I don't know how to hate films
 

I love almost everything I watch. I can recognize beauty or value in everything, from blockbusters to obscure arthouse to trashy pulsating oddities from the other part of the world. I've never been much into articulating WHY a film is good or not because it always struck me that it's quite self-explanatory and up to intuition. I love great visuals but I also love vibrating and cheap visuals - MOVEMENT makes those great, which means no still image seems aesthetic, but when in motion, they're endlessly mesmerizing, which might make them MORE cinematic and BETTER than the eye-candy films screengrabs from whom circle the internet. Anyway, back to the topic, I'm unable to hate the film as a whole, and I rarely hate individual movies. I love the cinema way too much for that. I couldn't be a film critic who has to find faults and problems with movies - it'd be torture for me. I take each film as a complete whole, without the desire to take them apart (apart from those rare cases when I feel like analyzing the film, but it's not the kind of taking apart I'm talking about, anyway). I love cinema from all movements, genres, countries, and eras. I want to plunge into the endless oceans of film, into the infinities of analog madness, digital piety, sonic booms of immensity, and silently whispered dialogues of the tractless expanse of the universe. I want to feel, to experience, to be. Cinema makes me alive, it makes me love, and this sort of love is so immense, that there's no more place for hate, for scorn, for irony. If I think I won't like a film, I probably don't want to see it. But I watch many films, and I love many - like a multi-colored rainbow, each hue different, but all of them vivid and enticing.

But in all that love, I lose any semblance of criticism. I take everything at face value, employing my suspension of disbelief and baring my soul over and over again for the next thing to come. While I can articulate a thought or two about each film I've seen, I find that I'm rarely critical enough of them, especially compared to other cinephiles who seem to pick movies apart on a more regular basis, hating and sneering at films with a much greater ire than I could ever muster up. How do I become more opinionated? The obvious answer would be to take up film school and think about the many elements of the film and how well they play together, but I find this approach too stringent and limiting. The best films out there make it the very point to bypass the platitudinous way films are thought about and made. "Serve the story" is serving nobody. It's killing film, it's killing cinephile's passion for film as a sensory experience, not bereft of the story, but rather with the story taking a back ride, and the visuals and atmosphere taking the lead.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Mr. Minio,
I think you've managed to sum up precisely how I happen to feel about the experience of watching movies. And for that, I heartily thank you! Because time and again, I've often felt this vague sense of unease over whether or not I'm too "uncritical" of what I watch. (After all, just take a peek at my profile and raise an eyebrow at what my all-time favorite is! :p) Yes, there are certain movies I like perhaps less than others. But to me, the only criteria for what constitutes a good movie is whether or not it sticks with or resonates with you. Does it move you? Shock or startle you? Make you laugh? Take you on a journey? Appeal to your rebellious side? Yes, I know that those are perhaps less than completely objective criteria, because each of us as movie viewers resonates on slightly different frequencies from one another.

There are many movies that I've completely forgotten about or which completely slipped my mind, and that fact is perhaps the only sort of implicit criticism that one could infer. Because if it doesn't resonate on my frequency, it really doesn't do anything for me and I won't find it memorable. On the other hand, sometimes I think we need to watch movies several times in order to properly assimilate them. The first time around, you're trying to get a grip on what's going on and who the major players are, what their relationships are and what their objectives are. In other words, you're processing it on a more straightforward narrative or "story" level. And sometimes the first viewing will be unsatisfactory because you're also carrying the baggage of expectation with you, judging a movie based on what kind of film it's "supposed to be," or expectations based on what its ostensible genre is. But the second or third time around, you already know what the surface-level narrative stuff is, so you're freed up to discover what else is going on, the thematic or subtextual elements. And if you haven't gotten to appreciate the film at that point, then maybe it's just not your kind of film! That's no crime. Maybe somebody else would probably appreciate it more, or even get a greater rewatch value out of it.

Personally, I'm quite responsive to the otherworldly, visionary adventurism of John Boorman, the emotionally fraught angst of Ingmar Bergman, the traumas and mutations of David Cronenberg, the politicized shock factor of Liliana Cavani, the measured, drawn-out sense of epic confrontation in the work of Sergio Leone, the coolly empathetic distance and precision of Stanley Kubrick, the wildly flamboyant irreverence of Ken Russell, the counter-mythic town crier shout of Oliver Stone, the finely crafted suspense of Alfred Hitchcock, the chaos and defiance of Sam Peckinpah, the knowing sense of cool of Quentin Tarantino, etc., etc. Those are just some of my frequencies, often operating on extremely different levels from each other. Some of those may be yours... and some of them may not. ;)

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

"pulsating oddities"???
;)

He must have watched Videodrome recently.

Anyway - Minio and I disagree on many films, but his love for the art form is clear.

Cool post!

In other words, you're a very positive person. :D

Anytime. :eek:

Most great cinephiles go by the vibe when assessing a film, so you're in good company.

Sure, but there are some films that feel so cold, and you know they're supposed to, that it works. They resonate with you by not resonating with you!

I forgot many films I watched 10+ years ago, including those I rated 5/5, so if you forget them right away, that's fair criticism, but there's a point in time after which you forget practically everything that happens in the film. Then again, sometimes you still remember about THE film.

Yeah, rewatches can be enlightening, but I rarely rewatch films since I have so many to still see.

Something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NxJfdiJqGA

Only saw it once & wasn't a fan.

I'm very amicable. It's YOU who's disagreeing! :P

That I cannot deny. Maybe that's the key. The many cinephiles I talked about in my first post are very bitter and depressed in real life, too, which arguably translates into their movie-watching!

There has long been the stereotype(not unjustified) of the art critic being difficult to please and more likely to dislike something than to like it. A person who puts rigorous intellectual discourse before both instinctual and genuine love for the medium they are critiquing. And I think a lot of critics very deliberately try to live up to this caricature as if this is some kind of avenue towards being taken seriously as a thinker. A person of exquisite taste. But, at what cost?


Frankly, I find those critics and wannabe critics who are consistently difficult to please to be missing the point nearly as much as the unlearned popcorn munchers. Basically, they are both loathsome in their own ways, but sometimes it is important to push back on the notion that art needs to first be decoded before it can be truly understood or appreciated. Personally, I think the vast majority of films, even those considered to be living up to the highest of High Art credentials, can be understood well enough on an instinctive level. And I definitely believe those that come across more movies they loathe than love, probably don't understand much about movies at all, no matter their academic bonafides.


