Tolerating "Wrong" Opinions: Good for the Industry?

Let me put it this way:

Dumb movies, like Transformers and Blade Trinity are fun. Turn your brain off, just let yourself go "Durrrrr." Bad movies, like Manos The Hands Of Fate, are here for snarking. Movies like Citizen Kane and Casablanca are for enjoyment and philisophical musings. Movies like Twilight should be wiped off the face the Earth.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

Fight smart, not fair.

I've never watched Citizen Kane or Casablanca. I have my suspicions I never will, either.

I watched Citizen Kane in Video Production class. It was okay. Not as boring as I expected. If it had come out now, it would probably have gotten like a A- to B from critics.

But how many people would want to see it in theaters?

Id didn't score that high when it was released. Add to that the fact that it was the first film Welles ever directed, and he was learning how to direct a movie while he made it. He even had a production assistant make up note cards with filmmaking terms (things like "crane shot" and "pan" and so on) so he could learn what they meant. It wasn't a huge box office hit when it was released, either. Some movies do better over time. How many movies since the dawn of home video have done their best business only when they got out of theaters? I'd actually be interested to know what the most rented movie of all time was...

I saw Casablanca a few weeks ago when it was on TV. It's an enjoyable movie, with compelling characters and good acting, apart from its status as a classic.

edited 15th Sep '12 8:05:30 PM by WarriorEowyn

^^ Its original reception did have other issues, namely one William Randolph Hearst.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Hey, watch it, that flick's a masterpiece of fiction and filmmaking.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

People who want to know who to blame for Hollywood churning out a stream of brainless movies and franchise reboots need to look left, right and in the mirror. Hollywood (and television) does what sells, what is safe and what is proven. Come on, let's all be honest with ourselves; what was the last movie you watched? Was it something weird and arty, or was it something like Battleship?

Movies cost a shit-ton of money to make, and box-office bombs can bankrupt a studio these days. So of course they are only going to make movies with a proven formula (brainless summer blockbusters) or movies with a proven fan-base (all the novel-to-movie and comic-to-movie titles, the franchise reboots, etc).

We're the ones making it happen...by paying for crap even though we know its crap, just because it's easy-to-swallow entertainment.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Well, considering the vast majority of what's considered good is actually adaptions, it's not a bad place to start.

Fight smart, not fair.

I can't remember the last movie I watched...it may have been The Campaign. And the last one before that was Mallrats, showing it to my friend for the first time.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Last couple movies I watched in theaters are Dark Knight Rises, Brave, Avengers, and John Carter, in reverse order. And I have no regrets, so. . .

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

Last thing I watched was Robot And Frank (which is great, I highly recommend it). Other movies I've seen this summer include Beasts of the Southern Wilds, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider Man (twice), Brave, Prometheus, The Avengers (thrice) and The Bourne Legacy. All of them were good, except the Bourne Legacy, which was merely decent.

The choice isn't between crappy movies and arthouse movies. It's between good movies - in any genre - and crappy movies.

Transformers, Battleship, 2012, etc. are not my fault.

edited 17th Sep '12 7:47:22 AM by WarriorEowyn

Let's see - the last movie I watched was the Finding Nemo re-release this past weekend (<3 pixar!), before that it was 2016, I've seen The Avengers four times (including twice during opening weekend), there was also The Expendables 2, I saw Amazing Spider-Man and Miii B when they were in a second-run theater. There's been a few other movies in there, but mostly it's been the big movies that aim for entertainment over 'art'. Aside from the documentary the last movie I saw that's arguably an 'art' film was October Baby.

Only counting movies I paid to see: Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, John Carter, Battleship, Spiderman, Expendables, Brave and Bourne. I enjoyed them all, and I'm fairly happy with the direction it's going. I just wish there was less romance involved.

Fight smart, not fair.

I didn't enjoy Spider-Man, myself. Nearly everything it did was already done better in the original movies. It seemed pointless and failed to make very good use of its reboot potential.

edited 17th Sep '12 5:18:33 PM by SpaceJawa

Last film I watched at the pictures was Battleship. I think I may have been the first poster here to see the film, and definitely one of the few that actually also said that they loved the film to bits.

Yet I remember in the dim and distant past having watched ^Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters after reading and hearing about how great it was and ended up having the reaction that I had completely wasted my time for the six or so hours running time that it had. (I know it was less than that, I was exaggerating for effect.)

^This was supposedly one of the films made when Woody Allen was funny. Was he balls.

My point is, trashy films and weighty films both have merits. That is, unless they are by Woody Allen. Then they are just trash.

Sometimes I think the problem is that there's not enough competition in the movie industry. The Hollywood formula is here to stay as long as no one else has the means to compete with Hollywood.

I was okay with Spiderman. I actually liked it better than the original in some ways, namely that Parker was a bit more than "generic everyteen prop + generic teen hobby" before getting bitten. That and the fights were much better uses of Spidey's abilities.

Fight smart, not fair.

I object to the themes and just about everything else about Twilight, but when my agent signed me up for "Untitled Sports Movie" (New Moon), I accepted. It was a paycheck, nothing more.

My Blog | My Steam profile

I actually really liked The Amazing Spider-Man movie. It had a cast that was both likeable and relatable.

But this may also have to due to my changing opinions of Raimi's work, which has gone from "meh" to "this shit was a blockbuster trilogy?". I think that's the reason I never got the hate for Spiderman-3, to me it seemed as poorly done as its two predecessors.

edited 20th Sep '12 3:31:57 AM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

I really don't understand the "entertaining action" vs. "boring drama/art film" dichotomy. For me The Island was way more boring than Never Let Me Go, even though both of them used similar dystopic concept. I also think Inception would have been better if the whole movie would have been about the backstory of Dicaprio's and Cotillard's characters, because I found the action pretty underwhelming (Nolan is no James Cameron or John Woo when it comes to action).

I also think all of Tarkovski's films are more entertaining than Rush Hour movies or X-Men: The Last Stand, because they do what they set out to do better. I can excuse lousy or mediocre action scenes if they're short and if there's something to make up for them like good plot or characters. For example Thor had worse action than Captain America: The First Avenger but more likeable/charismatic main character.

edited 20th Sep '12 4:33:36 AM by harkko

^^That's funny.

When I watched the Amazing Spiderman, it felt rushed, typical, predictable, and overall boring. There's huge pacing issues to add. The action choreography is fantastic, but the fights are incredibly oversimplified, and the Spiderman using web to read vibration in the sewers was the only moment of genius I noted in film.

Everything that Amazing Spiderman wasn't but should have been was done in Raimi's trilogy. It was fine camp that could be taken seriously and was refined. Amazing Spiderman was CHEAP.

I like the cast, but what they had to work with didn't amount to much more than a shallow attempt to hold onto the Spiderman movie rights. X-men: First Class is different in that there was clear effort to tell a cohesive, evenly place, and exciting tale.

http://www.longcriercat.deviantart.com I'm thirsty. Got any ink? Resident Pen Ward antagonist.

Taste doesn't make sense. All you can do is try to gauge your own reaction.

Fight smart, not fair.