It’s kind of weird, but I find that the higher a film is rated by film critics and websites, the less I tend to enjoy it.
A lot of film critique industry is based upon fart-sniffing snobbery.
It’s like a game of one-upsmanship on how much “meaning” you can
inventderive from dull, self-important drudgery and the more masochistic your movie-watching experience, the more “refined” you are.Source: had to study media crit and industry a lot in school.
It’s like the
modern art
money laundering
Industry…but at 25 frames per second!
(Or some arbitrary frame rate to stir further controversy)
I prefer art to run at 60 FPS.
you can really taste the extra perseconds
you can’t just say perseconds
Pretty sure they just did.
That’s the stuff, 144 if I can get away with it! 😜
Maybe not for films tho hahaha
I can’t remember the name of the film but there is one film released relatively recently that’s just a series of photographs. Set to music.
It’s literally slower than one frame per second.
Respectfully of course, that sounds quite literally like it’s a really long slideshow? 🤔
Is it a Terrence Malick film?
but what if i like the way quentin tarantinos ass fart? what therefore then?
foot
you make an adulterously valid point
That’s why I find it important to look at both critic and user reviews. If they agree, they’re probably right. If they disagree things get interesting.
If critics liked it, but audiences disliked it, it’s probably technically good but boring. If critics disliked it, but audiences liked it, it’s probably kinda bad but exciting.
Both are also affected by social media, especially user scores, so if “the Internet” hates/loves something if can be unfairly inflated/deflated.
New, but not brand new, films also usually have a more accurate score. I enjoyed The Godfather, so I would rate it positively, but if I didn’t like it I’m probably not rating it at all. I saw it X years ago and unless it was absolutely terrible or I have a vivid memory of disliking it, I’m just going to ignore it.
If critics liked it, but audiences disliked it, it’s probably technically good but boring.
Or it’s something fresh instead of the same junk that critics had seen hundreds of times (literally), whereas most of the public can’t be arsed with original but marginal concepts.
I imagine if all you do is watch films, you get tired of common stuff. You’ve seen it before. But if you only watch films sometimes, some of that is still interesting to you.
Kind of like how some video game nerds will be only “only double soj 2x blan Blah is viable” but like other builds do fine for everything except some optional mega bosses
Full time critics must be weird to talk with for any length of time. I know my own work bleeds into my perceptions and interests, and can’t help but think that critics have their judging hats on for routine, everyday affairs. Imagine your partner sitting in the passenger seat, idly commenting on the lighting of a city park as you drive past (I don’t have to imagine, lol, because my partner does amateur film work as a side gig and he loves to talk about his cameras).
There’s a reason McDonald’s is popular.
For me, I do enjoy a movie that’s deep or well written or has great cinematography, even if it’s a bit boring. I also like movies that have entertainment value. Both can exist.
Only gripe I have is shitty popular movies prevent smaller indie movies from being shown at my small town theater.
That’s called being a contrarian
The inverse of Rotten Tomatoes is a good measurement of how I’d enjoy a movie.
Film critics are like friends: you need to choose a few that share your taste, and stick with them. For me it’s Moviebob, Redletter Media and Patrick H Willems. They appreciate whacky shit as much as I do.
Anybody ever read the Godfather book? It’s… kinda weird. Every time a new character is introduced, it’s goes into their sexual history. Like, do we really need to know Rocko is an attentive lover with a string of girlfriends that he has no trouble keeping satisfied before he goes and kills some dude?
And then there’s a part of the book that is about… How do I put this…
a woman getting a pussy tightening surgery.
It’s the bridesmaid that Sonny fucks in the closet at his sister’s wedding. She sought out Sonny, as did all the other women “with big mouths and wide hips” because he had a legendarily big cock and it was her only hope to get any pleasure, on account of her gigantic pussy and all.
After he dies, she tried to commit suicide. Not because she cared for him, she just figures she’ll always be alone because no one else in the world will have a cock that will be adequate to work with her ginormous pussy.
But much later in the book, she’s living at the family casino in Nevada, and her doctor boyfriend finally talks her into having sex and discovers her pussy is huge and convinces her that he knows a great plastic surgeon that can fix it. It walks through the consultation and surgery and everything. Not in explicit detail, but, like, it’s so weird.
