In Which I Rant More About Films
I'm making a few addenda to my movie list. Warning: I like sad/dark/cerebral/serious movies.
Added:
-A Serious Man
-Full Metal Jacket
-City of God
-The Pianist
To underline what I said about sad/dark/cerebral/serious movies, here's a re-posting of the rest of the list...
-Pan's Labyrinth
-Paper Moon (Okay this is an exception, it is pretty cheerful in my opinion)
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-Moon
-Amadeus
-Being John Malkovitch
-Persepolis
-Donnie Darko
-What's Eating Gilbert Grape
-Y Tu Mama Tambien
-Fight Club
-Precious
For kicks here are some movies I did not like, despite their status as 'classics' or 'critically acclaimed' (note that these are opinions, so add a little 'IMHO' to the end of each line before you call me out on being a snob, which I most certainly am):
-Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and also 2001. I'm not a fan of the way the movies 'look' (I don't know if it was that whole era of filmmakers or just him at the time--I definitely like some of his later films, see "Full Metal Jacket"). Also I hated the pacing of 2001...I remember loving the book as a kid, but I was so bored by the film...
-"Once," because I guess I'm bored by most movies about relationships (I hate anything that gets too sappy, except my guilty pleasure, "Titanic." For that matter, Titanic could be a great film if you cut out all the scenes that take place in the 'present' with the old lady version of the protagonist and all the marine biologists and that stupid jewel)
-David Lynch weirded me out with Dune (which I gather nobody liked) and now I'm not willing to see any of his other films
-I love sci-fi but Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" suffered from the same bad 'look' that Kubrick's above-mentioned two films had. Also I found Brazil confusing and drawn-out.
-A.I. and Gattacca were pretty boring in my opinion. A.I. was incredibly sappy and Gattacca was just utterly mediocre. For good (not favorite-list worthy but definitely worth at least one view!) sci-fi, see something like District 9.
-Boondock Saints - why does every dude ever drool over this film? I was so bored I can barely remember it. There were Irish dudes, and a Russian dude with a lot of guns? Whatever man.
-LOTR: Screw LOTR. The books were pretty boring, the movies even more so. The one thing I love is how the movies reintroduced Middle Earth to the current generation so that pop culture could get a kick out of it again. I like humming the techno version of the movies' main theme, and that's about it.
-Rashomon. Some movies require more imagination than I have to give. I'm sure Rashomon is great, but it is also really old. The message was profound, I'm sure, but I wasn't drawn in by the film. I'm wary and excited about any film that comes highly suggested from film buffs--they have a tendency to be excellent but also a tendency to be incredibly boring.
-Primer. I saw this with nerd-friend Allen, who didn't like it either. We felt that it was ultimately too confusing and left too much open-ended. Then I spoke with nerd-friend Samir. Samir says this movie is great, and claims we didn't understand its greatness because we didn't watch it over and over again while taking notes and drawing timelines. Samir says he still hasn't figured this one out despite having watching it some twenty-odd times (I might be exaggerating). But seriously, is any movie worth that?
Okay I'm done complaining! Happy summer everybody.
Added:
-A Serious Man
-Full Metal Jacket
-City of God
-The Pianist
To underline what I said about sad/dark/cerebral/serious movies, here's a re-posting of the rest of the list...
-Pan's Labyrinth
-Paper Moon (Okay this is an exception, it is pretty cheerful in my opinion)
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-Moon
-Amadeus
-Being John Malkovitch
-Persepolis
-Donnie Darko
-What's Eating Gilbert Grape
-Y Tu Mama Tambien
-Fight Club
-Precious
For kicks here are some movies I did not like, despite their status as 'classics' or 'critically acclaimed' (note that these are opinions, so add a little 'IMHO' to the end of each line before you call me out on being a snob, which I most certainly am):
-Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and also 2001. I'm not a fan of the way the movies 'look' (I don't know if it was that whole era of filmmakers or just him at the time--I definitely like some of his later films, see "Full Metal Jacket"). Also I hated the pacing of 2001...I remember loving the book as a kid, but I was so bored by the film...
-"Once," because I guess I'm bored by most movies about relationships (I hate anything that gets too sappy, except my guilty pleasure, "Titanic." For that matter, Titanic could be a great film if you cut out all the scenes that take place in the 'present' with the old lady version of the protagonist and all the marine biologists and that stupid jewel)
-David Lynch weirded me out with Dune (which I gather nobody liked) and now I'm not willing to see any of his other films
-I love sci-fi but Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" suffered from the same bad 'look' that Kubrick's above-mentioned two films had. Also I found Brazil confusing and drawn-out.
-A.I. and Gattacca were pretty boring in my opinion. A.I. was incredibly sappy and Gattacca was just utterly mediocre. For good (not favorite-list worthy but definitely worth at least one view!) sci-fi, see something like District 9.
-Boondock Saints - why does every dude ever drool over this film? I was so bored I can barely remember it. There were Irish dudes, and a Russian dude with a lot of guns? Whatever man.
-LOTR: Screw LOTR. The books were pretty boring, the movies even more so. The one thing I love is how the movies reintroduced Middle Earth to the current generation so that pop culture could get a kick out of it again. I like humming the techno version of the movies' main theme, and that's about it.
-Rashomon. Some movies require more imagination than I have to give. I'm sure Rashomon is great, but it is also really old. The message was profound, I'm sure, but I wasn't drawn in by the film. I'm wary and excited about any film that comes highly suggested from film buffs--they have a tendency to be excellent but also a tendency to be incredibly boring.
-Primer. I saw this with nerd-friend Allen, who didn't like it either. We felt that it was ultimately too confusing and left too much open-ended. Then I spoke with nerd-friend Samir. Samir says this movie is great, and claims we didn't understand its greatness because we didn't watch it over and over again while taking notes and drawing timelines. Samir says he still hasn't figured this one out despite having watching it some twenty-odd times (I might be exaggerating). But seriously, is any movie worth that?
Okay I'm done complaining! Happy summer everybody.