So do they also just enjoy jingling keys for 2 hours?
Like it's not that hard. You enjoy it or you don't and everyone has a criteria on what's good or not.
Some people like to think about high concept stuff and a good movie gets their moral queries up.
Some like professionalism and it's about shot compositions and good editing.
Some want jokes and as long as they laugh it's good.
Some like Neil Breen stuff that's none of the above.
Truly exceptional movies usually are able to satisfy multiple groups of people and also may get you interested in lines of thought or art that is in a different realm than your normal standard of quality.Saying you turn off your brain and have no concept other than colors make time pass is beyond a lack of critical thought.
I too have no media literacy
Good movie: the one you enjoy
Bad movie: the one you don't
Simple as that, my metric of scoring isn't good or bad, it's whether i enjoy it or whether it annoy me. I pick what i watch and will go through review and score so most of the time i know i gonna enjoy it, but sometime an outlier will pops up. I'm still not over how annoyed i am for 28 Weeks Later.
I mean hey, if you have low standards, and you're completely honest about it, nothing wrong with that... and it also puts the onus on the people with higher standards to actually explain why they do or do not like any given movie, easier to suss out the people who don't actually have consistent standards, but instead just have an amalgamation of their favorite influencers opinions.
Win win win as I see it. I'm a bit of a movie snob, and I can explain why I do or don't like a movie...
But I am also self-aware enough to realize that other people have other standards, and 90% of the time, if there isn't some utterly reprehnsible trope or caricature or very very misleading depiction of real events in a 'based on a true story' type thing... eh, whatever, we have different tastes, wanna get pizza?
That's why I watch video essays that are longer than the actual movie and explain why it's bad instead of watching the movie
Good movies are self-aware. Not everything needs to be a masterpiece of acting and cinematography, or have the best effects, or the best writing. But they have to know what they are. I don't mean breaking the fourth wall or self-deprecating humor. More like understanding their limits.
The people making Sharknado knew they were doing a campy action film (series) with sharks in tornadoes. Fun Movie. Would watch again.
M. Night Shyamalan is a great writer and director, but a lot of his films have a feeling of over-dramatized self-importance, where it seems like he really wants you to know how clever he is. So they get panned.
Chrisopher Nolan (I think) puts similar importance on symbols and archetypes with a dramatic and artistic style, but his movies have a feel of like "I don't give a shit if you get it, just enjoy the ride." He makes good films.
I'm often very enamored by camera work, type of shot and things like how they translate certain things to film with limited options.
Especially when it's Drama related and has to do with heavier emotions or things like disorders and other issues.
But usually i'm just a: "watched movie, had fun" kinda guy.
I watched a stoner movie a while back about some guys that got stranded in their van and hotboxed their asses back or forward(can't remember) 30 years...as an avid non drug user i had fun but i did think it was a shit movie tho.
Sounds like someone who never watched House of the Dead in theatres.
So we're going to ignore the assholes that talk in the theater too huh?
Huh. 90% of the time I'm like "this is a bad movie"
I did a Final Destination marathon recently to prep for Bloodlines.
While all the movies have their flaws and weaknesses, FD4 was garbage. Even as a easy to please person I couldn't handle it.Genuinely terrible, I am shocked they wanted it to be the last one in the franchise, to the point they called it "The Final Destination"
And that's awesome!
But please, don't rate the movies you watch 9/10. For those of us who watch most movies, an average of 90% is inarguable insane.
I'm so moved by this post that it consider writing a review of 5/10. Fortunately, I don't have enough to say to reach that IMDb character limit so 7/10 and no comment.
Oh and tv shows...if you're giving every episode 9/10, please stop, some of us are watching these things a decade later and it's best to know if it's actually worthy a 9.
That's also when reviews come in handy, because the reviews become our research. We don't write review for you, don't take it personally.
It's ok to be baffled. Some of us are used to seeing out the answer rather than post our brain droppings.
Turns out I had more to say than I thought.
✅ No spoilers.
Enjoying a movie, having fun watching it, is not an indication of its quality. It is acceptable to enjoy bad movies, nothing wrong with that, I've watched plenty of movies I consider as bad but still had fun and a nice time watching them.
Defining the quality of a movie by the enjoyment you had is like defining the quality of a painting by how realistic it is. A painting might be good even if it is surreal, unrealistic or abstract, and a realistic painting might be crap, so the quality of the painting is not tied to simply how realistic it is. The same way there are movies that are fun and enjoyable but not "good", and there are movies that bore most people and are a master piece.
