…or much of anything at all in the theater last year or this year, for that matter? (God, I know I saw something other than Cloverfield. I must have.)
This guy rants about how nobody saw these movies because people are saps who just want happy, happy, joy, joy all the time. I tend to agree in general. I like dark movies. I like depressing movies.
But I’m generally totally disinterested in movies like Juno, for the same reason I don’t read Daniel Clowes’ comics: I just don’t care about those kinds of stories. I don’t care about quirky teen moms. There’s no way that story’s going to resonate with me. Sorry. I’m sure it was funny. I’m sure you found it enchanting. Put on some Sufjan Stevens and tell your friends all about it. Maybe you’re too easily enchanted.
Sometimes it’s a beef with the way the story’s told, or who’s telling it: I absolutely despise the work of Paul Thomas Anderson. (Or P. Thomas Anderson, or P.T. Anderson, or whatever pretentious way he’s billing himself these days. How about just P. Thomas A. next time, big guy?) Boogie Nights was a pile of shit, and Punch-Drunk Love was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen committed to film. He’s only second to Todd Haynes on the list of people I wish worked on a garbage scow instead of making movies. He’s the reason I didn’t see There Will Be Blood.
And sometimes, I just don’t want to see depressing shit happening to people I’d rather piss on than engage in a conversation with. I like the Coen Brothers’ comedies a good deal, but I never liked Fargo at all and didn’t like Blood Simple much better and I sure as shit don’t want to see some retard with a Prince Valiant haircut murdering rednecks.
I like Edith Piaf and I like Marion Cotillard, and I had nothing in principle against La Vie En Rose, but I just couldn’t be arsed. Biopics about talented people who piss their lives away don’t much interest me, either. It’s why I didn’t see Control, even though I love Anton Corbijn. I know Ian Curtis’s story. I know about his shitty behavior and his pathetic suicide. I just don’t care to see it played out on screen.
Or at least, I don’t want to go and spend $15 to do so. (Ticket plus drink.) I’ll watch these movies on cable, maybe.
With the exception of Juno, all these movies just seemed ponderous and humorless and dreadful and depressing. You think I need the guy who wrote Magnolia to tell me how life sucks and people are evil and the world is fucked up? Got it, thanks. (I’m not even going into the Julian Schnabel movie about the paralyzed guy. Triumph of the human spirit? Great, fine, got that from the review. Don’t want to sit around trying not to snore for two hours while some poor fucker blinks at things.) Terrifying I can handle. Disturbing. Thought-provoking. I like these adjectives.
Dreary? Not so much.
I’m not looking for The Princess Diaries here. But life is shitty enough without hearing about it from some snide CalArts film school asshole.
I’m looking forward to Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Be Kind Rewind, Chaos Theory, whatever Gilliam does next.
You think that makes me ignorant of great cinema? Fuck you. Make some and maybe we’ll see. Stop playing with your dick and being mopey and bring on the Lawrence Of Arabia, Hollywood.
1) – “I don’t care about quirky teen moms.” I am sure that your mom, (who was in fact a quirky teen, no?) would be kind of hurt about this statement
2) The next time I see you I am going to yell at you for being such a hater of the universe. Be warned.
Laurenn…Piss Off! LOL!
Only kidding. You of course have a right to your opinion. Please don’t yell at Josh. He’s just expressing his opinion.
Oh, by the way…”La Vie En Rose” and “Control” were both fabulous movies and yes, they were both downers.
I haven’t seen a full length feature film in nearly 2 years. Can’t say I feel like I’ve missed anything.
I didn’t see any of those either. In general, we only seem to go to first-run movies if there is some point to seeing it on a ginormous screen. In other words there generally has to be some element of spectacle.
(racking brain) I think we saw 9in no particular order) Transformers, Stardust, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Golden Compass, Spider-Man 3, and Enchanted in 2007.
We’ve been watching a lot more stuff by renting that we never would have gone to the theater for. For example last night we watched The Amateurs, a funny film about a bunch of small-town losers who do something other than piss their lives away. Pretty good.
I thought about chastising you for your hater-ism, but I’m just as guilty of it. The way you feel about Paul Thomas Anderson is the way I feel about Darren Aronofsky. Sigh. We are all assholes and hypocrites.
I’m glad the Coen brothers won, but I wish it could have been for something they also wrote. I’ve never liked their adaptations as much as their original material. Of course, my current favorite directors are David Fincher and Wes Anderson, both of whom are consistently ignored by the Academy. So fuck it. 😉
Frank: my girlfriend feels that Darren Aronofsky owes her big time for pi and requiem for a dream, both of which she had to watch for a film class: three and a half hours of her life she’ll never get back. The samurai film class was better. I think Bardem got the Oscar for the hideaous haircut.
El Ra-Ul
Surprised you didn’t like Fargo. Despite the fact that everyone in the movie — including the heroine — was either nauseatingly provincial or repugnant in some way, the performances were impeccable and the movie had great pacing and tension. Middle American at its most loathsome.