In Discussion About Comic Book Films...

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In short, the Tomatometer is probably one of that worst metrics to live by. It gives a short hand opinion as to what most people 'might like'. It has nothing to do with locating films that push cinematic envelopes, or even those that might enlighten us through the most standard of techniques. It often feels like it's for people who don't have enough time in their life for too many movies, and so want to take as few risks as possible with what they watch. And I don't generally listen to any of those people's opinions.
I'm sure that you already know, but my initial attraction to Rotten Tomatoes, long before I started posting there, was less about the Tomotoscore and more about it being an excellent hub to dozens of critical reviews. In the pre-internet age, it was very difficult to track particular critics' tastes and biases without sifting through dozens of physical publications. RT cut that work short in record time. It doesn't mean that the critics have gotten any sharper, but it is a very useful resourse. I've long complained (on RT!) why anyone would stop at the Tomatometer rather than read through a handful (at least) of reviews.


This preference for literacy is probably why I also still prefer message boards to most other social media "400 characters or less" platforms.



Most modern superhero films cater to the general audience and the general audience's layman taste is not refined at best and simply abhorrent at worst. It's no wonder most serious cinephiles find contemporary superhero films abhorrent and intolerable because superhero films totally are awful when compared to some of the best films ever made, entertainment or art cinema alike.
I mean, I think we'd all agree that Igor Stravinsky is "better" than Journey. And in a perfect world Stravinsky would be more popular than Journey. So you're not wrong, but it's no big surprise that that's how pop entertainment works. Someone just sent me an article claiming that the highest paid entertainer from the 1950s to the 70s was Liberace. So... agreed, most people don't know art from a hole in the ground. But that doesn't mean Journey doesn't do their thing well, as inconsequential as that thing might be.

I haven't encountered any reviews claiming that these superhero films belong with the Ozus and Bergmans of the world. That would be nonsense.
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I think Stravinsky would have appreciated "Separate Ways".



The trick is not minding
Regarding what Minio has posted. Remember that this is a guy who put Starcrash as one of his top 300 films recently, so take his opinions with a grain of salt.



I love the high mindedness of people who look down on adaptations of comic books. 100 years ago those same people looked down on a serial writer like Charles Dickens. The issue with people like this is simply ignorance for the work of Marvel has elevated a genre. Do you wish to go back to the days where the box office was dominated by Twilight, and Transformers? Do you miss Adam Sandler films?


While I'm not going to speak of DC and it's inconsistencies, the comic book adaptation has replaced the "star vehicle". Films based on marketing campaigns as opposed to catering to a loyal audience. A 26 year old doesn't remember the summers of Wild Wild West, Godzilla, and Independence Day. Super Hero films are by nature morality tales looking into the human condition.












Marvel films are exactly the same as the French New Wave. Art is art and to ignore the themes and ideals of a work because it's a guy with metal claws or a guy wearing a mask is pretentious.



I think "elevated" is a good way to look at it. Doesn't it say a lot that people are dismissing superhero films by saying they're not "great cinema"? They haven't replaced great cinema, they've replaced Transformers and Troy.

Same kinda thing with Nolan films: don't compare it to Godard or whatever, compare it to the kinds of things mainstream audiences were watching before. From that perspective, it's obviously far more challenging and thoughtful than the thing it's been replacing. You may find people's reactions to it overblown, but consider how bizarre and niche something like Inception would've been a few decades ago, and now marvel (heh) at the fact that it's totally mainstream and can be made with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Your average moviegoer is tolerating a lot more narrative complexity and ambition than they used to.



Victim of The Night
This is a great example, besides from being a wonderful film, in that it expresses the exact kind of mythic qualities that comic books are underrated at conveying.
But Conan doesn't come from a comic book.
The comic books come from the original stories from the 20s-30s. And having read every single one of them, the movie actually nods more toward the stories than the comic.



Victim of The Night
I mean, I think we'd all agree that Igor Stravinsky is "better" than Journey.
I am actually not willing to concede that.



Not that your sources are bad, but generally speaking, most of the so-called "professional" film critics are inept film studies graduates who can't tell true masterpieces from well-meaning albeit mediocre messes of general audience pleasers. That being said, great film critics still exist, most of them half-amateur. I've seen so many of the so-called film critics projecting total bull and so many amateurs proving their mastery of the subject.

Regardless of how qualified critics are, if somebody claims Christopher Nolan or James Gunn a great director, or The Dark Knight or Spiderman great films, I will be taking all their opinions with a grain of salt from now on.
Regardless of if they do a great job of explaining why they love those directors/movies? Because that wouldn't make any sense...



Victim of The Night
You gotta see Stravinsky live, though. I saw him on the Take No Prisoners Tour and it was incredible.
You clown.



I love the high mindedness of people who look down on adaptations of comic books.
Depends on the comic book.

100 years ago those same people looked down on a serial writer like Charles Dickens. The issue with people like this is simply ignorance for the work of Marvel has elevated a genre. Do you wish to go back to the days where the box office was dominated by Twilight, and Transformers? Do you miss Adam Sandler films?
I want to go back when not every big budget movie was superhero film.

Super Hero films are by nature morality tales looking into the human condition.
Not really. Certainly not uniquely so. Hero films, by nature, are cash grabs, a way to get butts in seats.

Marvel films are exactly the same as the French New Wave.
Well, that is a new sentence in the English language.

And schlock is schlock.

and to ignore the themes and ideals of a work because it's a guy with metal claws or a guy wearing a mask is pretentious.
Most films have themes. "Having a theme" does not dignify a film or a genre. No, superhero films are not categorically bad. Sure, you can make a good superhero film which is also a good film. And I am sure that Gordon Ramsey could make a passable meal with Velveeta and SPAM. What is typical of these films is depressing.



I was watching a bit of Age of Ultron last night and had forgotten how close it came to being a completely crappy movie. Some Marvel movies are not going to age well.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
But that doesn't mean Journey doesn't do their thing well, as inconsequential as that thing might be.
But contemporary Superhero films do not do their thing well. I don't even know if this would be possible given the circumstances. I can name only ONE post-2000 American superhero film that was very good, and that's Watchmen. There's a certain level of honesty, and legitness in filmmaking that has a big say in how good a film is. Sometimes I don't think a film great but can recognize some truth or sincerity behind it that makes me like it. There is absolutely none of that in Superhero films. And less and less in mainstream American cinema every year. Actually, I don't think that cinema is dying, or anything, but American cinema is in BIG trouble. It's been for years now. Its only saving grace is the quantity. Given how many films are released every year, there's always a fair chunk of solid-to-great stuff. It's not only the Americans who have that problem. French and Italian cinema is long gone, too. And before you say it's always been like that, sure there's always been bad films and even bad films many people loved, but every year of yore had incredible, eye-opening, blasting masterpieces and now we have one or zero of those a year in American cinema, and that's very sad.

I agree with the idea of 'let people watch whatever they like'. Hey, maybe they only watch crap when it comes to films but have excellent music or literature tastes. Or maybe their taste in art is awful altogether, but they excel at other things in life, which is great and acceptable, too. But then you have the so-called cinephiles or critics (either self-proclaimed or otherwise) who appear as knowledgeable to the rest, and then present their TOP 10 of the decade and include films like Hereditary, Sicario, Promising Young Woman, or The Conjuring. You really gotta be a cinematic newbie to still think them valuable cinephiles afterwards. They can't fall any lower, can they? Wait for the time when one of them includes a Superhero film. They really appear like people who only ever watched 300 films this decade and picked films they moderately liked because they were paid to do so.

I haven't encountered any reviews claiming that these superhero films belong with the Ozus and Bergmans of the world. That would be nonsense.
They do not belong with the Fassbinders and Fellinis either. Not even with the Truffauts and Lumets. They do not offer anything new either. Or even anything entertaining. They do not amaze. They have no aesthetics but the aesthetics of dirt. They are disgusting CGI from start to finish. They are manufactured and not made. I still have some superhero films to watch, and I'm not eager to given how bad they are, but, hell, if this isn't the worst genre there is.

Regardless of if they do a great job of explaining why they love those directors/movies? Because that wouldn't make any sense...
It's one thing to be a good writer and have the skill to turn your opinions into words and a whole lotta different thing to have even an iota of a good taste and a broader understanding of cinema & more adventurous film-watching policies. You can think a demagogue is a great poet of speech, rhetorically, but at the same time think their political views are hideous. I can appreciate a critic if their reviews are well-written (hint: more often than not a bad taste equals bad reviews) but still think them normie-pleasing hacks or better writers than cinephiles. There really is no excuse for a critic who loves, say, Avengers and ranks it higher than most other movies, except for:
1. They simply enjoyed it = guilty pleasure. This is fine in and of itself but if they watched more films they would have found much worthier guilty pleasures. I find that most of the time people who love crap are simply ignorant of better stuff. If they took time to get to know the better stuff, they'd start hating the crap, too. If they're just average people, that's fine, but I demand my critics to be knowledgeable about cinema - more than I am. Or at least to know more films than those from the TOP 101 Films You Have to See list and the latest, hottest Top 10 Screening Now.
2. They found something personal about the film that made them illogically love the film more on an emotional level. This often happens with anime, dramas, and romances. For example, if you are a widower and your wife died in a car accident, chances are you will be way more lenient on a drama film whose main hero has lived through exactly the same thing. It's hard to say if anybody ever had to fight with Thanos irl, but who knows...

