BrainHurtBoy...2 Posted October 15, 2012 Report Share Posted October 15, 2012 I wanna watch both Argo and Seven Psychopaths [alongside the Ethan Hawke horror film as well]. GAWD too many movies this weekend edit: Just came back from watching Argo. Absolutely fantastic movie. I've noticed with Ben Affleck films that his role, while usually the starring role, never steals the spotlight. Everybody else in the movie is absolutely fantastic and brilliant. I'm not criticizing Affleck as an actor, he's a brilliant director and his character does his role... there's just no oomph. Okay. I just don't understand why people like Ben Affleck's movies. They say nothing. They're just fucking stories. They're just fucking stories!!! It doesn't have incredibly compelling, iconic characters, locales, lines, gags and pacing like Back to the Future has, either. It fails structuralistically and formalistically! Why, why, why do you like Argo? Hrrrrngh. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldorf and Statler Posted October 15, 2012 Report Share Posted October 15, 2012 I wanna watch both Argo and Seven Psychopaths [alongside the Ethan Hawke horror film as well]. GAWD too many movies this weekend edit: Just came back from watching Argo. Absolutely fantastic movie. I've noticed with Ben Affleck films that his role, while usually the starring role, never steals the spotlight. Everybody else in the movie is absolutely fantastic and brilliant. I'm not criticizing Affleck as an actor, he's a brilliant director and his character does his role... there's just no oomph. Okay. I just don't understand why people like Ben Affleck's movies. They say nothing. They're just fucking stories. They're just fucking stories!!! It doesn't have incredibly compelling, iconic characters, locales, lines, gags and pacing like Back to the Future has, either. It fails structuralistically and formalistically! Why, why, why do you like Argo? Hrrrrngh. I could say "it's just a fucking story" about most movies, especially indie darlings. If you don't like them that's fine man, but movies are subjective. For the life of me I cannot see why people liked The King's Speech, but I'm biased since I used to stutter as a kid so it still brings painful memories to hear people laughing at that. If his movies ARE just stories, they're really well made stories. Critics and audiences agree [wow I just sounded like the previews guy when a movie is number one at the box office] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrainHurtBoy...2 Posted October 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 "Movies are subjective" The enjoyment of a film is subjective, I think, but I feel there's a way to measure a film's objective *quality* outside of someone's experience of it. But let's not get into this, here. No, let's really not. Seriously, no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 "Movies are subjective" The enjoyment of a film is subjective, I think, but I feel there's a way to measure a film's objective *quality* outside of someone's experience of it. Your opinion is objectively wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldorf and Statler Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 If we're going by quality, easiest method I can think of is reviews and awards. And his movies tend to have great reviews and are usually in the Academy Awards one way or the other. If you're talking about a movie snob's opinion who swears he knows better than everybody else then at the end of the day that's an opinion. Hell many awards are also the opinion of certain people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrainHurtBoy...2 Posted October 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 Nah, not talking about a single movie snob's opinion, nor am I talking about the fallacious argumentum ad populum. I'm talking about Form and Structure. But there's too much material in this realm for me to digest in any sort of rigorous way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldorf and Statler Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 Well you're welcome to not enjoy his movies. Plenty of people don't. I did. Ar-go fuck yourself . And that's not me being hostile, just a silly quote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Rat Posted October 17, 2012 Report Share Posted October 17, 2012 "Movies are subjective" The enjoyment of a film is subjective, I think, but I feel there's a way to measure a film's objective *quality* outside of someone's experience of it. Your opinion is objectively wrong. You can absolutely measure the objective quality of a film, but like Brainhurt said, there's so much material on it, digesting it in a single forum post would take more time than it's worth. And I'm not even talking about reviews, awards and other such nonsense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFlyingGerbil Posted October 18, 2012 Report Share Posted October 18, 2012 Surely the objective quality of a film is secondary to someone's subjective enjoyment of it. There's no point in a film being technically good if you don't enjoy it, 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrainHurtBoy...2 Posted October 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 That's an argument that rages. I don't think good art necessitates enjoyment, at all!!! I think it's correlation, not causation. Good art often promotes enjoyment, but good art needn't cause enjoyment, and enjoying something greatly doesn't make it good. In my opinion. But there's a ton, ton, ton of material in the realm of aesthetic theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 Judging a movie by the Academy Awards its earned is possibly the worst point of comparison, because the Academy Awards are a joke. How else do you explain "The Help," one of those "White People Cure Racism" movies, getting nominated for and winning awards? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 White people control the media and like to be made to feel better about themselves? