The thread where you embarass yourself with movies you've never seen

[socketlevel]

I understand the overrated comment from an angle. In the 1980s, he made comedies that highlighted his excellent writing and today, he makes sentimental movies that highlight his stylistic touches. The irreverence today is his ability to make unlikely things touching, but I think his writing is his major strength and the style of writing that made him famous is no longer in his filmmaking. He could be called overrated because it's his cinema today that is getting everyone to comment on him. I don't think we look back enough with Almodovar.  

true, and honestly i haven't seen his 80s stuff. also to qualify my statement, i meant overrated in film appreciation circles (or at any extreme left-wing-high-brow-well-to-do gipsy kings listening dinner party), obviously not the mainstream. i just find his movies melodramas that forcefully depict protagonists in extrodinary circumstances. strip away the flare and the social outcast elements from his films they are simply rock Hudson pics. i actually like some rock Hudson flicks, i just don't ever need to see them more than once. likewise with almodovar, they're overrated, i didn't say shitty. the thing that turns me off is the fact that the subject matter in his films seems obvious, whenever i read about the next almodovar flick coming out, nothing about it intrigues me.

maybe i should check out some of the 80s stuff.

and shock corridor or the big red one kicks the balls outta any almodovar film that i've seen.

[socketlevel]

lol ignore the baiting part of my post, long day.

[children with angels]

I like Almodovar, but one line I once read in Sight and Sound (about Volver) has always stuck with me; it went something to the effect of: "When people say that Almodovar is one of the few male filmmakers who understands women, what they really mean is that he flatters them." I know this is contentious, and I don't necessarily agree with it, but it's a remark that perhaps warrants some thinking about.

[Alexandro]

More like "when people say Almodovar is one of the few male filmmakers who understands women, what they really mean is that they can't think of anything original to say about him or his films". Maybe I'm wrong, but Talk to Her and Bad Education were both about male characters, Atame too...

There will always be a part of the audience who will rejoice in being a snob and see films by the likes of Almodovar basically because he's a foreigner, this is the same people who will actually not catch a Wes Anderson film because it's "Hollywood". In short, that audience is fucking clueless and feed their own self importance seeing "interesting" movies, more "intellectual". True film lovers know that's just silly and can discern when a filmmaker is great on his own terms. Maybe Almodovar is overrated in those terrains, but it's the other side of the coin of people who won't watch foreign films or b&w films because they're "boring".

[socketlevel]

i hope you realize that's not my sensibility Alex. I'm sure you do, just once again clarifying.

actually that sight and sound quote is interesting. which makes me think of an entirely different issue. very often the dark side of male characters is explored in cinema, due to the fact that there are many more men in the field. from my dealings with women it seems that their dark side is ignored for the majority, hence the lack of good female characters. i think better roles for women, in turn means more dense unfavorable characters. i believe something that female actors have been commenting/asking for from storytellers for years lies heavily (though not exclusively) in this social taboo. I always keep it in mind when writing female characters. i just wonder how entrenched, even on a subconscious level, this standard is in place within cinema. more films need to be made about women making mistakes and either coming to terms with it or being destroyed by it as there are with men. to think that men are more prone to this is silly, it manifests in different ways but i hope it's something that will be explored more with female chars.

i know there are examples of such films, but they are few and far between. mary tyler moore in ordinary people comes to mind, and she's so fucking good in that role.

[Pas]

Good point Alexandro. Reminds me of when someone say they say a blockbuster that was pretty good but stupid and ALWAYS someone say : ''I don't like american movies''

Well obviously that must happen a lot more here in Quebec where EVERY female hates america.

[Neil]

The two films in questions were not Network and the Hospital but The King of Marvin Gardens and the Hospital.

Yikes.

