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Ahtman wrote: Just because one is unaware the objective elements to film making do not mean they don't exist. There are aspects beyond purely artistic when crafting a movie, but unless one is in the field or in academia they wouldn't need to know them, and most often don't. For example, how many are familiar with the 30 Degree Rule of cinematography (without looking it up)? Do you know when it is being employed correctly? When someone is breaking the rule? What breaking it can achieve and why?
Riiiiight because having to explain it to people definitely proves it to be the best movie ever made
Aren't explanations what defines "good" and "bad" quality? Do you just go around randomly saying something's "good" or "bad" with no idea how you came to that conclusion.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/01/20 21:04:27
Ahtman wrote: Just because one is unaware the objective elements to film making do not mean they don't exist. There are aspects beyond purely artistic when crafting a movie, but unless one is in the field or in academia they wouldn't need to know them, and most often don't. For example, how many are familiar with the 30 Degree Rule of cinematography (without looking it up)? Do you know when it is being employed correctly? When someone is breaking the rule? What breaking it can achieve and why?
Riiiiight because having to explain it to people definitely proves it to be the best movie ever made
In no way shape or form did I argue that The Godfather was the best movie ever made, or any movie for that matter. What I argued was that there are objective elements to film making, and that like most technical elements of any given thing laymen don't know what they are. I have a general understanding of how a 737 flies, but an aerospace engineer knows a lot more, and also has a lot more language to describe the many elements most of us aren't aware and don't need to be since we aren't building aircraft. Making a movie isn't really that much different in that the professionals have a different perspective and understanding of it, just as an aerospace engineer has a different understanding of aircraft.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
I'm afraid this is America Ahtman. You aren't allowed to even suggest that some people might know things about stuff that other people don't know. Cause that's elitist and we don't like that round these parts.
Kilkrazy wrote: Citizen Kane is often considered a contender for best film ever.
Citizen Kane is an excellent film, and extremely influential, but I would hesitate to claim it as the best film ever. I'd also struggle to find another contender that I would truly feel comfortable giving such a title though.
On topic - I wasn't really a fan of The Godfather either, but I only saw it for the first time a couple of years ago.
I dunno, I'd read so much about it in film magazines, there wasn't much left to surprise me. It also seemed a bit cliché, probably because it's been endlessly copied over the years. Finally, when something has been elevated to one of the greatest films of all time, it had better be something pretty damn spectacular when you get round to watching it.
Ahtman wrote: Just because one is unaware the objective elements to film making do not mean they don't exist. There are aspects beyond purely artistic when crafting a movie, but unless one is in the field or in academia they wouldn't need to know them, and most often don't. For example, how many are familiar with the 30 Degree Rule of cinematography (without looking it up)? Do you know when it is being employed correctly? When someone is breaking the rule? What breaking it can achieve and why?
Riiiiight because having to explain it to people definitely proves it to be the best movie ever made
Aren't explanations what defines "good" and "bad" quality? Do you just go around randomly saying something's "good" or "bad" with no idea how you came to that conclusion.
There's a big difference between most people agreeing something is good because of simple reasons..... And the mess that ahtman was going on about. When you say anything like "how many are familiar with the 30 Degree Rule of cinematography (without looking it up)?" then ya.... Your argument is invalid.
Who cares if they did it or not, does that REALLY make something good or not? I mean really does it? No.... no it doesn't
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/01/20 22:19:39
I don't see what difference it makes if a film was made from a book or a screenplay. In both cases you translate from a text medium to a completely different fluid audio-visual medium. What makes the book one inevitably worse?
I just think it deserves more credit when the story was made by those made the movie,
IE taxi driver gets credit for the "story" and the movie,
where as god father the movie only gets credit for the "movie", as its just changing the medium of the story, rather then making up the story itself.
also, when a story is specifically made for a motion picture, vs simply adapted from a book, it is going to have visual elements that a book adaptation generally wont have, and it generally wont have to deal with changing the narrator's POV so much.
I mean, technically, its all translated from "thought", to film, and im sure you could skip the screen play(text) version of a movie if you were able to keep that all in your head, not that it happens that often.
and I dont mean to say its always worse,
Im just saying its harder to both make up a brand new story, and to make it into a movie, then it is to just take a pre existing story, and make it into a movie
kinda like if you make a converted model, and paint it really well, it deserves a bit more kudos then if someone assembled a model for you and you painted it, even if both paintjobs are equally awesome
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/01/20 22:46:08
Up has one of the most powerful beginnings of any movie. You sit down expecting a funny kids movie and get sucker punched right in the feels as a parent...
d-usa wrote: Up has one of the most powerful beginnings of any movie. You sit down expecting a funny kids movie and get sucker punched right in the feels as a parent...
This is so true. I'm a ruff turf manly man but it gets me every time. Wall-E is the same...such a lonely robot.
How do you promote your Hobby? - Legoburner "I run some crappy wargaming website "
There's a big difference between most people agreeing something is good because of simple reasons..... And the mess that ahtman was going on about. When you say anything like "how many are familiar with the 30 Degree Rule of cinematography (without looking it up)?" then ya.... Your argument is invalid.
Who cares if they did it or not, does that REALLY make something good or not? I mean really does it? No.... no it doesn't
I'm kind of with Ahtman on this one. As a former Photography student, I know that there are "rules" for making good artistic photographs. There are certain elements from a technical standpoint that will automatically make a picture better than if those elements are missing. The same thing is true with movies, the only real difference is that the pictures are "moving" Certain movies stand out for breaking with the conventional "rules", while other film makers are strict adherents to the rules.
The one thing you cannot fix though, is the script/story. You can have the greatest, and most technically sound director at the helm, but if he/she's given a turd sandwich to work with, it won't be as good a movie as if he/she has a brilliant or well written script/screenplay to work with. I think with movies, you really need to have a good marriage between the two to have a truly great movie. This is why, IMO, movies like Godfather, Citizen Kane, 2001, etc. seem to stand out as among the "greatest of all time" movies.
easysauce wrote: god father is watchable certainly, even good , but not something I would call a "game changer" by any stretch.
The Godfather is a game changer because it quite simply changed the game. The types of films Hollywood made, the way it made those movies, the audiences it targeted, the way is advertised its movies, the way it released those movies, all those things changed after the Godfather came out and broke all those box office records. There is a clear line in Hollywood evolution from the Godfather to Star Wars.
I think, to be perfectly blunt, that before people go about questioning the common wisdom of why certain movies are important, they need to know the history of Hollywood.
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kronk wrote: It's a good movie. Not my favorite, but I enjoy it.
If you don't like it, then you probably like Yo Gabba Gabba!
Is it okay to rank both the Godfather and Yo Gabba Gabba among the greatest works of entertainment created in the Western world?
No, it means it is a song you don't like. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't mean you get to start ignoring all the objective qualities that the film or song has.
There is objective skill in movie making. Simply put some movies are much better crafted that others - more cleverly scripted, more authentically acted, more inventively and effectively directed. The trick is to understanding that just because a film might be extremely well made it doesn't mean you have to love it.
I saw the Colour Purple on the weekend for the first time in years. I hate that movie, but that doesn't mean it is bad, not by a long shot - the acting is terrific and the direction is from one of Hollywood's best at the top of his game. I just don't like it very much.
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easysauce wrote: I also consider the source, as god father was based on a book, the film really cant take all the credit for it being a good "story" as the story wasnt even made up by the film makers.
taxi driver, was an original story made for film, so story wise, more original, not just a remake of someone else's work like the god father was.
Whether there was any source material is irrelevant. What matters is just what is there on the screen in front of you. Whether it is an original work or an adaptation is irrelevant, all that matters is if it is well made, and whether you like it or not.
And, as has already been noted by other posters, the original book The Godfather is a pretty trashy book. Paring the book down to its key components, emphasising the best points of drama, the film turned the b standard plot of the book into a great movie.
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LordofHats wrote: I'm afraid this is America Ahtman. You aren't allowed to even suggest that some people might know things about stuff that other people don't know. Cause that's elitist and we don't like that round these parts.
The fundamental right to not know anything and refuse to let anyone else explain it you?
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Kilkrazy wrote: Citizen Kane is often considered a contender for best film ever.
Yep, and it's a classic example of objective quality that for many people is still not a film they personally enjoy.
I mean, you see films that were made around the time of Citizen Kane and its hard not to be blown away by the invention and craft used in making Citizen Kane - here was a film that wasn't just basically recording a stage play, but actually using the positioning of the camera to emotionally affect the audience.
I can see that, but also at the same time I can understand that personally I am quite bored by the movie. Accept the objective qualities, without denying one's own subjective opinion.
I remember when the Oscars got manipulated in to being a question of whether Avatar or The Hurt Locker was the best movie of the year, and it was such obvious marketing bs designed . And it really pissed me off because there was Up, clearly superior to both of those movies, just getting sidelined by a marketing campaign.
Wall-E is also pretty great. But I never shared the love for The Incredibles, but that's mostly because I've never really gotten in to superhero stories of that kind, where the story is knowingly steeped in genre tropes. But it was a really well made movie.
Cars freaked me out. What happened to the people? The cars have doors, and the buildings have doors, so at some point obviously they were put there for people to use. But there are no people to be seen, only the evidence of their lost civilisation. Did the cars murder us all after achieving sentience? Did the nano-bot cloud that made the cars sentient destroy the people? Any answer could not possibly be as terrifying as the cold, impersonal absence of people.
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KingCracker wrote: There's a big difference between most people agreeing something is good because of simple reasons..... And the mess that ahtman was going on about. When you say anything like "how many are familiar with the 30 Degree Rule of cinematography (without looking it up)?" then ya.... Your argument is invalid.
No, Ahtman is right and you are wrong. Whether or not people lots of people agree that something is very good doesn't make it so. Enough people said The Hurt Locker was the best screenplay of the year for it to win the Oscar, that it was somehow better written than Inglorious Basterds, but that didn't and can't make it true.
What matters is the objective level of skill and creativity put in to that work. If a film shows inventive, effective new techniques, or uses existing techniques in a masterful way, then it has an objective quality that is quite seperate from whether or not you personally like a movie.
And yeah, often times those objective qualities will be lost on people who aren't familiar with how films are made. So instead they'll just think 'I liked that' or 'I didn't like that', and be unaware how much of their personal opinion was based on effective craft, and how much was based on their personal reaction to the material. But that doesn't mean that crafting isn't there.
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2014/01/21 03:25:03
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Cars freaked me out. What happened to the people? The cars have doors, and the buildings have doors, so at some point obviously they were put there for people to use. But there are no people to be seen, only the evidence of their lost civilisation. Did the cars murder us all after achieving sentience? Did the nano-bot cloud that made the cars sentient destroy the people? Any answer could not possibly be as terrifying as the cold, impersonal absence of people.
Kilkrazy wrote: Citizen Kane is often considered a contender for best film ever.
The funny thing is, I've yet to meet anybody outside a film critic that's ever seen that film...strange
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
Kilkrazy wrote: Citizen Kane is often considered a contender for best film ever.
I hated that movie. Overblown piece of tripe.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
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