Non-critical movie viewing: am I the only one ?

[steve2470]

Last edited Thu Apr 20, 2017, 03:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Before I get started, I think it's perfectly fine to critically evaluate movies, either during the movie, after it, or both. I just.... well let me explain.

I try not to see garbage movies. I check out reviews on Rottentomatoes.com and try to see only the top-rated ones. I figure, hell, if most people and/or the critics like this movie, it can't be all bad, aye ?

Of course I have an opinion of the movie after I leave. I almost always enjoy it, unless I accidentally get a stinker. The last stinker I saw was several years ago. I have trouble even remembering the title.

I'm just not that good at evaluating plot, storyline, characters, character development, and all the other "technical" factors that film critics use. I've never taken a film class, so that's part of it. I envy people who can whip out a review easily.

Anyway.... I'm not dissing anyone, honest. I just feel I'm in a small minority.

edit to add: The "stinker movie" was Priest. If you liked it, well, I'm glad you liked it.

[femmocrat]

1. You are not the only one!

What I experience is a little different, though. I try to watch the big hits, the ones nominated for awards, even the blockbusters.... and usually don't like them. Some of them are downright awful. I guess I'm too unsophisticated (or something) but I can't watch movies with a lot of sex, profanity, and/or violence.

[Heartstrings]

2. Movie's are for entertainment purposes

and as long as they serve that purpose everything's cool!

Having lived in Hollywood, with a daughter in "the business", I imagine I look for/and see different elements in films. Character development, chemistry between actors, script continuity and progression, lighting, etc...and base my "review" on all those collectively...

But the best "review" is how the movie made/makes you feel? Did it produce the emotion that the filmmakers intended? That's an individual response and totally up for interpretation per the viewer. And that's what a review is...an interpretation and opinion.

So it's ok to think you're not a critic...it's not a fun job anyway...just enjoy the entertainment!

[alarimer]

3. No, I'm kind of the same way.

Except that I can't stand weird or nonlinear storytelling. Arrival, while beautifully shot and performed, drove me crazy because of all its time-shifting nonsense. How in the hell does learning a language, even an alien one, cause you to perceive time differently, so that you remember things that haven't happened yet? It was too confusing and frustrating for me.

[Freddie]

5. That's my criteria for a "good" movie

If I can't follow the plot (or if it has none), forget it.

[hunter]

7. That's one of the things I *LIKED* most about Arrival.

My own perception of time is a little twisted. I don't know why, but the narratives in my head fade in and out sometimes. Déjà vu and dread are constant companions. At times (heh, he said "times&quot I'm deliberately ignoring the narrative voice or voices in my head. We humans do what we do, and then another part of our physical brain makes up a story for it; a reason. Powerful psych meds with some irritating side effects keep me somewhat functional in this society; I suspect in less clock-calendar-and-linear-narrative obsessed society I'd do a little better. Maybe I wouldn't have to take meds at all.

I think our human perception of time, and our insistence on narrative, blinds us to many aspects of the universe we live in. A lot of it is cultural, but most of it is genetic. Every one of your ancestors, all the way back to the beginning of life on earth, survived to reproduce. Most every perception that wasn't conductive to that (even single cell life forms perceive) has been ruthlessly edited out by natural selection.

When I exam the physics of our situation, everything we think we know is an interference pattern written in light. E=mc² doesn't mean matter can be converted to energy as most people think (atomic bombs go boom!), it means matter *is* energy and energy *is* matter. Yet photons know no time.

The universe is very big, the human mind is very small. There are many things we humans will never know; things we will never be able to comprehend.

I'm not a mystic in any way, I'm rather autistic in some ways and a fan of Richard Feynman and Houdini. Spiritualism and quantum physics don't mix. I don't have any patience with anyone's Tesla electric cosmologies, homeopathy, or power of positive thinking because, you know, quantum physics! crap. Faster than light travel, and time travel, so popular in science fiction, are eternal fantasy too, no more "real" than wizards and dragons and comic book superheros.

