I guess I hate movies
Sometimes people watch movies in our apartment.
Last week Kyle was watching A Beautiful Mind, which won the Oscar for best picture in 2002, which severely underwhelmed me the first time I watched it, but I sat in for a couple of scenes with an open mind as I ate my dinner, wondering if my dismal view of that film might improve.
Nope. I found it to be boring, sentimentalist and formulaic, which is unfortunate since the subject could have been a rather engrossing one. It's photographed in a very pretty way, though.
Then this week Ed, Nicole and I sat down to watch Million Dollar Baby, which I had heard good things about (Nicole fell asleep). This film won the Oscar for best picture in 2005, and I also felt it was mediocre at best. Even if you take the ending as simply a story with no political agenda behind it (which I frankly find difficult to do), it's still rather contrived and over-simplified in places and filled with clever, but unconsequential dialouge in other parts. I think it was better than A Beautiful Mind, but it certinally wasn't great art.
Maybe if you look at it as a deconstructionalist take on the underdog sports film . . . well, it's still not great.
I'm not sure if film school has ruined me, or if I am simply too picky, or if I just hate movies.
I could write a few pages on each of these films easily, but it doesn't really matter -- I believe in the necesseity of critical discussion of art, but on a certian level either you like the movie or you don't. And I didn't.
Honestlý, I'm trying to remember the last film that I really liked. Probably it was the Wallace and Gromit movie or something.
I'm going to bed. Thinking about movies makes me want to hit stuff.
posted by Aaron at 1:32 AM
16 Comments:
The problems is the rating system....too many studios only look at "Drama PG-13" or "Horror NC-17" before greenlighting, never relizing there is nothing new and really a repeat of a movie made 10 years ago...The movies I have enjoyed the most in the last 10 years are all independence. (Sernity wasn't bad) Usally on low budget about everyday stuff. Are all the good ideas gone? No, but too many chiefs and not enough indians make for similar flavor. Write YOUR story Aaron, and write it for you. Both of the Movies you mentioned were average for what is being shown and really only recogized due the talent involved. I great idea is just that, GREAT, and needs to pitch man.
While I did like A Beautiful Mind, I couldn't understand the hype of Million Dollar Baby, and you're about the first person I've heard NOT rave about it. The heck with movies, books are better anyway! Hurrah for plane tickets!!
Thanks for the comments everyone! Good points are made by all (and as I have mentioned, Jenny -- I do like Robert Frost).
I suppose I intellectually appreciate these movies as being decently and respectfully made, but on the same intellectual level I fault them for either their lack of ambition and pioneering spirit (in the case of A Beautiful Mind) or crippling shortsightedness in the face of rugged self-confidence (in the case of Million Dollar Baby, a worse crime now that I think about it).
It's not just that I don't like them as a matter of taste, I find them deficient as serious works of art.
Admittedly, I have high standards, but if someone is going to pour millions and millions of dollars on something that will confine me to a dark room for two hours, it quite frankly needs to be either quite brilliant or quite charming.
Books are much more mind-expanding in general. I finished an exhaustive, personal biography about Woody Guthrie today that was astounding, and I will keep it with me long after ABM and MDB have disapeared from my mind.
I do not remotely have a film critic's eye, so I don't think it's film school spoiling you for movies... I totally agree on Million Dollar Baby. It made me want to get super ripped, but that's about all it accomplished. Such cheezy music! Speaking of cheese, though, I also agree on Wallace and Gromit! By far the best movie I've seen in the theaters lately (unless you count Revenge of the Shogun Women in AWESOME 3D! but that was not a current flick).
I think Film school does that to people, causes them to analyze everything in a movie and tend to not enjoy movies or even TV for that matter as much as they use.
I wasn't a film student but I knew a few and took one film class and I really noticed that they don't really enjoy as many movies cause they analyze them like their is no tomorrow.
Anyhow I just thought I'd stop in and say Happy Thanksgving.
i mostly just want to hit things. All the time.
And did i mention that your mom leaves the most awesome comments? Honestlý!
I absolutely loved Million Dollar Baby, and I am extremely picky about movies. I will say I did not go in to see it expecting to like it. Aaron, how would you make these movies more "art"? I also disagree that MDB has a political agenda at the end. I did not get that impression. I felt the story was told but no conclusion was forced down anyone's throat as in some movies. If MDB politicized it, then how would you tell a story like that and show the characters' emotions without politicizing it?
I think art is important in movies, but plot and characterization will always carry the day in any storytelling genre. Nuveaux thinkers tend to forget that in the rush for thematic and stylistic effects. I didn't like A Beautiful Mind as much as MDB, but it was still very well characterized in my opinion. I disagree that just because these movies stick to more basic formulas and emotions that makes them subpar. There's a reason why those techniques and subjects are overused: when used well, they strike a resonant chord in a lot of people (the "common" people, if you will).