While with a painting defining the quality is simpler (simpler yes, but not simple) as it is the creation of one person normally, for movies it gets incredibly complex as there's so much to measure and its the work of so many people; the script, the acting, the photography, the score, the directing, the stunts, makeup and dressing, FX, ... There's a lot that can be good and a lot that can be bad in the same movie.
At least that has always been my perspective, I have no issues admitting to not liking something despite how good it was, and loving something that I knew was not good. Some examples that come to mind: I love the matrix movies, love watching them, yes, in plural, that doesn't mean the second and third are good. It feels like there were too many issues in them to make them good, but I still had a good time watching them. On the other hand, I feel like a movie like 2001 is of unquestionable quality, yet I always feel somewhat bored watching it and would rather do something else.
To have no opinion other than gratefulness is... Concerning.
This is why I hardly ever recommend movies.
My criteria pretty much boils down to "did it hold my attention" during the runtime?"
A "good" movie holds my attention An "ok" movie doesn't hold my atttention 100% A "bad" movie 'pushes' my attention away
This is exactly why we mainly get dogshit by people with nothing to say or any life experience.
Don't have fun = bad movie.
Dude just watch the room and you will get it
I get you bro
Honestly, that is what matters. There's something to be said about "cinema" versus "movies" lol, not everything needs to have mass appeal to be good, but I think a lot of people rate things high even when they hate it and that's bullshit.
I had this exact train of thought when I was eighteen and ended up building a career and a half on top of that particular crisis.
I was going to say no regrets, but... you know, some regrets?
I can tell when a movie is good now, though.
Weirdly, that somehow became a huge political problem on the Internet and ended up killing democracy. I guess that's one of the regrets.
I hate going into a movie with expectations. That’s the quickest way to end up hating it. Even if I might be a fan and am looking forward to a particular film’s release. It’s far easier just to go in to a film with few expectations. Things that make a movie “bad” for me are: bad acting, bad writing, bad effects, or bad plot contrivances. IOW, something so egregious it pulls me out of enjoying what I’m watching and draws my attention to it.
For example - the new Star Wars films. They were fine for a cast of relative unknowns. Yeah, they had some heavy handed writing in spots that was bad, the worst being the pointless casino and kid scenes in the last one. But regardless it was fun. The previous three otoh had a stellar cast yet some of the worst wooden acting, writing, and the abuse of digital SFX was offensive.
(Best SW film made was Rogue One, IMO, tied with ANH because that introduced us to the franchise and had no baggage.)
Of course this is all movie dependent. Spoofs and the like or comedy are entirely different vs something like a drama. One won’t be held to a high standard, the other will need it to keep the audience engaged.
This is more an arthouse thing for me, as if the story becomes completely incoherent I just assume it’s expressionism and I’m being challenged.
There are good movies, and then there is Popeye The Slayer Man. Nothing in between for me.
I think most movies are dogshit, but the bad ones are fun to riff on with my friends.
My criteria for what makes a good movie seem straight forward to me, but apparently I ask too much as shown by the vast majority of movies being frustratingly bad.
I can suspend disbelief for lore and character, but not for blatantly dumb decision making, plot holes, or forcing a story event. Entire plot lines based on simple misunderstandings ruin stories immediately for me, as do hamfisted agenda pushing, or stories hinging on "common knowledge" that's known bullshit. (Looking at whatever that movie was a few years back that started with the narrator stating we only use 10% of our brains, fuck off.)
Horror movies have their own indurating problems, which is too bad since it's my favorite genre when done well. For some reason, people always act like they're in a horror movie. Gotta check something in the basement? Better walk slow and look nervous, it's not totally unreasonable for someone to be afraid of their own fucking basement. Or the polar opposite, everything is fine no matter what, and I'm sure the several missing people are just playing a prank.
Can this problem be solved with simple communication? We better find some bullshit way to get rid of cell phones. uh, the battery died. Uh, ghosts aliens and monsters block signals. Uh the antagonists is a tech expert who jams phones. Uh, they're in the woods, there's no signal. (I've been in the woods, there's a signal.) Or they just decide to give up and base the plot in the 80s.
Lazy writing, in other words.
This took too long and I've lost interest in my rant, but I'll post it anyway.
This used to be me. I enjoyed pretty much everything I watched. I figured, since a lot of people put a ton of time, effort, and money into making a film, it must have at least some redeeming qualities. No one trusted my opinion on films because I "loved everything."
It wasn't until I watched a ton of movie reviews from various reviewers that I started to be able to tell the difference between a good film and a bad film. Now I'm pretty critical of films, and even made a review blog to discuss what I like and dislike about certain films.
I think a lot of movies fall into that category tbh it takes a lot of qualities to stack up for the movie to be bad or good and most fall somewhere in the middle
