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jackspencerjr
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
262 Posts |
 Posted - 01/23/2006 : 3:22:09 PM
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After reading several (not all... not yet) on this site, I started to notice that some of the points brought against the films could be brought against films that are actually considered great, like best films ever made great, like the opposite end of the bell curve great. I was puzzled by this. I mean, does this make it really unfair to mock the likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space or Exorcist II: the Heretic when similar problems could be cited in,... oh christ, I don't know,... Jaws or Forbidden Planet or Casablanca?
I thought about this and it suddenly became clear when I remembered an episode of the Smurf, of all things. It was one of those episodes where all the Smurfs were getting horny and Smurfette, as usual, was being a total tease. She asked Papa Smurf for advice on love, totally ingoring that he was just as horny as every other Smurf in the village. But he said something very wise.
"When you love someone, it makes the things unsmurfy about him seem smurfy."
Holy cats! That's it! Even the best movie has something unsmurfy about it, but it's overall smurfiness makes these unsmurfy things seem smurfy. By that same token, even the worst dreck has something smurfy in it, but the overall unsmurfiness makes these smurfy things seem unsmurfy.
It so much easier to understand now. |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 01/23/2006 : 7:16:38 PM
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Entirely true. What's more, much of a movie's smurfiness comes from a good deal of intangible, unquantifiable characteristics that are ripe for debate. For example:
On one end of the scale, a low-budget, hackneyed, cobbled-together movie can be charming in its goofiness. Take The Last Starfighter, with its cardboard characters, one implausibility heaped upon another, and "cutting-edge" special effects that struck me as somewhat feeble, even back in its own day. And yet, I smile a little inside when I remember the part where the enemy command ship is crippled and falling toward an asteroid, and some subordinate asks the commander "What do we do now?" and the commander just looks up at him and says, "We die." That was pretty damn smurfy, and the icing on the cake for a movie that was already good fun.
On the opposite end, there are technically proficient, rapier-witted, elaborately plotted pieces that completely turn me off because they have the unsmurfy feel of a movie that's fully aware of how great it thinks it is. One that always stuck with me was Pulp Fiction, which is indeed a carefully, stylishly-sculpted endeavor, but one that I simply didn't care about. I tried to watch it once, and about halfway through realized I didn't give a rat's ass about anyone or anything in it. For me, it was all style and no heart. A most unsmurfy movie in my book, though its profits would disagree with me.
P.S. - I suggest you read Ken's reviews of the entire Jaws series. Indeed, he does a great job illustrating how it's really all the subtle, thoughtful characteristics of the first movie that add up to being a masterpiece. Conversely, even though later installments would use bigger budgets and try to punch up the "cool" stuff to broaden its appeal, they ended up making sad parodies of the first one. |
Edited by - GalahadPC on 01/23/2006 7:31:11 PM |
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