5.
“I’d like to see you make a better movie.”
Responding to someone who says this with anything other than a shrug is to give the original commenter more of your time than this comment deserves.
4.
“You’re over-thinking it.”
or … “I go to movies to be entertained not to THINK!”
Just a couple notches above “Your expectations were too high,” the “You’re over-thinking it” comment is one I find hilarious. It’s a comment that asks you to ignore the specifics of the film and simply look at it as a blob of moving images without substance and forget the details the film places before you.
Take, for example, Johnny Mnemonic (1995) in which 320 gigabytes of data are loaded onto a 160 gigabyte hard drive stored in the title character’s head. Does it bother you this is impossible? If not, would you suggest someone was over-thinking it if they said it was bothersome?
Of course, not thinking about things does have its advantages:
3.
“Not every movie can be an Oscar winner.”
Ah ha, the excuse that started it all. This is the one my mother used on me after she saw Larry Crowne, a film I knew she would like, but when she threw the “Not every movie can be an Oscar winner” excuse at me it was the last straw. Here’s how the text conversation went:
Just got back from a great movie.
Oh, so you decided not to see Larry Crowne?
No, we saw Larry Crowne and I loved it… not every movie has to win an Oscar.
Of course not every movie has to be an Oscar winner and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone that looks down the list of Oscar winners (or nominees for that matter) each year and finds the same films they considered the best of that year. The question isn’t whether it will win an Oscar, the question is whether it was good or not. Sure, for her it was a good movie, to me it wasn’t, but none of that has to do with the Oscars. I didn’t dislike Larry Crowne because it won’t win any Oscars, I disliked it because it was a bad movie.
At this moment Hanna is one of my favorite films of the year… it won’t likely earn an Oscar nomination, yet I still love it.
2.
“You have to turn your brain off.”
No matter how hard you try you aren’t going to be able to turn your brain off unless you are considering permanent solutions. This excuse actually goes hand-in-hand with the “You’re over-thinking it” excuse, though I find this one to be just a tad lazier. This excuse usually accompanies a film with a story that’s largely incoherent and loaded with plot holes and side stories that make no sense. Anyone attempting to follow the story in a logical manner is therefore bound to get frustrated with inconsistencies and flawed filmmaking. Turning your brain off simply isn’t an option if you are trying to follow the story unless your goal is to become a vegetable, at which time flashing lights will suffice as entertainment.
There are, however, brainless films, that don’t require an abundance of thinking, but their plotlines hold water. They don’t fall completely apart when looked at a little closer. There’s a difference between a brainless movie and an incoherent and poorly constructed one.
Most films create their own inner-logic, such as the recently released Zookeeper where animals can talk. As a moviegoer you accept this fact, but when the logic the film creates begins to breakdown the film collapses on itself leaving viewers to wonder why the film was not only unfunny, but just why exactly the guy in the movie doesn’t do anything about the fact the zoo is keeping thinking and reasoning animals held captive.
1.
“No movie is perfect.”
or … “It’s not supposed to be a masterpiece, it’s supposed to be fun.”
or even … “It’s a movie not a master’s thesis.”
If this is what your analysis of a movie has come to then you have decided all movies are good. There’s no reason to have a conversation with you because no movie is perfect. If we all thought this way we’d become a society of moviegoers content with mediocrity because we’ve given up on the idea of striving for the very best, because nothing is ever perfect.
On top of that, “It’s not supposed to be a masterpiece, it’s supposed to be fun.” What does this mean? If you have to tell someone a movie is “supposed to be fun” doesn’t that suggest it failed at its goal in the first place? How does that conversation go?
That was great wasn’t it?!?!?
I didn’t like really like it. The plot was all over the place, there seemed to be jokes just thrown in randomly, the back-story took forever to set up and even then it barely worked. And the love story was forced and entirely unbelievable.
Man, whatever, it’s supposed to be fun, not a masterpiece.
Maybe it’s supposed to be fun, but it wasn’t. It made no sense. The action was good and the effects were cool, but overall I got annoyed with how dumb the story was and how none of it fit together.
You went in wanting to hate it. If you had read the comic it would make more sense. You just don’t get it. You’re over-thinking it. I’d like to see you make a better movie.
Tough but fair.
I think you get my point.
There are a myriad of other excuses I’m sure you’ve heard that drive you crazy the more you hear them and I’m sure some of the excuses listed above irk you the same way they do me. So here’s your chance, get it off your chest… What excuses have people given you for movies you thought were bad that drove you nuts? Share below!
