LogFAQs > #979969202

anyway

Espeon posted...

but it just feels like casually popular movies are held to SO much higher of a standard by this group of rankers, and it sucks to see movie after movie after movie that was actually FUN to watch get picked off while the more pretentious films on the list get to just step over that EXTREMELY low bar.

so one of the immediate issues I have with this idea is that it implies that you think people ranking "artsy" films highly aren't actually enjoying watching them, they're just ranking them highly because they're artsy. That is almost 100% not the case.

Like you gave Tetsuo as an example. Tetsuo isn't a movie I would consider pretentious by any means, I mean there's quite literally a guy with a giant drill for a dick. But it's also a movie that I thought was extremely fun. Like you pointed out my score for that compared to Basket Case, and yeah they're far about. They're both gross-out movies that are visually alarming, but the difference is that Tetsuo left me shocked and laughing anytime I wasn't. Compare that to Basket Case, which just left me annoyed and grossed out.

And the thing is, I know you understand the feeling, because it's similar to your opinions on Re-Animator v Basket Case. Re-Animator is gross, with some poorly-aged effects and some pretty bad, campy acting. And yes, it's even kinda rapey. On a surface level, the things that are bad about one are bad about the other, EXCEPT for the fact that it's also just a much more enjoyable movie than Basket Case; it's funny and has a legitimately interesting plot.

As far as "artsiness" goes, yeah, as a very broad statement, I generally enjoy movies more when they make me think, or keep me guessing, or make me feel something. Like Gremlins I don't care for, but it's not because I don't think its artsy enough; it's because I think the Gremlins are annoying and like I mentioned in my write-up, it's a horror comedy that didn't scare me or make me laugh.

Of the movies that are left, I don't know that I'd really call any of them artsy except The Shining (which was inevitably going to make the top 10) and maybe Possession, which I'm legitimately surprised has made it this far. I'm guessing you're putting Henry and Videodrome in there too, but I think those are both horror movies benefitting a lot from being some of the more disturbing entries on this list (which I can speak on more when they drop because I don't want to spoil my rankings)