Morons who won't see good films

The BBQ Pit
61

Well, they’re both superficial fluff and while I thought that the former was a stupid college movie, it was still 90 fun minutes, while the later was 180 minutes of pretentious crap, told like an Indiana Jones movie and trivializing a very serious and tragic part of the world history, making cheap entertainment out of it.

I’m sorry, but you sound like a sophomore, wearing a black turle neck at a liberal arts college, being frustrated about the morons around you that don’t appreciate real art or claiming that artist so-and-so has sold out. You where really pusing so-and-so three years ago, telling everyone how brilliant it was. And now that the whole world has discovered it, you’re disgusted, because you no longer feel exclusive in being in on something no one else knows about.

In short. Grow up.
As Cervaise said, it’s all about storytelling. Some do it better, others don’t.

Oh, and you really don’t know what felching is, do you?

62

:::softclapping:::

Bravo!

63

I’m very picky about movies myself. If the coming attractions/reviews/opinions don’t interest me, then I won’t be interested in the movie. However, I do enjoy some movies that I know aren’t that great(Dude, Where’s My Car), while I HATED some movies that I KNEW were great(like Citizen Kane, which is considered the best movie ever made).

I guess I’m one of the “middle ones” because there are a lot of movies that I easily dismiss(Fast and the Furious), but would LOVE to see some of the movies listed here(Ikiru, Dancer in the Dark, etc).

I don’t have a set genre of movies I like either because some horror movies I do like (Blair Witch Project) while I hate like 75% of the other. This is true in all movie genres for me. Heh.

64

I think one important thing to always remember is that not everyone is interested in the same things. Movies are so omnipresent that everyone watches them here and there, but the difference in people who pay attention to the cinematography, analyze the screenplay, and are willing to look past the technical limitations of old classics and the people who are going on a date are vast. I admit it’s frustrating when you show a brilliant, nuanced movie to someone and they judge it on an unrelated scale (it’s too long, too sad, too black and white, too French), but, as CrazyCatLady points out, not everyone walks into a movie or sits down in front of the TV ready to have their emotions played with. Or ready to marvel at the technical skill of a movie that’s difficult to understand or lacks involving characters. For many people, movies and TV serve only as light entertainment when they are trying to relax, and they receive their worldview-changing life lessons elsewhere, like in life.

I don’t understand these people, of course. I get my life lessons from science fiction movies.

65

I used to think that 95% of everything was crap. Now I’m beginning to think that it’s more accurate that 95% of the people think that 95% of people aside from themselves are tasteless oafs who only enjoy crap.

You want to judge things aesthetically? Knock yourself out. Perhaps you would be less pissed if you just judged them for yourself rather than attempting to do so for others though.

66

Just adding another thing, hopefully with better spelling than last night, when I was too tipsy to bother proofreading.

Every now and then, I get a yearning for a Big Mac, Whopper or really greasy pizza. Most often days like today, for reasons happening yesterday. Sometimes I want a beer, sometimes a Chateau Neuf du Pape, sometimes filet mignon and sometimes fresh tuna. I’ve seen all the artsy movies, having a minor in movies and theatre from college. And while I can get really fed up with formulaic crap I can also sit back and enjoy ‘American Pie’.
I reaaly hate it when people tell me what I should read, drink, eat, see, consume, drive or whatever. I’ll listen to opinions, and ask for advice, but don’t try to push something down my throat with the intent of educating me. If I want to drink red wine, with ice cubes, to fish, then let me do so. It’s not your meal, it’s mine.

67

Got to say folks, I don’t understand some of the vitriol here.

Once again, that list of films in the OP doesn’t represent films I said everyone MUST see. They aren’t even my favorite films, although I do consider all of them generally worthwhile and a few excellent. Nowhere did I say anyone who doesn’t see them is an idiot.

But I stand by my opinion that avoiding a film one acknowledges to be of potential beneift is foolish. Hey, if you don’t think you personally have anything to gain from seeing The Great Escape, then don’t watch it.

And I stand by my assertion that if more people avoided fluff and asked for quality from films, there would be less crap. I believe that follows from supply & demand. However, nowhere have I claimed to be the arbiter of that quality.

But I do feel there is an inherent difference in inherent value between a film like Schindler’s List and Dumb & Dumber. I would welcome a debate on the subject if someone would care to start one.

68

I am one of the people you are pitting, even with your clarification. I don’t seen movies that I think will make me sad, good movies though they may be.

Maybe you can answer a few questions for me.

What would I be gaining by watching a good and sad movie? Drive to do something about it? Well, no, I can’t prevent the Holocaust from happening. Learning from it? I’d prefer to read a book. Tears? Oh yeah, THAT’s something I need more of in my life.

I watch movies to be entertained. I watch fluff, fun movies, whatever I want. If I think it’s going to make me sad, though, I don’t go see it. If I want to learn, I read a book. If I want to be sad, there’s plenty in the real world to be sad about.

69

There really isn’t. Dumb and Dumber made a great many people laugh. Schindler’s List allowed Hollywood to stroke their egos and pat themselves on te back for their social awareness and sensitivity.

70

Of course not, but I could open a pit on those people. “Oh, that’s ethnic,” “oh, that’s spicy,” “oh, that’s got vegetables in it.” Goddam Big-Mac eating narrow-palletted sons and daughters of bitches. Hell, it’s their loss, but life without Indian food is no life if you ask me.

