Claire Panke
Second Unit
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2002
- Messages
- 412
Originally Posted by Elizabeth S
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
Granted, I have never seen the last 20 minutes of this film. It is just one of the most unpleasant films I've seen and I finally walked out and let my date finish watching the film. Spent the time in the lobby talking with the theater worker about having to clean up vomit after the film. I've seen about 3 Greenaway films now and concluded they are just not for me. I like dark and to some depressing films (love the aforementioned "Happiness"), but I don't need to see dog shit, maggots and a fork in the cheek in the guise of an arthouse film. I could never understand Roger Ebert's love of this film, but came to realize I leaned more toward Siskel's tastes.
I adore the films of Peter Greenaway - but he's not especiallt interested in conentional narrative movie making, so his oevre is not for everyone. (In fact, just finished an afternoon with Night Watching today - I can imagine what the Hobbit fans who track this down will think, LOL.) I've owned the CTWL on DVD since it was firwst released in the formar, and I would buy it on BD in a heartbeat. It may help to know that it isn't (nor was it intended to be) "realistic", although I don't find it conventionally shocking. As a movie about fascism, it is meant to be uncomfortable viewing.
If Greenaway offends I'd definitely advise you to steer clear of Pasolini films in general and Salo in particular. (I've seen Salo once and that is quite enough.) Frankly, I've felt Mel Gibson's recent output was much more offputting than anything Greenaway has done (Greenaway's films do have an intellecutal rigor as opposed to Gibson's underlying masochism, that is something I find fairly repellent.)
There are lots of films I don't like, that were either disappointments or movies I thought were overrated or that I find just plain silly (Zardoz, frex, is too hippy-dippy-trippy to loathe; I can say I first saw it in is original theatrical run and so can put it into the context of its time). I have no use for gore porn either, mindless action flicks and Michael Bay movies I just don't watch.
I just don't have the energy to hate most mediorce movies. Moreover, there's hardly a film mentioned in this thread that someone, somewhere doesn't like or even love (see above). I generally try to stay away from movies I don't think I'll like - why waste time and money on something that's not good or you know isn't to your taste? You couldn't have paid me to see Pearl Harbor.
That said, I have to jump in and share my strong dislike of Van Helsing, a film I would've walked out of had I been alone. Probably the closest I've come to truly loathing a movie is Event Horizon. What a tiresome let down considering the cast.
I like Daniel Craig as Bond - the other Bond movies are hardly great art y'know - and I must confess Gladiator is a guilty pleasure, not good, but it's the only sword and sandle porn I've enjoyed in modern times.