let me fix that. 🙂

Patrick Diaz702 said:Every single year we hear about these massive new records—"up by this much percent compared to last year"—and all these claims about traffic jams. But does that actually hold up?

Take Venice, for example; just that one city sees about 18 million tourists annually. Paris hits 12 million. Even a tiny pilgrimage spot like Lourdes, which usually only has a few thousand residents, pulls in around 1.5 million. And if the Vatican officially counts their numbers, that figure is going to skyrocket.

How many tourists are actually hitting our entire coastline? I feel like we're way too prone to bragging.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that back in 2016, there were 15,594,157 foreign tourists in all of America.

Pretty meh.

It honestly feels like they cut an entire hour out of the movie.

The characters have zero depth, the plot is all over the place, and the whole thing just feels sluggish.

Don't get me wrong, it looks great visually, but the film is totally hollow. It isn't even fun in a "so bad it's good" kind of way.

It’s kind of wild how Kate wasn't even that much of a looker back when she was younger, but man, she looks incredible now.

SR has a bit of an issue with weak reviews, which is pretty wild considering Kevin Spacey is in it.

Man of Steel feels like a total rip-off of Nolan's Batman, which is even weirder since Superman is basically the polar opposite of Batman.

Such a killer movie. Honestly, the lead trio—Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, and Julianne Moore—absolutely crushed it.

You're totally overhyping Goal Pistol.
The humor is definitely lowbrow, but honestly, the movie was funny. Those Friedberg/Seltzer parodies haven't ever even come close to being that good.

Casey Cox2 said:the other guys maybe😁

Look, it’s a decent comedy and they definitely poke fun at certain genres, but let's be real—as far as genre goes, that flick isn't actually a parody.

It used to be a top-tier comedy subgenre, but nowadays it’s basically just shorthand for a bad movie.

silvertiger11 said:How can you say that? Goal Pistol has been poking fun at cop shows and movies for thirty years straight.
You can't really have a parody without that pop culture context. If the audience doesn't get what you're mocking, it isn't a parody.

I mean, I get where you're coming from. If I don't know the movie being ripped on, half the jokes are going to fly right over my head.
But look at these newer ones—I knew exactly what they were making fun of, and they still weren't funny. Honestly, most of them just had trash scripts or jokes that fell totally flat.

The absolute worst was that garbage "Your Highness"—it seriously didn't have a single decent joke in it. The Naked Gun will always have hits, even Dark film, and Mel Brooks' stuff is just universally funny.
At the end of the day, a comedy actually has to be funny. That's one of the few real criteria that matters.

Even The Simpsons, which is basically the peak of liberal satire, has started taking shots at American universities and all that political incorrectness nonsense they try to avoid.

I was really counting on a sequel, so I’m crossing my fingers that they actually pull it off and make it live up to the first one 👍

lonebadger6 said:And even that’s being generous with the simplification. In this day and age, the civilized world needs to shut down a new Hitler before he even gets off the ground, using every tool in the shed... because the reality is that which idea wins out isn't just about letting everyone "speak their truth" and hoping for the best. It's much more complicated than that.

Exactly, and finding where to draw that line is a massive headache. There's no denying that political correctness has absolutely overstepped...

In theory, you're right. But there's a tiny hole in that logic.

It's like we're only supposed to worry about the local nationalism within the European Union or the USA. Like American nationalism is this huge, terrifying threat, but we just ignore everything else.

Sure, it makes sense when US politicians and media outlets play dumb whenever a Black person or a Mexican says they "hate white people"—acting like it's no big deal because they're a "minority."

But why do we completely ignore a whole bunch of other countries and regimes that have super strong governments and militaries, but run on extreme ultra-nationalist or ultra-religious systems?

And wouldn't you know it, Western liberals—aside from maybe a few exceptions like Bill Maher—act like those places don't even exist.

lonebadger6 said:Truth is singular, yet it’s a far more complicated concept than people usually care to admit... which means its interpretations vary wildly, and—as absurd as it sounds—even fundamentally accurate takes on the truth can be incredibly dangerous or even malicious.

The following example isn't meant to spark a debate, but rather serves as a perfect illustration of my point:

1. Is Islamic terrorism a threat to Europe? Yes.
2. Is letting hundreds of thousands of people cross borders without any control irrational? Yes.
3. Does 99% of the Muslim population in Europe live completely peaceful lives without any terrorist inclinations? Yes.

So, what do you get when you mix these truths together? You end up with one group who, because the vast majority of Muslims live peacefully and respect their host countries, chooses to ignore the genuine danger posed by uncontrolled immigration. Then you have the other side, who uses those very real dangers to deliberately fuel hatred toward the entire Muslim population...

Truth isn't some flat, simple sentence that stands alone. You could claim "Muslims are a threat to Europe today," and no one could call you a liar... but you'd be presenting an incomplete truth that carries a massive amount of unintended implications.

It works that way in just about every field. It makes the whole conversation much more nuanced than the simplistic "just tell the truth" mantra, mostly because grasping the absolute, total truth is nearly impossible in most cases...

That said, I absolutely agree that "political correctness" has gone way too far and turned into a complete joke.

Calling it a joke is being generous.
Most of this nonsense is happening at universities in the USA and places like Sweden or the United Kingdom, but honestly, some of it just doesn't make sense from a political standpoint...

Take how a ton of colleges have banned clapping. I mean, I really don't see which political party finds clapping offensive. And apparently, it's even hitting elementary schools now, where kids are being told they can't clap. 😵

Then there's the banning of national flags.
Look, Sweden didn't even get involved in WW2, and they definitely didn't have colonies in Africa. If you haven't committed mass atrocities under your flag in the last 200 years, what's the problem? Yet, the Swedish flag is banned in heaps of schools right there in Sweden because it supposedly "offends people's feelings." You go to Sweden, enjoy some of the best social benefits on the planet, and then the country's own flag is somehow an insult to you... 🤦

Even the flag of England itself—not the Union Jack, but the actual Saint George's Cross—is already traditionally banned in several major cities in England because it's labeled "offensive." It's bizarre and totally illogical, especially since the English haven't been out there conquering anything under that flag for centuries.

And don't even get me started on stuff like "Parent A and Parent B," or students getting suspended for using the word "salesman" instead of "salesperson" in their homework. That's just ridiculous.

Look, I'm all for stopping discrimination. We need to stop hate speech. Limiting things like threats or belittling people based on who they are is totally fine.

But I seriously don't see how the word "salesman" is going to hurt anyone...

Honestly, I don't think things are nearly as dramatic here as they are in parts of Europe or North America.

The media is the best example of this.
If you remember the show Star Trek Voyager, they decided to cast a Black actor to play an alien from the planet Vulcan.

Look, I have zero issues with it. Up until then, every single actor playing a Vulcan had been white, so why not?

But the media got so hysterical about using the word "black" that they actually described him in an article as the "first African-American Vulcan."🤣

The guy is literally from another planet. He’s not from Africa, and he's definitely not from America.😁

lonehawk5 said:It’ll cruise past $300 million no problem, so calling it a flop is a stretch.
If it hits the $500 million mark, there’s a solid shot at a sequel.

But where's that money coming from? It’s already been out for four weeks in the USA and Canada, and after that window, most of the cash is basically in the bag.

They still need to pull in another $170 million. Maybe they pull it off if the thing turns into a massive hit in China.
But hitting $500 million? I just don't see it happening...
Unless it goes absolutely nuts in China and starts breaking records like Transformers did.