The more one understands what art is, and all the many ways it can succeed, the more one should begin to love MORE art, not LESS. Just because one might learn to understand why someone like a Fassbinder matters so much, does not mean they should suddenly forget the simple joys of a Spielberg crowd pleaser. Or the idiot humor of a Adam Sandler film they loved when they were younger.


It's important to always grow as a lover of film, but to also embrace all of your past incarnations of who you've been as a watcher of movies over the years. All movies are important. To pretend otherwise is to lose not only something about the movie going experience, but also something about yourself as well.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

What I've found throughout my film watching journey is that, though I'm not a fan of every style of film there is, I find it easier to find things to appreciate about them after enough exposures, even if this doesn't always translate to enjoyment. For instance, you watch Satantango, hate it, and suspect that slow cinema isn't for you (I like the film a lot, btw). The next time you watch slow cinema, though you likely won't be a fan by the time of your second exposure to the style, you'll at least know what to expect from it and won't be caught off guard. Then, after your apathy cools off some more, it might open the doors of you finding various things to appreciate about the style, regardless of how major they are. For instance, though I wouldn't say I'm a Pedro Costa fan yet, my recent experience with Horse Money went much smoother than my experience with Colossal Youth a couple or so years ago. This isn't to say everyone should be required to be a fan of every kind of film eventually, but by the time of the fifth exposure to a certain type of film, if you're still getting the same takeaways you had with your first exposure and aren't learning or feeling anything new, I consider that to be a failure more on your part rather than the film. Though you may never become a fan of a particular style you dislike, I can't see how your initial reservations towards those films wouldn't be complicated after you've seen a dozen or more of them.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110216..._nm_3_q_junior

Try this one.

Could be you have the brain of a kid. And, no I am not actually trying to insult you. Compare the Netflix originals on the Kids section and the normal accounts. All the adult films are always having swear words and boring bland music and are the most depressing things ever.


The kids section has shows that think on the positive side of life.

Wow, the harshest critique of the elitists I've seen in some time plus I agree that you should love more films, the more you see.

Lol, by saying positive I didn't mean it in such a blatantly straightforward way.

Sorry, not in the mood to spew out a 250 page essay about why Mr. Minio loves the art of film. :rolleyes::D

Two words for ya @Mr Minio Charlie's Angels.

<3

https://i.imgur.com/AA3Mjkt.png

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Load the DVD into a wrist rocket and shoot something hard with it.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

I don't think this is a problem, but insofar as it is, I have a similar problem.

I don't love everything I watch--far from it--but the more I watch and the more I think about what I watch, the harder it is to find something totally irredeemable. It's just too easy to envision a better version of the thing, to see what they were going for and imagine how it could have worked, to isolate good bits from it and try to extrapolate a better final product from them.

I've said this like a dozen times already, but @Slappydavis and I always talked/joked on the podcast about how we couldn't separate the times a film was being thoughtful from the times we were being thoughtful for it, finding unintended themes or depth or whatever. And then of course there's the obligatory concession that maybe there shouldn't be a difference between the two art is just about creating those situations whether specifically intended or not. For the record, I don't go that far, but there's a muddiness around the question, at least.

As others have hinted at already, I think this shows a genuine love for, and appreciation of, an art form. I think the only real place virulent criticism has, most of the time, is as a form of disappointment over missed opportunities. A think criticism is at its best when it's advocating on behalf of a work of art, by which I do not mean liking it no matter what or cheering it on just because, but instead going into trying to find out what it wanted to do and always imagining how it might have done it best. I think that slight shift in posture is important, even if the end result might end up being, in terms of pure substance, similar in result to the harsher critic who comes at the work from a more pessimistic place.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

All that said I doubt we'd agree on the "story along for the ride" stuff. If someone likes cinema for its visual and audio qualities first and foremost, that's fine, but I don't think it's a purer or inherently better reason for it. I actually think of it as a false dichotomy, since those tools are explicitly and expertly used to enhance the impact of story beats all the time.

But I suspect this is just another one of those things where nobody really disagrees (you don't think story is unimportant and I don't think pure aesthetics are, either), we just have something we care more about around the margins, something that moves us more than all the other things in the medium. For me, the story is that thing, and I tend to appreciate all the other things that go into filmmaking most when they exist in service of that, rather than an end in and of themselves.

FOUR WORDS. Rumble. In. The. Bronx.

Dude, I'm at a point where I might dislike a film in its restored form but love it in its unrestored form. Or love a VHS or LaserDisc but hate a Blu-ray. Especially since they often tend to change the color grading for Blu-ray releases, with that mania of trying to make every old film look modern and sterile (therefore worse). The same film can be a completely different experience depending on the format you watch it in.

Those who consider the story as the paramount element of a film may not truly love cinema, but rather just love storytelling. This is akin to viewing the lyrics as the most crucial part of a song. Regardless of the quality of your lyrics, if your instrumentals and vocal performance are subpar, your song is whack. A movie encompasses much more than just the story, and anyone who fails to recognize this might not be suited to engage with any form of art. The idea that films are merely vehicles for storytelling can lead people to underestimate the full potential of cinema. If your sole pursuit is what is deemed a good story, you risk overlooking many films that excel in other aspects. This approach is rather restrictive. The story constitutes only a small fraction of filmmaking. Therefore, by concentrating solely on this aspect, you’re not critiquing the film as a whole, but merely its story, as if it’s the only component that matters. Aspects like editing, lighting, and shot composition deserve more critical attention. The story is the least significant aspect of filmmaking. You can make a great film out of a bad story if other aspects are great, but not vice versa. I’m increasingly convinced that focusing on stories is doing more bad than good in cinema.

What I first think has to be accepted, before we devalue the notion of storytelling entirely, is to see that pretty much everything is narrative. Pierrot Le Fou is story. The Turin Horse is story. Dog Man Star is story. Scorpio Rising is story. Even Wavelength is story.


The problem isn't story. The problem is in what people expect from a story, and then, the ensuing fallout when those expectations aren't met. All of which inevitably can lead to some pretty dull and toothless comments about a film, especially when put in the wrong hands.


Some examples of the problem with storytelling affecting artistic appreciation below.


