Film Courage: How often do you watch a movie or TV show that you hate?
Chris Gore, Founder/Owner of FilmThreat/Author/Filmmaker:
I try to avoid watching movies or TV shows that I hate right now. I think the one that
I'm watching that I vehemently dislike is the Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power
but even then I don't really hate the show. I just don't care but I feel it's important that in order
to have an opinion about something, I need to have seen it. There is quite a contingent of
people who have lots of thoughts and opinions about things that they know nothing about.
I believe it was Harlan Ellison who taught me that the common phrase that you've heard everyone has
the right to their opinion is incorrect. You only have a right to your informed opinion.
Generally I like to wait to see a TV show or a movie before I form an opinion about it.
There have been plenty of cases where trailers especially these days the trailers and marketing
are deceptive they represent completely differently what a show is going to be. I think
a lot of that is pandering to journalists to try to get them to think a certain way about something
but I don't know I think when it comes to hate watching anything for me that normally comes
comes along the lines of like reality television which reality television is like potato chips not
good for you, they're not good for you but I'm like that was the worst thing ever I can't stand
it this character I can't believe that she's with him and he's with her why did they break
up and get back together and I'm going to open up another bag of chips so I tend to not hate watch
movies but I will 100 percent hate watch reality television which is its own form of storytelling
and just to kind of give a little background of where that came from
the the sort of competitive reality TV shows like Survivor and whatnot
can be traced back to a documentary called hands on a hard body which is a movie that
I believe played Sundance and it's about a Texas truck dealership car dealership that every year
they'd have a little promotion on the radio where they would give away a truck for free
all you had to do and they would select people from the radio listening audience and they
would be selected as contestants where they all they had to do was put their hands on a
truck and the last person who still has their hands on the truck gets to keep the truck
this is a documentary film that I strongly recommend that you seek out but it's a documentary
subject that it's got a setup it's got a bunch of variety of characters that we meet it's got
your main conflict you've got like what the the goal of each character is I want to get the truck
because my my old truck is not working I got you meet all these different types of people
walks of life they do get bathroom breaks right but you got to keep your hands on that truck
and that the success of that documentary I believe led to these competitive reality shows it's all
storytelling right there are you'll see in the credits small story producer right on a reality
show because they create these conflicts but if I hate watch anything it's bad reality television
and I hope you'll forgive me you're forgiven I've done the same but what is it what what do you get
from it like when it's like you're supposed to stop doing something but you can't what payoff
do you get I guess the payoff from hate watching bad reality TV for me is I wanna I wanna see
I want to see a good outcome for the people that I care about right so I want to see the winner get
the prize okay I want to see the couple that should be together remain together the couple
that should part let them go their separate ways so I'd like to see some sort of positive outcome
it never really goes that way but I do find reality television reality television is is
useful it's useful in terms of being able to identify that this is storytelling like
other storytelling forms so you can't completely dismiss it but I only ever hate watch those shows
how much do you think hate watching has increased in the last few years
well for me not that much I feel like my time is is is really valuable in terms of like trying to
juggle a lot of projects I do a movie website I have my own YouTube channel [Film Threat] and
I make make movies on the side and I don't have a lot of time so if I'm going to invest in something
I'm hoping for a good experience so I don't hate watch stuff as much as I used to but if I'm gonna
hate watch anything it's usually something where I want to completely turn my brain off
which is always going to be something from reality TV but it's interesting that the
roots of reality TV can be traced to a little documentary from decades ago and I think what
was the Seven Up! series or something by the British director try to think of what yeah
Seven Up! that was where this British director [Michael Apted, Paul Almond] revisited kids every
seven years just to see how they evolved and developed not particularly a competition show
per se but an interesting kind of check-in with like well how are they surviving right
yeah don't feel bad I got suckered into Joe Millionaire [2003] I did also oh my God you're
one of the few people who've seen that show I had tried to get my cable shut off because I
wanted to go cold turkey [from television for awhile] I didn't want any more distractions
and then Joe Millionaire came along and I but I didn't hate watch it. I was just intrigued by it
but I can see that there is a trend and we see it online and it's become a new sport to hate watch
and so I just was curious why we we've tipped the scales well yeah not everything has to be
when we eat not everything has to be a salad or stuff that's good for us you can have a
a cheeseburger from a fast food restaurant and not everything in our media consumption has to
be a social justice documentary that's very you're being told is very important and you
feel really good for having sat there and watched it I'm informed I'm enlightened now
so yeah you can you can watch bad reality TV I won't judge okay thanks well the road rules
weren't wasn't bad that was when you first would kind of like set it off as well but
Road Rules and the real world MTV that was an interesting one so yeah no all of that stuff
how do you deal with hate watching because you have to watch so many things
but I don't like like I don't really hate watching this since like I don't know what
I'm gonna see like I see a lot of indie movies that nobody sees see a lot of independent films
I may end up hating the movie at the end but I'm always hopeful I'm always optimistic I'm
always optimistic and especially when it comes to Independent films I tend to overlook flaws because
to me an independent film is like a bird with a broken wing I want to see it flourish I want
to see it fly I want to see it go on and have its best possible life but Independent films the deck
is always stacked against independent filmmakers budget wise resources marketing resources
it's the fact that you can make anything watchable on an indie level is remarkable to me so I always
look for that so you're not setting out sorry to hate it no no now I'm not setting out to
hate in in especially an independent film but there are independent films I've seen
that I really hated by the end oh man I'm not gonna name names but they exist quite a few.