How do you judge films and how much you care about directing?

Well then my point still stands. In the example I picked to showcase how this system of rating things is unnecessarily narrow to the point of misleading, the whole, complete goal is met, as the makers intention was solely to maximize profit, which he succeeded with. So I don't see any places where sacrifices were to be made or at all relevant in that scenario, as creative intent wasn't really what it was about to begin with, so at best second to everything else thought of as required to meet the goal of profit. I realize this is a very hypothetical example but it works for showing how such a rating system is too narrow to work well all by itself, as, like I said, my cheese nightmare example would end up rated as the 100% perfect movie, which IMHO I believe it doesn't really deserve in any kind of sensible way.

True & not the only director to say this. Some directors (Scorsese, e.g.) have had the same exclusive editor their entire career.

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No, it's not. If there's bad acting, poor characterizations and a lame and predictable story, then those are sacrifices that were (likely) not made up for. Cheesy special effects can only go so far. In a case like Robocop 2, the claymation immediately fails when compared to the better effects of the first one. The story also misses s lot of the emotion of the first, and the action is second-rate. 50/100. But Braindead builds the acting, story, effects and characterizations on B-Movie cheesiness for the sake of constant laughs and succeeds. The only sacrifice I'd say there was is that the movie is SLIGHTLY predictable. Slightly. So, 95/100.


Now let's take a look at an MST3K movie. The Crawling Eye. Tbh, I dob't know why this made it to MST3K. The story wasn't fully fleshed out, but it had some interesting plot points. It needed better characterization, too. But the creature effects were INCREDIBLE for its time. I didn't think puppetry like that was possible back then. So it sacrificed some story for special effects, which made a couple scenes boring but lead up to good effects and a decent third act. 65/100.

Would better acting make a 2 hour cheese fest less unwatchable? Possibly. Though I would argue not by a whole lot, so not sure how much it really matters.

Since you're not really addressing it I take it that you're not getting what I'm trying to say. I don't think I get all that much of what you're saying either. Seems we're mostly talking past each other at this point.

I'm not trashing Braindead BTW. In any of my posts. I saw it when it was relatively new, about 30 years ago, and I don't remember a thing about it. Not sure why you keep bringing it up but if it fits your definition of a 2 hour cheese fest then fine I guess. Highly subjective off course but I personally wouldn't rate a movie befitting of such a description 95/100 and I wouldn't expect a rating method leading to results like that to translate very well for movie recommendations to others either if that matters. That's me though. You do you. Peace

I never said I needed you to*rate it the same way. I don't need you to do things my way. And if you don't understand what I'm saying, it's hypocritical to accuse me of making the same mistake. If you don't understand, that's you.

Pretty sure we've reached an impasse here, so let's not let things go much further, please.

Very very generally, I encourage everyone to deescalate rather than escalate whenever possible. Especially if the other person is already deescalating. If someone is offering any kind of olive branch or trying to take the temperature of a disagreement down, I think it's only right to reply in kind and do the same.

To open a new tangent that concerns one something from the ongoing discussion above... I don't understand judgments based on "bad acting". There are so many kinds of acting, some of which aren't necessarily about being "good" — some even intentionally try to not be good. I guess I can see it as a catchall when describing acting in the most stereotypical, paint-by-numbers Hollywood marquee titles.

But there's just as much, if not more releases outside of that vague circle — from both within Hollywood, outside of it, and beyond. And even within that vague circle of Hollywood autopilot-productions, there's still multiple acting styles that oppose each other in approach, and they've been there for a long time.

There are exceptions, yeah. Little Shop of Horrors had exaggerated acting to bring out a "stage play" feel and it fit right in with the tone of the movie, which made it fun to watch. The original 1960 film had a similar approach, although the exaggerated acting was more for the sake of the comedy rather than the stage feel. Both are good movies with enjoyable characters. Bad acting can be utilized. If it's not utilized, it's just bad acting.


True, there's also the bad acting ehich is so bad that it's funny. This doesn't typically happen with bad acting, but when it does, it works. That's why a lot of people enjoy The Room, and even though I gave it a 30 I enjoyed some of the SBIG parts.


And for a better movie, an having an incredible cast with one ok or meh actor can make him look a lot worse. Two popular examples are Kevin Costner in Robin Hood and Keanu Reeves in Dracula, both heavily criticized for their inability to perform a decent English accent. IMO if Keanu, good actor but not a good Harker, was replaced with a better actor, then Dracula would have been perfect. One small blemish on an otherwise incredible movie. 95.

