Entertainment one vs "cerebral" one - what would you pick?

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Lol, no, crumbs room is right: this is what happens when I read **** online without sleeping much: I take **** out of context...
Bonus points for admitting that I'm sure no harm done, we're all just movie lovers here



CringeFest's Avatar
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Bonus points for admitting that I'm sure no harm done, we're all just movie lovers here

i figure but on other forums...lol...i tend to inspire the hate by accident!



If we can't use labels in an attempt to communicate to others what our feelings are for any given movie...it then becomes even more difficult to discuss films.

Terms like: esoteric, action-packed, slow-burn, blockbuster, sleeper, snooze fest, outdated (that's the one I hate!) and many other commonly used descriptive terms help to relay one's movie opinion.
I'm not against using labels to talk about film, even if I do think they have a tendency to offer us short cuts to explain things that might be better suited to long leisurely strolls. Sometimes it can't be helped though. We only have so many hours in day. Also, some people hate walking.

But I do think some labels are more loaded than others. While labelling some films as 'cerebral' (or conversely, others as 'entertaining') can have descriptive value, it also opens the door for us to start coloring how we view these kinds of films. Not to mention those who state their preference for one over the other. Stereotypically, cerebral films are for the supposedly smart people. Entertaining films are for the ones who know how to have a good time and don't take everything so ********* seriously. It's the classic wedge issue that fuels a lot of the most unproductive talk on the internet, the basic art vs entertainment debate. I also think it is the type of labelling that ultimately gets a lot of people to stick to one side of the cultural fence and view the other side as worthless territory, only to be visited rarely.

While I'm obviously being a stickler for some very fine semantic differences here, I do think the root in a lot of the problems people have in talking about art, and ultimately being able to connect with the different experiences others have with it, can be found in these binary distinctions we create between high art and low art. Smart art and fun art. Cerebral movies and entertaining movies. I just think there are better words to use, that can be describe just as well, but skirt all of the prejudices and preconceptions that can come with those.

Mostly though, I'm just babbling, because that's what I do what my fingers get itchy and I'm taking a break between movies.



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Yeah, you can't always expect a film to explain everything, especially if it risks compromising itself artistically. When it comes to "thinking about it", 2001 trusts its audience to pick up on certain motifs that recur throughout the film and formulate ideas as a result - the apes evolving into humans is part of a theme of progression reflecting in humans creating artificial intelligence with HAL 9000 and culminating in humans themselves evolving into a new life form at the end. Likewise, I'm not sure what exactly makes the plot of The Matrix one of the most perplexing plots ever - it's certainly not out of structural complexity because it's a stock-standard hero's journey. But again, that's just another reason why trying to divide films into a binary system of "entertaining" and "cerebral" is kind of a fruitless endeavour.

The matrix is easy enough to understand if you realize that it essentially the bible. The problem, for me anyway, is that the bible requires some rather bizarre characters in order to make it work. Morpheus is your average early Christian who just believes, Neo is Jesus, the ugly chick he bones is Mary Magdalene, the Oracle is kinda Abraham, and then you've got the rest of the apostles all riding around in this hovercraft trying to save humanity from the devil or selling Jesus out for a steak, and the best they can offer anybody are tattered clothes and gruel that kinda sorta tastes like chicken, but isn't.



Yes, you are right that the plot is a standard hero's journey plot on the surface, but it gets far too confusing in very short order.



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Sorry, but Carrie Moss is just all kinds of hard looking to me. As feminine as a punch in the mouth.



I think some people might have misunderstood here.

All I am saying is what the first films have faster pacing, and more enterteinment value meanwhile the latter with the exception of memento, require more patience and are longer.

So my question is which type of film do you prefer, nothing more.

A movie can be long or art house or cerebral and be bad if it collapses under his own executions but it can be good if it’s done well. Same applies to enterteinment one



Victim of The Night
Sorry, but Carrie Moss is just all kinds of hard looking to me. As feminine as a punch in the mouth.
Oh wow. Me and my buddy re-watched the Matrix Saturday night and said, some 2 1/2 minutes into the movie, "And that is the exact moment I fell in love with Carrie Anne Moss."



Welcome to the human race...
The matrix is easy enough to understand if you realize that it essentially the bible. The problem, for me anyway, is that the bible requires some rather bizarre characters in order to make it work. Morpheus is your average early Christian who just believes, Neo is Jesus, the ugly chick he bones is Mary Magdalene, the Oracle is kinda Abraham, and then you've got the rest of the apostles all riding around in this hovercraft trying to save humanity from the devil or selling Jesus out for a steak, and the best they can offer anybody are tattered clothes and gruel that kinda sorta tastes like chicken, but isn't.



