Not the Best Movies I've Ever Seen In My Life

by **Debaser** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 9:48 pm

looper wrote:
Debaser wrote: Cockfuckingchristraper, I can't believe I actually said it like that.
It wasn't bad; I mean, I knew what you meant but I recognized the phraseology too. So just out of curiousity, do you have a degree (I don't yet)? In what?

No, I don't have any sort of degree (I'm shy of even an Associates), and I'm not sure if I'll ever end up going back to get one.

I was kinda in college for a while, however, and have studied a lot of philosophy on my own, and all of my friends are either in college or just now getting out (one of whom [male] has at least a passing interest in feminist theory, and actually once used the word "phallic" in a conversation about Indian culture), so I just kind of pick up some of these bad habits.

by **looper** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 7:35 pm

Debaser wrote: Cockfuckingchristraper, I can't believe I actually said it like that.

It wasn't bad; I mean, I knew what you meant but I recognized the phraseology too. So just out of curiousity, do you have a degree (I don't yet)? In what?

by **Ten year old girl** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 5:54 pm

Nuhuh, yur sooo retarded! ; )

by **Souffle of Pain** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 4:25 pm

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Crouching Tiger had a lot of buzz for those of us "in the know"

Nerds and geeks, in other words.

Thanks for playing!

I was just going to post the above, but I can't help it. Putting people on a wire is so retarded. It's not compelling in any way.

by **Souffle of Pain** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 4:23 pm

bot wrote:I'll be back when the smell of the previous poster's breath has evaporated.

What?

While we're on the subject of the breath of Monty Python people: who else here thought that "The Meaning of Life" sucked? I mean, sucked that donkey's date to the prom sucked.

by **bot** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 7:35 am

"Aren't you ashamed to *pontificate* like that?"

Name the movie.

I'll be back when the smell of the previous poster's breath has evaporated.

by **Jethro Q. Walrustitty** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 7:12 am

I find the terms "nerd" and "geek" to both be quite offensive, and would certainly not tag myself with either. Although I certainly have had (and quite possible still have) nerdlike qualities - but geez, you don't want to actually be one, and it's not like I walk around with highwater pants, rainbow suspenders, and an umbrella hat.

However, I really bristle at the term "geek" - I don't care how "acceptable" it has become, I hate it. I know that places like ThinkGeek and such are (consciously or otherwise) trying to take the sting out of the word - in the same way that "niggah" is a pretty standard term of affection amongst our black friends (though still offensive - that's still the one word in the English language that I refuse to speak) - however, I still am quite bothered at the circus connotation. Remember the old Freddie Blassie song, "Pencil-Neck Geek"? He's not singing about Java programmers.

As for X's Boston friend - of course he's wrong, people stand in line, not on line. Yeesh.

Groo is/was good - Sergio Argones is always fun, and was a staple for me growing up, as I did, reading Mad magazine. Thanks to usenet, I've now got a complete collection of Mad up until a couple years ago, and am slowing working my way through them. Of course, I'm biased too, as I absolutely love the old EC horror comics - Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, etc, and as everyone probably knows, Mad is what EC started as a last-ditch attempt to survive after horror comics were basically banned.

Superhero stuff is all fine and good, but it can't handle being taken too seriously - rather like Batman does nowadays. Calvin & Hobbes had a good Sunday comic once with Calvin reading a very Frank Miller-esque comic, with the line "I could feel the bullet shattering my spine. It hurt." in it, and Calvin is stunned at the violence and goes to watch TV, at which point his mom tells him to read a book.

I don't think superhero movies will disappear any time soon. They are a natural fit with "summer blockbusters", and besides, superhero movies have been around forever, with occasionally quality results - most notably, Superman II and the Tim Burton-directed Batman. (I guess we can count Batman as a superhero, even though he's supposed to be just a dude who works out a lot.)

I have to say that I still love the Adam West Batman show, though. I'm two episodes away from my goal of having all of 'em, and half I've put on DVD already.

As for rankings, certainly some stuff is skewed, but there's probably no better overall reference for movie quality than IMDB. The only real competition might be Rotten Tomatoes, but those scores are more of a "how likely are you to enjoy it" score, rather than an overall quality score. Since RT only gives 100% for an overall positive review or 0% for a negative review, it's possible for a mediocre but somewhat fun movie to get a pretty high ranking - meaning, most people will basically enjoy it. The ability to seperate "pro" reviewers is a nice touch, too.

In other movie news, I watched the first half of "Ichi the Killer" last night - man oh man, what a sick, sick flick. Those Japanese really like their sick movies.

by **Debaser** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 10:43 pm

looper wrote:It sounds like you've been to college ("dually ghettoized"). I was actually kinda thinkin' about this too. My girlfriend was telling me about something that she read, in which the author studied women who read romance novels, and found that the act of reading the romance novel was for most of these women an act of resistance (against their situation in life). I was thinking about that in relation to this thread and the nurse novels metaphor.

