It is without a DOUBT the Golden Age of Television.
There is 100% great comedy than there was 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 40 years ago on television. Also, the comedy is smarter, more elaborate, more subtle, less subtle, takes things further now.
ALEX, I have a question! Do you find it hard to identify with characters in movies? So much of the payoff of movies for me has to do with seeing myself or people that I love briefly in characters in movies. I also have some of my best moments in life when I'm allowing myself to feel the emotion and just be sad and or joyful for awhile.
Truly, life's best moments can be in sadness and joyfulness, but for me, those moments are more authentic and meaningful when they actually happen to me and my friends rather than seeing them in a movie. The awful feeling of losing love, of a breakup, of a sickness, of a death, is much more visceral when it's happening to you. The pure joy of shredding a park with your friends, or an all-night dance party, or the pride of doing a good job on a paper or a project, or of creating something awesome, or of an amazing trip, or a nice breakfast with your family - these things happen in movies, but they don't resonate as much on a personal level.
I don't often identify with people in movies, perhaps because it seems kind of removed from my life when I am watching it on a screen with actors doing the thing? I guess the best actors/movies/shows are good at removing that feeling of "spectator".
Well, I don't think anyone would argue that the feelings you feel while watching a movie are just as powerful as those you feel experiencing the same kinds of things in real life...
but is this maybe a question for all art, not just movies? Is there any art form that you find compelling? Because maybe you're just a Real Life kind of a guy in general, and it's not so much that movies are lacking as it is you just aren't that compelled by stuff people make, as opposed to stuff people do?
Although I don't always see the distinction between those two categories....
"Say more"--what this one professor of mine always says in class.
Even though I was also sort of saying that sometimes Real Life can be a little more than a some people can deal with, so a little low grade fake life is a nice change of pace.
I like to feel things, but I don't want someone i love to die in order to feel. WHAT SHALL I DO!? WATCH A FILMEDMOVIE!
The problem is that sometimes its hard to have real emotions happen in a real way in real life with real friends, because friends are sometimes guarded or if they are hanging out with friends they don't want to deal with their real emotions they just want to get shit faced and have a silly (but somewhat non-real, not truthful to emotions) time.
Also, I have terrible balance and am not an adrenaline junkie (except for my beloved Extreme Snowmobiling) so I have to turn to the filmed image to feel anything! JK, but sorta real.
I love music so much! It is one of my favorite things in the world. Both on record and live performances! But I can also listen to music while doing other stuff, which I can't really do with movies. Perhaps it's a question of productivity.
I do enjoy visual art, although I don't often find that it moves me emotionally in a big way.
hilariously, one of the biggest problems music educators have is "Getting the kids to stop 'doing other stuff' while listening to music."
If you "do other stuff" while you watch a movie, you come away from the movie with only a vague idea of what you've seen, and you probably didn't enjoy it. This is fine, but certainly not the ideal way to experience an art form in its totality. I want us all to FIGHT the ADD inherent in our culture!!! PAY ATTENTION!
I'm currently "doing other stuff" while grading papers and I'm doing a shitty job
Isn't playing another instrument while someone else is playing an instrument/music the ultimate "doing other stuff while listening to music"/ruining music. Therefore all bands/ensembles/orchestras are bullshit.
I would argue that listening to minimal techno or Bad Religion or Cocteau Twins or Enya in headphones whilst coding CSS/HTML/JavaScript is the opposite of ADD. INTENSE NERD ZONE FOCUS.
"Isn't playing another instrument while someone else is playing an instrument/music the ultimate "doing other stuff while listening to music"/ruining music. Therefore all bands/ensembles/orchestras are bullshit. "
it should be called the 'let's put words in other peoples mouths and then talk a bunch of nonsense about feelings' thread. i did not say i don't like television, and i agree that this is the golden age of television. I JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT MOVIES IN THE GOD DAMN MOVIE THREAD.
I am teaching a film history/theory class at PSU in the spring and this week i am finalizing my syllabus. in the past 24 hours i have watched Citizen Kane four times (once straight up, once with Roger Ebert's commentary, once with Peter Bogdanovich's commentary, and then once again straight up.) I've also read three essays on the film. Before yesterday morning I had naively considered Citizen Kane an over-rated Hollywood dinosaur, but figured that before teaching this class I'd better take another look. Now I believe it pretty much deserves the legendary status it's been bequeathed.
Gary and I have had the exact same journey with Citizen Kane--from thinking "come on, really?" to being like "honestly it is maybe the best film ever."
It's such a great example of watching something thoughtfully and intricately AND WITH OUTSIDE INFORMATION/ANALYSIS and how differently it allows you to come to know the object in question.
