me_irl

I've done this a few times. The Quiet Girl, The Wild Pear Tree, The Taste of Things, I Wish, etc. None were my thing despite being able to tell they were well made.

The green knight

2001 a space odyssey is like that. Visually beautiful, even today, but almost no dialogue, and absolutely nothing is explained to the viewer.

One of the most interesting parts of the book was the reasons behind the AI, HAL, going off the rails, essentially he was an AI programmed to be honest and upfront, who was forced to lie, and was by far the most interesting character in the book.

None of this made it into the movie.

This is me for pretty much every movie. I recognize the art, but the medium is just not my bag. Would much rather read a novel about it.

I feel these fall into some combination of 3 categories for me:

• Glad I finally watched it
• Bizarre view into the zeitgeist of the past
• Doesn't hold up

But I'm also hyper aware of people who can't separate fun movies from good ones so perhaps my line up has some natural filtering

I never do this so I'll take your word for it.

Requiem for My Sleep

You can like/dislike whatever you want.

I do find it amusing whenever I see how some people watch movies/tv. Barely even looking at the screen that has terrible audio quality while they consume brainrot. It’s why Netflix has characters say what they’re doing/thinking and reiterating plot points because they know most people can’t/won’t focus on the media alone.

Citizen Kane. I sat through that entire movie three times before I finally accepted it wasn't for me. Now half the movies I start I don't finish. Just because someone else likes something doesn't mean I have to waste my time with it. Even if that someone is many respected film critics.

Eh, personal taste is a thing. Not every film is going to resonate with everyone, even if there's some pretty impressive or neat shit going on at some level, and that's ok.

Do think it's worth giving most movies a shot though, for no other reason than you can have a discussion around "I thought it sucked, and here's why."

Example: I love Eraserhead, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Pink Flamingos save exactly one scene, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and All That Jazz. I also completely understand the grounds on which someone else would say any of these suck badly, and welcome their contribution to the conversation.

As I once said, drunk, to some university student waiting for a bus outside a bar across the street from a movie theatre, who had just watched Un Chien Andalou: "You can appreciate the cultural value of a piece of art and still not like it. Don't just feign praise because others do, you're allowed to just straight up not like things, and the opposite is true too."

From what I can tell, some people are told by the movie "this character is important to the story," and they say "okay, then they're important to me," and that's all that needs to happen for them to be invested. Other people, myself included, will be told that the character is important and instead ask "okay, but why should they be important to me?"

A movie that doesn't convince us to care will never be interesting, no matter how engaging it would be if we just cared for no reason. A lot of old movies didn't bother getting people engaged because back then just the idea of watching a movie was itself engaging, so it wasn't necessary to do more than that.

I think it's a generational thing.

I'm old enough to remember sitting through movies waiting for that one good scene.

These days, there are people who watch everything at 1.5X speed because everything else is boring.

Put it on my jellyfin crank it up to 2x every time i'm bored

Any Christopher Nolan film, the godfather, every marvel movie, I'm sure there are more which might upset some people.

For me it's Inglorious Basterds. Jesus christ, most of the movie people are just talking complete, boring bullshit. I think I'm just too autistic to catch the tension vibes or something, so it's just not working

Movies should be watched with friends. Especially if it's a classic movie that a friend loves.

Some of the most fun I had in college was anime club movie nights, where the leads of the club would pull up these 80s era bootlegs that some guy who graduated two years ago had learned Japanese to help fansub. Not because "Grave of Fireflies" or "Angel's Egg" or "Aeon Flux" were as much fun as a cutesy Miyasaki film or DBZ or FMA, but because they gave us hours of "what the fuck did I just watch?" conversations to have over beers at 2am.

Movies are a fundamentally social experience. You're not meant to watch these things on a cell phone in a closet.

There will be blood..

Blade Runner, which is sadly necessary viewing for Blade Runner 2049.

the godfather 🤮

I feel this way with just about every movie in the criterion collection every few years when I push myself to watch one.

Yeah I get their historical value in cinema, but, I just don't get how so many of them still get so much praise. I think a lot of it is mindless repetition from people afraid to say "just wasn't for me".