Films Stupid People Think Are Clever

[newbridge]

It's not relevant to his skills as a filmmaker to call him "uneducated." But it's exactly right. Becuase of his autodidacticism, his tastes in film are not shaped by the liberal cine intelligentsia, who enjoy the films of autors like French New Wave, Werner Herzog, David Lynch and similarly cerebral contemporary filmmakers[nb]nothing against these[/nb] . His tastes are shaped by exploring the bowels of video rental shops, watching kung fu films, exploitation films, war films and westerns. Films about movement and action and consequences. His aesthetic is non-intellectual, that is, non-aligned with the aesthetic touchstones that "intellectual" designates[nb]Cormac McCarthy comes to mind as a literary analogue to Tarantino in this way[/nb], but of course this is different to him being an idiot or him not being intelligent in the way he makes his films.

No, he's just a shit filmmaker. Along the same lines as your defense of him, I think he carries a chip on his shoulder for being "uneducated" so he tries to overcompensate for that by displaying his knowledge of other pop culture, but it takes the form of him just appropriating things whole stock under the guise of "homage" and then layering it in with lazy plot crutches (e.g. cartoonish violence) and bad dialogue that he thinks is too clever. He's not a very good filmmaker, in my opinion.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Are you sure y'alls are thinking of Inception? The film that got full marks from Ebert and has an 8.8 rating on imdb? I mean, I get that not everyone is going to like it but to call it a shitty stupid film seems a bit much.

[Pepotamo1985]

The IMDB ratings of all of Nolan's films were hijacked by his deranged fanboys - at one point, I think every film he had ever made was in the top 20. Dark Knight Rises was touching 10.00 before it was even released.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Hmm, fair enough, the ratings do seem excessively high. I'm actually quite surprised to see Insomnia so low though (7.2), I thought that was one of his best. Regardless, Inception impressed me a lot and I think had a powerful emotional quality to it. I also thought that deep loud sound you hear throughout being a mega slowed down version of Non, je ne regrette rien was quite clever.

[newbridge]

I thought Inception was great. However, I got distracted in the first five minutes and spent the rest of the movie thinking about being trapped in a virtual reality with Marion Cotillard, so I'm not really sure what happened plot-wise.

You could just do this whole thread based on the IMDB rankings. Movies that are apparently within the twenty greatest films of all time: Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction, The Lord of the Rings (all three), Fight Club, Star IV & V, Inception, Goodfellas, The Matrix

[Puce Moment]

Speaking of which, 7.9 for Mike Haggis' piece of cinematic excrement that stupid people think is a searing insight into contemporary race politics - Crash:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/?ref_=nv_sr_4

[El Unicornio, mang]

Yeah, Crash I didn't like. I think it also depends how many films you've seen. I'm guessing we've all seen lots, but I know people who literally only see a few films a year, and it's usually shit like Hangover 3, so of course a film like Crash is going to seem like a cinematic masterpiece.

[Retinend]

No, he's just a shit filmmaker. Along the same lines as your defense of him, I think he carries a chip on his shoulder for being "uneducated" so he tries to overcompensate for that by displaying his knowledge of other pop culture,

He's never seemed to me like someone who had a chip on his shoulder about education. I've heard him talk many times about his career working at the video shop, and the print media at the time played up the rags-to-riches story, but I've never heard him say that it was anything other than a very formative career at that stage of his life. Can you recall from where you drew this impression of yours?

[newbridge]

He's never seemed to me like someone who had a chip on his shoulder about education. I've heard him talk many times about his career working at the video shop, and the print media at the time played up the rags-to-riches story, but I've never heard him say that it was anything other than a very formative career at that stage of his life. Can you recall from where you drew this impression of yours?

From watching his dumb movies. He's very interested in letting everyone know he has this encyclopedic knowledge of lowbrow pop culture, and it comes across as insecurity. Also basically every smug, self-satisfied interview he's ever done.

Don't like him! Not one bit!

[BritishHobo]

No!  Inception is balls!  BALLS!  Wobbling spinning-top my arse!

