Brüno

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Luna6ix
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Re: Brüno

Post by Luna6ix »

i thought bruno was pushing all the wrong bounries, i have no qualms with gay people, so the humor went only to the people who would find any of that funny, and adding an austrian accent doesn't do anything for me.

AFlickering
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Re: Brüno

Post by AFlickering »

ShogunRua wrote:For starters, it should be noted that you don't deny that those films specifically are very boring and monotonous nowadays, but rather, attempt to shift the subject of conversation.


only one i've seen out of those you listed is metropolis, but yeah i deny that that's boring. you want to, like, tell me i'm lying?

Secondly, and more annoyingly, literature has been around in a more or less modern form ever since the time of Greeks, roughly 500 years before Christ. You're comparing Dante and Shakespeare, written 1900 and 2100 years after writing was developed into its modern form to something like "Intolerance", made A COUPLE OF YEARS after anyone started making serious movies, and back when films were still silent?


point taken, how about an argument founded in your kind of logic: filmmakers had access to near everything that theatre had access to, and then other techniques on top of that, and so the best of the early films must be greater than even the best production of hamlet.

Here's a better comparison; Babe Ruth is clearly a much better baseball player than Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, or any superstar today, correct? The best swimmer from the early 1900s is way better than Michael Phelps, right? The white guys who dribbled and shot with one hand in college during the 30s were far superior to what Kobe Bryant or LeBron James could ever hope to be?

Get out of here with that pretentious nonsense.


athletes have an undisputed, unchanging goal, and so must art for this analogy to work. by all means, tell me what you think that is.

1. The IMDB list is an average of RATINGS out of 10, while the TSP list is an average of "Top X movies of all time". They work in a completely different manner.

If you ask 100 people off the streets to do both types of lists, then Citizen Kane wouldn't make a TSP-like list at all, since only 5 may have seen it and have it on their "Top X" list, while "The Dark Knight" might be number one. However, on the IMDB list, CK might well trump "The Dark Knight", since it would have a huge average rating.


i know. but that just goes to show how much more useful critics are than IMDB users, because despite the TSP list's disadvantages it still turns out that the most obscure films on the IMDB list are higher up on the TSP list, and the most obscure films on the TSP top 250 are not present on the IMDB list. also, as incredible as this must sound to you, on average i like more of the films on the TSP.

god knows how bad the IMDB list would be if it was based on user top lists rather than averages. the mind boggles.

In summary, no matter how many times you've masturbated over it, the TSP list is worthless bullshit that doesn't say a damn thing about which movies are really the best, or worth watching.


man, i don't even particularly like the TSP list, as i have definitely said more than once. you are very angry and possibly insane.

ShogunRua
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Re: Brüno

Post by ShogunRua »

AFlickering wrote:
ShogunRua wrote:For starters, it should be noted that you don't deny that those films specifically are very boring and monotonous nowadays, but rather, attempt to shift the subject of conversation.

only one i've seen out of those you listed is metropolis, but yeah i deny that that's boring. you want to, like, tell me i'm lying?


No, I'm telling you that the vast majority of people who watch those films nowadays, even the majority of Criticker accounts for "The Battleship Potemkin", find them utterly boring and horrendously paced. Just how great is a movie if 80 plus percent of its audience, including kids growing up in the USSR all the way back in the early 70s, find it monotonous and tortuously slow?

Keep in mind, it doesn't even make up for this by being particularly deep and insightful, either.

AFlickering wrote:
Secondly, and more annoyingly, literature has been around in a more or less modern form ever since the time of Greeks, roughly 500 years before Christ. You're comparing Dante and Shakespeare, written 1900 and 2100 years after writing was developed into its modern form to something like "Intolerance", made A COUPLE OF YEARS after anyone started making serious movies, and back when films were still silent?


point taken, how about an argument founded in your kind of logic: filmmakers had access to near everything that theatre had access to, and then other techniques on top of that, and so the best of the early films must be greater than even the best production of hamlet.


I repeat; are you insane? You're now comparing theater productions to film? Honestly? Why not compare auditory story-telling to novels, while you're at it?

For one, let's not forget that the films we were discussing above ARE SILENT, so no, they did not even have access to the most basic element that theater had. Also, the set pieces, action, choreography, etc. that film relies upon simply don't exist in theater.

Tell me, how the hell the theater would accommodate the action scenes and special effects in the Indiana Jones trilogy, as an example?

AFlickering wrote:
Here's a better comparison; Babe Ruth is clearly a much better baseball player than Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, or any superstar today, correct? The best swimmer from the early 1900s is way better than Michael Phelps, right? The white guys who dribbled and shot with one hand in college during the 30s were far superior to what Kobe Bryant or LeBron James could ever hope to be?

Get out of here with that pretentious nonsense.


athletes have an undisputed, unchanging goal, and so must art for this analogy to work. by all means, tell me what you think that is.


