I’ll go first. Mine is that I can’t stand the Deadpool movies. They are self aware and self referential to an obnoxious degree. It’s like being continually reminded that I am in a movie. I swear the success of that movie has directly lead to every blockbuster having to have a joke every 30 seconds
Tarantino is overrated. You have to watch a lot of movies to come to this realisation, because otherwise you don’t realise his movies are often in large part a collage of other movies. Movies which did what he does better. That means that it doesn’t actually matter that Tarantino is overrated for most movie goers. More generally, this is why critics’ opinions don’t actually matter that much. They’ve watched too many movies and likely know too much about movies, to tell the average audience goer if they’ll enjoy a movie.
Once you’ve watched a few thousand movies, and especially if you’ve ever studied film or read a few books about it, you’ll often find you enjoy interesting but shit movies more, than very well made but unoriginal movies. People who truly love film, invariably aren’t snobs. They enjoy absolute trash, they enjoy arty farty stuff. If someone has a related degree or even a doctorate or works in the industry, the likelihood is high that they’re also a fan of B-movies. They don’t need to pretend to be knowledgeable, because they are. A film snob will bore you with the details of a Tarkovski movie. A cinephile is more likely to bang on about 80s horror movies, lesbian vampire sexploitation movies, Albert Pyun’s Cyborg, or Troma’s The Toxic Avenger.
Do you have a recommendation for a book that’ll turn me into a cinephile?
Oh, wow. Old comment.
The easiest route to learning about movies, is to watch a lot of movies, and reading about the movie you’ve just watched. Wikipedia, a more in depth review, interviews with people who made the movie (not just the actors).
Google a top 100 list. Work your way through a few of them. Eg.
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time
They also have cool features. For example, Michael Mann’s made a load of really cool action movies. Here’s a feature on his movies they made:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-michael-mann
Or here’s famous critic Mark Kermode’s top 10 of horror movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdj_22hHRyM
Yes, he has a PhD and is a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the UK equivalent of the Academy of Motion Pictures. No, he’s not a snob. Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s in the top 10. So are some older classics, which are still good.
But if you want to read something, you could try:
Bordwell and Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction.
David A. Cook. A History of Narrative Cinema
Wow, thank you so much for all the recommendations! I sometimes feel like I don’t know how to watch certain kinds of movies (e.g., older movies, or more artsy movies). I hope reading up a bit will help me appreciate them more
Most movies are incredibly dumb and boring.
Give us an example of one you do like!
Hmm, so I like movies that kinda play with your expectations and turn out to go into a completely different direction than you’d expect.
Dragon (2011) with Donnie Yen is a good example. You think you’re getting another Kung Fu flick, but it turns out to be more of a detective story of almost Sherlock Holmes-style complexity.
Yes there’s kung fu but it’s mostly esoteric and there’s only a few fights, but it’s still a fascinating movie.
Gonna try to phrase this an inflammatory way:
People who like bad movies have been conditioned by consumerism to not appreciate art. They believe spectacle, humour, and a tight plot are ‘good enough’, and they don’t value thoughtfulness, novelty, beauty, or abrasiveness nearly enough. Film is more than a way to fill time and have fun. Film is more than an explosion, a laugh, and a happy ending.
On an unrelated note: Mad Max: Fury Road is one of my favourite movies.
It’s strange that you said that and then said you liked fury road. I thought fury road was the epitome of spectacle and production value with actual value.
I explain it like this: people assume beer is one product but most economists actually study it as two distinct products: mass production beer and craft beer. They actually behave like two separate markets. People like each for very different reasons. And consumer behavior is very different around both.
That’s how I feel about Film and Movies. We may watch them both on a screen, but other than that they are very different things. And you can like both! I love the MCU films. But I don’t go expecting intellectual expositions.
I also love Dead Poets Society, Hidden Figures, and Argo. Let people like things. Let people like different things differently. It’s OK.
I see you’ve met my wife. Transformers is the pinnacle of cinema, but 12 Angry Men is boring as fuck because all they do is talk.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a cyberpunk movie.
Mars is a dystopian, broken society in which cyberware is so ubiquitous that we only ever see one Martian without visible augmentation. Every character in the movie does what they do for purely selfish reasons, with the exception of the idiot Droppo, the old man Chochem who remembers society for what it was before it went to hell, and the mythological embodiment of generosity himself. When Chochem suggests that Mars needs a Santa Claus, the immediate response isn’t to research and emulate St. Nick, nope. Martian society is so degenerate that the first idea is to commit a crime: to kidnap the jolly old elf. And all of Earth’s governments are incapable of stopping them.
Cyberware, broken society, selfish characters, rampant crime, laughably inadequate government? What genre does that sound like?
When I pointed out that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians predates Blade Runner, the film that most people consider to be the first cyberpunk movie, by some 18 years, at a tabletop session of Cyberpunk 2020, I was less than popular with those assembled.
I decided to not press my luck by pointing out that it came out 4 years before the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Hooray for Santy Claus.
The Mario movie was incredibly mediocre, despite its high production value. I’m talking MCU-levels of truckloads of money spent with shockingly little to show for it.
it’s actually spelled film
Stanley Kubrick never made an original film, they are all adaptations of other creators original works.
And yet, they are fantastic films. Your statement is not really an opinion, it’s a fact. My statement is an opinion.
The Dark Knight has fucking terrible editing and a lot of bad, hammy acting. The opening bank heist is just bad, with really on-the-nose dialogue delivered pretty badly…even William Fichtner seems like he’s trying a little too hard, and he’s an otherwise good actor.
I know the editing has been covered in some YouTube essay that made the rounds a number of years ago so maybe that’s not such an unpopular opinion, but it really sticks out to me like a sore thumb.
Before anyone gets totally mad at me, I still enjoy the overall story, a lot of the action, and I think both Ledger and Bale (dumb batman voice aside) are great. Also, Morgan Freeman, Michal Caine and whatshisname who plays Harvey Dent are also very good too.
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The critic rating is better than the audience rating. I’ve never seen a film with a high critic rating that didn’t have something worthwhile about it. But I’ve seen a lot of audience hits that were garbage.
I never met another person who like Eye of the Beholder, I really enjoy it. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120662/
I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I really liked the Sequel Trilogy. Someone can be a Star Wars nerd, and still enjoy The Last Jedi. I understand why fans hate it, but for me it’s fun to watch. I don’t like to take it too seriously. Also, I enjoyed Solo. My mantra Trust no one and you will never be betrayed is from that movie.
That all said, I love the lore! Jar Jar the Sith, Darth Plagueis, the fan films, the theory—It’s so cool.
Mine is- the Marvel/DC superhero movies all but entirely ruined cinema.
I liked Matrix Revolutions from the beginning.
I’ll do you one better: I loved Matrix Resurrection. Great satire and the real sequel to the first one
E.T. is decent at best. I wanted to watch it as a young kid, but wasn’t allowed. By the time I finally watched it, I found it fell short of my expectations and I found it quite dull. Super 8 was also a middling film, but I thought it was slightly better than E.T.
Close encounters is a much better film.
I didn’t even like it as a kid.