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 White people control the media and like to be made to feel better about themselves? That and they're also obsessed with "message" movies, even if the message movie is shit. There's no reason Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close should've won anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strangelove Posted October 19, 2012 Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 The Academy is made up of almost entirely old white men. Just think about what they like and youll see how these movies get nominated and others dont. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldorf and Statler Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 Wouldn't these standards you're judging good movies from be set from somebody's idea of what makes a good movie? Or a group of people? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faiblesse Des Sens Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 Explosions. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrainHurtBoy...2 Posted October 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 Wouldn't these standards you're judging good movies from be set from somebody's idea of what makes a good movie? Or a group of people? Hopefully you would coalesce a system made of the best parts of other peoples' arguments. Some people, however, follow directly in the footsteps of other critics. But, yes. This doesn't mean you're conforming to popular opinion. You don't agree with those people because of their celebrity, or whatever. You agree with them because their arguments are ostensibly well-reasoned. It's a dialogue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luftwaffles Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 Explosions. And boobs. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldorf and Statler Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 I can already agree with those more than with whatever Brain will say. I can feel the reflection of his thick rimmed glasses looking at me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Heart Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 Can't be arsed to say much on the subject right now, but I think there is a danger of confusing 'quality' with 'artistic/cultural value' as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted October 20, 2012 Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 (edited) The whole 'it's just a story' argument is pretty stupid. Your whole life is a story. You thoughts are a story. Your friend's and family's lives are stories. Everything is just a story. The whole universe is just a story. Just connected information encoded in an order over time. A story. So saying a film sucks because it's just a story is stupid. Every single film is 'just a story', it's just about what you encode into the story- deeper or shallower meaning, imagery, characterisation. And even a film which can be said to have no story, will still have some kind of story; a story of how it was made, what the ultimate point is, story through thematic and conceptual development rather than narrative. Truly what I mean is an 'act of persuation' more than a 'story', but I won't get into that. Edit: Ehh, should probably say something on topic. What makes a great film is the quality of its narrative. Content doesn't matter much as long as the narrative- shot-to-shot editing, composition of shots, peak and trough of drama, etc.- all fit together. Some films don't have the most original stories, but are absolutely great due to the quality of narrative. I realllly liked Looper for this. The biggest narrative gaff was that the first and second halves barely fit together- the only two bad bits of editing in the whole movie made this single point absolutely stand out. But the first half, alone, and the second half, alone, are incredible bits of cinema. Specifically: The Shanghai sequence of Joe growing old should have been doubled in length (as it apparently is in the East Asian cuts of the film). That was a huge narrative failure. And equally, the scene where Old Joe kills the shit out of all of the gangsters should have been cut. Didn't fit in the narrative at all, due to the first point. They hadn't shown us how much of a badass Joe becomes when he did all that. So it just broke the narrative immersion. Edited October 20, 2012 by kenshi_ryden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted October 21, 2012 Report Share Posted October 21, 2012 Can a film engage me? Lose me in its world, with believable performances, clever writing, and cohesive visuals? Can it show me something I've never seen before? Can it make me laugh, or cry, or boil over with rage? Does it play the right notes at the right time? There's an essence, a feeling to every movie. Either it hits the quality nodes on our brains or it doesn't. A great example would be Uwe Boll's "Rampage". Now, every Boll movie before and after Rampage has been garbage. They just give off this Ed Woodian vibe that lets you know within the first 5-10 minutes that you're in for a real shitshow. But Rampage? You immediately notice that things are different. The shots, the atmosphere, the actors exude this energy that runs opposite to everything the man's ever done in the past and future. It all just works, and your mind recognizes that this film by a famed schlock artist is actually something special. Sure, you can look at the individual parts and dissect why it made you feel a certain way, but your mind is already doing that subconsciously; it knows what it likes, what it doesn't like, and can even make a qualitative judgment separate from that. These judgments will often line up with others, especially in the cases of 100% shit or 100% gold, but we'll just as often find ourselves loving what others have decried. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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