No, there doesn't need to be "undisputed, unchanging goal", whatever the hell that drivel even means. It's as natural an analogy as there is; both show the constant evolution and refinement of sports and other entertainment. Players learn from older players. Directors learn from older directors. New methods of training are constantly being discovered. New methods in camera techniques, computer technology, and making film are constantly being discovered.

Etc, etc.

AFlickering wrote:
1. The IMDB list is an average of RATINGS out of 10, while the TSP list is an average of "Top X movies of all time". They work in a completely different manner.

If you ask 100 people off the streets to do both types of lists, then Citizen Kane wouldn't make a TSP-like list at all, since only 5 may have seen it and have it on their "Top X" list, while "The Dark Knight" might be number one. However, on the IMDB list, CK might well trump "The Dark Knight", since it would have a huge average rating.


i know. but that just goes to show how much more useful critics are than IMDB users, because despite the TSP list's disadvantages it still turns out that the most obscure films on the IMDB list are higher up on the TSP list, and the most obscure films on the TSP top 250 are not present on the IMDB list. also, as incredible as this must sound to you, on average i like more of the films on the TSP.


I could absolutely destroy the rest of this quoted portion too, but I just want to focus on the part in bold, and how ironic it is, considering it's written on the Criticker forum of all places.

The whole idea of Criticker is that people who watch films in their spare time are every bit as intelligent, and have opinions every bit as insightful as a professional critic.

Yet in your quote above, YOU ARE INSULTING YOURSELF while simultaneously deifying critics that are frequently shills for the studios and have watched fewer than 1000 films. Hilarious.

AFlickering wrote:
In summary, no matter how many times you've masturbated over it, the TSP list is worthless bullshit that doesn't say a damn thing about which movies are really the best, or worth watching.


man, i don't even particularly like the TSP list, as i have definitely said more than once. you are very angry and possibly insane.


I am not angry at all, but I do enjoy attacking and exposing things, like the TSP list, that I find pretentious and moronic. In doing so, hopefully, people realize that there are better sources for finding worthwhile cinema, and that, believe it or not, "The Battleship Potemkin" is not the height of film-making as we know it.

Melvin Smif
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Re: Brüno

Post by Melvin Smif »

yikes113 wrote:I also am curious about this matter: The rating system of movies. The movie was an "R" rated film and actually after seeing the full frontal male nudity and the slightly "bleeped-out" sex scenes as well as .....well, just about the whole film in entirety....how is it not NC-17?!!!! What would constitute that, if not Bruno? I am honestly surprised that it was "allowable" in American's mainstream theaters. I don't know I guess I imagine the ignorant mother who takes her 17 year old son to see it because he says "Mom it's supposed to be funny...please, please!!"...and she takes him with confidence due to the fact that many other "R" rated movies have been "fine"....only to be mortified and uncomfortable with what she is sitting and watching with her "little boy". I'm sure the latter has occured and there have been many walk-outs I'm sure.


I'm curious to know what 17 year old boy is still going to movies with his mom...especially rated R ones. :lol:

AFlickering
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Re: Brüno

Post by AFlickering »

ShogunRua wrote:No, I'm telling you that the vast majority of people who watch those films nowadays, even the majority of Criticker accounts for "The Battleship Potemkin", find them utterly boring and horrendously paced. Just how great is a movie if 80 plus percent of its audience, including kids growing up in the USSR all the way back in the early 70s, find it monotonous and tortuously slow?


battleship potemkin doesn't really appeal to me either for the record, you're probably right about that. it's just the blanket statements man. your cut off point at 1930 before which everything is necessarily boring and primitive seems mighty arbitrary to me. i'm not seeing any justification for your sweeping generalisations other than the fact that there are a few shitty old films held to high esteem solely for their influence rather than quality (just like there are with various other eras of film). these accusations of boring just don't apply to stuff like metropolis and nosferatu and sunrise and the best keaton stuff.

Also, the set pieces, action, choreography, etc. that film relies upon simply don't exist in theater.

Tell me, how the hell the theater would accommodate the action scenes and special effects in the Indiana Jones trilogy, as an example?


ill clarify. the best of the early talkie films, by your logic, would be better than the best older productions of hamlet, because they have access to what you call the primary element of theater, and then on top of that they have the capacity for a number of things theater can't manage. but even if you end up shooting this down...

basically i take issue with your equating quality with technical advancement, when it's clear that despite years and years having passed in literature since shakespeare none have surpassed him (yeah, even in terms of pure entertainment). i think of other examples, such as the fact that the formative bands in various genres of music are almost always better (in any way you might want to measure) than everything they end up influencing. these kinds of analogies continue to work, because they prove that the quality of art can regress despite an array of new techniques being learnt and developed. in fact, in admitting that acting ain't as good as it used to be you seem to agree with this yourself.

