# Most unenjoyably Pretentious Movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171 "2004-03-24T19:16:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![The\_Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Griffin)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/81 "2004-03-26T11:48:04Z")
Arent most films a bit pretentious? ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/82 "2004-03-26T13:40:55Z")
Aronofsky … I’m deeply divided on the subject of Aronofsky. Apart from the scene in which a phone continues to ring for ten minutes which annoys the hell out of of me, I really liked _Pi_. _Requiem for a Dream_, however… not so much. I find the _Sixth Sense_ to be a boring, pretentious film with a completely transparent plot twist … I liked it okay, but I suppose I’ve inwardly recoiled from all the praise other folks seemed to shower on it. The same with the _Matrix_ movie . . some folks I know seemed to regard it as the coming of a philosophical Messiah, full of depth and stocked with meaning, but I find the ‘philosophy’ of the movie fairly pedestrian … It’s not boring, though… and not pretentious in and of itself, but some of the fans are. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/83 "2004-03-26T14:10:51Z")
> [@Jenny Haniver](#): > > **Dancer in the Dark**. Characters that stupid don’t deserve to be played by Bjork. Gah. Loudly seconding this! And throwing in _Breaking the Waves_ as well. Mr Von Trier: One female character dying a completely needless and excrutiating self-sacrificial death could be considered an accident, but two would make you seem like a misogenist bastard. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/84 "2004-03-26T14:46:20Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > . . . I’m sure I’m not the only person who has to stop before opening one of your CS threads to think about wether panning through all the sneering, elitist bullshit to get to the useful ideas is worth the effort or not. I’d be interested in any quotes you can pull that show me being elitist and sneering in a CS thread. Seriously. I tend to defend myself against the knee-jerk anti-intellectual crowd, but I’m not personally aware of having taken it any further than that. Please start a pit thread with such quotes if you’re interested. Just because we have different tastes in movies doesn’t make me an elitist, Miller. I certainly don’t feel like an elitist. I think of myself as a generalist: I like just as many movies that might be called “low art” as “high art” (although I didn’t much like _High Art_.) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/85 "2004-03-26T14:56:05Z")
> [@litost](#): > > Oh, c’mon **lissener** , indie films can be as terribly made and executed as Hollywood films and I don’t see you disagreeing with that. > > This thread is about terrible pretentious arthouse films. They exist. We are listing them according to our tastes. If you have any, please list them. To jump in without reading the OP and to assume that because I dislike **Happiness** or **Gummo** , I adore Little Nicky is careless, ridiculous and insulting. It’s not that I’m defending Happiness or Gummo (though I could, especially Happiness). It’s that this thread is NOT a series of “I didn’t like this movie,” it’s a list of affirmative statements of judgment and a bizarrely defensive disdain. This kind of thing really pisses me off: “That movie sucked,” not “I didn’t like that movie.” I get really tired of people not taking responsibility for their own artistic judgment, and blaming the artist for not visiting them at home and making them breakfast in bed and asking, “Now, you comfy? What kind of movie would you like me to make for you today?” Just because there is more than one perspective from which to make a war movie, that doesn’t make one that you didn’t enjoy “pretentious.” It makes a movie that _you didn’t like_. Period. I usually stay out of these threads because they tend to be this kind of weird anti-intellectual defensive wank fest, each individual suggesting that the solution to their lost time in the cineplex is to have ALL MOVIES MADE TO THEIR SPECIFICATIONS, rather than GOING TO A DIFFERENT MOVIE. Frankly, for whatever neurotic reasons of my own, I’m just as offended by these kinds of things as you were by my Little Nicky quip. Why can’t we all just get along? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/86 "2004-03-26T15:08:18Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > If you believe that, you’re a fool. If Sampiro believes it, he’s an even bigger fool. Fine. Tell me why. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/87 "2004-03-26T15:16:40Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > . . . Anyhow, my nomination for overly pretentious crappy movie: > -The Governess Well, you got me there. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/88 "2004-03-26T15:24:35Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Man, you poor poor people. > > 97% of the movies mentioned above are good movies worth the effort. > > Not every movie can be Princess Bride or Little Nicky. Yeah, OK that was rude. I was peeved, but also, honestly, a little sad: I hate it when I like make a new friend and then discover I can’t share some of my favorite movies with them because they’re one of these people who are insulted by a movie that requires participation. I was picturing a bunch of people who, it seemed to me from reading the thread up to that point, were somehow getting more emotional mileage out of hunkering bitterly in the dark and DEMANDING to be entertained, and losing out on the vast world of really, really great movies out there. It really is a personal decision, and not a conspiracy of elitist filmmakers. This always strikes me as self-defeating–self-sabotaging–paranoia that _I just don’t get._ All this anger directed at a movie, just because you didn’t like it. What else gets that kind of reaction? I don’t like licorice, but it doesn’t make me mad, and I don’t feel ignored by licorice, or looked down on by licorice. Nor do I feel the need to insult licorice lovers because I feel left out of their snobbish clique. I just don’t get this kind of thread at all. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/89 "2004-03-26T15:30:28Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > Loudly seconding this! And throwing in _Breaking the Waves_ as well. > > Mr Von Trier: One female character dying a completely needless and excrutiating self-sacrificial death could be considered an accident, but two would make you seem like a misogenist bastard. If you’re interested in a different perspective on what Von Trier is trying to do, watch _Europa 51_, with Ingrid Bergman. Roberto Rossellini’s masterpiece (in English) is a HUGE influence on Von Trier’s “Golden Heart” Trilogy, including the two movies you mention. Of equal importance is Carl Dreyer’s _The Passion of Joan of Arc_. The Von Triers you mention are an attempt to put the issues examined in those films in a modern context. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/90 "2004-03-26T15:42:36Z")
> [@](#): > > All this anger directed at a movie, just because you didn’t like it. I have yet to post on this thread and I have not yet been insulted by you so I think I can comment without bias. The only anger I have seen has been from you and at you. You are showing contempt for everyone else and your condesending attitude is unwarranted. Stay in the pit. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/91 "2004-03-26T15:44:44Z")
And \*Freaky Friday \* was one of my top ten films of last year. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/92 "2004-03-26T16:00:17Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > This kind of thing really pisses me off: “That movie sucked,” not “I didn’t like that movie.” I get really tired of people not taking responsibility for their own artistic judgment, and blaming the artist for not visiting them at home and making them breakfast in bed and asking, “Now, you comfy? What kind of movie would you like me to make for you today?” > > Just because there is more than one perspective from which to make a war movie, that doesn’t make one that you didn’t enjoy “pretentious.” It makes a movie that _you didn’t like_. Period. This is such bullshit and I agree with **Miller** , you take what it is written very literally when the words “That movie sucked” are written. I doubt very many people here actually believe a movie we think sucks is crap that sucks for everyone, but you seem to want to believe that. You can’t accept that saying “That movie sucked” actually means “I didn’t like that movie.” The Internet is not always the best place for these conversations because some people beed qualifiers on everything. But when people get comfortable in a place they think others will get what they mean without adding the words “I think” in front of every opinion. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/93 "2004-03-26T16:00:32Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I hate it when I like make a new friend and then discover I can’t share some of my favorite movies with them because they’re one of these people who are insulted by a movie that requires participation. Apart from that little snappish comment you don’t strike me as being very rude and you really seem to love your film-making. I think that because there are many individual people disliking individual films it might have seemed to you like all people in the thread hated independent or risk-taking filmmaking as a genre and that’s just not true. I like many independent films, have absolutely no fear of subtitles and do rate Happiness, despite it not being a easy-viewing popcorn fest. I just don’t get on with Von Trier, is all. As for the point of slagging film of a particular genre. Well, that’s what Boards are good for. And irritation at pretentiousness is its own type of irritation, just like irritation at gratutiously violent films, over-moralising films or what have you. It’s just what we felt like chatting about today, we’re not singling them out as being particularly loathsome or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/94 "2004-03-26T16:22:05Z")
I may have been the only person to suffer through this one, no one else I know has ever seen it. The movie I am talking about was, however made for this thread. ``` Bright Angel (1991), Directed by Michael Fields, who IMDB lists as having only done TV besides this one film. Written by Richard Ford, who has no other writing credits to his name. Watching the film one realizes that the director had a message. That message was "hey look at me, I'm artsy!" Add to this a bairly comprehensible plot, mixed with dialog that seems to have been written by someone who was raised alone in a closet, and thus had no idea of how human beings comunicate with each other. ``` I have no idea why I sat through this, I do know that it is the cinematic equivalant of root canal. ---
