Topic: The Movie Thread

I watched the Godfather 2 but still haven’t seen the 1st one and saw about an hour of the 3rd one before deciding it was terrible. Not the way to watch a movie series, I’ll put it that way.

The Godfather isn't a bad movie, but it's SO boring. I never bothered with the sequels.

@LN78 It’s an easy movie to see why people would think it would be boring though. Mafia movies aren’t for everyone. Not everyone enjoys a slow burn sorta movie.

@LN78 All you can really establish by citing critical consensus is that the film is popular with critics, which I was already aware of. And I'm sure it's a fine film on a technical level, but I also didn't find its characters, storytelling, or themes to be particularly engaging.

So, my concession is that the film "isn't bad."

@Th3solution If you're careless with money, you can end up broke. Even if you're a rich celebrity. The degree to which people blow cash just scales to the amount of cash they have.

@nessisonett I like slow burn movies when there's something rewarding about them. I didn't find The Godfather to be a particularly rewarding experience.

@Ralizah Yeah, we all have that one movie everyone loves that you just don’t. Can’t stand Inception in the slightest. Not a fan of The Shawshank Redemption and didn’t particularly like Pulp Fiction either. Critics are all well and good but they have their own tastes as well.

@LN78 Do you ACTUALLY enjoy the film, or do you just feel obligated to say you do because you've fallen into a cult-like mentality when it comes to film culture and critical consensus?

It says volumes, I think, that you're so reliant on external factors when it comes to defending this film. Metacritic, "generations of movie fans," etc. Who cares about that? Good art can and should be defended on its own terms, even if everyone else in the world despises it.

Citizen Kane, too, is definitely an important film, and probably a good one, but it's hardly interesting compared to a lot of cinema that released today. I can think of many, many films I've enjoyed more. If some movie critic somewhere is inclined to disagree, that's their business.

@nessisonett I revisited Shawshank recently. I remembered not being gaga for it, but the film has held up nicely. Its themes are timely and emotionally resonant for me. The storytelling itself is just perfect, and it's so well-paced. It holds up much more nicely than The Green Mile, IMO, which I also revisited, and which I found troubling in terms of the way it leaned into racist tropes. The film is also, frankly, probably an hour longer than it needs to be.

Even as a Nolan fan, though, Inception did nothing for me. All of Nolan's films border on being a little too self-important, and I think Inception is where he tipped over the edge for me in that regard. It's absolutely not worth the effort one needs to put in to keep track of everything.

Pulp Fiction is on the lower end of Tarantino films for me. I think it mainly wowed people when it came out because they hadn't seen anything like it before - Tarantino's "tude" was still new to the world of cinema. Of course, I've never been a big fan of his, although, IMO, Kill Bill Vol. 1 is still one of the best action films ever made.

"I've written an important dissertation about this very important film. You're not allowed to disagree.

BTW get bent u prick"

How the mighty have fallen.

I have no problem with you disagreeing with me. But when I say I don't enjoy a film and you get offended and start citing Metacritic and Top 30 lists and cry about me having "the front" to not call it a masterpiece, it strikes me as a little cultish. That's all.

@LN78 When I say the film "isn't bad" (which should be taken at face value; it sounds like we both agree that the film isn't bad), that isn't meant to tarnish the film's legacy or imply that you or anyone else is wrong for considering it a masterpiece. It's meant to reflect my experience with it, and that's all.

It's probably a well-directed film. It's certainly an influential one. And that's fantastic. I'm glad you enjoy it so much. I don't, and I'm not inclined to praise films that I didn't take to. And in the absence of more generalized criticisms of it (which I resolutely did NOT engage in), there was really no reason for you to get so upset by what I said.

What I find baffling is your quick turn to Metacritic and box office success and critical consensus as a means to defend the honor of this film. As if those mean anything of importance.

Black Panther, for example, is apparently #1 on Rotten Tomatoes' "Best Movies of All Time" list. It's also one of the top ten highest grossing films of all time. Would you grant, then, that Black Panther is a "better" film than The Godfather?

@LN78 If you didn't care, you wouldn't have responded to my post in the way you did. You clearly care that I didn't like the film. Probably because, to you, my "dismissal" of it is is like saying "all those decades worth of audiences and critics and film students were wrong." Which is a mindset utterly alien to me; I have never, and will never, feel inclined to tell other people that they're wrong for how they relate to a piece of art.

If I think a film is bad in some way outside of my own subjective relation to it, I'll say so, and usually outline the problems I feel objectively exist in its construction. The fact that The Godfather bored me to death isn't an objective problem with the film, it's a problem with my relation to the film. It didn't resonate with me. And that's a completely legitimate way to feel.

