To once again run over my star rating system:
Four stars is life changing for me.
Three stars is essential viewing; must see.
Two stars is great, highly recommended.
One star is good, worth watching.
No stars is as missable as it is watchable or worse.

There's a lot of room for no stars films, it's the biggest boundary to fall into, because that way I can allow a slow, steady filter to create a list of films worth watching. It allows me to love the films I love with more profundity.

'Cheap' humour in that they tend to run each line and scenes in general, right into the ground. They take funny concepts and draw them out over the course of a few clumsy minutes. They'll take one good idea and turn it into an industry to profit from it, to drain as much from one idea as possible; it's an exhausting film to watch as a result, because it's also energetic. There's an awful, cluttered feel, heavily improvised, and so there are several gags which work fine, but many which don't. The whole thing is just an excessive accumulation of unconnected sketches. I think the most witty visual gag in the entire thing was when we cut to a long-shot of the guy in the hole with long hair jumping up and down, and then he sees the mass of Messiah-worshippers approaching, and disappears into the hole again. It's good use of camera placement as a form of humour.

I've seen True Lies before, and remembered it being ridiculous; I saw it on the big screen yesterday as part of a university screening, and realised it was knowing pastiche. Does being self-aware of your ridiculousness excuse you from criticism, though? I'm not sure, but that's not my point, really. My point, which I made in the critique, is that it is too long, and even as a pastiche of action films, and of Arnie himself, there's little to be found.

I've left this part until last, because frankly, I don't get it.

Why would anybody actively seek a bad film? I don't want to watch bad films, but I can only say films are bad if I watch them. How am I to enjoy films which are "less than quality"? I could make a conscious effort to meander myself to the film I'm watching, but it doesn't mean I have to agree with it. Some might call that snobbery, or elitism; but it works both ways - I don't like True Lies for the same reason a lot of people would despise Tarr's Damnation - on the most basic level, I fail to connect with the film. The reasons for this failure in connection will change from film to film, and mood to mood, but if I consciously override my reaction and "lower myself" to the standards of the film (no, that's wrong: if I bring myself to the level of the film), then I'm immediately bringing down all of the other films I love.

If somebody marries an ugly wretch of a woman, what does that say about the beautiful lovers he's had prior to that?