The movie is about what happens to you while you watch it. So, pay attention -- to both the movie and your response. If you have reactions to, or questions about, what you're seeing, chances are they'll tell you something about what the movie is doing. Be aware of your questions, emotions, apprehensions, expectations.
--from Jim Emerson's blog, Scanners
My girlfriend and I had a rather heated argument recently over (surprise) a movie. This tends to happen fairly frequently as we come at movies differently. She's more a casual movie watcher. Notice I use the word "casual" here and not "entertainment." As in, "Oh, I watch movies purely for entertainment." I'm not taking anything away from them, but I'd like to know what I'm doing. Watching movies to decrease my blood pressure? I happen to be entertained by movies, period, and I'd like to reclaim that right. I just don't happen to like only "up-beat" movies. I say that a well-made "depressing" movie brings me more joy than a poorly made piece of fluff. A well-made piece of fluff? Well, that's just fun.
That's basically where this argument started, over, of all movies, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. My girlfriend loved it. I didn't. I wanted a well-made piece of fluff. What I got was drudgery interspersed with fun. But what really got me was the end. (Don't worry, you can keep reading. I won't spoil anything.) Because there's this long scene which is boring and unnecessary and meandering and, UGH! I hated it! I kept asking myself, "What are we doing here?" Sure, plot stuff is resolved, but there were a hundred different ways to do it better.
So I'm sitting there...waiting...for something, when, boom! Surprise ending! Fade to black.
And everyone's ecstatic! "Oh, dude, that was awesome!" Everyone except me. Because I'm sitting there, still pissed off about the pointless scene that came before. And then I'm amazed at these people around me. Can they really have forgotten what came before? I'm saying they were as bored as I was, they just didn't realize it. Yes, I'm speaking for them. (And this is where my girlfriend got really pissed. Mostly because I told her she was bored. No, she was entranced by Orlando Bloom.) Perhaps that makes me an elitist asshole. I'm sorry. When a surprise comes along, they're so excited that they forget everything that came before. The whole movie could have been crap, but they don't care.
Why do we let movies get away with this? Would we do this with food? If I'm forced to eat a pile of green beans and then at the end, I'm suddenly rewarded with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, am I thrilled? No. I'm pissed off.
It runs deeper than this, though. I went to a movie a while ago with some friends and a preview came on that was truly funny. I forget for what. My friends were laughing hysterically. I was, too. The whole theater was. When it ended, not one comment. Then a preview for Dumb and Dumberer came on. I listened. My friends maybe chuckled once. Audience, largely quiet. When it finished, what do my friends say? "Oh, we've got to see that!"
We've got to pay attention to what we're watching. We've got to realize when we're bored. We've got to realize when something's funny. We must pay attention to what we're seeing and how we're reacting. I don't think this is something that only critics should do. We owe it to ourselves. We can have better movies.
That same week, my girlfriend and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine. It, my friends, is a great movie. My girlfriend loved it. What was great was when she said, "You know, I really liked Pirates until I saw this movie." It's the long way around, but that's what I'm talking about.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Movie Watching
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2 comments:
Ah, yes. The problem of Scott thinking for me. I would be the aforementioned girlfriend. And I don't appreciate being told what I thought about a movie. Which is more why we were in a fight than about the stinking movie. I liked Johnny Depp in that movie, he was adorable and highly ENTERTAINING (as if that's a bad word. Scott insinuates that it is, it's not, I like being entertained (he entertains me, too...like in this blog...you would think this would make it less offensive to him, but no...). If I'm going plunk down $10 of my non-existent money right now, I darn well be entertained. OR I should be home reading a really good book, because otherwise I could sit around, stare at a wall and be bored. For free.). I think Orlando Bloom is a hottie. That does not mean that I have a crush on him, or that I think he's a great actor (nope). It just means that I'm not as bored as Scott is when he's on the screen, which automatically predisposes me to like a movie that he's in more than Scott. Scott, who KNEW that I watched Lord of the Rings SOLELY for Orlando Bloom, should have kept that in mind when starting his argument about how I actually hated a movie that I really liked. :)
Keira Knightley, well. She kind of bored me in the movie, but she wasn't in it enough to make it catastrophic (besides, I really like her in general, so I'll give it a pass).
Scott is right that I liked Pirates better before I saw my now favorite movie of all time "Little Miss Sunshine". But here's the deal. ANY MOVIE WILL NOT BE AS GOOD AS THAT ONE TO ME RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE IT IS MY FAVORITE. EVER. That doesn't mean that Pirates isn't as good as when I originally saw it, it just means that my baseline has changed. My baseline for good movies when I saw Pirates was lower than the baseline set later than that week by "Little Miss Sunshine". So, in comparison, it falls shorter, but does not mean that I didn't like it. We do this with all comparisons.
So that's it. We don't fight as much over movies as it sounds, I am not generally pissy or uneducated about movies (like Scott makes me seem), and generally, I'm a nice person who likes to do fun things, and see fun things. And I feel that everyone should see "Little Miss Sunshine" when it comes out Aug. 4, 2006. And if you're bored, and have a little extra cash, go see "Pirates". Believe me when I say that there are far worse movies out there...no matter what Scott says...
Also, I just noticed that you said if you were forced to eat a pile of green beans and then given a Reese's at the end, you would still be pissed. What's that all about? You have a thing against green beans? What have they ever done to you? Also, I think you wouldn't be that pissed, because you'd be chomping away on the Reese's. All that chocolatey-peanut buttery goodness would make all your angst just melt away. It's an anti-angst candy. It can't help it, it just is. We'll try this sometime and see.
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