Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Spring 2021 Edition

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Pranzo Oltranzista

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Oct 18, 2017
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You seem to have a problem with adjectives, period. I believe you are saying that the movie is an object unto itself alone and cannot be anything more than what it is. It is we the audience who perceive it to be something that is not fundamental to the thing itself, something that we append to the experience of watching it. But by that definition the movie is no more than a series of reels or digital information. Thus, there can be no such thing as a melancholy movie, a happy movie, a sad movie, a funny movie, a disgusting movie, or any other descriptor-of-choice movie. In reality most of us know a comedy when we see one because such movies are structured to make us laugh. As long as an individual or a group of people largely agree on what is comic in the movie, we can call it a funny movie. Same thing as a disgusting movie--as long as an individual or group of people can agree on the elements that make the movie repellent, we can label it disgusting. A coherent defence of the adjective we are using allows us to explain why a movie is funny or disgusting. When these opinions are shared by others, we have a kind of consensus. Same thing with "pretentious"--as long as there is some coherent elaboration of the criteria which the commentator(s) is (are) using to defend their consideration, a movie can be defensibly labelled as "pretentious." In short, a critic can call any movie what he or she wants as long as he or she can back it up with a reasonable defence.

As for demanding a list of words, well, you could do that with any descriptor just about. You could as easily say, give me a list of silly words, or annoying words, or elegant word, or petulant words. Like pretentious, silly, annoying. elegant, and petulant require elaboration to explain. To sum it, the fact that no movie is inherently anything but itself does not mean that the action it contains cannot be described as pretentious, silly, annoying, elegant, petulant, or anything else as long as one has a persuasive argument to back up the claim.

I have no problem with adjectives, I use 'em all the time to describe the films I watch.

I think I just don't understand "pretentious" the way you do. Pretentiousness to me implies pretending, or "trying to make yourself appear or sound more important or clever than you are" - and a film cannot pretend to be anything else than it is.

If the film you recognized (mostly through intertextual echo) as a comedy doesn't make you laugh, do you conclude that it's pretentious? Is it only pretending to "be" a comedy? No, you understood it as a comedy, and you can't blame an object for an intent that doesn't belong to it.

I think I'll need an example of a pretentious film, I just can't figure it.
 

Pranzo Oltranzista

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Oct 18, 2017
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You seem to have a problem with adjectives, period. [...] Thus, there can be no such thing as a melancholy movie, a happy movie, a sad movie, a funny movie, a disgusting movie, or any other descriptor-of-choice movie

And this is a non sequitur (pretentious words): pretending that if a film can't be inherently pretentious it couldn't have other characteristics (adjectives). Can a film be egocentric? bouncy? annoyed? omniscient? embarrassed? No? Thus there can be no such thing as a funny movie...



edit: I had dangerous in there at first, but then thought yeah... a film could be formally dangerous...
 
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kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
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Forget the created object for a moment, do you believe an artist can ever be described as pretentious?
 

Pranzo Oltranzista

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Oct 18, 2017
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Forget the created object for a moment, do you believe an artist can ever be described as pretentious?

A film can't be pretentious, it is what it is, it has no "intent". A director can be a pretentious prick, but this doesn't affect his films. The only trace of pretentiousness I've seen on film was in the credits of Le désirable et le sublime where Bénazéraf puts his own name alongside Shakespeare, Baudelaire and Camus.
 

Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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I, for one, think an artwork's meaning is built by the reader, meaning that you can understand something as pretentious (or as degrading to women) but this reading doesn't belong to the object being read. So many people read Godard's films as being pretentious, a proposition that's mostly ridiculous to someone who has the tools to read his work with a different angle.

By suggesting that a person with the right "tools" can read a work and find other readings ridiculous, you're agreeing that there is meaning built into a work. If an objective reading is possible, then other readings can't be dismissed as merely subjective.
 

Mantis

I am a doctah
Mar 7, 2011
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Crimetown, Saskatchewan
Mortal Kombat (2021)

I liked the fight scenes and the action but not really a fan of the story. The games story is honestly better and has like 100 characters. We did not really need a new main character. Still watchable.

6.5/10

Nobody (2021)

Basically just a wannabe John Wick but with a family man. It was alright, had some cool scenes. I thought the ending was kinda cheezy when his dad and RZA randomly team up with him for the final shootout but still an ok movie.

7/10

The Marksman (2021)

Not at all what I was hoping for. I was hoping it would just be Liam Neeson kicking a drug cartels ass for 1.5 hours but it is just him driving from the Mexican border to Chicago with a kid. There is a very anti-climactic shootout at the end but not worth sitting through the whole movie for.
Don’t watch if you like dogs

3.5/10
 
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Pranzo Oltranzista

Registered User
Oct 18, 2017
3,844
2,704
By suggesting that a person with the right "tools" can read a work and find other readings ridiculous, you're agreeing that there is meaning built into a work. If an objective reading is possible, then other readings can't be dismissed as merely subjective.

I am absolutely not suggesting an objective reading or understanding is possible, and never did. This doesn't mean there's not a signifiant construct into a work, there is something to be read.
 

MVP of West Hollywd

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Oct 28, 2008
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I think they've put more distance between the comparison in the past few years as Tom Hardy has gotten more and more famous but earlier in their careers I definitely crossed Tom Hardy with Logan Marshall Green. But I definitely double-taked the initial previews for both Prometheus and Devil with, "wait ... was that Tom Hardy?" (It wasn't).

And then there's these doppelgangers good-natured sent-up here.



I remember seeing this dude Mark Strong in movies like Sherlock Holmes and being like, that's NOT Andy Garcia?

5a3f62cb94767c07e3b02d4f2c3ecfc0.jpg
 

kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,724
10,274
Toronto
I remember seeing this dude Mark Strong in movies like Sherlock Holmes and being like, that's NOT Andy Garcia?

5a3f62cb94767c07e3b02d4f2c3ecfc0.jpg
I wish that he got bigger roles. A lot of the time he manages to combine intelligence, malice and humour, a nice combination.
 
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