MovieChat Forums > Tooth and Nail (2007) Discussion > Why must we make excuses for poor films?

Why must we make excuses for poor films?


I've seen this in other posts, so I thought I'd make it my own thread. I'm so sick of "Suspension of disbelief" being used as an excuse for lazy writing. Just because it's a movie doesn't mean that you can just decide to throw all logic and reason out the window and then simply say "It doesn't have to make sense or be logical. It's a movie." That's just some bogus justification for "We couldn't actually come up with a plausable end of world scenario that hasn't been done before."

Yes, the world as we know it would have trouble adjusting to a world without gas/oil. And SOME people might be completely helpless. But as the movie says "Within three years, more than two-third of the world's population had starved to death, frozen to death, or slaughtered each other"

Come on. Suddenly the entire free world collapses because there's no gas? I mean hey, it's not like we don't have the capability to grow/kill our own food, or heat ourselves using fire.

Obviously, the film wanted to provide some social commentary on our overdependance on oil, but doing so in a more subtle, realistic manner as opposed to "Society collapses, we're cannibals" could have made it work better.

Am I alone in believing that "Suspension of disbelief" is too often viewed by people as an excuse for wanting to do whatever you want in a film regardless of how realistix it is.

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I disagree with your point that suspension of disbelief is used as an excuse for lazy writing. There probably are some who do this, but I haven't seen enough of them for it to make an impression on me. More often I see it used as I tend to use it, as a way to criticize lazy writing. It's suspension of disbelief that allows you to accept, say, faster-than-light travel or the existence of magic, however lazy writing BREAKS that suspension, and that is usually when I and others tend to invoke it.

But, as I've said, perhaps you've just been reading posts by a bunch of asshats...I try to avoid those.

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[deleted]

or maybe sometimes wirttents wants you to use your imagination or god forbit use your brains and figure something out? you cant spell encyclopedia for dummies in 90 minutes movie you know.

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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

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There are these cool places called museums too. Lots of old stuff. I think Philedelphia even has one.
Seriously, some guys with medieval weapons are not at all far fetched or confusing.

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Artworks do not have to make "real-world logical sense". Of course, you're free to not like artworks that do not make real-world logical sense, but many folks, like me, do not expect that of artworks. Artworks can do all kinds of other things, and I do not want to limit artists in that way.

No one knows exactly what would happen if the world ran out of gas/oil, but what would happen has absolutely no bearing on films like this. Fiction is not documentary, and films like this are not academic papers on what the filmmakers believe to be true of the actual world. And I'm more than happy that that's the case. When I'm interested in such things, I watch documentaries, read papers in academic journals, read academic books, etc. When I watch a film like this, I'm interested in experiencing artworks, enjoying fiction/fantasy and other persons' imaginations, etc. Maybe you should think about doing the same thing. If everyone must be a slave to what they believe to be true of the actual world all the time, where are we to go to enjoy fantasies and the imaginary?

This doesn't imply, of course, that artworks can not/do not comment on various things about the actual world, but they do not have to do so while being a slave to what is believed to be true of the actual world in any particular aspect, and your complaints to that effect rather indicate conceptual deficiencies that you have rather than any fault of the artist in question.
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By the way, I'm not saying the above just because I love Tooth & Nail or something. I liked it okay, didn't love it. I gave it a "low 7" (I almost gave it a 6). The things that brought down my score: I thought it was uneven, and primarily I had some problems with the "tone" in places (which seemed inconsistent to me, occasionally veered into "overly serious pretentiousness", which I'm not a fan of) and I had to groan a bit that it's yet another postapocalyptic film in a Mad Max vein--as if we didn't have enough of those in the 80s through mid-90s. Although it was probably intended as a bit of an homage to those films, I'd rather see something with more imagination.


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So, are you saying that aside from documentaries, films just get to make up their own rules and can't be criticized because they're all about being artistic and imaginary and creative?

For example, I'm a media writing teacher, and I gave my students a scriptwriting assignment to write one of the missing days in 500 Days of Summer (I don't know if you saw it) and while they were allowed to come up with their own ideas, it had to fit into the realm of the story and be believable in order to get a good grade. Having them go an a Bonnie and Clyde-esqe killing spree for example, would have been creative, but if you just say "anything goes" well, then everything has to be applauded or given an A because it's all subjective.

Look, I'm all for the concept of a popcorn movie, one where you just turn your brain off, but to me, there's a vast middle ground between documentaries and popcorn flicks, and movies that occupy that middle ground--and most of them do--need to make some effort.

I know it comes across like I'm anti-expression. I'm not. I just don't believe that expressing yourself and striving for something artistic and creative absolves you of being open to criticism.

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If I payed money for a teacher to force me to sit through 500 Days of summer, I would quit.

Or begrudgingly go on, knowing that I should be at USC and not CC.


http://us.imdb.com/name/nm2339870/

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[deleted]

This was too high budget to be considered cheese, and too cheese to be taken seriously. If it was just that we ran out of gas I don't think it would be that desolate. Did all the deer and other edible game all kill each other too? Once supermarket freezers thaw and stored food rots that's it?? NO ONE remembers how to hunt for food other than hunting humans? We looted gun shops so fast there's no guns or bullets for the last people on earth? The list goes on... And the fake Rob Zombie music just clinches it. This has to be the brain fart of some Hollywood big wig's child, someone who was owed a few favors from say Vinnie Jones, Robert Carradine and Michael Madsen. I think they are even now.

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Or to use horses oxen cows ect. plant farms or burn wood the movie was ill thought out to say the least or maybe they ( who ever wrote the script) should get out of the city more. I mean it really makes me wonder how the hell any of them muppets survived as long as they did ,honestly Big bad men coming up the stairs to eat us ... lets hold an election .... And That was after seeing Mr. Blind man get hacked up on the tennis/ vollyball court ffs.

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I agree with you, it's pretty much if you need oil or eat meat you're a terrible person. Michael Madsen was killed too early.
Do you read Sutter Cane?
- Axe Maniac- "In the Mouth of Madness"

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Maybe it's the fact that I've watched way too many crappy movies but in my opinion this one worked for what it was... an end of the world dramatic twist on modern day civilization caught in the wrong of human kind.
Now I'm not saying I enjoyed the film, just that it worked as far as underrated horror films go.

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we don't have to. the movie sucked.

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possibly THE MOST WORTHLESS excuse for a movie I have ever seen...I only hope they were trying to be tongue in cheek and not serious about this tripe. I expected more with some of the talent they had in the cast. Hopefully, the Rovers ate the writers so they will never put together another crap script like this one

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