I’ve been caught up lately in checking out all the Year’s Best Movie articles and threads that always pop up this time of year. We have the added benefit of approaching the end of the decade as well, so I’ve seen a bunch of ‘Best of the 00’s’ pop up, particularly at the Onion’s AV Club site. But I don’t really want to talk about best-of lists; there’s enough of that to go around.
I’d rather talk about movies that you may not like but can still respect as, I don’t know, art? craftsmanship? whatever. I already know it’s possible to love a movie without respecting it – hell, any B-movie fan works out that equation unconsciously, and Roger Corman was able to make a career out of making fun movies that he himself barely respected.
But can you hate (or, if that’s too strong a word, dislike) a movie and still respect it? Reading these best-of lists, I have discovered that I can: Adaptation. I was so ready to enjoy this movie; I have enjoyed all of Charlie Kaufman’s scripts to date (though I haven’t seen Synecdoche, NY yet) and the cast is full of great actors. I admired the dual acting role that Nicolas Cage pulled off beautifully. I watched with great interest to see how the movie would dig itself out of the narrative pretzel it had dug itself into – only to be disappointed that it chose instead to go further down the rabbit hole and just collapse at the end.
So maybe even for me, it’s not so much hate as disappointment that the movie seems to head down this path that seems to have something new to say but ultimately gets bored with its own question and cops out – it doesn’t even fall apart, it just gives up. It bothers me so much I can’t even enjoy the parts I mentioned before, even though I can respect all the parts that, individually, are still great but fail to exceed the sum of the parts.
So, just curious. Anyone else have a similar expereince? Any movies that you feel you just can’t love but can appreciate?
I watched with great interest to see how the movie would dig itself out of the narrative pretzel it had dug itself into – only to be disappointed that it chose instead to go further down the rabbit hole and just collapse at the end.
So maybe even for me, it’s not so much hate as disappointment that the movie seems to head down this path that seems to have something new to say but ultimately gets bored with its own question and cops out – it doesn’t even fall apart, it just gives up. It bothers me so much I can’t even enjoy the parts I mentioned before, even though I can respect all the parts that, individually, are still great but fail to exceed the sum of the parts.
Are you sure you understood the end of Adaptation? I was also extremely disappointed with it the first time I saw it, thinking that the first two-thirds of the film were brilliant but then everything went off the rails in the final act. After thinking about it some more, though, I realized exactly what Kaufman was doing, and now I recognize that entire screenplay as a pure work of genius.
Well I think I did, MarchHare, but I’m open to the possibility that it flew over my head. I won’t get into spoilers just in the off chance that someone reading this may not have seen it yet, but let’s just say it gets fairly meta, yes? And that the movie reflects Donald’s inevitable surrender to the fact that, well, writing is hard. At least that’s how I see it.
Good call, Rob. I am a fan of Rushmore actually, but that may be as much because of my love of Bill Murray as the actual film. I do certainly have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Wes Anderson’s stuff in general though – not wild about The Royal Tenenbaums, for instance.
The screenplay is credited to both Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Charlie is based on the real Charlie Kaufman, but Donald doesn’t actually exist and is only a character in the film. The first two-thirds of Adaptation are the bits written by “Charlie” (the character), and we see much of the same creativity Kaufman was known for after writing Being John Malkovich.
The narrative establishes that Charlie is incapable of completing the script and has no idea how to finish the story, so in a pivotal scene, he asks Donald for help. From that point forward, we’re seeing “Donald’s” contributions to the script. The film had previously established that he was an uncreative hack, so we get non-stop cliches and sex and drugs and car chases and deus ex machina (the alligator attacking at a critical moment).
Charlie Kaufman (the real screenwriter, not the character) purposely made the final act a pedestrian let-down after the rest of the film because he was writing it in the style of the fictitious character Donald.
First, whoops, I meant to refer to Charlie’s surrender, not Donald’s.
Second, yeah, that’s what I got out of the film’s climax as well, so I guess I got it. I just don’t like it. I see what he was doing, but I don’t find Charlie Kaufman (the real one) purposely torpedoing the movie to be particularly clever or interesting. He basically just says, I dont’ know how to end this, hey car chase why not? It just soured me on the whole movie.
I tried to like The Big Lebowski, but that failed for me. Something about the whole pacing and plot of the movie just annoyed me and I’m still not sure what it is, but I guess I can see why people like it. The characters are all great, but I didn’t find myself liking any of them.
I still remember walking out of “Brazil” and telling my companion “That’s the best film I hope I never see again.”
I wouldn’t have believed before then that watching a movie could be literally physically painful, but it was. I can’t say I hate the film, but I know I don’t want to experience again what I experienced watching it.
One of the more interesting movies I’ve seen which I didn’t like, but respected was Waking Life
This was a very innovative movie where several skits are filmed and then handed over to various artists who then each animated using rotoscopy. The animation was top-notch. Animation films usually fail in the “walk”…getting a character to look natural while walking. Using Rotoscopy, where live actors are actually “painted over” with animation, the “walk” is very natural. The variety of artists gives very different interpretations and while somewhat jarring as vignettes are done in such a different way, each was very well done.
The story…well, I could do without. But I was fascinated with the animation and it’s worth watching for the animation techniques alone.
I think I posted something like this in the LtROI thread - I know it’s “art,” but I found the viewing of it incredibly unpleasant. I don’t know if that equates with hating the movie as such, but I sure hated seeing it.
Vinyan. I actually fast-forwarded through the interminable opening credits, and was the closest I’ve been to stopping watching a movie before it even started. It was a harrowing, beautiful, and unforgettable experience, though. I hated everyone in the movie, except maybe the guide’s bodyguard. It put me in a bad mood for days.
Well all right, guess this is more common than I thought! The best part of this thread is that a bunch of you guys are naming movies that I love. Haven’t seen ‘Let the Right One In’ yet, and haven’t heard of ‘Vinyan’ though.
Waking Life is a great example of a movie that I do actually love, but on the flipside I can completely understand why someone would not. It’s so very heavy on the philosophies and if that type of conversation media doesn’t keep you enthralled, then you’re pretty screwed if you don’t like the animation.
Both ‘Fargo’ and ‘Burn After Reading’. I can respect them for doing what they do well. But Coen brothers have a way of portraying violence that is so unsettling to me, I get so uncomfortable I can’t enjoy myself in any way. It just leaves a really unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach after watching both of those movies. I suspect that’s what the Coen brothers intended to do, and that’s why they made the movies the way they did. They didn’t want me to enjoy myself. They wanted me to be uncomfortable.
So I can definitely respect that vision and how well it is implemented, even as I don’t enjoy myself and realize that I hate these two movies.
Wow, I’ve never heard of “AV Club” before all of these posts on their ‘best of the decade,’ and after looking at their album picks, and now their film picks, I won’t be returning there again.
They have the 25th hour as the second best film of the year?
Seriously?
They should publish whatever drug cocktail they’re on over there. It must be fucking mind-blowing. While that was far and away not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, it is also far and away not nearly the best, not in the top 50 of the decade, not even in the top 50 of the year it was released. But the second best? El Oh Fucking El.
They clearly are just throwing in albums/movies to gain controversy. Or they’re retarded. Either way, no more AV club for me.
The AVClub seems written by and for hipster twenty-somethings, so I tend to take everything with a grain of salt. They have their personal favorite filmmakers, which is why certain artists, like Nolan, are represented multiple times on the list.
