Author Topic: Sicario  (Read 11216 times)

verbALs

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Re: Sicario
« Reply #30 on: February 20, 2016, 02:05:45 AM »
Actually can we go back to your original questions?

Quote
Doesn't this idea preclude the existence of bad films? There are no bad movies, only bad viewers?

It's a different question that relates to what I said rather than a blank statement of a question. And again I want to invite other answers, before I give my own.
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verbALs

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Re: Sicario
« Reply #31 on: February 20, 2016, 02:08:38 AM »
My formulation of the death of the film is what you describe here, where you seem to be saying that nothing in the film actually matters as far as determining its quality.
Wow no, I never said that in the slightest. I'm saying that the level of interest you bring to a movie (being entirely one's own "fault") determines what outlook you have on its qualities. Using an argument like "it wasn't interesting" indicates that YOU weren't interested and perhaps weren't paying attention and perhaps may have missed quite a lot of its qualities. The film MADE me lose interest is simply a follow-up further step up on the level of personal absolution.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 07:12:46 AM by verbALs »
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Re: Sicario
« Reply #32 on: February 20, 2016, 02:11:51 AM »
Well, that's what I took from that post. You know, I paid a lot of attention to it, went over it several times to make sure I wasn't missing some nuance somewhere. No phone interruptions.
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verbALs

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Re: Sicario
« Reply #33 on: February 20, 2016, 02:18:09 AM »
Yes that s a lot easier to do. Re-reading to make sure you have it right, rather than a movie where it's there and it's gone. In that way a film has a visceral feel which attaches the emotional state of the viewer even more firmly to the reaction they will have overall. So watching a film with one eye to not having your chain jerked would seem to me to be a progression brought on by having watched a lot of movies. In that way a book can be much more precise because you can re-read to clarify, but still the reader determines the meaning. In this case you read me wrong however many times you read it. It's a good bit of practice to check and clarify before you assume anything. This is a complex subject so there's nothing wrong with being clear on what is meant before answering. That's why I keep asking what is meant if I don't feel I understand it. The only problem here is you can't expect an answer so waiting for every point to be clarified would kill any conversation. So you try to move on. So misunderstandings naturally happen.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 02:28:28 AM by verbALs »
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verbALs

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Re: Sicario
« Reply #34 on: February 20, 2016, 06:46:51 AM »
Well junior I looked back on the past couple of posts and I seem to have answered to my satisfaction your question.

I said
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One of my earlier statements to DH is that the directors version of Sicario is far far more interesting, since he got the film made (which is a bit of respect normally lost on the critic), than any alternative version, Blunt-less, or otherwise. That applies to any film. So sticking with a film until it is done and letting an author tell his story to the end, before you make any consideration would be the ideal. What stops that in me or anyone else, is precisely that. Me or anyone else. I stop it happening. I have my reasons but they are my own. The film is eternal and immutable. It doesn't change (directors cut aside). I feel it is better for me to explain what has me liking or disliking a film in me.

and

Quote
I'm saying that the level of interest you bring to a movie (being entirely one's own "fault") determines what outlook you have on its qualities. Using an argument like "it wasn't interesting" indicates that YOU weren't interested and perhaps weren't paying attention and perhaps may have missed quite a lot of its qualities. The film MADE me lose interest is simply a follow-up further step up on the level of personal absolution.

To summarise the film is the film. If it finds an audience it achieves its objective because I assume nobody has ever made a film intending it to alienate and be hated by everyone. It finds an audience. I'm not sure what finding the proof, that there are films everyone universally hates or loves, would achieve. I'm comfortable assuming every film finds an audience.

I might think a film is bad but we are in the realm of semantics now. Simply put the film isn't bad just because I don't like it. It's all me. There is no fact; it is all opinion and my opinion or yours or everybody's doesn't change the film itself in any way. So talking as if what one thinks makes a film bad or talking like the film is to blame for one's bad opinion still doesn't change the film. So do I think that some films are bad? Of course I do but it's just my opinion which is not the same as saying I am right or wrong. It isn't an issue of right or wrong.

So no bad films no. Just films trying to find an audience.