I honestly didn't mind it until that moment, which felt so blatantly tacked-on in an attempt to create a question they hoped would be discussed on message boards for years to come that it basically soured me on everything that had come before.

[Buttress]

A thousand times Inception. And Primer. And all those annoying 'puzzle' films in general. Cube did it well, it was a puzzle but there was no real 'solution' at the end, just a crippling sense 'why?' The Shining also does 'puzzle' well by making it more of a maze of inconsistencies rather than something that can be 'explained' or cracked like some kind of cinematic rubix cube.

[Sam]

Anyway, in terms of thinking something is more clever than they really are, I would go for:

- To The Wonder
I'm not Malick agnostic, The Tree of Life all but brought me to my knees, but to me this film is empty - a middle-class deposition on faith and loss that gets lost in cinematography and forgets story (sorry Sam).

I keep saying this but the mistake is to think Malick's films are 'clever' at all. His philosophy background has helped his 'reclusive genius' shtick, which gets him the financial backing and critical appraisal, but it's probably a hindrance when it comes to the general public's perception. I think some people watch something like TTW and get annoyed at it as if the film is making demands on the audience or being arch and holding back some clever hidden meaning. For me, just ditch all that and let the film wash over you. It's all about the sensuous and the 'right-here-ness' of the images. I find his films some of the least intellectual, difficult or 'clever' around. I can totally see why a film like TTW won't be enjoyed by everyone, but if you are lucky enough for it to fit your sensibility then it's completely watchable.

I don't remember many reviews of it claiming what a clever film it was. Either people found it really dull and annoying or the people who did like it liked it almost sheepishly, or at least in a way that acknowledged they were Malick fan boys who liked this particular way his style was being pushed.

[Pepotamo1985]

The Shining also does 'puzzle' well by making it more of a maze of inconsistencies rather than something that can be 'explained' or cracked like some kind of cinematic rubix cube.

Mulholland Drive does this to my mind - gives the viewer the relatively easy task of putting together the puzzle of the film's proper linear narrative, leaves the rest very open for interpretation

This said, some of the theories, and solutions posited for the film are fucking barmy -http://www.mulholland-drive.net/studies/theories.htm

[Puce Moment]

I keep saying this but the mistake is to think Malick's films are 'clever' at all. His philosophy background has helped his 'reclusive genius' shtick, which gets him the financial backing and critical appraisal, but it's probably a hindrance when it comes to the general public's perception. I think some people watch something like TTW and get annoyed at it as if the film is making demands on the audience or being arch and holding back some clever hidden meaning. For me, just ditch all that and let the film wash over you. It's all about the sensuous and the 'right-here-ness' of the images. I find his films some of the least intellectual, difficult or 'clever' around. I can totally see why a film like TTW won't be enjoyed by everyone, but if you are lucky enough for it to fit your sensibility then it's completely watchable.

I don't remember many reviews of it claiming what a clever film it was. Either people found it really dull and annoying or the people who did like it liked it almost sheepishly, or at least in a way that acknowledged they were Malick fan boys who liked this particular way his style was being pushed.

I think that is fair enough, but it is very much your personal view of how to watch Malick. I have actually found people trying to defend the 'genius' of the film in the same manner as Eyes Wide Shut - and in much the same way as I 'defend' Tarkovsky - in terms of it being a treatise on 'faith' and 'faithfulness' in many different ways (not necessarily theological, but can be). I actually did let the film wash over me and found it wanting in every regard. It also managed to make me doubt my impression of Tree of Life which left me awe-struck. I went back and watched it and it really is magnificent and largely avoids perfume advert cinematography or wince-inducing profundity through breathy voice-over.

[alan nagsworth]

"The Number 23"

My fucking try-hard look-at-me circus-schooled squat party-frequenting housemate thinks it's mindblowing and the famous theory behind it is one of the many utterly banal wastes of my time she talks about constantly. She thinks it's a spiritual thing that connects all of her mates through techno at squat raves.

