Why was this labeled NSFW?morpheusrexDecember 20 2007, 20:51:43 UTC
Aesthetic is a personal thing. You can talk about your sense of aesthetics, or you can talk about what you think is someone else's aesthetics, but you're still just talking about yourself. Whenever someone's tempted to go on about 'aesthetics', you should ask them to replace the word with either 'art' or 'beauty'. See how far they get without sounding like a douche.
Some really mean 'style' or 'look', something a little more concrete.
WRT narrative - the advantage of remaking a classic is that the heavy lifting has already been field-tested. It's yours to screw up, or not.
A well-tread, balanced narrative never stopped a film from sucking. Blockbuster movies are generally all-narrative, all the time. Narrative is usually a requirement but nuance and quality character development adds more to a successful story.
Whatever you may think about this version of Beowulf, the largest and most impressive accomplishments are entirely technical. Jolie's CGI boobs almost perfectly match her real boobs!
CGI/animation is at its most annoying when your suspension of disbelief starts to choke, and that tends to happen at either end of the scale.
Re: Why was this labeled NSFW?obsessed_folderDecember 21 2007, 18:30:31 UTC
aesthetic IS beauty. "style" and "look" are just neutral words for "beauty". and yes, I sound like a douche, but how can one talk about art without sounding like an idiot? in a lot of cases, we end up clucking amongst ourselves long after the artists have abandoned the work to the world at large. I have managed to convince myself that this process of analysis and discussion is important for the filmmaking.
while I agree that the achievements of this movie were entirely technical (nice work on using "largest" and "impressive", then following it up with "boobs". I thought she was the most realistically rendered of the movie, which isn't surprising because I suspect she was the single highest above-the-line cost), that doesn't make it a "good" movie to me.
Re: Why was this labeled NSFW?morpheusrexDecember 21 2007, 20:12:21 UTC
You bring up a good point - it's hard to talk about art without sounding like a douche. I can spend hours talking about why The Evil Dead is a superior film series (What narrative!) than The Cremaster Cycle (What aesthetic!) but I'd be talking out of my ass. Much less interesting than talking into (or about) Jolie's boobs. It's an exclusionary process, not readily fit for public conversations. How can someone dispute how something makes you feel? I think your best is to keep a handle on your true motivations and take real ownership over what you mean to say.
Analysis and discussion are important for most things, but it's been my experience that the amount of time spent talking about movies has more to do with the people involved than with the complexity of the subject matter. What seems harder is physical implementation, but I rarely hear many people spend most of their time on the nuts and bolts. It's just not sexy enough, I guess.
I don't trivialize analysis. (We've developed our taste for intellectual exercises together, amigo.) But I've come around to thinking that meta-analysis trends more towards a religious experience (or a judgment of another's). It's easy to hide out in words like 'aesthetic', 'meta-thematic' and 'paradigm', while still claiming the equivalent of the intellectual high ground. Hey, I should know. ;)
I labelled it nsfw because lots of things aren't safe for some workplacesobsessed_folderDecember 22 2007, 00:14:07 UTC
How can someone dispute how something makes you feel?
fine art theory/history of the western european canon has a very strict set of rules regarding analysis. according to that theory, there is a wrong way to evaluate art (but no one would ever say you're wrong, just that you're not sophisticated enough). but that's neither here nor there.
I think I get your point that my movie reviews are essentially a large volume of heated gas, and I don't dispute that. but it's useful for me to organize and articulate my thoughts about what I look at, in order to lay groundwork for when I start the physical implementation of my next project.
I would say, however, that it is sexy enough. I know people who have gotten laid directly as a result of working on a set.
Some really mean 'style' or 'look', something a little more concrete.
WRT narrative - the advantage of remaking a classic is that the heavy lifting has already been field-tested. It's yours to screw up, or not.
A well-tread, balanced narrative never stopped a film from sucking. Blockbuster movies are generally all-narrative, all the time. Narrative is usually a requirement but nuance and quality character development adds more to a successful story.
Whatever you may think about this version of Beowulf, the largest and most impressive accomplishments are entirely technical. Jolie's CGI boobs almost perfectly match her real boobs!
CGI/animation is at its most annoying when your suspension of disbelief starts to choke, and that tends to happen at either end of the scale.
Reply
while I agree that the achievements of this movie were entirely technical (nice work on using "largest" and "impressive", then following it up with "boobs". I thought she was the most realistically rendered of the movie, which isn't surprising because I suspect she was the single highest above-the-line cost), that doesn't make it a "good" movie to me.
Reply
Analysis and discussion are important for most things, but it's been my experience that the amount of time spent talking about movies has more to do with the people involved than with the complexity of the subject matter. What seems harder is physical implementation, but I rarely hear many people spend most of their time on the nuts and bolts. It's just not sexy enough, I guess.
I don't trivialize analysis. (We've developed our taste for intellectual exercises together, amigo.) But I've come around to thinking that meta-analysis trends more towards a religious experience (or a judgment of another's). It's easy to hide out in words like 'aesthetic', 'meta-thematic' and 'paradigm', while still claiming the equivalent of the intellectual high ground. Hey, I should know. ;)
Reply
fine art theory/history of the western european canon has a very strict set of rules regarding analysis. according to that theory, there is a wrong way to evaluate art (but no one would ever say you're wrong, just that you're not sophisticated enough). but that's neither here nor there.
I think I get your point that my movie reviews are essentially a large volume of heated gas, and I don't dispute that. but it's useful for me to organize and articulate my thoughts about what I look at, in order to lay groundwork for when I start the physical implementation of my next project.
I would say, however, that it is sexy enough. I know people who have gotten laid directly as a result of working on a set.
Reply
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