posted
While chatting with some online friends last night, we discussed recent movies.
(Puffy Treat chats about movies? Surprise, surprise!)
I stated that I didn't enjoy Michael Bay's Transformers movie all that much. In fact, long stretches of it left me bored, mind wandering, in a stupor.
Someone who absolutely loved the movie told me I was "uptight" and "thought every movie has to be deep and meaningful, some movies are just meant to be fun!"
Really? That's the reason why I disliked Transformers? Because I hate fun?
I logged off. The discussion was rapidly deteriorating by that point.
I should have pointed out that one of my favorite movies of all time is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and I openly admit to loving National Treasure.
Dude, I even once stated on this very board that I thought Sky-freakin'-High was "kinda neat"!
I think being "dumb fun summer movie" should not give said movie a free pass. There are dumb fun summer movies that still manage to be GOOD movies I can watch again and again. Am I really being an uptight jerk by thinking that way?
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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While I certainly think there are people who are "uptight" and "[think] every movie has to be deep and meaningful," I think it's silly to jump to the conclusion that someone fits that bill purely because they disliked ONE movie.
Edit to expand: I agree there are a lot of movies which are obvious popcorn flicks but are still a lot of fun to watch. Michael Bay even made one of my favorite popcorn flicks: The Rock.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Here's a great article on the subject. I especially like the part where he quotes someone who talks about liking good fun movies like Aliens and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'd been thinking the same thing before I read the article. And here's another one more specifically on the subject of review rage.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Well I wouldn't say that uptightness is a lack of enjoying fun. To me it just means that your definition of what relaxes you when it comes to fun is more limited.
Some people have an easier time having fun then others. Die Hard 4 to me was fun, I just enjoyed it, it won't EVER win an oscar, but so what? If they had just parsed the "action sequences and witty dialogue" and then completely omitted everything else it would have ceased to be fun for me.
Nothing wrong with being a slightly harder sell, or for enjoying movies more movies then most.
It is so frustrating to be told, "You only didn't like [insert movie] because of X". And X is some personal defect like I can't have fun.
Excuse me? What are you, my psychiatrist? You don't get to tell me my person defects based on what movies I don't like. That's not allowed. That's not cool.
Especially when the movie is as mind-numbingly horrible as Transformers. (My opinion*TM)
It's as though they're angry that you don't enjoy what they enjoy, and some weird part of their brain has to try to dismiss you.
I LOVE HAVING FUN, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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I think they're angry because if you're saying that you didn't enjoy it or that it's a bad movie, then you must be saying that they have bad taste.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Or maybe you're just saying you didn't enjoy the movie.
Now, there are lines that can be crossed. I used to know one guy on another message board who found it impossible to criticize a piece of entertainment without also bashing anyone who enjoyed it as "stupid" or "part of the problem that's killing _____" or "YOU are the reason why people HATE genre fans", stuff to that effect.
But as long as someone hasn't gotten personal and hostile, I don't think a negative opinion should make someone insecure. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote: I stated that I didn't enjoy Michael Bay's Transformers movie all that much. In fact, long stretches of it left me bored, mind wandering, in a stupor.
Someone who absolutely loved the movie told me I was "uptight" and "thought every movie has to be deep and meaningful, some movies are just meant to be fun!"
The funniest part of this to me is that if you said a "fun" movie had long stretches that left you "bored" my conclusion would be the opposite: That you didn't think Transformers was fun enough. If you'd said the movie was just stupid, than maybe I'd think you like more serious movies.
A comparison for me is two Vs. movies of recent years, both stupid fun but one worked for me and one didn't. I like Aliens, I like Predator, I thought Alien Vs Predator was actually pretty dull with only a few decent scenes. Way too much time setting stuff up with the human characters (I don't see "humans" anywhere in that title ) and not nearly enough aliens fighting predators. On the other hand, I loved Freddy Vs Jason. Jason kills some kids, then Freddy kills some kids, then they fight in the dream world, then they fight in the real world. When you really look at it, these two movies have almost the same basic plot, but the pacing and payoffs are different. /siderant.
posted
I really enjoyed Transformers, but I don't think Puffy Treat is anti-fun. Just thought I'd mention so people who liked Transformers don't all get tarred with the same brush. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
My brother uses a similar argumentative method for music. I strongly dislike my brother's taste in music (i.e. Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Neil young) and whenever I ask him to turn it down or off completely, he'll argue the point that I simply don't know what good music is. I've tried explaining to him that music is a matter of personal taste, and arguing isn't likely to change one's feelings about it, but he keeps on, never letting up. In my defense, I've explained that I DO appreciate and respect the talents of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan respectively, it's just not the type of music I'd choose to listen to.
On a more pertinent note, I haven't seen Transformers, but I don't think a disposition to the movie equates a hatred for all types of fun.
Posts: 213 | Registered: Jan 2007
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posted
I got the same argument from my entire family when I voiced my disappointment with Spiderman 3 and PotC 3.
While I do like serious and deep movies, I like to have fun and enjoy a good comedy or action flick when I'm in the mood. My favorite movie of the summer is "Hot Fuzz" which had plenty of explosions and silly humor.
I just think there's a distinction between "fun summer movie" and "trash."
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I liked the rock. I even enjoyed The island up to a point.
The reason I thought Transformers was a paragon of suck had nothing to do with not liking fun movies. I'll still pop in Independance Day sometimes just for a hoot and I love Men In Black. I love fun and I love movies of all kinds. Transformers just didn't appeal to me on any level.
As a side note, Aliens is more than just a "fun" movie, but this is a topic for another thread.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I can't wait to see Transformers. It's gonna be hella cool, totally tubular and bodaciously bad. Same with Die Hard 4. But if you don't want to see them, that's fine with me.
However, I can also see where someone would get the opinion described in the OP. Especially with the recent rash of remakes, too frequently you hear constant barrages of "that's not how it's supposed to happen" or "that's not cannon" as an explanation of why the movie will be/is bad. Who cares? It's a different medium telling a different story. Just because it's not what you liked in childhood doesn't mean you won't like it now, unless you go in there determined to be critical.
I'm not saying you or anyone else here is doing that, but I've heard a lot of opinions based on 'original cannon' arguments, and that type of argument seems to dictate that the seriousness or correctness is more important than the fun, the action scenes, the cool characters or the special effects. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but that is how it comes across.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:It is so frustrating to be told, "You only didn't like [insert movie] because of X". And X is some personal defect like I can't have fun.
Another example of this that I hate is being told that I didn't like a movie because I didn't understand it.
Additionally, people many times assume that if you didn't enjoy the movie, then that means you hate the movie or think it's a bad movie, which is many times not true. In fact, I'd even say that there are movies that I didn't particularly enjoy but which I wouldn't say I disliked either.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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See, now, I just had the opposite experience. I loved the most recent Harry Potter movie, and documented all the reasons why I loved it. I've had several people (not on this board, so don't worry) insinuate that I a)didn't read the books, b) didn't understand the books, c)didn't care about the books, d)am daft in the head, or e)was asleep during the movie because they just couldn't understand why I loved what they viewed as the most catastrophic occurrence in the world to date. It was highly insulting, and I have to admit that I called these people uptight and anti-fun in my brain.
edit - a bit too much vitriol. What I was going to say is, you are NOT anti-fun, Puffy. It's ok to like or dislike something if you can do it without ruining someone else's experience of the said something.
posted
I thought Transformers was awesome, and I thought Harry Potter was enjoyable, but left a lot to be desired. I liked Die Hard 4 too.
Sometimes I get annoyed at the "awesomely bad" title that some movies, like some summer popcorn flicks, get branded with. I don't think Transformers was awesomely bad, it was just awesome. If you enjoyed it, it wasn't a bad movie, even if it isn't going to win an Oscar.
If you don't like it, you don't like it, maybe it just wasn't your thing. If Puffy didn't like Transformers, no one should try to convince him he's WRONG not to like it, it just wasn't his thing.
I love movies like ID4, The Rock, Transformers, the Die Hard series, the Indiana Jones movies, and everything related to them. I don't necessarily find them deep, but they're a hell of a ride, and great movies for that reason alone.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I hate most fun movies. Bad dialogue, cheesy stories. There's only a handful that are not so bad, but most of them. YUCK. I also dislike most of the HP movies. And 90% of chick flicks too. bleh. They should make a movie with no dialogue, just stuff getting blown up. I'd watch that. That would be an awesome movie.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Check out Jerry Bruckheimer's IMDB page, if there's anything like that coming up soon, that'll be the place to look.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I can't say I'm astonished that someone might make the assertion, though it sounds like they were wrong to do so.
