Vegemite, what happens when it is not either / or. What if I started watching a movie, and after 30 minutes was so bored and put off with it that I gave up and went to watch paint dry (my opinion of Supersize Me). Obviously it annoyed me (I would have preferred a test pattern), but have I truly seen the movie?
jali, I like vanilla. It is not bland. Take that back or I’ll have to take you to the pit! Huh, what’s that. Jeesh, neverming.
I would submit that this post may be what garnered Dex’s comment about insults. Whether or not it was intended as an insult it sure sounds like one to me.
Besides, your analogy is faulty. A physics experiment is objective. The results should not change based on the observer. Watching a movie is subjective. F will always equal ma, no matter who makes the observation. OTOH, some people will think Moholland Drive is a masterful example of non-linear story telling, while others will (correctly:)) think it is David Lynch’s idea of a practical joke.
Holy crap, Gamera.
I don’t get where you’re coming from at all. You’ve got a pretty indefensible position carved out for yourself.
Look, it’s one thing to have a prejudicial attitude towards films. We’re not going to see all of them, and it makes sense to use whatever impressions you’ve gathered about what a film is about to determine whether or not it’s something you feel good about investing your time in.
My impression of The Blair Witch Project, for example, makes it something that I’m unlikely to see. What I’ve heard about it from people who’ve seen it leads me to believe that I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. So I won’t see it.
That’s as far as it goes, though. I’m certainly not going to take the position that I hate the movie, or that it’s a con perpetrated on the audience, wherein most of the film’s budget went into promotion, with a tiny fraction spent on production, or that the acting is bad and the cinematography is non-existent, the scares are cheap, and the resolution is unsatisfactory – and then argue these points against someone who’s seen the film and saw some value in it.
It’s one thing to make useful assumptions in order to determine what you want to spend your time on, it’s another thing to embrace those assumptions as a position worth argueing. That’s just fucking stupid.
As for Supersize Me, I saw it when it first came out, and it wasn’t my choice. My expectations were pretty much along the lines of your assumptions about it. My memory of it is now pretty dim, but I do remember being pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t about McDonald’s, really, but more about the social and economic reasons for increasing obesity rates and declining general health. Despite the title, the guy wasn’t deliberately gorging himself on “Supersized” meals – he’d only take that option if it was suggested, and it turned out that it was only suggested a handful of times. The overall thrust was that people need to pay more attention to their diet, instead of opting for the convenience of processed foods in general – which economic interests naturally tend to promote rather vigorously.
It really isn’t the movie you think it is. It’s not a “MCDONALD’S IS EVIL!” movie. The point is really more that, unless you’re consciously working at seeking out good nutrition, you’re liable to wind up relying heavily on poor options, because they’re nearly always within arm’s reach. It’s much less of a polemic than you’d think, going by the hype.
The “experiment” is really just a gimmick, and not the central point of the movie – but even still, it’s not as outrageous as it seems at first glance. I went through much the same thing in 1991 – not to make a film, but just because of circumstance and my reliance on convenience foods. I’d fallen into a schedule where my routine was to get up in the morning, grab breakfast on the way to work (downtown) and then buy lunch on my break. I’d prepare one meal a day (usually pasta) unless I was lazy and ordered in. This worked out without any huge problems, because my office was in an area that offered a lot of quick options. I had varied breakfasts (which I took my time over,) and the lunch options weren’t too bad, either.
Then my company changed locations, and I found myself in area with no options. There was a McDonald’s, and a sit-down restaurant that was a non-option because of the length of my break. (I don’t drive.) I didn’t change my routine any, though – So it became McDonald’s for breakfast, and McDonald’s for lunch. It was convenient. I got sick of it pretty quickly, but not enough to go to the effort of eating breakfast at home and packing a lunch. I was a “dash out the door” guy. I did that for about three months, and it did a number on me: Weight gain, chronic headache, and (for some reason most distressing) a ruined complexion. It smartened me up and I finally started making the effort to eat properly, which I’d never done before.
I don’t think that’s such an uncommon thing – the path of least resistance. It’s very easy to fall into. Anything that gets people to look at their behavior and its impact on their health has some merit, IMO.
I would never say that Supersize Me is a work of earth-shattering insight and importance, but it’s certainly not the film you think it is.
Your part in that ridiculous hijack wasn’t blameless, and it’s frankly stupid that you’re whinging about being named as a co-offender. So you reported lissener. Whatever. You were both mucking up the thread with a stupid argument. Your position was asinine, and lissener’s response to it was inappropriate for the forum. No cookies for either of you.
So what?
If you had participated in the other thread with a post like that, I don’t think you would have been jumped on, because you would at least be basing your opinions on first-hand knowledge of the data - the movie and your reaction to it. If you’d turned it off after 5 minutes, I bet people would have said you hadn’t seen enough to make an informed opinion. Perhaps that could lead to an interesting debate - but it still would be hi-jacking the original thread to do so there.
For instance, I hate the previews of the Steve Martin ‘Pink Panther’ remake. I hate the idea of it and I hate what I’ve seen of it. I wouldn’t have posted in the other thread because I just assumed that having seen the movie would be a prerequisite.
