Trunk explained my thinking, but I’d like to add that I wasn’t accusing you of having lowest common denominator tastes. But evaluating a filmmaker’s talent based on how many people understand a film seems to me to invoke the lowest common denominator as a criterion.
Basically, I think “too obscure” is a better criticism of advertising than art.
The only time I have had the “you just don’t get it” argument hurled at me has usually been by fans of one of those lowest common denominator films. Natual Born Killers was so ovious in its “message” and in its imagry that I just couldn’t stand it. Over and over again I was told I just didn’t get it.
Get it?!?!? Only a retarded Baboon couldn’t get it!
It was so obvious by its use of crappy obvious imagry that every Jo blow who could put two words together could pretend they were deep by discussing it. Not that there is anything wrong with that in itself but please don’t tell me I don’t get something because I don’t like it.
Don’t get it is a way for thr person using it to feel intellectually superior to teh person who hated the film in question.
The problem was it was a bad film with only one moment of genuine cleverness (With oddly enough Rodeny Danfgerfield staring in it)
It’s perfectly legit to make a movie that requires digging, that makes references to literature and other movies, and that mandates multiple viewings before you understand everything. That doesn’t make the filmmakes a snotty elitist. But a movie of that sort has to have some entertainment value even during a first viewing, or else there’s no reason for anyone to bother seeing it again. Memento, Being John Malkovich and The Usual Suspects do require multiple viewings to figure out the real message, but they’re also well worth watching on the first occasion.
Take my word for it: there’s nothing in Napoleon Dynamite. It’s a second-rate episode of Saved by the Bell stretched to ninety minutes. It is not phenomenally popular; in as much as it has some success, it’s because some people get a kick out of seeing trite nerd jokes getting repeated over and over and over and over.
Dude you just don’t get it!
I received a “didn’t understand it” reaction when I finally saw Pulp Fiction a year or two ago. I was decidedly underwhelmed; probably about 85% of the movie was boring and banal, and the brief bursts of violence weren’t enough of a “reward” for sitting through the tedium that separated them. In short, I thought it sucked. When I mentioned this on the SDMB, I was assailed by people who told me that I didn’t get it, and that I had to have seen it when it first came out, and things along those lines. Granted, there are aspects of the movie that I only appreciated in hindsight – the episodic nature of the movie, for example – but ultimately, I still think it was a boring movie that used graphic violence (graphic by the standards of the day) as a hook to lure in viewers. It’s not that I don’t like Quentin Tarantino, but IMO both Resevoir Dogs and Kill Bill were far superior films. (RD on a dramatic level, and KB for raw entertainment value.)
Actually, I’ve found myself using the “You just don’t get it” argument for shows like Spongebob Squarepants, which many of my friends criticise for EXACTLY the same reasons I like it. That said, when I use the “You just don’t get it” line, it’s usually not so much argument as resignation.
Things that I have “gotten” but not liked include Lord of the Flies and the book version of Fight Club (I liked the movie a lot more, even though it was 90% exactly the same as the book. It was just the narrative style I didn’t like in the written form.)
Precisely. If there’s nothing more to a movie than a bunch of obscure references to other works, then it’s not a good movie. It’s a director showing off how many movies he’s seen and books he’s read.
Except you’re wrong about Memento. That sucked. 
[minor hijack]
Only because this is a thread about ‘getting’ movies. I’d like to offer what it is about that movie that I find redeemable, and makes it more than a collection of awkward nerd jokes.
Napoleon Dynamite is about characters stuck in an economically/culturally depressed America that does exist. Uncle Rico, the girl (can’t remember her name), and Napoleon’s brother all are products of their isolation, and relative lack of oportunity. Rico is stuck in high school’s glory days, while in actuality he’s a mild schemer who lives out of a van. Kip lives at home and spends hours on the internet to escape his geographic reality. The girl is selling charm bracelets to pay for college! It’s funny, but also painfully real, at least to me.
I guess I see it as a more comedic Death of a Salesman with a happy-ish ending.
Anyway, just thought I’d mention that I think there’s more than ‘nerd jokes’ to be had in that movie. Carry on
[/hijack]
Ah, that makes more sense. There’s still got to be a point.
… that’s why in recent years the Simpsons just doesn’t do it for me.
This isn’t about film, but I just couldn’t help myself. Your OP made me think of the sporadic contraversy over whether Huckleberry Finn should be banned from libraries and school reading lists. “You just don’t get it” is a valid response to people who wish to do so because of Twain’s use of the n-word and his “negro” dialect.
Sorry, carry on.
I think most of you are “not getting it” (except maybe Peter Morris). In my experience, when someone gives the “you just didn’t get it” line, the unspoken thought that’s in their head is, “if you did get it, then you’d like it.”
Many people seem to have the bizarre idea that there is some kind of objectiveness to whether a work of art (movie, TV show, book, etc.) is “good” or not. and if they like it, it is therefore objectively good. When you hold that belief, and are confronted with someone who doesn’t agree that the work in question is good, the only possible explanation available to you is that the other person missed something and that’s what caused him to not see the objective goodness of the work.
I can see that attitude poking through in some of the responses on this thread. The attitude of “you have to know x, y, and z, or you have to understand the subtle references in order to appreciate the movie”. Lines like: “But just saying that a movie is “crap” generally seems to be something that someone who really missed the point would say.” or “A skilled filmmaker can make a movie that requires understanding all the right literary references for it’s enjoyment.” There is clearly a belief behind those statements that a movie can be objectively “good” and those who think otherwise just missed something.
That’s poppycock. There is NOTHING that can be objectively measured to determine if a movie is good or bad. If you like it, great, it’s good to you. If the people at Cannes think it’s good, then it’s good to them. If every single person on Earth – except for me – think it’s good, then that’s nothing more than it’s good to them. I don’t like, so it’s crap to me. Neither side can possible be considered “right” or “wrong” in any sense of those words.
Well, okay … I think I “get” (heh) what you are saying … but I am more interested in taking it to the next level when I talk about films with friends. Once we’ve established that I like or don’t like a movie, there is still more to talk about. There are plenty of movies that I don’t like overly much, but I still think are well crafted, or feature excellent writing, or amazing cinematography.
I’m secure in my belief that I didn’t like Good Will Hunting. No one can convince me that I really liked it and am somehow confused in my mind. However, I also think there are some excellent performances in the movie. Now, that is also subjective, but really, what’s the point of talking about films at all if you don’t move on from the promise that everything is subjective?* You might not agree that the performances were good, so I would like to know which performances you thought were especially egregious, or perhaps hear your comparisons to similiar roles that you believe were executed much better. Because that is a conversation.
And there are plenty of things about films that can be discussed more objectively. We, as a film-going culture, have some traditional standards that we bring with us to our movie viewing. Perhaps a director is deliberately moving away from one of those standards – how far did he/she go in breaking away from the convention? Did it add or detract from the movie? Was the director in fact aiming for a certain effect, but missed the mark? Did the successful aspects of the movie shore up any weaker points?
*Actually, I just thought of the point. If you and I both liked a movie, we can share our enthusiasm in a nice bonding moment. “That was awesome! Yeah, I loved that!” But beyond that …
In the case of Kill Bill, I don’t think it’s a complex plotline that you’re not getting, but rather a specific sense of humor.
And if you don’t get it, it doesn’t mean you’re intellectually inferior, it just means that’s not your kind of movie. Because even if someone explains it to you, you’ll “get it” in a literal sense, but not enjoy the movie any more (probably).
So in some cases, the words “get it” are probably not the best phrasing.
I get the same accusation from the Music Nazis. It just so happens that I don’t care for Motown music. I simply dislike it. Nothing is going to change that. One person actually told me that I “wasn’t listening to it right”.
I think Roadfood hit it on the head. Art in all its forms is way to subjective to make determinations of what is “good” and what is not. It amazes me when people take offense just because someone doesn’t share their taste in music/movies/tv shows, what ever. It also amazes me when people succumb to peer pressure and listen to music or watch movies they don’t really like because they feel they’re “supposed to” like it.
