Talk About Movies: Part 4

problem with 5 point systems is people just turn it into a 10 point one by issuing half points like 4.5 stars

My scale

10 - Masterpiece
9 - Amazing / Sensational
8 - Great
7 - Highly Enjoyable / Very Good / Strong Rec
6 - Enjoyable / Good / Fun / Recommended
5 - Decent / Very light Rec
4 - Forgettable / Underwhelming / Weak
3 - Bad
2 - Awful
1 - Torture Material

I like this rating system, and I might have a few tens. I would never rate a film based on how others would enjoy it, and my tens would probably connect with me on some personal level. I would, though, rather read a thoughtful commentary than see a point distribution.

But if I had to assign values I would be stingy. For example, I think Spielberg has made many great films, but I would only give A.I. a 10.

I'm also struggling to think of any films that would be a 1 or 2, so perhaps that 5 stars would work better.

It would be hard for me, however, to convert numbers into words.

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So far today I have watched the last film in Kiarostami's Koker Trilogy, Through the Olive Trees. The trilogy begins with Where Is the Friend's House in which a boy tries to return a notebook to his classmate. A couple years after this film, an earthquake devastates this part of Iran, so the director of the first film (a stand-in for Kiarostami) goes to this part of Iran to search for the boy in the second film. In the third film, the director (another stand-in for Kiarostami) returns to the scene of the second film, and we see the director shooting scenes from the second film while also expanding upon the life of one actor from the second film. I recommend the entire trilogy since each one depends upon the other. And like Bresson, Kiarostami coaxes excellent performances out of non-professional actors.

After Yang by Kogonada is his second film. Kogonada is known for his YouTube videos and his first feature, Columbus. After Yang is a sci-fi movie that doesn't exactly seem like a sci-fi movie except for that one of the characters is an android that stops working soon into the film.

Kogonada has a great eye for both composition and architecture, which is crucial to both his films. The film's real subject is loss, grief, and memory, and it features another great performance by Colin Farrell.

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Same. That app looks pretty good, so I will give it a go. Thank you TDK!

I’ve considered it because a friend of mine has one and sees everything in the theater but I just can’t stand the crowds. It’s not worth the hassle to me. But I make the exception for Tarantino flicks. Partly because when I was willing to frequent the theater, I saw all of his there and want to keep the streak going.

10s I’ve given out since I started using LB (early 2020):

Pulp Fiction
Whiplash
The Dark Knight
Spirited Away
The Social Network
Jurassic Park
12 Years a Slave
T2: Judgement Day
Halloween
The Godfather
The Godfather II
The Silence of the Lambs

I also have The Departed and City of God rated as 10s but I haven’t seen either of those in 15 years at least, so I dunno.

This is far from an exhaustive list. Plenty of movies I prob think are masterpieces that I haven’t seen again since I started using the app.

darknight where is the meaty part of the bell curve on your rankings?

I'll say it again - Jurassic Park: 2-awful

Actually it did feel like torture so I almost want to give it a 1, but Jeff Goldblum is always entertaining, so the torture wasn't constant.

I loved all the other 10s on your list that I've seen, and JP seems in no way similar to any of them, so it's really confusing to me that you rank it with those. Childhood dinosaur fetish?

i am fortunate that i play cards for a living so i have a completely reverse schedule. we only go to movies on weekdays (just like going out to eat) , if you can go weekdays i highly recommend that avenue.

also it's largely assigned seating in bigger markets so you can always gauge how full the theater will be beforehand

6 or 7. LB uses 5 star scale but they have halves so it works for me.

This is a typical year for me, I imagine:

I try to avoid movies I think I won’t like so I’m gonna skip a lot of films I expect to give a 5 or less. I do have a soft spot for slashers especially, and horror in general, so sometimes I watch some crap in that genre. Same with superhero movies. I have to be pretty wow’d to give out an 8 so there are only a handful of those a year and a 9 is basically going to be my top 1-2 films of the year and I have plenty of years that don’t even have a 9.

I don’t get how anyone can think it’s awful but I’m sure there’s a lot of nostalgia in my rating. Jurassic Park was the first adult book I ever read and regardless what else you may think of it, it was a cinematic marvel for its time. I watched it last year and it absolutely held up for me.

My review is too big to screenshot so I’ll just copy and paste:

Jurassic Park was the first adult novel I ever read and to this day it remains one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've ever had and one of my favorite books of all-time. I finished it before the movie came out and Steven Spielberg's theatrical adaptation left out so many amazing sequences that it has always kind of left a sour taste in my mouth. Yes, the movie has always been amazing, but what if it had that T-Rex waterfall scene? What about the river-rafting sequence? Jurassic Park has always been a classic movie, but I've always wanted to dock it a few points for not being as good as it could have been.

