My coworker was telling me how well Jerry Maguire stands up today and I forced myself to remember the major beats of that piece of shit:
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Big company bad and evil; small start up good and pure.
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Being principled always pays off in the end.
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Everyone can make it if they try hard, believe in themselves, and believe in each other.
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We can have perfect interpersonal relations if we just learn to balance work and life appropriately, and it's up to us to accept that challenge.
Fuck this movie. More importantly fuck people who like this movie. Jerry would have turned out just like his old firm buddies (even if the major plot points largely stay the same). Everyone in this movie is actively trying to exploit each other in the beginning. And even though it's totally inconsequential to how bad these people are in their shitty lives, if you ask me the most unbelievable part is when Jerry and Bridget Jones get back together at the end.
Not buying it.
Tell me about the shitty liberal movies that are renting space in your head.
I know this always makes the list in these types of posts but a couple of my nerd friends that I used to play WoW with were super enthusiastic about Ready Player One and had both read the book. The book at least showed what a hellscape the future is going to look like with people eating gruel as the mega corporation tries to vacuum up as much Capitol as possible. The movie threw even that fairly lukewarm imagery out the window and shows people getting pizza delivered by a drone. Then it all gets thrown out the window when they win the prize money and the protagonist gets a cute girlfriend.
It gets even worse in that bazinga book's sequel where the protagonist uses "empathy" also known as brainwashing and mind control with extra steps and builds up a harem of obedient waifus and ragequits into space with them with a superficial :my-hero: fever dream epilogue.
Oh yeah, and he also literally gives birth to himself as a VR narcissistic epiphany that's super deep and meaningful. :kombucha-disgust: