Another thread of absolutist aesthetic subjectivity in which poster cannot FATHOM why someone can dare dislike a film they love? Really?
Cinema Paradiso is a sentimental over-long soap opera too infused with its own nostalgia. I wouldn’t say I hate it. But I don’t like it.
Despise it.
I think Cinema Paradiso is way overlong (usually the problem with most potentially good films).
I don’t understand how anyone could hate Music and Lyrics (a silly little pop trifle of a movie about how silly little pop songs can make us happy) but people do. I would think it would be too small to hate and it always brings a smile to my face, not claiming it is high art but it acheived what is set out to do.
I don’t understand how anyone can hate Bulworth, the sharpest political comedy since Shampoo and the best film I have seen that talks about the veneration of a culture, a long way from Eddie Cantor or Al Jolson films, the thing that gets me is when someone hates Bulworth but likes good but inferior stabs at the same material (Black and White) or completely toothless attempts at the same thing (Bringing Down the House)
I liked Bulworth too, Den. Underrated, to use an overrated term.
I don’t see how anyone can not see how someone could not see things from a different point of view.
Grow up, folks. Opinions will differ. One person’s masterpiece is another person’s COLD MOUNTAIN.
“I think Cinema Paradiso is way overlong”
I agree. Or rather I think it was badly paced at parts. While I did enjoyed the film as a whole I never felt like re-watching it (rare for me, since I watch most films twice before making my mind up).
Maybe I will change my mind if I do get around to re-watching it finally.
I have yet to see Bulworth (I know, shame on me!) :(
It has always baffled me why people dislike Wender’s Far Away, So Close so much. (In fact I don’t know anybody who likes the film) For me it has to be the finest film Wenders has ever made.
Heinz Rühmann is at his best, giving a fragile and haunting performance – and Otto Sander is also simply perfect. Just look at his face when he listens to Lou Reed on stage.
There are so many wonderful moments (Bruno telling the soaked Sander about espresso and olives. Sander holding the little girl’s tooth. MAZEL TOV Herr Winter. Falk tricking the security guards, Sander collapsing in front of the painting, the shadow play with the angel and the wolf. The first interaction with the little girl after he saved her, etc etc etc)
A poetic, powerful and highly entertaining film that puts Wings of Desire to shame (imo)
Far Away, So Close was good but not great imho. I agree, Heinz Rühmann was certainly a highlight but I wasn’t to keen on the whole ‘armory’ subplot in the film. It feels like too much was crammed into the film, expecially in the final act (Wenders admitted this himself during the audio commentary).
But then again, I’m one of the few who really, really likes Wenders Land of Plenty and thinks it’s actually the best film in portraying alienation in post-9/11 America.
In the Subbasement of opinion many tactics are called for:
the re-direct
the question
terse & out of here
irony
lies, damn lies and statistics
I’m going to take a shower and watch a film, which is part of a strategy of avoidance.
“It feels like too much was crammed into the film, expecially in the final act”
I agree about the final act feeling cramped, it should have ended on a subtler more poetic note. To third day I still dream of a third part with Nastassja Kinski losing her wings (sigh)
Have not listened to Wenders audio commentary yet.
Ari and Roscoe:
Make like Michael Jackson and lighten up.
If you don’t like the thread, don’t participate in it.
Ari, you accuse “Ciname Paradiso” of being “sentimental”. This is not a valid critique. There is nothing inherently wrong with a film being sentimental. All this says is that you don’t like sentimental films. And if you do like sentimental films, why use “sentimental” in a negative context?
I’ve never met a human being who wasn’t sentimental about something, plus “Cinema Paradiso” is a real film buff’s movie, so yes, I am entitled to be surprised that a film buff wouldn’t enjoy it.
That’s not to say I can’t fathom a difference of opinion (thanks for your usual presumptuous nature, Ari), but I am allowed to say people’s reasons do astonish me.
Roscoe:
You say how you don’t understand how others can’t see things from a different point fo view.