And there’s weird comments like (not a quote) “Don’t worry, doll. I do great work. I’ll fix you up so nice he’ll be calling me every day to thank me.” Shit like that.
And it worked. After she has the surgery and they have sex, her doctor boyfriend immediately proposes to her.
So, anyway, yeah… I don’t know why they left the great pussy tightening subplot out of the movies.
do we really need to know Rocko is an attentive lover with a string of girlfriends that he has no trouble keeping satisfied
How else are we supposed to relate to that character?
Please, dont ever read Stephen kings IT.
Its…deeply fucked up. It includes a child group sex act that happens right before they confront IT directly, which empowers them to defeat it.
Like most his books back then, the byline should have said “Cocaine, with Stephen king.”
Explains the island allegations
What
That reminds me there was one of his books I read for an elementary school book report just because I had heard he was a famous author and it had something about an underage girl being raped and detailing what injuries it caused or something, it’s been a long fucking time so specifics may be off. I feel like there may have been some significance in a wheat field… I do remember also recalling it again in high school when we were made to read oryx and crake, and the other students were grossed out about the narrating character’s recollections of watching csam material together withh crake, of a girl that may or may not have been oryx in the past.
I was thinking back then something like Atwood couldn’t hurt me after Stephen king scarred me but pigoons, chicky knobs, and most of all the narrators other obsession of Alex the parrot’s final video somehow really got to me and still bother me to this day.
Pretty sure it’s after they fight It (the first time), but it’s not really important.
They fight It, end up in the sewer, realize if they lose their innocence It will lose interest in them, run the train, flashforward.
At least that’s what I remember from when I read the book without knowledge of that scene.
It is a good book that is well written. Just because you cannot handle it, don’t lie to people
So, anyway, yeah… I don’t know why they left the great pussy tightening subplot out of the movies.
well you know, I’m beginning to think this Coppola fellow simply didn’t know true art when he saw it, after reading all that. That could’ve been a wonderfully surreal addition to spice up the trilogy.
Time for a reboot!!
This time focusing exclusively on this character and her pussy struggles. Everything else should be mentioned in the background in passing. It should be four and a half hours, third of which is black and white for no reason.
Yeah it’s been a long time since I read it but I remember the giant pussy storyline. Seems weird now that you point it out.
Now that they point it out?
Idk, I was like 14 or 15 when I read it, I was probably hornier than Mario Puzo lol
From Here to Eternity is like that. The book is truly a great piece of literature, but the movie (made in the 1950s) excises pretty much everything worthwhile in the book. Just as one example, the book has a character who can’t get any contact with women in pre-war Hawaii so he starts getting blowjobs from gay men in parks. Eventually he builds up so much guilt from this that he shoots himself in the head in the barracks. I can’t remember whether the character was even in the movie but obviously no hint of those activities show up. There’s also the main character taking up with a prostitute who is magically not a prostitute at all in the movie.
The book has so much stuff like this in it that I can’t understand why they even tried to make a movie out of it in 1953.
It insists upon itself.
Precisely
The first one is… Fine. The other two are a fuckin slog.
I’d say the 1st and 3rd are blehh, and the second is okay
Does that one show a bunch of Italy? I didn’t mind that.
Everyone in this thread is wrong.
You DON’T like suck on strangers’ balls!
So are you😃
This sentence is a lie.
Which means at least one of us is right!
Can you guess who?
Who would your brother say is right?
God damn, i’ve never seen a comment that was more fucking correct than this. Bravo.
I have the opposite issue. I tend to only enjoy older films. Recent films tend to have this digital colour-graded look and a style of editing (millions of 1 second cuts) that make them pretty much unwatchable for me.
I really love films that take their time, both in plot and character development, as well as in how shots develop to establish the scenes. I also have a passion for photography and for me that’s a really big part of films. I want to see beautiful photographs that took a lot of time and experience to set up (and wait for the right moment, in the case of outdoor scenes). I love practical effects that were built and painted by hand, explosions rigged with real explosives, much more than CGI.
I think there is an issue with attention spans though. The modern films that I mentioned above seem to be ideal for people with short attention spans, whereas older films tend to be boring for these folks. This makes it hard for films to appeal to both audiences!
Fully agree about the attention span stuff. I kind of think TV drove it initially, especially animation.