Like, that's the whole point of education (self or otherwise)--we don't always have all the information we need, to know what something really is.
Now we watch Citizen Kane like once a month. Also the music is really good.
Gary has a joke about talking to one of his classes and saying "When Citizen Kane says 'rosebush' it changed film history!"
Cool! Is it in the Popular Studies cluster? I'm taking a filler class at PSU all about the Coen Bros movies next quarter. Do you know the dude who teachers it? Are you that dude?
Are you guys being serious about threads being ruined? Or trolling?
HOW CAN A THREAD BE RUINED!?!?!? ACTUAL CONVERSATION ABOUT FILM AS A MEDIUM LED US AWAY BRIEFLY.
If threads are actually just limited to people listing movies they think are "WIN" or other movies that are "MEH" than this message board is dumber than I thought!
UHX has ALWAYS (for TEN YEARS NOW) been about conversation and flights of fancy.
But seriously, HOW IS IT RUINED? How can a thread be ruined? YOU CAN STILL TALK ABOUT MOVIES. OR MAKE A NEW THREAD. WHO THE FUCK CARES. THE MAIN POINT IS CONVERSATION and THAT FUCKING HAPPENED IN THIS THREAD.
I finally just watched Zombieland It was way better than I thought it would be. FUNNY SCRIPT! Overly stylish, but in a way that I thought really complimented the genre, or twist on the genre.
I watched Immortals 3D recently for a friend's birthday. I won't talk about my feelings in response to it, because that isn't a valid response to movie watching, but GROSS! I'm still squeamish about super violent movies. Guess I always will be!
MMMM was so good! Love that Olsen fellow! Plus John Hawkes, gimme a break!
I hated Zombieland! Except the Bill Murray part.
Remember when I ruined the Bill Murray cameo for you, Stevie? I remember this and still feel bad about it. Now you finally saw it and it wasn't as funny for you, and that was my fault.
I also just watched Terri What a weird movie, in a very good way. A really great exploration of weirdo high school students, and not in an easy to swallow Freaks & Geeks sort of way. Complex humans! Lying adults! Creed from The Office being awesome! John C Reilly being the best dude to watch!
right now my syllabus is all over the place. the class is intro level- the first class film majors have to take. the idea is to teach them how to fucking watch a movie and then say something smart about it. i have 10 'screening sessions' that is shaping up like this:
week 1: silent era: some Melies, Keaton, The Great Train Robbery, clips from Birth of a Nation, Battleship Potemkin. (look how dumb we used to be)
week 2: maybe Wizard of Oz (simple, classic Hollywood narrative- also convenient because it is written about a lot in the dumb text book i am using.)
week 3: Citizen Kane (the birth of the new modern movie)
week 4: Citizen Kane (this time with the Roger Ebert commentary)
week 5-7: Fuck if I know (possibilities include Ragging Bull, The Shining, Raising Arizona, Do the Right Thing, Chinatown, American Beauty, Sixth Sense, Donnie Darko)
week 8: Thin Blue Line plus clips from Salesman & When We Were Kings (Documentary)
week 9: Meshes in the Afternoon, Un Chien Andelou, Serine Velocity, clips from Dog Star Man and Tarnation (experimental/personal)
week 10: Pulp Fiction ( new new modern movie / look how smart we are now)
* these are not my top 10 favorite movies / or my idea of the best films ever made
** i intentionally have no foreign language films (hard to talk about acting, editing and camera movement when you are reading subtitles)
***in that week 5-7 cluster fuck I am really looking films that are not only great films but that relate/play off each other in interesting ways (like the extreme seriousness of Ragging Bull with the tongue-in-cheek awkwardness of Raising Arizona, or the restricted narration of Sixth Sense vs the unrestricted narration of Star Wars, or the character narration of American Beauty with the mental subjectivity of Donnie Darko)
****i can't really get away with showing stuff much over 2 hours
@uncleboaty i was mostly just joking except for the times when i wasn't. the difference between movies and TV is a grand deep conversation that is worth having. i just like to direct AS MANY POSTS IN ALL CAPS TOWARDS 'YOURS TRULY' AS I POSSIBLY CAN.
Gary has taught this class, have you talked to him about it? He is good at teaching kids how to watch films.
He then gets 35 incoherent papers about Star Wars, so look forward to that!
But I'm sure he would be glad to share syllabuses or hot tips or anything...I mean, if you feel you want to brainstorm or whatever!
