The MoFo Movie Club Discussion: Citizen Kane

Before Sunrise is better than Citizen Kane?

I would say even Philadelphia Story with its conventional technique is far superior to Before Sunrise.

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It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

That doesn't mean there aren't people who like Buddy Buddy, and that everyone has to dislike it. I haven't seen it, but people can change opinions over time, didn't Peeping Tom destroy Michael Powell's career but people now regard it as a brilliant classic?

And no it doesn't necessarily mean that it's only slightly inferior to Citizen Kane. Mark uses his rating system as a good measure of enjoyment, and admits that sometimes he feels he is a bit biased towards old English language films when it comes to rating for enjoyment, and that if people want to add a popcorn to his ratings for certain things they can do so, for example art house ratings, camp ratings, or classic ratings. Whilst Mark can often appreciate the film from an artistic level, for example, he still didn't find it as enjoyable or good as something less artistic but better for him.

And by your own twisted logic, as you would probably put it, Buddy Buddy actually has a 6.4 rating on IMDB, which means Mark actually thinks its worse than the majority of people, this is going by your logic here.

When will you understand that PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN RATING SYSTEMS. Does everybody who rates a film on IMDB use the same system as Mark? NO.

People, myself included, tend to be more generous to films on IMDB and follow your idea of 6/7 being decent, 8 good, 9/10 great etc. but you get a lot more films rated 7+ this way, and films are divided strangely. When you go on IMDB you judge films relative to other films on IMDB, when you judge films that Mark's rate you judge films relative to other films he's rated. Giving films high ratings all the time makes your ratings lose value in a way to, and means that you rarely use 1-5, so what's the point having those scores, Mark's system gives more value and prestige to those films he genuinely thinks are special and important to him.

I honestly don't get how you find this so difficult to comprehend, do you genuinely not understand how this works or are you just trying to annoy Mark and the rest of us with your constant ignorance? Seriously now.

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I guarantee you Buddy Buddy is no Peeping Tom.

This whole discussion wasn't about his grading system, but rather his belief 7.5, which wasn't his rating in this thread, was a good rating for one of the most important American movies ever made, which according to you, mark f. thinks is just a little better than a stinker like Buddy Buddy.

How does mark f, think Buddy Buddy is worse than the people on the imdb since he gave it three popcorn bags? Three out of five usually means good, then after that fair for 2, and 1 bad. And if anyone thinks 6.4 must be an above average grade, go see Buddy Buddy and tell me you think that is even a movie of average quality.

Okay you seemed to have completely ignored this bit:

And no it doesn't necessarily mean that it's only slightly inferior to Citizen Kane. Mark uses his rating system as a good measure of enjoyment, and admits that sometimes he feels he is a bit biased towards old English language films when it comes to rating for enjoyment, and that if people want to add a popcorn to his ratings for certain things they can do so, for example art house ratings, camp ratings, or classic ratings. Whilst Mark can often appreciate the film from an artistic level, for example, he still didn't find it as enjoyable or good as something less artistic but better for him.

+ is a great rating for any film for Mark, nobody says he has to like Citizen Kane, nobody says he has to dislike Buddy Buddy, he says he gives Citizen Kane a classic rating of and used to regard it as a 10 but his own personal tastes - for films he enjoys - has developed since, or something along those lines, why do you choose to ignore so many points, you ignored the Buddy Buddy imdb score thing too conveniently.

Here are two excerpts from Buddy Buddy. Doesn't it look dire? I guarantee you the whole movie is like that. The only reason this clip isn't from youtube I couldn't find a clip there in English. This is the only English language clip I could find.

http://www.videodetective.com/movies/buddy-buddy/5046

Now I am 99% sure you are trolling, why are you ignoring all my other points.

And no it doesn't necessarily mean that it's only slightly inferior to Citizen Kane. Mark uses his rating system as a good measure of enjoyment, and admits that sometimes he feels he is a bit biased towards old English language films when it comes to rating for enjoyment, and that if people want to add a popcorn to his ratings for certain things they can do so, for example art house ratings, camp ratings, or classic ratings. Whilst Mark can often appreciate the film from an artistic level, for example, he still didn't find it as enjoyable or good as something less artistic but better for him.

+ is a great rating for any film for Mark, nobody says he has to like Citizen Kane, nobody says he has to dislike Buddy Buddy, he says he gives Citizen Kane a classic rating of and used to regard it as a 10 but his own personal tastes - for films he enjoys - has developed since, or something along those lines, why do you choose to ignore so many points, you ignored the Buddy Buddy imdb score thing too conveniently.

So a movie you now say he gave five popcorn bags to, the highest rating, is actually a 7.5 movie rated under a different system? Does that make sense to you?

Yes, perfect sense, if you took the time to actually read his posts, or what I am trying to say, it might help you in understanding this, instead you seem to keep skipping past points in order to continue your pointless tirade against Mark.

It doesn't make sense to me that a 7.5 movie could get five stars. How many movies would get the full five stars under that system? So many the grade would seem meaningless? Oh, and while this is off topic, I think he amazingly gave a low popcorn bag rating to the fantastic The Long Goodbye, which means he thinks Buddy Buddy was superior to it.

No, the rating is 7.5 and that is + just Mark often uses additional sort-of bonus ratings for films that he feels deserve to be appreciated in a different way. Examples I can think of off the top of my head is Days of Heaven he gives 4 rating but 5 art house rating, although 4 seems low its a great rating but it just shows that he feels that even if you don't appreciate the film it deserves to be appreciated on that level, and I think he gives The Passion of Joan of Arc a classic rating too (if not 5, then something high, I'm sure), although a lower actual rating, just because something is a great classical film doesn't mean that it has to hold any special, significant personal meaning to himself, he reserves 4.5+ ratings for those very special meanings of significance to himself, ones that he really loves, not just great films that other people feel he should like.

And I have seen you have moved on to your next film taste of his to attack after a few posts of Buddy Buddy (which is actually a decent film, if you go by your IMDB logic, and is one which Mark actually underrates according to your grading logic), so I think I am going to stop arguing with you from here on in if your just going to go down the route on attacking him for films you disagree with ratings on. I disagree with Mark on a lot of his ratings, but I respect every single one of them, Mark's rating is not the be all and end all rating for that film, everyone likes different films, Mark justifies his thoughts and explains why he likes/dislikes films normally, and definitely if you ask him (like I said before), I sometimes find it a lot more educational and interesting to read a respectful opinion on why someone disliked a film you like rather than simply see everyone love and give 5* ratings to the same films as you, if it was always like that it would be boring, wouldn't it?

My imdb logic would say Buddy Buddy is a D plus, which is not a decent film.

Even that is too high for it, probably because when the ratings averaged out there were people like mark f. who wouldn't rate any Wilder movie too badly. I challenge you to actually watch that movie and argue that poorly directed, poorly written, and poorly acted movie deserves three popcorm bags which translated into "good." On every level it is a mess. How could it be superior to The Long Goodbye even if you don't like that one with its virtuoso camera work and stellar performances by Sterling Hayden and Mark Rydell?

Well I dont even know if youre trolling cause Im bored to tears with this "ratings" debate.

Just read a great article about Citizen Kane with this especially brilliant little paragraph:

Other awesome bits abound; worth reading the whole thing.

I think Citizen Kane is great because it has all of the technical innovations people speak about, but also because it's one of the funnest 'great' movies I've ever seen.

It's not my favorite Welles film however.