Things that rocked my world this week... (2 Viewers)

[Alex]

Originally posted by P. Littbarski
meal of honor

This suits more the what-we-had-4-lunch discussion taking place in the bored in work thread

You're right Spielberg isn't always depressing but most of his movies are quite crap, aren't they....?

 

[Speed Racer]

Originally posted by P. Littbarski


what about minority report, meal of honor (yes, the video game, which he 'co-wrote'), men in black II (producer), pinky and the brain (executive producer), jurassic park etc...

not exactly weepies are they

I was talking about when he makes an effort to create something grand, artistic and award winning. The other stuff is just Bread and butter to him. He invented the Box office smash, and uses it like a work horse.

 

[The Chilli King]

Originally posted by Speed Racer
Explain why Flash?

Well Mr. broad sweeping generalistion,,... you know what, I'm not even going to bother. You just sit up there in you're little tower whacking off to Kurt and Sylvester in drag in Tango & Cash.

 

[The Chilli King]

I sorry Speedy I'm just angry you left us for so long.

 

[flashpants]

Originally posted by Speed Racer


But thats how you win Oscars. Make people cry. If they cry it means they were moved, which means it must be good eh? Look at Spielberg, what a great director he was till he decided that making people cry was a great way to win oscars. Now he's shit. Depressing movies are much the same as depressing music, alot of foneyness for a cheap emotional response. "Shhh....you can't say it's rubbish the artist is opening his/her heart....oh, its so sad......sniffle.....boo hoo"!bog

Terrible sorry in not replying sooner speedy...but here you go

1. You don't have to cry to be moved. I was moved by Amelie without crying, the exact opposite actually.
2. My girlfriend cried at "Casper" does that mean that it is in same bracket as "Schindlers list" and does that make it good, eh?
3. Winning Oscars is not all about the volume of tears or number of Kleenex used (phnarrphnarr) "Brave heart" won a squit load of them but there wasn't that much sniffly bits throughout the film.
4. Spielberg is not shit now. "Minority report" was in my opinion one of his best films for a long time.
5. By your arguement Speilberg was "a great director till he decided that making people cry was a great way to win oscars. Now he's shit" Does these mean that you think older work like "Hook" is better then "A.I.", "Schindlers list" or "Saving Private Ryan"
6. "Schindlers list" is not exactly something you can do in a slapstick fashion. Would "Ernst save the Jews" be more to your liking?
7. Depressing music and depressing films illicit a sad response from the audience in the same way as happy clappy films provoke a happy, cheerful response from the audience. These are human feelings, which is what the arts are supposed to provoke in us.
8.Everything that produces a depressed response is phoney. Is everything that provokes a cheerful response not phoney? You could hardly accuse Westlife of provoking a sad response from their fans. Does this make them more real musically then Leonard Cohen?
9. If an artist is expressing something depressing to them you can hardly expect them to make a yippy skippy 3-minute pop tune about beagles in deer stalker hats blowing bubbles out of a clay pipe?
10. Most of the tunes I happen to like could easily be classified as depressing. I'm a bit of a pessimist and often focus on the shitter side of life but if the world was filled with films about nothing but kittens in mittens and love and romance and all music was of Liberache sugary levels I think that would make me even more depressed then a couple of minutes of droney whingey songs.

Oh ye, you know sometimes shit things happen in life (The Holocaust 9/11, Ronan Keating) should we not bother making films and music to show how shit they were?

 

[Beanstalk]

Originally posted by flashpants



"Schindlers list" is not exactly something you can do in a slapstick fashion. Would "Ernest save the Jews" be more to your liking?

Oh yeah...that would be to my liking...
"This dungaree...3 people...this baseball cap...2 people"

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by flashpants
Terrible sorry in not replying sooner speedy...but here you go

....ETC.