I think sometimes it’s a matter of someone reading too much into a movie. I’ve purged the name of this awful movie out of my head but someone may recognize it: A guy doesn’t get killed by an airplane engine because he goes out to see a guy dressed in a rabbit suit. There are people who try to tell me all of this philosophical stuff about this movie, even making me watch it again to get all the ‘nuance’ they see in it. It’s still just an incredibly boring movie to me. The characters all seem to either be sleep walking or on Prozac.
There’s a particular TV show I can’t stand. I’ve given it a chance. I’ve given it another chance. I can see why others like it, and yes, much of the stuff on TV is worse from a technical perspective, but this show is not for me. You’ll note I refuse to identify this show because I have found its most ardent supporters are absolutely incapable of accepting that any person worth the resources they are consuming on this planet could possibly dislike the show, and I just don’t want to get into a discussion with them. When they tell me that “I just don’t get it,” I want to smack them into space. I am not an imbecile and their condescending and obnoxious behavior has not only ensured that I will never go near that show again, but that I will also try to avoid future projects by people connected with the show for fear of sharing a fanspace with these same people.
I agree with delphica. There is a difference between refusing to acknowledge someone’s talent or skill (it would be like saying Thomas Hobbes is a hack because you prefer German thinkers) and just flat-out not liking something (hate Hobbes all you want, so long as you recognize both his theoretical and historical importance).
I think it may be the very use of the phrase “you just didn’t understand it” that is at issue. Obviously, it is insulting. Say someone is mocking Moulin Rouge or Hulk–two films I like that many people (most, in the latter case) do not. I think that both of them, to some extent, are misunderstood. When I express my admiration for one or the other and get the “Why do you like that–I hated it!” response, I don’t reply, “Well, you just didn’t get it,” even if I think there’s an aspect of the film that they have possibly overlooked. I simply present an affirmative case for the film, and always make sure to talk about the elements of the film that are weak, for few are flawless. I’ve found that this sets the table for some really nice discussions and often leads to both people expanding their view of the piece, and perhaps even altering their interpretation.
I’m not likely to rent the film again to listen to the director’s commentary, but I enjoyed the movie. What was the thrust of the director’s commentary?
Hmmmm…it must either be Buffy or Arrested Development. One of which I adore, one of which I loathe. 
How is “you’re reading too much into it” any less insulting than “you just didn’t get it”? My mother-in-law adores What About Bob? in part because she has an elaborate theory about how it’s a metaphor for accepting Christ’s love. I don’t really see it, and even understanding her theory doesn’t make me like the movie that much, but I don’t dismiss her viewpoint as worthless because she’s trying too hard.
Suffice it to say that the director wasn’t coming from an orthodox political feminist POV.
For example, he says that he directed his actors to be more-or-less “happy” in the scene where step-daddy puts the moves on Red Riding Hood, because “there’s a whole strata of society where this sort of thing is so common as be normal. They love each other, but they also fight like siblings.” (Paraphrased.)
And the guy just says things that might not sit well with a certain type of political sensibility. One thing that I remember that stood out as unusual was the form that his praise for Reese Witherspoon took: “I love Reese. If I could, I’d like to use her over and over again… until there’s nothing left.” Uhhhh… dude, that’s pretty creepy-sounding.
Ferret Herder’s friend no doubt read the whole film as a feminist polemic about a woman taking control of her destiny and brooking absolutely no shit – and there’s definitely an element of that there – but the director wasn’t political about it at all, and his general attitude is actually pretty sexist. He sums up the film with “I wanted a happy ending. You know, ‘Here’s some ice-cream, little girl.’” A little condescending, and clearly not the words of someone who imagined the protagonist as an archetype of Female Power and Independence.
Throughout the whole commentary, he keeps saying things that sound a little reactionary and… well, patriarchal, if you’re inclined to look at things that way.