The sticking point seems to be that I won't grant that the film is a "masterpiece," and I won't, because I've not seen anything to convince me it is, and you certainly haven't supplied a reason for thinking it is beyond scores of other people saying it is. Which is what prompted the comment about you adopting a "cultish mentality." When I defend something I think is worth defending, I lean into what I actually feel the strong points of that thing are. I don't say: "This many critics all agree that it's great, so there's no way it couldn't be." I don't care what critics think. If I care about what Peter Travers thinks about a film, I'll read something he wrote or try talking to him. If I care about how Roger Ebert likes a film, I'll read one of his reviews or grab a ouija board and try to commune with his spirit (or, more likely, with my own delusions and suggestibility).

There is nothing "foolish" or "arrogant" about exercising one's own judgment. If you don't like the Mona Lisa, just say that and be done with it. You're not entitled prostrate yourself before da Vinci's ghost every time you feel inclined to share something about your own likes and dislikes.

I assume the idea here is that The Godfather has endured decades of critique and analysis, and Black Panther hasn't?

Hypothetical scenario: in 40 years, it's still the highest ranking film on Rotten Tomatoes and one of the highest grossing films of all time. Would that make Black Panther a "better" film than The Godfather?

@LN78 You do realise people aren't lawfully obligated to call a film they did not enjoy a masterpiece, even if the majority of other people think it is, right? Ralizah is simply stating that his opinion was that the film was not bad, which in no way takes away from the legacy of the film. You seem to be getting oddly worked up over what is, frankly, a non-issue. He can say the film is not bad because he feels that way, and you can call it a masterpiece because you feel that way. I don't know what you're getting up on your high horse for. I don't think anything Ralizah has said has come from a place of arrogance or malice. You just seem to be interpreting it that way because somehow The Godfather isn't allowed to have dissenting opinions.

Anyway, let's all watch the true masterpiece that is Portrait of a Lady on Fire instead and report back when you do!

I never realized you regarded my opinion so highly. I'm flattered.

But no, The Godfather is a film. That's all it is.

I don't think it's a masterpiece. You do.
Critics and audiences broadly align with your viewpoint, so the popular opinion is that the film is a masterpiece.

Your first reply: That "not bad" film is one of the few with a 100 score on metacritic and is frequently cited as one of the best American films ever made. It's a complete masterpiece.

Your second reply: It's also in the Top 30 (adjusted for inflation) box office attractions of all time. The fact that its (endlessly fascinating) themes and characters didn't resonate with you is frankly neither here nor there - generations of movie fans have found it to be amongst THE most rewarding movies ever made. Sucks that you didn't like it, I guess.

Afterward, I accused you of adopting a "cultish" attitude, and hilarity ensued.

So, other than your "endlessly fascinating themes and characters" comment, everything else in your defense of the film was devoted to the critical and commercial reception of the film.

I'm also kinda flattered you think I'm cool, though.

Nothing.

What does Metacritic and/or box office success have to do with whether a film is a masterpiece or not?

@Tjuz

I guess just anyone can get a biopic these days, huh?

But, seriously, is that film you mentioned ACTUALLY something you'd recommend? I'll give it a try, but "French-language romantic period drama" doesn't exactly send shivers of anticipation up my leg.

@LN78

You didn't DIRECTLY say I'm cool, but we've established:

(a) I'm iconoclastic (you didn't say this directly, but that comment wouldn't make sense if you weren't suggesting as much)

(b) Iconoclasm is cool

So that would suggest I possess some degree of the property "coolness," wouldn't it?

There's no reason to hide your feelings for me.

I accept your apology for calling me a "total prick."
In turn, I'll apologize for suggesting you don't genuinely enjoy The Godfather.

Fair play. The words "acting, cinematography, and music" do indeed crop up in that post, and you do attach a positive value judgment to these qualities of the film.

Saying the film is "not bad" isn't an understatement, though. It's a very concise representation of my feelings about it. An understatement, in light of the evidence you've furnished, would be: "The general critical consensus about the film is that it isn't bad."

I'd probably expect most old movies with a high degree of cultural influence to be "not bad," I agree. But we've circled around to my original judgment of the film as not being "bad" now.

What I want to know is why factors like critical consensus and box office success are relevant when discussing the masterpiece status of The Godfather, but not so when discussing Black Panther. Do you consider Black Panther to be high art on par with Coppola's most acclaimed work?

@LN78

Well, the reason I honed in on Black Panther is mostly because, for whatever reason, it shows up at the top of Rotten Tomatoes' Best Films of All Time list.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/

How it's at the top despite having a lower tomato score is beyond me. Probably something to do with the number of reviews and perfect ratings it received versus other films, I imagine.