After a season or two The Simpsons started to pick up pace, and for its time it was kind of frenetic. South Park picked up that ball and ran with it. Then when Family Guy came along I thought this is nuts, and I wondered if there wasn’t an active effort to erode attention spans on a large scale.
There are plenty of other examples outside animation, but I picked those because they’re still well known.
I consider myself fortunate to have seen the progression first hand. And to have had an older boss way back who had an infectious love for well made art, particularly in films.
This video makes some great points about how movies don’t feel real anymore. Digital color grading is part of it, but the very short version is that movies don’t give us the sensory information or speak to us in the visual language that we need to feel like the movie is real. Watching the video gave me a whole vocabulary for how to critique failings in modern movies.
Wow thanks for this! It’s so helpful to learn about and have a language for describing why these new movies feel so wrong to me. I’m going to watch this after work and share it with my film club!
It at least seems like “the classics” were attentive to the craft. When good direction, lighting, angles, music come together I’m enthralled.
There’s some survivorship bias to that. Most of my favorite movies are the 1970s, but that’s also the best of an entire decade.
I’m sure there’s an equal number of good contemporary movies, we just don’t know which yet.
Spoiler: it’s ‘The Substance’.
I found Sinners to be nice and slow moving for most of it, plus Pluribus the TV show is slow and but l both are cinematic. They are fewer but not gone.
I feel like a lot of these films are important because they did something first. The problem is that it doesn’t mean that film did it best.
I’ve always talked about The Rolling Stones like this. I respect what they did, but I was born when rock had really gone beyond it. The Beatles too for the most part. Even a lot of '80s punk. I wanted faster, heavier, more technical. All the old stuff just felt basic to me, but I know it’s a matter of perspective.
The Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, these guys were inventing the sound of rock. I think they’re fantastic musicians. But Rush and Pink Floyd stand out more to me as timeless art.
Those artists arrived much later than the invention of rock. It was invented by Chuck Berry and other black artists in the US during the 50s.
I didn’t think my point needed a “history of music” lesson attached. The rock bands of the 60s were taking the experiments of swing and blues musicians from the decade prior and refining them into the aggressive, over-driven and distorted arrangements. Not “rock & roll”.
The Stones could write one hell of a catchy, riff, hook, and chorus tho. Their sloppy musicianship (im being generous) is part of their charm.
Im sure they invented a sound as much as any of the other groups that get credited with that nonsense.
I believe there’s a copypasta/good comment floating around out there from the reddit days that details everything that has been referenced about the godfather films, and so, if you watch many movies that are popular or considered good, you’ve already seen almost everything that stands out in the godfather films. Throw in the great many improvements in cameras, acting methods/filming techniques, and the ‘drift’ that means one generation prefers certain tropes/themes/scenes/actions over others, and of course an older film is going to be less entertaining for us.
It’s also written for a different time. Shakespeare is the classic example for this problem, where his plots are timeless and his plays are so Elizabethan that they famously bore teenagers forced to read them, yet simultaneously will be adapted into very popular media somewhat regularly.
I’ve been saying since I was in highschool that Shakespeare should probably be an elective in college, except for maybe Julius Caesar in AP Literature classes. It’s just so far out of date and the teachers aren’t allowed to explain what any of the slang means so it’s just… soulless. If they were able to explain how filthy it is, the kids would probably enjoy it more.
My senior year high school English teacher was allowed to explain the dirty jokes and we loved it. I think it’s a disservice not to do just that. Yes, it can be boring as hell at times, especially when read, but he’s the most foundational author in the English language, and understanding that and why should be part of a high school education. It’s just that you actually have to do it right.
My teacher began the year telling us that we were 17 or 18 years old and he was going to speak to us like adults and expected us to behave as adults in turn. From there when literature touched on adult subjects like sex and drugs we actually addressed it, including the poem Kublai Kahn which was one of the first poems I actually really liked as a young person. These topics are major parts of literature and culture and I’m frustrated that people seem to think 17 year olds should be shielded from them even if that means that people who only engage in free education don’t get that literature education.
Yeah, My kids/teens don’t have the patience for anything old.
We were used to watching the storyteller unfold the tablecloth, neatly set out the plates, polish all the silverware, light the candles, place the napkins, and even the chairs in anticipation, then clap while they covered the whole meal. We were thrilled to notice how that fork being slightly off snowballed into a murder scene. Nothing exciting happened in the first half of anything while they setup the story.