1) Nothing happens
2) There weren't any likeable characters
3) it lacked a clear resolution
4) it isn't realistic
5) it didn't make sense
6) it didn't need to be so long
Etc etc


The reality is that none of these are actually legitimate complaints about whether a movie was good or not. They might be reasons why it didn't work for a person, but they are still all elements which can intentionally be used by the director to get to the emotional places they are trying to access. Sometimes what storytelling might tell us is completely wrong of ineffective, is actually completely necessary for the film to do what the director is hoping to accomplish.


So what causes so many people to use these above examples as some kind of Trump card to prove a movie wasn't any good? Well, in short, they've been spoiled by the kind of storytelling that is basically designed to stop actual engagement with the film itself. That is meant to encourage passive viewing habits. That must immediately engage to the point of completely dulling our senses to any other pleasures or insights the film may have.


And in this way Minio is right. If you are just showing up for the storytelling, you actually probably don't like 'cinema' that much. Which, sounds offensive to some, but it's not since most of those people would happily rail against anything in the film that doesn't directly service story ie, the cinema parts.


Where I think Minio overstates the case though is that storytelling, even fairly traditional story telling, can be just as much an artform as all the other more esoteric elements. What a story decides to show, and decides not to show, is no different than what notes a musician decides to play, or chooses not to play.


Ozu, by any measure, and probably according to Ozu himself, is primarily a storyteller. He just happens to do this through film. But his particular cinematic style is deliberately stripped down mostly in order to push the story forward. And what is revolutionary about his approach, and ultimately artful about it, is the use of that style allows all the quieter elements of very traditional stories to seem as loud as your regular (and usually boring) narrative beats. He is turning what are essentially stories that, in bad hands, would be soap opera fare, and opening these same basic stories into something we don't passively accept, but need to observe.


And this is just as cinematic as anything Kubrick or Dreyer or Godard have ever done with their more pure fits of moviemaking.

The problem is most people aren't very artful with storytelling. So it ends up getting a bad rap for those looking for something more. Something cinematic.

I'm not really sure who the following is aimed at:

This seems to describe a hypothetical person who thinks story is the only element of filmmaking that matters. This person is not me, and I assume probably not anyone else here. Though I'd still be happy to engage with the rest of it, since I'd take issue with some of the reasoning along the way, and generally find little merit in the opposite idea, that largely aesthetic experiences are somehow purer cinema, or something.

Cinema, at its fundamental root, is simply the capturing of images on film, and then the process of manipulating/editing/juxtaposing these images. I don't think it's wrong to call cinema more pure the more it strictly concerns itself with these basic elements and little else ( or as little else as possible)


Yes, most of the time these manipulations are in the service of communicating a story, but I think it's fair to say those films that don't concern themselves with this element primarily or even secondarily, are probably by definition purer cinema.


But purer doesn't inherently mean better.


Plus, I should add as an aside, that at this point, story has become like a virus that has been introduced to a host and almost completely taken it over. To find the line where narrative ends and pure cinema begins, is probably a near impossible task at this point. And, being that we are essentially storytelling beasts by nature, it was probably an impossibilty for this merger to not ultimately happen. So for me the best approach in talking about or appreciating film is to find how these two intertwined elements overlap and complement eachother.

Not anybody in particular (at least here. [Let's hope so!])

The idea that a piece of art is something to be deciphered and translated into a message is an illusion fabricated by critics in an attempt to validate their profession. Narratives are a part of other arts, mainly literature. If we want each art to be disparate from the others, we must get rid of narratives and stories in film. Long live story-free cinema!

... or at least let's get rid of the idea that story is somehow the most important aspect. Even somebody as mainstream as David Lynch serves as a good illustration of this. I’m indifferent to his convoluted narratives, and my connection to (some of) his films is directly tied to the distinctive vibes his films evoke in me. It’s far from a cerebral endeavor with him.

I also like films that work like mirrors. They reflect you, so whatever you bring to them, they reflect back on you. If a film’s message isn’t readily apparent, it could be that the message is enigmatic, or it could be that the film isn’t attempting to convey a message at all. Paradoxically, some entertainment cinema falls into the latter category much more often than arthouse cinema, and I love entertainment without a message because it shows a sort of purity that's hard to find anywhere else. Paradoxically, those films are sometimes more cinematic than their more artistic counterparts. For example, if the film sets out to give you a good time or create an interesting atmosphere without any pretensions to raise a meaningful point, I count that as a plus. I dislike films that appear to be pure joy but then betray you and include a message or story that steers away from the fun of it. In that way, I understand the common moviegoers who just want to be entertained. It's fine if an entertaining film has a message, but it cannot get in the way of the fun. It's fine for an art film to be entertaining, but it cannot cross the threshold of making it less sublime. That's why I'm always conflicted about these middle-of-the-road movies like 80s & 90s Spielberg stuff and whatnot.

Spielberg is the director of the middle. He tries to have fun but also has a little bit of a message or story or some dumb point to make. But that's the least of his problems, though. He's mostly just so insincere. Maybe he's sincere as a person, but his art isn't. I feel nothing when I put on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The special effects are too good and the film is too well-made for its own good. Entertainment has to be rough around the edges for the most part. Somebody like Nolan is another example. His films are allegedly entertaining but also have something to say if you're really hard-pressed to listen. But he doesn't know how to have fun and show fun, plus he doesn't know how to say something in a meaningful way. His films are sterile when it comes to invoking emotions, too, and I don't mean Bresson-like sterile. Now, let's take a true auteur: Johnnie To. His films can be very entertaining, and his messages are often well-hidden and enigmatic for a common filmgoer, but quite illuminating and intriguing when unpacked. You can either choose to watch the films for what they are or deep-dive into them to understand the message better. You can also analyze his oeuvre to arrive at new points, as he rehashes many points and ideas throughout his work. He's a truly interesting director to watch, as he can entertain me with something like Seven Years Itch, move me with something like Romancing in Thin Air, troll me with something like Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2, or do all of these at once with something like Exiled. All of that when employing the stylish camera work that somebody like Nolan can dream about.

On a personal note, I’d argue that many films known for their allegedly complicated and complex stories—even those that are critically acclaimed and award-winning—are (in their core) simple to the point of being juvenile. I might even suggest that there’s an inherently simplistic aspect to ALL films; the act of make-believe or immersing oneself in a fictional world, the requirement for an active imagination, the stirring of a sense of wonder, and so on, are all characteristic of a childish mind, or a simple peasant if you will. Cinema is the art of (and for) the common people.

