On what basis do you rate films ?

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livelove
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by livelove »

@ ribcage: thanks, I'm still trying to figure out, whether your posting was dead serious, satire, ... or both :)

@ VinegarBob: thank you for going into such detail in your response. There was lots of food for thought for me to study and think about ... I do think you have the right approach and I still have to figure out ways to get there.

Maybe it's because I'm not doing very well and generally feel sad/depressed. I imagine if one is generally "happy", one likes a sad/depressing film for a change, because it's just a temporary excursion into different feelings ... a bit like a vacation far away from where one lives. I guess things are different, if it's not a vacation but your everyday-life that is sad. In this case, I naturally yearn for anything making me feel better.

And while I also "enjoy" sad films (in the way you described it), I'm feeling even more sad afterwards. I guess it would be easier to enjoy sad/depressing films, if one has the luxury of being able to retreat to one's normal happy state of mind afterwards.

ribcage
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by ribcage »

livelove wrote:Maybe it's because I'm not doing very well and generally feel sad/depressed. I imagine if one is generally "happy", one likes a sad/depressing film for a change, because it's just a temporary excursion into different feelings ...


Somewhere between the lines of my post resides a similar sentiment.

Midaso
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by Midaso »

livelove wrote:To get back to the original topic:

I stipulate that nobody LIKES to be sad.
I further stipulate that most people prefer to feel good than to feel bad/sad.

So
how much can you like a sad film, which will make you feel sad, if you don't like to feel sad ?
how much can you like a depressing film, which will make you feel depressed, if you don't like feeling depressed ?

Folks who rate a film on the basis of film-making craftsmanship obviously don't suffer from this dilemma at all.
But folks who (like me) rate a film just on the basis of how much they LIKE a film, don't they like a film better if it gives them feelings they like (feel good) as opposed to sad/depressed feelings ?

Some folks here (again, this includes me) said, they rate a film based on how much they ENJOY it. But who "enjoys" being sad ?

This is what makes it very difficult to rate "not feelgood-films" (feelbad-films),
and even more difficult to compare a feelgood film to a feelbad film and try to give them rankings which fit individually but also stand the comparison against each other ...

For example, Celda 211 is an excellent film IMHO, but not one of which you can say, once it is over: "I enjoyed it" ...
The same holds true for films dealing with rape for example ... who "enjoys" that ?

I have seen an excellent "stalker film", which is so terrifying, frightening and outright painful to watch ... any way you put it, it's not something I "enjoyed". So simply on the basis of how much I "enjoyed" the film, I rated it 60/100. And yet, I feel that it's a bit unfair to the film, because it's a masterpiece and I really think, no film dealing with that subject could be any more "enjoyable", that's outright impossible.

I tried my best to explain my dilemma.
Can you see it ?

Personally,I don't really get depressed after watching depressing movies. There is only a few that can do that,maybe 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' is the last one I can remember that really put me in a downer for the next 24-48 hours. I like John Lithgow's answer at the end of this video:

livelove
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by livelove »

TimeCapsule wrote:I just go off feelings trying to merge an appreciation for both pure personal entertainment value and my idiot brain's idea of quality/technical skills or artistic merit. Personally I enjoy bad movies. However, not all bad movies are equal. So for someone like me I'm always constantly struggling comparing the ratings for bad films I enjoy with those I don't, as well as with the competent movies I liked, or didn't enjoy.
Why don't you just rate how much you enjoyed the film rather than giving points for technical skill ?

The technically best films can be completely uninteresting if their are not your taste.

chmul_cr0n
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by chmul_cr0n »

k, so I'm gonna go deep. Let's start with comparing watching a movie to hearing a joke:
Not everyone's on the same page, when it comes to whether or not there is merit to jokes about serious, depressing and otherwise "taboo" subjects. But if it makes you laugh, that's your subconscious telling you you like it. So the only authentic way of finding a joke funny is naturally laughing at it. No matter if you like the idea behind it, or the content of the joke, or the bravery of the comedian who made it. Now, these things aren't nothing. But they still don't make the joke funny, if it didn't make you laugh. Our subconscious is a seriously complex thing, and if it makes you feel good and exhale air in a weird way upon hearing a silly thing, it means there's some sort of connection between you and that moment. Possibly even more than just that moment.
The whole point of art is creating these connections, or reminding us of them. I don't know what movies are if not us telling ourselves about us. About our subconscious. Individual or collective. If there's one thing a movie deserves it's honest feedback. How well it resonates with how many people at what time. Not how well it should have resonated in your opinion. To me, rationalizing that sort of thing is basically virtue-signaling for cinephiles. :D Like, liking every Scorsese movie, because you should, because it's Scorsese (a thing I used to do...:>). Or talking down Michael Bay movies to yourself, because it's Michael Bay (another thing I used to do).
Bottom line: What's interesting to me is what the movie has to do with me. 'cause I'm the only one who saw it the way I saw it. Exactly that way. And if I want to get to the bottom of what the movie is to others, I can only do that if they're honest about their experience, as well.