Birth of a Nation is also one of the first films that had a fully synchronous score that was supposed to travel with the film, as opposed to just whatever local piano player playing whatever they felt like during it. Thus is interesting for being kind of a place where we can ask questions like "what is film music" and "why does it seem so normal to have music with film" etc. Also a quote from some film scholar is stuck in my head, about how "American film was born in a racist epic"
Zombieland: I think you are right about it being blasphemous. But I also didn't think it was funny, except for Murray!! I think I am somewhat prudish about films making light of zombies, which is 100% my own weird personal deal and probably not a dig on the film at all. Although I really liked Shaun of the Dead! Hmmm, I'm out of ideas.
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO HANG OUT WITH GARY BUT HE KEEPS HAVING MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO LIKE THANKSGIVING DINNER OR TAKING HIS 'WIFE' TO THE AIRPORT!!!
Night of the Living Dead was truly a great film- one that might be overlooked by the 'important film people' who decide what films are important. But IMHO the zombie genre has pretty much been downhill from there. I am really amazed at the staying power of the zombie love.
(not saying i don't dig me a zombie flick, but just like wow how many more zombie movies tv shows etc can we keep making and want to watch) HONEST QUESTION
Comments
Make like your own Martin Scorcese movies thing, where he talks about Revenge of the Cat People or whatever!
There is 100% great comedy than there was 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 40 years ago on television. Also, the comedy is smarter, more elaborate, more subtle, less subtle, takes things further now.
The same is true for Drama on television.
I have a question!
Do you find it hard to identify with characters in movies?
So much of the payoff of movies for me has to do with seeing myself or people that I love briefly in characters in movies.
I also have some of my best moments in life when I'm allowing myself to feel the emotion and just be sad and or joyful for awhile.
I don't often identify with people in movies, perhaps because it seems kind of removed from my life when I am watching it on a screen with actors doing the thing? I guess the best actors/movies/shows are good at removing that feeling of "spectator".
but is this maybe a question for all art, not just movies? Is there any art form that you find compelling? Because maybe you're just a Real Life kind of a guy in general, and it's not so much that movies are lacking as it is you just aren't that compelled by stuff people make, as opposed to stuff people do?
Although I don't always see the distinction between those two categories....
"Say more"--what this one professor of mine always says in class.
SAY MORE
WHAT SHALL I DO!?
WATCH A FILMEDMOVIE!
The problem is that sometimes its hard to have real emotions happen in a real way in real life with real friends, because friends are sometimes guarded or if they are hanging out with friends they don't want to deal with their real emotions they just want to get shit faced and have a silly (but somewhat non-real, not truthful to emotions) time.
Also, I have terrible balance and am not an adrenaline junkie (except for my beloved Extreme Snowmobiling) so I have to turn to the filmed image to feel anything!
JK, but sorta real.
VERY COOL!
I do enjoy visual art, although I don't often find that it moves me emotionally in a big way.
If you "do other stuff" while you watch a movie, you come away from the movie with only a vague idea of what you've seen, and you probably didn't enjoy it. This is fine, but certainly not the ideal way to experience an art form in its totality. I want us all to FIGHT the ADD inherent in our culture!!! PAY ATTENTION!
I'm currently "doing other stuff" while grading papers and I'm doing a shitty job
of course sometimes one must put on Madonna real loud while washing the dishes, that's a given
Therefore all bands/ensembles/orchestras are bullshit.
Like 6?
All playing the same thing?
That is focus!
Focus riffs...
Therefore all bands/ensembles/orchestras are bullshit. "
good point!!!!
it should be called the 'let's put words in other peoples mouths and then talk a bunch of nonsense about feelings' thread. i did not say i don't like television, and i agree that this is the golden age of television. I JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT MOVIES IN THE GOD DAMN MOVIE THREAD.
FUCK
RAW EMOTION.
I think we actually had a pretty good discussion, bigmac.
Hey, check this out, UHX is so free jazz I'm about to make a new thread called SOUP and talk about movies in it. FREEJAZZ. FREETALK. FREEUHX.
I stand corrected!!!!!
I misunderstood the referent for your use of the term "crap." I apologize.
I still would like a list of your favorite films, if you're so goddamn interested in getting this thread back on track, Mr. Big Mac On Track Attack
Gary and I have had the exact same journey with Citizen Kane--from thinking "come on, really?" to being like "honestly it is maybe the best film ever."
It's such a great example of watching something thoughtfully and intricately AND WITH OUTSIDE INFORMATION/ANALYSIS and how differently it allows you to come to know the object in question.
Like, that's the whole point of education (self or otherwise)--we don't always have all the information we need, to know what something really is.
Now we watch Citizen Kane like once a month. Also the music is really good.
Gary has a joke about talking to one of his classes and saying "When Citizen Kane says 'rosebush' it changed film history!"
