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Am I the only one that thinks he concentrates too much on the "morality" of films. I find it ironic given that there have been some very bizarre interpretations of the morality of his work (Ender as Hitler?).
For this reason, I find OSC the best critic of family films I know, but not so much of adult films (as in marketed at adults, not as in shown at XXX theatres.) Mind you, he and I don't seem to go to the same adult films, so maybe he is almost always right, I am hardly in a posistion to argue, although I wonder what he would think of "The Best of Youth."
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I wonder what he'd think of 40 Year old Virgin. It was crude, but it really was better than I expected, and a WHOLE lot better than Wedding Crashers which I hated because they just tried to make the main character cuddly and the other character bad so that folks wouldn't get annoyed when he stole the girl. But, he'd probably oddly like Wedding Crashes because
Spoiler
They waited until they got married... How many times do you see that in movies? Usually they just pounce on each other before the first date is over.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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P.S. I would love to seem him review "The Thief Lord." In fact, he really should, as it was a speculative fiction family film, which, in addition to being alliterative, is a category I know he and his readers care about.
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Well, i don't know if he concentrates "too much" on the morality of films. He definitely comments on it more than your average film critic, but then, he's not really a film critic anyway, he just writes his opinions about movies the same as he writes his opinions on everything else.
Of course, he's obviously watched a lot of movies, so that counts for something, but his reviews have a slightly different purpose than most critics' reviews. Most critics try to be 'objective' and judge a film by how well it accomplishes what the moviemakers wanted it to accomplish, whereas OSC seems to focus more on how he reacted to the film. Which, in my opinion, is closer to how most people judge movies anyway. I don't know very many people who say "this movie was really offensive to me, but it was really well shot and acted, so you should go see it." I mean, you will find some like that, but most people say a movie sucks if it advocates things they find repulsive.
Posts: 134 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: I wonder what he'd think of 40 Year old Virgin. It was crude, but it really was better than I expected, and a WHOLE lot better than Wedding Crashers which I hated because they just tried to make the main character cuddly and the other character bad so that folks wouldn't get annoyed when he stole the girl. But, he'd probably oddly like Wedding Crashes because
Spoiler
They waited until they got married... How many times do you see that in movies? Usually they just pounce on each other before the first date is over.
You can't have a movie like the 40 year old virgin and not have him wait.
But the movie is pretty bad in the indecency sense. One of my little sister's (aged 12) idiot friends bought it for her for Christmas. My little sister opened it, so my family decided to watch it (without her, duh) to see how bad it was in terms of age 12.
Let's just say I was allowed to sneak it out of the house with me to college that spring.
Ironically my little sister is allowed to play GTA (go figure).
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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How can I comment "too much" on the morality of storytelling, when that is its primary purpose and function? It is impossible to tell any story without making some kind of moral assertion, even if it's just "These are the events that are important enough to tell; the details I skipped over are not as important." That's a value judgment. All stories have moral implications.
What's sad is how many reviewers skip over the powerful moral effects of storytelling as if they didn't matter, and concentrate all their effort on mere technique, which is, at best, secondary. We don't generally LOVE a movie because of the technique, though we might cite technique as the reason. When we're really devoted to a film, it's usually because we care deeply about the story - because we take it into our hearts. And that means that story is very likely to have profound moral effect on us. If we don't examine that effect - the moral universe of the story - then we're taking medicine only because it's delicious, without a clue about what it will actually do to our inner workings. Fructose uber alles!
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