 Anyone who considers "network" obscure wouldn't know much because it recieved plenty of mainstream awards/recognition.  I obviously knew that he was speaking about the hospital and The King of Marvin Gardens and the Hospital. I was just saying p's last comment and the comments that were made regarding Kanye west were fucking ignorant.  AKA Lacking any intelligent to add to the discourse or having any substance

[Pubrick]

i was off on the tangent conversation about paddy.  following up network with altered states comment made me think of how i still haven't seen the hospital. i don't claim to be embarrassed not having seen it.

oh ok, yeah i took it regarding the OP.

the hospital is pretty good, you should also check out the original book of Altered States.. i have trouble attributing the movie to chayefksy anymore after reading the book (which is very short) and after watching the movie again recently i understand why he disowned it. it's a strange kind of movie that you always remember MUCH better than it actually is.. seriously fell off my favourites list after rewatching it.

i think you're wrong about almodovar. even in intellectual circles i think he's adequately rated. obviously if you look at the most pretentious group of ppl they will overrate just about anything, see for example our hilarious banner stating that Xixax is the only place where Barry Lyndon is overrated. i think these same ppl (us i mean) generally accept that he peaked with All About My Mother. Talk To Her and even Volver could only be said to be as good as that film, which is excellent btw.. tho i would rank Volver at the bottom of the three.

it's interesting that you mention Rock Hudson cos i'm pretty sure what you mean is Douglas Sirk. almodovar has repeatedly admitted sirk was a major influence on him, and certainly you can find connections between almodovar's films and All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, and Magnificent Obsession. maybe not to the point you would find in Fassbinder, but they have a lot in common. i wrote an essay on this once that i could post in the green screen if anyone would care to read it..

[socketlevel]

Douglas sirk works too, i guess i just prefer my melo drama feeling dated and without outlandish flourishes. it works when it's got a time capsule quality, and for this i didn't really like all about my mother or talk to her. never saw volver. never seen any Fassbinder either, though always meant to. Almodovar's movies just seem to appeal to that film festival "controversial" yet totally void of controversy aesthetic. i can't get over that intent and just enjoy the films for what they are because they so heavy handedly make the point that even the strange things in life are very normal, which is quite safe. i look to be challenged, and Almodovar's films are preaching to the converted with me.

on a broader scale it's like if someone makes a film about a Muslim woman taking off the veil and it premieres in N/A everyone applauds it for being "controversial", and really it would only be controversial if it premiered in downtown bagdad. i wish his films would concern themselves with the characters and plot rather than teach me this very similar lesson over and over. his melo drama hightens the message when i wish the message was subtle or saying something different.

I find Barry Lyndon gets better and better as i watch it. wasn't a huge fan first couple times, totally grew on me.

[Pubrick]

ok, i understand now. don't take offence but i don't think anyone can seriously talk to you about almodovar for a number of reasons..

you don't like almodovar for personal reasons about melodrama, which is all you see in him along with an attempt to be controversial in a safe way. you also hate his audience, which you characterize an imaginary group of ppl who like his movies for the wrong reasons. you equate regular film appreciation circles with "extreme left-wing-high-brow-well-to-do gipsy kings listening dinner party" attendees, and fans of a "film festival "controversial" yet totally void of controversy aesthetic".

i'm just summarizing here.

i think your view of almodovar has been unfortunately skewed irrerparably by these elite-film douchebags you have encountered. so to convince you that almodovar is actually concerned with a LOT more than one-dimensional genre games, like melodrama for the sake of melodrama, or trying to be controversial to an arty crowd, is a bit futile. i can only say that i have never met any of these ppl you talk about, so my experience with almodovar has not been tainted at any point and i've managed to form my own opinion based on his films alone.

what someone said above about fuller and almodovar is true. almodovar is real cinema, he is really all about cinema and not just one genre or one idea. his early films are actually quite wild and hilarious. in Almodovar on Almodovar he talks about his maturation process from his early films to a more serious direction starting with The Flower of My Secret. from that point onwards if you ever bother to watch his films, you see someone really discovering their own voice. up til then it seemed he loved the way ppl reacted to his voice, he loved making ppl laugh, his early films are like a performance which he repeats very well. his post Flower maturation is almost as if he heard his own voice and became MUCH more aware of what he was saying. this is vague but it makes sense if u watch his films. his experimentation EXPLODES from the mid-90s onwards.

melodrama in almodovar is actually more accurately described as CAMP. he addressed everything on that subject conclusively in All About My Mother. that movie marked his philosophy so clearly that if someone watches that film and sees melodrama and controversy for the sake of an arty crowd, that person just doesn't get almodovar. which is fine. but not understanding a director, or misunderstanding him, does not mean he's overrated.