I will say that MDB isn't one of my all-time favorites, but for the potential to be very cliche and cheesy with its subject matter, I thought it did a very nice job.
Believe me, I understand the strengths of formula storytelling. It was what most of my filmschool education was built on, and I think it can serve a film very well.
I think I just hold my "important" and "meanigful" films to a higher standard -- I don't care if they use a traditional three-act structure or what not, they just have to say something new or be transcendant in some way. It's not enough to put characters through an emotional wringer and have some moving score music.
Part of the issue for me is that I am very aware of how artificial films are. Other people can get lost in them, but I try and be acutely aware of what's going on all the time. This means I don't enjoy movies as much, but I DON'T think that's a bad thing, at least for me.
*SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*
I felt that MDB had an agenda because of the number of emotional and logical leaps it had to make in order to get to its point at the end. If it were based on a true story (like The Sea Inside which is a far better film about euthenasia), or seemed like an inevitable conclusion for the character's arc, I would have bought it as just a story and not a film about an ISSUE.
And to its credit, MDB does a much better job of being a story first and a sermon second than most movies.
But everything in the film builds to the end. You don't make a sports movie where the heros win EVERY SINGLE FIGHT and NOT have something awful happen to them in the final act. Which doesn't mean it's bad or predictable or whatever, just that the whole first section of the film was building towards the final act, which was where the POINT of the movie is. They have to make some logical leaps to get there (really, when Clint is coaching her she wins EVERY fight? really?), but that's fine. It is fiction, after all.
But when there are too many sloppy conviniences in the final act. People don't just lose legs from bed sores unless they're in an awful hospital, and that he would be able to just waltz into the hospital like he did at the end reminded me of the same sort of contrivence in too many lame action movies. But most importantly, I never bought that Maggie, who fought hard thoughout the whole movie, would give up in the end. I understand the arguments of WHY she would, but felt like they were coming more from the filmmakers than from the character.
Anyway, we all look for different things in movies, so we won't all like the same thing. The longer I reflect on MDB, though, the less I like it.
Well I will say that when I think of the best movies all time, I don't think of million dollar baby. So in that I agree with you. However, let me say this: sports films are very limiting. They have a very limiting formula compared to other genres. I thought this movie did a commendable job at showing a good story that wasn't cliche while still sticking to the formula. The characters were very interesting; they weren't at all typical. Yet the film still kept the upward action of a sports genre that people expect, thus not betraying the viewer. I am a big sports fan, and honestly I groan at the vast majority of sports movies because I think they are way oversimplified compared to real life. I thought MDB did a very good job showing a movie that still had the feel-good action of a sports movie without the cheesy feel-good plot. I think either a) you don't enjoy sports enough to enjoy this movie or b) you really have a problem with the potentially political issues. Probably it's some of both, but I'm betting its more the former. You have to like (or at least be interested in) sports to like this movie.
You say that she never loses, but I don't get your saying that--obviously she loses in the final match, and the story pf her actual fights hasn't been developed very much yet by that point. If we were seeing years and years of fights, that might be a little unbelievable, but a core point of the story is that she had a very short yet very brilliant career that ended tragically. I think it's believable that in her sport at that time the field as a whole wasn't super talentes, and she won most of her fights if you remember against the bottom of the field because the agents wouldn't take her seriously enough to be in big fights. That makes sense to me. And even if it doesn't, honestly there's no other option. Showing her losing would diminish the final tragedy. People wouldn't care because she wouldn't have been great. It's only tragic because she was great. Tragedy requires a fall from greatness, not a fall from realistical-ness.
I think the hospital part was believable, too. It shows her there over a long period of time, which makes the bedsores and losing the leg a lot more believable. I thought her wanting to die was very understandable, especially with her background of first feeling worthless and then rising to greatness only to have it dashed at the highest point. Who would want to live after that? Either you'd want to die out of depression or you'd want to die because you've experienced the best part of life, so why wait until you get depressed and life is jaded? I do agree with you somewhat about him just waltzing into the hospital. I think it was easier for the film to get away with it because of the strength of the emotional investment most viewers had in the movie by that time. The point was much more that he did it, not how he did it. And it wasn't glaringly impossible, either; he'd been going there every day for a long time after all, so the staff probably wouldn't think to question him that one time.
I really disagree with you about The Sea Inside too. I saw that movie and was disappopinted. I thought the plot was really weak; it looked more like a documentary. And if either movie had an agenda, it was that one (even though I agree with the agenda for the most part). But that wasn't really bad, either, since the movie was open from the beginning that it had an agenda.
