I don't have much joy taking movie recommendations, as a rule (except Candide's - he recommends only good movies), because I have weird taste in films (and I've seen bazillions of them: my mother's earliest memories were of ornate London cinemas, usherettes, and being traumatised by The Blue Angel at six years old* because her mother was obsessed with films from their start and took her to see everything, as my mother did in her time, with me). I've been to weird art cinemas everywhere I've been, and that's my home turf when it comes to films; there isn't much allure to the ordinary releases** that Hollywood puts out, although once in a while something goes right.
Tiff and I used to go to the movies together but we almost never (or maybe it WAS never) saw anything decent (except when I dragged her to one or another art movie house). We saw Face Off - zomg that was such a bad film. Let me see... Someone's Mandolin - holy moley, baaaad. We went to see Matrix 2, and at some point it became apparent to me that she hadn't seen The Matrix and had no clue what was happening.*** Tiff likes weather and scenery. If there's no plot, acting, etc., etc., she's happy as a clam if it's got craggy mountains and a few blizzards. I'm more difficult to please - things have to have everything, plus a certain indefinable essence that I always think of as "it feels like I've seen a movie."****
She recommended a few films to me, today. /me grasps the table. Little Miss Sunshine, Nacho Libre, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. I think I can do the last one.
*I was traumatised by the death ray in Atlantis, the Lost Continent as a child - a less psychically damaging trauma. As The Blue Angel was to the Thirties, so Atlantis, the Lost Continent was to the Fifties - or so I could argue.
** Like when friends convinced me to go in a group to see PotC, which was godawful and boring, and was, I was told by Con's daughter (a film school grad student then), "It's supposed to be FUN." me/ goes out and beats her head on the lobby wall as that, apparently, must be fun, too.
***Me: The laws of physics don't apply.
T: OK (turns back to the screen resignedly)
****This is similar to going to see bands, or opera, or anything, in fact. A million invisible ribbons twist and turn and form themselves into something - or they don't. Cohesiveness of the artwork, I suppose (and I DON'T mean all the loose ends neatly tied at the end - that is a Bad Thing).
** Like when friends convinced me to go in a group to see PotC, which was godawful and boring, and was, I was told by Con's daughter (a film school grad student then), "It's supposed to be FUN." me/ goes out and beats her head on the lobby wall as that, apparently, must be fun, too.
***Me: The laws of physics don't apply.
T: OK (turns back to the screen resignedly)
****This is similar to going to see bands, or opera, or anything, in fact. A million invisible ribbons twist and turn and form themselves into something - or they don't. Cohesiveness of the artwork, I suppose (and I DON'T mean all the loose ends neatly tied at the end - that is a Bad Thing).
posted by 
- 7:45 PM
- 7:45 PM
Comments:
Pol says I'm way too accepting when it comes to films - that'll watch anything regardless how bad - that my taste level is set too low.
She is partly right, I will watch many films and some of them are poor. But it's not a question of taste for me - I like a really nice ale, but I'll drink a can of larger too. For me, it's just about understanding the difference and acctepting them.
I *LOVE* Gilliam's Brazil - one of the best films ever made for me, but at the same time I own Nacho Libre which is, on the whole, a very poor film but so bloody funny in places that it had me in tears.
I love it when a films has that certain combination of elements that make you realsise you are seeing a wonderful piece of artistry, but they come along so infrequently that into the gaps between I like to watch pulp too (Star Trek being a prime example :)
She is partly right, I will watch many films and some of them are poor. But it's not a question of taste for me - I like a really nice ale, but I'll drink a can of larger too. For me, it's just about understanding the difference and acctepting them.
I *LOVE* Gilliam's Brazil - one of the best films ever made for me, but at the same time I own Nacho Libre which is, on the whole, a very poor film but so bloody funny in places that it had me in tears.
I love it when a films has that certain combination of elements that make you realsise you are seeing a wonderful piece of artistry, but they come along so infrequently that into the gaps between I like to watch pulp too (Star Trek being a prime example :)
# posted by 
: 05 June, 2009 01:11
: 05 June, 2009 01:11
I don't think they come along all that infrequently - at least by my standards, and given that we've the whole world's output and entire history of film to mine.
There are mass quantities of good Asian films at the moment - and although in the past I've always seen the common art house films like Tokyo Nights and Tampopo, I'd guess there's loads that I missed at the time.
It's just personal taste, but I'm bored by pulp movies, copycat movies, endless pre- and sequels, movies based on other movies or comic books or rides at Disneyland - which I'd guess are movies made solely to generate teh phat lootz.
There are mass quantities of good Asian films at the moment - and although in the past I've always seen the common art house films like Tokyo Nights and Tampopo, I'd guess there's loads that I missed at the time.
It's just personal taste, but I'm bored by pulp movies, copycat movies, endless pre- and sequels, movies based on other movies or comic books or rides at Disneyland - which I'd guess are movies made solely to generate teh phat lootz.
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