G'man Flashpants you actually raise many good points here, let me tell you mine:

_ You don't have to cry to be moved

True. But it's very easy to be moved if they make you cry and, unfortunately, many directors take advantage of this to boost tickets sales and/or win Oscars. Speedy exaggerates and generalises (as usual ). You must admit though that *many* depressing movies as *many* depressing music DO offer "a lot of foneyness for a cheap emotional response". Besides it's much easier to win an Oscar with a heart breaking movie than with Brave heart: such movies are very rare indeed.

_ Spielberg

Mmmmmh this is a tough one. Personally I don't really like him even though he did some great things: the attack in Normandy scene in "Saving Private Ryan" for instance actually freaked me out and I must recognise all his movies generally LOOK fantastic. On the other hand NONE of them changed my life... you know when you leave the cinema and go back to reality only a few hours later? This never happened to me with a Spielberg movie. Besides, he never trusts the audience: he always manages to fuck up good movies with these long, fake and annoying explanations towards the end. You might say that even Hitchcock did the same (E.G. Psycho) right... but an audience of the 60s was pretty different!

_ Depressing music

SORRY, I CAN'T STAND IT!!!! I actually go *MAD* when I go see a gig and there's this guy nearly crying at the microphone... Jaysus life stinks enough itself, why should we make it worse? As I previously said, I get depressed every day when I go to the office, when I check my bank account's balance, when I watch the news, when I read Speedy's posts... (sorry mate, this was nasty....), so why should I listen to depressing music? NO THANKS!!!

Maybe you can help me to understand: why do you like "depressing" music? What does it give you? Does it make you feel better because you see someone has more problems than you? No, seriously, why?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speedy bear in mind: ALL GENERALISATIONS DO NOT MAKE SENSE, This included

 

[Speed Racer]

Oh maaan! C'mon whats wrong with generalisations? As long as they're broad and sweeping in a general way. Then I'm generally ok with them.
Ok Flashpants point taken. You were right about some of those things but, like Alex, I too HATE depressing shitheads who hijack tragic moments in history for their own gain over and over. And yes I understand that Minority Report might be a little back to Spielbergs old form. But I can't forgive him for tacking on such a shit final scene to Schindlers List, and putting me into a coma in A.I. And all of the corny G.I. dialogue in Private Ryan. War. What a fantastic bandwagon. Someone like Stanley Kubrick deserves 5 times the awards Spielberg got. He never made a corny, shit heap once. And died with his dignity in tact.

Now when I was talking about music I meant it in the same way as I did in film. Some depressing music is overly personal. And HORRIBLE. I don't wanna know if the cunts were dumped/raped/beaten up. Thats fuckin it! I'm sick of the cunts. (Radiohead excluded cos they are genius). They hijack personal trauma alot of the time as a vehicle to carry their lack of melody and ideas. There. Am I still generalising?

 

[Speed Racer]

And another thing. You'll never catch Spielberg making a film about Israels barbaric colonisation of Palestine. Not even a century has passed and the Israeli's are behaving like Nazis towards Palestinians! Did anyone see the Documentary last night on ITV? "Palestine is still the Issue". I was shocked.

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by Speed Racer
Oh maaan! C'mon whats wrong with generalisations?

Nothing: they simply *ARE* wrong

Originally posted by Speed Racer
Am I still generalising?

Of course you are!

Kubrick .|..|s

 

[Speed Racer]

Its a gift then. Coz I ain't able to turn it off.

 

[flashpants]

And here comes the waffly reply...

Originally posted by Alex


_ You don't have to cry to be moved

True. But it's very easy to be moved if they make you cry and, unfortunately, many directors take advantage of this to boost tickets sales and/or win Oscars. Speedy exaggerates and generalises (as usual ). You must admit though that *many* depressing movies as *many* depressing music DO offer "a lot of foneyness for a cheap emotional response". Besides it's much easier to win an Oscar with a heart breaking movie than with Brave heart: such movies are very rare indeed.

Films are made to entertain and to do this they have to get a response from the audience. Not every story is a happy one. There is phoniness in this regard but that applies across the board and you can not just single out depressing films. If you laugh at a movie or sit there smiling happily are you not being moved? How many love story movies or comedies are totally phoney from start to finish? These aren’t classed as depressing films but this doesn't mean they're not phoney.