Cockfuckingchristraper, I can't believe I actually said it like that. If I ever mention "the other" on this board in a non-ironic fashion, please track be down and kill me. Slowly.

Oh, and as to your actual point, you're absolutely right. Although I think resistance is the wrong word. I've always prefered escapist. And, yeah, housefrau marketed romance novels and most superhero comics definitely have that in common. Which is, of course, why they're generally frowned upon.

by **looper** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 6:41 pm

Roody Yogurt wrote:I actually own Geek Love...but I never read it.

You should read it. It's good.

Debaser wrote:
Protagonist X wrote:He said the overhwelming percentage of superhero titles is like going into a bookstore and finding that it's all nurse novels. Not even other trashy romances, just stacks and stacks of passion in the wards.
You know, there's sort of a flipside to that, but I can't think of a good metaphor to encapsulate it. But, you know, for the most part there is next to nothing in the "super hero" genre outside of comic books and cartoons...It's like the medium and the metaphor are just stuck to eachother and therefore dually ghettoized. Superheroes are silly comic book stuff and comic books are all about silly superheroes.

It sounds like you've been to college ("dually ghettoized").

I was actually kinda thinkin' about this too. My girlfriend was telling me about something that she read, in which the author studied women who read romance novels, and found that the act of reading the romance novel was for most of these women an act of resistance (against their situation in life). I was thinking about that in relation to this thread and the nurse novels metaphor.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 1:19 pm

Yeah, for me, 'geek' applies to anyone who's especially socially awkward or obsessive about certain topics to the extent that it separates them from what is considered normalcy and doesn't necessarily imply intelligence like 'nerd' does.

I actually own Geek Love (got it from my brother last year) but I never read it. I did read Geeks, though.

Anyway, sure I was exaggerating about the percentage of IMDB voters that are complete geeks, but I'd be very willing to believe that the voting at IMDB is comprised of a huge number of oddball characters (like your review man), much more than you would normally get in a non-internet medium, so it's hard to take it seriously as a whole.

A couple questionable rankings affected by the geek vote-

12. Memento ... good, interesting movie, but #12 of all time?
13. LotR: the Two Towers (not to imply that Serkis wasn't robbed)

by **Debaser** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 1:05 pm

Protagonist X wrote:The superhero genre thing is cool in a few ways -- it's so regimented and conventionalized now that the iconography is fun to play with -- but there's a Warren Ellis quote I like on that. He said the overhwelming percentage of superhero titles is like going into a bookstore and finding that it's all nurse novels. Not even other trashy romances, just stacks and stacks of passion in the wards.

You know, there's sort of a flipside to that, but I can't think of a good metaphor to encapsulate it. But, you know, for the most part there is next to nothing in the "super hero" genre outside of comic books and cartoons. Well, there are the movies now, but that's probably going to be a passing fad and it's entirely just a direct adaptation of the comic book stuff. It's like the medium and the metaphor are just stuck to eachother and therefore dually ghettoized. Superheroes are silly comic book stuff and comic books are all about silly superheroes.

by **looper** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 12:05 pm

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Geeks are circus people who bite the heads off chickens

So that's why (the book) Geek Love is called that!

by **Protagonist X** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 11:35 am

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote: 1a) Geek is the stupidest term ever. Geeks are circus people who bite the heads off chickens, not computer users.

I talked this over with a friend from Boston a while back. We were standing in line for a movie, and I noticed he referred to it as "standing on line." He mentioned that computer/RPG/comic enthusiasts on the East coast tend to use "nerd" for a self-descriptive reference and "geek" as the derogatory term. On the West coast, the meaning of the two terms gets switched. I wonder how that came about.

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote: As for comics, I'm willing to grant that there are probably a few that are fairly serious, literate, and quality. However, the vast majority - which includes pretty much all superhero comics - are pretty much fluff. Enjoy 'em, but taking them seriously is like eating a twinkie and thinking that you're experiencing fine dining.

I'd have to agree on this, unfortunately. The only comic I read with semi-regularity growing up was "Groo the Wanderer," because it was funny. I remember grabbing two years of old X-Men titles in the kids section at the library, sorting them out by date, and trying to get into them. It was depressingly reminiscent of the soap operas my grandmother used to watch; I simply didn't have an "in" to this plot that had been looping on itself for decades. And the writing was, even to a twelve-year-old, a little suspect.

When I was seventeen, I wound up buying a copy of the Watchmen trade paperback (I'd heard about it from some mainstream press article), and I was utterly transfixed by it. I stayed up until 3am after Christmas dinner trying to finish it in one marathon burst, and then I remember sitting there, really exhausted... and then I flipped back to the beginning to start reading it again.

I thought to myself at the time: "Wow, there's this whole world of incredibly-written stuff out there! Why, I bet there's hundreds of Watchmen-caliber titles I could catch up on!"

I was very, very wrong. A lot of it is genre dreck to me: like junk food, I enjoy the occasional handful, but I can't survive off of it as a mainstay.

