agip wrote:
How can you not be moved by the mastroianni character in both?
I find it very difficult to be moved by a guy who is that good-looking.
I overcame that bias, more or less, regarding "La Dolce Vita." I haven't seen "8 1/2" in a while, but I think that it would still leave me cold. I know it's heresy to say so, but I preferred its cinematic progeny, Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz." I mean, it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it.
gay resident evil wrote:
I agree that Black Swan was a horrible movie and Nat Portman was not and is not and will never be a good actress. The camera loves her, but she can't act. Note: I say this as a gay man who loves pretentious poop.
Not trying to be a dick homophobe here, but maybe the fact that you're gay is why you don't like natalie portman.
It just dawned on me that the reason I think she's such a good actress could be because she is so effing beautiful.
Pretty much anything that has come out of Jewywood.
This thread has no taste. Some classic movies do age poorly and therefore are no longer good to a even 'pretentious' modern viewers, but the majority of the movies listed here by no means fall under this category. Your failure to appreciate these films either stems from ignorance or just personal taste. You don't have to like these movies but the comments in this thread are not very sophisticated.
JoeShmoe wrote:
What I mean by art challenging someone, is that it makes them think. Either about themselves or their society. In other words, it is relevant. And good art is relevant to everyone because it gets at truth. Lots of art today, including that in theatres, is made to arouse emotion. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's bad, but I definitely wouldn't call it good, either, because it is not and does not aspire to be all that it can be.
Art is not truly art at all unless it inspires emotion. The reason story telling (at the core of both novels and film) is the most powerful of all art forms rests in its ability to inspire emotion. While it is true that good art gets at profound truths, those truths must cause an emotional reaction and do not necessarily have to be something new to the audience. Personally, I find that the most profound truths are those you are generally already aware of but have temporarily lost touch with.
The best art is also the art that can communicate its idea the most effectively. This isn't to say the most popular art is the best; what I mean is that an art which 'challenges' simply because it is coded down on different levels isn't good art at all. If a film is 'challenging,' it should be because most people simply cannot understand the fundamental truths being expressed.
Look man, the bottom line is a critique that is not articulate is still perfectly legitimate. There is no rule saying one must display the utmost sophistication in a criticism for it to be meaningful. Quite honestly I choose to have my posts be vulgar and raw.
Going into endless irrelevant minutia takes away from the impact of what it is I'm saying. I'll take it a step further in track and field. I wish people would be more willing to be vulgar and not be overly concerned with walking on egg shells all the time.
We always wonder why more people aren't interested in track and field. One reason is running is inherently boring to watch if you're not a runner yourself. Two is pro runners seem so afraid to call it like it they see it. The final reason is "runner talk" isn't very accessible to the average person.
I mean picture yourself flipping through the channels or surfing the net looking for some entertainment. One snippet you hear or read is some dude talking for 20 minutes about how their legs felt and in the next you read about a guy almost getting eaten alive by a shark. Knowing nothing, most non runners I'd think would pick the shark attack story.
We're not competing against other sports, we're competing against raw human emotion. In the end, I just wish there were more interviews and writing out there addressing that level of realism. Track and field needs to be portrayed in a way that reflects the raw energy that is our sport. That's all it is. It's you against the other guy and it comes down to who gets tired first. If more people in our sport realized this, more people might start caring about track and field.
Man, I really liked The Deer Hunter. Maybe because i grew up in the 70's in a small ethnic town like those guys. The wedding scene was like a lot of drunk weddings I attended and seeing how the war changed these innocent guys hits me every time. Such a sad movie with some beautiful PA scenery and authentic characters.
It's the wrong time of year for Christmas movies, and I assume that's why no one's brought up "It's a Wonderful Life" yet. I find it utterly insufferable and cliched.
Black Swan was brilliant on so many levels. To competitive athletes, the movie is a metaphor for the obsession with performing under pressure. Natalie Portman is incredibly talented, and stunning.
I grew up in the 70's and was forced to go to church. The Exorcist was and still is the most frightening movie I have ever seen. It's a generational thing, I guess. The whole country found the movie frightening. At the time, it was the biggest grossing movie of all time. I saw the movie when I was 13, and could not sleep for days after seeing it.
Raging Bull.
