The Official Movie Thread

[rms]

The Brood is sick and I'll check out fat city

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

John Wick 2 was pretty awesome. Need a second viewing

 

[rms]

don't get the masterpiece angle. anyone else seen it?

 

[no country for old wainds]

his previous film (the extended cut of MARGARET) ia a candidate for best movie of the decade IMO but i haven't seen this one yet. not sure i'd expect lonergan to be this forum's kinda thing.

 

[Einherjar86]

The film is entirely character-driven, and has very little plot to speak of beyond the impetus for the film itself: the death of the protagonist's brother.

The acting is phenomenal, and that's really the most I can say. It's well-written, sure, but my favorite kinds of films involve plot/narrative. There isn't much of that here, and so it's not something I'll re-watch. It was cool watching a movie about New England coastal towns though, I have a bit of a romantic fascination with them.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i'm expecting it to fall more in line with his debut, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, which was a really strong, well acted archetypal melodrama, no more no less. MARGARET has a great drama at its centre but the way it frames that is what makes it special. incredibly perceptive and emotionally complex movie, one of the most 'human' things i've ever watched.

 

[rms]

the plot of Margaret on IMDB makes it sound almost eerily similar to Manchester

 

[no country for old wainds]

all i'll say is if anyone wants to watch it they should go for the three hour cut. i can't imagine it being your thing but ein may like it.

 

[rms]

so it's like Blade Runner and Fury Road into 1?

 

[Einherjar86]

My problem with responding to requests like "Tell me why this movie is good, guys," it's that it's a total nonstarter. I can't tell you why a movie is good, because you either like it or you don't. I can tell you why Blade Runner is a historically important film, why it participates in a tradition of urban SF, but nothing I say is going to make you like it, or think it's good. It's like saying "I think risotto is disgusting--tell me why I should like it!" Well, no, because what other people find enjoyable about it is exactly what you, for various reasons, found unenjoyable.

You seem to have this need to penetrate art at some kind of meta-aesthetic level, and it simply isn't a viable conversation. That doesn't mean a movie isn't worth watching for its cultural relevance.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i think there are a lot of things i love nowadays that i would never have loved if i hadn't heard or read different perspectives which forced me to reconsider my own. rewatches are often quite different to first viewings due to my approaching them from different angles, and that's often down to conversations i've had or works of criticism i've read. so i'm not sure i agree that it's a futile question, although maybe it is with rms haha

 

[rms]

not even sure why you posted that comment

if it's to my first post on Manchester, I was interested to see if anyone felt it was indeed a "masterpiece." or even worthy of repeated viewings or "OMG GO OUT TODAY AND BUY IT!". Your opinion and mine is very similar if not entirely the same, the film lacks a large theme to develop around. it's a character study that goes nowhere, in essence.

Spoiler

are we supposed to be happy at the end because he's improving? don't think that was the point of Affleck's character, quite honestly.

if it's to my last, I was making a joke since I don't think he knows the vast majority of my film opinions let alone even a small minority nor yours. I think i've talked about maybe 5 movies in this thread the past year, i'd be surprised if it even hit 5

so i'm not sure i agree that it's a futile question, although maybe it is with rms haha

what is it with you two and making assumptions off very little if any information?

 

[no country for old wainds]

what is it with you taking jokey comments seriously?

anyways, you both post in this thread enough to get at least a vague idea of what you're into.

 

[Einherjar86]

i think there are a lot of things i love nowadays that i would never have loved if i hadn't heard or read different perspectives which forced me to reconsider my own. rewatches are often quite different to first viewings due to my approaching them from different angles, and that's often down to conversations i've had or works of criticism i've read. so i'm not sure i agree that it's a futile question, although maybe it is with rms haha

Part of it could be my personal skepticism toward aesthetics. I'm always more interested in the cultural impact of texts rather than what makes them good. So when I encounter questions about a work's quality or its status as a masterpiece, I recoil a little bit.

I don't think I've ever changed my opinion about whether I like a text in an aesthetic way, but I have changed my mind about the cultural relevance and ideological substance to be found in a certain text.

not even sure why you posted that comment

I actually wasn't trying to be confrontational. I was trying to explain what I think is my allergy to your way of looking for quality in any given film.

 

[rms]

I think there's a critical problem if you cannot explain to someone why you enjoy a film, album or book/novel/etc. Enjoy, here, is being limited to subjective measures, not critical or technical aptitude.

if you're having a conversation in 'real' life and someone asks you why you liked "X," do you just go "man, I can never convince you so let's drop it" -- it's not about convincing, it's about hearing other perspectives. When we talked Blade Runner, you cited the book more than the film because you didn't remember the film or something like that.

In fact, no one on here has ever been able to say why they actually like the film in the several times it's come up. I find that fascinating when it's talked about as one of those films that didn't get the respect it deserved when it came out or a "Manilla Road" of films, perhaps.

what is it with you taking jokey comments seriously?

that last line doesn't really come off as jokey so whatever and the reply was meant for Ein but you posted first

 

[no country for old wainds]

i care primarily about the actual experience on a sensory/emotional level, and how the film's treatment of themes etc serves that. i'm not much of a historian and i'm not especially interested in the idea of 'quality', but i'm very interested in why a film affects me a certain way, and why it affects other people in a different way.

 

[rms]

according to Ein, that 'feeling' doesn't matter, only the academic scholarship around said film does

 

[Einherjar86]

I think there's a critical problem if you cannot explain to someone why you enjoy a film, album or book/novel/etc. Enjoy, here, is being limited to subjective measures, not critical or technical aptitude.

Well, I told you why I enjoyed Mad Max, and you were an asshole about it. There's also a critical problem if you can't have a conversation about subjective reactions to a film without the other person going "WRONG."

 

[rms]

I was being difficult and contrarian, mainly because the film's purported feminism seemed to piss off rms to no end, for who knows what fucking reason.

This just reaffirms my impression that you have stupid opinions on movies, haha.

If there's anyone who understands the difference between pop feminism and academic, it's me (sorry for tooting my horn, but I'm around this stuff constantly).

I'm doubtful that you've seen more "important" films than I have (or that you even realized you were watching an important film, for that matter).

but yeah, I was being the asshole.

 

[Einherjar86]

You were. I just responded in kind.

Look, I don't like what you say about movies or your approach to understanding them. I don't expect you to acquiesce in any way. I'm dropping it.