It seems like Candid Gamera missed the point of the thread. As if it was Sounds you Hate! and I posted “I understand the sound of fingernails on chalkboard is quite bad. Never heard it myself, but lots of people say so.”
The funny thing is I remember him doing exactly the same thing with Serenity months before it came out.
“I read that [character] dies. Therefore, I hate this movie I haven’t seen yet.”
Cite?
I reject your rejection.
But, Maus, that’s from this thread. And if you mean the post to which I was offhandedly referring - it wasn’t addressed to lissener, it was addressed to Diogenes.
But we’re talking about the premise of the movie - which is still somewhat subjective, I’ll grant you, but less so - and when hundreds of people say the point of the movie is X, and Dio comes along and says “What, are you stupid? There’s no way the movie’s premise is X.” I know who’s sanity and judgment I’m going to doubt.
It was a simple statement of opinion, until someone else assailed my right to have that opinion. Not intended for argument. However, if someone starts an argument about it…
Even assuming you’re right, having an asinine position isn’t a rules violation.
Being too stupid to live isn’t against the rules, either. But it sure isn’t something to aspire to.
Correct! I did that. Same situation. Assuming that Fact was correct, the movie was irredeemable in my eyes. And I did end up going to see it, after a friend asked me to come along - and guess what? I was right. I hated the movie. Supersize Me makes the third movie I have pre-judged based on clips, trailers, summaries, and synopses, on this board. The other two I went on to see, and had my opinion reinforced - that I shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… well, shame on me. But thrice? Nu-unh.
Aw, but you were my role model!
I can’t comment on this film, because I haven’t seen it and I’m not informed about it. I’m here to stand up for the right to an educated opinion based on a film one hasn’t actually seen.
If you are maintaining that CG misread the movie (having seen it or not), that’s one thing. But it certainly is possible to know everything you need to know about a movie without watching it. You can read shot-by-shot anaylses of it, and look at stills. You can read a great many reviews and discussion about it. You can read the script, view clips, and read interviews with directors and actors.
Some movies are so simple to comprehend it requires very little effort to do so. I know everything I need to know about Duece Bigalow: European Gigolo to form an opinion of it. What I needed to know was more than the title, and more than the trailers, but not a whole lot more. A synopsis of several scenes was sufficient. I am certain no further meaning lies hidden in its depths. That I know I wouldn’t enjoy it doesn’t make it unenjoyable; it also doesn’t effect whether it is a good film, and I am completely, utterly sure it is not. I don’t have to see it to know that either.
Now, let’s take, say…Return of the King. I also haven’t seen this movie. I have no opinion of it. I’ve seen probably as much about it as I have for Duece Bigalow, but it’s too complex for me to form an opinion based on that. I believe I could form an educated opinion without seeing it, but it would take a lot more effort and study.
I think there are films so complex they simply have to be seen to be understood. I just don’t think most are so utterly incomprehendible that there’s no way to grasp them through other means.
I know very little about Supersize Me, so again, perhaps the problem is that CandidGamera is asserting an educated opinion which is demonstrably false. Simply rejecting his claim on the basis that he cannot possibly be correct about the film without having seen it is specious. If he’s not correct, that can be demonstrated easily enough.
It’s not that he can’t be correct about the movie: an opinion about a work of art can never be “correct” or “incorrect.” The problem is him going on and on about a movie he hasn’t ever seen. No one cares! Your opinion is only worthwhile if you have actual experience with the topic. No one wants to hear my opinion about super string theory because I know jack-all about quantum mechanics. But the thing about movies, though, is that the bar to having an informed opinion is about as low as humanly possible. You just have to sit there for two hours without falling asleep. This is, apparently, too much effort for CG. Which would be fine, if he’d recognize that failing to meet this one, incredibly elementary requirement renders everything he has to say about the film staggeringly pointless. And yet he still won’t shut up about the damned thing! That’s what’s infuriating about him: his over-inflated sense of self importance that leads him to believe that reading a handful of reviews about a film makes his opinion about it useful, relevent, or even mildly interesting.
:dubious: I disagree. If it is my opinion that, say, The Wrath of Kahn’s message is pro-brain-eating-ear-slug, I’d be incorrect.
That is pretty much what I just disagreed with. I believe it’s possible to form a valid opinion of a movie one hasn’t seen. I think it’s mistaken to declare that all opinions of movies one hasn’t seen are invalid. What if he sees it and his opinion doesn’t change? Why would it be so much less irritating then?
I waded through it. I really don’t see much at all. However, I am not a mod and I do not supplant my judgment for theirs. They read way more threads than I do, and they may know about some past history of “snarkiness”. But, for the record, very little in that thread was real bad.
It’s not just about movies, either. He’s the same guy who starts a thread (or hijacks someone else’s) every six months or so to assert that modern non-representational art is empty and meaningless. He doesn’t really have an argument, either; his posts are a repetitive parade of “I admit I don’t know a lot about this, but I think it’s stupid.” Occasionally he will switch gears: “I admit I don’t know a lot about this, and while I think it’s stupid, I’d like to hear arguments from the other side. …I reject that argument. …I reject that argument. …I reject that argument. Anyone else?”
