Post Examples of "Pretentious" Movies

The Darjeeling Limited

I don't think it's a completely invalid word as a description. Tugg is right that it applies most accurately to movies which pretend to be sophisticated or intelligent but are actually vacuous. But even then, it can be a matter of opinion, of course. It's incredibly overused, though (almost as much as 'overrated'). Some people do label any 'arthouse' movie or any movie they found boring or didn't understand as pretentious, which is annoying. BUT equally annoying are all the people who flock to say "if you didn't like this movie you just didn't understand it, you didn't put the effort in, oh dear weren't there enough explosions for you, go back to watching superhero movies." As if it's not possible to like some art movies but not others.

If a vacuous movie is to be created, then it better be fun, like Marvel sometimes manages.

I'm not sure if it counts since I only saw one part of it when I caught it on TV, but at least the bit I saw of Friday Night Lights I thought was completely pretentious. I barely use that word at all but it specifically came to mind when I was watching it.

The scene is with these three high school football players just sitting at a table in a crowded outdoor eating area. All they were doing was just sitting there talking but the camera—god the camera—was just zooming in, shaking uncontrollably, shooting from all these dramatic angles, acting like there was fifty explosions going off and all it was was three high-schoolers having this conversation:
"So, you going to the party tonight?"
"I don't know. Are you?"
"Maybe. I think I should just go home and rest up for the game."
"Well, I heard that *insert girl's name I don't remember here* is gonna be there, you should totally go."

It made me facepalm. And then when the three of them did get to the party one of them goes into a room and starts making out with the girl I guess they were talking about when the football player's dad (I guess it was actually his house I have no idea) randomly comes out in his underwear and starts taping a football to his son's hands all angrily (I'm guessing he fumbled in an earlier game or something) And keep in mind that the camera is still acting like it's in the climax of the latest Marvel movie.

After that happened was when I thought "Yeah... it's about time to not watch this."

Boyhood was extremely pretentious to me, beside the fact that I just hated it anyway.

I agree- it's a perfectly valid word if you can vocalise what the film is pretending to be. Boring and pretentious are often mentioned in the same way; I don't think a pretentious film is necessarily boring but simply has loftier aspirations than what is actually on screen.


Skyfall would be another example of a film I think is pretentious. It is so engineered to try and commemorate fifty years of Bond that it feels like an anniversary special rather than a film. The villain was straight out of the seventies and not in a good way.The allegory of Bond's physical health and the question of whether the film franchise has had its day on the page may have been an interesting idea for a novel but it just doesn't fit with the Bond formula, which the film has been celebrating.


However pretentious will always be subjective as we can't know the writers' intentions for certain so can only guess based on what we see.

__________________
You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

Two very good replies here.

I rarely use the word pretentious myself, and when I do, it's usually because of one of the reasons above.

Anyways, what is the point of calling something pretentious - except if you develop upon your use of the word. But then again, I still hate the word, which is probably used wrongly today anyways. As people have pointed out, it is basically a synonym for boring or something you didn't understand. But obviously the director must have had a vision for the movie he was making, and if not, well then we will never know just by deciding ourselves while criticizing something we don't even know the definitive answer to. We will never know if the people behind pulled a giant joke on us and trolled us into buying some lazy look-at-me type of bs, but even if that was a fact I still think pretentious is a pretentious and stupid word to use - in any sentence no matter what the subject is.

I even feel pretentious talking about pretentiousness. I better leave now...

__________________
/watching movies for mark f/
MovieMeditation's Cinema Reviews // Film Diary 2015 // Letterboxd Profile // MovieMeditation's Top 50 Horror

Why do you think this film is pretentious?

Still not completely sure of the definition of pretentious to movies.

So it's a movie that is supposed to be deep, but comes off as bland and shallow?

Pretty much. But as always, it's a matter of opinion, right.

It's certainly the definition we're sticking to for the purposes of this thread, that's for sure.

Anyway, the answer that comes to mind is Drive, even though I generally liked it. This is mainly due to how it took a rather generic crime premise about a getaway driver with a soft side and a dark past and, instead of using it as a launching pad for car-based action sequences, instead spends much of its running time on slow and quiet character-based scenes that admittedly feel like a try-hard attempt to be an "arthouse" take on a Michael Mann-like '80s thriller and instead manage to make the film feel awfully drawn out instead (especially since, for all its clever pretensions, it still falls prey to both plot holes and gaps in logic for the sake of drama).

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

And directed by Terrence Malick.

__________________
Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

Boyhood

Boyhood, is the antithesis of pretentious. I would infer that Boyhood is akin to an unorthodoxy style of film making...a maverick amongst the mundane cinema that graces today's big screen multi cinemaplex bread boxes. The overtly positive reaction and the unabashed espousing Boyhood to avant garde masterpiece status, could be referred to as pretentious, as might this posting.

Pretentious is only in your head. Open your mind.

__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Boyhood is one of the most pretentious movies in recent times, the reason why most people don't see it as pretentious is because it's subtle pretension as opposed to full-on pretension (like some people would consider Malick). It's also pretentious when you compare it to the director's other movies, some of them being great movies.

I'd be more likely to say that the media surrounding Boyhood was far more than the movie, but then again, when isn't that the case really?

__________________
Mubi

To be honest, usually when I'm reading about a film and someone uses the word pretentious, I stop reading. I thought it was common knowledge now that it's the most overused and laziest word in regards to film criticism

I thought it was common knowledge now that it's [pretentious] the most overused and laziest word in regards to film criticism

I can think of others:

Top Ten 'Overused' Movie Review Terms

10, overrated
9, underrated
8, potboiler
7, artsy
6, sublime
5, imaginative
4, insightful
3, moving
2, though provoking
1, unpretentious

to add to that ^

deep
impactful
inspiring
uninspiring