71

… amd <i>Blair Witch Project</i> allowed self-satisfied Indy film geeks to stroke one another and pat themselves on the back for appreciating its “minimalism.”

72

The Blair Witch Project wasn’t

73

What is “inherent value,” Mach? It’s dependent on your criteria for evaluation. There’s no absolute.

I avoided There’s Something About Mary for a long time, because it looked totally asinine. In many ways, it is totally asinine. Still, after being convinced to give it a chance, I got a good wheeze out of it. No, it doesn’t (for me) hold up to repeated viewing, and there’s close to zero in the way of potential for stimulating after-movie conversation, but if, when considering a movie, you place a high value a belly-laugh, then There’s Something About Mary is a better film than Bergman’s Persona.

You should also try to remember that it’s human nature to equate “rare” and “valuable” to some degree. How would you feel if the hoi polloi had an insatiable attitude for emotionally demandng films like [Love, Liza*? I loved that movie, it was totally cathartic. I value having my emotions affected that powerfully. If 90% of box-office offerings were that emotional, I would value it less.

I’m not so self-centered that, because I got bored with teenage sex-comedies twenty years ago, I think the current generation of teens should have to suffer through the sort of films I enjoy as an adult. Hell, when I was seventeen, I walked out of [url=“http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089366/”]Hail Mary](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282698/), which I’d gone to see with a group of older friends, and watched O.C. and Stiggs by myself. It was the right decision at the time. I enjoyed Hail Mary on video years later.

It’s one thing to be pissed off if your friends always demand that you bow to their tastes without ever giving anything else a chance, but it’s another thing altogether to say that millions of strangers should stop enjoying the films that they enjoy because you don’t enjoy them.

Word to the wise-- There really is something to be said for big and stupid, once in a while. Don’t dismiss it out of hand. Life in all its rich variety, and all that.

74

There’s something to be said for that “preview” button, too. :smack:

75

Not to mention that it was shot almost entirely by the principal actors and became one of the most wildly successful and profitbale movies ever, representing a huge triumph for independent filmmaking, which at least tries to break out of the Hollywood crap.

76

Neither was Schindler’s List those things. How is it "told like and Indiana Jones movie? I don’t recall a single scene where Oskar had to run from a rolling boulder and just managed to save his hat. How does it “trivialize” the Holocaust? Did the movie not treat the Holocaust with sufficient gravity? Did the blacks need to be blacker and the white’s whiter, the score by Itzhak Perlman sadder, the actors more dignified? And how is it “cheap entertainment”? Hell, Art Spielgleman made a goddam comic book out of the thing and got praised for it (and deservedly so, his work is brilliant). Who is in charge of Appropriate Holocast Treatment anyway, and did Anne Frank get permission to write her diary, which is cheap (a few dollars in paperback) and entertainment (the kid can write). I’ll take a movie with actors, a screenplay, historical interest, and a brilliant director over a piece of fluff thrown together by some college dopers as a practical joke on film geeks.

77

The only lessons we learned by that are about geurilla marketing, which is why there are now paid geeks to rave about new movies and create artificial hype. The MOVIE had no plot, the actors weren’t, the directors made it up as they went along, and there was no point except to say, “hey, aren’t we an indy film? aren’t we SPARSE.” There is no entertainment value, unless you enjoy, later, talking about its spareseness to other film geeks so you can agree that it’s oh so much better than all those plot-driven movies with professional actors and directors while you sip your Stoli Martinis and think about how much cooler you are than your parents.

There’s a reason I can find Blair Witch on DVD in the dollar bin at any video store in the world. Because nobody wants to watch it more than once, and it is not standing the test of time.

78

That’s exactly it to me – some are interested in movies, some aren’t. If I want to think, to have my worldview challenged, whatever, I’ll go turn off the DVD player and read a book. I don’t know the slightest thing about cinematography or screenplay, and I don’t want to do what I perceive to be wasting my time learning about it.

Frankly, it pisses me off that movies are so omnipresent. Why couldn’t movie-going just be considered a hobby that only some engage in, like skiing or knitting, and those who aren’t interested wouldn’t be presumed to have just some interest in it? It’s like I have to force myself to watch a few movies a year just to be able to talk to people who keep spouting movie references, and unless I hit a really good movie, it’s an annoying chore.

79

It had a happy fucking ending. The holocaust did not have a happy fucking ending. 15 million people died. Throughout the movie, our “heros” skirt danger before finally coming out on top! Yay! We win! Oh, wait; 14,999,000 other people died. Well, too bad!

A brilliant director? Dropping 50 million into special effects doesn’t make you brilliant. He is excellent at producing summer blockbusters that make money, but he is not a brilliant director.

Don’t bother attacking me by ripping on The Blair Witch Project, I am not holding it up as a towering monument in world cinema. I just like it. Criticize La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc if you want to have a discussion of my taste in movies.

80

Yeah, you could call it that.

Or, you could call it a poorly acted, poorly written, poorly directed attempt at causing mass motion sickness.

It wasn’t a “huge triumph for independent filmmaking”, it was a unbelievably fantastic success for one studio’s marketing machine.

-Merijeek, doesn’t get motion sickness