Movies Talk! Talkin' about movies!

[o.pwuaioc]

Western classical composers that I prefer over Beethoven: Iannis Xenakis, Glenn Branca, Horațiu Rădulescu, Hermann Nitsch, Lukas Rickli, Hildegard von Bingen, Luigi Nono, Johann Sebastian Bach, Erik Satie, Julius Eastman, Leo Ornstein, Sofia Gubaidulina, Igor Stravinsky, Francisco Guerrero, Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and John Cage.

Besides von Bingen, Bach, Stravinsky, and Satie, the only other piece I like in any of the composers you listen to is Cage's 4'33", and because that's four minutes and thirty three seconds I don't have to listen to his "music." Some of these hardly qualify as "classical." Xenakis, Part, Reich, and Cage have nothing in common with Hildegard von Bingen, Bach, and Beethoven, who are more closely related. I'm in the camp that absolutely despises the former and adores the latter.

You also said that he isn't one of the best, which is by any metric untrue. That you don't like that kind of music (evidence by the lack of his contemporaries in your list) speaks more to your musical preferences than your statement, cautioning away people from listening to him, would have you believe.

It's like saying, "Biggie was not one of the best. Instead, I prefer to listen to Artie Shaw, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, and Beck."

[prfsnl_gmr]

Well, this has gone a weird direction.

Yep....let’s get this back on track.

My children demanded to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the only Star Wars movie the haven’t seen, and my wife and I relented because they’re a few years older than they were the last time they were into Star Wars. Rewatching the movie from start to finish for the first time in at least a decade, I stand by my position that it is a top-tier Star Wars film. It’s as least as good as The Return of the Jedi and better than The Force Awakens.

[marurun]

No, no. I gave Revenge of the Sith a chance just a couple years ago and it let me down, just like the others.

[prfsnl_gmr]

No, no. I gave Revenge of the Sith a chance just a couple years ago and it let me down, just like the others.

I think it helps to keep your expectations in check and examine what it does right (and what it does so very, very wrong). When I was growing up, most Star Wars movies were good. Now, a simple majority are not that good. Accordingly, my expectations were low, and I came away from it happily surprised it wasn’t terrible.

[Ack]

No, no. I gave Revenge of the Sith a chance just a couple years ago and it let me down, just like the others.

Stop, Maru. He has the high ground.

[marurun]

But the acting and writing are SO bad...

[o.pwuaioc]

But the acting and writing are SO bad...

I'm with marurun. There are some fun scenes, so kids might enjoy it, but overall it's not a good movie to me. None of the trilogy was.

[RCBH928]

I hope I don't start WWIII here but I never got why Stars Wars has such a cult following. The idea of fighting in space seems an old one but probably done very well by George Lucas, kind of how the idea of schools of magic is an old idea but done right J. K. Rowling. My only guess that in the 70s the SFX amazed people and showed them a life like representation of how a war in space would look like, kind of like how the original King Kong amazed the audience. But Alien does not have that kind of following although I remember when I watched probably in the early 2000s for the first time, the SFX were so good the movie looked a modern production. Movies from 70s(maybe even little bit in the 80s) and earlier usually had SFX that you probably can tell its fake and old. Plus it has some weird release order, it starts with chapter IV?!

Even if the movies are great, why can't they accept them for what they are and let it rest like the Godfather or LoTR. Why do we have this continuous stream of Star Wars series, movies, and media. It kind of turned into comic/superhero IP don't you think? Of course, if I owned it I will milk it to death to maximize my net worth.

Paradoxically, this is why reviews are so important. Yes, reviewers do tend to approach things from a slightly higher-minded place, but if you know a couple reviewers and their predilections well, you can often discern from their review whether you'll like something or not, even if your take doesn't agree with theirs. The way I see it, a good movie reviewer forms a relationship with their audience, and it's not that you'll like everything they like so much as you come to learn WHY they like what they like. And even if they don't like something they'll still tell you enough about the movie to be able to decide for yourself. One critically-panned but audience-loved comedy is not going to be the same as another, and having a good relationship with a reviewer's output can help you tell the difference between the two.

Although not quite a review, I found the best way to pick stuff that is more to your liking is computer algorithms. Those iMDB "More Like This...", Amazon's "Frequently bought together..."and YouTube recommendations are spot on!

I like reviews that tell you what to expect, what is it like, and who might enjoy it that keep it short and simple over reviews that analyze and give an opinion. The later is good if you were into something that you would like to read more about something and investigate it, like "How the Doom series is unique and compared to other games in the genre"

[stickem]

^ fun fact if you haven't seen the nerds rental review. Lucas wanted to make a flash gordon film, but couldn't get the rights so star wars was made. He borrows some of the same ideas from the old flash gordon films..

[marurun]

Honestly, the entire Star Wars franchise is supported by the very first film. A New Hope isn’t my favorite film (it is my second favorite), but it uniquely melded together so many elements from different genres with an incredible and distinct Williams score and honestly ground-breaking visual and audio effects, and on a relatively modest budget no less. Star Wars basically did so many new things and broke so many barriers, while combining so many familiar tropes and elements at the same time. When it first came out it was quite literally a film-making revolution in a single package. Was it flawed? Incredibly so. In some ways it’s more like a B-movie than a typical action film of the time. But in the context of when it was released it was revelatory in so many way. Lucas’s strength at the time was not so much making new stuff from whole cloth (or even his directing skills) as it was remixing what already exists in bizarre and new ways. And as he got older, his skills in that area distinctly waned.