You have about 5-10 minutes these days to cast the first hook or they’ll be asking to watch some short form videos.
I’m fairly sure that just boils down to taste. I’m not here to watch an hour of foreplay through subtle clues, red herrings, and artistic masturbation. Give me some plot and get on with it.
Also known as “the Seinfeld effect”.
And then there’s movies like Dr Strangelove, where I had no idea that old movies could be that entertaining still. Though it has been at least a decade since I watched it, I bet it still stands, even if it invented the iconic “ride a nuke like a cowboy” image.
Also the whole Soviets built a doomsday device but didn’t tell the world about it, which reality copied (eventually they told the world).
I mean it isn’t an automated doomsday device, just some generals in a bunker who could send the command if moscow vanishes, the same way the US president can via the Nuclear Football.
As I recall, it was a combo of automated and manual and they went public with the info because they lost knowledge of how it all worked.
If you don’t care for it, don’t let people make you watch it.
No one (sane) will go “Oh! you have to go to this 4 hour 17th century italian Opera with me! You will love it!” .You don’t “have to” value any kind of art. If you don’t, you don’t. That said, it might be worth trying at least once, you never know if you find something that stays with you.
I think that most of Art needs a bit oft commitment to be consumed and understood, you cannot expect to immediately understand a piece oft Art just because you can see colour and hear sound. It boils down to education, as you need to learn most things in manageable steps. What im saying is: if someone offers to show you something they like, they are likely a good resource to guide you through the experience.
More likely than the average Joe but guiding, like teaching or storytelling, is a distinct skill. Lots of people are totally blind to their own biases and the hypothetical 4 hour opera without context would definitely make me doubt their advice.
“Oh! you have to go to this 4 hour 17th century italian Opera with me! You will love it!”
So you’ve never been dragged to Swan Lake?
I personally would probably enjoy it. At least the Ballet part. And i always carry ear buds, so the terrible opera style singing can be dealt with.
Oh yeah it wasn’t bad, just long as shit for someone who isn’t into ballet.
Not only do I love the Godfather and The Godfather Part 2, but this past weekend my wife and I watched the Godfather Epic. It’s the first two movies edited together in chronological order. It’s a bit more than 7 hours in one movie.
It would probably kill you.
Yesterday afternoon, my wife had a doctor’s appointment at the hospital. When she was in the lobby, someone was playing the Godfather theme on a piano. Then I see this post. The universe can seem weird sometimes.
I got to watch this! I didn’t know it existed!
Also, check out The Offer on Netflix. It’s about the making of the godfather. Was a fun watch.
I felt this way about the book 1984. Entirely overrated.
Like yes I get that the subject matter is what makes it important, but plenty of other books (and other media) has covered it and done a better job of it. Plus, now we get to live it making the book wholly irrelevant.
That’s an issue you can run into with many classics. Either they did something so well it’s become a trope, or the artistry in it has been refined so much that the original feels like a poor imitation.
A great example in film is Citizen Cane. It used a lot of ground breaking approaches for cinematography and sound design, but those things aren’t ground breaking anymore, so watching it now doesn’t have the same “excitement”. A more modern example might be Toy Story; the animation doesn’t look too impressive by modern standards, but was ground breaking at the time.
yeah I had something similar with the Beatles, where literally my first memory of music is Abbey Road, so my whole life I was like, I don’t get the hype, that’s just what music sounds like. it was only recently I went and listened to the album again with context of what other music from the 60s was like, and I finally realized that they were truly doing some wild shit with songwriting and production
Funnily enough that’s exactly why I think the Beatles are just mediocre. Literally sticking out was all they needed to do, since literally nothing was good. In this day and age it’s just not good music, even if it might be a classic.
No music in the 60s was good? I think you might just have some very narrow taste.
According to my Spotify wrapped I listened to over 400 genres, and 1200 artists last year, so no, I’m pretty positive I don’t have narrow taste, even in the slightest.
Maybe it’s just in this specific case, but if you can’t find any enjoyable music from an entire decade, that’s on you. Unless you want to try and make the case that you’re the only one with good taste and the rest of us are just lowly rubes, which is obviously ridiculous (though I’d probably enjoy the attempt).
