Movies that I just don't get

[JacktheRabbit]

Frankly I don't understand the appeal of shows like Jackass. You have three people that do insanely stupid, inane stunts on the show to what end? Many times they end up in the hospital. On such occassions the stuntperson acts like it is a badge of honor to get hurt. My friends love this show and try as I may I can't like it.

Add to this shows like Scare Tactics, Punked, or Survivor where as a sign of a depraved society millions of people tune into shows merely for the amusement generated from watching some innocent person get f*cked with. Though at least in Survivor they knew what they were getting into when they signed up to be f*cked with.

 

[TracerBullet42]

I do not understand the appeal of (faux-)reality TV. Its not real, people. It is often more contrived than regular TV shows (see Survivor for an example).

Ok, I've seen several people make this comment so far. As someone who enjoys some "reality tv" shows, I would like to defend them for a moment. We like them because they are entertaining, not because they are "real".

I understand that "reality tv" is not real. That does not mean it is not entertaining. It's just been given a poor name.

When it comes down to it, nothing on tv is real. So there.

 

[Storm Raven]

Secondly, a bunch of the reality tv shows basically put thier players in situtations that would never, ever occur in real life. Like survivor. In real life, no one would kick each other off a deserted island. I watched the very first episode of survivor, thinking it might actually be somehow accurate to real life, where everyone hunts and fishes and gathers berries and tries to, well, survive nature.

And the first person they kick out is the ex-marine: the only one among them who could actually "survive" in a real life ship wreck. That soured me for the whole show, and I just stopped watching.

Survivor isn't about surviving nature. It is about game theory. If you like game theory (like I do), watching it being put into action is fun.

 

[buzzard]

OK I'm going to go with the lack of use for Sienfeld. I also have no use for Friends.

Though one movie which hasn't been mentioned which I had no use for was Seven. I found it forced, pretentious, and overdone. I was relieved to get out of that one, and don't have any desire to see even a part of it again.

buzzard

 

[Dark Jezter]

Hey, Tenchi Muyo rules.

To its credit, Tenchi Muyo is the only harem anime that I've enjoyed watching.

But you couldn't pay me to watch shows like Love Hina or Ai Yori Aoishi (don't know if I spelled the title of that one right).

 

[DM_Matt]

I don't like most Stgar Trek. Its boring. I don't like Farscape either. Why? I don;t really know, it just doesn't do it for me. paradoxically, I nonetheless love Stargate SG-1.

I don't really get Monty Python. I know its funny, I feel that I SHOULD like it, but its just not as good as I want it to be. Perhaps it's because I'm not British.

OTOH, I very much enjoy Woody Allen and Seinfeld, very possibly partially due to my being the optimal ethnicity for those.

 

[Desdichado]

btw, westerns had really good music!

Especially "Paint Your Wagon"...

 

[s/LaSH]

I tend not to get 'normal' things, which (for the purposes of argument) includes 'reality' TV. The more unrealistic explosions, weird technology, strange vistas of another time, etc, the better. Otherwise... I've already got it, being both human and alive. Maybe I'm easily bored by the things that are around me every day of my life...?

I don't so much not watch things as watch things that I like. There are very few of them. I'm fortunate enough to have some kind of (vague) instinctive insight into the Japanese philisophical mindset, so I can enjoy anime - if it's good. I hate the 'visual shorthand' of giant sweatdrops and mouths bigger than heads, but I can get past that most of the time. I'm one of those grown men who watches shoujo (girl's anime - almost exclusively Cardcaptors), for the dual reasons that it's happy (and I like being happy), and that because 'it's for girls', the censors aren't as strict with the violence. At which I grin wickedly and go back to watching the sub, in which that all takes a back seat to the hideous web of relationships blossoming in all ways but the right one.

Also, having looked around a bit, I can say that 'angular' anime style isn't representative of the genre as a whole - the eighties were very rounded in style, and probably put people off for that as well. And being an artist, I can appreciate the cultural impact that a brush has had on the overall anime style; just that one implement explains a lot.

I also don't get broadcast sports. I think people should play, not watch; that's the whole point, isn't it? Play is something that animals do to keep in shape. Humans just codify it a little more. Why go any further?

Finally, I do get Monty Python. Most of the time. Their comedy is rich with ideas, but sometimes the execution is flawed - they go on too long. This really reiterates the point that I'll like anything that's good.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Add to this shows like Scare Tactics, Punked, or Survivor where as a sign of a depraved society millions of people tune into shows merely for the amusement generated from watching some innocent person get f*cked with.

I watched an Ep of Scare Tactics, and it was boring IMO, but I liked Punk'd the first season. Some of the stuff was very clever, especially the red carpet stuff. Sure some of it was mean to an extent, but who DOESN'T want to see Timberlake cry? (he took it well anyway...)

But the new season of Punk'd is just mean. Very uncomfortable situations, badly done. It's no longer clever, and will most likely go away soon.
As an example, in first season they convince Pink that her BF is implicating her in a stolen motorcycle plot. In current season, they have <girl whose name I forgot> as teh head of a sweat shop for clothing. They're yelling, screaming, throwing stuff. They didn't have the same finesse they did in the first one, and it's just pitiful.

 

[pezagent]

I love Tarentino because of scene like the diner scene that opens up Resevior Dogs, instead of characters speaking like they have speech writers and teams of people telling them how to speak poetically they talk like and about the kind of BS that most people waste time chatting about. I like him because of his great dialog and sense of character.

Ditto liking Tarantino's dialogue, and being unwowed when he moved from dialogue to "nothing but the violence".

Argh! Tarantino can't write his way out of a paper bag!

His success can be attributed more to Hollywood's failure--as studios hone and polish the latest blockbuster mediocrity becomes king. Honestly, if you want good dialog, go see a good, contemporary play like House of Blue Leaves and you'll start to understand that Tarantino's hogwash isn't dialog--it's pretentious scene writing 101--revealing the subtext. There's still no conflict or drama in his movies. It's all sophomoric "what if" fantasy. Wouldn't it be cool if "this" actually happened like "this?" Characters in Tarantino's films aren't characters--they're puppets. No soul, no depth, no drama, just surface-level BS. John Hughes was writing this stuff long before Tarantino came along. Only he kept Sixteen Candles rated PG. Replace Ringwald with Thurman and you've got Sixteen Candles 2: Pulp Fiction.

As no other Hollywood film knows how to enter this territory (everybody is writing for the cliché, for a buck) QT comes off as some sort of "genius" when the truth is he's borrowed every scene he's ever written/shot from some other movie. You know that scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma ODs and they revive her by plunging a needle in her heart? That was taken from the Martin Scorsese documentary American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince where Steven Prince is describing this event as it actually happened to him. (It's actually a very entertaining film.) Tarantino ripped it almost word for word. He's really just a cutNpaste boy. Just watching the previews for Kill Bill made me sick, as he borrows and steals blatantly from every movie ever made, including Cats and Dogs. Great dialog? Sense of character? Right. Especially with lines like: "Silly Rabbit?" I go to the movies to escape mediocrity and cliché, not to celebrate it.

Perhaps he should be writing speeches for the new Governator of California. Then he could pulp him up.

/johnny