Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/21/how-did-19-films-each-get-an-f.html
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Wickerman? Yeah, that goes without saying, but I loved Mother. I thought it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in years - I fall into that camp. I think the F rating is due to the way the studio marketed the movie. It’s a weird f’d up movie not for a general “American” audience indulging on blockbuster superhero movies and tent poles. But it was marketed as a kind of standard horror thriller - which it is not at all.
A bamboozled and angry audience.
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…an influential exit poll at movie theatres
Is a terrible idea!
This is generally thought of as CinemaScore’s main utility: If a movie delivers a poor CinemaScore on opening night, it’s a bad sign for word of mouth…
More like main futility, this is pure populist hokum. This is the sort of thing that only benefits marketers while not benefiting artists at all. Viewers should be encouraged to engage critically with media, but an A-F grade like at school is utterly meaningless here, because there isn’t anything being specifically evaluated. It provides a poorly-quantified metric based upon pure nebulous subjectivity, and marketing firms love harvesting data for its own sake - even if doesn’t relate to anything - and is used so that clueless people can use guesses about what people like to rationalize what they were going to do anyway. Because they are businesspeople with no ideas of their own rather than artists with any creativity.
tldr - Egalitarianism means that anybody should have the opportunity to make movies. But there is an elite truth that nobody who hasn’t made movies, knows as much about them as those who have made movies. “I do/don’t like it” is not really critique.
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Same people that didn’t like Ishtar http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093278/?ref_=nv_sr_1 which ranks right up there with Citizen Kane in my book.
No accounting for taste in some folks.
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Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack for Solaris saves it for me. The sets and effects also weren’t terrible.
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Mother! sucked. That’s how.
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The wicker man?
I liked The Wicker man
Good classic film.
Maybe some people found it thematically disturbing. But I didn’t.
A good horror film is supposed to make you think.
And by “make you think”, I mean that.
Perhaps you didn’t want to think about the old gods, and what they wanted.
But wants and needs aren’t the same thing.
Occasionally, what society needs is a good whack on the head.
You thought you didn’t want to see Christopher Lee in a kilt.
But now that you have, don’t you feel different about the matter?
Yeah.
Thought so.
It’s the job of the director to lead his audience to new and enriching perspectives.
Perspectives that the audience may not have wished to embrace until they were given little choice of the manner.
Well, the job of a horror movie director, that is.
If you want to see a CONVENTIONAL film that holds your hand like a fucking child.
That’s your choice.
Be a coward.
But you chose to see a horror movie. You chose to be brave.
That’s Good. Challenge yourself.
But now, after the movie is all over-- you don’t have the goddamn guts to face your fears and give this movie a good CinemaScore because it’s too disturbing?
What’s the matter, little poseur? Did the director show you a part of the human psyche that you weren’t ready for?
That’s his fucking job.
Now, I want you to go back to the cinemascore staffer and tell him that you’d like to change your vote.
Can you do that, little poseuer? Can you summon the courage to be honest with yourself for once in your fucking life?
What’s that?
It didn’t have Christopher Lee in a Kilt?
It was the one with the bees?
No! Not the Bees!
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Not the bore worms!
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Now now… that movie is pure campy over the top cheesefest fun. Not a good movie but one of my favorites mostly because of Brian Blessed is so wonderful as Vultan but really the way everyone is just chewing up the scenery with glee makes it so much fun for me.
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A guilty pleasure. We got a lot of 'em.
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I hold a place in my heart for Timothy Dalton’s sweary Prince Barin.
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I assumed it was for the remake with Nicholas Cage.
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I quite enjoyed it, and in particular the soundtrack I like all his soundtracks for Soderberg so much I forgive him being in the Chilli Peppers (I’m told). I just don’t see the point of remaking a stone classic. Plus the original soundtrack had the ANS synth on it which I love. I drive my household mad with the app remake…
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TIL I have bad taste in movies. Meh… one man’s trash right? Why do I like bad movies so much? Actually I feel like they let the viewer be more creative. Or rather I find that movies that either intentionally or unintentionally need a push from the viewer tend to be considered “bad.” I like several movies on that list. I offer no justifications because de gustibus non est disputandum. Maybe I should use the F score to hunt for new movies to watch though.
I noticed Bug on there. I own that film. I love that film. I have pleaded with humans to watch that film with me because it was so funny and dark. I think the problem with that film is that it was marketed as a completely different film than it is. When I saw it the first time my friends and I burst out laughing and some people actually walked out. I’m assuming the walk out crowd is the F score type… where I apparently really DO like films that other people hate. I always got that feeling and I can explain what I like specifically about a single film, but not the overarching pattern.
What’s sad though is this means me and my shitty taste in movies gets underserved by the US market. Luckily for me the rest of the world is FULL of people making films most Americans hate and that is very very fortunate.
The other good news for me is now I’m kind of excited to watch Mother. I actually wouldn’t have because surprisingly I hate bog standard horror. I like horror that sticks in your head like a weird dream for weeks making you wonder what’s happening in your own mind because you watched that. I like to call it “sublime horror” but since I made that up for myself it’s not really a useful description.
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Most people it seems hate certain movies because those movies defy their expectations. An obvious solution would seem to be to approach movies without expectations! Go figure.
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I quite liked Solaris. Granted, it’s barely based on the novel, but Tarkovsky’s classic wasn’t exactly a faithful adaptation either. Lem was supposedly pretty pissed at Tarkovsky back then.
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Yeah but it was the remake. The original isn’t on their website.
You seem to have also made an assumption. Just a wrong one…
Do people still buy hard Media?
Agree regarding Bug. I watched it alone in the theater, next night begged a friend to please go back with me so I’d have someone to tell me I wasn’t insane for laughing. Friedkin has since stated in interviews he intentionally filmed Bug as a black comedy. Brilliant movie. The general public doesn’t know what they don’t know. I keep picturing Amazon as a giant fucking mall, or the scene from The Jerk when he buys his mom a giant version of the same poor shack. People are just as stupid with technology’s aide as they were in the mall.
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