Your life sounds terrible. I'm just sad for you now.
You will never enjoy the pure fun of things like House (both 1977 and the 80's US horror films), Hell Comes to Frogtown, They Live, The Evil Dead (originals), Heavy Metal, Bad Taste, Dead Alive, Death Race 2000, and countless other cult and b-movies that this type of film making is invoking.
However, even when a film is telling a story in a campy or over-the-top nature it can still tell a serious story. Mad Max can still be a story about hope in a seemingly hopeless place. It can be a strong feminist tale, despite what Sexy Celebrity wants (I find his criticisms beyond ridiculous). It can still have serious themes running under the surface of visceral bombast.
Some of those movies I actually do like. I did say that the lack of realism was only one of many drawbacks, and that in and of itself it didn't completely ruin the movie.
Don't feel sorry for me. It's not as though I limit myself so much that I have a hard time finding movies I can enjoy. I am always very excited and passionate about film because there are so many great movies that I will love that I don't even have enough time in my life to watch them all.
I was trying to be more cheeky than condescending, but the latter is more in my nature.
That said, Zotis' major concern is that he looks for realism in a film. To me, this is the absolute worst way to watch movies because, no matter what film you watch, it's going to take great liberties with the concept of reality. Even the most realistic film is going to be nothing like real life. Real life doesn't follow narrative arcs. Real life people don't change the way film characters do. Real life doesn't follow act structure. Films have to take story telling short cuts like relying on stereotypes to convey a character or short cut things like travel or time passing to convey their point. "Realism" is circumvented in literally every film. It's a requirement to tell a story in a couple of hours. I don't just dislike Zotis' criticism of Max for this, I think it's a foolish way to watch films. Again, every film has to take a certain amount of liberty with realism to get the job done.
My point of view is, does the film obey its own rules? If the film makes sense within its own internal logic then it works.
Every movie is realistic to a degree, and every movie is unrealistic to a degree. The issue is not whether a movie is realistic or unrealistic. The issue is how realistic it is. It can be very realistic, somewhat realistic, or very unrealistic. I don't like it when movies are very over-the-top, like
300. But I do like movies that are somewhat over-the-top in an artsy way, like
Kill Bill.
There are some movies that are extremely realistic, like
Foxcatcher,
A Most Wanted Man, and
A Woman Under the Influence. The extent that they pursue realism excites me. I find all of the little details that they pay attention to fascinating, like how long to pause on the phone while it's implied that the person on the other end is talking. There are other things about film that excite me too. It isn't as if realism is the only thing that matters to me, or the thing that matters most. But it's something I look for in most films, because to me it means the director is taking the time to think about how things should actually work. And a lack of realism to me feels like the director just doesn't care. That he just wants to do whatever crazy stunt and doesn't care if it even makes any sense. To me that's childish and silly.
But when you talk about even the most realistic film still not being able to portray reality exactly, and how ridiculous it is to expect something like that... I just don't understand why you think that's even relevant. Do you really think that's what I'm advocating?
Realism is circumvented in every movie, but realism is also applied in every movie, because the word realism implies a degree, not an exact amount. If anything in a movie resembles reality in any way shape or form then it is at least a tiny bit realistic. And if a movie is as close to reality as humanly possible it still can't be completely realistic.
It really boggles my mind that you would talk about realism that way, and then say that it's absurd. Realism to that extent is absurd, but that's not what I'm talking about. The more realistic a movie is, the more I like it. The less realistic a movie is, the less I like it. But there is so much more to what I like and dislike about movies than just that.
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