edward the chasms of misunderstanding that happens between people
I think this is my least favorite thing in all of media - chasms of misunderstanding that are entirely solvable through a one sentence conversation, and the whole piece hinges on people not having those conversations. Like I’m meant to believe all this stuff happens because these people won’t say the one thing they’re both thinking? And I just have to wait around for whatever results from these people being infuriating? no thanks to that my friends
connrrr this is why I didn’t want to get into it because I didn’t want anyone to even get the hint that they should feel bad for liking them. My good bro Ryan Starsailor just saw them both at age 3X and loved them, and wanted to see more like them! It’s totally fine. It’s a lot easier for me to hate on these movies in person with somebody I’ve known for 15 years than here on the internet where people might take my dismissal of them as some sort of value judgment. It totally isn’t, and it’s something that bugs me, subjectively, and shouldn’t affect anyone else. The fact it’s people’s reactions to the movie that elevate my dislike is what makes it become kind of a value judgment. hoooonk
anyway, please go ahead and like these movies! I don’t super enjoy recommending movies anymore because I realize I’m a weird place with it. I’ll try to keep it as brief as I can but:
I went to film school, and I think it enhanced and ruined my appreciation of movies. Enhanced in that I understood craft and how editing, cinematography, staging, etc, could tell a story as much as words could. I was also exposed to a lot more, even though I was already a pretty voracious media consumer. But it was ruined also by listening to everyone talk about filmmakers as though they were gods who knew exactly what they were doing, AND by seeing the literal 10th short student film in a row about a guy who wasn’t noticed by women so built a robot companion who either led him to love with a real woman, or who he wound up in a complicated relationship with, or who wound up going off with another robot. The narrow scope of what people could think about, and the ways people talked about art, just put me off talking about “art films,” though I do still sometimes watch them.
So I like watching trash that has nice sets and ideas and effects and that’s about all it’s got.
Meanwhile, I won’t watch a marvel movie, so it’s got to be a very specific kind of trash. So who wants to listen to a person who’s coming from that kind of perspective!
Basically, I like movies that are ambitious, that try things, but those things make me interested in filmmaking again, or those things make me think about other things. But I don’t like when they auteur-style state something base or trite (which I personally feel chungking express does), or when they skate by on their own auteur universe (see: Jim Jarmusch) without having much of anything to say at all.
So what do I like? I like when a movie says something small while cleverly disguised as something else (see: readings of franco fascism in “cannibal man” - readings surrounding homophobia in “nightmare on elm street 2”), or when a movie encourages me to think about the medium while also being a tight, well put together product (see Bacurau, with the question: who is the protagonist of this movie? Who does the narrative arc surround?), or when a movie simply throws it all away and tries to make an original piece of ridiculousness whose meanings are entirely surface (see: big trouble in little china). Or just boss setups that make your puzzle brain go, like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.
There are all kinds of movies in between those. The Conversation, mentioned on the podcast, is just a really good, tightly edited thriller. But it’s not actively trying to tell me the director’s view of the human condition in a way that makes me be like OKAY DAVID CAGE I see you. I like Blood of Heroes where it’s just a well put together post apocalyptic film with slightly more nuanced characters. Or evil dead trap 2 where I honestly don’t know if it’s progressive or regressive but I haven’t seen another movie that occupies the same space it does. But I don’t really like recommending stuff unless I know what somebody already likes, because while I’ve seen literal thousands of movies I only liked maybe a few hundred, and can’t remember most of them.
Basically, if I get a whiff of what I perceive to be pretentiousness, I’m out of there. If I don’t, and it’s well made, I’ll watch it. If it’s poorly made and it has cool sets or music, I’ll still watch it. If it’s poorly made but is at least horror or scifi, I’ll watch it while cleaning records or something. But once you get past like… 50% on the sliding scale from “trash” to “darren aronowski” (but who among you can embody both the black swan and the white swan! you are standing in front of a mirror that shows both sides of your face! I am an amazing filmmaker! As long as you are a slender woman I will put you in a tank top and panties later in my film) I’m out of there. But this is also why I can watch any M Night Shyamalan movie. He is not pretentious - he truly believes he’s tricking me, and he is! He loves filmmaking and is very good at it, which is why, while making tons of weird flubs and mistakes and introducing narrative dissonance all along the way, I can feel smarter than the guy while also not knowing what’s gonna happen. It’s a unique position where he puts himself both above and below the viewer simultaneously. This really hit home for me when I watched the extras on the unbreakable VHS, which are probably… somewhere (lol tim is always saying I only watch things on vhs, oops)
ANYWAY!
Hopefully that makes sense!