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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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 Posted - 06/28/2007 : 01:05:58
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quote:
Claiming a movie is "overrated" is essentially the same as saying "I didn't like this popular movie, therefore everyone else who liked it is WRONG as my appraisal of it is the only correct one".
No, seriously, what's your point? |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 01:49:47
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
quote:
Claiming a movie is "overrated" is essentially the same as saying "I didn't like this popular movie, therefore everyone else who liked it is WRONG as my appraisal of it is the only correct one".
No, seriously, what's your point?
My point is that if 10 people watch a movie (one of them is named Bob), Bob didn't like it, and Bob considers that the 9 who liked it have 'overrated' it, then Bob is wrong. They haven't overrated it. They simply stated that they like it. If Bob doesn't like it then it's his problem.
You could say the same about sado-masochism. It isn't underrated or overrated. Some like it, and some don't. Same for Picasso. Same for olives.
And ChocolateLady might believe that her husband is the best husband on the planet. Duh might not agree, as she probably thinks her husband is the best. So has ChocolateLady 'overrated' her husband? Of course not.
Appreciation of an artform is personal and subjective. I don't see how any artform can be 'underrated' or 'overrated' unless one thinks that any appraisal of an artform that is different from one's own is therefore wrong. I regard Monsturd as a better movie than Spiderman 3 and Lost in Translation as better than Citizen Kane, but am aware that many won't agree. That doesn't make them 'wrong'. |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:15:41
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quote:
My point is that if 10 people watch a movie (one of them is named Bob), Bob didn't like it, and Bob considers that the 9 who liked it have 'overrated' it, then Bob is wrong.
No he is not.
If Bob's opinion that a film is overrated is some kind of flagrant insult against those nine people, would not the same be true of him saying the movie was bad? I mean, it was a bad film in his opinion. He certainly didn't think it was good. Is he allowed to say so? If he's wrong in saying a film is overrated, how can he make any value judgments at all, as it would go counter to someone's opinion somewhere?
I mean, he can always preface his opinion with "I think that" or "In my opinion...", but most people can assume that's implied. I personally don't see the point of having to tiptoe around other people's feelings, it squashes meaningful discussion. The Last Samurai is overrated, and if you think it's a good movie, you are wrong. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:23:42
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Ah, this is going nowhere. Bob is wrong in saying that those who liked it have 'got it wrong'. They didn't get it wrong. They liked it. And the 9 who liked it would be wrong if they said that Bob underrated it. Bob didn't like it so rated it according to how much he liked it. All 10 are correct in their personal rating of the movie in terms of how much they liked it (although obviously anyone's appraisal of an art form can change following discussion/argument with others about said art form).
I never said anything about insults. I don't know where you got that one from. 
Not sure how many other ways I can say this. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:32:09
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OK, I'll try and draw this to a close as I'm not even sure that we disagree about anything. I think we're speaking different languages.
You liked Spiderman 3. I didn't. So either you have overrated it AND I have underrated it, or both of us have correctly rated it. I say the latter.  |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:37:29
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And like I said, your argument destroys any kind of value judgment. If I say I didn't like a film, it follows that I think it was a bad film. And if I think it was a bad film, it follows that I disagree with anyone who thinks it was a good film, ergo I'm going to think you overrated it. If I'm wrong in saying it's overrated, how am I not wrong in saying I like it?
We're all adults here, we can handle disagreements. |
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thefoxboy 
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:50:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
olives.
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
And ChocolateLady might believe that her husband is the best husband on the planet. Duh might not agree, as she probably thinks her husband is the best. So has ChocolateLady 'overrated' her husband? Of course not.
thefoxgirl thinks they are both wrong.  |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:53:54
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
And like I said, your argument destroys any kind of value judgment.
Precisely. This is art we're talking about, and the 'value judgements' I put on art relate to me exclusively as I have no idea how others may be affected by it. Art is personal.*
I'll draw you back to food. I love olives. If you don't like them it doesn't mean they're bad. It means I like them and you don't.
