Ruining Movies

[rareboy]

We all have at least one that subsequently made us go 'Wait, whut?' when we thought about it.

What are your favourites?

 

[Peloso]

Haute Tension is a french horror film about a killer stalking and slaughtering the occupants of a country house. At the end we find out the killer is actually one of the occupants.

Glass Onion, where Edward Norton's character apparently forgets he killed his business partner when her identical twin sister shows up at his estate.

Any superhero movie or bible epic.

 

[Peloso]

Also, SIgns, wherein water soluble aliens occupy a planet (Earth) that is 70% water and Mel Gibson goes two hours without saying one derogatory thing about women, gays or Jews.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Dolores Claiborne.

Kathy Bates and Judy Parfitt did some heavy lifting in several scenes, but Jennifer Jason Leigh appeared to be out of her league.

Lighting and set design was heavy handed, limiting the Claiborne home to dull blues and grays, and unfair manipulation of the audience, reducing the realism to just crafty storytelling.

 

[Peloso]

We all have at least one that subsequently made us go 'Wait, whut?' when we thought about it.

When you thought about it. Subsequently.

That's actually an indication of clever filmmaking.

If you scoff at a film while it's running, then yes, it sucks. Movie audiences are like children; absorbing everything like a sponge and very impressionable. That's part of the experience: to orientate yourself with the storyline and the characters as the film starts. Everything is new, anything can happen and you don't know where it's going. Once the film progresses and the plot matures, viewer credulousness rises. I haven't seen the original Planet Of The Apes in half a century but I'm willing to bet that within the first five or ten minutes there is a line of dialogue or maybe even a specific shot that, like a magic trick, fools the audience into believing that the earth-like planet depicted is, in fact, not Earth.

And if you find yourself starting a movie and being overly critical and fact checking, you're doing it wrong and should probably stick to Tik Tok videos. Suspension of disbelief may be eroding democracy in America, but it's priceless tool for moviegoers.

 

[belamyi]

^ If you land on a supposedly extraterrestrial planet with 1968 American and British English speakers, suspension of belief automatically becomes "God only speaks English".

It's more allegorical-metaphorical-whatever than mere "suspension of belief" which demand some sort, even remote, relation to realism.
The time machine one going 800.000 years ahead to a world filled up with English-speaking clone cover models (no matter if the 1960 blond suprematist or the 2000 warmer one) is even wilder...

The "problem" with those "stories" is that they build up a fuss of circles around a very slight premise-punchline-moneyshot (literally for the Apes)...

What I hate the most is the sort of tale in which a totally clueless newbie "works very hard" to meet an impending deadline to beat the nasty rivals, or overcome a unsurmountable circumstance, or when the whole movie is about proving they can be very good at something very highly valued by the dastard part of society, then embracing a sort of ideal, simple cavern life with [family] love in a hut.

 

[belamyi]

Now you made me discover (or, else, assimilate) new feed for the death thread...

Robert McGinnis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Art of Robert McGinnis

I have long been a fan of 'sleazy' paperback art (which helped inspire my anthology Anatomy Of Death ) and one of the key proponents of it w...

markwestwriter.blogspot.com

 

[belamyi]

What I hate the most is the sort of tale in which a totally clueless newbie "works very hard"

"Double" hard

 

[NotHardUp1]

The depiction of duos is a repeated insipid cinematic element that is just as much treacle as any unrealistic shooting scene or fistfight against multiple attackers.

Some white, aging hero is given a black sidekick, or a female partner who wouldn't have ever been attracted to him in real life.

It's no better when a "smart" kid is paired with some adult mentor or enabler.

They're just such terrible mental porn for the viewer who is wanting some Disneyfied world to be true, and they are so unimaginative that a seven-year-old could write them.

 

[belamyi]

The depiction of duos is a repeated insipid cinematic element that is just as much treacle as any unrealistic shooting scene or fistfight against multiple attackers.

Some white, aging hero is given a black sidekick, or a female partner who wouldn't have ever been attracted to him in real life.

It's no better when a "smart" kid is paired with some adult mentor or enabler.

They're just such terrible mental porn for the viewer who is wanting some Disneyfied world to be true, and they are so unimaginative that a seven-year-old could write them.

So you too never cared much about the screenwriters strike, either

 

[belamyi]

"the sort of tale in which a totally clueless newbie to a highly technical field or very upscale competition "works double hard" at oversped pace to meet an impending deadline to beat the nasty rivals or upset some other sort of "bad people".