Just remember you said that the next time a MUBI snob castrates someone for daring to say ANYTHING negative about (insert European ‘50s/’60s “classic” here) on these message boards.
Also, Roscoe, “seeing things from someone else’s point of view” INCLUDES understanding that someone might be befuddled by why some other people would hate “this” film or “that” film.
I can appreciate differences in opinion. I can also comprehend why someone would hysterically defend a film to the death. Some folks make very good airtight arguments in favour of films and I can realise why some people are so recalcitrant with their passion for films.
Cinema Paradiso is the kind of film that people who dont know much about film think is a great film. Amelie is another one of those. As in “So you studied film, you MUST LOVE _____________”
Kind of Reader’s Digest movies.
Mark, what you have to understand is that there are some jaded viewers out their who despise sentimentality in all of its forms. They need their cinema to be detached and full of irony, and any hint of warmth or sincerity turns them off completely. I’ve noticed this with the hate some have toward Charlie Chaplin films or early Beatles music. Like drones, they spout off their obligatory, “Keaton is a greater filmmaker (I’m not sure of this. I suppose it all boils down to personal taste. They are very different artists, and the only reason I think they ever get compared is the fact they were silent comedians. I have found I laugh harder at Keaton, but Chaplin tends to have more repeat viewing value),” or, “Their music was shit before ‘Revolver (flat out not true. I’m not even going to go into this.” Irony is all good and well, but there a balance of sincerity in one’s cinematic diet will do that person loads of good. You will find this kind of closed-mindedness toward melodrama as well. I attribute some of this to what Bret Easton Ellis referred earlier this year to the dominant “male gaze” in cinema. He argued that a woman couldn’t ever make a truly great film, because cinema was made for the “male eye.” (of course, to show how faulty his argument is, all one would have to do is see what a woman – Mary Harron – did with his shit novel, ‘American Psycho’. – one of a small handful of films that is head and shoulders superior to its written source material) Of course, a lot is simply personal taste for better or worse. Some people just have issues with human emotion, I guess…
…. I must add here that I like ‘Cinema Paradiso’ just fine, but am hardly in love with it. Oddly enough, I think the aural experience of this film overshadows the standard visual sense. Morriconne’s score has a beautiful sense of nostalgia, while the flickering sounds of the theatre and the faint echo of the movie house give the viewer an immediate sense of recognition (we’ve felt this before). Hardly a Reader’s Digest film. In response to ‘Amelie’, a lot of the same sentiments apply (we’re talking about a highly sincere film without a hint of irony following an optimistic female protagonist – you can’t get too far detached from the detached, ironic “male gaze”).
^^Didn’t the director have problems with the original cut of the movie though? i’m sure i read that even he thought it was too sentimental in its abridged form.
“Make like Michael Jackson and lighten up.”
Okay, Mark, how about I don’t understand how any idiot can’t appreciate Breathless or 8 1/2. :) You can start your requisite French/Fellini-bashing diatribe now… GO.
“I’ve never met a human being who wasn’t sentimental about something, plus “Cinema Paradiso” is a real film buff’s movie, so yes, I am entitled to be surprised that a film buff wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Eh, I think Cinema Paradiso is a fake film bluff’s movie. :)
Joks, I think his director’s cut might be even worse than the cut version.
The only thing worth hating is a complete abomination by a once good or great director
Eyes Wide Shut for instance
eyes wide shut is my favourite kubrick film, hands down.
that isn’t to say i can’t understand why anyone would despise it. i do. because things are personal, in the end.
so i think my response is: as difficult as it is to understand why someone else would dislike a film that you love, i don’t think there are any films that would be liked universally. people are too different, cultures are too different…. a film has just as much to do with what you as an audience member bring to it as it does to the actual final product being displayed. the fact that a large majority of the “cinephile” audience is straight white men shouldn’t be ignored when looking at the way certain films have been looked at critically, considering that most films made by anyone who isn’t white, male, or straight are considered to be “niche” and can’t actually be a “great film” unless they appeal to the “larger majority” (that majority being straight white men – so of course only films like “brokeback mountain” get critically acclaimed, whereas a film like “sebastiane” is seen as tasteless homoeroticism… even plenty of films with heterosexual eroticism towards women are high up on a lot of lists).
that said, i think discussing films you love can offer insight to others who may not have liked it who, upon a second or third viewing, may come to appreciate certain things that they didn’t see the first time around. the point of discussing films with another party is to constantly be trying to see them from a different cultural view. no?
