Haven't seen Boyhood but you can say neither of these about Avengers. Anyway, this thread presumes we're talking about films that are works of art, not consumerist cookie-cutter products.
Implying those things are mutually exclusive is pretty clearly wrong, but this is irrelevant: I was not trying to convince you that
The Avengers is an example of what you were asking for. I'm responding to the discussion about
The Avengers that followed from it, to discuss what kinds of things actually go into evaluating a film.
As is with many other movies. What I see happening with Avengers, or the entirety of Marvel, is that advertisement builds up hype around an entire universe that works in a way that makes every new film yet another slice of pizza the overweight audience will devour. It's not the best pizza but it's hyped so much that some people start believing it's a great pizza.
If you actually believe I'm confusing
marketing for my own opinions about things, then I lack the basic human agency that would be required for us to carry on a conversation in the first place. But I don't think I'm confused about that, and I don't think you really think it either.
Others are just fine with what it is, but realize it isn't quality food. Marvel films are pandering to the lowest common denominator of public taste. This thread assumes a higher standard than that.
We've had this discussion before, and it always goes the same way: you say it's bad, I say you're judging it along the wrong metrics and that breadth is just as important as depth, and then the conversation ends and repeats itself some months later.
People post videos of them strongly reacting to dumb memes or TikTok shorts. Does that fact make those skits worthwhile art?
The distinctions here are so obvious I'm very (very!) slightly annoyed you're making me expound on them, but okay:
First, those videos are posted by the people who are taking them for the express purpose of gaining attention. Their reaction is the content, not a byproduct of it. They are the reactor and the creator, so the reaction is plainly not genuine. The videos I'm talking about are surreptiously taken by others and are capturing actual reactions.
Second, the phrase "strongly reacting" is doing an awful lot of work here. People yelling in joy and surprise and applauding is a "reaction," as is someone's eyes bugging out in mock surprise, as is profound sadness, but despite all belonging to the untenably broad category of "reactions" they aren't particularly similar. You might as well say irritation and ecstasy are the same thing because they're both emotions.
Third, I did not suggest that anything someone reacts to a certain way is automatically worthwhile art. I said it should be part of the discussion, and that other people's reactions can move us.
For the record, I do get you probably mean the movies as a communal thing, and those people's reactions as a sort of haven't-seen-for-a-long-time thing. But at the end of the day, all members of the audience are alone. They're lonely people. They're experiencing the film alone. Don't be fooled by the presence of others. Film is (or anyway, should be) the art of loners. We're supposed to be watching a piece of art, we're not in a tavern.
I disagree with this completely.
I also find it plainly inconsistent: we're supposed to be moved by the joy of fictional people on screen, but not by the joy of actual people right next to us? How strange. And besides, I'm not positing that we experience it "with others," I'm saying that the "it" in "experience it" simply includes the context of the work itself. We're not floating consciousness viewing things in isolation and we never will be. You bring your history and biases to everything, and that doesn't taint your reaction to art: it's what makes your reaction potentially meaningful. The same goes for how and when we experience any kind of art.
Here's a thought experiment: imagine an art installation with a beautiful picture on the wall. But you don't get to see it: you're on the other side of a two-way mirror, and all you get to see are other people walking up to the picture, and how they react to it. You see them puzzle over it, smile at it, maybe look sadly or longingly at it. The entire work of art, from your side of the mirror, is based in the reactions of others to it. But it's still art, and still contains the same possibility for profundity, and the same capacity to inspire, as the picture those people are reacting to.