I suppose if one is obsessed with understanding everything, they end up with understanding a lot, but getting almost nothing. It's no coincidence that the best cinephiles (including me) are fairly stupid and intelligent and knowledgeable people have bad taste in art for the most part.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

I know I hate certain films, but that is never because of the cinema artistry in itself---i.e. I never hate a film in terms of its being a film (though I do sometimes become frustrated with certain stylistic approaches that I think were not what they could have been). The films that I hate are regarded by me in that way typically due to some sort of personal moral claim that I have against either the values that are expressed (typically, again, in regards to the story) or due to value conflicts with elements of the film production. For instance, I think El Topo is a visionary work of cinema, but I hate it because of the animal death involved in it.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

I've seen plenty of movies that I hate, but that's sorta OK. If I hate a movie, that's a strong reaction and I might see it again eventually to see if it really is as awful as I thought it was. It's the boring, lower part of the middle range that bothers me the most. I don't hate them enough to get worked up and I just squandered 2 hours of my life watching something that was probably a reasonably well done production, but also a waste of all that effort and professionalism.

I'm jumping into this conversation late, but am wondering if people apply the "pure" label to literary mediums. I'm not well read enough to encounter the use of such terms there or have many examples at hand. With poetry, I imagine an equivalent would be something like word-association, beat-poetry, I could see someone referring to that as "pure poetry."


I'm not sure what the equivalent of that is for novels, nor do I think I've heard the phrase, "pure literature" (but maybe it does exist).
I've never read Finnegan's Wake, but I suspect that comes close. Maybe Naked Lunch has a coherent plot after a certain point in the story, but it seemed to become word soup to me when I read it (it didn't stop me from keep reading it). This question is posed in relation to other conversations I've seen started elsewhere that get couched on the grounds of, "cinema is really _______."


So, I guess I'm hoping someone more well-read than me can jump in on what is the analogous version of "pure cinema" in literature and how do people refer to it.

If I'm defining pure cinema as dealing directly with the actual medium of film and the manipulation of that material as the primary element that matters, not story or character, then...I guess we would have to consider pure literature as those writers who primarily concern themselves with words and the ensuing sentences that are created as those words are strung together. Then the eventual manipulation of those words and sentences to create an affect. I think this is probably found mostly in the arena of poetry, so I guess following this line of logic, literature that is more poetic in nature, is 'purer'?


So, yes, Finnegan's Wake would be a pretty prime example. Gravity's Rainbow, Naked Lunch, maybe Kerouac, Faulkner. And if we are stretching this, I'd even listen to arguments for Hemingway and Bukowski, due to the intense poetic feel of their minimalist writing styles. Maybe also the shorter works of Salinger, through the manner in which he uses language to shroud his mini narratives, making even the simplest details he describes as having an unsolvable mystery about them.


All of these examples are still heavily indebted to narrative though, even Finnegan's Wake. Which makes it seem like a cheat to call them 'pure' in this way. But as already stated about films, I don't really know how possible it is to make anything that is entirely narrative free. Even pure abstraction a lot of the time often has a kind of structure which leans on the expectations of a narrative form (for example, the images in a Stanley Brakhage film, even if just splashes of paint, have the intensity in which they are presented ebb and flow, become more and less intense, faster and slower, darker then brighter, cribbing a vaguely dramatic arc in the process)

Basically, yeah, this. Despite hearing the term Brakhian, I've never sought out a Brakhage film (not that they look readily available). I know there are experimental films, especially short films that have no story on them unless you impose one on them, and despite not knowing any examples, I feel like I've heard spoken poetry before that is basically playing on either word associations or just sounds, but wasn't sure if there was a novel equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting. From the examples I gave and was given, it sounds like things are more Lynch's Inland Empire, less Jackson Pollack, in terms of "pure cinema" as used here.

Which is a start. I do wonder if trying to be that structureless could be maintained in written form for that long of a duration.

I guess to give a slight background on my curiosity, I've seen people respond to negative criticisms to movies such as Avatar 2 and Dune 2, pulling the "film is an audio-visual medium, the style is the substance," card. And I think the temporal-progressing factor about film, as opposed to photography, that also links it as a narrative medium akin to literature, even if it isn't as firmly required for film as it is for literature (though audio isn't necessarily required either, though would seem odd without them and there are counterpoints of examples where the visual aspect yields to other factors of film). When that happens, I sometimes see the person fundamentally misunderstand the nature of what narrative can mean, And I find myself wanting in breadth of knowledge to do comparisons to literature to frame an analogy (let alone a good one).

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

I'd feel awful naive if I liked everything I saw. An lot what's out there is derivative dreck, like bad TV....a waste of brain cells and life time. I don't dislike many movies I see because I do check commentary and reviews before I go, thereby avoiding the worst ones. I actually made a point of checking a couple lists of worst movies of 2023 and then congratulated myself for having seen none of them. That's a good thing.

It should be noted that my experience with experimental literature is fairly limited and has only grazed the surface of the most well known writers doing these kinds of things. And so, with maybe the exception of Joyce and Pynchon, most of it isn't even that far out there (and I frankly much prefer Joyce's less abstract works...the novelty of Rainbow wore off on me after about two hundred pages of not understanding a single sentence and Ulysses fluctuated between being fantastic quickly followed by crushingly dull and repetitive....as for Pynchon his more abstract is the better stuff, as far as I'm concerned)


So there might be much writing that is a lot more unmoored from conventions that I am not remotely aware of. I did have an acquaintance who became a published writer, and ultimately also a friend of William Burroughs, who used to do a form of writing that was complete unmoored from any kind of narrative. His process of writing had something to do with how each sentence was somehow determined by the kinds of words used in the sentence that preceded it, which forced him to construct his paragraphs like these puzzles entirely dictated by how many consanants or vowels had already been used, or some other thing that didn't make a lick of sense to me. And I also hated the results, so it didn't inspire me to dig any deeper.


So I do think things can get pretty extreme out in the wild if one wants to look. But my feeling is it would probably be about as interesting to me as the last twenty five years of modern painting (and don't even start me on that), where art really does become more a purely academic exercise and legitimately feel pretty exclusionary to anyone not already deeply immersed in that world

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

It's also very difficult for me to hate a film. Even though he's not good, he's still entertaining

:lol:

Your self-congratulatory attitude is hilarious.

