Minio's Ramblings on Cinema

Nobody said they were but I've been called both (or at least my behavior was) so I addressed both.

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

Mr Minio is neither
I am female and he and I have been close since the first time I came here.

When I wasn't posting he and I still communicated.

The larger point is that it seems you can't speak about cinema generally without putting other people down and singing praises to yourself.

After a while it just becomes very tedious...

Moving the goalposts now?

I see the Pot is calling the Kettle black.

Is this still going on? I thought it was dropped. Minio and I had our say, we know where we stand in our respective views. I’d rather not derail the guys thread any longer.
Dead horse beaten.
Let’s go back to talking about movies, because Minio is infinitely more interesting when he’s talking about what movies he’s seen and discussing various directors films and careers.

Consider this an Olive Branch

Ugh I detest contemporary social dramas.

Watching classic Hollywood without subtitles was such a game-changer to me. It helps you focus less on what is being said and the story and more on direction, scenography, and camerawork. Watching a part of a classic Hollywood film you've already seen with the sound off is an interesting experiment, too; makes it obvious how much those films relied on sound, BUT doing so also emphasizes the visual elegance that mainstream American cinema lost somewhere in the 1980s or maybe even before.

"One of the greatest critics of all time!!!" - some of the greatest masterpieces of all time flew over his head while he overhyped some middling stuff. Why would I like to read what he says about movies if he's lacking so much in taste to begin with?

I guess the easy answer is that everyone has different ideas on what makes a movie good. It isn’t like this criticism is unique to any *insert random supposed greatest critic of all time*.
The same can be said for you or I. It isn’t like any of us, you included, are above not liking supposed classics that others hype.
And claiming it flew over the head is an easy dismissals of criticisms of a movie to begin with. It doesn’t start off as a good faith response in the first place.
I know you aren’t a big fan of Ebert, but I found it interesting that he would sometimes rewatch a film and change his opinion. I always thought a good critic should be able to approach such things in that matter.

There's nothing special about that. I rewatched some films and changed my opinion, too. But mostly my opinion stays the same because I mostly rewatch masterpieces and there's not much room for change when you rewatch one of your favorites. It's not like a masterpiece is going to turn into a bad film now.

It shows that he was willing to reconsider his opinion, which is indeed a great mark of a critic, or any person really.
One should never ever believe they are ever infallible in their criticisms.

I don't think I'm infallible but I'm right most of the time and I'm right more often than others. Haha.

Right, I’m not actually pointing fingers at you, in particular. I’m just saying a good critic knows he can be wrong. They’re human, after all.
Also, you completely have missed the boat of Scorsese and Spielberg among others as well, so I dare say you’ve been wrong about a lot, haha. But this isn’t a debate about their skills. I’m just pointing out the fact we all pass on classics that may fly over our heads, and overhype middling films from time to time.
Us included

I think there's a big difference between being wrong once in a while and being constantly wrong. Any of us can goof and be wrong from time to time, but if somebody seems to be whack every second time, they're no good.

I didn't. These directors both made some good films but neither is a master some people claim they are. This is not up for debate.

Yeah, but people with good taste generally do it less often. They have the intuition to generally get what is good and what isn't and what is just good and what is a total masterwork. This intuition can get corrupted, which is concerning.

I really can't understand those dialogue-heavy films. They're almost solely based on talking, so if you can't understand the language, there's little left there. Of course, now that I speak English well I do understand what is being said, and that tricks me just like it tricks the natives. Those films can look good, but you take away the talking and you're left with nothing. You don't understand anything, there's nothing beautiful to look at. A film needs to have something that TRANSCENDS language. A great film is great even if you can't speak its language and don't understand a iota of the story. Jancso's mastershot, Shimizu's pan, Mizoguchi's framing, or Sokurov's aesthetic is amazing in any language - you almost don't need verbal language because you have the language of cinema, and that's the only language you need. This is similar to what Godard said about silent films; we used to just see the images with sparse intertitles, but we understood everything, and we were moved and flabbergasted and stunned. But then the talkies came and we started listening, but we understood nothing. Of course, some filmmakers were masters of sound right away: Germans like Lang or Pabst, but even they eventually gave in to the hegemony of the rattle.

My initial intuition when coming into the world of film was exactly that and my standards have dropped since then. I allowed myself to be enchanted by too much talking, too much story. But I don't think the power of cinema lies in that at all. And I think that there's definitely a downside to watching many films, in that the overabundance eventually corrupts one, makes one's standards drop to accommodate for the sheer volume of diversity, of which, bemoaningly only the select few are real masterpieces worthy of championing. The elitists might've been right all along.

I might point out how often many of us feel you’re wrong in your assessment when it comes to film.

The later paragraphs is a prime example. Both are masters, having created classics. Of course it can be up for debate, everything can be, After all. It’s like your insistence that Starcrash is a great film. While many of us don’t agree (it is pretty lame, after all) there were better sci fi films that were much more interesting in their mythos and world building.
Or picking The Stagecoach as John Ford’s best film in your top 300 (although it might have changed by now or even dropped out completely)
The Grapes of Wrath and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are better.
Again, it is easy to fall into the same mistakes other critics do.

You're all wrong. I'm right. As simple as that.

They're OK. Nowhere near Tarkovsky, Yang, or Bergman - people I'd actually call masters of cinema.

Starcrash isn't just a great film. It's a masterpiece. It takes more taste to recognize that than it takes to get Tarkovsky, for example. You're not quite there, but I hope you'll find Jesu... I mean Akton one day.

They might be better but Stagecoach is my favorite! These are the three best films by Ford, anyway, so a nice call!

Oh well, Pilgrimage, The Long Voyage Home, and They Were Expendable are up there, too, amongst best Fords.

Every critic is at very least a bit influenced by the trends of their time and is also probably overworking recent theatrical releases, which leaves significantly less energy to vindicate the "greatest masterpieces of all time", all while getting ready for next week's batch. It's not a matter of taste as it is of film criticism as a job.


The actual top: The long gray line, The man who shot Liberty Valance and The Sun shines bright.

Precisely. Overexposure to bad art corrupts.