Regarding what Minio has posted. Remember that this is a guy who put Starcrash as one of his top 300 films recently, so take his opinions with a grain of salt.
There is absolutely no comparison between the masterpiece Starcrash is and some Superhero crap. If you took a piece of paper and drew a finite parabola-like curve, then at one high point you have films like Sansho the Bailiff, The Turin Horse, or Rashomon and at the other high point, you have films like Starcrash. Both are masterpieces. Something like Avengers lies at the bottom, next to the vertex. This is something you just get or do not get, there is no point in putting it into words. Starcrash induces the feeling of child-like wonder and makes you wish you watched it as a little kid and that it changed your life back then. But it didn't. Instead, it changed your adult life. It's not a guilty pleasure. It's a legit pleasure. Sometimes appreciating films like Starcrash or Order 027 required a more refined taste than appreciating a Stalker or a Mirror. But this is all pointless. Most people will never get it. You either have it in you or you don't. You might have it hidden deep inside of you and have to discover it.

Incidentally, I don't read books, but I already have a list of 100 or so books that, in case I ever wanted to pick up reading, would make me a much more legit book reader than most. Hell, just read anything that isn't the "how to live your life" coach type of stuff to be a more legit book buff than people who find Stephen King the best writer ever.
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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.



The trick is not minding
There is absolutely no comparison between the masterpiece Starcrash is and some Superhero crap. If you took a piece of paper and drew a finite parabola-like curve, then at one high point you have films like Sansho the Bailiff, The Turin Horse, or Rashomon and at the other high point, you have films like Starcrash. Both are masterpieces. Something like Avengers lies at the bottom, next to the vertex. This is something you just get or do not get, there is no point in putting it into words. Starcrash induces the feeling of child-like wonder and makes you wish you watched it as a little kid and that it changed your life back then. But it didn't. Instead, it changed your adult life. It's not a guilty pleasure. It's a legit pleasure. Sometimes appreciating films like Starcrash or Order 027 required a more refined taste than appreciating a Stalker or a Mirror. But this is all pointless. Most people will never get it. You either have it in you or you don't. You might have it hidden deep inside of you and have to discover it.

Incidentally, I don't read books, but I already have a list of 100 or so books that, in case I ever wanted to pick up reading, would make me a much more legit book reader than most. Hell, just read anything that isn't the "how to live your life" coach type of stuff to be a more legit book buff than people who find Stephen King the best writer ever.
This is merely opinion passed off as fact, and you seem to confuse the two. Always have from what I’ve seen from your posts.
Starcrash is a legitimate cash grab to jump on the space opera bandwagon that Star Wars created. It was just a cash in.
It seems the irony is lost on you, as you feel superheroes films are incapable of inducing that same childlike feel you just cited.
You just don’t understand the feeling of super heroes films, I guess. It requires actual taste as well, a non pretentious one that somehow accepts Starcrash are a “masterpiece” but misses the boat entirely on a film like Batman Begins or The Dark Knight, or Superman.
It’s ok, Minio. There is still time. No one will take away your precious cinephile credentials for liking one. I promise.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
What a way to misunderstand.

Starcrash was a cash grab just like superhero films are. Nothing wrong with that. Starcrash took from Star Wars but made everything much better and turned already good Star Wars into a total masterpiece, introducing metaphysics and orgone to what was just solid entertainment. Starcrash is a vibrating totaller, and it REEKS of legit film taste. So if you watched and loved it you know you have the best film taste out there and are much superior to all the normies out there. And then you don't have to take drugs because films like Starcrash hypnotize you and get you into a pretty drug-like state of awe, hypnosis, metaphysical ascension!!!

Just like I told you, either you get it right away or you never do. That's what purity is. I don't mean purity in a sexual sense but in a much deeper sense!!! YOU GOTTA BE PURE!!!

Superheroes may or may not induce whatever you can think of in you. But that's a testament to you as a film watcher. I already said I liked Snyder's Watchmen.

