walsfeo said:
wadark said:
In conclusion, bad movies don't exist. There are simply movies that more people found unenjoyable.
Good movies don't exist, there are simply movies that less people found unenjoyable.
Bad movies exist, so do good movies, even if it's all on a relative and sliding scale.
Movies can be bad for a variety of reasons - poor cinematography, sound editing, script, acting, directing, and so-forth. A person's tolerance for suck defines their enjoyment, and enjoyment is very subjective.
Critics are people who think about movies not just let them be poured into their brain without any judgement. A good critic can help you get more out of a movie you decide to see, or keep you from wasting time and cash (which could really be considered just more time) on both stuff you wouldn't enjoy and generically substandard garbage as well.
So yeah, you can say "enjoyment is subjective and everyone has a right to enjoy what they want" and I'd have to agree with you; but it is easy to judge quality, even if it is quality on a temporary and relative basis.
What's so wrong with having movies "poured into your brain without judgement" as you say? I thought film was a medium intended for the audience to simply enjoy it. Why does it have to be judged? More specifically, why does it have to be publicly judged? Am I somehow "wrong" for watching movies without microanalyzing every nuance of the film or even really analyzing it at all?
The variety of reasons for a movie being bad that you listed, are, themselves, subjective. Cinematography is only defined as "poor" because there is a "definition" of what good cinematography is, and that definition was made by someone or a group of people who defined "good" by their own subjective position.
There was a fair bit of criticism for the Bourne movies and their use of 100% handheld cameras because it made the cameras "shaky". But I thought it added a degree of realism to the film and heightened the sense of urgency.
You say that its a person's tolerance for "suck" that defines their individual enjoyment, but who defines what "Suck" is? And how is that person's opinion of "suck" any more credible than mine? Because he went to film school, maybe? Movies are a creative medium, and as such, conventional standards shift with time. What was considered bad 50 years ago, may not be so today. Look at painting and the Renaissance; that represented a fundamentally large shift in the style of art, and subsequently shifted the ideas of what was considered good and bad. Film is even more in flux than that, so with the standards so constantly shifting, how can we really set a clear definition of what makes good directing/acting/scriptwriting/etc.?
Critics can help you avoid spending time and money, true. But you have to go into a review understanding that the reviewer might not have the same standards as you. I've never once let a reviewer keep me from seeing a movie. I read their opinion and take it to heart, but I won't let someone else's
opinion keep me from something. Sure, I may be disappointed by the movie and I may find out that the reviewer and I share an opinion on the film, but I may also find the movie very enjoyable and find that I don't agree with the reviewer at all; such is the nature of film, and I would rather put up with 1000 movies that I don't like, than miss out on 1 movie I would have loved because some reviewer told me not to "waste my time and money". I think that anyone who decides not to see a movie because of a reviewer's comments is worse than someone who flocks to see the "generic substandard garbage" year after year.
I don't care if every single reviewer on the planet says that Iron Man 2 is terrible, I will be there at midnight on Thursday to see it and I will judge for myself.
Essentially what I'm saying is, you can judge a movie's quality based on the conventional standards of "good" and "bad". But those standards were, themselves, defined by a subjective source.
