celmendo

OKAY so I was reading in the "Quantity or Quality" post and it's too similar even though it's not really what I was asking. So never mind.



Lots of similar topics but I'm not sure this exact subject has been posted. There are a lot of movies that I think are amazing and are generally accepted to be classics or best movies of the year, etc. I find in my collection those movies are the ones I watch the least. I guess because they are emotionally draining or something you really have to invest your time and brain power to watch them. I watch movies with pretty colors and loud explosions far more because I'm usually wanting to wind down & relax and turn off my brain when I do watch something. I find myself passing over the serious films when I'm buying (No Country For Old Men) in favor of something like The Golden Compass. And just to be clear, No Country is a FAR superior film that I loved but I'll most likely be popping in G.C. or something of that ilk more often than No Country.

Does anyone else find as their collection grows that they are buying more serious stuff and less fluff or like me, more fluff and less serious stuff?

Abserd360

That's a really good question now that I think about it. It has occured to me before that I probably have more "fun to watch" movies than I do "serious/art films," or at least it seems that way because I watch the fun ones more often. Of course, the line between the two can be very thin, and I don't think that all films sit distinctly in one category or the other, and I think that many of the best films ever made are so good partly because they inhabit both categories. For instance, you mentioned No Country For Old Men as a more serious/artistic film, and I would agree, though I definitly consider it fun to watch, and did in fact watch it 3 or 4 times the week it came out.

I definitly think that this holds true with my own DVD habits however. To take science fiction as an example, I've probably watched The Abyss 10-15 times, while I've only seen Solaris (the Tarkovsky version, though Soderberg's was not bad) once. It's not that The Abyss is a better film, or that Solaris is less watchable, but I think it certainly does take more time, intellectual/emotional effort, and concentration to watch a film by Tarkovsky than it does to watch one by James Cameron. And I would not say that The Abyss is without artistic merit, far from it. In fact, I think it's one of the finer science fiction films made in the past 20 years or so, and probably James Cameron's finest achievement in my eyes. It's a thematically rich film, with an original, creative story well told, and also features some fine performances (some of the best in any sci fi movie IMO). But, it's not an "art film" on the level of Solaris, and it is more concerned with being entertaining than is Solaris. I think after another viewing of Solaris, I would probably find myself thinking longer and more intently about what I had just seen than I do after watching The Abyss.

I think that the opposite can also be true from time though. To take martial arts films for another example, most people would probably classify Kurosawa's Sanjuro as a more serious, artistic film (although among his entire ouvre, it is often considered, unfairly I think, to be more mindlessly entertaining than his other work) while something like Unleashed AKA Danny the Dog would be considered more fun to watch. While I like both films, and again I do not think that either can be firmly put in either category, I have certainly watched Sanjuro more than I have Unleashed. While Unleashed is very entertaining, it does have an artistic core and it is a genuinely emotional, character driven story with very good performances. I've probably watched it at least 10 or 15 times and enjoyed it, but I have definitly watched Sanjuro more. While widely considered the more serious, artistic film, there is something about it that I find absolutely compelling, and nearly intoxicating, every time I watch it. I consider it a very entertaining movie, but at the end of the day, I think it is more art over entertainment, though Kurosawa almost always strikes an impeccable balance between the two.

While I identify with your sentiment that the fun to watch movies get more playing time than the serious ones, I think it is ultimately the ones that strike a balance which get the most from me.

celmendo

Great answer. And I agree with what you said. A lot of movies fall somewhere between.

I'm def. getting way more picky when I buy things asking myself if this is something I'm going to watch frequently or is it just going to sit there? I'm still going to get great films but not if I'm never going to watch them.

I just saw Into The Wild and really liked it but that month all I bought was The Mist. Into the Wild was a WAY better movie but I'll prob. never watch that again. On the other hand, The Fountain was "arty" and not what I consider fluff, but I watch that frequently.

Abserd360

The Fountain is a fantastic example. It's actually one of my 3 favorites of all time, without question. It is incredibly tilted towards the art side of the scale, but is remarkably watchable nonetheless. It's probably one of the most abstract films, at least as far as semi-mainstream, relatively well known cinema goes, but I think that actually makes it more compelling to watch. It reminds me of a Lynch film in some ways, though it's very different stylistically, I think it's a lot like a puzzle that begs to be figured out, much like Lost Highway or Mulholland Dr. I have my own take on the meaning, but there's still a lot that I don't understand about it, particularly with regard to the wedding ring and its journey. Everytime I watch it, I hope to get a little closer. There's actually a really good commentary that Aronofsky recorded for the Fountain. It's not on the DVD (unfortunately) but Aronofsky put it up online for free downloads. He doesn't spell anything out, but he explains a lot of stuff that I didn't pick up on. In the end, I actually came out with more questions about the movie than I did answers.

I think The Fountain is so watchable for me because the themes resonate so much in my personal life and it has so many things I'm interested in. Ancient shamanic spirituality, and all spirituality really, is something I identified with closely, also Tai Chi Chuan, psychophamacology, someone close to you dying from a terminal disease, Mayan civilization, the Spanish Inquisition etc. It was actually pretty surreal the first time I saw it because it was such a large collection of various interests that it almost felt like I had my mind read. Personal resonance is probably the single strongest draw to any film, art or entertainment.

I really couldn't get into Into The Wild. I thought the premise was good, but I thought the lead performance was just plain bad. I turned it off around the time he was telling an apple how tasty it was. It's a shame, because I'm a big fan of Sean Penn, and I really wanted to give it an honest chance, but I just couldn't get past the lead actor. Even William Hurt and Catherine Keener, both generally very good, seemed trite to me. I may give it another chance some time though.

celmendo

I breathlessly, rushed to listen to Arnofsky's online commentary and found out nothing! But it was very interesting and I enjoyed it. I was going to go into my take on the ring but found I was going on way too long and getting into other aspects of the movie. Had to stop.

You should finish Into the Wild. The part you stopped was about the time it started to get better for me. I doubt you'll like the lead any better though. The whole tone of the film felt a little off to me. Like he was going for a whimsical yet sage feeling and got more of a 'Billy, don't stare at that man" tone. I felt it was successful in that it got me thinking about a lot of things in my life and choices you make, etc. And I was still thinking about it the next day. But again, I won't be seeing it twice.

OldBoy

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coli

This is a great topic, and it took me many years and many DVD's I bought to realize the difference between a movie with great replay value and one that is a great, but not much replay value.

When I first bought my DVD player in 1998, I tried to buy all the classics of my time: Raging Bull, Platoon, Schindlers List, etc. These are great movies, academy award winners, and very enjoyable to watch. The problem is these movies don't hold much replay value, simply because of either the tone, the pace, of whatever the reason, I have watched either once or twice, thought they were great, and never had the desire to watch them again.

Then I have movies like Indiana Jones, Superman, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Hoosiers, Rocky, all movies that I also grew up with that don't have the 'substance' that a movie like Platoon has, but for some reason I can watch them endlessly, because there is just something about those movies, they are easy to watch, and in the end: THEY ARE FUN TO WATCH!

Watching my DVD's became a chore, cause I felt obligated to watch the classics, and then realized that my collection was filled with part classics with no replay value, and the other half with fun movies that wont win any Academy Awards, but I can watch them over and over. When I finally buy a BluRay player, I will only buy movies that have replay value, and movies like Platoon will not be in that collection.

Brian Shannon

For me quality = watchable.

nemein

Please follow up in the "Quantity or Quality" thread http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=530104