No, there doesn't need to be "undisputed, unchanging goal", whatever the hell that drivel even means. It's as natural an analogy as there is; both show the constant evolution and refinement of sports and other entertainment. Players learn from older players. Directors learn from older directors. New methods of training are constantly being discovered. New methods in camera techniques, computer technology, and making film are constantly being discovered.


i meant that many of the things learnt or developed may have a negative impact on quality, because unlike with athletes nobody has an objective measure of quality.

The whole idea of Criticker is that people who watch films in their spare time are every bit as intelligent, and have opinions every bit as insightful as a professional critic.

Yet in your quote above, YOU ARE INSULTING YOURSELF while simultaneously deifying critics that are frequently shills for the studios and have watched fewer than 1000 films. Hilarious.


now you're really clutching at straws, this has nothing to do with criticker users. a criticker list would probably be better than either of the lists we're discussing regardless of format. i've proven that the IMDB list is worse for obscure films than the TSP list despite its format being, according to you and rightfully so, potentially advantageous. i'm also telling you that i find the TSP list more entertaining than the IMDB list. if these critics are all shills, then, again, this shows how dreadful your average IMDB user must be.

ShogunRua
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Re: Brüno

Post by ShogunRua »

AFlickering wrote:
ShogunRua wrote:No, I'm telling you that the vast majority of people who watch those films nowadays, even the majority of Criticker accounts for "The Battleship Potemkin", find them utterly boring and horrendously paced. Just how great is a movie if 80 plus percent of its audience, including kids growing up in the USSR all the way back in the early 70s, find it monotonous and tortuously slow?


battleship potemkin doesn't really appeal to me either for the record, you're probably right about that. it's just the blanket statements man. your cut off point at 1930 before which everything is necessarily boring and primitive seems mighty arbitrary to me.


I never said that. I said that pre-1930 films don't stand up to modern day standards of quality and entertainment. That doesn't mean they're bad, or that they suck, but it does mean that they shouldn't be considered among the greatest films ever, especially when the audiences even back in the 70s had already outgrown them, and considered them dull and antiquated.

And in keeping with the literature analogy you're fond of using, something like "Heliodorus- An Ethiopian Romance" is an example of an antiquated, no longer relevant or particularly exciting, yet influential book made when the concept of novels was still new and largely experimental. Should it be in a list of the greatest works ever? If all you care about is influence, sure. If we're actually looking at the quality and depth of the novel, however, then absolutely NOT.

Hell, I have an even better example! Music! Do you honestly, seriously think that Elvis Presley, or for that matter, even a much superior early rock artist like Chuck Berry can even remotely compare with a more modern rock group like GNR, Dream Theater, or Symphony X? Nope.

In fact, when it comes to playing and producing music, those last three groups have all forgotten more than the originals ever knew. They would fucking run circles around them.

Hell, even a legendary guitar pioneer like Hendrix would get absolutely embarrassed by any top solo guitarist nowadays, whether it be Malmsteen (inspired by Hendrix, incidentally), Vai, Petrucci, Buckethead, or Sartriani.

Malmsteen

Steve Vai

Buckethead

Hendrix

Enough said.

And of course, sports is the most objective example of constant evolution, with the new generation always improving upon the past. Hopefully, these examples help show just how silly this over-veneration of older titles frequently becomes.

i'm not seeing any justification for your sweeping generalisations other than the fact that there are a few shitty old films held to high esteem solely for their influence rather than quality (just like there are with various other eras of film). these accusations of boring just don't apply to stuff like metropolis and nosferatu and sunrise and the best keaton stuff.


I've watched Metropolis and Nosferatu and some Buster Keaton, and you couldn't be more wrong. They ARE boring. They ARE dry. Ditto for Chaplin, and whoever else you want to bring up. They're simply not that good, if you only take the blinders off.

And the worst part is, you don't even have to go that much further in time to realize this.

"Frankenstein" (1931) absolutely KILLS "Nosferatu" (1922) in terms of entertainment, presentation, and acting.

"Alexander Nevsky" (1938) is monumentally superior to "Battleship Potemkin" (1925), and if you asked Eisenstein, he would have been embarrassed by his earlier work by the time he made his later classic.

"Gone with the Wind" (1936) is so much better than any film made in the 20s, it would be almost like comparing "The Shawshank Redemption" to a film student's senior thesis.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930) is a more intelligent, deep, and moving movie than "Metropolis" (1927) could ever hope to be.

AFlickering wrote:basically i take issue with your equating quality with technical advancement,


I take issue with you not reading my posts, and constantly mischaracterizing my position. This isn't what I said at all. Technical advancement was not the reason there were a number of great 1930's films that stand up to this very day, and practically none from the 20s.

Rather, it's the necessary improvement and knowledge gain that occurs upon the birth of ANY NEW MEDIUM.

