[YMS] So the Vancouver film fest is still going on
and I'm still working on the rest of that Walking Dead review in between movies.
But here's another quick update so you know what I think of the movies.
First was Camille Claudel 1915.
Juliette Binoche is amazing as usual and everything felt incredibly and disturbingly real.
It's definitely very slow paced but I kinda liked it.
The film does stretch on for a bit but I can understand it's point in doing so.
They really want you to feel as uncomfortable as the main character in this one.
You kind of suffer with her in a way.
When the story moved away from Camille and focused then on Paul,
I found it really difficult to care about what was happening.
The slow and dreary tones stay the same as it was before but it no longer really had a purpose.
Overall I really enjoyed it but I'll probably never see it again.
There were a few preferences that kept it from being recommendable for me so I'll give it a six.
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Next was Ain't Them Bodies Saints starring Casey Affleck.
Everything was generally well done but it seriously felt as if as least 30 minuets
was missing from the movie.
With that kind of setup they definitely could have done more with it.
Everything was well done but I was so underwhelmed by the end of it.
Everything that I watched was definitely good but nothing stood out as great.
They definitely could have spent more time developing the story and characters.
And its not as if anything was really difficult to understand
but I kind of felt as if I hardly knew these people and that maybe if I did, I might care a bit more about what's going on.
I'm giving this one a six.
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Next was Borgman.
I definitely appreciate that it tried to be different.
And it definitely had a sense of humor for a while.
But once the initial shock of "oh isn't this so quirky?"
Was gone, It probed to be really repetitive.
And no amount of quirkiness was really unexpected at that point.
Yep, they just killed a person... again.
Didn't see that one coming.
I give this one a five out of ten.
Next I saw Blue is The Warmest Colour.
The controversial lesbian love story that won the Palme D'or at Cannes.
It was kind of hard to judge this movie.
There's obviously a lot of really impressive talent involved.
It's well shot and everything seems super real and natural.
I love it when directors have actors overlap the ends of each others sentences
to make the conversation seem more natural.
As opposed to the all too common method of just waiting for the other person to finish their lines.
And it was cool how you could even hear some of the
conversations in the background sync up with the extras lips.
Overall, it was filmed superbly.
The characters were extremely real and relate-able and I was always able
to think of them as the characters rather than the actors themselves.
It does kind of bug me how often characters eat spaghetti in this movie.
Like seriously? They ate spaghetti like fucking four times.
And I kind of feel as if the gratuitous sex scenes could have been cut down a little.
I mean I'm all for them, and it did help me understand the bond between the characters,
but after a few minuets I was seriously starting to understand why the actors
came out and said they felt like prostitutes while filming it.
It kind of crossed the line between making a movie and pretending to make a movie
so you can watch two girls have sex on camera.
The sex was convincing though.
I mean you definitely see vag to mouth contact.
And to set things straight, I think it would have been excessive regardless of their gender.
And holy shit if it was two dudes this movie would have never even been released.
One thing that really bothered me was the way that they filmed the club scenes.
And this is something that most movies are guilty of.
But they're in an obviously loud bar and the actors are talking as loud as they were outside.
When you're filming a bar scene it makes sense to add music in post production
because if you didn't then as soon as you made a cut in your editing
the song would cut as well and it would cease to be seamless.
So when they're filming those scenes and delivering those lines
there's nothing that they really have to shout over.
But then they add in the loud music and the dialogue stays loud enough to hear
but they're fucking whispering it.
It takes all the realism away for me.
The music in the bacckground is obviously supposed to seem loud
because of the post production effects but the characters are never
speaking as though there's something loud in the room that they're talking over.
The Social Network did the club scenes perfectly
and sadly most movies do not.
I lacked a bit of empathy towards the main character
at the end and I'm not sure if I was supposed to or not.
Overall the movie had a lot of great things going for it.
And even though I thought that some things don't work and I do have some criticisms about it,
It is definitely recommendable and I'd give it a seven out of ten.
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Next was You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.
This might be the single worst movie that I've seen at Vancouver film fest.
I don't know how this movie wound up in my watch list but I did not expect,
even if I were to just pick a random fucking movie from this film fest and watch it,
that I could see something so fucking bad and painful here.
It's filmed in a kind of 1960s 1970s style.
But it's not really a parody.
In fact, It seems as though it was filmed that way so you couldn't call it out on how fucking stupid it was.
So at the beginning of the movie everybody gets a phone call because somebody that they knew died.
And they all have to meet at the same location so they can be present for his will reading.
When they read his will, a video shows up and its him.
And he's like "You all, at one time, performed in my play Evrydice.
So now I'm going to play a video of other people performing the parts from Evrydice.
and then you can all just sit in your chairs and talk along with it for no fucking reason."
And that's the whole fucking movie.