I'm deadly serious.

[Noodle Lizard]

Joseph Gordon Levitt's character always makes me laugh, too. The only reason he's in the film is to explain the plot before it happens, as its happening, and after its happened to other characters [nb]who are constantly asking what's going on, even when it's been explained to them already[/nb]. He serves literally no other purpose - and the ludicrously over-dramatic intonation he employs to sell how important and significant certain concepts are borders on parody.

Ellen Page's character is worse in this regard.  To my recollection, her only purpose is to ask Leo questions about how this whole dream thing works, which Leo answers immediately and with no ambiguity.  Basically Leo is Christopher Nolan and Ellen Page is the audience.

Another thing that gets me about Inception is how uninspiring the dreamscapes are. No flying, lazer guns or time travel or alien planets or fucking or anything remotely interesting, oh no.

It's as if Christopher Nolan hasn't had a dream.  Seriously, you can literally do anything you want without the restraints of logic or continuity or any kind of realism.  But he figured: nah, just have everyone wearing suits in a hotel which occasionally has one of those fun optical illusion staircases you see on the internet.  That'd be wacky!  Boring shite.

[Noodle Lizard]

Are you sure y'alls are thinking of Inception? The film that got full marks from Ebert and has an 8.8 rating on imdb? I mean, I get that not everyone is going to like it but to call it a shitty stupid film seems a bit much.

Ebert was practically demented by the end of his life and was giving almost everything full marks.  IMDb?  The place where The Dark Knight Rises was the #1 film of all time on the top 250 for a month or so?  It's full of Nolan fanboys creating multiple accounts to vote 10/10 on anything Nolany.  Interstellar will become #1 almost as soon as it's released, I guarantee it.

[phantom_power]

That whole "uninspiring dream" argument against Inception is bollocks. It isn't some flowery fantasy where anything can happen. It is going for a certain aesthetic and theme and having characters fly or turn into giant robots wouldn't really work with that. Each dream is evoking a certain style and the film works in that respect. It seems silly criticising a film for not doing what it isn't trying to do

[Noodle Lizard]

That whole "uninspiring dream" argument against Inception is bollocks. It isn't some flowery fantasy where anything can happen. It is going for a certain aesthetic and theme and having characters fly or turn into giant robots wouldn't really work with that. Each dream is evoking a certain style and the film works in that respect. It seems silly criticising a film for not doing what it isn't trying to do

I was more thinking the dreams were exactly like the real world and operated exactly the same way, every character was who they actually are and there was really nothing to signify it's a dream other than the odd bendy wall.  It just seemed very unimaginative, when blending a heist concept with fantasy/surrealism has so many options available.  Especially for an "artist" like Christopher Jonathan James Nolan.

[Van Dammage]

Another thing that gets me about Inception is how uninspiring the dreamscapes are. No flying, lazer guns or time travel or alien planets or fucking or anything remotely interesting, oh no.

This is pretty much my problem with Inception. Nolan is working with dreams, where he has limitless opportunity to make something amazing without it being considered unrealistic, because it's a dream but he ends up using such basic dreamscapes, the worst of which being the one that looked like a shootout that belongs in a bond film. I haven't seen it in a while but it was the snow one.

[phantom_power]

But isn't part of the point that the dreamer isn't supposed to know he is dreaming? I haven't seen it in a while but doesn't that give them a better chance of inception. Even if it isn't though I still think the criticism isn't that valid. If you want that sort of  dreamscape then watch Brazil or, well Dreamscape, but this film isn't real concerned with that

[Noodle Lizard]

But isn't part of the point that the dreamer isn't supposed to know he is dreaming? I haven't seen it in a while but doesn't that give them a better chance of inception. Even if it isn't though I still think the criticism isn't that valid. If you want that sort of  dreamscape then watch Brazil or, well Dreamscape, but this film isn't real concerned with that

But isn't part of the point of a dream that you're not supposed to know you're dreaming?

