Why can’t it be both? Too many people think that nuanced movies can’t be fun. It’s even dumber when they think a movie must not be nuanced just because it is fun. (Like anyone who talks about super hero movies like the entire genre is one bad movie.)
Gourmet vs Gourmand
Life’s better when you can enjoy complex things for their complexity and simple things for their simplicity =)
Bingo. I always try to think “What is it trying to be and can I take enjoyment from that?”
I’ll even enjoy a “bad” movie if it seems like everyone involved was having a blast making it. I just shift my perspective to “What if this were my friends from highschool showing me a movie they made?” and I end up being a lot less judgy.
Life’s too short to be too picky to be entertained.
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.
Context is key. Depends on what the movie is trying to be
I still think the best ones are the ones that aim for one side of the scale, but end up on the other while still being good movies.
First one that comes to mind to me for that is Cabin in the Woods
All the positive reviews have a suspiciously similar, gushing writing style.
Hmm.
I mean, not a single other current movie/show on their front page has 99% audience score.
Even if Melanoma was secretly good and “the critics were trying to bury it” they would be suspicious.
It’ll be a shit load of bots, and then the same reactionary people that make everything politically partisan and mass review bomb anything “woke”
People that didn’t see it and don’t care about “how well it does” won’t review it at all, so there’s no counter votes because… Literally no one seeing it.
Russian and Israeli bots
It depends entirely on the movie.
Like one of my all time favourite movies is Pacific Rim, because it’s goal is simply to be a bad ass and fun movie where robots fight giant monsters and it succeeds at that incredible.
It doesn’t pretend there’s some big important ehtic dilemma or it’s characters are particularly deep or go through big arcs, but it doesn’t ignore any of that either, it gives just another character to make the film work and be good without distracting from the robots.
But then on the other hand a film like good will hunting has no giant monsters but has a great character arc that is the driving force of the movie and is also good.
As I said of Pacific Rim in another comment:
A giant robot hits a giant monster with a boat, it doesn’t get better than that!
But then another personal favorite of mine is 12 Angry Men. Black & white, most of the movie takes place in a single room, but still fantastic
It’s perfectly possible to enjoy chewing gum for the brain even though one gets no nutritional value from it.
you sound like a menace to polite Christian society, sir.
Your gum chewing shall corrupt the children and women, and lead weak men astray.
thats horrifying, how do i get them out?
I apply both of these to all movies in tandem. A movie can be both “enjoyable to watch” and “having artistic merit” to varying degrees.
I really dislike when critics and audiences are unable to separate them. There are real, professional critics who seem to only judge movies by how much they enjoyed them, and I think that’s fucked because they laud a lot of “bad” movies. Then there’s others who seem to care exclusively about the perceived level of artistry - and usually they only like movies with a narrow range of themes and tones.
I recently watched a movie that was absolutely excellent, a masterclass in telling a story without having an overt plot and use of symbolism and behavioral patterns and changes to depict a deeply human situation. Did I have fun? No, it was uncomfortable as hell as it’s the story of a relationship in which both parties are bad for each other with one pushing for more and more and the other increasingly pulling back and not into it. It reminded me of many of my worst insecurities and my worst relationships, especially those with people with bpd that wasn’t under control.
Movie is the Duke of Burgundy if anyone is interested, cw bugs and bdsm.
And I think it’s worth comparing it to another movie recently shown to me by the same friend: Tokyo Godfathers. It’s a fun and artistically valuable movie, and while it’s often uncomfortable, it has points to its discomfort whether in the form of social commentary or to enable the characters to grow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better depiction of the type of homeless people who are neither transiently homeless nor severely mentally ill. It’s also an interesting insight into Christianity and Christian symbolism in Japanese culture. It’s ultimately about how even fuck ups who’ve crashed out of society have goodness in them. And it manages to be fun and exciting the entire time. I highly recommend it
is your friend single and hot?
Idk how she manages the time and energy for the number of partners she already has
oh, so she’s poly?
I’m gonna need you to take about 20% off there squirrely dan
I’m the first when watching an american political movie, i’m the second when watching a dumb horror movie.
Depends what the movie was trying to accomplish.
I love all the movies
I sit there with my Film & TV degree in my hand and smile and go “Oh my gosh, good job! Making movies is hard, don’t I know, but you did so well! And making mistakes is ok too!”
EDIT: Gotta admit, I do hate a poorly scripted $200-million superhero movie though, cause those are just soulless cash grabs. Anything else is great though. As long as it’s from the heart, I love it.
One is not a cinephile, and the other is a fantastic exaggeration of what a cinephile is.
“This comment lacked perspective and nuance. A dreadful affair, 0/10.”
vs
“Hehe true.”
Totally agree but I don’t find stupid movies ‘fun’.
There are movies that are purposefully wacky, nonsensical, not scientific or just silly and I can’t enjoy them. Snowpiercer is a great example. This movie made 0 sense but it wasn’t trying to be a proper sci-fi. I was about the message and it was nicely delivered.
Then you have movies that are trying to be smart and failing badly like for example Interstellar. It’s a “smart” movie for not so smart people. I hate those.
And then you have purely stupid movies like all the Marverls, fast and furious and so on. Nothing makes sense but everyone pretends it does. If you are able to turn off thinking for couple hours and enjoy it - good for you. I can’t.
Honestly, I like Interstellar for its depictions of the failings of humans, more than for its depictions of scientific ideas.
But maybe that’s because I am already more science-minded and expect mainstream movie science to be garbage.
These are unironically my two simultaneous reactions to Marty Supreme