While you’re busy polishing your critic’s badge for spotting the ‘films that made a lot of money and are therefore good,’ remember that sometimes the most profound truths are found in the unlikeliest of places, like between the frames of a CAT III picture or the choreographed chaos of katana-wielding Richard Harrison.

But yup, no point in watching trash like Marvels or After 4 unless you're a masochist.

I'm not congratulating myself at all, but looking back with a sense of relief. I'm also relieved that, during the past year, I had no unneeded root canals, didn't replace the new tires on my car and didn't start a fire in the woods behind my house.

The cost of seeing a movie in a theater makes me cautious. I will own up to seeing Ant Man and the Wasp (at the request of someone else), but I did manage to avoid the remake of White Men Can't Jump or the horror of Winnie The Pooh, Blood and Honey.

Come to think about it, I AM congratulating myself and plan on doing the same for 2024.

Glad I managed to change your mind. 👍

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Even if a movie is terrible, is it really that bad? Is it worse than staring at a wall, or talking to some jerk at a bus stop, or peeing next to a bunch of men in a public toilet? Because, when it comes to what the average person does with their free time,that's the competition.

If those are my only options, like peeing in public, you're probably right. On the other hand, fortunately I have lots of options in my city, several theaters that have a diverse set of movies most nights, and if worse comes to worse, I can always stop at MegaLoMart and buy a pack of tighty whities.

In regard to "really that bad", if I come out feeling like I just wasted a couple hours and some bucks, yeah, It can be that bad.

In all fairness to staring at a wall, sitting in a comfortable recliner, while staring off into space and getting lost in thought is a much more common pass time for me than I'd like to admit, so let's not sell staring at a wall short. Everything else that involves interacting with other human beings is just supporting evidence for Sartre.

Staring at a blank wall not being that bad is part of my point. No one gets angry at walls they've been staring at, and I'm pretty sure no movie I've seen is worse than a blank wall, so people just need to chill if a movie isn't directly speaking to them.


A bad movie is never that terrible. I've seen a million of them, and not one would make my top million worst things that have happened in my life.

Have you seen the Human Centipede movies?

*I* haven't but apparently they're not that bad.

The first one and a bit of the second one.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

For a bizarrely deep examination of Human Centipede: https://www.dukeupress.edu/life-destroying-diagrams

(OK, my aside is over!)

Beautifully written, Minio. Remember that you have no obligation to criticize or display negativity; and expressing your thoughts and concerns about cinema should not necessarily come in the shape of exposing flaws. It is your own way not only to enjoy it but to communicate it, and if those flaws do not hold a significant weight in your mind, then do not go out of your way to hate or dislike. Keep enjoying everything you do and keep your mind occupied with the things that matter to you as a film fan.

The same would apply to the contrary; enjoying the act of tearing apart films and analyzing their flaws, or having that little satisfaction after watching something terrible and venting all the resulting frustration in pure verbose hatred, are all perfectly fine ways to display your relationship with cinema.

This made me think about my own development and relationship with film. I'm in a bit of an amateur critic mindset, due to being used to write more or less formally for a blog site. That in a way has made me go further on why I like or don't like something, which has many positive effects on me as I better order my thoughts, am better at diagnosing why I like something or perhaps not so much and can express my ideas in a more clear way, but it has also made writing about movies a bit of a colder and more distant experience than it was when I was younger. Sometimes I wish I was more visceral, but I think it somewhat comes as a consequence of starting to think -overthink, at times- about the structure of ideas and how to put them in writing that a bit of the spontaneous impulse is lost. Anyway, this is how I enjoy and express my love for movies now and it's been a long and always evolving way.

Yes it is. Last night I saw Godzilla X Kong, and the answer is that despite an entire army of animators and sound FX experts, indeed you CAN make a bad movie.

FX were rendered in painfully awful detail and acting was "top drawer", by comparison to a TV detergent commercial at least.

As for script writing, all you need to know is the title. That's pretty much it except for some cameos by other monsters.

None of that amounts to "worst things in life" (nobody I know died for this movie), but as a two hour exercise in cinematic entertainment, it's definitely awful.

I don't know that "hate" is the right word and since it was entirely digital, "film" doesn't even apply, but it definitely qualified for my speculation on whether I'd rather have spent those hours in my basement, having a couple more beers.

I will pat myself on my own back here, however, because I saw it in my neighborhood, non-corporate theater rather than driving out to The Mall cineplex. My local theater did fairly well last night.

Where did I say a bad movie couldn't be made? Was it in that quote when I say I've watched a million bad movies in my life?


But thanks for keeping up.

Sorry I let this sit for weeks. In the interim Minio replied to me in some other threads where he sort of took some of the ideas in this thread and brought them into that one. I deflected them there because they were only adjacent to the topic and seemed to fit better here. I'll reproduce that bit:

This is something that many our discussions end up getting into eventually, if we probe them enough: with Minio criticizing the idea of thinking about movies and advocating we focus more on feeling them.

I have two objections to this. The first is just axiomatic and therefore may not be that persuasive, but has to be said anyway. The second is more from a shared premise.

First: I don't think "feeling" a film is better than "thinking" it. It's another way of experiencing it, another way to derive something good or pleasurable from it. I have no trouble accepting the inverse, that someone like you might get more out of the aesthetic, the vibe, or other hazy things about the film unrelated to concrete things like plot or narrative, and I think you should be able to do the same in reverse. Preemptively, I'll say that I think you can be reasonably critical of someone who seems to only care about those things and seems unable to care about anything else, but not of someone who just prefers them or (more likely) just cares about them more than you do.

Second: I don't think the distinction between "feeling" films and "thinking" about them is a real one, or at least not a firm one. It's often said--and personal experience suggests to me this is definitely at least sometimes true--that we have feelings as a sort of early warning sign for intellectual conclusions. Something might move you in a way that is surprising, and you only later realize why. Your subconscious does the math before your consciousness. Maybe you value the mystical here, and deliberately avoid thinking about your feelings because you think finding their source would somehow diminish them. I don't think that way.

