Everyday life is boring
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Boyhood
hgmichna — 10 years ago(July 01, 2015 04:57 AM)
I have often said that a good movie must contain an unlikely act, because otherwise it would depict ordinary everyday life, which is boring.
This movie does show ordinary everyday life, progressing very slowly, in parts even very unpleasant, and consequently it is utterly boring. When I showed it, one family member after the other left the home cinema, mumbling that they had better things to do.
I alone held out until the very end, only to be "rewarded" with an abrupt ending of an unfinished story, if you can call this sequence of home videos a story.
There is nothing special about a bad, boring movie, but I am still trying to understand the large difference between my and my family's judgment and that of the critics, who gave the movie a metascore of 100. What boring lives must these critics lead that they find such a boring movie worth watching? -
shelemm — 10 years ago(July 01, 2015 08:01 AM)
Here is why I found Boyhood to be thrilling and had a profound emotional effect. I agree with critics who called it a masterpiece. For your reading pleasure..
http://www.imdb.com/board/11065073/board/thread/240989390 -
hgmichna — 10 years ago(July 01, 2015 11:22 PM)
"I find Oscar Bait infinitely more interesting than ticket bait"
I agree wholeheartedly.
However, when I judge movies, I think that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If a movie gets an Oscar for the excellent performance of an actor (actually the actor gets the Oscar), but the story is poor, then I still don't want to watch it.
A lot of movies fall through here in spite of their excellent actors, highly impressive scenery or computer graphics, perfect directing and camera, because all of these achievements cannot save a poor story.
I would even go so far to say that I prefer a poorly acted movie with a good story over an excellently made movie with a poor story. Sometimes I think that Hollywood has an acute shortage of good story authors. On other days I think that perhaps many movie-goers go only for the impressive imagery and don't care about the story at all. ("Pacific Rim", "Battleship", "Gravity" come to mind, to name some gorgeous-images science-fiction movies that lack a sensible, believable story.) -
Stenian — 10 years ago(July 11, 2015 07:13 PM)
Exactly my thoughts on this film. It was too ordinary and bland. It depicted everyday life. It didn't have a story arc or something gripping.
Drama films should still have a bit of suspense and intriguing scenarios. Look at
In The Bedroom
and
Little Children
for instance. This film kinda had their vibe, but it lacked their provocative story. And sorry, the 12 year thing, as good as it was, will NOT compensate a terribly boring narrative -
shelemm — 10 years ago(July 12, 2015 06:55 AM)
DId you read my post? I found this to be a intensely gripping movie. The very strong arc of the movie is not plot driven, but driven by powerful ideas.
Here is the original, where I give an example:
http://www.imdb.com/board/11065073/board/thread/240989390 -
shelemm — 10 years ago(July 13, 2015 03:14 AM)
"it's possible that some just follow their peers."
A lot of things are possible, I suppose, including the idea that your opoinion is not really your opinion, you are just being a jerk for the sake of it. Now doesn't that make you feel better? -
shelemm — 10 years ago(July 13, 2015 11:51 AM)
Revisiting a movie is hardly news. Am I supposed to be impressed by that? Is there a human being alive who has not changed their mind about something? If anything, the initial reaction would be considered more 'honest.'
Some opinions are not 'subjective.' "Sister Act Two" or "Joe Dirt" are never going to be hailed as classics of cinema. That's a fact. -
shelemm — 10 years ago(July 13, 2015 09:32 PM)
Yes I read the links. People changing their mind about a movie is as old as the hills, and offers no proof that their orignal review was insincere.
What is laughable is the article you linked. He claims opinions are subjective. That's the very definition of subjective, not a fact but an opinion. Awful writing. Maybe Englsih is not his first language.
And I guess you didn't get my joke about Joe Dirt. so bad that it's a fact, not an opinion. -
guy1234 — 10 years ago(February 03, 2016 06:03 AM)
Sometimes critics give films bad rating because they missed things. That is totally understandable. If a critic turned a good review into a bad review then I would raise an eyebrow.