But you’re allowed to have narrow taste and it’s not an insult. No need to get offended.
Especially if you consider the late 60s, which was an incedible cultural phenomenon, maybe unparalled since in innovation.
Has nothing to do with narrow taste. And has nothing to do with that decade either. 70s and 50s were terrible as well. When your artist pool is only a few thousand artists that’s what happens. Like, seriously, there’s so few of them that wikipedia has an article of the majority of them.
I’m just trying to understand, do you think that with such a small number of artists that it was even slightly statistically possible that there was a artist from the 60s and 70s that is comparable to a single artist in the top thousand artists in the past 30 years? Like it just doesn’t even make statistical sense, much less any sense if you listen to a lot of music.
I’m not making an argument on taste. I’m making a statistical argument that is backed up by listening.
I can see this, but at the same time there are classics that still hold up great. Frankenstein for example is still a good read. Paradise Lost can be a big hard to digest, but I really enjoyed it.
Then again I don’t really read much Bible fanfic.
Frankenstein really doesn’t hold up, unless you’re on the younger side. The moral outrage on both sides is timeless and beautiful, but “I was put on bed rest because I looked at a cat funny” sticks out a bit too much in modern day.
Ah, I’m talking about Frankenstein and 1984 as stories. Frankenstein still a fun read, 1984 is definitely not. But yeah, that’s obviously a subjective thing.
I enjoyed it a lot and honestly, while I could see the massive influence it had on other things, and even being impressed by the distopian technology that would seem really scifi at the time, but is normal today, I think there are some aspects that have been explored further, but not at the same detail.
For example, doublethink and newspeak as a concept exists in other media, but I’ve never seen it explored to such details than in the book.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny
It’s a kind of natural selection. The most fit pieces of art succeed so much that we see their good traits echo into the future and become the norm. But we iterate on them further and continue to improve until the ancestor would no longer be able to compete with its descendents. Audiences adapt to what was once a trailblazing stroke of genius and it just becomes the standard.
Personally, I’ve found the trend to be very true. There are very few classics that I like nearly as much as the modern popular pieces that were inspired by them. Music might be the exception.
If anything, the book is even more relevant now.
I wish it had never been written. I’m convinced it and Brave New World inspired a lot of the people ruining the world today.
I don’t see how. It’s a book about a dude trying to get his dick wet, and ultimately both he and his girlfriend sell each other out when they’re tortured. The themes are “totalitarianism and torture is bad.” The characters are flat and uninteresting, as is the world.
Yes, I’ve heard people make the argument that it’s written that way to reflect the dystopian reality of it all, and that’s fine. It’s still a shit story.
Besides, given that the U.S. is now facing that same reality and pushing it onto the rest of us, I don’t think the message the book tried to convey was conveyed particularly effectively.
Worth noting is that the book doesn’t deal with the topic of “oops, you’re in an authoritarian fascist dystopia, how do you deal with it.”
The Hunger Games does, though. The solution there is to kill the fascists.
The characters position in 1984 is how real people experience horrifying dystopia.
I feel like it doesn’t hold up well specifically because we’re living it now, but I dunno if I agree on it being overrated. For me, feels like ‘out of date’ or maybe just depressing is a better word.
When that stuff was fantastical and served as a warning, it had meaning, now it just makes us sad. It’s like oh yeah, we have that now, but it’s not even the government doing it, just some random snack company and we’re all just going along with it.
Well, I think it fails from a storytelling perspective. Some argue that at the time the ideas were novel, but like… Orwell drew inspiration from Nazi Germany so it can’t have been that novel. As far as Orwell goes, I think Animal Farm was a better read.
The Godfather is far from being a difficult movie to watch. It has a rich story, plenty of action, great scenes,… You want serious stuff? Try Nouvelle Vague French movies from Eric Rhomer or Jean-Luc Godard, German or Finnish movies where absolutely nothing happens and it’s just people eating soup. Try Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise. It’s great, it’s a classic, but you’re going die out of boredom if The Godfather is already too much for you.
Yeah, some of these criticisms are bad just on their face. Godfather is too slow for you? Come on. Is Rambo to slow for you as well? What about Speed?
Some of this just feels like kids who just graduated from watching Paw Patrol deciding they should veto what anyone else puts on the TV.