I think everyone who reads movie reviews has probably read at least one review where it seemed like the burden of experience was weighing down the reviewer; the movie under review suffered not necessarily because the movie was bad, but because the reviewer was unable to approach it as a fresh experience, at least on the day in question. I seem to remember one season that had at least three movies with previews describing terrorist plots, leading up to the narrator saying "...but there's one thing they didn't count on!" (shot of hero.) If you were Die Hard Rip-Off number 4, it doesn't matter if you were the best Die Hard Rip-Off of the season; you were probably still going to get knocked down.
Now, Puffy? You're a film buff. (bow) You manage to glean bits of information before most other people, and I'm sure I've heard of more than a few interesting upcoming movies earlier than I would have because of you. But with that reputation, it's not impossible to understand that someone might think your dislike of a movie like "Transformers" comes from viewing through the lens of a greater depth of experience, and perhaps a higher standard than the "typical film goer" (whoever that might be.)
I'm not saying they're correct to think so. But, in a sense, you might be getting a backhanded compliment.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Sometimes I get annoyed at the "awesomely bad" title that some movies, like some summer popcorn flicks, get branded with. I don't think Transformers was awesomely bad, it was just awesome. If you enjoyed it, it wasn't a bad movie, even if it isn't going to win an Oscar.
I don't know if this is in reference to my "bodaciously bad" comment, but just in case: I was using "bad" to mean "good", in order to keep with the killer 80s theme I was using. (<--"killer" is a good thing in this case )
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I really wanted to like transformers, I really did. I'm one of the people that loved Con Air and the Rock etc. The movie was just plain to long for my taste. They spent way to much time on the human story lines. I personally didn't care about the hacker storyline, or the sector 7 guy. Meanwhile they skimped on the Transformers Character development. The Autobots got few min introduction and the Decepticons got to say their names. The long stretches of no action killed the movie for me.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Meh. I'd rather watch something like Children of Men than Transformers anyway.
Children of Men...now there's a movie without a single character I actually cared about (Except Michael Cane's...but only cause..well, it's Michael Cane). Cinematography, awesome. But I felt like the whole movie just got lost in its own pretentiousness. Ha I like that phrase.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I'm looking forward to Transformers. I mostly just want to watch them blow stuff up and/or smash it cheerfully. I'm not hard to please, sometimes.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I liked transformers from a techy point of view. The visuals were AMAZING. But...the story was anticlimatic to say the least.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Hokay, just saw "Transformers", somewhat against my better judgement, and-
GAH! MUST SCRUB MY BRAIN!
Excuse me. Yeah. Pretty CGI. Script... Oh, dear lord. It's like, they took a Michael Bay movie script... And then they had some Hollywood hacks add some cliches... And then they showed some 13-year-old boys a bunch of Transformers cartoons, gave them each a six pack of Jolt soda, and let them have at it.
("And it's PG-13, so do it like a cartoon where you can say naughty words!")
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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What, you didn't like the sassy fat black guy who loves eating donuts, cracking jokes, and out JarJar-ing JarJar?
The screenwriters sure liked him. He got more scenes and lines than most of the Autobots and -all- of the Decepticons.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I think the next time a someone in a movie meeting says, "And then, for lack of any better ideas of what to do about the new menace, the military/government experts hand the reins over to the spunky teenagers and mavericks", the person so saying should be immediately shot.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Anyone who does not understand why someone might possibly not enjoy watching Transformers can be easily educated on the matter by being forced to watch Michael Bay movies Clockwork Orange style until their eyes and soul bleed.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:I think the next time a someone in a movie meeting says, "And then, for lack of any better ideas of what to do about the new menace, the military/government experts hand the reins over to the spunky teenagers and mavericks", the person so saying should be immediately shot.
Otherwise they'll still be around to say, "And then, even though there are a bunch of trained military men and giant robots around, we'll hand the most important cube in the universe to the goofy kid! He can just run with it!"
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:I didn't like Transformers. And I'm tempted to say that it was because Transformers wasn't what I wanted it to be.
See, this was my major fear when I heard Transformers was announced.
So, in preparation, I read every terrible review I could find in order to lower my expectations. I made it to the point that I *didn't* want to see the movie, and I would have preferred to see Ratatouille or Harry Potter.
I then went to see it and I really enjoyed it - mostly because I was expecting it to be awful.
Even if it stole a major plot line from one of my most hated movies (ID4), I got by that because I had fun. I sufficiently checked my brain at the door, and went along for the ride.