I don’t bother responding to his posts, or his threads, or basically interacting with him at all, because he’s either congenitally stupid or he’s a world-class chain-yanker.
And my SDMB experience is measurably better for it.
Nope. You’d have a heck of a time defending that interpretation, but you wouldn’t be wrong. If you said, "There are no brain-eating slugs in Star Trek II, you’d be wrong, because that’s a statement of fact. If you start talking about what the movie means, then it’s interpretation, and there aren’t wrong or right interpretations.
I know. I’m explaining why you’re wrong.
Because it would be an informed opinion, is why. You can’t have an informed opinion about a work of art unless you’ve directly experienced that work. That’s what “informed” means, in this context.
Q: What do you call someone who stubbornly maintains a demonstrably asinine position?
A: A “jerk.”
Look, I get that you think you have an adequately informed opinion about this, but it ain’t so. Even if you’re basing your assessment of a film which you haven’t seen on overheard conversations between people who have seen it, you can’t honestly believe you have enough information to form a valid opinion – and certainly not enough to argue vociferously in favour of it.
People are opinionated creatures, and opinion colours perception. People project things all the time.
Relatively recently, there was a popular film which everybody seemed to be talking about in the context of the morality of assisted suicide. (Won’t mention the name, on the off chance someone doesn’t know it, because it’s spoilerish.) Anyway, to hear people talk about the movie, you’d swear it was about assisted suicide, and more specifically, that it was pro- assisted suicide. It wasn’t. That just happened to be what people were talking about, because end-of-life issues were coincidentally a hot topic, and very polarizing. So you’d have one set of people praising the movie because its “position” and another group condemning it. Really, though, the movie was just a tragedy, and made no value judgements about assisted suicide. That whole aspect of the film, although it provided the denoument, was actually a very small part of the movie.
With documentaries, this tendency to project is even stronger, because they often focus more on things that can be politicized. Take Bowling for Columbine. Listen to people’s chatter about it, and you’d swear that it’s an anti-gun movie. Yes, the topic is gun violence. It is in no-way anti-gun, (it speculates about the social mechanisms responsible for the higher number of gun crimes in the U.S. versus other countries with just as many armed citizens) and yet people who are pro-gun come away with the impression that it is an attack on gun ownership (EVEN IF THEY’VE SEEN IT,) and people who are anti-gun come away with the impression that it it’s a condemnation of gun culture (EVEN IF THEY’VE SEEN IT.) That doesn’t say anything about the film itself – it says something about the way that people drag their opinions into things and manage to see things that aren’t there. People have their own preconceptions about guns and that’s what they like to talk about.
An anti-corporate, political vegan is going to look at Supersize Me and see an endorsement of their opinions that simply isn’t there. They’re going to talk about what they talk about anyway. A libertarian or laissez-faire capitalist is similarly going to have a knee-jerk reaction, because a corporate entity is nominally involved, and they’ll talk about the stuff they usually talk about, in response to points which, although expected, were never made.
Ultimately, Supersize Me exists because of those fat kids who tried to sue McDonald’s because they ate there all the time and were very unhealthy. The judge said two things in his opinion – that people ought to know better than to live on a steady diet of fast food, and that further that we didn’t know that their health problems were attributable to their diet, anyway.
Spurlock used this as the germ of the idea for his movie. He looked at how common it is for people not to know better than to live on a steady diet of fast food (and other low-value processed food,) and incorporated the gimmick of actually demonstrating the effects of an obviously bad diet with his own body.
Yes, the result is obvious – but the rationale behind it was that people commonly act as though it isn’t – and it’s a bit more interesting to watch than just stating the obvious. And the actual chronicle of his diet is a relatively small part of the film.
He doesn’t blame McDonald’s in the film – it’s a film about why it’s so common for people to make very poor dietary choices. Yes, the obesity lawsuit was stupid, and there’s no argument that it wasn’t – what interested him about it was how the hell someone comes to eat fast food every day and be surprised when they have health problems? The movie he made is about the general level of attention to nutrition out there and why it is that it’s increasingly common for people to make very poor decisions about their personal nutrition.
It’s a decent little documentary. It is not “about how a guy eats fast food - and unusually high quantities of it, at that - for every meal every day, over a prolonged period - and gains a bunch of weight and negatively impacts his health.”
For instance, he looks at the offering in public school cafeterias. This is food that a lot of kids can be expected to eat every day, right? Being publically funded, you’d expect that there’d be healthy options available, in the interest of promoting the general welfare of the up-and-coming generation? It ain’t necessarily so. If I remember right, school meals were about the same, nutritionally, as fast food offerings. Mostly fat, starch, and sugar, in varying configurations.
Dex has a bug up his ass about that thread for some reason. He didn’t care for a post of mine in it, and knowing that warning me for it would be total bullshit he emailed me a pseudo-warning instead. Fuck that shit.