Official Off-Topic Thread

[huZba]

Haha, i was wondering when Helm would throw the "insult to our intelligence" again. I remember responding like Bob before, but for this occasion I'll have to say it's out of hand with so many movies going for a specifically targeted brain-nerve-wank-fest. Consciously avoiding anything that might invade the viewers privacy to keep them nice and passive.

It's not just movies. I feel like everything around us is being turned into comfort zones.

[Helm]

A bit harsh review, wouldn't you say? I saw it as a popcorn flick.

I will never go into a theater prepared for something worse than a good movie. I understand why others do, but I am not prepared to cheapen myself that way. I don't have to consume everything with a smile. I don't owe it to them to find a proper vantage, a painless point of view through which shit shoveled in my face is magically alright. I will NEVER ADJUST MY EXPECTATIONS. It's either good or it's not.

[Ben2theEdge]

I like to have a bit of candy in my film-going diet. The two films I watched before Star Trek were Brick and Synedoche, New York. Coming out of two depressing, heady films, Star Trek was like a delicious desert and it hit the spot perfectly. I agree with you Helm that you shouldn't go into a film expecting anything less than a good film, but it's also not fair to judge a film on criteria that it is clearly not aiming for. I wouldn't criticize a tragedy for being a piss poor comedy, and I wouldn't criticize a popcorn adventure movie for not being an intellectual potboiler.

[Helm]

What is this 'pop corn adventure movie' you are talking about? Is it that if you eat pop corn at a theater it means the movie gets carte blanche to be idiotic (I ate popcorn at Synedoche, New York too)? Or is it that if the movie is about an adventure it's allowed to be intellectually bankrupt and have a story full of convenient holes?

[huZba]

The kind of experience you'd expect from a rollercoaster. Things go fast, there's some fancy lights, violent bits, fast bits, slow bits, then it stops and your experience is over and wont be carried with you further than that.

[ptoing]

Indeed. Movies like Taken for example. Movies like that are good fun action where you do not have to think too much, but they are still fun. Like a day at the beach is fun when you have been backpacking and walking around for weeks. The only problem is that Hollywood is throwing out trash like there is no tomorrow. But that is more the consumers fault than Hollywood. Every market gets what it deserves and so on...

[Helm]

No of course not, ptoing. A market doesn't get what it deserves, what are you talking about?

I fail to recognize any cognizant relationship between a day at the beach, which is full of rich experience that carries a lot of emotional weight in it besides just the 'fun' part and a roller-coaster hollywood movie pop corn adventure mindless whatever the shit experience you're talking about.

I think you're regurgitating a cliche without having given it enough critical thought. I think we're trained to do this, we're trained to be so soft on these films and this entertainment because the market profits from our lenience.

[ptoing]

A market gets what it deserves in the way that as long as it keeps consuming what it is given things will not change.
As long as people buy Fifa 20XX EA will make more, as long as people go watch films like The Fast and the Furious there will be more sequels.
Of course then there are people with more of a vision that sometimes produce something which actually makes you think or is great in other ways, but that is not the norm, with nothing. Would it be the norm, things would get boring as well and people would find something else to complain about.

The day on the beach was just a mild comparison.

walking through the jungle in a humid atmosphere = lying on the beach
a movie that makes you think = a movie which is just fast action without much mind

That kinda thing.

[JJ Naas]

I like to go see a mindless action movie riding on special effects by Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay from time to time, just for the sake of the eye candy and momentary distraction, knowing that that's what I'm gonna get, but I'd hate the idea of having to go see a Star Trek movie for that reason alone.

[junkboy]

I kinda saw the new Star Trek as a throwback to the space swashbuckling of the swinging 60's show. Except this time Kirk wasn't handing out judo chops to a guy in a rubber suit, he was being chased by the Cloverfield monster across an ice planet! It was big, noisy, melodramatic and tons of fun.