I mean I'm sure there's an internal logic as to why the dreams are so unimaginative, but as far as a movie experience goes what we got was basically just a heist movie with a lot of uninteresting technical dialogue.  And that awful dead wife subplot.  The screenplay was fuckawful, let's be honest.

[phantom_power]

The use of dreams was just to allow layers of reality they could fall through that were connected in some way. It is a pretty functional plot but then that is what it is meant to be. There is nothing wrong with not liking it for what it is but judge it for what it is rather than what it isn't.

And to go back to the point of the thread I think it is a pretty clever film. Not because it is hard to follow or philosophically challenging but because of the intricate plotting.

[marquis_de_sad]

From watching his dumb movies. He's very interested in letting everyone know he has this encyclopedic knowledge of lowbrow pop culture, and it comes across as insecurity. Also basically every smug, self-satisfied interview he's ever done.

Don't like him! Not one bit!

I think you're letting your dislike of Tarantino the man influence your appreciation of his films. He's a very obnoxious interviewee, but his films are very good; they're well-made and deliberately popular in a way that few people seem able to pull off these days.

[Nobody Soup]

in fairness to inception I think a lot of films centred around dream realities and all that come across similarly, vanilla sky/abre los ojos, eternal sunchine of the spotless mind and the science of sleep are arguably even worse. (I'm sure there are good examples that I just can't think of right now)

I think the matrix being on that list looks bad for the writer rather than the film, the virtual reality concept is nothing more than a jumping point to create baddies and goodies and stylised violence, surely when all's said and done they did quite well on that front, all the cool bits in the matrix involved machine guns and I've never heard anyone say otherwise.

[newbridge]

I think you're letting your dislike of Tarantino the man influence your appreciation of his films. He's a very obnoxious interviewee, but his films are very good; they're well-made and deliberately popular in a way that few people seem able to pull off these days.

To me his films are extremely lazy and not very impressive at all. The best I can say for him is that they usually look very polished, and he picks good cinematographers to work with.

Pulp Fiction is his only movie that I like.

[Mister Six]

It's not relevant to his skills as a filmmaker to call him "uneducated." But it's exactly right. Becuase of his autodidacticism, his tastes in film are not shaped by the liberal cine intelligentsia, who enjoy the films of autors like French New Wave, Werner Herzog, David Lynch and similarly cerebral contemporary filmmakers.

I think I know what you're saying - he didn't have an official education in film and so was not incalculated with the Official Canon of Proper Cinema. I just want to clarify that he is aware of those directors and movements (his film company is named after Bande à part, FFS), he just doesn't necessarily enjoy them, or - alternatively - rate them as more important than what might be termed 'dumber' or 'more mainstream' fare (though arguably Tarantino's interests are frequently more obscure and esoteric than the accepted filmic canon).

[newbridge]

My original condescending attack on Tarantino being "uneducated" was more about the fact that he dropped out of school at 15 and in general just seems like a big dummy, not that he doesn't appreciate the appropriate canon of films. Werner Herzog is a genius and he's only ever watched like ten movies or something absurd like that.

[Noodle Lizard]

in fairness to inception I think a lot of films centred around dream realities and all that come across similarly, vanilla sky/abre los ojos, eternal sunchine of the spotless mind and the science of sleep are arguably even worse. (I'm sure there are good examples that I just can't think of right now)

Nope ... nope, they're all better.  And capture the essence of dreaming (with the exception of Abre Los Ojos/Vanilla Sky, which is more alternate reality than dream).  Throw Mulholland Dr. on there and baby, you got a stew goin'!

[Noodle Lizard]

My original condescending attack on Tarantino being "uneducated" was more about the fact that he dropped out of school at 15 and in general just seems like a big dummy

I don't think that's got much to do with it.  A lot of the best filmmakers (and writers and musicians etc.) dropped out of school.  I don't think Tarantino's stupid, he's just a wittering narcissist.

Werner Herzog is a genius and he's only ever watched like ten movies or something absurd like that.

I'd take that with a huge pinch of iodized kosher salt.  He's a big self-mythologiser, let's remember.