Wow, this is all excellent discussion going on! i recently saw MDB too and wasn't sure what to think of it, so it's been pretty good to sort of absorb all this like a sponge. i personally didn't like the film's conclusion and didn't really understand what it was trying to do, but i did like many other aspects of it, a few of which i didn't really realize until Chuck brought them up. Aro, you bring some good points to the table also. La dee da!
Hmmm, well I saw The Sea Inside in Spanish, and didn't catch all of what was being said, so we may have well seen very different movies when it comes to that one. I felt that while the character if that film had an obvious agenda, the filmmakers were more just telling his story than necessarially arguing for his point of view. In that way it could either be seen as pro-euthenasia or subtly anti-euthenasia, but really was just showing a version of what happened to this man and his family and friends.
Of course, it's been over a year since I saw it . . . I might not be remembering the film very well.
As for your points about why I might not like the film -- a). I rather enjoy good sports movies. I was willing to stick with MDB despite its contrivences at the beginning BECAUSE of this fact. b). To a certian degree I DO disagree with the politics of this film, especially because I have a few friends who are paralyized or severelly disabled and their strength of character in spite of their situation greatly impresses me. However, I recognize that it's a complex issue, and I can still appreciate a well-made film even if I don't agree with it (like The Sea Inside).
My main problem with MDB was that it seemed to me that the whole film was crafted as an argument -- an argument that you laid out pretty well in your last post. In many ways this is a normal way to write a movie: you figure out FIRST what you want to say, what themes you want to deal with or what sort of mood you want to create, and then you create characters and situations that will facilitate that.
So that's fine. In many ways, MDB is an excellent example of how to do that sort of thing.
I'm not sure that makes it a great movie, though.
I need to go to work now. I may return to this line of thought later.
Really, though . . . I'm not sure if this is an argument that can be WON. Everyone likes movies for different reasons, and everyone experiences movies in slightly different ways. Hopefully through this we can understand each other's point of views a little bit better, but I don't know that we'll be able to come to an agreement or change each others' minds.
Aaron, let me say I don't care whether either of us wins the argument! It's just really enjoyable for me to see a fellow critic's views on this sort of thing. I respect what you have to say (and show it by all the time I take to respond) because I know you know what you're talking about. I groan inwardly so often when trying to discuss these things with friends or family who (despite good intentions) really have no idea what they're talking about.
I may very well be wrong in my guesses about why you didn't like the movie. But I think we are closer to agreeing than it at first may have seemed. I agree with you and -aaron- that if anything weakened the film, it was the ending--at least in how easily he was able to pull it off. That did strike me as a bit hard to believe. I think that is a big reason why I wouldn't consider it one of the best movies I've seen.
As far as The Sea Inside, I saw the Spanish version too (was there another one?) with subtitles. I guess when I think about it more, maybe it didn't have such a clear agenda, at least maybe not any more than was necessary to show the man's point of view. Although I did think some choices they made in how to portray the consequences of his decision were more forgiving to the pro-euthenasia ideology than perhaps someone completely objective would be. I didn't have a problem with that, though, because a) the movie was low-budget independent, and I have more forgiveness for that type of movie taking an active agenda, b) I didn't feel like the agenda was being masked, and c) I personally lean towards a pro-euthenasia perspective. The problem I had with that film was more the fact that it had barely a plot to speak of. You basically see this guy laying in bed the whole movie. Now I know the nature of the content made it that way, but that doesn't change the fact that it dragged. Perhaos it wasn't a good choice for conversion to film, or perhaps the director should have done more to provide more action, or perhaps the plot weakness ought to be forgiven in light of the important questions raised by the theme.
I really didn't think MDB had an agenda other than to take a theoretical situation and examine what would happen to bring it to the ultimate culmination, the point of no return in the words of McKee. Actually, to rephrase what I just said, I thought that the filmmakers might have had an agenda, but the film didn't. The film showed us the painful possibilities of one situation and let the viewer decide if it was right or wrong, and in my mind, that is exactly what a film ought to do. The characters were trying to persuade me to sympathize with their view, not the director. I've seen too many movies where the director (or writer or whoever else influences this sort of thing--I need to be fair) is obviously manipulating character dialogue to insert his own ideology.
Again, MDB isn't a great movie, but it is a good movie, as millions of viewers attested to. I believe it deserved the acclaim it received. But I'll take The motorcycle diaries or Maria Full of Grace, even adaptation or School of Rock, any day.
p.s. The acting in MDB was brilliant, probably better than the writing. That fact should be noted when judging its success.
p.p.s. On the subject of films with ideologies, I don't think a film having an ideologu is bad at all as long as it is a) honest about it, b) still tells a good story and c) let's the story persuade, not the writer or director. I actually appreciate a film that takes a difficult issue and (often despite opposition) tries to find the truth of that situation. A case in point is The Woodsman. I thought that was one of the best movies I've ever seen as far as showing a truly novel idea. Now, a lot of people hated it because of its message, and that's fine. But I commend the producers of that film for their bravery in tackling something that they knew most people wouldn't understand. I am a seeker of truth and I guess I empathize with people I perceive as fellow seekers willing to examine more than the majority view, whether or not I agree with them.