Those days are over. This movie is a pure masterpiece. Sure, it could have a couple more eye-popping action sequences, but hey, that's what sequels are for. This movie is perfectly paced as it is and it is literally one iconic scene after another. It's a perfect action movie. Spielberg probably should have nabbed two Best Director nominations in 1993-94 (he did get one for Schindler's List) because Jurassic Park is a masterclass on putting together jaw-dropping action scenes and surrounding them with great performances and humor that basically never misses. I'm also blown away by how terrific the visual effects still look almost thirty years later. The dinosaurs look unbelievably real and sound great. It's astonishing. We have movies coming out in the last few years that don't look as good as Jurassic Park did three decades ago.

It's crazy to me that this movie only got Oscar love for effects and sound. It didn't even get a nomination for Best Score despite a theme that is instantly recognizable to this day.

Jurassic Park is an all-time classic and a total game-changer. An absolute masterpiece.

10/10 (Masterpiece)

But it left a sour taste in your mouth!

I remember having to wait a long time to see the dinosaurs, and then being underwhelmed. And I even saw it on the biggest screen in town! I had to wait in a long outdoor line for maybe 45 minutes to get in, so I guess I was expecting more.

But what I remember more than anything else was the kids. The whiny, stupid, screaming when you're supposed to be hiding from the dinosaurs kids. I was rooting for them to be eaten. But when I came to my senses and realized it could never have that happy ending I wanted, I was obliged to leave the theater early.

I was much happier waiting outside for my girlfriend and my sister to come out and meet me when it was over.

I’m confused. Did you see it in theaters recently as an adult somehow or are you confidently stating an opinion about a movie you saw once over three decades ago?

One thing I learned from this thread and from reading IMDB user reviews is how wide the opinions can be on the same movie. No matter how acclaimed it is or how panned it is there is always at least one person with the completely opposite opinion. Jurassic Park 1993 has a very high IMDB rating of 8.2 but still had plenty of users who gave it a 1 of 10, saying things like "Spielberg at his worst". Even a movie like Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) has some 10/10 ratings. I speculate that the diversity of opinions has to do with such factors like the age we are when see the movie, which sex we are, and the mood that we are in when we see it plus a lot of other things.

I wish the guy who described Whiplash as "A douchebag gives a blowjob to an *******" was still around to see it called a masterpiece.

I hate 'Rating' films in general...
Discussing Films is cool, Espousing about film is cool... but rating them is :p

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Criterion is readying a 4k UHD release of I am Cuba

But it's got Newman in it. Did you miss that part?

We had a thread years ago in which we described film plots as absurdly as possible. For example, Gandhi is about a guy who starts off dressed in nice suits and ends up wearing a diaper.

Now that's real film criticism.

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And honestly if I can think back 15 years ago when looking at the movie on IMDB it had a rating in the 7s and probably low 7s. Same with Titanic I remember it was a solid 7 or around that and now it is a 7.9. Maybe it was the removal of the forums on IMDB and the less critical thinking that goes on that site now that there are no discussions on movies has led to people giving higher ratings.

I Am Cuba (1964) - 3/10. Bad.

Internet and cable were down for me the past 2 days and just came back this afternoon. I used that time to read a book and a half and also watch DvDs. I had just picked up a 6 disc "Paul Newman" collection. I wanted to buy one of my all-time favorites Hud which was 22 bucks when I saw Hud was included in this 6 disc collection for 18 bucks. Seemed like a no brainer 😀 I watched all of them except Hud. I am saving that for a more special occasion than boredom. Anyway I watched

A New Kind of Love Didn't really remember ever seeing this but probably did. Early 60's romcom with his wife Joanne Woodward opposite him. Typical romcom of the era and entertaining and predictable but ultimately forgettable.

Fat Man and Little Boy Oppenheimer before Oppenheimer but haven't seen Oppenhiemer yet so i can't compare? Interesting and well done. Hadn't seen since it came out.

Nobody's Fool Interesting character study of an elder Newman role. Well done and interesting with a great Newman performance of a struggling contstruction worker type in a small town.

Road to Perdition Hadn't seen this one in ages. Very good. 30's gangster story where Newman is a local mob boss. It is actually more of a Tom Hanks vehicle as Newman is in a supporting role here. Hanks is a hitman on the run from the mob with his son. This is a very good movie.

Twilight Neo-noir with Newman as an ex-cop, ex-private eye working for a Hollywood couple. Killer cast with Gene Hackman, James Garner, Susan Sarandon, Reese Witherspoon, Liev Schriever, Margo Martindale, Stockard Channing but for some reason it sort of fell flat for me. At first I thought I had never seen it before. But then a few scenes of familiarity came along that made me know I had seen it but couldn't really remember anything about it. Neo-noir is tough to pull off in my opinion because they never seem quite as entertaining as classic noir.

Seeing what this looks like:

https://boxd.it/5BNNpP

Self-Reliance (2024)

4/10 (Weak)

Would y’all rather I drop a link this or copy and paste my review like I have been doing?

I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to call Whiplash a masterpiece. At worst, perhaps a 9.5/10 with my favorite ending ever.