me_irl

Critical thinking is an endangered practice.

Imo most movies are kind of bad and I usually regret watching them.

But I kinda feel like this is because I can easily think of other things I would have had more fun spending that time on. So it's a tangible loss to me.

FWIW I keep watching movies because I have seen a few that makes the pursuit worth it.

Somebody needs to introduce Thomas here to MST3K. There is no better teacher than experience.

i can enjoy a movie i think is objectively bad and vice versa.

Enjoying a movie, having fun watching it, is not an indication of its quality. It is acceptable to enjoy bad movies, nothing wrong with that, I've watched plenty of movies I consider as bad but still had fun and a nice time watching them.

Defining the quality of a movie by the enjoyment you had is like defining the quality of a painting by how realistic it is. A painting might be good even if it is surreal, unrealistic or abstract, and a realistic painting might be crap, so the quality of the painting is not tied to simply how realistic it is. The same way there are movies that are fun and enjoyable but not "good", and there are movies that bore most people and are a master piece.

While with a painting defining the quality is simpler (simpler yes, but not simple) as it is the creation of one person normally, for movies it gets incredibly complex as there's so much to measure and its the work of so many people; the script, the acting, the photography, the score, the directing, the stunts, makeup and dressing, FX, ... There's a lot that can be good and a lot that can be bad in the same movie.

At least that has always been my perspective, I have no issues admitting to not liking something despite how good it was, and loving something that I knew was not good. Some examples that come to mind: I love the matrix movies, love watching them, yes, in plural, that doesn't mean the second and third are good. It feels like there were too many issues in them to make them good, but I still had a good time watching them. On the other hand, I feel like a movie like 2001 is of unquestionable quality, yet I always feel somewhat bored watching it and would rather do something else.

I think the only movie rating a entirely agreed with was Thor: Ragnarok being awesome and Thor: love and thunder sucking ass.

Also the wakanda cat man movie was AWESOME.

I hate going into a movie with expectations. That’s the quickest way to end up hating it. Even if I might be a fan and am looking forward to a particular film’s release. It’s far easier just to go in to a film with few expectations. Things that make a movie “bad” for me are: bad acting, bad writing, bad effects, or bad plot contrivances. IOW, something so egregious it pulls me out of enjoying what I’m watching and draws my attention to it.

For example - the new Star Wars films. They were fine for a cast of relative unknowns. Yeah, they had some heavy handed writing in spots that was bad, the worst being the pointless casino and kid scenes in the last one. But regardless it was fun. The previous three otoh had a stellar cast yet some of the worst wooden acting, writing, and the abuse of digital SFX was offensive.

(Best SW film made was Rogue One, IMO, tied with ANH because that introduced us to the franchise and had no baggage.)

Of course this is all movie dependent. Spoofs and the like or comedy are entirely different vs something like a drama. One won’t be held to a high standard, the other will need it to keep the audience engaged.

I'm the exact opposite. I struggle to get through 90% of movies regardless of how good people think they are, especially since they only keep getting longer and longer.

Hell, the only movies I can get through are the ones that are so bad they're actually interesting

Where are you getting your movies? Very few people are just raw-dogging random titles off a database. You mean you kinda enjoyed the movie that the Netflix algorithm showed you? Funny enough, I had almost this exact same argument with a friend the other day about how she "doesn't believe there's any bad movies."

Honestly, that is what matters. There's something to be said about "cinema" versus "movies" lol, not everything needs to have mass appeal to be good, but I think a lot of people rate things high even when they hate it and that's bullshit.

This is more an arthouse thing for me, as if the story becomes completely incoherent I just assume it’s expressionism and I’m being challenged.

Huh. 90% of the time I'm like "this is a bad movie"

This is exactly why we mainly get dogshit by people with nothing to say or any life experience.

Hey, one of my cringe memories that randomly pops up when I try to go to sleep!

"So what did you think, pretty good right?"

"Ahahah what??? No, it was shit!"

It was Wild Things, feel free to confirm that it was indeed shit.

To have no opinion other than gratefulness is... Concerning.

This used to be me. I enjoyed pretty much everything I watched. I figured, since a lot of people put a ton of time, effort, and money into making a film, it must have at least some redeeming qualities. No one trusted my opinion on films because I "loved everything."

It wasn't until I watched a ton of movie reviews from various reviewers that I started to be able to tell the difference between a good film and a bad film. Now I'm pretty critical of films, and even made a review blog to discuss what I like and dislike about certain films.