MovieChat Forums > La règle du jeu (1950) Discussion > cliveowensucks's 1 star "review"

cliveowensucks's 1 star "review"


Admittedly, The Rules of The Game is a film I greatly admire. I hate to write a message on a "review" (I'll explain the point of the quotation marks later on) from almost 10 years ago. I am not writing this just because cliveowensucks dislikes one of my favourite films. I am not one of those people who love everything that is acclaimed by critics as one of the greats, as I occasionally find myself a voice of dissent (though I don't like to be one).

With all that said, cliveowensucks comes off as a total *beep* in his 1 star "review". He complains about the elitism of people who love the film (which I actually agree with, it pisses me off when people tell somebody to go watch Transformers if he doesn't like a film), yet he is an even bigger elitist-he comes across as a guy totally full of himself who looks down at anyone who loves The Rules. He says we should respect his opinion, but he doesn't know how to put it respectfully-hence his opinion is totally worthless.

But my main problem-it isn't a review! More equivalent to trolling, actually. Wikipedia's article on "Film criticism" says: "Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium." cliveowensucks spends far more time evaluating the film's fanbase than the actual film. He doesn't give a plot outline, describe the characters, or give any real criticism to the film-except for its fanbase, which he has plenty of *beep* to talk about. Most of what would usually be accepted as film criticism is written as an afterthought, usually constiting of a few words in a paragraph. When he does say something of alleged value, he never bothers to explain. He points out artificiality, poor acting(?!), silly plot (what's the problem with a little bit of quirkiness?), which is not used to criticise the film, but-you guessed it! The *beep* fanbase, of course. What I find most mind-boggling, is that 35 out of 59 people find the "review" helpful, which accounts for 59.322% of them.

Of course, the English it's written in is rather poor, but I won't be some idiot who will point it out in order to show how stupid cliveowensucks is. I think it's already quite obvious.

I said before that it's more equivalent to trolling than to criticism. Wikipedia lists a troll as: "In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people by posting inflammatory...messages...". See? IMDb's terms and services explicitly says "Upload to, distribute or otherwise publish through this Web site any message, data, information, text or other material ("Content") that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, harassing, threatening, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable". I think this means cliveowensucks's "review" should be deleted. At any term, these kinds of comments are not helpful to people deciding whether to watch the film or not to, are deliberately inflammatory, and are of zero critical value. I hope people will refrain from writing such rubbish in the review section, as it's barely message board material.

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It really is idiotic, but in the dude's defense, I have a lot of British movie friends who are identical. He thinks Breathless is bad, too, so go figure.

Of all the quote unquote greatest films, though, it is telling that it's Renoir, the least aggressive director on the list, who makes people who can't appreciate him so defensive.

I'm always secretly glad when I read another diatribe against Rules because that just leaves more for me. That's illogical enough for Lisette.

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Uh, Breathless IS terrible.

The fact that you two are here, ten years after his review was published, bitching and moaning and issuing decrees demanding the removal and suppression of all reviews that succinctly get across valid criticism of this film only further validates his review, and particularly, how petty and solipsistic this movie's ardent defenders truly are.

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His review was spot-on, and your elitist handwringing about his supposed elitism is obvious projection.

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No, it isnt, and if you agree with him, that makes you as much of an idiot as he is.

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It's not the best of reviews, but this film is still embarrassing mess. The reception of the film was terrible in its time and the film hasn't improved since - on the contrary.

He is spot on that the film's reputation is based on cinematic snobbery, not the actual quality of the film. Sheep.

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I have to disagree with him about BREATHLESS (1960) though...

I can see why someone would not like the film but I found it as a breath of fresh air with its unconventional mix of crime drama, intellectualism and jump-cuts. That's what New Wave was all about, breaking the boundaries. Not to mention the great contrast between exquisite beauty of Jean Seberg vs ugliness of Jean-Paul Belmondo. Best of New Wave, imo.

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"Breathless" is one film I can only respect for its innovations (though that is enough for huge respect). There's a lot of cool ideas for shots and compositions in it, but every time I think of its plot, characters or dialogue, I like it less. Vastly prefer "Vivre sa Vie". If I had to pick a "best of New Wave", it'd be "The 400 Blows" or "Last Year in Marienbad".

I can't disagree more on "La Regle du Jeu". I found its camera work literally perfect, and quite a few of its scenes (the hunting party; the one where Schumacher is trying to shoot Marceau and the camera seems to be gliding all over the place, with all the people thinking it is part of the show and just laughing; Octave pretending to be conducting an orchestra; etc) indeleble. Though I understand this particular film is definitely not for everyone, or even most people: it's a film about very frivolous people, with only Octave and Jackie remaining sympathetic till the end, and Octave is a broken man and Jackie has no agency whatsoever.

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