I didn’t enjoy large parts of “About Schmidt”. Too much depressing stuff. Very, very sad. But I consider it a great film. “???” you ask. That was the point of the film and it suceeded at that!
Take the most common complaint about LIT: The main characters are boring. No: they are bored. Their lives have turned out differently from what they expected and they feel a great emptiness. If you feel their boredom, that means the movie has worked.
Years ago, I discovered many people in discussions would accuse me of doing what they themselves are doing (and therefore justifying their actions).
When you say “LIT is a bad film” you are saying that my tastes in movies is wrong. But a simple look at it’s review ratings and awards clearly says otherwise. Who-is-putting-down-whose tastes here is quite backwards.
Note: again and again it’s been pointed out that it’s perfectly a-okay to not like LIT simply because it’s not for you. But when you call it a bad film, you are doing something else entirely that reflects badly on you.
Hey, you know what, Malthus? I like your interpretation better too. It’s the conflict between her emotion and the knowledge that it’s not an emotion to which she has a right that creates her anger.
I love that moment - her rigidity, fingers still clenched and empty, staring down at the table. Perfectly played.
And I in turn think you phrased what I was trying to say better than I did.
And yes, it was a perfect moment in acting. Understated and yet powerful.
Another great moment (and there are really so many, when I think about it!) was when they were on the bed together, at night, drinking and talking. He reaches over and - touches her foot. She is aware but doesn’t react - and her lack of reaction tells him all he needs to know.
To my mind, he was signalling “we could, if you like, move this to a physical level”. She was saying “I like you a lot, so I’m not going to move my foot away. But I don’t really want a physical relationship with you, so I’m not going to signal approval, either”.
No they’re not. That’s insanely over-sensitive. When someone says LiT is a bad film, they’re saying they have different taste in movies than you do. And that’s all.
And when someone calls LiT a bad film, all they’re doing is saying that they, personally, didn’t like it. When someone calls it a good film, all they’re saying is that they, personally, did like it. It doesn’t matter if the person saying that is the most widely respected film critic on the planet, or the always-despised Joe Six-pack. Ask any professional movie critic, and they’ll all tell you: it’s all just opinion. There aren’t right answers to what makes “good” art. If a movie made you laugh, or cry, or shiver, or think, it’s a good movie to you. If it didn’t, it’s a bad movie to you. Adding IMO to the beginning of every sentence is an unnecessary waste of time, because it should be perfectly obvious to anyone reading it that it’s just an opinion. Because it can’t possibly be anything else.
Again, for the 4,278th time. It is possible to have perfectly valid criticisms of art, even art as well regarded as LIT. E.g., some people are very unhappy about what is perceived to be racial stereotyping in the movie. We have discussed this quite reasonably. No problem with having a rational discussion there.
But let me do an comparative example of what many posts look like (I’ve seen 2nd hand posts like this on the board):
“I don’t like Casablanca, it’s in black and white and was made a long time ago.”
The question is: does this person sound intelligent or not? Is this in any way a valid criticism? Are you going to put this person’s opinion in the same category as others?
You can have intelligent, well thought out reasons for not liking a piece of art, all the way down to being a complete idiot. A lot of criticisms for LIT posted in this and other threads are towards the low end of the scale. You better have your flame proof undies on when you make such posts.
Post reasonable criticisms, gets reasonable responses. Else, watch out.
