Not a fan of fiction? At all?
Wasn't there a movies thread? I know a few popped up in the past.
As for worthy films I've seen recently: Southern Comfort
Give this film a try, Umbrage. It can be taken metaphorically as many things, among them an analogy for the Vietnam War, why multiculturalism doesn't really work, and how the pragmatic generally go unnoticed and unheard until it is too late.
I've seen this film on TV when I was young, as far as I remember it takes the typical "innocents enter terrain they shouldn't have gone and encounter hostile inbred group of local rednecks" atmosphere of horror movies such as The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and puts a military sauce over it. Funny how the movie in ways does resemble First Blood which would be released a year later (although First Blood was based on a novel from '72)
I wasn't that impressed by the movie. I certainly wouldn't call it art.
Occassionally I'll download a movie but most of the time I'd rather not watch the movie twice (already regretting having watched it once and often deleting the movie after 20 minutes) It's not that I don't like movies at all it's just that I don't think highly of them. I've grown to consider it childish to get completely carried away by a movie and I've come to believe that it can have a very negative effect on people to constantly escape in a passive dreamworld. I suppose movies can be a good introduction to something like a historical person or a book or just an idea but that's about it. It's still just entertainment for the masses. I've seen my share of artistic movies too from Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising to Takeshi Kitano's Dolls and I still couldn't see it as more than entertainment. Just because a movie is weird doesn't make it art in my book.
A movie I recently saw and kinda liked because of its theme was
Black Death. But I also think it's essentially just a silly fairytale with some very stereotypical characters and gross b-acting. But if you liked the atmosphere in The Name Of The Rose and The Wicker Man and don't mind seeing it drenched in greasy Hollywood mayonnaise you might find it worthy of taking 90 minutes from your life. There's even a scene that might remind you of The Deer Hunter. I thought it was "entertaining" but its still typical Hollywood crap. It certainly isn't as good as the three movies it subtly steals from but since you recommended a movie I thought it would be fair to recommend one back. But all the movies I just named are shallow entertainment, I'd only consider TNOTR above average. Too bad it doesn't escape it's "detective" format and remains no more than a medieval Sherlock Holmes. But at least TNOTR requires some intelligence to be understood.
For "fiction" I prefer reading biographies and history and
random things Because truth is stranger than fiction.
I think movies by definition are not art. There are some movies that come close such as "Apocalypse Now" but to me those movies only incidentally get close to art, or perhaps only as far as the medium allows it. Its harder to translate a book into a movie then it is to translate a movie into a book so it seems obvious to me that books win. Even though I'm not a fan of fiction either. (Perhaps I'm becoming anti-art in general, would you consider me a hipster if I was? JK about that, I still love music, paintings and some selected poetry when it comes to art)
What specifically about the medium do you think disqualifies it from achieving a level of artistry?
When someone makes a painting they are putting their emotions into a work of art. They are
creating something. When someone is making a movie they're just capturing pretty images (and later photoshopping the hell out of them). In theater when an actor is playing he has to give everything in one performance, in a movie when someone is acting they can redo the shoot 200 times if they want to. When an actor fucks up on stage he fucks up the whole performance. When an actor fucks up a shoot he just gets a scolding from the director. Other than that there's obviously the commercial aspect of big movies and the lack of funds for promising indie movies that fucks up film making in general. And like I wrote earlier just because a movie is weird doesn't make it art. I wouldn't consider weird music art either, just weird.