So I'm watching a 1960s slash 70s style movie about actors who are playing themselves,
but have no flushed out character whatsoever, playing characters from a ply that isn't actually being performed,
and every one in a while you're going to make a really shitty effect to make it seem as though
the characters are supposed to be in the correct setting of the fucking play.
The play is the most irrelevant thing I've ever fucking heard.
Maybe if this movie was a showcase of fantastic performances than
it would be worth this convoluted and fucking retarded excuse.
But it wasn't, it was just fucking people reading.
Each superfluous layer of bullshit in this movie makes it less realistic.
How am I supposed to give a shit about anything?
This was a terrible idea and I'm giving this one a four out of ten.
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Next was Big Bad Wolves.
It was definitely entertaining.
Most of the gore kind of really sucked.
It had a really good sense of humour
but it didn't really feel real and everything was kind of retarded convenient.
It was definitely fun to watch though.
I would have to give this one a six out of ten.
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Next is Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve.
This documentary was well paced, well informed, and it definitely had some interviews of people that knew their shit.
I definitely recommend this to anyone who doesn't really know much about the federal reserve.
It's like taking a course in economics.
But if there's one thing that kind of weighs this movie down its that it doesn't
really separate itself from every single other documentary exactly like this.
It's all useful information, but there's been quite a few documentaries that have come out and already said it.
I'm giving this one a six out of ten.
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Next we saw Wadjda, or as I like to call it, wajjjjah.
I definitely did not experience as much pain or hate myself as much as watching You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.
But in terms of film making, I'd say its just as bad.
Every single one of the actors sucked.
Nothing felt real.
But it's on the right side of a political issue so you have to like it right?
The main character is a little girl in Saudi Arabia who wants a bike but everyone around her is like
"No. Bikes are not for girls. You’re not allowed because we don't like women in this country."
But she wants to save up money to buy one and the one bike is too expensive.
but gee willikers it turns out that there’s a fucking Qur’an recital competition
that would win just enough money to fulfil the main characters goals.
(Deep voice) I wonder if they're going to have a bike at the end of the movie?
Jesus fucking Christ this movie is so fucking poorly written and acted and directed.
I get it, it's you're first movie and you're the first ever female director from Saudi Arabia to ever make a movie.
Does that mean that you are good at it?
No.
So let's all stop giving out fake praise for the sake of being politically correct.
You made a really bad movie.
And, oh my god, when she was riding her bike towards the highway at the end of the movie.
It was set up so well to have her get run over as soon as the uplifting music was playing.
If that had actually happened then that would have made up for the rest of the movie.
But it didn't.
Four out of ten.
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The last one I saw was Like Father, Like Son.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes.
I really liked this movie overall and I thought it had a great premise to start out with.
The soundtrack wasn't amazing but it actually had a purpose in the way that it sounded.
Sometimes it felt a little black and whit in the way that the movie presented things.
But overall it was pretty interesting and well performed.
I give this one a seven out of ten.
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So I know some of you are like
"Adam, How come all your ratings for movies are like six out of ten
and how come I don't see any extreme ratings like one out of then or ten out of ten."
And that's exactly why. Because those ratings are fucking extreme.
I highly highly doubt that I could show up at a film festival and pick movies that I want to watch
and have one of them turn out to be be a three out of ten.
I was shocked that I watched, what I consider to be, a four out of tens.
More than one of them at this film festival.
That was shocking.
The number also is supposed to represent the actual quality of the movie.
Yes my opinion does influence what the quality of the movie would be to me
but I'm trying to make it so that its not just opinion.
There are plenty of six out of ten movies, AKA above average movies,
that I would consider to be movies that I fucking hate.
There was even a movie that I rated seven out of ten, called rubber, that I hated.
I didn't like it.
But it 's seven out of ten because I would recommend it to people
because it was more than above average, it was self aware,
the characters that were supposed to represent the audience fell asleep in the movie,
it knew it was boring, it knew it was dumb and it was trying to be different but at least it was self aware about it.
Something that's all the way down to one is Megan is Missing.
That's a movie that failed on every single level, had no redeemable qualities,
and wasn't self aware about it at all.
To suggest that I could see a movie st the film festival and have it be even close to as bad as that movie was is...
it would be unreasonable for me to say that.
I would be an unreasonable person to give a movie a one out of ten just because I didn't like it.
That's an unreasonable thing to do
and I don't care how many other film reviewers on YouTube,
or otherwise, have just tossed out one out of ten ratings like that.
It's unreasonable.
The reason why, typically, most of the movies I review tend to be four and above
is because the chances of me seeking out a movie and being interested in it and seeing it for whatever reason,
the chances of me seeing something like that and having it
turn out to be as bad as, Sharknado, Birdemic, or Megan is Missing...
how-how fucking bad of a movie watcher would I have to be that I couldn't foresee that?