Are you guys being serious about threads being ruined?
Or trolling?
HOW CAN A THREAD BE RUINED!?!?!?
ACTUAL CONVERSATION ABOUT FILM AS A MEDIUM LED US AWAY BRIEFLY.
If threads are actually just limited to people listing movies they think are "WIN" or other movies that are "MEH" than this message board is dumber than I thought!
UHX has ALWAYS (for TEN YEARS NOW) been about conversation and flights of fancy.
But seriously, HOW IS IT RUINED?
How can a thread be ruined?
YOU CAN STILL TALK ABOUT MOVIES.
OR MAKE A NEW THREAD.
WHO THE FUCK CARES.
THE MAIN POINT IS CONVERSATION and THAT FUCKING HAPPENED IN THIS THREAD.
That Olsen girl is GOOD AT ACTING.
HuffPo just, jokingly, compared our friends YACHT to that movie today.
It was way better than I thought it would be. FUNNY SCRIPT!
Overly stylish, but in a way that I thought really complimented the genre, or twist on the genre.
I hated Zombieland! Except the Bill Murray part.
Remember when I ruined the Bill Murray cameo for you, Stevie? I remember this and still feel bad about it. Now you finally saw it and it wasn't as funny for you, and that was my fault.
NOW ARE WE TALKING ABOUT MOVIES?
WHAT IF WE TALK ABOUT PRAWNS
What a weird movie, in a very good way.
A really great exploration of weirdo high school students, and not in an easy to swallow Freaks & Geeks sort of way.
Complex humans!
Lying adults!
Creed from The Office being awesome!
John C Reilly being the best dude to watch!
It made me laugh a bunch. The faux flashbacks of Woody and his dog named Buck!
Also, I was totally trying to start a prawn esque situation in that thread "I mean, really, what's better than...a nice piece of whitefish."
week 1: silent era: some Melies, Keaton, The Great Train Robbery, clips from Birth of a Nation, Battleship Potemkin. (look how dumb we used to be)
week 2: maybe Wizard of Oz (simple, classic Hollywood narrative- also convenient because it is written about a lot in the dumb text book i am using.)
week 3: Citizen Kane (the birth of the new modern movie)
week 4: Citizen Kane (this time with the Roger Ebert commentary)
week 5-7: Fuck if I know (possibilities include Ragging Bull, The Shining, Raising Arizona, Do the Right Thing, Chinatown, American Beauty, Sixth Sense, Donnie Darko)
week 8: Thin Blue Line plus clips from Salesman & When We Were Kings (Documentary)
week 9: Meshes in the Afternoon, Un Chien Andelou, Serine Velocity, clips from Dog Star Man and Tarnation (experimental/personal)
week 10: Pulp Fiction ( new new modern movie / look how smart we are now)
* these are not my top 10 favorite movies / or my idea of the best films ever made
** i intentionally have no foreign language films (hard to talk about acting, editing and camera movement when you are reading subtitles)
***in that week 5-7 cluster fuck I am really looking films that are not only great films but that relate/play off each other in interesting ways (like the extreme seriousness of Ragging Bull with the tongue-in-cheek awkwardness of Raising Arizona, or the restricted narration of Sixth Sense vs the unrestricted narration of Star Wars, or the character narration of American Beauty with the mental subjectivity of Donnie Darko)
****i can't really get away with showing stuff much over 2 hours
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He then gets 35 incoherent papers about Star Wars, so look forward to that!
But I'm sure he would be glad to share syllabuses or hot tips or anything...I mean, if you feel you want to brainstorm or whatever!
Birth of a Nation is also one of the first films that had a fully synchronous score that was supposed to travel with the film, as opposed to just whatever local piano player playing whatever they felt like during it. Thus is interesting for being kind of a place where we can ask questions like "what is film music" and "why does it seem so normal to have music with film" etc. Also a quote from some film scholar is stuck in my head, about how "American film was born in a racist epic"
Zombieland: I think you are right about it being blasphemous. But I also didn't think it was funny, except for Murray!! I think I am somewhat prudish about films making light of zombies, which is 100% my own weird personal deal and probably not a dig on the film at all. Although I really liked Shaun of the Dead! Hmmm, I'm out of ideas.
PRAWNS WITH WHITEFISH PLEASE, WAITER
HANG OUT WITH GARY! HE IS GOOD AT MOVIE TALK
I'M BACK FROM THE AIRPORT NOW
i get it, bigmac
(not saying i don't dig me a zombie flick, but just like wow how many more zombie movies tv shows etc can we keep making and want to watch) HONEST QUESTION