In Reply to: Talk about lowered standards posted by Victor Khomenko on January 14, 2004 at 14:05:43:
Have you seen Virgin Suicides, BTW? Same stuffed animals, arranged differently.Never saw Virgin Suicides. The description wasn't anything I'd be interested in. Imagine I will see it someday . . .
But this is sad. If movies like Lost have great shot at Oscar then the whole scale is shifted down in favor of syrupy American-style feel-gooders.
Not sure how ANYBODY could call LIT a "syrupy American-style feel-good" movie. That's more along the lines of "Seabiscuit". LIT had a definitely non-Hollywood ending. The movie had a somber tone that I found quite unlike many American movies.
Perhaps the only reason the Foreign Language movies are judges separately is the fact that in an all-out competition the films like Lost in Translation would never have any chance.
Where do I begin? I sure have seen my share of foregin films over the years and find them, for the most part, to be pale imitations of American films.
Keep in mind that the US makes hundreds of movies every year. Hundreds. Almost all of them are distributed around the world for you to spend your money on. Only a few are really good, and even those are flawed. How many films from France or Russia or Mongolia will get distributed in the US this year? 3? I bet those 3 happen to be the best movies made in their respective countries this year, too. I usually see a handful of foregin movies every year and, like I said, most are just average local slice of life movies. In their own way, just as insular, nationalistic and limited in scope as most American movies.
You can say that foregin films are better than American films all you want, but you're wrong.
The only good thing I could say about that movie is that it was inoffensive. That is more than I could say about many others, for sure, but that hardly justifies all the hoopla around it.
Welcome to the movie industry. If anything is any good at all, the hype machine gets turned on and it will wring every last penny from it. Don't hold it against the movie.
How would you like to be a Mongolian, watching the nominations for the Mongolian Academy, with all movies presented being the Mongolian movies about sheep herding?
If you lock yourself in, you are bound to degrade.
What? I bet every Mongolian movie IS about sheep herding. That's my point, most foregin films are about thier respective countries and cultures.
American movies are mind bogglingly diverse if you think about it. There are no other countries in the world that can, or will, produce movies as diverse as LIT, Bad Santa, Master and Commander and . . Oh I dunno, Finding Nemo. Fact is, America is the most diverse and creative place in the world because it's comprised of little bits of every culture in the world. We don't carry the baggage of any one country.
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Follow Ups
- Wrongo-Bongo - Troy 17:21:43 01/14/04 (26)
- Re: What foreign films did you see? - patrickU 01:15:48 01/15/04 (12)
- "Somewhere we lost our souls." - dennzio 07:46:59 01/15/04 (1)
- Re: "Somewhere we lost our souls." - patrickU 08:02:11 01/15/04 (0)
- Re: ten films - rico 05:44:52 01/15/04 (9)
- Re: ten films - patrickU 05:57:47 01/15/04 (8)
- Re: A masterpiece - rico 08:38:06 01/15/04 (7)
- Re: A masterpiece - patrickU 08:41:29 01/15/04 (6)
- Re: A masterpiece - rico 09:55:55 01/15/04 (5)
- Re: A masterpiece / Victor did you see this one? - patrickU 10:07:53 01/15/04 (4)
- Re: Lame? - rico 11:32:00 01/15/04 (1)
- Re: Lame? - patrickU 12:21:49 01/15/04 (0)
- Re: A masterpiece / Victor did you see this one? - Victor Khomenko 10:40:51 01/15/04 (1)
- Re: A masterpiece / Victor did you see this one? - patrickU 10:52:35 01/15/04 (0)
- I would grant you that American movie industry... - Victor Khomenko 18:24:49 01/14/04 (12)
- Wait a sec . . . - Troy 08:40:32 01/15/04 (11)
- Re: Wait a sec . . . - patrickU 11:02:35 01/15/04 (4)
- Who likes, punishes well? - Troy 13:47:26 01/15/04 (3)
- Re: Who likes, punishes well? - patrickU 02:15:23 01/16/04 (2)
- Re: Who likes, punishes well? - Troy 07:21:20 01/16/04 (1)
- Re: Who likes, punishes well? - patrickU 07:33:22 01/16/04 (0)
- Re: Wait a sec . . . - Victor Khomenko 10:56:39 01/15/04 (5)
- Re: Wait a sec . . . - Troy 13:41:18 01/15/04 (4)
- Re: Wait a sec . . . - patrickU 07:54:46 01/16/04 (0)
- Re: Wait a sec . . . - Victor Khomenko 15:04:06 01/15/04 (2)
- A bit of clarification and more aggitated gesticualtion - Troy 16:32:42 01/15/04 (1)
- I shall leave this final word to you. (nt) - Victor Khomenko 09:09:35 01/16/04 (0)