I see your point, and I guess it's a valid one....
But I can't help but get the feeling that you kind of missed mine.
Not entirely, of course, but...Well, most of it.
do not stop watchin Sin City and 21 grams and all. i did it. i'm glad. but watch OTHER stuff. watch koran film. sri lanka movies. older stuff. watch it all. and .... without you knowing it .... you'll see that all these Sin City emotions you were getting were ... fake
My main point was that I
do watch foreign films...I do watch the older stuff. I finished my film A-Level last year. I'll begin studying Film again come the end of the year. I'd like to think that I'm quite widely...watched. Maybe I needed to be more explicit (?), but my previous post wasn't a pro-Mainstream Mainstream vs. Minority (even if that term isn't strictly true) rant. I hope it didn't come across that way?
It was more a...Mainstream appreciation post.
I've seen a lot of films, a lot of
different films, and I now feel I have the capicity to enjoy so many of them in different ways.
and instead of picking between the crappy ones, let's just pick between the good ones.
you want action ? 7 samurai or The Terminator
I won't pick. Because, see, I love both of those movies. And, really, that was where I was comming from.
While I love both of those movies, to me they serve different purposes. I can happily throw on Terminator to kill some time. I don't need to watch all of it. Likewise with, say, Pulp Fiction. I love that I know all of the words. I love how I've seen them both to death. I love how I can turn it off,
or join it half-way through. Either way, I'll still be content. And you know, that's part of cinema.
Could I do that with Seven Samurai? Not really. I would rather not leave It would leave me feeling...Hollow? That form of art needs to be viewed as a whole to truly be appreciated, if you really want to be touched. Hell, I know I wouldn't feel satisfied if I turned it off midway through, watching Samurai eating rice.
As for the band analogy, it's inedequate at best because Good Charlotte are, what? Merely a bad immitation of the Stones or GNR, a band trying to be in the same league but failing pretty badly. Now, Mainstream (yeah, we do need another word) is a
different form of cinema to...To what? Cinema Verite...Neo-Realism...Foreign...films with subtitles...Black and white films...
Foreign black and white films, with subtitles...Call it what you like. They [should] touch you in different ways.
See, I don't even judge them on the same scale.
A more adequate analogy would be...Why are Pink Floyd better than Choking Victim?
My answer? They're not. They both serve entirely different purposes, they cater to different needs. And
that is why film is 'subjective.' As I said before, it's just enjoyed on different levels.
Some people stay on the same level, while others choose to float between.
One final note. Maybe I've just chanced to see what may be random mentions but...I couldn't help but notice that your most recent (that I have noticed) examples of...Mainstream (I'm starting to hate that word) have been The Day After Tommorow and Lord of War...
Here, we can sub-divide, so I can do away with that fucking word.
The above two are examples of high concept films. There's no need for me to be patronising, this is simple stuff. My point, however, with mentioning Eternal Sunshine and Finding Neverland (please, see it. If you don't like it, all hope is lost. It's beautiful.
) before was that they are an entirely different form of...Mainstream cinema. It doesn't have to all be high concept. There are a
lot of things comming out of Hollywood that are not high concept. This is, on the whole, is what Spielberg does, and has done so consitently for pretty much his entire carreer.
While we're on the subject, why is Spielberg regarded as great? Because he fucking invented the Summer Blockbuster. Half of the films released are there because of Spielberg. Is that a bad thing? Maybe for you. But as far as the blockbuster goes, if you like, then you
love Spielberg.
Finally, yes, yes, Hollywood is full of shit, and there are a
lot of bad movies comming out. There allways have been, just the worse ones get forgotten in time...
Hollywood has it's problems, and is making shit, but at the same time it's still spewing out very watchable shit.
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