Another systematic breakdown of your post, Fame.

No, I'm not. I'm about three feet taller, for starters. And three tons lighter.

A bad film is one which fails to engage me, for whatever reason, or sends me away having experienced nothing new. I too think there is a lot to be said about experiencing 'bad' films, in that it helps us to appreciate the 'good' ones we love.

I'm not really interested in stories. I don't watch films for stories, or even read novels for stories. My engagement with narrative, if at all, is via the formal structuring, the cinematic evocation. It's the same way orally, too; I don't enjoy listening to jokes, because most people don't know how to tell them. It's not the joke, or the 'story', but the way it is told. I think of texts in general as aesthetic blankets which drown and devour me, and I let my personality seep through the blanket so that it becomes personal to me. There's nothing cinematic about a story.

So you're saying that, although you enjoy it and don't consider it a guilty pleasure, you think True Lies is a crap film? So on whose terms is it crap? Your terms, or an external value system?


I agree it's subjective, but would like to think that our definition of Art could be the same. That way, we can view our differences in the same ballpark. I think Dr. Zhivago is a work of art too, for instance, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I may have misunderstood you, here, but it seems to be that you're saying that all Art is good and if it isn't good, it isn't Art? If you are, I disagree, and I never understand praises such as, a 'true work of art.' To me, that's a description, an adjective to describe the film or the aesthetic, not a measurement of value.

Oh, please. You think I don't know that? But, as I've already said, I don't necessarily think people's definitions of Art should differ (though they do), I do think there's an endless subjectivity within that, as regards appreciating it.

Well, I'm against the out-of-10 system because there's just too much room for inconsistency; it's too mathematical and vague, yet at the same time very specific to the mood you happened to watch the film in. I haven't seen anybody use it with any kind of convincing logic; there's little reason behind each of the points on the scale, because there are so many, and so, whenever I ask people about it, they cna't explain why one film is a 7 and not an 8, and another film is an 8 and not a 7. It's the same reason why I'm against half-stars, which to me completely eliminates the point of having stars over an out-of-10 scale.

With stars, I have five boundaries. No stars means mediocre or less, because I think it's quite easy to make an average film. My rating system thus lends more attention and time to those worth watching: one star has sufficient enough worth to be of value, and is recommendable. But it might not have the lasting impact of a film with two stars, which is great, and has much in it of interest (highly recommended). That film in turn, while it had a lot in it, didn't blow me away, and thus is not essential viewing - three stars is essential viewing. I never give four stars to a film before the third viewing at least - it's simply an extension on three stars, but more personal favourite for me. Life-changing, perhaps, or the primary influence on my own aesthetic and way of thinking.

Thus, films with the same rating aren't necessarily as good as one another, but can be described by the same adjective: excellent, or great, or watchable, or not, and so on. But each film has a different reason as to why they should be so. Which is why in my critiques, as I defended recently in this thread to DVC, I'm not primarily interested in saying "This movie was awesome" or "This movie was rubbish", but make my response completely individual to the film.

You've mistook me to mean beauty is the aesthetic surface. Not so. Beauty is the core of things. And by ugly I meant personality. Either way, my metaphor was ineffective, perhaps inappropriate altogether.