If you think that technical effects have advanced so much, you should go back and take a look at some 1920s films like Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" or the 1930s Joseph Cornell film "Rose Hobart." At a showing of the latter, Salvador Dali, I think, broke the projector and yelled at Cornell that he'd done everything Dali ever wished to do and couldn't.
That's probably a joke about Forrest Gump, but I watched the film again on the plane back from Paris last year because, living in Savannah, where it was shot, I hear run forrest run all the time (when I'm at sub 7 minute pace). So, the upshot is that where I initially thought it was simply a conservative film attacking hippie values (Jenny and Lt. Dan suffer for their hippy lifestyles and she gets AIDS and he gets depressed, while the way to get ahead is to be stupid and unquestioning (Gump)). However, it watching it again I saw that it is actually a pretty consistent satire of that position (for example, after having sex with gump's mother, his new principal says, "boy your mother sure loves you a lot" and gump, as a boy, makes the noises of the bed and the guy having sex. That being said, there's the over the top, simplistic metaphor shot twice or more of the feather blowing in the wind, cliched, impossible to believe scenes, it tells us nothing real about Vietnam or America, lousy camera work, and on and on. And then of course it commits a great crime against American runners by proclaiming us scared idiots.
Curious Person wrote:
The Sane One wrote:"Monster's Ball"
"Million Dollar Baby"
"Winter's Bone"
As was said before, "The English Patient"
Once liked, but cannot watch anymore: "Pulp Fiction"
Not liking Million Dollar Baby either means you have never been an athlete and cannot understand why anyone would become one, or you do not have a soul. That is the single greatest sports movie ever made. WTF is wrong with you?
Not trying to convince you but, to state one opposing view, watch "Million Dollar Baby" again and note the contempt with which it treats "Baby's" (poor) family and how the script encourages the audience to join in that contempt. Hated it when I watched it, then read a review that picked up on that point. "Crash", written by the same guy (Haggis), later won an Academy Award by pushing the same meanness. Hated that too. That won't last as a classic. "Million Dollar" has the sports story to serve as a cover for the nastiness.
Of course, a great movie can take a dark view and in fact be great for that reason. But there is a difference between humane melancholy and mean manipulation.
Redneck Aouita wrote:
Last Year at Marienbad was excellent but you had to appreciate it as a visual poem on memory. If you liked Jose Luis Borges or H.P. Lovecraft perhaps, then you would like Resnais' masterpiece.
On the other hand, I couldn't get into Hiroshima Mon Amour or Night and Fog. It's a shame since the director is a great film artist.
well. wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDgn46pRPXUEnd of thread.
I really like Borges, but his highly intellectual short stories are nothing like Resnais.
The guy who said Fellini's films are pretentious and have no soul....did he ever see "Amarcord?"
Are you attempting to claim that the Million Dollar Baby was prejudiced against poor people? Considering the two most likable characters spent the majority of the film well below the poverty line, that would just be idiotic. When you consider that the other film you claim to hate because it has evil characters (Crash) doesn't even have any real villains, I'm pretty sure you are just making crap up now.
You are either seeing things that aren't there or you hold a world view so incredibly different than mine that I can't understand you no matter how well you explain yourself. Do you not think that stories should have evil characters? Do you not think that there really are evil people? I can't actually fathom what extreme bias you could possibly have to see meanness as the center of those movies. Especially with Million Dollar Baby, you should have been so entranced with the light that you barely noticed the darkness that brought it into focus.
Hating Million Dollar Baby is a character flaw. I don't think I could really trust someone who did.
'I agree that Black Swan was a horrible movie and Nat Portman was not and is not and will never be a good actress. The camera loves her, but she can't act.'
Part of the problem I think with Black Swan was over expectation. It's a good film and Portman is a good actress but neither excelled
However, the main problem was, and I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned this, is the fact it was an inferior rip-off of The Red Shoes. Especially as the character in Black Swan seemed more interested in what people thought of her and being the Premier Ballerina. In The Red Shoes the obsession was with the art of ballet dancing itself
I am surprised at the dislike for A Clockwork Orange. That is one of the most obscene movies I have ever seen, and they got away with it somehow. At least give them credit for that much!
kickin it in el aziza wrote:
Raging Bull.
Gotta agree with this one.
terrible wrote:
Vertigo. That movie is a steaming pile of sh*t.
That charming statement says more about you than the film
It is an all time classic analysing the reality of love, which I suspect is beyond you limited comprehension.