[Pozer]

anyone have movies they were embarrassed they hadnt seen so they lied and said they had?

mine's always been Lord of the Flies. as an adolescent, brother and friends would always discuss the movie and its disturbing moments and i would feel like cbrad amongst his colleagues with Star Wars so i eventually just went along as if id seen the damn thing mostly plagiarizing things my brother would say of the film. still never seen it/never will/living the lie.

[socketlevel]

first off, you're 100% right in regard to someone talking to me about the director himself and nuances in his films. i really don't know as much about him as you would for example, I've only seen about 4 of his films. no repeating viewings. i never claimed that someone could have a serious conversation with me about the art in detail. i do have enough experience to get an impression of his work (or rather his contemporary work as GT revealed, yet i have not backed up myself). i do believe they can have a conversation with me regarding why his acclaim is over stated.

this is because the term overrated very much directly involves the audience, because it is the audience that sets the standard for the positive "rating". the artist themselves can't overrate their own work without the audience backing them up. in a lot of cases, maybe this one, maybe not, the director can be silent and humble on the side lines and not get involved at all in the hyping of their stigma. so really it's is 99% the audience. if you can agree with that, then my critique stands up. a major part of the clout he has (which translates into the esteem and rating) comes from a general agreement with the critics and audience that he has the ability to convey unique attitudes about characters that are on the fringe of society. i feel his portrayal is in fact safe and two dimensional of said characters. therefor the hype surrounding this film maker as doing amazing things is in fact less impressive then led on by his fanbase.

fair enough, he doesn't create his crowd but his films still have the intent i don't like. it's not that i dislike his audience, i just really dislike rating something high with the criteria used by them. a film doesn't have to be controversial for me to like it, but when it is "controversial" i look at the audience that is stating this. in his case his audience is not challenged by his ideas, but rather they are champions of it.

his films are controversial to very small bigoted crowds (i speak of my experience in Canada, the size of these crowds in the States is for you to judge). if he was setting his sights on popular opinion then they would be controversial.

[Captain of Industry]

It seems like you're saying a crowd of people who misunderstand the intentions of the filmmaker are over-emphasizing impertinent qualities.  P and I and others are saying that the argument is wrongly focused and misframes Almodovar.

If Almodovar was most interested in political or social commentary the motifs of his films would be political or social, but all of his films are emotionally grounded and interweave a variety of realistic circumstance in order to achieve a dramatic effect.  This is why he's certainly melodramatic, and definitely old-fashioned.  These are things I think it's fair to say.  But, his films taken as a dramatic whole are very realistic and triple dimensional.  As in early film noir, you know, like I'd say the children of angels Sight and Sound quote about flattery could equally apply to early film noir characters, and that Almodovar hasn't flattered a character beyond the flattery ever dished out to a Bogart character, for example.  Part of a tradition in drama is to flatter a protagonist by highlighting an inner strength and resilience, and this isolation of a personality trait enables dynamic contrast within the narrative and achieves the drama he's famous for.  This is his aim, and why his style gels so well with cinema.  As for his outer fringe characters, I believe he has genuine empathy for them, but his reason for using them is clearly more for dramatic material than social redemption.  Hitchcock did this too with murderers, seeking to illuminate and enhance our perception of them as sympathetic and dramatic centerpieces, but I mean do you think murderers are like Hitchcock characters?  And do we rewatch his movies today because of the once-controversial material, or because of the enduring quality of his drama?

[Alexandro]

 a film doesn't have to be controversial for me to like it, but when it is "controversial" i look at the audience that is stating this. in his case his audience is not challenged by his ideas, but rather they are champions of it.

his films are controversial to very small bigoted crowds (i speak of my experience in Canada, the size of these crowds in the States is for you to judge). if he was setting his sights on popular opinion then they would be controversial.

Really, I get lost here. What are you talking about dude? Where is it written that there is critical consensus, audience consensus or any kind of consensus of Almodovar's films being: a. controversial, b. aiming to be controversial. in my mind he's more remembered because of his melodramatic touches and the labyrinthian way his screenplays go from one place to another...

[children with angels]

Well, as I understand it 'controversy' played a fairly large role in cementing his initial reception, as part of the sudden explosion of transgressive LGBT subject matter that only became possible following the end of Franco's dictatorship. But I agree - I wouldn't say it characterizes much of the critical reaction to his work now.