The superhero genre thing is cool in a few ways -- it's so regimented and conventionalized now that the iconography is fun to play with -- but there's a Warren Ellis quote I like on that. He said the overhwelming percentage of superhero titles is like going into a bookstore and finding that it's all nurse novels. Not even other trashy romances, just stacks and stacks of passion in the wards.

by **Jethro Q. Walrustitty** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 6:07 am

Roody: Oh, you want some? Come and get it!

OK, seriously, though. Two points:
1) You can't dismiss IMDB's rankings as "a bunch of internet geeks" - last time I checked, it's been years since only computer nuts have been on the internet. I mean, c'mon - we've had grandmothers on the internet for quite a long time.
1a) Geek is the stupidest term ever. Geeks are circus people who bite the heads off chickens, not computer users.
2) Overall, I think it's useful but certainly not authoritative - but what is? Tastes are too different to have a perfect reference. Anyways, I specifically mentioned one review as it was on the main page (being the most recent) and the guy was just plain WRONG.

Crouching Tiger had a lot of buzz for those of us "in the know" - I had been looking forward to it for months, say it opening weekend at the local arthouse (a few weeks before it started playing the multiplexes), and even bought the Region-3 DVD from Hong Kong (which is identical to the US release, and was available when it was still in the theaters here.) (It should be noted that I buy a lot of DVDs from Hong Kong, so this was not especially earthshattering.) Anyways, it did huge business for the small theaters it was at, and did OK at the multiplexes - but it never had the big smash opening weekend like your average "blockbuster" does. It just kept plugging along, bringing in similar numbers week after week, while other movies would fall off dramatically each weekend. I do remember as I was watching it closely, being a big fan.
The point being, it did well because every week, more and more people would hear about how good it was, even though it was subtitled. We'll probably never see a subtitled movie have a "big opening weekend" in the USA.

Looper: I have not. I do have a long list of ones to watch (Ichi the Killer and Dead or Alive are probably next on the list, also Necronomicon - an anthology from a couple years ago with most of the folks from Re-Animator involved.)

Speaking of that, dammit, no one told me that Bride of Re-Animator was discontinued. Not my favorite, but it was a pretty good special edition, it was discontinued, now another studio is bring out a full-frame, featureless version of it. Guess I'm gonna have to cough up $25-30 on eBay for it...

As for comics, I'm willing to grant that there are probably a few that are fairly serious, literate, and quality. However, the vast majority - which includes pretty much all superhero comics - are pretty much fluff. Enjoy 'em, but taking them seriously is like eating a twinkie and thinking that you're experiencing fine dining. Hence, someone who lives and dies by the comics - and does not actually make a living at it (meaning that the Chasing Amy characters are exempted, because it's their job to take them seriously) - probably should not be taken seriously. This specifically refers to Brodie. Jonsey may find him a hero, but that doesn't make Mallrats a good movie, any more than kids aspiring to be Nascar drivers can make "Days of Thunder" a good movie, or that it "speaking to retarded kids" makes I Am Sam any less unbearable.

by **Base Monitor** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 7:40 pm

BEST BASE EVER.

n/t

by **looper** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 6:45 pm

Oh right, one other thing Jethro:

although I agree that about 90% (95%? 99%?) of comic books published today leave something to be desired, I highly recommend Jar of Fools by Jason Lutes for the discriminating adult. *****

by **looper** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 6:42 pm

Walrustitty,

as it seems you are the horror fan: Have you seen Jack Be Nimble?

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 1:43 pm

Roody - welcome to the Wide World of Walrustitty.

While I'm here:

Oh, and guess what - anyone taking comics seriously past the age of eight probably shouldn't be taken seriously, anyways.

This quote is from a guy who has played a computer or console game every night of his life since he was 5.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 1:35 pm

Walrustitty:

First lemme say that I think it's funny that when you're not telling us to ignore some guy's review on the IMDB, you're pointing to its movie rankings like what a bunch of internet geeks think really matters.

"Good" movies rarely do well on the first weekend, but make their money over a long span - like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, and I suppose Greek Wedding (not having seen it.) Those are successful because the people have heard enough positive word of mouth to build up their courage to see something that is different from the usual. (Well, not so much for The Matrix, but definitely for the other two.)

I find it hard to believe Crouching Tiger didn't do great on its opening people. When that movie came over, it had a buzz like no one's business. I remember that they first showed it at three movie theaters in the nation and they made a good deal of money. Ok, IMDB has it listed as $663,205 on 16 screens, so maybe my memory's just shot. In any case, $663,205 is pretty damn good for only 16 screens, I should think. This was well before there were any tv commercials and most people even knew about it.

Everyone: you are all wrong and I am right.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 1:06 pm

It couldn't taste any worsHEY WATCH IT ICJ (SIGNED) THE ROCHESTER FOOD GODS

.s
.save
/s
/save
HEY HOW DO WE SAVE
/savemsg
SHIT
/qns

Not the Best Movies I've Ever Seen In My Life

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