The reason art and stories are still around is because they're necessary. It's necessary for us to hear and see these things and to think about them. And if you like Transformers, that's what you should think about. And if you like Transformers, but you don't like to think about movies....well, then you shouldn't. Movie's aren't necessarily for everyone. At least, not every movie is (d'uh). But a lot of people respond to them. They find meaning in them. Or in stories in general. It's a form of intra-cultural and inter-cultural communication and it works best if everyone's honest about it. And the only way to do that is to listen to that "gut feeling". Which isn't actually a gut feeling, but the result of a massively complex neurological process that none of us really understand. But it somehow tells us who we are and where we should go. Or at least helps us to understand these things. So, to me, using logic to think about how much meaning I should see in a certain thing is much less interesting than listening to what exactly has tangible meaning to me, and wondering (including logic) about why that is. But listening to that meaning-radar is the important part. For me. It seems to me that's the deepest form of understanding a movie, even though you can't really see yourself understanding it. You can only feel the result.

So, in the end, a movie shouldn't be about recreating the experience you want to tell a story about. It should be about telling the story. And I don't think I should judge it based on what it tried to do. But on what it actually did. To me. The rest is fun to discuss, but ultimately meaningsless. Unless you want be meta about stories themselves or you want to be a storyteller yourself. Understanding and empathizing with the victim of a crime, for example, is much more important than becoming one yourself. That's the point of communicating and sharing things. So that we don't all have to experience the actual suffering ourselves in order to be aware of it. That's why history, too, is important. But historical, factual truth is very different from fictional truth. And I consider the latter to be as, if not more meaningful and complex. And we have an instinct for that meaning (which is an actual psychological phenomenon) and that's what I listen to.

That's not what I think about, when I rate films. But that's how I rate films. :>

(I don't know if this is redundant or not, I haven't read the rest of the thread...it's so much... :D)

avem
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by avem »

chmul_cr0n wrote:Understanding and empathizing with the victim of a crime, for example, is much more important than becoming one yourself. That's the point of communicating and sharing things. So that we don't all have to experience the actual suffering ourselves in order to be aware of it. That's why history, too, is important.


That's why I appreciate movies like Tickled (2016) for teaching that christian intolerance can end peoples lives. My parents taught me about christian love and compassion but sheltered me from the intolerance and hate. At the age of 18 I found it necessary to justify committing a minor crime thinking that at least 30+% of the population would be willing to forgive me, eventually... However, I was wrong, and I have payed for it with my life. The rest of my catholic family disowned me, and I have spent my whole life working less than minimum wage.

livelove
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by livelove »

@chmul_cr0n:
thank you for taking so much time to share your thoughts with all of us here in such detail. Your wonderful posting is so self-evident when I read it, that I am wondering and actually have no clue how on Earth I could have asked this topic's main question (On what basis do you rate films?) in the first place. You have put into words so much I felt but couldn't express in words. Thanks for that. That's one of the best postings I ever read on Criticker. I'd like to quote it in its entirety for its sheer awesomeness, but due its length, I'll restrict myself to just these two excerpts:

chmul_cr0n wrote:How well it resonates with how many people at what time. Not how well it should have resonated in your opinion.
[…]
I don't think I should judge it based on what it tried to do. But on what it actually did. To me.

There's just one sentence I did not understand:
chmul_cr0n wrote:in the end, a movie shouldn't be about recreating the experience you want to tell a story about. It should be about telling the story.
What do you mean by "a movie shouldn't be about recreating the experience you want to tell a story about" ?
Could you try to explain or reformulate/reword ?

livelove
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Re: On what basis do you rate films ?

Post by livelove »

Luna6ix @ http://www.criticker.com/forum/viewtopi ... 359#p65910 wrote:Among a number of things I tend to rate based upon is lasting power. Some movies are more memorable than others and that is a quality that affects my score.
why is memorability a voting criterion?
Movies we despise are often also pretty memorable. So is this really a meaningful criterion?

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