And it helped that Megan Fox is haawwwwt. Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I personally liked Transformers quite a bit. I did feel like the Autobots and Decepticons should have had more introductions, but they could be setting it up for a sequel, or even the dreaded prequel! Other than that, I thought it was a fine movie. I had to turn my brain off a few times, but I have to do that with most movies.
I've had discussions about the movie with people who hated it and they were at least as condescending to a person who enjoyed the movie(me). They told me that I was stupid to like movies like that, and went into detail with the very complaints some of you have expressed as proof that it was a bad movie. There are people on both sides that judge people based on their liking of the movie.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Nick, you're far from the first person in this thread to post that you liked the movie. Nor did anyone say that this was a one-sided thing.
I myself said that one should not get personal, especially when its about something like a movie.
I don't have to turn my brain off with movies I like, as if the movie is truly fun to me...then my mind an imagination is engaged, no matter how silly.
That didn't happen with Transformers. And maintain it being a "dumb fun summer blockbuster" should -not- give it a free pass, review-wise. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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See, Puffy, I like cotton candy. I also like steak.
I wouldn't compare steak to cotton candy in terms of enjoyment, because they are two entirely different things enjoyed in two entirely different ways.
Sure, you can compare them based on nutritional value - and steak would come out way ahead. But, I don't compare movies that way, really.
There are cotton candy movies which are tasty fluff: Fantastic Four, Transformers, etc.
Then there are steak movies which are more fulfilling: Usual Suspects, LA Confidential, etc.
I can't compare those to each other, though. And just because I ignore nutritional value (aka, check my brain at the door), it doesn't mean the movie isn't any good.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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It seems to me that a steak is more objectively good, while cotton candy is not so much. It just makes some people sick. But just because I dislike cotton candy doesn't mean I dislike candy in general.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
There's a line that Anton Ego said in "Ratatouille" that I think describes where critics are coming from.
"I don't like food, I love it. If I don't love it, I don't swallow."
Same with movies. I know what I love and I hope a movie will meet that bar. I've never been one of those "B" movie lovers, but I know plenty of people who have collections of B movies. Sorry, it's like having a junior orchestra try and play your favorite symphony, but without success. I'm not going to lower the bar because it happens to be summer.
See, I won't even be seeing Transformers until it comes out on DVD.
Why? Because I missed the whole craze when I was a kid. I don't have happy childhood memories of "wow! this is so cool!" moments when it comes to Transformers. I've never been crazy on big robots, I don't have that gene. Series like Evangelion, Gundam Wing, et al, I've never gone crazy for.
The closest robot loving I experienced was reading the novelization of the Robotech series by Jack McKinney, and that's because it had interesting characters, aliens, transforming aircraft, cool art covers, etc. (Because I had an ideal vision from the books, the anime clashed badly with me, so I don't like the anime ironically)
So this idea of "not enjoying fun movies" isn't valid.
Fun movie == something I enjoy something i enjoy == good characters, good story, good plotting, etc...
Based on the trailers, and the little I saw sneaking in after a Ratatouille showing...
Transformers != something I enjoy.
All explosion and special FX wizardry.
Special FX doesn't do it for me anymore. I'll be the first to jump up and scream "YES! I saw Final Fantasy Advent Children, and I didn't care about any of the characters, nor the fanservice! I actually thought the movie could've been more, silly me!"
Looked pretty, but not enough to watch over and over again.
I love movies so much, and I think the filmmakers do as well, until Spiderman 3/Pirates 2 is released, and suddenly what was once meat, has become cotton candy.
I guess I don't like cotton candy... Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I don't like mustard, but I don't condemn those who do, and people rarely accuse me of "just not getting mustard." I don't understand the burning need for some people that everyone love the same entetainment.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I don't think you understand...I didn't dislike Transformers because it was fluffy or silly.
I disliked it because it bored me. Well, most of it did. Every scene spent with the "human interest sub-plot characters" (of which there honestly ended up being more than the actual robot scenes) bored me to death. Especially since not one of those sub-plots amounted to anything.
You've just found another way to say "well, you must not have liked it because you just don't like having fun."
I -love- having fun! Bring on the fun! I just enjoy my fun minus the boredom.
If I hated fluffy, silly movies I wouldn't include The Muppet Movie on the same list of favorite movies that includes The Queen.
Or The Goonies in the same breath as Some Like it Hot.
Gandhi next to X-Men 2.
Or 12 Angry Men right next to Hot Fuzz. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I like that phrase.
