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Author Topic: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions (2009-2016)  (Read 1228443 times)

oneaprilday

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1640 on: April 03, 2010, 06:59:51 PM »
I guess he's right about Wes Anderson, but maybe not the others. Soderbergh, especially this decade, I don't agree with. Sure Bubble and the girlfriend experience are more intellectual pursuits, but look at the rest of his work. Out of Sight, The Informant, The Oceans films, Erin Brokovich, hell, even Traffic presents a bunch of likable characters. The Coeans to. Their recent output has been more intellctual (though I feel utter compassion for Larry Gopnik and Llwellyn Moss), movies like Fargo show that, yah they're intellctual but can also show great compassion and warmth.

Fincher I've only seen Fight Club and Benjamin Button, but Fight Club is a movie where maybe compassion is lacking, but these characters are so fascinating I can't help but be enraptured. And Benjamin Button may have flaws, but lack of emotion is not one of them.

Anderson is the most outrageous claim for me. Yes, There Will Be Blood is portraying the life of a monster. And I don't think Boogie Nights is that great. But my love of Magnolia has a lot to do with the emotional reaction it gets out of me. Maybe some of the characters aren't pure of heart, but so what. They are human. They're cruelty comes from a place of compassion, from a place I can fully understand. I am fully onboard every step of the way. And, of course, Punch-Drunk Love is one of the best pure love stories of the decade.
To be fair, the writer - I really should look at his name . . . Ok, Tom Shone. So, to be fair, Shone did say that he liked Erin Brockovich. I think you're right though that when you start listing what these filmmakers have made, it's difficult to make a blanket statement about their not making movies that pack some emotional punch.

Still, I suppose the article resonated with me some because I was thinking about some of the things he's saying when I watched such recent films as A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, though Shone doesn't mention Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are - all three filmspotting favorites.

And, as one more reason, the reason I love Wendy and Lucy is not becausde Williams is great, not because the craft is excellent, and the direction is wonderful, though all those are true. The reason I love it is because I was bawling at the end of the screening. It wasn't holding back tears, it was at the point where I was barely stopping myself from shouting at the screen.

If we have no emotions, then what are we?
Exactly. Shone wants to bawl at the end of a movie. I guess he hasn't in a while. :)

oneaprilday

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1641 on: April 03, 2010, 07:04:17 PM »
And listen, I love Step Brothers, so who I am to look down on "intellectual crap".  ;D
We all have our weaknesses. :D 

(I think you have some company around here with Step Brothers though.)

What about a movie you know is, intellectually, bad, in fact, you hate the movie, but it managed to get an emotional response out of you?

I can't really think of one, to be honest. I usually hate movies that try to "move" me. Stuff like Patch Adams (which I find shameless) or A Time To Kill (which I find genuinely offensive) are some of my least favorite movies.
I hate them, too, in part because though I know how terrible they are, they've somehow managed to manipulate me into feeling something. It doesn't really happen often - that I cry during a movie that I hate. I have to be at a point of low resistance - like after a day of travelling, sitting on a plane, feeling drained . . .

'Noke

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1642 on: April 03, 2010, 07:05:03 PM »
Still, I suppose the article resonated with me some because I was thinking about some of the things he's saying when I watched such recent films as A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, though Shone doesn't mention Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are - all three filmspotting favorites.

I get two of these, but you didn't think WTWTA was emotional? I thought it was, pure, undiluted child emotion. That final shot was incredibly moving, for me.
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

Holly Harry

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1643 on: April 03, 2010, 07:17:02 PM »
You seem to be equating the term intellectual with like, I don't know, Gore Vidal or something. There is a clear intellectual reason behind every great joke and why it makes someone laugh, no matter how silly or vulgar. The thing with comedy is that if you dissect it and why it makes you laugh, which you could, it would probably make it unfunny and boring.

No, sometimes there is a guy saying whale's vagina and it's ya know funny, without any sort of intellectual reasoning behind it.

I'm going to make this joke boring and unfunny, so warning:

The absurdity of Burgandy's answer in relation to the translation of San Diego, in combination with his insistence on seeming smart, in addition to it being the first thing that Burgandy thinks of, makes the joke funny. And that is absolutely an intellectual breakdown. It's not just him saying whale's vagina that's funny, it's why he's saying it and the context of what he's saying. Comedy doesn't get nearly the respect it deserves on an intellectual basis on the whole.

That's you applying an intellectual basis for the joke where one doesn't need to be applied. Dave Chappelle has talked about this a bunch, intimating how sure, he tries to write smart jokes, but every once in a while a joke about a crack head is just a joke about a crack head and digging deeper into it is just foolish.

Oh God, you're missing his point and you're missing my point.