That aligned well with it being #10 or so on the highest grossing films of all time list I dug up.

As to why I'm bringing up this random other film? Because, so far, you've broadly identified critical consensus and box office gross as the metrics by which we judge the worth of a film. And, while Black Panther is definitely another film that can accurately be described as "not bad," I doubt most people who don't live and breathe comic books or aren't black/ethnically African would think of it as a cinematic masterpiece.

I mean, I understand your point: everybody loves The Godfather and think it's the bee's knees. Moreover, as you've pointed out, its reputation has held up over decades, and it has influenced generations of crime dramas, and probably cinema in general. I've never contested or lamented that.

My point is that a critical consensus born of everyone automatically agreeing with everyone else is useless. If you can't articulate WHY something is a masterpiece (which I imagine you probably have before if you wrote an entire dissertation about it), then it's a hollow judgment. My problem isn't that you consider it a masterpiece. It's that the reasoning you continually adopted was that other people think the film is a masterpiece. Which, fair enough, they do. But I don't care about what they think. I'll talk to them if I care about their opinion on The Godfather. If the film is as gosh darn amazing as you're making it out to be, then I'd expect you to articulate that on your own terms.

Although that wouldn't be necessary in the first place. As I said, I never generalized it as a bad film (in fact, I said the exact opposite), and no amount of discussion is going to make me think the film isn't boring as sin. I don't think the film is a "masterpiece," but I have no issue with you characterizing it as such.

Although this discussion does bring another subject to mind: do you think it's only possible to judge a film as a masterpiece after it has been through the cultural wringer for decades? Like, when Citizen Kane first released, was that not a masterpiece upon release, but only at some indeterminate point later when enough critics had judged it to be as much?

I know. My reply was a less poorly framed attempt at teasing you.

I can't really say I thought a film was "good" when I didn't like the characters, found the pacing to be excessively slow, and generally was un-enthralled with the experience. So I committed to saying it's "not bad," which I think is fair. It's not a bad film.

How about this: it's a film possessed of superior technical qualities related to the direction, editing, and acting, but also one I found to be boring and, sadly, unenjoyable.

Sonic the Hedgehog - not bad but not great either and I don't think I was the target audience. Jim Carrey steals the show but I found Sonic incredibly annoying.

The Lighthouse - masterfully directed and acted film. A bit bonkers, claustrophobic, audacious and very ambiguous but a hard film to reccomend. Think I preferred Eggers previous film The Witch.

@JohnnyShoulder I loved The Lighthouse. Just a right weird movie from start to finish. ‘Stark’ probably describes it best.

@LN78 That's fair, I think. There's absolutely a larger discussion to be had here about objective standards of beauty in art (or lack thereof) and what role social consensus ought to play in our value-judgments about art, but I think I'll leave that for another day.

That genuinely doesn't surprise me. 😂

No hard feelings indeed. And no worries: even us deliberately contrarian iconoclasts have to consume food as well.

Enjoy your dinner!

@JohnnyShoulder The Lighthouse was one of my favorite films of 2019 (actually ended up liking it slightly more than Aster's Midsommar, which was also pretty great). Some VERY cool cinematography, neat use of symbolism, and the spiraling homoerotic insanity between DaFoe and Pattinson was consistently entertaining.

@Arugula Yeah, that’s a bonkers but pretty funny movie. Jon Voight’s wink is the stuff of legend.

@nessisonett @Ralizah It was a fascinating watch and one of those films I couldn't tear my eyes away from. The majority of films I watch these days I end picking my tablet up and posting on here, so it is a good sign when a film is able to hold my attention.

After his excellent turns in Rover, Good Time and Cosmopolis, I think Batman is in good hands with Robert Pattinson.

I really like Misdsommar, definitely one of the most beautifully shot films I've seen recently, but when I was watching it I couldn't help myself from thinking of The Wicker Man. Again think I preferred the director’s previous film Hereditary.

Probably important to note that Midsommar’s one of those movies I mentioned before that everyone loved but I just didn’t 😅

@JohnnyShoulder Superficially, it does sort of resemble The Wicker Man, although what distinguishes Midsommar is its exploration of grief, attachment, and family. While it's a very dark film, the key to appreciating it, I think, is to realize that it's not ACTUALLY a horror film. Not in a traditional sense, anyway.

Hereditary is also great, though. I felt gutted after watching it. One of the tenser cinematic experiences I've had. The ending twist makes what came before even better (worse?).

Have you watched The Strange Thing About the Johnsons?

@nessisonett Heretic!

What didn't you like about it?