Also sometimes when most critics make the same comparison or say the same things it's because it is readily apparent. Also they all went to film school probably so they all read the same stuff and got indoctrinated the same way give or take. -
infracaninophile — 10 years ago(July 12, 2015 05:23 PM)
I have often said that a good movie must contain an unlikely act, because otherwise it would depict ordinary everyday life, which is boring.
I disagree, rather strongly. First with your contention that a film must contain an "unlikely act" and secondly that "everyday life is boring."
You appear to imply that only something "unlikely" can startle us out of boredom. This isn't my experience of life, and I'm sorry if it is yours, but your perception that life is a bore is, thankfully, not shared by everybody. I have no data on how many people find "everyday life" to be boring, but certainly I don't know many such people.
Not to be rude, but I think being "bored" is a choice. It doesn't just happen to you. You choose to be bored, when you could instead choose to do something about it. If you can't change an external reality (for example, I hate waiting in line, but sometimes it can't be avoided but I
can
avoid being BORED while waiting in line). You have inner resources, and so does everyone else. Whether they get used is a different matter.
What boring lives must these critics lead that they find such a boring movie worth watching?
I liked the movie very much and did not find it "boring," and my life isn't boring either. Every day is full of interesting things to do, learn or experience, the only thing I am short of is time. I suspect the critics who liked the film vary in their tolerance of "boredom," but there's no reason to think they lead particularly boring lives. After all, if you like films, being a film reviewer who gets to go to lots of movies and write about them is a pretty good gig. -
hgmichna — 10 years ago(July 12, 2015 11:41 PM)
I agree to some extent. My expression was inaccurate. What I meant to say is that the depiction of ordinary everyday life in a movie is boring.
It seems though that you would not agree with this either.
And here we are at a crossroads where movie judgments and movie tastes differ. I cannot mete out universal, absolute judgment. I can only say how I perceive the movie. Obviously, many people, including particularly the critics, do not share my movie taste, but I cannot understand why. Have they all grown up under circumstances as miserable as those in the movie? Do they see themselves in the boy?
There is another point that deters me. For this movie they picked a boy who had a life that was both uninteresting (in my view) and unusually unpleasant in parts. Why would I want to see, for example, how a violent alcoholic terrorizes his family? I have never even remotely experienced anything like this. I know that such people exist, but do I want to watch them?
All this also does not really advance the life of the boy in any positive sense. The only thing we can be glad about when watching "Boyhood" is that he did not take more mental damage. I think, to some extent I would have to be a masochist to enjoy this movie.
Yet another point is what the boy actually does. I don't see him doing anything interesting. He seems to react to his environment in a submissive way. The only thing where he sticks out is his photography, but the movie almost tries to suppress this. We get to see it only in very few scenes, he scarcely talks about it, there are no explanations, we hardly get to see any of his photos.
Even meeting the girl in the ending is not his achievement. She descends on him purely by accident. He did not choose her, and she did not choose him. What in the world did the story author think? That finding a partner happens on its own? Here the movie is not even boring, it also becomes unrealistic. -
shelemm — 10 years ago(July 13, 2015 03:17 AM)
"many people, including particularly the critics, do not share my movie taste, but I cannot understand why."
I explain why in my post, which I thoughfully link yet again for your convenience:
http://www.imdb.com/board/11065073/board/thread/240989390 -
hgmichna — 10 years ago(July 13, 2015 03:58 AM)
Thanks, I had read it already, but what you explain is mostly some retelling of the movie and pointing out what you like.
Perhaps I do not even understand what is happening, because apparently I live in a different world. For example, the scene you like so much, that you linked to on YouTube. You write, "He is high this whole time, but doesnt want to announce it." What do you mean by "high"? Do you mean that he took some narcotic drug?