My point was not that there's some intellectual themes or societal issues in the whale's vagina joke. My point was that the joke has an intelletual function as to why it works. Meaning, there is a reasoning that you can break down, and then, it transmits to your brain (probably your subconcious, because that's how most great jokes work) and it makes you laugh. By your reasoning, all somebody has to say a non-senical non-sequitor in order for it be funny. This is incredibly disrespectful to comedy as an artform.

Chappelle's point is clearly that there isn't always a societal parable or satire in something. Sometimes, something is just funny.

But, a crackhead joke (a good one, anyway) has an intellectual construction.

In other words, the image of a crackhead lifting a bus is funny because of the dichotomy between the frail frame of the crackhead and the size of the bus, in correlaton with the crackhead's extreme motivation. This is clearly an intellectual construction, and there is an intellectual reasoning as to why it's funny. Sorry for making that joke unfunny now. Nothing more unfunny than explaining why a joke is funny. It should work on a subconscious level, like I said.

You're missing my point, sometimes a joke is funny, there isn't nor does there need to be an intellectual reason behind it. There doesn't need to an intellectual construction behind a joke, and you can explain why you think a whale's vagina is funny from some sort of intellectual construction standpoint, but none of that matters to me, I found it funny simply because Burgundy said Whale's vagina. You can argue that there is some sort of reasoning for why I find a joke funny and I will counter that your surmising simply isn't always the case.

I think it's disrespectful to the art form of comedy to argue otherwise actually, because every comedian worth their salt will tell you that some of their funny material is throwing shit at a wall

But, a joke has to be constructed like anything else, like a novel, like a film, like a song. If you take that way, you are literally comparing a joke to a piece of shit. And just because you don't acknowledge the construction doesn't mean it isn't there. "Funny" doesn't exist in a vaccum, it needs context and construction. If not, you get those Movie Movies.


We're going in circles, sir.
"Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."-Woody Allen.

Bill Thompson

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1644 on: April 03, 2010, 07:19:05 PM »
You seem to be equating the term intellectual with like, I don't know, Gore Vidal or something. There is a clear intellectual reason behind every great joke and why it makes someone laugh, no matter how silly or vulgar. The thing with comedy is that if you dissect it and why it makes you laugh, which you could, it would probably make it unfunny and boring.

No, sometimes there is a guy saying whale's vagina and it's ya know funny, without any sort of intellectual reasoning behind it.

I'm going to make this joke boring and unfunny, so warning:

The absurdity of Burgandy's answer in relation to the translation of San Diego, in combination with his insistence on seeming smart, in addition to it being the first thing that Burgandy thinks of, makes the joke funny. And that is absolutely an intellectual breakdown. It's not just him saying whale's vagina that's funny, it's why he's saying it and the context of what he's saying. Comedy doesn't get nearly the respect it deserves on an intellectual basis on the whole.

That's you applying an intellectual basis for the joke where one doesn't need to be applied. Dave Chappelle has talked about this a bunch, intimating how sure, he tries to write smart jokes, but every once in a while a joke about a crack head is just a joke about a crack head and digging deeper into it is just foolish.

Oh God, you're missing his point and you're missing my point.

My point was not that there's some intellectual themes or societal issues in the whale's vagina joke. My point was that the joke has an intelletual function as to why it works. Meaning, there is a reasoning that you can break down, and then, it transmits to your brain (probably your subconcious, because that's how most great jokes work) and it makes you laugh. By your reasoning, all somebody has to say a non-senical non-sequitor in order for it be funny. This is incredibly disrespectful to comedy as an artform.

Chappelle's point is clearly that there isn't always a societal parable or satire in something. Sometimes, something is just funny.

But, a crackhead joke (a good one, anyway) has an intellectual construction.

In other words, the image of a crackhead lifting a bus is funny because of the dichotomy between the frail frame of the crackhead and the size of the bus, in correlaton with the crackhead's extreme motivation. This is clearly an intellectual construction, and there is an intellectual reasoning as to why it's funny. Sorry for making that joke unfunny now. Nothing more unfunny than explaining why a joke is funny. It should work on a subconscious level, like I said.

You're missing my point, sometimes a joke is funny, there isn't nor does there need to be an intellectual reason behind it. There doesn't need to an intellectual construction behind a joke, and you can explain why you think a whale's vagina is funny from some sort of intellectual construction standpoint, but none of that matters to me, I found it funny simply because Burgundy said Whale's vagina. You can argue that there is some sort of reasoning for why I find a joke funny and I will counter that your surmising simply isn't always the case.

I think it's disrespectful to the art form of comedy to argue otherwise actually, because every comedian worth their salt will tell you that some of their funny material is throwing shit at a wall

But, a joke has to be constructed like anything else, like a novel, like a film, like a song. If you take that way, you are literally comparing a joke to a piece of shit. And just because you don't acknowledge the construction doesn't mean it isn't there. "Funny" doesn't exist in a vaccum, it needs context and construction. If not, you get those Movie Movies.


