The vastly overrated, and the criminally underrated.

Those are some great flicks on your list, Obi-Wan2001. There are a few on that list that I haven't seen, but I will make it a point to track them down and give them a try.

In regards to PCU and Slackers' underrated status: I think it's a shame that any sort of comedy that takes place in college, such as those, Van Wilder, etc, etc, almost always get blasted by critics and are immediately labled as ripoffs of the "great and wonderful" Animal House. It's as if a lot of people think that Animal House is the only comedy of that type that's allowed to exist. You know, I've seen Animal House, and... this opinion might be unpopular, but I think it's overrated. I didn't laugh half as much during that movie than I did during any of the previously mentioned films.

Anyways, that's just a little pet peeve of mine. It happens in other genres, as well, but I'm drawing a blank trying to come up with examples. I know they're out there, though.

 

Wow, someone else who's seen "Black Robe"!

Film also has a tremendous musical score...

heh heh -- I watched it in my amazing American Experience class.

about My Big Fat Greek Wedding: it filled a niche for movies and appealed to many ethnic ppl. i dont even know one Greek person and i was dying of laffter, cuz my indian family is just like that.

and on the same vein ... I think that Gandhi[/] is soooo overrated. it complete ignores some of his bad traits and villifies the founder of Pakistan, a hero and leader in his own right. also, it doesn't transition his character very well.

 

Regarding All Quiet:

Yes, it just transported from the novel. Most films won't do that.

Most films with truly great source material scuttle it in favor of "originality." Example: The Bourne films. There's enough plot in the first book for a trilogy of films. And they burn it all to the ground with stupidity that would have Ludlum rolling over in his grave.

You say there have been more profound examinations of war and its effects on survivors. Name them. I'm not aware of any. This is, of course, personal opinion and we'll probably just agree to disagree, but I'm curious to see what books you would throw up as being on a level with and, in fact, better than All Quiet.

I didn't say it saved the world. I said the world is a better place because of it. The world is far from saved, in my opinion. If it had saved the world, we wouldn't be having wars, but don't look for that to happen any time soon.

Regardless, it was released in 1930 and it brought the first real popular negative attention to the Nazi party, who attacked the film vehemently.

What's most important is that, had the film succeeded, World War II wouldn't have happened. More than most war films, it was a cry for synthesis, for recognition that nationality did not matter, that the war experience was the same across the board.

Most war films were relentlessly jingoistic. Heck, most of them still are, point of fact. This film humanized the Germans for the people who had been fighting them in World War I. That was a powerful thing to do so quickly after the war and, given the injustices heaped on the German people after WWI, it was a controversial thing to do.

Had people, both German and otherwise, really understood it, World War II, which arose, in Hitler's fevered mind, as a way to get payback for WWI, wouldn't have happened. Because there was no need for payback. Everyone had suffered the same things.

There were those who understood that. Had this film not been released, World War II, in my opinion, would have been a much more brutal affair. People still tended, as they always do, to lump their foes together. This film was one of the main things that kept everyone from doing it.

Regarding Greek Wedding:

What niche exactly would you say it filled? Because I thought it did nothing but imitate earlier movies, so you'd think whatever void it was reaching for was packed already . . .

 

Isn't saying that a film isn't over-rated because it won Best Picture kind of like saying that Wilt Chamberlain was sexually inexperienced because he slept with thousands of women?

Just a thought.

 

1. Historical accuracy is not necessary. Film is art, not journalism. The same is true of documentary filmmaking, though most people don't realize this. They think documentaries, and to a lesser degree, film in general is journalism. It's not.

i agree with all of this. however, i didn't attack it for lying, full stop. i attacked it specifically for lying to simplify the issue and make it more palatable. it's not simply the fact that "artistic license" was involved, but that it was "artistic license" in service to an ignoble end. in my opinion, art which goes out of its way to duck hard questions is worse than worthless.

2. It's not sanitized. Schindler is an anti-hero. He's a arrogant womanizer, a flawed and imperfect hero. Frankly, my having such incredible admiration for a man who is a perfect example of a psychologically motivated adulterer is enough of a grey zone.

that's just crazy. the fact that he's an arrogant womanizer is completely irrelevant on the scale that we're functioning on. we're talking about the Holocaust here, for Pete's sake. to even suggest that something as petty as adultery is even worth talking about when there's a death camp sitting in the room is just bizarre to me. it's like treating indigestion as a serious medical concern when someone has an inoperable malignant brain tumor. they just don't operate on the same plane.

3. From the book: "The list was an absolute good. The memories of those who surrounded it melted in the light of it." Absolute good. That's hard to pull off. Logistically, perhaps, it can't exist. This film is a fable about absolute good. It's not necessarily a true story. It is, by admission of the author, a legend. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying that the account we have of it is not necessarily intended to be taken as truth. It is intended to be taken as legend.

i haven't read the book, but i'll take your word for that. however, that just makes the book offensive, too. it may be hard to pull off a fable about "absolute good," but there's a good reason for that: there is no such thing as absolute good, and Schindler's story is a textbook example of why not. Schindler's story, like virtually all Holocaust stories, is about moral choices, about the struggle to make priorities in insane situations, to weigh these lives against those in situations no sane mind would ever expect to find itself in. to pretend that you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak, is to present ignorant, offensive trash, and it perpetuates delusional tendencies which are deeply unhealthy. it's an attempt to use art to absolve people of their responsibility to make real choices with real consequences, and since that responsibility cannot be lifted, such attempts always fail.

fables are supposed to represent someone's moral truth, be it an individual's or a culture's or what-have-you. this, however, does not represent any moral truth, but rather an empty fantasy.

oh, and Greek Wedding sucked, too.

 

Six of one, I suppose. You could use your same argument to say that Schindler is not any better or worse based on whether or not his munitions worked. He ran a munitions factory. People were being blown up every day by the dozens.

It's rather like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Either you think that the crimes being committed by the main characters are paltry compared to the crimes of nations or you believe that, morally, every action matters, no matter the comparison.

I tend toward the latter perspective at least in the artistic sense. I think adultery is psychologically damaging, to all involved parties. Whether or not a war's going on at the same time you're committing adultery has nothing to do with it. From the dramatic perspective, every action matters.

Simply put, I don't care if there's a death camp in your town, that still doesn't give you the right to live less morally, just because everyone else is. Hell, if you believe that, you could always find an excuse for misbehavior. After all, what's one paltry murder I might commit, when scores of soldiers have died in Iraq in the past six months? Nothing, by comparison, right?

That's why you can't compare. Unhealthy activity is unhealthy activity regardless of the fact that the guy next door is being even more unhealthy. You're still unhealthy too. I don't say adultery is on a level with genocide. I simply say that they are both unhealthy and the one does not excuse the other.

God, I'm loving this.