If you want to throw a fit because everything isn’t Marvel, I guess that’s fine for you. But don’t be shocked when you’re not invited back to College Movie Night.
But I can’t watch the Godfather and doomscroll at the same time, so it’s objectively bad.
Try Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise. It’s great, it’s a classic, but you’re going die out of boredom if The Godfather is already too much for you.
And if you survive that you can move right on to Eraserhead.
On one level, if I like something and you don’t, we are both right. But there are times when I have to admit I just don’t have the background and knowledge to appreciate it. I can’t deal with Jazz. I don’t get it. I’m not going to say it’s not good, just because I don’t get it.
You can try fusion genres of jazz with something you like, and see if it’s fun that way. E.g. you’ve posted about The Lords of the New Church, who seem to have been playing punk and post-punk:
Jazz with post-punk: James Chance & The Contortions
Jazz-mathcore: Needle Play
Instrumental noise-rock/math-rock/punk-jazz: Lanzallamas
I might be able to throw in more names if you name other genres. In particular, I have a bunch of various jazz-metal, e.g. jazz-grindcore/ska: Le Scrawl.
Thanks. I’ll take a listen to your suggestions. I know about myself that, regarding music, I’m a pretty shallow puddle.
Ah, and also check out Mamaleek’s ‘Come and See’. They’re my favorite band for the past five years after hearing this album.
It’s interesting you say that because jazz bars aren’t exactly a roaring success anymore. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that jazz was considered counterculture, and people like that aspect of it. These days no one really cares about jazz and no one’s trying to ban it. And it’s interesting that now it’s less popular.
Maybe it wasn’t actually ever good?
part of it is just music moving forward, part of it is music becoming less about musicianship due to decreasing music education. Part of what makes certain genres like jazz have a stronger appreciation is when you’ve spent at least some time studying music composition and theory so you can appreciate the technical mastery being displayed.
This doesn’t discount music that doesn’t play to those more technical aspects or imply that genres and artists within those spaces are bad or not as good, but it’s more a commentary on the declining quality of educational access in the west. The liberal arts are dead and your kid will be taught the bare minimum to make them a peon that can maximize earnings for a capitalist pig. Culture in decline
It’s moreso that Jazz got torn apart for spare parts after it went mainstream. I’m quite literally listening to a Credence Clearwater Revival record right now to make sure it’s in good condition and the current song started up with a very Jazzy guitar. So if you aren’t really into jazz as a genre you probably aren’t gonna notice it since it kinda faded into the background culturally, kinda like funk, reggae, and bluegrass.
Jazz used to be different. At some point, it got more technical.
That’s my layman understanding, may be over simplified.
In most arts, I’ve found the Venn overlap of quality and popularity is a slim lens.
You know what my favorite food is? A plain pepperoni pizza. Absolutely love it.
You can take me out to dinner to the fanciest restaurant: five Michelin stars, the best trained chefs, the most expensive ingredients, the perfect ambience… and it would be utterly wasted on me. Because nothing beats a plain pepperoni pizza.
Some people are like that with movies. Even movies which are objectively some of the best ever produced in the history of cinema, will have people who don’t like them. And that’s perfectly fine.
Plain and pepperoni are two different things!
In a similar vein, I’m a sausage pie guy. Give me some ground sausage on pizza and I’ll eat that for life. Anytime I get together with people, there’s always the “what toppings” discussion, and people bring their fucking bullshit to the table, and I say get sausage, and people go mehhh mehhh mehhh, and you know what? Everyone eats the goddamn sausage, and were left with olives and mushrooms, and peppers and onions, and fucking Hawaiian.
So I appreciate it. The classics are classics for a reason.
I think they meant it like “plain ol’pepperoni pizza”
Well, it’s just pain compared to some other options :D
I love sausage on pizza though! Meatballs, minced meat as well. And I recently discovered ‘nduja, ever had that? Tastes great on pizza. It’s a spicy, spreadable pork sausage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Nduja
I do also enjoy a Hawaiian on occasion though…
You might want to actually try one of those fancy restaurants, you might be surprised.
But also maybe it’s better to not bother and be happy with what you gotOh I’ve been to some :D
One time our boss took us to a fancy restaurant that had a Michelin-starred chef owner. We did some ad work and publicity for him, so this was sort of a thank you, and a way for him to go all out and make a surprise menu to try things. Basically, we were dining for free there.