I am glad that we can listen to and respect each other's opinions without worrying about changing them! That's what makes for a good discussion.
I don't know if they dubbed The Sea Inside when it was released in the U.S. . . . but since I saw it in Spanish I saw it without subtitles, so I didn't catch all the dialouge or nearly all of the subtleties.
It's funny to me that you call it a low-budget film, because it was probably one of the BIGGEST releases in Spain of the year. It was directed by one of Spain's most acclaimed directors (second only to Almodovar, probably) and had a great Spanish cast. There were posters for it all over Granada, and it was probably the hit of the season.
Not just the art-house hit, either.
That doesn't have much to do with whether or not it's a good film, but it just shows the difference in audience reaction and perception in different places.
I remember thinking that the film was remarkably visual and well-paced for being about a guy stuck in bed, but I saw it on the big screen, which does make a difference. I thought the subject was compelling and that they dealt with the issues were complex . . . if you're going to make a film about a topic as heavy as euthenasia, I would say THAT'S the way to do it, rather than "Do you remember Old Yeller?" (or whatever the dog's name was).
Aside from lines like that (which really did make me go "oh come on!"), what bugged me the most about MDB was that it seemed to me that the whole story revolved around the idealology, quite the opposite of what you said about the characters trying to convince you, not the director.
Eastwood does a good job of being conflicted about the whole thing, but the only character who presents an opposing view is the priest, who is painted as rather cold and unsympathetic.
In the universe of the movie, Eastwood clearly makes the right choice. Otherwise his redemption is unjustified and the whole narrative arc of the film is unfulfilled.
This is fine. Each movie creates its own universe with its own rules, etc. Clint's redemption arc is actually rather interesting.
The problem I have with this kind of film is that it often seems to me that they are trying to convince the audience that the world of the film is the same as the world that we live in.
This isn't to say that a movie can't accurately reflect reality, but I think that MDB is too stylized in terms of plot, characters, etc (I thought the lighting was rather poorly stylized as well, just to throw that out there) to make a coherent argument about euthenasia. I guess it's perfectly fair to say that the film wasn't trying to make an argument about that . . . but I would say that in playing fast and loose with an actual hot-button issue they are being a bit socially irreponsible.
And they're liberals! I know!!
School of Rock, by the way, is awesome, and I also saw The Motorcycle Diaries in Spain and enjoyed it. Have not seen Maria Full of Grace, and thought Adaptation was rather fun.
I think we'll just have to diagree about ideology here. . . . If you're going to talk about opposing views, what about The Sea Inside? The priest in that film might as well be the devil himself.
And when I wrote The Sea Inside was a low-budget film, I had a twinge of doubt myself . . . just goes to show that I shouldn't say anything about stuff I'm not sure about. It did do a good job for showing a guy in bed, but not good enough IMO.
I really don't see the whole story of MDB revolving around ideology, whereas the whole story of TSI (The Sea Inside) is clearly revolving around one. MDB can be watched just for the sports high. Maybe what makes you upset is that you feel an ideology was infused into a movie that most people would see as just a sports movie . . . if so, I can understand you there. But honestly, I thought they were fair in how they represented it. You only really have a chance in any film to show one side, one possibility, one ultimate choice. Thus you will ultimately end up looking like you have an ideology in that sense. If they had gone the other direction with it and he would have fought to keep her alive, then liberals would be crying agenda. the real question to me, then, is does the film stay true to its genre and is it fair in its representation? Great films leave the audience feeling like those charcaters in that situation couldn't possibly have made any other choice. Call that infusing ideology if you want, but that's what it has to be. It's not like journalism where your purpose is to show as many perspectives as possible. You have one chance to show one set of characters in one situation and ultimately making one decision. To me, that decision rang true for the characters of MDB. The only thing that bothered me was the realistic-ness of how he pulls off the act.
All films will have an ideology; the question is how truthful is the ideology chosen by the charcaters in the given situation? The best thing a film can do for me is make me say, wow, I really understand that type of person now in a way I never understood them before. That doesn't mean I'll agree with the decision/ideology chosen by the characters; it just means I understand why they would do what they do given their situation. That's what I mean when I say the charcaters argue for the ideology. Maybe a better way to say it is that the truthful portrayal of a person in a situation where the audience feels like given that person's character they couldn't possibly make a different choice--that's a good movie and a respectable way of propogating an ideology, if that's truly what it is. But if that's true, I propogate ideologies in my work all the time that I don't agree with.
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