I don’t particularly rate the Oscars as being much of an indication of the greatness of a film. They’re not a bad guide but they are voted for by the American film industry, an industry that hardly prides itself on its fastidious reproduction of reality. A lot of Oscars go to movies that are on the weepy side as most of the stories have much more emotional impact then most happy films. A lot of these films also are based on real life and you only have to look at the news to see that there is a lot of crap in the world.

Films such as Schindlers List and Life is Beautiful are about a horrific time in Europe’s history and both are stories very worthy of being made into films. They also happen to be depressing.

If a film doesn't get a response from the audience then it will flop and there will be lots of people losing money. Directors will use any emotion possible to garner a response whether it is a positive of negative emotion. Granted some of this is phoney but that phoniness isn’t just exclusive to depressing movies. Nor can it be applied to all depressing movies.

Originally posted by Alex

_ Spielberg

Mmmmmh this is a tough one. Personally I don't really like him even though he did some great things: the attack in Normandy scene in "Saving Private Ryan" for instance actually freaked me out and I must recognise all his movies generally LOOK fantastic. On the other hand NONE of them changed my life... you know when you leave the cinema and go back to reality only a few hours later? This never happened to me with a Spielberg movie. Besides, he never trusts the audience: he always manages to fuck up good movies with these long, fake and annoying explanations towards the end. You might say that even Hitchcock did the same (E.G. Psycho) right... but an audience of the 60s was pretty different!

I wouldn’t rate Spielberg as the greatest director of all time but to say that he is shit now that he discovered how to make people cry is nonsense. Didn’t people sob and sniffle at E.T. and that was years ago? I do think he is a very good director compared with the vast majority of them out there now. Stanley Kubrick is often hailed as one of the best directors ever and he thought that Spielberg was bloody good. As regards some of the endings I do agree with you, I hate when a director decides he has to explain everything to an audience and leave it all happy but Spielberg is not the only one that does this and he generally does it with more finesse then others.

Originally posted by Alex

_ Depressing music

SORRY, I CAN'T STAND IT!!!! I actually go *MAD* when I go see a gig and there's this guy nearly crying at the microphone... Jaysus life stinks enough itself, why should we make it worse? As I previously said, I get depressed every day when I go to the office, when I check my bank account's balance, when I watch the news, when I read Speedy's posts... (sorry mate, this was nasty....), so why should I listen to depressing music? NO THANKS!!!

Maybe you can help me to understand: why do you like "depressing" music? What does it give you? Does it make you feel better because you see someone has more problems than you? No, seriously, why?

I don’t like all depressing music no more then I like all happy music but I do enjoy a good old dirge. It gives a different type of emotional response then happy tunes (which I also love) It just depends on the mood I’m in at the times. I don’t really like singer/song writer type of music and I have to agree with you when you say there’s nothing worse then somebody midway through a breakdown who decides to sing a few songs and spread the pain. It’s probably just my general outlook on life, which is definitely a touch negative (not in a hang around TMBC and say everything’s shit way). It’s not about having a good whinge but some of just really appeals to me. You can't go around ignoring all the crap in life.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speedy bear in mind: ALL GENERALISATIONS DO NOT MAKE SENSE, This included [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[Speed Racer]

Originally posted by flashpants


I wouldn’t rate Spielberg as the greatest director of all time but to say that he is shit now that he discovered how to make people cry is nonsense. Didn’t people sob and sniffle at E.T. and that was years ago? I do think he is a very good director compared with the vast majority of them out there now.

Hang on. Technically, cinematography wise n all Spielberg is still a master of telling strories visually. BUT. The stories he is telling ARE mostly piles of shit. He is pandering to the public conception of him. E.T. was great. A classic. But that was before he changed.
So he IS a skilled director, who now goes for mostly shit (overly patriotic or emotionally charged) movies.