I've never thought of Keanu Reeves as a good actor...BUT he has been cast in movies where his style of acting worked great. Same with Kevin Costner actually.

I've seen very few Costner movies, actually. I was never a fan. But Keanu is either hit well enough or OK at what he's doing. My family is made up of John Wick fans.

I've never seen a John Wicks film, but it seems Keanu would be good in that role.

The John Wick series is a rare breed of movies that can string on with as minimal of a plot as possible and still be great movies, and they got slightly better each time so far. Very rare movie for me. Another example would be Halloween which didn't need a plot when the camera work and direction were brilliant at slowly building horror. My only problem with the movie is that it used the same two tunes way too often in the movie, which is a shame because Carpenter is a great composer.

It's not that rare. Minimal plot often makes for great, tight little movies. I'm thinking of Duel, or The Road Warrior. Or All is Lost, or, in other genres, My Dinner with André, or Jeanne Dielman (haven't seen it yet though). I'd argue that their plots are less complex than John Wick's. There's no correlation between plot complexity and movie quality. And don't get me started on non-plot theater ŕ la Beckett.

In fact, I also argue that Terminator is a bit better than Terminator 2, because it's a tighter, more focused, more tense story.

(In fact I've been trying to make a custom list about minimal plot movies, but it turned out frustratingly difficult to measure it, it depends so much on the subjective "zoom level" of the plot's description. So many stories can be described both in one sentence and in forty pages...)

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That's not what I said.* It's just that in most cases a thin plot doesn't help. Of course, overstuffed plots can be incredibly confusing or just ridiculous, like some Uwe Boll movies. But if the right people balance it out, with a good example being the Harry Potter movies, they can really work.

This makes two of us.

Not sure why you describe this movie (one of my all-time favorites) as “minimal plot” especially as you haven’t seen it. Maybe we think of “minimal plot” differently. Jeanne Dielman is a movie with an unusual storyline that I haven’t seen in any other movie. And there’s definitely a plot unless I’m misunderstanding the word.

That's the issue that prevents me to complete that custom list. It's hard to define a "plot" unambiguously, or to decide for a level of description. Raiders of the Lost Ark is eventful, and filled with twists and turns, yet could also be summarized in one or two sentence ("Rival archaeologists seek a biblical relic, they find it the end"). All movies offer their length of content. Yet, they can be compared : there is more "story" in Once Upon a Time in America than in Duel (okay, it's longer, but still, proportionally, or in one hour of each). Again : Story ? Plot ? Content ? What do these mean ? People complain that "nothing happens" in 2001, The Exorcist or The Shining...

Anyway, haven't seen Dielman but what I've understood of its description and what I expect of its viewing is some fictional version of a dry ethnographic account of one woman's ordinary day in a house, with different elements updating our understanding of it and our definition of its situations. A descriptive movie more about a "state" than about "events" (or "progression", "change", etc). The antithesis of Ben Hur, Josey Wales or Captain America's The Avengers : Onslaught of the Kabooms. I'd be a bit surprised (and would feel mislead) to be wrong.

But again (because the tone seems defensive) my point isn't a judgement. I'm saying, precisely, that "plot size" (whatever it means in density, complexity, length) is not a factor of quality at all. And a movie can have a minimal, on character story pitch or an overwhelming epic cascade of twists and turns with dozens of intertwined life trajectories, and be equally likely to be great or lame. Neither "more" nor "less" are a flaw (or a quality).

Obviously it’s “fictional” - it’s a movie not a documentary.

“Dry” - not in the least. “Ordinary” - far from it. “Events”, “progression”, “change” - yes, it’s all there.

Christian Bale in a interview for the film Out of the Furnace said he stopped seeing what critics write because most of them don't understand the roles of the different individuals inside a film, the director, the producer... and I agree with him, I mean, I don't/didn't knew, although I blamed this and that not realizing how things work. Obviously people place all the criticism on the actor/director, most don't understand the importance of a producer, some don't even understand the importance of a the guy that selects the sounds.


My list of favorite films are based on personal preferences based on my experiences, obviously. Sometimes the experiences are similar, the feelings/emotions are the same, the perspectives are similar, those end up being my favorites because that's why I watch films, it's very trivial. Some make me think, or see something in a way I never seen. Other's are just very entertaining and make me forget everything for two hours.