Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
What?
Just because you don't use the term correctly doesn't mean it doesn't have an operative definition. There Will Be Blood qualifies. Yes, Daniel Day Lewis did a great job; he always does. But the whole movie was just an exercise in him showing he's a great actor. As I watched it, all I could see was John Lovitz and John Lithgow yelling "ACTING! BRILLIANT! Thank You!"
Acting school from Gregory Mate on Vimeo.
Yeah, we get it Dan; you can act. Now how 'bout the movie actually go somewhere? You can do both, Y'know? 'No Country' proved it.
On the flip-side, every Wes Anderson movie is fairly self-indulgent these days but I actually like those.
When someone says "Damn, watch better movies" to people that aren't willing to nitpick a movie that has a billionaire ninja, the 'accusations' of snobbery are justified. You clearly weren't willing to just let this be an either/or issue when you start castigating folks for not demanding reality in their cinema. |
Of course I wasn't willing to let it be an either/or issue. It's not an either/or issue. I was being an asshole, sure, duh. I was being an asshole because it seemed like people's perspective on film was limited, that they were willing to excuse poor screenwriting because they figured that was as good as they are going to get from Hollywood movies. I certainly could have stated as much in the first place, but I chose to be an asshole.
I won't argue the merits of TWBB or even argue that it isn't self-indulgent. I'll just say that Nolan is an incredibly self-indulgent filmmaker with respect to plot machinations, and TDKR is him at his most self-indulgent. Sometimes that works for me (
The Prestige) and other times I think it detracts from otherwise decent films (
Inception, TDKR).
So it seems pointless to even bring it up that you'd rather watch TDKR over TWBB because of TWBB's self-indulgence. At best, you've set forth an argument between us where both films are. And what I have to say to that is: "Well, okay."
Quote:
Originally Posted by patteeu
"Self-indulgent" and "pretentious" still mean the same things they always did.
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Of course they do. But they are most frequently encountered when someone is using them incorrectly.