AFlickering wrote: when it's clear that despite years and years having passed in literature since shakespeare none have surpassed him (yeah, even in terms of pure entertainment).


Wow, just wow. I'm utterly speechless.

If you think Shakespeare is the pinnacle of the written word to this very day, I feel deeply, deeply sorry for you. You're missing out on mountains of great literature, man.

There's nothing more I can even say at this point. I think you just favor old things because of their age.

AFlickering wrote:i've proven that the IMDB list is worse for obscure films than the TSP list


You haven't proven a single thing.

AFlickering wrote:if these critics are all shills, then, again, this shows how dreadful your average IMDB user must be.


Keep listening to critics who tell you what you should consider the best, and that the best literature was written 400 years ago, a mere 200 years after writing became moderately widespread in Europe, or that the best film ever is "Citizen Kane" (1941), now almost 70 years old, and made a mere 25 years after films became widespread.

It's a depressing world to live in, and constantly ignores the masterpieces being made right under your very nose.

KGB
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Re: Brüno

Post by KGB »

ShogunRua wrote:Do you honestly, seriously think that Elvis Presley, or for that matter, even a much superior early rock artist like Chuck Berry can even remotely compare with a more modern rock group like GNR, Dream Theater, or Symphony X?


Fuck yeah. I also consider 'Metropolis' one of my favorite films, both in terms of quality and influence as entertainment value. I didn't get bored for a second. If you did, well, my friend, it's your fucking problem. 'Citizen Kane' is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made, and that's more of a fact than anything you said. You are trying to prove things that are completely subjective, and that's useless and, to be honest, makes you quite an asshole. This thread had become very, very silly and makes no sense whatsoever.

ShogunRua
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Re: Brüno

Post by ShogunRua »

KGB wrote:
ShogunRua wrote:Do you honestly, seriously think that Elvis Presley, or for that matter, even a much superior early rock artist like Chuck Berry can even remotely compare with a more modern rock group like GNR, Dream Theater, or Symphony X?


Fuck yeah.


Good for you. The overwhelming majority of human beings on this Earth, including most critics under the age of 40 without their heads up their asses, would laugh at, and disagree with that statement.

KGB wrote:I also consider 'Metropolis' one of my favorite films, both in terms of quality and influence as entertainment value. I didn't get bored for a second. If you did, well, my friend, it's your fucking problem.


Except I wasn't the only one. The other four people I watched it with felt the same way; probably great for its time, very influential, but boring as all hell.

And yes, it's absolutely a weakness that it can't keep the vast majority of modern audiences engaged.

KGB wrote:'
You are trying to prove things that are completely subjective, and that's useless and, to be honest, makes you quite an asshole.


Lay off the drugs, kid. I'm not trying to prove shit when it comes to movies. Enjoy whatever you like.

My point is that the TSP is a worthless, bullshit list that overrates early films for the FACTUAL reasons I outlined above. Namely, that a critic's "Top X Movies" list, which TSP has compiled from the LAST FEW DECADES will necessarily include more widely known earlier films, as opposed to even "The Shawshank Redemption", which wasn't even produced when many of those "experts" wrote their lists.

Also, the age of the critics, their nostalgia, and considerations of "influence", all cause them to give the early works too much credit.

This is all perfectly objective. No opinions or personal bias whatsoever.

I also noted a whole slew of truly great old films that they completely ignored, just because they weren't as widespread and famous, so even in that regard, the list is an abject failure.

However, in addition to, and separate from that, I pointed out several much older films that just don't stand up to this present day.

And all BS aside, judging from the top 50-100 movie lists of most people here, there aren't an awful lot of entries from the 1910s and 1920s.

tef
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Re: Brüno

Post by tef »

Agree with KGB. In art, the old is the new. The work of good ancient creators is as fresh and interesting as anything that came after. Just look at cooking. The pretentious fades in comparison with the simple and unrefined.

And I'd put Andres Segovia (who was not the pinnacle of guitar players) against any Shogun listed.

The argument Shogun is making is that progress marches on, but this is not truly the case in art. The underlying ideas in our best works today are in no way superior to those of a thousand years ago. Or two hundred, or fifty.

Pickpocket
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Re: Brüno

Post by Pickpocket »

AFlickering wrote:
basically i take issue with your equating quality with technical advancement, when it's clear that despite years and years having passed in literature since shakespeare none have surpassed him (yeah, even in terms of pure entertainment).

hahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahha

ShogunRua wrote:
Hell, I have an even better example! Music! Do you honestly, seriously think that Elvis Presley, or for that matter, even a much superior early rock artist like Chuck Berry can even remotely compare with a more modern rock group like GNR, Dream Theater, or Symphony X? Nope.

There's really no comparison because GNR, Dream Theater and Symphony X are all terrible, so yeah.

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