Posted on 10/22/2006 4:36:47 PM PDT by abb
I wretch every time I see "Bad Santa" being shown on the TV AGAIN and noticing that it's been rated 3 stars. What an insult to decent people.
Bad Santa is proof that if you just indulge in pointless vulgarity for its own sake what you end up with isn't 'shock' but constitutional monotony.
Which mainstreams vulgarity and passes for comedy.
Does this mean the gross-out brothers will be out, period?
My favorite dream. I am so tired of seeing what could be such a promising comedic premise sullied by junior-high level bathroom humor. I happen to like Ben Stiller as a comedian but I get so sick of the toilet treatment that seem to populate his movies. I don't know if it's his choice or the gross-out brothers but I would like it to stop. Is there not a decent director who can show that true humor doesn't depend on gross-out stuff once a viewer is older than 13 years.
Yep, digital actors are going to be the norm within 10 years.
Are you sick of the word "passionate" yet?
Is there still a market out there for the witty drawing-room comedy?
Hollywood ocassionally stumbles on something that is both funny AND decent. "Elf" starring Will Ferrell (who to my knowledge has never been in anything remotely family friendly other than this) is hysterical. And family friendly to boot.
Why can't we have more "Elfs" and less "Bad Santas?"
I'd go. I even like some of the British humor like "Yes, Minister" and "Keeping Up Appearances" and even "The Red Green Show" which have some slapstick elements but the humor is clean and much more sophisticated than the movies about passing gas.
Haven't seen Elf or Bad Santa although I think I saw a snippet of Elf once. I'll check into it. Clean humor is rare and if anyone knows about it, let me know. I know some of those aren't cutting edge acting but I'd take poor acting over sleazy humor anyday.
I don't go to movies to be grossed out, freaked out or sexually aroused. Depending on my needs, I want movies that entertain me, make me laugh or think and help me be optimistic about life. If one movie can do that, it's great but I'll take two out of three and sometimes only one of those if it is good enough. One of my favorite movies has to be "The Train" starring Burt Lancaster. It is neither humorous nor optimistic; it is dark, violent, and pessimistic but also truly thought-provoking as one considers the worth of art compared to a human life.
(By the way, "They" say the more complex the mind, the more simple the humor should be. ;o)) I know I need a break regularly.
Horror movies and sexuallly suggestive films have been a constant from the start. When the British version of Frankenstein came out in the mid 1950s (the one with Christopher Lee), it was regarded as unwatchably gory. People were supposedly passing out in the theater.
I'll bet half the ones who use it, don't know what book it's from.
Let 'em drink the Kool Aid they brewed for themselves. I'd be a bit more sympathetic if the HollyWeird products were not soooo Libroid.
Yes, they have been staples but I avoid them. I understand the attraction and I think there are some well-thought-out horror movies but I, personally, do not like them because of their effect on my dream-state. I have a very active imagination and it doesn't take much to get me into an endless nighttime horror loop. I know others who can handle it, and more power to them. I just know my own tastes and tolerances and I respect them.
Fourth time I heard it this week, but not just from this forum. I heard it from a woman who was hawking a book about cosmetic surgery, about the war in Iraq TWICE and now this.
That's certainly what they set out to do. Better affecting one's dream state then giving one a headache which is what he majority of these vomitorium films induce today. I recall reading some contemporary reviews of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein upon its 1819 publication and there was a fair share of the "Pure Depravity" sort.
Forgot about the sexually suggestive movies. I have little problem with those. What I despise are the sexually explicit and violently explicit. That's why Hitchcock was so good: he was a master of suggestion. He didn't dwell on gore or sexuality, he suggested it and let the audience use their own imaginations. I don't need to see sweaty bodies to get the picture.
Now I also don't watch Hitchcock movies either if one is especially horrific. Tension I can deal with. Horror affects me strongly and wastes my money and time and energy.
What I think Hollywood fails to realize is that people have enough horror in their real lives that we need the opposite for our entertainment. If I recall, some of the cheeriest movies were made and/or shown during World War II to help the people cope. I need break from the horror of seeing Pelosi/Reid in charge of our nation.;o) Now this is a bit of a good-bad time (economy good, terrorism bad) but Hollywood doesn't contribute to the national mood by portraying ever-more horrific scenarios and nihilism.
"I recall reading some contemporary reviews of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein upon its 1819 publication and there was a fair share of the "Pure Depravity" sort"
No doubt. Elvis was obscene. The Beatles were depraved. Culture gets defined down from earlier standards and the more we allow it, the more desperate the search for something that still shocks. I miss the old days when people could speak a fair sentence without tossing in the "F" word like commas. We have been exposed to it for so long, it often doesn't even register as obscenity any more. Much further and we will be seeing snuff videos regularly on prime time broadcasts.
I take Aristotle's view that any subject no matter how horrific or bleak can be uplifting merely by being treated with artistry.
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