You've got tens of thousands of legit films out there. You can love any of it. But you still choose to enjoy poor films. The thing is you cannot tell what is legit and what isn't legit because you are not pure! And if you're not pure... chances you will have good taste are considerably lower. Chances you will have outstanding taste are close to zero. But...

"There's no accounting for taste."
"To each their own."
"Can't argue taste."

Most often used argument by people like this:

oh hai my favorite film is joker I watched 20 films in my life
Taste is taste. But there are some principles that should not be broken.

Yadda yadda, but... In real life loving crap films has few consequences. I won't think less of you as a person. Worst case scenario I will choose not to follow you on Letterboxd knowing I won't get any interesting recommendations from you anyway. Oh, I might also call Arthouse Mafia and make them kidnap you and make you watch the entire filmography of Lav Diaz in a single sitting. Clockwork Orange style.



The trick is not minding
What a way to misunderstand.

Starcrash was a cash grab just like superhero films are. Nothing wrong with that. Starcrash took from Star Wars but made everything much better and turned already good Star Wars into a total masterpiece, introducing metaphysics and orgone to what was just solid entertainment. Starcrash is a vibrating totaller, and it REEKS of legit film taste. So if you watched and loved it you know you have the best film taste out there and are much superior to all the normies out there. And then you don't have to take drugs because films like Starcrash hypnotize you and get you into a pretty drug-like state of awe, hypnosis, metaphysical ascension!!!

Just like I told you, either you get it right away or you never do. That's what purity is. I don't mean purity in a sexual sense but in a much deeper sense!!! YOU GOTTA BE PURE!!!

Superheroes may or may not induce whatever you can think of in you. But that's a testament to you as a film watcher. I already said I liked Snyder's Watchmen.

You've got tens of thousands of legit films out there. You can love any of it. But you still choose to enjoy poor films. The thing is you cannot tell what is legit and what isn't legit because you are not pure! And if you're not pure... chances you will have good taste are considerably lower. Chances you will have outstanding taste are close to zero. But...

"There's no accounting for taste."
"To each their own."
"Can't argue taste."

Most often used argument by people like this:



Taste is taste. But there are some principles that should not be broken.

Yadda yadda, but... In real life loving crap films has few consequences. I won't think less of you as a person. Worst case scenario I will choose not to follow you on Letterboxd knowing I won't get any interesting recommendations from you anyway. Oh, I might also call Arthouse Mafia and make them kidnap you and make you watch the entire filmography of Lav Diaz in a single sitting. Clockwork Orange style.
I got a good laugh out of this. Thanks.
It’s clear you misunderstood everything I posted previously about mistaking opinion and facts. Instead, you just ramble on about taste and about “not getting it” and being “pure” as if you made some point proving your argument?
I don’t actually begrudge you for enjoying Starcrash. I did chuckle a bit.
But it’s your, somewhat lacking, taste. I will say of the top 300 films you posted I did agree with many. But others were head scratchers.
It was a decent list though. A little predictable with some of the films chosen for said director. (Aguirre from Herzog? Blade Runner from Scott? Yawn.)
But, maybe one day you may have better taste as well sometime. Taste that doesn’t involve Starcrash or Tetsuo. Or The Host or The Wailing. Two very overrated films in my opinion.
Maybe then you can be as pure and hip as you so desperately strive to be.
Until then, not even all the obscure films and pink films and what ever films you decide to cite to prove your credentials will hide the fact that you’re merely wishing to be taken seriously and think that dismissing others for their “taste” is the quickest way to it.
Toodles.

PS. Thanks for bringing up Lav Diaz. I admit I had to look him up. Too many directors. Not enough time. *sigh*
One day I’ll get around to him.



Regardless of how qualified critics are, if somebody claims Christopher Nolan or James Gunn a great director, or The Dark Knight or Spiderman great films, I will be taking all their opinions with a grain of salt from now on.
Chris Nolan is great director [insert neu_hallogalo.mp3]
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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
@Wyldesyde19 Listen, that's the end of your ballyhooing, you imp. Arthouse Mafia has a long history of dealing with the likes of you. I just called them and you can expect them soon. We've got a special policy for urchins like you. I'll be lenient with you, though and instead of watching Lav Diaz I'll make you watch Starcrash over and over again. We cannot make you watch the films of Lav Diaz due to the cost of his movies. Arthouse Mafia is an entirely old-arthouse-veteran-backed organization. Thank you for your understanding.

... did I mention how the populace has a bad taste in art due to their lack of exposition to a variety of quality art? There are differnt kinds of aesthetics but most people has no taste in aesthectics at all. A big group of them creams over superhero genre. Coincidence?