Yes, you are right that the plot is a standard hero's journey plot on the surface, but it gets far too confusing in very short order.
Just because The Matrix shares certain motifs and tropes with the Bible doesn't make it a 1:1 replica of the same characters and narrative - if this precise comparison really makes The Matrix so easy to understand, then why does it immediately fall apart as soon as you try to draw any parallels beyond Neo and Jesus? The difference between the apostles and the Nebuchadnezzar's crew is that the former actually outlive their hero, whereas I would think that Morpheus is closer to being a John the Baptist parallel than just a generic believer (especially considering how instrumental he is in mentoring Neo before suffering his own capture by the villains that further motivates Neo). In any case, you've stated that it is both easy to understand and alsotoo confusing, but those claims contradict each other - you certainly seem to have put more effort into explaining why you think it's the former.
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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Inception vs Memento

Fight Club vs Zodiac

The Terminator vs Blade Runner

Goodfellas (more entertaining for sure) vs The Godfather

Star Wars vs 2001: A Space Odyssey

Interested to see what people think here
Memento
Fight Club
Blade Runner
The Godfather
2001 for the music



A system of cells interlinked
Entertaining and cerebral are not mutually exclusive. Everything would be better if we start trying to eliminate these distinctions.
This was my initial reaction, as well. What if something being cerebral is a major factor in what makes it entertaining?
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This was my initial reaction, as well. What if something being cerebral is a major factor in what makes it entertaining?

If you enjoy a movie, you are entertained by it. Andrei Tarkovsky, Chantal Akerman, Robert Bresson, Bela Tarr, Stanley Brakhage, Jonas Mekas are all entertaining directors, if you are on their wave length, no matter how smarty pants they can get. I think for some who appreciate these supposedly cerebral films, entertainment has become a dirty word, that somehow lessens their serious intent. It doesn't. Just like a movie that aims to please the crowd by being full of color and humor and action and loud noises, can be deeply cerebral, and it doesn't take one bit of joy out of the film. Terminator, for example, has no shortage of big ideas in it. This doesn't make things blow up any less good.


I'm honestly not dunking on the OP. I know exactly what they mean when they say this. Essentially, this is a fast paced vs slow paced debate. Narratively driven vs mood driven. But there are just deeper implications to words like 'cerebral' and 'entertaining' that muddy waters, and shore up defences. Which, of course, I've already gone on about long enough.


*takes bow, gets hit in the head with tomato*



*stares at violin disconsolately

Any chance I can have my bow back please?



CringeFest's Avatar
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I look at the Matrix as both being biblical allegory and socio-political commentary. Very cerebral!


To me, It's a commentary about the type of artificial soft-control society we live in, the artificiality is "the matrix". The red pill of becoming more aware of things is both a disturbing experience but one that helps us overcome and grow, whereas the blue pill is the ignorance. We are now in an interesting phase (as "much time" has passed since the matrix has come out) where we have all these things which masquerade as red pills but actually delude us and make us stupider...one example is all the QAnon stuff...


Death to videodromw, long live the new flesh!



I view the plot of The Matrix to be an allegory on Plato's Allegory of the Cave. I didn't pick up on this though until I took a philosophy class last semester.

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I've been looking around for film forums to join and while intimidated, this seems my level to jump in

Memento - as while I did work in the building where the staircase bit was shot, never finished Inception
Fight Club - Zodiac I don't think I've seen but I think I remember the DVD cover...
Blade Runner - despite Terminator being the best one in its series
Goodfellas - have watched 100 times, Godfather.. I've seen bits (and with that, I was evicted - I know)
2001 - just: the 1977 version of Star Wars is so comforting, but 2001 reminds me of watching late-night sci-fi with mum... (84 yo nerd that she is)

... upon reflection, I probably didn't do that well on this post either .



Is this not a false comparison. Do you have to choose between an "entertaining movie" and a "cerebral movie" What if a cerebral movie is what you find entertaining. Movies like: Blade Runner could be both. Even a movie like mindwalk (which could be the standard bearer for cerebral movies in this post) could be found entertaining by those who are entertained by a discussion of weighty matters.



Is this not a false comparison.
That a film can have both properties does not entail that we don't also have examples that are primarily cerebral or entertaining. And in those cases we can express a preference, at least between concrete examples.



While I feel like a publican talking to sommeliers here, I would add that cerebral and entertaining are both valid and the comparison is not necessarily false, but would say may need some definition as for me feels more a juxtaposition - whether it's a movie you could watch with others as fluff or one that you really should watch alone, with your damn phone turned off. There is something enjoyable about losing yourself in a film utterly as well as munching down bags of popcorn with friends. I think the best movies do mix up both.

Look, I'll embarrass myself with basic examples, but I love the movie 'As good as it gets' - it's a daft romp of a film with wacky characters - but the scene where Jack Nicholson stumbles into a waiting room and asks the titular question is so abrupt and feels out of place - it just sticks in my mind. Why? because it breaks the flow of the movie to underline why the characters are doing all of this wackiness.
The Matrix is a super-cool action-flick that remarkably stands up for a variety of reasons - and yes the philosophy of perceiving reality and the changing and transforming of one's identity are huge themes - but by crikey, it kicks ass, all in shiny skin-tight outfits too.

Anyway, terrible examples, but perhaps you have better? Any cerebral movies that have a truly entertaining segment, and vice-versa? I'm the student, you're the masters thanks for the fun topics.
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