* OK, in some cases, e.g., where art becomes political etc (involves victimisation) then a value judgement is appropriate. E.g., a movie that portrays Roma as thieves is 'bad' per se, wheras a neo-Nazi might like it. So in that case I'll put a value judgement on it: the neo-Nazi is wrong. This doesn't apply to 'personal' movies like Lost in Translation where if I enjoy the Scarlett/Bill relationship then it's nobody else's business and nobody can tell me I'm wrong for enjoying it. |
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GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 02:54:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
OK, I'll try and draw this to a close as I'm not even sure that we disagree about anything. I think we're speaking different languages.
You liked Spiderman 3. I didn't. So either you have overrated it AND I have underrated it, or both of us have correctly rated it. I say the latter.
I agree with Sean here, especially in the case of Spider-Man 3 because it is an extremely recent film.
In another thread, we briefly discussed how film critics panned Psycho (1960) upon its initial release. History has proved that these critics' truly did "under-rate" Psycho by all relevant measurements; Psycho is still watched, studied, and admired 47 years after it initial release, is frequently cited by critics and audiences as among the greatest films ever made, and (although this has nothing to do with the quality of the film) it was a huge financial success for Universal was a good career move for most of the actors and filmmakers involved.
A historical example of an over-rated film was Driving Miss Daisy(1989). I love Driving Miss Daisy and everyone I know also loves Driving Miss Daisy. It is a charming, intelligent, and beautifully acted piece of work. I cannot think of anything wrong with it. However, most knowledgable critics and audiences agree that although Driving Miss Daisy is a wonderful film, it was not an influential or particularly important film. Serious film historians generally view Driving Miss Daisy as the sweet film about an old white lady and her black servant that beat Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing at the Oscars. Do the Right Thing is now a classic that created an earthquake in Hollywood that we're still seeing aftershocks from. The film was almost as important to the history of American culture in general as it is to history of American cinema. Driving Miss Daisy has virtually become forgotten in the public eye and is becoming more so as the years go on. |
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 03:29:34
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I have to agree with Sean here, too. I have very little patience for "overrated movies" discussions or lists. Why? Because they're not based strictly on artistic merit or lack thereof. They're based on backlash -- a negative reaction to a movie's success or popularity. You hate a movie because others love it. You hate a movie because it made $200 million. You hate a movie because it won the Oscar. And it did any or all of these things without your precious approval, so you feel compelled to whine about it. It's reverse snobism. It's sour grapes. It's rooted in jealousy, which is a terrible starting point for valid film criticism. Once you say a movie is "overrated," you're no longer rating the movie itself. You're rating people's reaction to the movie, as if you're upset that you can't make up people's minds for them.
I'm not much of a fan of "worst movies" lists, either. Not that I love every movie which comes along -- far from it -- but if there's one thing the world doesn't need more of, it's whining about pop culture. We already have plenty, thank you. There are whole channels devoted to it on cable TV, with D-list pseudo-celebrities cracking wise about people more successful than them. Magazines and websites are already full to capacity with whining and nitpicking. Sometimes, I think the biggest influences on modern popular culture have been David Spade, Andy Rooney, and Mr. Blackwell, all of whom were pioneers in our current, dreary culture of complaint.
People like to defend lists like this by saying they inspire great debate. I haven't really experienced that. More often, it leads to pointless sniping and conversations which go around and around without leading anywhere. As an example, let's take the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which two Fourmers have already included on their lists. No one has come forward to defend it. I admit that F&LiLV makes for a difficult (impossible?) first-time viewing, but I've come to love it, and the film has garnered a much-deserved cult following over the years. (Note the recent tribute to it in Knocked Up.) Over the past few years, I've embarked upon an informal project to compare movies with the books that they're based on, and I feel that Fear & Loathing is a very worthwhile and valuable companion to Hunter S. Thompson's book. I could expend a lot of time and energy defending Fear & Loathing -- scene by scene if necessary -- but what would be the point? If you've included it on your Worst Movies list, it's not likely that reading my defense will change your mind. |
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 06/28/2007 03:33:46 |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 05:45:45
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Agreed with GHcool and Joe.
There are so many ways in which people can make "absolute quality judgements" that are quite subjective. E.g.:-
- I've decided that I don't like implausible character transformations in a movie (e.g., Osborn's bad-good-bad-good shifts in Spiderman 3, by the end of the movie Osborn had become nothing more than animated pixels on the screen to me, I had no interest in him at all). That doesn't mean that others who didn't mind the transformation and liked the movie are wrong for liking it.
