Last movie you watched......

But it's not fun to me! It's boring.

 

Any time spent watching movies is time you can spend reading Infinite Jest.

 

I'm not averse to "fun" movies." I enjoyed "That's My Boy," the Adam Sandler movie, for example.

But I don't think that something gets to bad bad or boring or recycled, then just write it off as "fun." "The Avengers" has fun moments - mostly character interactions. But the plot is by numbers, and stupidly complicated, and it ruined it for me. It's a major shortcoming of comic book movies right now.

 

Mother of G-d.

 

I like Sandler's stuff. I think it's all delivered with a wink.

 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thats_my_boy/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marvels_the_avengers/

 

I know.

It's definitely my hang-up, and one that doesn't bother others.

 

Hello I must be going, because I've always liked Melanie Lynskey. A few light moments, but I found it depressing.

 

The Longest Day

 

Liking 'That's My Boy' is a much worse indictment of your taste than disliking 'The Avengers.'

 

I've come to the conclusion that Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" is brilliant but almost unwatchable.

 

As far as "The Avengers" goes ...

OOP said I need to shut my brain off for a while and enjoy it. The problem is the opposite. I feel like my brain has to be absolutely engaged for 140 straight minutes, on high alert, lest I miss some reference to the "Tesseract" or "Stark Tower" or "S.H.I.E.L.D" or the "Asgardians," and thus fall hopelessly confused about what's going on. I feel like a little kid again at the movies, nudging my dad and asking, "Who's that guy? Is that the same guy from before?"

Like "X-Men: First Class," there are a million characters in "The Avengers," with both superhero identities and real-life identities. There are action sequences where I have to keep track of who is where and what is blowing up and why, all while the cinemetagrapher bombards me with jump cut after jump cut after jump cut. And the exposition. My goodness, the exposition. Line after line after line after line of people explaining and explaining and explaining said Tesseracts and S.H.I.E.L.D.s and Asgardians. Is Jeremy Renner a good guy? Is Jeremy Renner a bad guy? I don't know. I can't fucking tell. I can't keep track of it all. There are 2,000 characters in this movie, everyone talks a mile a minute in some language I don't understand, and few shots last longer than three seconds at a time.

At some point, there are Captain America baseball cards that one of the lead scientist guys told Captain America he kept in his suit jacket.

But in this big moment, one of the 5,000 characters reveals that ... wait for it ... they were actually found in his locker!

This was presented as a major plot point at the moment, and I had no clue why it was significant. None.

All in the service of some overstuffed, shallow plot all just meant to contrive a reason for the latest comic-book movie battle royale, which is mostly just like every previous comic-book battle royale.

Turn my brain off? I leave a viewing feeling like I just walked out of the MCAT.