But whether we agree on that or not, the key point is that thinking and feeling are not two isolated categories. When something in a narrative surprises me, I still feel something. The surprise and delight in my mind is itself a feeling. The sense of exploration and possibility that I get from an exciting premise and a strong first act, where anything might happen after, is both a thought and a feeling at once. The distinction between the two is more pragmatic than it is literal, the same way terms like "short" or "tall" have no firm meaning but are necessary for communication

Now, maybe the above sounds like I'm intellectualizing ABOUT the intersection of thoughts and feelings, but the amusing thing is, I get an actual pure feeling from certain types of thoughts! It's this bubbly little thing in my stomach, and I only get it for certain kinds of things. At first, I mostly got it playing video games: specifically, the kinds with large open worlds, full of possibility and promise. I'd look out over a landscape and wonder what was over that hill in the distance and my stomach would tingle in this particular way that I never experienced in another context. Later, I noticed I had the same sensation when an exciting new idea occurred to me! Sometimes it was an idea for an essay, or a short story, and it was always something that felt like it could go in many different directions. The throughline, I decided, was that I was getting a physical sensation from a sudden rush of possibilities.

So, perhaps, at least in some cases, what you see as intellectualization is actually people who get emotional reactions from more things, or from different things, than you do. Because while I get pure intellectual gratification from the things I just described, I also find myself chasing that physical, emotional high for its own sake.

I can't say I find that very valuable, or moving. I know me fairly well, it's other people I need to know more about. There's a reason films have been called "empathy machines."

To me, there is a magic in recognizing yourself in a film not because the film is TRYING to reflect you, but because it HAPPENS to. Because when that happens, you are communicating in a common language with another mind across space and time. There's an old Lewis quote I think about a lot: "Friendship is born the moment one person says to another 'My God, you too? I thought I was the only one!" He also said "We read to know we are not alone," and you can replace "read" with any verb that describes experiencing an art form.

To me, the sense of intimacy I feel when I recognize something in a film that was NOT made for me, but nonetheless speaks directly to me, is tremendously valuable, and even life-affirming.

I think this is definitely true, and it's why people fight about it so much. Most other art forms have mostly become the purview of devotees, whereas films are still watched by lots of casual viewers and lots of devotees.

:laugh: I do love the combo compliment/insult directed in both directions. :up:

I think it might help to thing in terms of tradeoffs. Intellectualizing cinema can certainly rob people of pure feeling sometimes, but there are corresponding pleasures that compensate for that, and which will be missed by people doing their best to disregard narrative. It's difficult to call one better or worse, and more importantly, it's not clear people can really choose. I can't really stop myself from monitoring the events of a film and speculating about what might happen next, or why. It happens automatically. I'm sure it's made me enjoy some films less, but it's definitely helped me enjoy some more. It's just who I am, so I simply make the best of it.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Something related to the above I couldn't fit in gracefully: there's a joke from Demetri Martin (I think) that I really like: "I think the best part about being dumb is it makes magic better." Funny line, but also weirdly insightful: a child, or a stupid person, probably gets more enjoyment out of a magic show than an adult and/or intelligent person. So...is it good to be stupid, or ignorant? It's a complicated question, but I think most of us would lean towards "no." You can't feasibly choose to stay ignorant in order to enjoy those things more, anyway. The moment you choose that, the whole thing is doomed. Buckle up for yet another aphorism: "A man's mind, stretched by new ideas, may never return to its original dimensions."

It's similar to a discussion I've had with friends about drugs or alcohol: it makes things funnier, they insist. No, I say, it lowers your threshold for what you find funny. That may be worthwhile sometimes anyway, but it's not the same thing.

No worries, friend. :up: Come to think of it, it's good you're not a no-life like some of us here. :bashful:

I don't think I'm necessarily criticizing thinking about movies. Rather, I'm criticizing overthinking films. But damn, you might be right. It's been so long that I lost track of what I said earlier. :laugh:

Fair enough, but my main concern is people who constantly think while watching a film, meaning they actively force themselves to think, lose some of the more gut-feeling, intuitive stuff about the film. I think that you can train yourself to do both simultaneously, but I also think that you cannot do both and not lose a little both of either. I think overthinking kills immersion and makes it harder to suspend your disbelief. Finally, I believe that film is a visual work of art. I'm not saying all films should be disparate from other forms of art - it's too late for that to become a thing. All I'm saying is that I see films as a much more image+sound kinda thing rather than a story kinda thing. These things aren't mutually exclusive, but some of my all-time favorites are films I don't really need to think about WHILE watching them. I get them intuitively without forcing myself to think. They get into my head on their own. I understand them without thinking. I may think a lot about them after watching them, but while watching them, I'm in another zone - I'm hypnotized.

I have many examples, but I'll give you just one, if only because my message is very long as it is already.

One thing I experience with Yoji Yamada like with no other director is that his films make me want to be a better person, to be more humble, more merciful, and to love people more. I see his characters as real people, far from perfect, and fallible, but still ones that deserve a second chance, love, and compassion. I never get such feelings from films made by any other director. And no, Yamada's films don't make me feel that way by schooling me, making me think a lot about them while watching or enforcing their messages bluntly and straightforwardly. They're well-crafted, full-on stories, but I always take their screenplays as myriads of beautiful blots of paint, one following the other, creating a splendid image. It's important to point out that the parts of the picture that are not filled with paint are just as important as those colored ones. Yamada likes to skip a part of the story or to keep some things hidden. He does that to make us wonder, or maybe because he thinks that some things are better left unsaid. Just like the dialogue-less finale of The Yellow Handkerchief, filmed from a respectable distance - a moment so beautiful, so sacrosanct, that it'd be a blasphemy to show it from a shorter distance. Other times, a character leaves us for a moment or two in our time, but we understand that much more time passed in the film world. This is a wonderful tool for a powerful denouement. Yamada uses this as early as in his early masterpiece The Lovable Tramp and then repeats that in A Distant Cry From Spring. But you know what? After watching a Yamada film I can remember the story, that is I can remember fabula. But years after watching them, when I usually can't remember ANYTHING about other films, I still remember syuzhet of Yamada films.

I think you can be critical of them, fair game, but I also think being critical of them might be missing the point. I used to be like that for a few years when I first got into film. But that was perhaps the most wonderful time for me because I truly felt like a child who discovered a new wonder and could experience it sans any rational reasoning. I watched films just to observe the camera movement and be in awe at the expertise with which the filmmaker/cinematographer employs long takes, dutch angles, and other visual weaponry. These days I constantly catch myself thinking when watching a film, which I think is detrimental to this child's wonder but is of course not without value as adult's cognition.

I unironically think that at least partly the reason I used to experience films like that was because I watched them with English subtitles and my English wasn't that good back then, which led me to understand only some of what is being said and infer the rest. And quoting Chris Marker, "What's the least understandable is the most pleasurable". I have friends who even watched Japanese, Swedish, or Italian films without any subtitles! If you can't understand how one could do that, you're definitely a thinker, not a feeler.

