http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2011/10/17/rian-johnsons-feud-with-jason-reitman_n_1015113.html

I like mine.

(What will your boiled down to two adjective description be in a few months…)

Paranormal Activity, in its now 5th week of releases, trounced the latest SAW sequel (a franchise that will hopefully end up in the DtV cycle which it probably belonged right after the first sequel) and thw Saw series usually makes more than 60% of its take in the first weekend; so that makes me happy in some small way (as per Jonathan: “I really don’t have much interest in Paranormal Activity, although its always neat to see something so small become some successful.”)

Rusty: No offense taken, but I’m actually a long time listener of the cinecast and tend to lean towards Kurt’s tastes in film, thus thinking that I can tell what he’s going to like/not like. I don’t comment that often because there’s seems to be a tight-knit, predictable select number of commenters on here (i. e. the contributors to the site and like, two others). Where’s the lurker love?

I really don’t have much interest in Paranormal Activity, although its always neat to see something so small become some successful. The wonders of internet hype, eh?

A Serious Man is an average film, and from the hyperbole I was hearing prior, I think it is far less funny, far less complex, and far less profound than I was lead to believe going in. I agree with Matt that they set up rules and then break them, that’s a clever conceit, that to me does not equal anything but parlor tricks. This is the story of Job and it builds to a punchline. Its fine, 3/5, but best film of the year I think not.

For instance Videodrome vs. The Fly. The Fly is an much, much much better made film, but Videodrome hogs the spotlight because its mulch of ideas (often sloppily articulated, but still quite visceral) tend to feel more urgent than the ‘that was fucking well done nature’ of a better film, and the fact that you keep coming back to the better one perhaps moves perception of it over time.

(The same could be said of If… vs. A Clockwork Orange, or even Solyaris (Tarkovsky) over Solaris (Soderberg))

Ebert once said he believes that the movies that seem the freshest at the time, the most urgent products of their time, are often the ones that age the worst.

That seems about right to me. For example: I loved Blair Witch Project in ’99 though I dont think I’d like to revisit it again.

I know you are being facetious, but it is it perhaps naive to think that the preceptions/preconceptions/etc do not play a point in how you like a film. The obvious example is how a film plays 5 years from now out of the bubble of blacklash/hype/buzz

For some reason with a lot of these things, if I’m honest with myself, it really does. I’d like to tell myself that hype is a completely independent thing when watching a movie, but I’d probably be lying to myself, particularly in the case of horror movies that seem to gather mass attention, they are usual crap (ditto Science fiction) -> popular tastes does not often correlate with quality in those genres.

I’m sure when the house lights go down, if the movie is working, all the hype and whatnot will be irrelevant, but if the film is not working, it will only make matters worse. Bottom line is that a lot of peoples whose opinions I very much trust have been underwhelmed by the film (and they saw it well before the film got its second release wind) and thus it simply has not been high on my priority. Part of my feels obligated to watch it to participate in the conversation, but I’m not going to skip out on The Coens Brothers or WTWTA to see it. I’ll get there eventually.

I don’t see why it matters. Does the film play worse if you know other people are enjoying it?

I actually thought that there was some pretty interesting subtext the film that I’d like to talk about.

I’ll tell you what I had trouble keeping up with, the roller coaster thrills of ‘Paranormal Activity’.

Thoughts were:

a) Marketing = Self-fulfilling prophecy
b) It happens in the bedroom while sleeping
c) Accessible and Easy
d) Midnights screenings for audiences that do not normally go do midnight screenings = success because it is different

Curiously “Good Movie” never seemed to enter the equation….maybe some post-success elitism there, maybe not…

I’ve not seen the film (there has simply been much other stuff out there that interests me like WTWTA and A Serious Man, and this weeks, An Education) but I guess I’ll get to it eventually, but It will be hard to process this film in lieu of all the hyperbola surrounding it at this point…sadly.