 

[Alex]

Here we go:

Originally posted by flashpants
Films are made to entertain and to do this they have to get a response from the audience. Not every story is a happy one. There is phoniness in this regard but that applies across the board and you can not just single out depressing films. If you laugh at a movie or sit there smiling happily are you not being moved? How many love story movies or comedies are totally phoney from start to finish? These aren’t classed as depressing films but this doesn't mean they're not phoney.

This wasn't the point: of course there's a lot of happy crap. I just agree with Speedy regarding the fact that SOME directors use depressing topics to move people and have a response (it's not the case of "Schindlers List" and "Life is Beautiful"... *cough* "La vita e' bella")

I don’t particularly rate the Oscars as being much of an indication of the greatness of a film. They’re not a bad guide but they are voted for by the American film industry, an industry that hardly prides itself on its fastidious reproduction of reality. A lot of Oscars go to movies that are on the weepy side as most of the stories have much more emotional impact then most happy films. A lot of these films also are based on real life and you only have to look at the news to see that there is a lot of crap in the world.

Films such as Schindlers List and Life is Beautiful are about a horrific time in Europe’s history and both are stories very worthy of being made into films. They also happen to be depressing.

This is all true but again it wasn't the point....

If a film doesn't get a response from the audience then it will flop and there will be lots of people losing money
Directors will use any emotion possible to garner a response whether it is a positive of negative emotion. Granted some of this is phoney but that phoniness isn’t just exclusive to depressing movies. Nor can it be applied to all depressing movies.

.......This is the point!

Some (not all) directors make people cry to sell tickets and get an Oscar
Many (not all) depressing movies are made with this purpose only

I wouldn’t rate Spielberg as the greatest director of all time but to say that he is shit now that he discovered how to make people cry is nonsense. Didn’t people sob and sniffle at E.T. and that was years ago? I do think he is a very good director compared with the vast majority of them out there now. Stanley Kubrick is often hailed as one of the best directors ever and he thought that Spielberg was bloody good.

True.

As regards some of the endings I do agree with you, I hate when a director decides he has to explain everything to an audience and leave it all happy but Spielberg is not the only one that does this and he generally does it with more finesse then others.

Sorry I hate this: The coolest thing of 2001 A Space Odissey for instance is the huge effort the audience has to make to understand it.

I don’t like all depressing music no more then I like all happy music but I do enjoy a good old dirge. It gives a different type of emotional response then happy tunes (which I also love) It just depends on the mood I’m in at the times. I don’t really like singer/song writer type of music and I have to agree with you when you say there’s nothing worse then somebody midway through a breakdown who decides to sing a few songs and spread the pain. It’s probably just my general outlook on life, which is definitely a touch negative (not in a hang around TMBC and say everything’s shit way). It’s not about having a good whinge but some of just really appeals to me. You can't go around ignoring all the crap in life.

mmm... this isn't still clear to me...

Thanks anyway!

Originally posted by Speed Racer

Hang on. Technically, cinematography wise n all Spielberg is still a master of telling strories visually. BUT. The stories he is telling ARE mostly piles of shit. He is pandering to the public conception of him. E.T. was great. A classic. But that was before he changed.
So he IS a skilled director, who now goes for mostly shit (overly patriotic or emotionally charged) movies.

Jaysus man, can't you just learn to be abit more moderate in your opinions? Just for the discussion's sake like....

 

[Speed Racer]

Ok, I'll try be Mr.Moderate. But frankly I think its boring sometimes. If I feel strongly about something thats in my face every where I look then excuse me if I let the shit fly.

 

[flashpants]

No harm in feeling strongly about something or voicing your opinions strongly but just try and make a more specific point instead of a generalistion that doesn't stand up well to arguement

 

[billygannon]

God!... you guys are so September 10th. People are dying man! Dying!!

 

[Ex-User (252)]

this post certainly de-rocked my world this week. so boring...

 

[flashpants]

As an apology for the tedium a bottle of absinthe is winging its to you now Happy

 

[Ex-User (252)]

best thread ever!!!