Before even reading the rest, I'm glad you added that second part of the sentence because I actually agree that this distinction can be very blurry. Passive thinking is definitely thinking, too!

Yes, I sometimes prefer not to think to keep the mystery going, but that first sentence is very apt! Yamada films make me cry intuitively. It's not that I have absolutely no idea why I'm crying. But I'm crying merely at a bloat of paint, a single thought or idea, not at the carefully constructed sequence of events I recreated in my mind.

I never experienced this. Is this like the butterflies when you're in love? I never had them even when I was.

Another "cool you mentioned it" thing. Sometimes when I'm watching a really great film, it gives me adjacent ideas for a screenplay/story of my own! However, saying story is probably going too far. A premise or a single scene is more like it. Still something you can build upon, though.

Nice. It works the other way for me. I usually don't care about thinking about movies that didn't do it for me emotionally.

I could go the opinionated cinephile route and quote Pedro Costa who said that this is exactly what you don't want from cinema and this is a tool of the awful commercial cinema. But I won't. Because I don't really believe that. And I'm farther and farther from agreeing with Costa on this, the more films I watch. Especially Yamada films, which are extremely relatable to me.

Interesting. Can you give examples?

The more you get to know me, the more you understand that I'm actually pretty open to self-criticism, if due. It's just that I like to pretend I'm not.

That's a good conclusion. I think it's mostly innate. Some people think too much for their own good, while others think too little for their own good.

Great post, very enjoyable to read and consider. :up:

I won't pretend I don't do this sometimes.

All true, and also difficult to avoid. The mere act of writing reviews of posting here can create an anticipation of what we might say about a film that interferes with our ability to experience it while it's happening. It's possible this is a trivial thing for other people, but it's very hard for suppress this. I fidget, both physically and mentally.

Maybe that's the way to think about this stuff: we all have only some control over how our minds naturally work (and most of our control lies in the past and is calcified by decades of habit), so we're left to take what enjoyment we can in the way our minds will best allow us to.

Yeah, I dunno, I go back and forth on this. It's obvious to me that what's special about cinema is that it's made up of so many other art forms, but I don't feel comfortable thinking of any one of those forms as being more fundamental to it than another. Narrative also exists in writing, as you say, but by that same token I wonder if "fast, continuous photography" is meaningfully different from still photography. I do sort of intuitively agree with the feeling that it's about the sound and visuals more, but I think that might just be the nature of images: we just naturally process them quicker by their very nature. Narrative requires depth and complexity that are not as readily perceived. This makes them seem less fundamental, it's true, but it also makes them feel "higher" because they require more of us.

It's a good point, there's no better way to brand a story onto someone's mind than to emotionally invest them in its conclusion. And I'll concede that this only works the one way, I'm not sure even a really fascinating and engaging narrative makes you feel more, exactly. This would not persuade me to think or feel differently overall, but I would accept that as a reasonable argument for why feeling is a prerequisite for narrative and not the other way around.

The camera movement stuff is interesting, because to me it sounds like it has the downsides of intellectualization: noticing the camera movement, identifying a dutch angle, rather than just experiencing the feeling a dutch angle is meant to give you. There is a degree, then, to which becoming a cinephile essentially slowly ruins your available to watch a film only for itself. Your growing knowledge of, and experience with, more film, can render it more and more difficult to get swept away.

This reminds me of a concert I went to years ago. My wife went to see Bill Conti, the famous film composer. He conducted some of his scores in front of a live orchestra, and of course inbetween he'd banter and tell charming little anecdotes. The one that stuck with me was something he said about the ineffable quality of music. Specifically, he said that with some music (paraphrasing) "you cry and you don't know why. You hear it, and you cry."

There's a long-standing idea, in literature and predated even then by religion, that music is the purest form of creation. The angels are said to have sung the world into existence, and you'll find this in the creation narratives of both Tolkien's [u]Silmarillion[/i] and Lewis' Narnia. And, of course, the etymology of the word "music" itself.

I think it might be similar, but for me it's always felt different from every other feeling I've had. It was tremendously gratifying to experience the feeling from an idea, full of possibility, and connect it back to the sense of possibility exploring a digital world, and conclude that it was possibility itself that I found so enjoyable.

It's actually very similar to laughter: what makes something funny, and why people laugh, is a famously difficult and debated question. But the best definition I ever heard, which works to explain a lot of very different types of humor, is that it's a "sudden rush of recognition." A lot of jokes work this way, in the sense that the punchline recontextualizes the setup somehow, so your brain rushes to catch up and reevaluate the setup in light of the new information. It also explains why we laugh at absurdity or characters behaving ridiculously, as our minds rush to quantify all the social mores that a person is failing to observe. This became particularly compelling to me when I once, while reading a theological argument, laughed out loud at a particular point.

Similarly, the feeling I get from exploration/new ideas is, I think, my mind being flooded by more possibilities than it can keep up with. It's like I get the mental pleasure of laughter without the physical act of laughing.

My best guess is that this is because I like thinking about things, about anticipating things, about considering things fully and being as prepared as I can, so being completely overloaded and unable to do all that is sort of pleasurable, in the same way someone might like to drink because it allows them to discard their inhibitions. I get drunk on possibility.

Another thing that probably interferes with enjoying something in the moment, though! Most people seem to agree that creativity is really just absorbing a lot of other creation and then reconfiguring it somehow (nothing new under the sun/"Everything Is A Remix"), so it's interesting to think that in order to create most effectively you actually need to sacrifice your ability to experience these things fully. This is sort of sad and sort of beautiful.

I'll try to think of some, though nothing specific is coming to mind just now. My memory is more general: it's when someone superficially different from myself has found their way to the same conclusion, sometimes even by very different means.

To think the same despite vastly different circumstances suggests that there is a real thing that exists outside of either of us that we are both connected by and/or tapping into, which makes me feel connected to them.

I dig. I think, not to get too commentary-about-commentary, the little dustups come from people constraining themselves in terms of criticism even after seeing you are not constraining yourself that way. So it feels unfair to them, because you're willing to criticize them in ways they are not allowing themselves to respond to in kind.