- I liked Sideways. I told my sister-in-law that she'd like it, she saw it, nearly walked out, hated it and regards it as rubbish. The reason? There was no likeable protagonist in the movie (both main characters were arseholes). For me that was quite irrelevant (the same applies to Godfather and Pulp Fiction along with many other great movies), but for her the lack of a likeable protagonist was a fatal flaw. So who is right? Both.
- I liked Monsturd. It's a better movie than Spiderman 3 because for me it was more entertaining. But some will regard it as crap ( ) because the monster looks like a man wearing a cheap homemade plastic suit. Who's right? Both.
Making absolute quality judgements about art is something I stopped doing a long time ago. I used to think that ALL paintings were crap, and could be improved by taking a photograph of the thing the artists were trying to paint. Fortunately I went to a gallery to see van Gogh's Irises when I was 22 (principally to see what all the fuss was about), and spent half an hour staring at the most beautiful man-made creation I'd ever seen. Van Gogh showed me how utterly wrong I'd been.  Now I make personal quality judgements about art, and don't particularly mind if others miss what I see, and are unable to get out of it what I get out of it. |
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lemmycaution
"Long mired in film"
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 06:02:11
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De gustibus non est disputandum.  |
Edited by - lemmycaution on 06/28/2007 13:09:40 |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 06:16:10
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quote:
Making absolute quality judgements about art is something I stopped doing a long time ago.
What's the difference?
No, seriously, I don't see the difference. What's the difference between an absolute value judgment and a relative value judgment? And if I'm not allowed to say that you are wrong, how can I possibly be allowed to say that I am right? What am I doing wrong by saying that you are wrong? Why am I not allowed to say that?
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You liked Spiderman 3. I didn't. So either you have overrated it AND I have underrated it, or both of us have correctly rated it. I say the latter.
Well, see, there's the fallacy right there. You seem to think that we're both right. That's not true. I am right according to me, and you are right according to you. Maybe the two things are supposed to be equal according to some grand almighty outside observer, but what use is that to me? I have to make value judgments about whose opinion is more important to me, and mine happens to rank higher than yours. As there is no objective way to measure things, I reserve the right to call people wrong about things regardless of how much they liked it. I'm not saying they're wrong to like it; I'm saying they're wrong about whatever they liked being any good. Feel free to like olives all you like, they're still gross.
There is no real difference between making a personal value judgment and an absolute value judgment. None. And be damned if I'm going to take away my right to call a movie a piece of shit, it's simply more fun my way anyway. |
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thefoxboy
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 06:19:01
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
quote:
Making absolute quality judgements about art is something I stopped doing a long time ago.
What's the difference?
No, seriously, I don't see the difference. What's the difference between an absolute value judgment and a relative value judgment? And if I'm not allowed to say that you are wrong, how can I possibly be allowed to say that I am right? What am I doing wrong by saying that you are wrong? Why am I not allowed to say that?
quote:
You liked Spiderman 3. I didn't. So either you have overrated it AND I have underrated it, or both of us have correctly rated it. I say the latter.
Well, see, there's the fallacy right there. You seem to think that we're both right. That's not true. I am right according to me, and you are right according to you. Maybe the two things are supposed to be equal according to some grand almighty outside observer, but what use is that to me? I have to make value judgments about whose opinion is more important to me, and mine happens to rank higher than yours. As there is no objective way to measure things, I reserve the right to call people wrong about things regardless of how much they liked it. I'm not saying they're wrong to like it; I'm saying they're wrong about whatever they liked being any good. Feel free to like olives all you like, they're still gross.
There is no real difference between making a personal value judgment and an absolute value judgment. None. And be damned if I'm going to take away my right to call a movie a piece of shit, it's simply more fun my way anyway.
Man, you can dish out whatever you like about Sean, but leave olives out of it. |
Edited by - thefoxboy on 06/28/2007 06:20:18 |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/28/2007 : 06:40:54
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
And be damned if I'm going to take away my right to call a movie a piece of shit, it's simply more fun my way anyway.
OK, I'll try another way to assess a movie:-
Spiderman 3 was boring as hell, a waste of $7, an insult to Spiderman, and was skin-deep puerile garbage aimed at morons. |
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WORST FILMS EVER
