If a film is trying to be a pseudo-intellectual fuck-fest and fails to do so it should be called out on it. Shutter Island I think tries it and fails. It’s like Scorsese saw Memento, thought “I can do that”, but he couldn’t.
If a film is just dumb fun like M3GAN, then that’s OK. More than fine. The worst thing you can do there is be boring. Michael Bay made robots fighting boring. Colin Trevorrow made dinosaurs boring. If you’re going to be dumb then at least be fun.
Hell, even Tron Ares is OK if you go into it expecting a two hour long music video. If you go into it expecting good acting, a script, a story, or anything other than Trent Reznor assaulting your eardrums to a light show, you’re going to be disappointed.
Yes thank you, that’s what I have tried to explain to so many people. It’s all about intent.
I love your use of Shutter Island as an exemple of a movie that tried too hard to be smart and mindbinding (even though I am usually a Scorsese fanboy). I felt a similar way about Inception. In comparison, Coherence surpassed both those movies in that regard with a budget of only 50k$.
However, in a completely different line, I loved John Wick because it was just about a guy going all berzerk at people that killed his dog. It was not trying to do anything else than being about people shooting at each other, but it was directed so well that I was hooked from the get-go.
You know what film failed to challenge even a second grade understanding of anything? Blues Brothers. You know what film really nails being two solid hours of entertainment? Blues Brothers.
At no point in either movie do you ever wonder what is going to happen to the protagonist, how they’re going to get out of a predicament, or think about the world we live in. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t, because you’re jamming out to Aretha Franklin absolutely killing it.
I love dark introspective movies with layers of nuance that make me stare in to infinity for a while had thinking about what I saw. I also love dumb fun entertainment. There’s a wide gap between those two extremes where quality just falls in to a mediocre valley of boring. And right at the middle there’s another peak where truly rare films manage to strike a balance between stupid fun and introspective. It’s like horseshoes, close counts because you almost never hit the peg. Mandy comes to mind. So does the first Iron Man.
It’s all about intent.
If a film is trying to be a pseudo-intellectual fuck-fest and fails to do so it should be called out on it. Shutter Island I think tries it and fails. It’s like Scorsese saw Memento, thought “I can do that”, but he couldn’t.
If a film is just dumb fun like M3GAN, then that’s OK. More than fine. The worst thing you can do there is be boring. Michael Bay made robots fighting boring. Colin Trevorrow made dinosaurs boring. If you’re going to be dumb then at least be fun.
Hell, even Tron Ares is OK if you go into it expecting a two hour long music video. If you go into it expecting good acting, a script, a story, or anything other than Trent Reznor assaulting your eardrums to a light show, you’re going to be disappointed.
Yes thank you, that’s what I have tried to explain to so many people. It’s all about intent.
I love your use of Shutter Island as an exemple of a movie that tried too hard to be smart and mindbinding (even though I am usually a Scorsese fanboy). I felt a similar way about Inception. In comparison, Coherence surpassed both those movies in that regard with a budget of only 50k$.
However, in a completely different line, I loved John Wick because it was just about a guy going all berzerk at people that killed his dog. It was not trying to do anything else than being about people shooting at each other, but it was directed so well that I was hooked from the get-go.
You know what film failed to challenge even a second grade understanding of anything? Blues Brothers. You know what film really nails being two solid hours of entertainment? Blues Brothers.
At no point in either movie do you ever wonder what is going to happen to the protagonist, how they’re going to get out of a predicament, or think about the world we live in. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t, because you’re jamming out to Aretha Franklin absolutely killing it.
I love dark introspective movies with layers of nuance that make me stare in to infinity for a while had thinking about what I saw. I also love dumb fun entertainment. There’s a wide gap between those two extremes where quality just falls in to a mediocre valley of boring. And right at the middle there’s another peak where truly rare films manage to strike a balance between stupid fun and introspective. It’s like horseshoes, close counts because you almost never hit the peg. Mandy comes to mind. So does the first Iron Man.