your cultural blind spots

[Doctor Bob]

Hmm, upon re-reading Whit's first post and  his subsequent clarification, my posts in this thread are actually irrelevant, as the stuff mentioned is mostly things I have no particular interest in (this might apply too for FK's girlfriend?)

Well, if I were to follow your lead, then opera, dance in all its forms, theatre, most classical music, most poetry, much literature, etc. could be added to my list, not to mention many types of contemporary music- hip hop, dance, reggae, metal...

Or. put another way, I like 2-D visual arts, plastic arts, architecture, some music, and a bit of reading.

[Greg Nog]

Some of my film omissions are pretty bad too; I think I've only seen one or two films each by Kazan and von Sternberg, for instance, which would be perfectly acceptable for the average Joe but for someone trying to front and pretend to be an armchair film nerd, it's inexcusable.

I've never seen any Cassavetes, so I have no take on him.

[Thermofusion]

al-co-holic.

[Greg Nog]

WELL HE MIGHT BE BUT I SIMPLY CANNOT SAY MISS HANNA

[Andrew_TSKS]

never saw goonies. this always surprises/offends people, but...i still have never been given a convincing argument for seeing it.

Uh... it's fucking hilarious?

[Andrew_TSKS]

I've bolded the ones she and I share, to which I can add Apocalypse Now and Citizen Cane, and many more, but if the full thread is about stuff one should have seen given a particular cultural background / interest, then none of this falls into that category for me anyway.

If Citizen Kane doesn't fall into that category for you, it's because you hate movies.

[Maaik]

never saw goonies. this always surprises/offends people, but...i still have never been given a convincing argument for seeing it.

Uh... it's fucking hilarious?

Yeah, it's a pretty awesome movie, but I can see how it might be hard for an adult-type to get into it, never having seen it as a kid, not having grown up with it.

But really, of all the '80s "Buncha-Kids-Go-On-An-Adventure" movies out there, The Goonies is the gold standard.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Definitely. But I can't see how an adult wouldn't find that movie funny. That movie fucking KILLS ME. Even now, after I've seen it 100 times and can recite it word for word.

By the way, I've never seen a James Bond movie.

[Maaik]

Yeah, I'm not big on Bond.  I've seen a couple of the Brosnan ones, but that's about it.

[hannah]

I've never seen a Bond film, either. Movies in general I have a shit-ton of blinders, which I am painfully aware of, etc., etc.  Because I have a week off, though, I've been thinking about what I can do on the literature front. I only got a 100 pages in to Daniel Deronda this past summer, so it's between returning to that or Dickens (I read Great Expectations after Ethan Hawke fingered Gwyneth Paltrow, Hard Times because it was short, and A Tale of Two Cities cuz I had to).

[Greg Nog]

I've bolded the ones she and I share, to which I can add Apocalypse Now and Citizen Cane, and many more, but if the full thread is about stuff one should have seen given a particular cultural background / interest, then none of this falls into that category for me anyway.

If Citizen Kane doesn't fall into that category for you, it's because you hate movies.

I'd be a lot more willing to make Andrew's argument if Bob was American; both of those strike me as movies that have a lot to do with making sense of the American cultural subconscious.  I could see someone from another country watching them and spending those couple of hours being all, "hey how about you fucking yanks get the fuck over yourselves already"

[Ignatius]

Oftentimes I'm in the library's DVD section and I'll pick up something I guess that I should see, like Citizen Kane or half of the things mentioned in the movie thread here. But I always just end up checking out NewsRadio.

[Doctor Bob]

I've bolded the ones she and I share, to which I can add Apocalypse Now and Citizen Cane, and many more, but if the full thread is about stuff one should have seen given a particular cultural background / interest, then none of this falls into that category for me anyway.

If Citizen Kane doesn't fall into that category for you, it's because you hate movies.

Lack of cultural background/interest ≠ hate.  I don't hate movies, they just don't feature large on my cultural horizon.

Would you say your absence of knowledge in any particular sphere is because you hate that artform, or is it just because there are only so many hours in the day?  I would suggest that there aren't enough years in a life for anyone to become familiar with all art; or, at least, that a balanced life will not facilitate such omniscience.

Also, movies ≠ films.  (This is, admittedly, based on something a friend said to me recently.  She was designing the website for a Dublin art-house cinema, and they banned any use of the M word.  Movies are Hollywood fluff, Films are Important Works Of Art, apparently.)

[coldforge]

ugh, (movies ≠ films)--

[Doctor Bob]

Just trying to flush the low-art/high-art haters out of the woodwork with a little gentle prodding.  Don't blow my cover.

[FreddyKnuckles]

dude you gotta be careful.  He'll straight-up cut your head in half from across the room with his pointer finger.

[auto-da-fey]

that kind of reminds me of the debate with LazyEyeLou two years ago, about films without narrative not being "real" films. That was pretty awesome (I mostly remember it because I was digging up difficult's many comments about Bela Tarr and stumbled across it).

[hannah]

Also, movies ≠ films.  (This is, admittedly, based on something a friend said to me recently.  She was designing the website for a Dublin art-house cinema, and they banned any use of the M word.  Movies are Hollywood fluff, Films are Important Works Of Art, apparently.)

what if the important work of art was shot on video

eh

eh

ehhh

[hannah]

that kind of reminds me of the debate with LazyEyeLou two years ago, about films without narrative not being "real" films. That was pretty awesome (I mostly remember it because I was digging up difficult's many comments about Bela Tarr and stumbled across it).

shit, that was two years ago? oh yeah, I remember I wrote some crazy rants or got worked up or whatever instead of working on a John from Cincy script.

[Doctor Bob]

dude you gotta be careful.  He'll straight-up cut your head in half from across the room with his pointer finger.

cf doesn't frighten me, and he knows it.

hannah, however...

[Thermofusion]

word. hannah terrifies me more than the rest of you combined.

[YojimboMonkey]

She does talk about eating babies an awful lot...

[Andrew_TSKS]

Also, movies ≠ films.  (This is, admittedly, based on something a friend said to me recently.  She was designing the website for a Dublin art-house cinema, and they banned any use of the M word.  Movies are Hollywood fluff, Films are Important Works Of Art, apparently.)

Oh man, what the FUCK.

[I know a bunch of you covered this territory already, but I wanted to make sure I was represented in this discussion.]

[kyle]

Also, movies ≠ films.  (This is, admittedly, based on something a friend said to me recently.  She was designing the website for a Dublin art-house cinema, and they banned any use of the M word.  Movies are Hollywood fluff, Films are Important Works Of Art, apparently.)

This is much like the Hip Hop vs. Rap music conversation going on right now. There are some differences, yes. For the most part though, we're still talking about the same thing. When a medium gets out of hand some people want to say they are staying "true" to the artform. It makes me get stabby.

[coldforge]

I have no idea how one could stay 'true' to cinema. The OG movies, after all, were clips of men washing horses.