The only films that in my opinion aren’t worth hating are the ones that are so middling and bland that they are basically inoffensive. I mean I don’t like rom-voms like Hope Floats or Serendipity or by the numbers thrillers like Double Jeopardy because they are formulaic and uninspired but I can’t bring myself to care enough to hate them either.
Eyes Wide Shut is great, no two ways about it.
I would agree with Citizen here. There is nothing worse than a movie that leaves your memory instantly. I’d much rather watch a batch of truly awful B movies and get a few laughs than ever having to watch something like ‘Hard Rain’, ‘Chain Reaction’, ‘Maid in Manhattan’, or ‘Tears of the Sun’ – movies that don’t aspire to be anything.
I love the CRANK movies. They’re very funny live-action cartoons. What’s not to love? But I don’t know anybody else who shares my enthusiasm for them.
Ari,
What, in your opinion would define a fake film buff?
Oh, I was largely being sarcastic, Rossi, but I’d guess I’d say that Cinema Paradiso is more in love with the idea of films (“the magic of movies”) than films themselves.
Because I assumed your implication was that fake film buffs tend to consider themselves serious cinephiles by championing more populist foreign films like Pan’s Labyrinth, Cinema Paradiso, and Amelie.
Well this thread is kind of ridiculous. Not everybody will share the same sentiment regarding Cinema Paradiso.
So not liking Cinema Paradiso and Amelie makes me some kind of machista monster. Oh well. Just keep in mind that since I was 14 I used to read my sister’s Ms. magazines and also read The Second Sex and marched in college with my three sisters and my feminist Companeras. Around that time one of my favorite fillmmakers was Lina Wertmuller. Try some other spin please.
PS
And it is not like i do not like sentimental movies per se. One of my favorites films of all time is Hope and Glory. What I dont like is what we call in Spanish sensibileria- manipulation through sentimentallity.
I like films that treat children like huan beigns like Walkabout and Hue and Cry,
Plus to me The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Bunch are sentimental films. Always cry at the end.
I use to recommend people i know Cinema Paradiso, if they cry with it i trust them, if they don’t cry i usually reject them, don’t talk to them anymore, because they are probably bad persons without a soul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCB5VMc3Hn4
MARK IS SUSPENDED IN GAFFA
I know everyone is different and taste in film can be an extremely personal thing, but sometimes I see a movie that I feel should be loved universally, or at least one that couldn’t possibly draw hatred from even the most miserable soul.
Look up one of you beloved films at the Internet Movie Database, click for “Reviews” and go to “Hated It”.
Chances are you’ll be surprised how anybody could despise some of the most beautiful, heart-warming films ever made, but there’s the proof right there at IMDB. After seeing “Cinema Paradiso” for the second time, I decided to see who WOULDN’T enjoy this film, courtesy of the IMDB. Much to my amazement, I saw reviews from a bunch of twisted souls who came up with some ludicrous reasons, any reasons, to hate the film. I guess this is the one film I’ve experienced that I would expect pretty much any film buff to enjoy (and if you’re posting tonnes of reviews on IMDB or some other film site, you probably do qualify as a film buff). After all, “Cinema Paradiso” is a film about love of films, it’s exquisitely-made, non-pretentious—what’s not to adore?
I’m certain we all have films that we absolutely cherish, expect everyone else to enjoy, and won’t hear or read a bad word about them—so let’s have those titles!