They go all out. Nine course meal. And as you’d expect, that means giant plates with tiny portions.
Now, thing is… our company is more of a steakhouse crowd.
Halfway through, they serve a perfect steak. Cooked to heavenly perfection. Best steak I’ve ever had in my entire life. And garnished with gourmet fries. They serve those in this tiny ramekin, intended to share. Basically, everyone gets a handful of fries.
One colleague sees the steak, grabs three ramekins and proceeds to load up his plate. He promptly flags the waitress and asks ‘hey, can you get some more fries?’.
Waitress comes back with some more. Colleague again: ‘hey uh, you wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of curry sauce?’ The look on her face was priceless. That was not a question this restaurant had ever had. ‘I’ll go ask… the chef’
Luckily the chef had a good sense of humor about him: out comes this wild, tattooed, giant bearded mountain of a man carrying the biggest kitchen knife I’ve ever seen. ‘WHO’S THE FUCKER WHO JUST ORDERED CURRY SAUCE IN MY RESTAURANT??’ Colleague meekly raises his hand. Chef hands him the bottle of curry sauce he was holding behind his back 😂
I was like this with 2001: A Space Odessy. I love Kubrick, I love sci-fi, I even like art that may require a change in perspective/that is more abstract and I’m an old movie buff. Yet Space Odessy wasn’t for me for some reason. It’s long, streched-out and has some scenes you wish would already end by the second minute, yet they last for 20. I liked the surreal bits a lot but for the almost 3 hours it took to watch it I really can’t say I was entertained.
I ended up watching Interstellar later and while it’s far from Space Odessy in artistic value I ended up feeling that was more like the movie I wanted Space Odessy to be. Obviously they are not very similar but it had some concepts that without watching I hoped Kubrick already figured out for some reason.
The book is better anyway
I think the book and movie work best as companion pieces. Experience both, either order works but I prefer the film first for the spectacle and mystery.
Interstellar is a very plot driven movie, it’s leads you by the hand saying “these things are happening, in this order, and it’s interesting and engaging”, and when the movie is done you get it: the journey is at an end, and the good guys conquered the big problems, emotions were felt along the way, and you’re not really left with any lingering questions afterwards. It’s a great movie, but it’s also a rather easy movie to enjoy if you’re into space stuff.
Whereas 2001, aside from being an absolute visual feast, is more abstract and theme driven, about humanity’s place in the cosmos, and it makes you ask deeper questions, but you must actually pay attention and discover those questions and explore them in your own mind to actually engage with the movie. It’s not a passive experience, and your engagement with the movie can stay with you for days. It’s certainly a much more difficult movie to enjoy.
When I was in my 20s, I hated movies like 2001 and Bladerunner, I found them so tedious, because I wanted scifi like Aliens goddammit. Later, I learned to really enjoy these more cerebral movies that took effort to engage with, because they were so rewarding when that effort paid off.
easy ≠ bad
Quoting myself:
It’s a great movie
So: ???
And then, sometimes, you watch it years or decades later and it clicks. And other times you are just convinced everyone who likes it are saying so because critics like it.
I think I nodded off like 3 times when watching Dune. It’s just so damn boring.
I love dune. I would never watch it with probably anyone ever.
I mean, which version?
I almost think the early low budget adaptations are better because of how zany they get with the art and effects.
The Timothee Chalamet version is just another action movie. But Lynch gets wild with it.
“Just another action movie” but the guy up the comment chain is literally dozing off. Part one actually has very little action in it, most of it is packed landscape shots, politics, and lore dumping. Which is very accurate to the source material. If you dislike Villeneuve’s adaptation, I can only assume you did not love the Herbert books because he was incredibly faithful to the tone, especially for material that was thought to be impossible to adapt to the big screen.
Lynch’s stuff is simply not comparable because he said “fuck the source material” and just kinda did whatever came to him in some acid trip or other. Fine if that’s your thing but that’s not what Dune is - especially not the first few books.
The Lynch version isn’t low budget.
Any time you put electrical tape on a cat and use it as a prop, I reserve the right to describe the film as low budget
The funny part is that Sting didn’t even know he was supposed to be acting in a movie. He just showed up on the set randomly and just did his regular daily routine.