Why would I want to see something like that in theatres?
After Earth was intentional. That was funny.
I would give that a three out of ten.
Hah. That was really funny.
But there- otherwise how-how could I make that mistake?
I couldn't make that mistake.
If I'm seeing a movie that's three out of ten or lower, It's because I know its going to be that.
There's no way you could confuse a three out of ten or lower movie
for something that-that would be an actual quality film.
It's- I don't think that's possible.
you would have to do a really fucking good job with the trailer.
You would have to have the most deceptive trailer of all time.
I would say that I probably, definitely, watch a lot more movies
on the higher points of my scale than I do on the lower points of my scale
and that's because I seek out movies that I think I'm going to enjoy.
So, if-if this was the 2012 Vancouver International Film Fest,
I would be taking about one or two tens on my list.
Unfortunately, 2013 is kind of a shit year for movies so the highest film
that I've seen at the film fest would be Tom at the Farm and I'd probably put that as an eight.
Chances are if It's seven out of ten I think it has some merit and it's better than just above average.
This channel is supposed to show you movies that are better than above average
because to watch above average movies, you don't need a film reviewer all you need to do is follow the polls.
All you need to do is see the most popular movies out.
You don't have to do anything.
Why would you be here if all you want to do is watch above average movies?
A ten out of ten movie is a movie where everything serves its purpose.
I don't know if i have any ten out of ten movies that I wouldn't consider to be intelligent.
So intelligence would be a factor.
Uhh, it is basically a perfect movie and if there are any flaws
they're extremely minor and they don't really detract from it.
Nine out of ten movies would be movies that would be perfect had there not been some minor detraction's
or significant detraction's.
Of course, not- not that many.
Umm, eight out of ten would just be a great movie.
It could be great in some regards but feels like its missing something.
Really, the top end of the scale can get to be really subjective because the best movies,
for individuals, are usually the ones that they can relate to the most.
Movies can hit people in little places in their heart, you know?
It-- Do you get it?
I don't know. Is this becoming more confusing
or less confusing?
I think that my rating system is pretty consistent, I would say.
Umm, there have been a few slip ups like uhh...
Spider Man is rated a bit too high and uhh...
Dark Knight Rises is rated a bit too high.
But that's why now, when I rate a move like when I was talking about Tom at the Farm
and when I was talking about, uhh, I think I also said this with Past,
I didn't just give a number, I said seven or eight out of ten.
Because sometimes I have to let things simmer and a I want to watch Tom at the Farm again
before I really decide weather or not it's seven or eight.
But I highly doubt that watching it a second time would mean
that it's anything other than a seven or eight out of ten.
Six out of ten would be most of my ratings.
Not because that's what most movies are but because that's what most movies are
that I would other to watch in the first place.
I really have no interest in seeking out films that I think would be worse than that.
Maybe if I'm starting to make a lot of money and I can, ya know,
blow more money on movie tickets then I can just fuckin' see everything
and it wont matter.
But for now I'm trying to watch movies that I think that ill like at least.
Or maybe ones that my friends drag me to.
Uhh, six out of ten does not mean that I love a movie,
it does not mean that I hate a movie,
It could be either or, or I could feel indifferent to it.
Six out of ten reflects the quality of the film not my emotional response to it.
It's what I think best represents the movie.
Not what I think best represents my feelings towards the movie.
If you want to know how I felt about the movie,
if you want to know weather or not I enjoyed myself or hated myself watching it
then listen to the words that I say before I give the number.
Why- why would I say the words if all I want you to hear is the number?
I highly doubt I'm ever going to make an explanation video like this ever again
so if you see somebody in the comments section being like
"Myaa, how come you talk about how much you hate it and then only rate it a six out of ten?"
It's because it doesn't tal-- it doesn't--
the number doesn't reflect how much I hate it.
The number reflects what I think the quality of the actual movie is.
Ya know?
Wolf Children had some pretty good animation and I can see it
appealing to the audience it was intended for.
I hated it. I gave it a six out of ten.
I didn't like it. It wasn't for me.
But just because something isn't for me doesn't mean that I think
that the actual film making is a one out of ten.
One out of ten is Megan is Missing.
For me too--
I could not imagine an actual one out of ten movie being in theatres right now.
I could pick a random movie in theatres and chances are it would be
anywhere between four to six out of ten.
To say that every movie that you absolutely hate is a one out of ten is to be an unreasonable person.
Uhh, to dish out tens for the new movie that you love all the time is to an unreasonable person.
And I'm trying to provide reasonable opinions, even if you don't agree with them all the time,
even if I do slip up and rate some things a bit higher or a bit lower than I probably should.
Nobody's perfect.
And not that many movies are perfect.
So don't dish out your ones and tens like they're fucking candy.
Uhh, that's my explanation.
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