As for your follow ups. I said no. How can we criticise anything? We do. So that's how we criticise by doing it. Writing makes you a writer. I criticise from my point of view, from my opinion. Again my criticism neither makes a film good or bad. How could it when it's only my opinion. If one has it in one's head that, if one thinks that a criticism counts as the immutable truth, then this entire concept of opinion will make no sense at all, and the only person who can change that notion would be oneself.

So to tail this off, what I gained as a conclusion from all of this comes down to this statement;

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sticking with a film until it is done and letting an author tell his story to the end, before you make any consideration would be the ideal.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 07:27:18 AM by verbALs »
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Re: Sicario
« Reply #35 on: February 20, 2016, 07:48:36 AM »
I don't recall ever posting this review here. Perhaps it'll help put the conversation back on track. It resonates with some of the things said, so I can at least claim consistency of opinion over 4 months.

Sicario

Kate Macer: What's the objective?
Matt Graver: To dramatically overreact.

Possibly, a day after British military advisors are sent to the Baltic States, in a fuzzy-logical response to Russian intervention into the Syrian War, Graver's statement summarises modern geopolitical attitudes. Sicario feels like a political thriller wrapped up in the furs and skins of a crime movie; pretending to be less than it actually is. Hence, it hides a character, that reminded me more of Keyser Soze than any since the devil last appeared. The name of the movie is explained in the first frames. The explanation gripped me so that I didn't want to disregard it as bombastic nomenclature. My suspicion that this would turn to be a modern reenactment of the Star Chamber was off the mark but in the right neighbourhood.

On the literary side, the film trod the same prints in the sand as James Crumley's immense "Mexican Tree Duck" and "Bordersnakes". Ostensible detective stories whose protagonists still have Vietnam in their blurred sights, and a proficiency with automatic weapons (tanks sometimes). The US-Mexican border is an ambiguous line, and only the rules of engagement change, depending on which side of the line you are. Everyone feels out of their depth. Emily Blunt's role here is to play more the helpless FBI agent, than the helpless girl; her toughness and capability to act in a dangerous world is designed to illustrate that the borderland she is attracted into, is another level of violence altogether. The FBI as opposed to the CIA; the regular army as opposed to special forces; being adept with a sidearm as opposed to being adept with your fists; the law versus international expediency; but mostly America as opposed to Mexico.

As I mentioned, the film had its greatest impact as a political tone piece. At the point that the drugs war starts to threaten the integrity of Homeland Security, the CIA are asked to assert control and start to escalate the response. A military strategy in the hands of the CIA appears to be signed off by government. Rather than being shackled by standing orders and international laws, the attitude seems to be that the people with the leashes leave the room or turn their backs, in case they are compromised by the actions they have sanctioned. It implies that there are no rules, and those put in charge certainly act as if that is what they infer. The military philosophy is to use the correct weapon for the job. Sicario is a movie about those weapons.

"Enemy" and it's heavy atmosphere of paranoia, was an excellent warm up for Sicario. Juarez is painted as a malignant cancer on the skin of the United States. The surgeons want to use 50 caliber machine guns to operate on it.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 07:50:23 AM by verbALs »
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Re: Sicario
« Reply #36 on: February 20, 2016, 10:10:11 AM »
This all kinda reads like insanity to me. We'll never have a conversation that means anything because any fault I find with a film will be turned around on me, and any joy I find in it will only be self-serving, an indication that I've reached a higher plane of being that the haters can't possibly reach, given their imperfections. That doesn't sound very productive. Have fun.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 10:17:41 AM by Junior »
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verbALs

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Re: Sicario
« Reply #37 on: February 20, 2016, 10:11:18 AM »
I thought I was enjoying Sicario.

« Last Edit: February 20, 2016, 11:33:14 AM by verbALs »
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Re: Sicario
« Reply #38 on: February 20, 2016, 10:21:07 AM »
I know you were, and you're such a great person for doing so. Unlike us mere mortals. Our human imperfections have led us astray once again! We truly are the fallen, cast out of God's (Cinema's) grace. We strive towards holiness but can never achieve it.
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verbALs

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Re: Sicario
« Reply #39 on: February 20, 2016, 10:21:49 AM »
?
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

 

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