I was trying to think, why is it, you can watch some movies and dislike the behavior of some of the people in the movie, and yet like the movie, and even think it is great? While some other movies, you watch them, and dislike the behavior of some of the characters and you just don't think the movie is great at all, and you're repulsed and scandalized and horrified by some of the behavior?
You just think, why would they ("they") even make a movie about such horrid people, & horrible things? It's -- horrible! (And then inside your head you think, What are you, a Puritan? A moralizer? A censor??!! (oh no am I being judged for being judgmental...??!!)
OK, but a person has a right to an opinion, and to feelings. That's what art communicates to: our feelings. (Rolling Stone Keith Richards, when asked what he thinks about when he's performing onstage, answers, "Onstage, you don't think, you feel"...)
Watching some things, I am surprised by certain actions or dialogue, and I feel like, "Oh! That is outrageous!" And then -- well, that's the character, that's the show, you know it's like that, if you don't like it then watch something else...and also, outrageous is not necessarily bad; it can be textured, and enlightening.
Someone showed me a collection of printed customer reviews of various movies on DVD; I compared two films where I was offended and put off by the attitudes and activities of characters, and by some situations in the film; I didn't like or agree with many activities in both of these films -- one of these movies I would recommend to people to watch, and the other, I wouldn't.
I wasn't sure what made the difference, for me, but one of them was good,
to my way of thinking, and the other -- two hours o' my life I'll never get back...
And when I read the other viewers' opinions -- the customer reviews -- "crowd sourced opinion" -- total opposite of mine! LOL! (I must be a minority.) Most of the reviewers said my Non-Recommend was worth watching, though they found it disturbing, and the reviewers who commented on the one I Would-Recommend (2004's Criminal)
either claimed they knew all along what would happen or said it was "lightweight" or "short" or -- they seemed just to not even get it, or were only trying to think of something to say.
There is no one in Criminal that you want to learn from -- (do not take notes; don't try this at home). I guess I liked it because it was very well done. Flowed, skipped, jumped, danced, rolled-downhill...awful people, but -- hey it's fiction, and it gives the audience perspective on certain mindsets and characters. (Are they this way because of "SOCIETY" ...?) And the music -- the soundtrack accompanying the action is flawless, seamless, like a football play executed to perfection.
Surprising. Engaging. Even as you say, "Oh that's not nice!"
On the other film full of Awful People, where the majority said they were glad they watched it and I am Minority of One apparently, a viewer wrote, "If asked what the message from the movie, it's simply there is no honour among thieves. It is a film noir or semi-noir and I felt that I should be watching it inside a smoke-filled theatre."
I enjoyed that mixed metaphor: in politics, there's the image of the "smoke-filled room" but it's a room, not a theater...
in a smoke-filled room, you make deals...
if you find yourself in a smoke-filled theater, you don't make a deal you get out - !
Anyway -- those mixed metaphors are like a corkscrew-path through a forest where you walk on it and never come back...
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