Netflix?
Here’s another comic — yay for updates.
I’ve been using Netfilx (since I just started it a few months ago) primarily to watch TV shows in big chunks, but I also throw in all the movies that I kinda wanted to see but never got around to. As a result, I always feel dissapointed when I open up that envelope, I’m like… “yeah…. another over-hyped movie that I kinda wanted to see but was too far at the edge of my radar and now I don’t care about…”
This has led to finding some genius movies (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, and The Assasination of Jesse James etc…) but it has also led to some major dissapointments. I just finished watching “Stranger Than Fiction,” and I have to say I was very underwhelmed. I don’t mean to rat on it, because I lot of people liked it, and I’m sure there was good reason (I certainly don’t want to rain on anyone’s enjoyment of a film they like, I just enjoy discussing movies, even the ones I don’t like), but I just did not have anything good to say about it — other than Maggie’s ridiculous hotness, of course.
I don’t like all the comparisons to “Truman Show,” one of my favorites, because it has nothing in common with that. I don’t like the argument that Ferrell put forth this great drama performance, because he didn’t at all–not that it was bad, it was just… normal, and nothing we hadn’t seen him do before. Not to mention the “genius work” the author in the movie was supposed to be writing sounded really lame… Most of all, I didn’t like the story because no one questioned what was happening, how it was happening, or what it meant — that fictional characters were coming alive (and somehow existing in the same timeline as the author, not to mention the same physical space). When I see meta-fiction like that, I want it to be explored as an idea of it’s own (as in Grant Morrisson’s “The Invisibles” and “Seven Soldiers of Victory”)but Stranger than fiction ignored the massive implications it brought up, and used it as a vehicle for a quaint little fable.
I guess thats fine, if thats what you’re expecting, but I was expecting some sort of intellectual stimulation, and when I didn’t get any, I felt cheated. Thats all.
A lot of times, expectations can make or break a movie like that, so maybe its purely my own fault that I didn’t like that movie. There’s several movies where I went in hoping for a certain thing, and when it didn’t pay off, I leave dissapointed, although the movie may have paid off in other, perhaps even better, ways.
Allright, I didn’t mean that to turn into some kind of essay on film… I’m out guys — see ya friday with another comic!
October 1st, 2008 at 7:37 am
I felt the same way about Garden State (I think you and I have had that conversation though). I could see where people liked it, but I didn’t. I liked Stranger Than Fiction, but you bring up good points as to why you didn’t. I can’t tell you why I liked it…it’s probably because of the metaness of it. And Maggie. She’s pretty spectacular, eh?
October 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am
Yeah, Garden State is an all time favorite for me — although, I can understand why some people don’t like it — also, I had never watched “Scrubs” before watching that movie, and now that I have seen Scrubs, it kinda ruined “Garden State” for me.
Sometimes you just like a movie and you can’t explain why, I get that. And yeah, Maggie is amazing. I liked her character a lot in “Stranger than Fiction,” also, but I had a real hard time believing she would hook up with Ferrell’s character.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:44 am
Give credit where credit is due…who told you Assasination and Guide were both awesome…oh that is right, me, the movie snob! BOOM!
October 1st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Also, regarding your “beef” that no one questioned what was going on…that’s not new. Franz Kafka did the same thing in “Metamorphosis.” It starts on page one as this guy having turned into a bug. It doesn’t tell you how or why and the “hero” never really asks the question either.
I think the POINT is that is doesn’t matter HOW it happened or WHY, but, rather what our characters are going to do about it and how they will respond. In “Stranger Than Fiction” it was not necessary to know the particulars. This guy doesn’t know why he’s suddenly the subject of a fiction novel, but by the time he figures that out, he’ll be dead. So he better spend his time dealing with it, rather than trying to figure it out.
I liked “Stranger…” but I can understand how it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. However, don’t get me started again on the travishamockery that is “The Assassination of Jesse James”………..or “Lost in Translation”……………………………………………………………or “Copland.”
October 1st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Wait….I mis-typed. You never claimed that there was anything “new” about “Stranger than…”. Sorry. I guess my point is simply that lots of literature and film have taken that approach before. I’m also just wondering if you’ve liked any of them and been able to ignore the fact that nothing is explained.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I liked “Metamorphosis,” but mostly because of an anecdote I read: it said that Kafka did his first public reading of the story, and could barely finish it because of how hard he was laughing — I don’t know if thats true or not, but reading Kafka as comedy, rather than serious drama made me really like the story. I also liked some of the allegorical-ness of it, and that didn’t need explanation, in the way that Animal Farm doesn’t need it either.
My problem with “Stranger” I think, was that I wasn’t expecting that. If someone told me, before I watched it that, “this isn’t actually meta-fiction at all, they just use the idea as a vehicle for a predictable, somewhat cheesy, and very unbelievable love story and some nice tidbits about life,” then I probably would have enjoyed it more.
I like good metafiction, where you have things like the author inserting himself into the work, characters becoming aware that they are someone else’s creation, interacting with the author — there’s a lot of great themes in that idea that I love exploring. Grant Morrisson does it all the time, and Stephen King does it a lot in “The Dark Tower,” which is genius. I was hoping for an exploration of those themes in “Stranger”, but instead I got a generic romantic comedy, that wasn’t bad, but… well there it is.
Chris, I understand hating “Lost in Translation” and “Copland,” but why the hate for “Jesse James”?
October 6th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Well, two words for you, MIke. Bore-ing! I’ve had dentist appointments that were more exciting than that crappy movie.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I think I just got owned on my own website…
October 6th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Um…that’s “pwned.”
October 6th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
/bow