We're going in circles, sir.


We are, because I don't believe emotion needs a context, emotion is base and can exist all on its own, hence a joke can be funny and exist outside of any sort of context.

oneaprilday

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1645 on: April 03, 2010, 07:37:39 PM »
Still, I suppose the article resonated with me some because I was thinking about some of the things he's saying when I watched such recent films as A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, though Shone doesn't mention Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are - all three filmspotting favorites.

I get two of these, but you didn't think WTWTA was emotional? I thought it was, pure, undiluted child emotion. That final shot was incredibly moving, for me.
It portrayed (indeed, personified) emotion, but I didn't feel much emotion watching it. Not sure why really. It felt too self-conscious to me or something? I don't know. None of the characters' emotions resonated with me. (The one moment I truly loved, on emotional level, was at the end when Max was at the table with his mom.) For childhood angst and pathos, give me The 400 Blows any day. :)

'Noke

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1646 on: April 03, 2010, 07:42:13 PM »
Still, I suppose the article resonated with me some because I was thinking about some of the things he's saying when I watched such recent films as A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, though Shone doesn't mention Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are - all three filmspotting favorites.

I get two of these, but you didn't think WTWTA was emotional? I thought it was, pure, undiluted child emotion. That final shot was incredibly moving, for me.
It portrayed (indeed, personified) emotion, but I didn't feel much emotion watching it. Not sure why really. It felt too self-conscious to me or something? I don't know. None of the characters' emotions resonated with me. (The one moment I truly loved, on emotional level, was at the end when Max was at the table with his mom.) For childhood angst and pathos, give me The 400 Blows any day. :)

Fair enough, and I do love 400 Blows too. I can see people maybe not being totally involved with it. I guess that's just how we defer.
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

oneaprilday

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1647 on: April 03, 2010, 08:15:25 PM »
Still, I suppose the article resonated with me some because I was thinking about some of the things he's saying when I watched such recent films as A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, though Shone doesn't mention Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are - all three filmspotting favorites.

I get two of these, but you didn't think WTWTA was emotional? I thought it was, pure, undiluted child emotion. That final shot was incredibly moving, for me.
It portrayed (indeed, personified) emotion, but I didn't feel much emotion watching it. Not sure why really. It felt too self-conscious to me or something? I don't know. None of the characters' emotions resonated with me. (The one moment I truly loved, on emotional level, was at the end when Max was at the table with his mom.) For childhood angst and pathos, give me The 400 Blows any day. :)

Fair enough, and I do love 400 Blows too. I can see people maybe not being totally involved with it. I guess that's just how we defer.
Ok. :) I know you love The 400 Blows, too, so maybe I should choose less of a classic for comparison. In that case, to compare two movies from last year with child protagonists we're supposed to feel for, I'm gonna go with Treeless Mountain over WtWTA.

'Noke

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1648 on: April 03, 2010, 08:16:20 PM »
Still, I suppose the article resonated with me some because I was thinking about some of the things he's saying when I watched such recent films as A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and, though Shone doesn't mention Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are - all three filmspotting favorites.

I get two of these, but you didn't think WTWTA was emotional? I thought it was, pure, undiluted child emotion. That final shot was incredibly moving, for me.
It portrayed (indeed, personified) emotion, but I didn't feel much emotion watching it. Not sure why really. It felt too self-conscious to me or something? I don't know. None of the characters' emotions resonated with me. (The one moment I truly loved, on emotional level, was at the end when Max was at the table with his mom.) For childhood angst and pathos, give me The 400 Blows any day. :)

Fair enough, and I do love 400 Blows too. I can see people maybe not being totally involved with it. I guess that's just how we defer.
Ok. :) I know you love The 400 Blows, too, so maybe I should choose less of a classic for comparison. In that case, to compare two movies from last year with child protagonists we're supposed to feel for, I'm gonna go with Treeless Mountain over WtWTA.

(I haven't seen Treeless Mountain just yet.)
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

Zhankfor

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Re: Random Movie Thoughts/Questions
« Reply #1649 on: April 03, 2010, 08:42:14 PM »
Anyone else looking forward to Prince of Persia? It looks kind of fun to me, much like The Mummy series (not including that Scorpion Dung spin-off). A good popcorn movie. Much better than that suckathon Titan thing.

I'm looking forward to Gyllenhaal occupying two spaces on my top 5 movies in which ill-conceived time travel is badly used as a plot device.

time travel is an ill-conceived concept.. therefor, any film that has time travel would qualify

Incorrect. Time travel is an ill-conceived concept, therefore any film that attempts to use it beyond its capacity to internalize it (i.e. act like it's just part of the plot, like Back to the Future does so well) qualifies.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2010, 08:46:35 PM by Zhankfor »