Poor taste...?

I mean I try, I really do but some people just don't want to see anything that can't appeal to their 5 second attention span. For example we were watching Patton in history class the other day and I was talking to my friend about it before it began and how good I thought it was and everything even though I knew he would end up thinking it's too long, boring, etc. Knowing this, I told him he would think so but I also told him that he WOULD atleast like the speech at the beginning. My thinking of course was that the scene is classic, there is no way anyone could not like that scene. But alas he even thought THAT was boring.

Just goes to show you how much public education has gone down the drain. How video games, cell phones, DSL, etc. have made the current generation completely whimsical and now even a 5 minute clip can be too long winded or boring for the average teen.

This may sound like jibberish to you, but I think im a tragedy

The problem is that the vast majority of the world is completely film illiterate. And you can't underestimate the importance of film literacy in this day and age. The majority of public discourse is based on television, so a world with completely illiterate people when it comes to film is a dangerous situation.

When you talk about being literate, it means more than just being able to sound out letters to know that something spells "cat". It means being able to engage with a text, to understand techniques that are employed, to go beyond the surface and be able to examine choices the author makes, etc. The same can be applied to film, but unfortunately practically nobody knows how to engage with a film on that level, and even if you try to explain this to them they just won't get it.

So the problem is not necessarily that people have poor taste, just that they are completely illiterate, uncultured, and probably stupid.
jjinx

Why in the world does anyone pay any attention to the idiotic "features" like the "Top 250" that the IMDb wastes time putting up? Those ratings mean absolutely nothing. I'm sure a work of art like "L'Avventura" won't see it's reputation tarnished just because some of the IMDb users didn't give it a "10" rating or whatever (as if the film's power and skillful technique can be quantified on a "1-10" scale).

I don't think the problem is with the folks who gave the film a "1" rating, or those who gave "Dude Where's My Car?" a "10" rating. The problem lies with the fact that anyone even gives a damn what a website says. There are some critics whose opinion I would value very highly, even if I didn't agree with it-Pauline Kael, John Simon, Stanley Kaufmann, Dwight Macdonald, even Andrew Sarris-but anonymous contributors to a website are not among them.

"L'Avventura" was considered a great film long before the Internet even existed, and will continue to be considered a great film long after the Internet has become passe and the next form of communication opens up. In the meantime, don't feel the need to vindicate your opinions by what a corporate-run website says. Judge the film on its own merits. Instead of worrying about the IMDb, turn off the computer and go watch more films.

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View my films at: www.youtube.com/comedyfilm

I would like to propose a change to their ratings system. What if IMDB made films unavailable for the vote until one year after its release date?

This way, film-goers who are both short of mind and memory will be forced to wait a full year before voting, meaning that '300' wouldnt even be eligible until March of '08. Since most of these voters probably can't remember films they saw more than 9 months ago, a film like '300' would probably only garner about half of the votes that it has, if not less.

Since IMDB does have at least one check/balance in place - their 'weighted average' - why not add another?

It was not really a question of friendship, I don't mind that people at my school don't all have the same interests as me. I don't feel alone, that's not really the issue. I was using that as an example to show that the American youth has no regard for anything that can't be shown in 5 minutes or have nudity and blood to distract them.

The real question was do you think the current movie going generation has worse taste than previous ones? In other words, do you think it's getting worse? I really do. I think the poor taste is reflected by the movies we see coming out. Third Pirates, third spiderman, third shrek, second fantastic four. Im not saying I don't enjoy any of these, but come on it's kind of ridiculous.

This may sound like jibberish to you, but I think im a tragedy

Voted for Bush twice, and as if that wasn't bad enough, then they voted for obama twice. Fucking obama, for Christ's sake!

it's because most of the people on imdb are uncultured yetis who think the great movies are the ones they can readily get at Blockbuster or just came out within the last 3 years. Foreign? Black and white? unheard of!

http://www.shompy.com/police386/l14835_ukuk.html

(quote):"That was true when L'Avventura was booed at Cannes and it's true now"...

The very fact that the audience felt comfortable booing the film rather than reacting positively because they think they're "supposed" to like it at least shows they were thinking for themselves.

You're absolutely right, of course, that films like this and other really challenging works will never be as popular. I'd argue they were never intended to be. That said, looking back at the dreck that passed for filmmaking in the early 60s in Hollywood, at least there were audiences who rejected those films as the highest possible art yet achieved in cinema, and turned instead to foreign sources, and discovered new, challenging works from Italy, France, etc.

The problem, as I see it, is that there is no longer that curiosity to discover new, challening films on the parts of many filmgoers (and why should there be, with every new film instantly available on DVD, iPod, etc.) Instead, the Hollywood product is held up as the highest possible achievement, and the foreign product is either dismissed completely or locked out of the distribution system so no one can find it, even accidentally. To get back to the original poster's point, this is the frustration he's feeling with people who won't even give the film a chance. Can you honestly imagine rejecting all music written pre-1998 and still being taken seriously? Or literature? Or art? But it happens with film all the time. People who won't even watch Tarantino's earliest work because it's "too old" are still given some sort of instant credibility, while someone who wants to share a film like "L'Avventura" is automatically assumed to be some kind of weirdo.

I'd say, if you've discovered the film on your own and appreciate it, consider yourself fortunate for being open-minded enough. This certainly doesn't mean you have to "like" the film. I find it much more interesting to hear from someone who watched "L'Avventura" and didn't like it, rather than someone who never saw it at all. In fact, many of the best critics (Pauline Kael, especially) were ones I always enjoyed reading, whether or not I agreed with their opinion, because they made me see the films in new ways.
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View my films at: www.youtube.com/comedyfilm