**Author:** ![seriousart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@seriousart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seriousart)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/95 "2004-03-26T16:38:54Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Man, you poor poor people. > > 97% of the movies mentioned above are good movies worth the effort. > > Not every movie can be Princess Bride or Little Nicky. I think the bigger issue here is not whether or not lissener is pretentious for slamming non art-house flicks, but where he gets off comparing Little Nicky to Princess Bride?? :eek: Bride might be fluff. But it’s incredibly well written, entertaining, funny, fluff. Might as well compare Kangaroo Jack to… Groundhog Day, fer Pete’s sake. For the record, I found Being John M a little too dark for it’s own good (loved Adaptation, though) And I absolutely _loathed_ Crash. My original nomination for pretentious tedium goes to Gosford Park. There are scant few movies where I actually try to fall asleep just to make the time pass quicker. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/96 "2004-03-26T17:18:12Z")
> [@seriousart](#): > > I think the bigger issue here is not whether or not lissener is pretentious for slamming non art-house flicks, but where he gets off comparing Little Nicky to Princess Bride?? . . . Heh. That was Dope-specific. I just kind of roll my eyes at the way that movie is so revered around here. It’s a nearly perfect little bauble, but it’s no more than that. I just get kinda tired at the way it’s always touted around here as One of the Greatest Films of All Time. In a good-natured way; I don’t have any problem with anyone liking it, it’s just that it’s the SDMB’s most overquoted and overworshiped movie. (Personally, I tend to tune out of a thread once somebody goes “I don’t think that word means what you think it means” or “Inconceivable!” or whatever.) Kinda the way middleaged fratboys can hold an entire conversation in quotes from Caddyshack, that’s the way a lot of Dopers are with PB. ---
**Author:** ![seriousart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@seriousart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seriousart)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/97 "2004-03-26T17:45:13Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Heh. That was Dope-specific. I just kind of roll my eyes at the way that movie is so revered around here.= Well, I guess I walked right into that one. INCONCEIV- I’ll stop it. I suppose you do have a point about it being a little _over_ appreciated. Similarly, I get a little annoyed with some friends who rabidly quote Waiting for Guffman at any given chance, like they’re trying to win a prize or something. ---
**Author:** ![Amethyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@Amethyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amethyst)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/98 "2004-03-26T18:18:52Z")
While I do enjoy indie movies and some hollywood movies, I must say that the worst movie I have seen recently was the indie film ‘The Wild Dogs’ - a Canadian/Romanian film. I don’t mind movies that are disturbing and that don’t have happy endings - but I like there to be some point in what they are doing and giving me something to think about. This movie just seemed to be bleak and stark for no reason except to be bleak and stark and I don’t buy the ‘redemption’ of the porn photographer through his seeing the misery there. All of the symbolism/juxtaposition of the dogs and the gypsies was very heavy handed. (Although one of my friends, a real indie film afficiando who didn’t see it, told me that since it made me feel (all the movie did was leave me depressed), then it succeeded as art). ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/99 "2004-03-26T19:03:07Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Also, with a little effort, you’d see that [Greaser’s Palace is] a hilarious deconstruction of the Catholic church. Here’s a capsule I wrote on it awhile back:Definitely low art; I’m not sure where you get “pretentious” from. Ya think? Hey— maybe that would explain why the constipated establishment completely turns its back on the iconoclastic stranger whose message is actually the titular basis of their existence… wow, that makes the movie… Wait, sorry, it’s still pretentious shit. I’m afraid I must go along with John Steinbeck: “When the artist has to explain his work for it to make sense it must be debated whether it’s art.” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171/100 "2004-03-26T19:25:51Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Ya think? Hey— maybe that would explain why the constipated establishment completely turns its back on the iconoclastic stranger whose message is actually the titular basis of their existence… wow, that makes the movie… > > Wait, sorry, it’s still pretentious shit. I’m afraid I must go along with John Steinbeck: “When the artist has to explain his work for it to make sense it must be debated whether it’s art.” Sorry Sam, but I gotta call bullshit. Just because a work of art exists on more than one level doesn’t make it “pretentious.” You choose not to dig; if the surface layer doesn’t entertain you on the first pass, it’s not your cup of tea. Fine. But some of us LIKE to dig. The artist doesn’t have to explain his art to me; at least not in the example above. So he’d have to explain it to you; so what? So watch something else instead of taking it personally. (BTW: re: _titular_: I don’t think that word means what you think it means.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-unenjoyably-pretentious-movies/236171.md?page=6)