Yeah, the part I struggle with is the agency part, especially over time. I tend to think we have plenty of agency, but I think it's very slow, very iterative, very habitual. I think my tendency to overanalyze things is probably fairly innate, but also something I have actively encouraged for a long time. There's maybe no version of me that just doesn't do this, but there's a version of me that works to counterbalance it instead and is moderately different by middle-age as a result. Dunno.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

I rarely see a movie I don't like, but it's mainly because I do some reading before we go. Sometimes I make mistakes.....Godzilla X Kong was definitely THAT.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

I'm always on the side of articulating one's thoughts about the films one watches. This notion that concrete thought robs/impoverishes pure feelings is unfortunately, still a very prevalent IDEA held onto by both intellectuals and the common-folk.

I'm both ways on articulation. I CAN get very verbose about a movie, but, honestly, if I'm going to do all that work, I need some sort of gratification or payoff.

The other half of that equation is the question of who reads, who cares about what I thought of the movie.. Nothing I've seen in any part of life, not just movies, makes me believe in rational thought as much more than a window dressing that we put on belief, impulse or emotion.

In the case of movies, I react first, rationalize later. Most of us do that. Someone who reads my comments will think something like, "would I like that?" or, "I don't like rom-coms". If they see it, they will like characters, or dislike horror movies, or whatever....again, not much of a rational thought, just a window dressing we use to flatter ourselves that we are rational beings.

That's why I don't like to get too verbose. For me, I liked it or not, I'm smart not a doofus and I've seen enough movies that I can go toe-to-toe with the people who want to use lots of words so they can seem rational, but I'd need an honorific title or an endowed seat in a major university, before I go to that much effort, something like "The Reigning King of Movie Reviews".

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Look through the bottom page of this list of mine:


https://letterboxd.com/theanalyzer/l...-best/page/30/

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Mr Minio.


I challenge you to watch Freddy Got Fingered.


The whole uncut version.


Then we'll see if you don't know how to hate movies.

"Don't know how to hate movies"

I do. It happens sometimes, generally at home, streaming, when I get 10 minutes in and decide to stop it. It happens because of "dumb" plot lines, plot lines that defy probability (unless fantasy is on purpose), annoying characters or actors, extreme violence that seems to be not necessary to the plot or any of many other reasons.

That's why I do check up on movies before I pay for a ticket, read a credible review and check the comments. I don't want to hate the ones I pay for.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Just think of something you hate, and then look for a movie that contains it.

That doesn't work for me since I hate the Mafia, but I did love the Godfather movies.

By "hate," I mean something you don't like to watch.



Also, Godfather is an entertaining view of the Mafia. In contrast, try Donnie Brasco.

something bad happens to good character at end of movie.


THE BIG BOSS
FIST OF FURY


I love the above films.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

@Mr Minio



I challenged you to watch The Big Boss in it's original form.


You enjoyed it 6/10, as saying that you don't know how to hate movies.


But I know you will hate Freddy Got Fingered.

I WOULD DEFINETLY PEE NEXT TO SOMEBODY IN A PUBLIC TOILET THEN RE-WATCH A SINGLE SECOND OF FREDDY GOT FINGERED.


I have only actually watched like five clips and they were all disgusting and disturbing (especially that birth scene WTF?)

Even the person who doesn't know how to hate films can tell FGF is terrible!

There are always exceptions to the rule.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Freddy Got Fingered is good, so whatever. Need a deadlier shot than that to take me out.

Babydriver

Dreadful stuff, but my hate has more to do with driving home my point that I think it was a waste of talent. Actually hating a movie is just weird to me. Can maybe understand hating one on moral grounds, like I do with something like Forced Entry or August Underground...but even they gave me things to think about. And being outraged isn't all that bad an emotion either.


Maybe an excruciatingly bad comedy? Hmmmm. Definitely the worst, but still helps with understanding how to construct a joke well.

Yeah, I get you. I haven’t seen Baby Driver yet, myself. It’s in the periphery along with Hardcore Henry and Freddy Got Fingered as supposedly bad but still garners a little interest in watching regardless. I just haven’t gotten to them yet.
I did finally watch Bathlefield Earth and, yes while it is bad, it isn’t nearly as bad as the critics made it out to be. There were some enjoyable moments

People pointing fingers at Freddy Got Fingered but seemingly giving a pass to the the Human Centipede trilogy.... :eek:

I don't like Battlefield Earth, but it does have one of my favorite quotes, which I really should start adopting for my own personal usage: "Strap him to the learning machine!"

I get hating movies that are boring or morally reprehensible. I can forgive movies that are boring if I think the filmmakers did their darndest to convince me they are actually interesting, and some movies with messages of hate are at least worthwhile from a historical standpoint. However, there's a special place in movie hell for ones that are lazy. This is why I hate the 2009 Land of the Lost movie. It's messy, pointless, and Will Ferrell and Danny McBride give no indication that they give a crap about anyone in the audience's time or hard-earned money. It's as if they're just using it as a vehicle to share gags that only they think are funny. Since it's apparent they wanted to have more fun than anyone in the audience would, they should have paid us to see it!

One of these days, the filmmakers of movies like Land of the Lost might be recognised by the medical profession for discovering the cure to insomnia (however inadvertently). ;)

But Human Centipede has received academic acclaim!

https://www.dukeupress.edu/life-destroying-diagrams (Yes, there is a whole chapter on it in there...)

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Human Centipede, also good.


Sequel, not so much.

You mean the PG version which was so humourously childish, right? Right? Heh.. heh..

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

There's been some hate leveled at Baby Driver after it came out, but I thought it was a fun experience. I don't quite understand what people think is so bad about it?

No.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Oh dear lordy lordy.

It's absurdist anti-comedy, no big deal. The films world bears as much resemblance to reality as a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Being disturbed by its gross out nonsense, is just about as silly as being offended by the geysers of blood in Kill Bill.

Not as silly as being entertained by it.

What's silly about being entertained by it? Am I seriously being given a lecture on the moral high ground of what I find entertaining by someone named Action Rocks?


Also, you haven't even seen the movie, so spare me your empty noise.

Imagine having an attention span so horrible that you count five words as a lecture.


And yes, action rocks, and will forever rox.

Re: I don't know how to hate films
 

Do I have to be the peaceful hippie referee again?

This is some pitiful trolling.

Bye.


https://i.postimg.cc/BQTh53cG/Screen...ree-Online.png

https://youtu.be/A2R8eHhkvSs

Now, let's focus on what we love. :)

Which is action!!!