I enjoyed Arrival immensely, a story told as a gestalt, not as a "first this happened, then this, then this, then this..." narrative. And the visitors didn't fly in our out, they were just there and tangible to us, and then they were not. Our own lives in this universe are like that.

[steve2470]

11. that was an amazing post

One of the best I've ever read on DU. Congrats, sincerely.

[hunter]

12. Thanks.

I should probably fix a few spelling and structural errors, but once I go down that path I'm doomed... The only thing my OCD has ever been good for is working in a blood bank. On DU I only tend to edit things when I've botched the meaning or the math.

[LeftInTX]

4. You are not alone

I think you probably represent 99% of all people who watch movies!

[Ron Obvious]

6. My criteria for a good movie is whether or not it sticks with me afterwards

The last big blockbuster I watched was Jurassic World. I thoroughly enjoyed it but retained virtually none of if after I walked out of the theatre. It was like an etch-a-sketch that got shaken.

I prefer movies that stick with me for days afterwards. The ones that capture a mood or a thought. I never know when I go to see a movie which category it will end up in. Some of the more obvious Oscar-bait movies that Hollywood crank out seem very well done, but entirely crafted, emotionally manipulative and paint-by-numbers. I prefer weird little movies, like David Lynch films or other non-linear format films that nevertheless have something I can't entirely define. Sometimes it's a soundtrack.

Sometimes I go in expecting to see mindless schlock and nevertheless find a little treasure. The original Terminator was like that, an unexpected nugget, in my opinion far superior to the emotionally manipulative sequel that everybody liked so well.

I just want the unexpected.

[OriginalGeek]

8. I am similarly uncritical after the point of

Liked it/didn't like it.

Occasionally a movie will get a "LOVED it". And 1 movie made me mad enough to ask for the video rental fee back - Star Crystal. Absolutely abysmal sci-fi from the 80s. (I did not get my rental fee back. It wasn't like blockbuster or anything - it was a small rental section in the convenience store by my house. I never rented from them again though. Shit, I don't think I've even gotten gas from them since then and they are literally a block away and I have to pass them to get almost anywhere else.)

However, I will see crappy movies just for fun. Sometimes I knew they were crappy in advance and sometimes I find out during the movie but they all get the same liked/didn't like treatment.

I saw They Live at the theater when it came out. I regret nothing.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. They Live was awesome!

I appreciate it even more now than when it first came out.

[OriginalGeek]

14. Lol me too!

Yet whenever it's time to pick a movie my wife brings up that time when I picked They Live.

And Shakes the Clown.
And Repo Man.

[Skittles]

9. I'm a movie buff

I don't want to see "stinkers", so I read rottentomatoes. However, I have learned to only avoid the REALLY lower rated ones - but I have seen plenty of fairly decent movies that were rated in the 40's to 60's range

[csziggy]

10. It depends on the type of movie

I'm a fan of mediocre science fiction and action movies. I HATE horror, gore and blood type movies. Chick flicks, even though I am a woman. A good thought provoking movie will stick with me - but oddly enough I generally will not re-watch one again. I will watch mindless action and B grade ScFi movies over and over.

For instance, I thoroughly enjoyed "Battleship" and liked the character development, the action, the plot, the portrayal of the aliens and the way they worked in elements of the game. I've watched it a bunch of times.

On the other hand, I could not make it through "Alien" - I didn't like the characters, couldn't see the plot and bailed at the first time an alien popped out of a chest. I will never watch a Rocky or a Godfather movie.

Last Saturday MGM movie channel had a "Death and Taxes" Vincent Price marathon. I spent almost all day watching those old pieces of junk - though I was glad I missed the Dr. Phibes ones.

Part of this dates from my childhood but since 1999 I have spent a lot of time recovering from injuries and surgeries, too drugged up to be overly critical, just wandering from one channel to another for a distraction from the pain.

[Volstagg]

15. I probably do too much of the technical stuff

I'm an English teacher, so it just comes naturally. My wife doesn't always enjoy it