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[+] 89 points 10 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (21 children)
  • [–] 76 points 10 months ago (12 children)

    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 invent derive 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.

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  • [–] 44 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    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

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    [–] 76 points 10 months ago (15 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago* (6 children)

    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.

    The context is more complicated than the above and is partly about a girl addressing being sexually abused by her father and partly about leaving adolesence for adulthood, but it is...a lot.

    Like most his books back then, the byline should have said "Cocaine, with Stephen king."

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    [–] 69 points 10 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 41 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Everyone in this thread is wrong.

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    [–] 37 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    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!

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago

    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.

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    [–] 36 points 10 months ago (15 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    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).

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  • [–] 28 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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    [–] 28 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    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.

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    [–] 26 points 10 months ago (20 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 83 points 10 months ago (13 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    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

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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    [–] 24 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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    [–] 20 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    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.

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    [–] 20 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    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.

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    [–] 17 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    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.

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    [–] 17 points 10 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    I think I nodded off like 3 times when watching Dune. It's just so damn boring.

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    [–] 14 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Citizen Kane is no Citizen Kane.

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    you have been spoiled by the cinematography of the modern age. almost 100% of all the camera tricks from the last 70 years of film history came from Citizen Kane.

    without Kane you wouldn't have Star Wars, Ms Doubtfire, James Bond, Conan The Barbarian, Terminator, Superman, X-Men.

    Sometimes a film isn't just about the story. sometimes the film is the story. This is why film is considered one of the mediums of classical art.

    If a picture is worth a thousand words, a film renders us speechless.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    If you are a user of any mind altering substances, or have any interest in starting, it might be worth giving the movie or show another try in that state. Assuming your chosen goodies leave you coherent and able to form memories, lol.

    And it's not just to put you in a good mood, though that certainly helps. Maybe it's just the spicy neurons in my case, but being high can qualitatively change the experience of how I relate to characters. (not extreme like empathy on / empathy off, sometimes things might just land different)

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    [–] 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Casablanca can suck it from here to eternity.

    OG Nosferatu (1922) was pretty good though. And the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird.

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    [–] 13 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Fucking hate Napoleon Dynamite so I get that. Also godfather I agree with too.

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago

    I love Napoleon Dynamite because all of the characters remind me of people and small details about people that makes it feel nostalgic in a way that makes a lot of the weird subtle humor land for me. There isn't really a story, and the pacing is very much at the pace of small town USA, so anyone who doesn't get it will most likely find it either boring or impossible to follow for sure.

    Definitely not for everyone.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Can you name 3 movies you actually liked?

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    [–] 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    You're in luck, OP, I've got some genuinely riveting cinema for you, and it's wholesome as well. Watch the quirky, classic Russian comedy movie Come And See (1985).

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