Author Topic: It's Not a Wonderful Life  (Read 4724 times)

PeacefulAnarchy

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 2132
    • Criticker reviews
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2017, 02:18:23 PM »
Wait a minute..... Seven??
I think it's an errant line break and meant to be Seven Psychopaths. But that's only slightly more understandable. I don't understand a lot of these choices. I understood this thread to be about feel-good movies but many of these, while enjoyable, are not feel-good movies.

chardy999

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3550
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2017, 07:32:35 PM »
Amelie - I had a friend who only liked depressing movies, but this always made him smile

Did he like depressing movies or being depressed by movies? The smile comment makes me question your phrasing.


I feel good when I watch depressing movies because I'm glad it's not me suffering.  :D

I know this statement is slightly tongue-in-cheek but I find depressing movies are often positive.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
- Groucho Marx

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2017, 08:24:24 PM »
He likes depressing movies.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2017, 09:22:55 PM »
Guilty as charged.

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2017, 05:04:34 AM »
Guardians of the Galaxy

1SO beat me to it, so I guess he gets the baked cookies instead of me. :)

You're the only one who posted a review, so you get all the cookies.

Except that now I have to find someone else to bake them...

Wait a minute..... Seven??

Sam is right, it's meant to be Seven Psychopaths. I am not that messed up. I corrected it.

I think it's an errant line break and meant to be Seven Psychopaths. But that's only slightly more understandable. I don't understand a lot of these choices. I understood this thread to be about feel-good movies but many of these, while enjoyable, are not feel-good movies.

SP is hilarious and amazing and a force for good in the universe.

To the large point, any movie that makes me smile like a smitten teenager for two hours makes the list and all those do. Which of these do not strike you as feel good?
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

Junior

  • Bert Macklin, FBI
  • Global Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28709
  • What's the rumpus?
    • Benefits of a Classical Education
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #15 on: January 20, 2017, 03:55:45 PM »
Guardians of the Galaxy

1SO beat me to it, so I guess he gets the baked cookies instead of me. :)

You're the only one who posted a review, so you get all the cookies.

Except that now I have to find someone else to bake them...

I guess it's not enough to be ignored by my new president, now I also get to be ignored by my internet friends, too.
Check out my blog of many topics

“I’m not a quitter, Kimmy! I watched Interstellar all the way to the end!”

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2017, 05:43:31 PM »
It didn't register because I had my spoiler-alert goggles on. Sorry Junior, you do get first place. Sandy, you come a mediocre second and are therefore a worse person. I hope you remember to mail Junior his cookies.

Stormy Weather

It's hard to watch a musical right now without thinking about La La Land. This film only cemented my thoughts on that one: it's a good drama but not a particularly great musical. This movie isn't really a good movie. The characters are paper thin and the drama is nearly non-existent. The story is there as an excuse to move from one number to the next, and it's a flimsy excuse at that. But this movie doesn't really need to be a good movie because the musical numbers are so good. This probably has the best songs of the films I've seen from the first half of the last century, and some of the best dancing. Though nothing quite matches the supreme physical chemistry that Astaire and Rogers had, the scene we've all seen now with the Nicholas Brothers daring and dazzling dancing is exhilarating every time. And did you know that Lena Horne was a good singer? Fats Waller and Cab Calloway get their moments in the spotlight as well, and it's all very fun. But the most intoxicating thing is Bill Robinson's contagious smile. It's a wide grin and it comes onto his face whenever his feet start moving, which is often. Even though there will always be stormy weather, there will still also always be people who express themselves in such entertaining ways.

A-

I cannot tell whether I would like this movie and that sort of scares me.
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #17 on: January 20, 2017, 08:50:47 PM »
FWIW, I make great cookies. Butterscotch chips, molasses and a touch of Salted Caramel.

mañana

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 20862
  • Check your public library
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #18 on: January 20, 2017, 09:42:06 PM »
Wait a minute..... Seven??
Goop is pretty annoying.
There's no deceit in the cauliflower.

PeacefulAnarchy

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 2132
    • Criticker reviews
Re: It's Not a Wonderful Life
« Reply #19 on: January 20, 2017, 09:49:48 PM »
To the large point, any movie that makes me smile like a smitten teenager for two hours makes the list and all those do. Which of these do not strike you as feel good?
Well, since you asked... Most of them

Let me start by saying, that just because a movie doesn't fit my conception of what I understood this thread to be about doesn't mean I'm criticizing the movie. In fact, in general terms, I prefer the movie with a dark edge that uses satire and black humour to liven the tension and make fun of the horrid garbage that is life than one which paints it all as roses and rainbows (while ignoring the thorns and rain that go with roses and rainbows). In fact, when I opened this thread based on the title and you starting it I expected exactly these kind of darker edged movies to be the feature. I may well not have opened the "happy time rose coloured classes life is great" thread.

But based on this:
Quote
To offset the upsetting nature of the very very bad things that we have already started seeing on the television (or in the front pages, for you hoity-toity reading types), I thought it might be nice to create a bit of a happy place in the forum. 

That said, if you happen to watch, for whatever ungodly, incomprehensible reason, a lovely movie, a comedy that makes you laugh, a story that put a smile on your face if only for those ninety minutes, you can put it here. Bring your Sing Streets to the party, your The Hunt for the Wilderpeoples, your Cary Grant oldies, everything that is going to get me complaining about amounts of saccharine and unearned relationship arcs. Slapstick is fair game, musicals are encouraged, Disney is pretty much mandatory (not The Fox and the Hound), love stories about teenagers will be tolerated.
and your inclusion of a pic from Singing In The Rain, a movie that only uses its slightly dark middle section so it can shove the happiness down farther in the end, I expected a thread about feelgood movies that are happy and bubbly and take you away from the grim realities of life.

Dark comedies with death and violence may be fun and enjoyable, but they confront the grim realities of life, not escape them. Seven Psychopaths and In Bruges have graphic on screen deaths, that pretty much disqualifies them in my view, no matter how fun they may be (I enjoyed them). How did Magnolia make your list? It's not even a comedy, though it has some comedic moments. Le Diner de Cons is about an idiot and an asshole irritating each other. It may be funny, but it's a constant reminder that the world is full of assholes and idiots, not exactly escapism from the realities of life. The Dark Knight centers around Joker murdering and mayheming and the system being completely incapable of serving its people and is full of morally grey choices. That's what makes it a great movie, but not at all a feel good movie, it doesn't even end on a particularly happy note. Those are just some, but I could probably make arguments for most of them. Bondo's list too seems off course to me, but I haven't seen those movies in a long time so maybe I'm mis-remembering how The Truman Show is about the misanthropy of humanity and CINECAST!ing Amal is about a depressed young girl who hates her small town life. Again though, I suppose I just misunderstood what this thread was about.

Wait, Philadelphia? The Tom Hanks movie all about AIDS and homophobia where he dies at the end?

I dunno, I feel weird writing all this because like I said, a lot of these movies (the ones I like) probably do make me feel better than something like Singin' in The Rain (Not Philadelphia, though, I'd like to hear your argument for its inclusion). I'm just very confused.

 

love