Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Evaluating Art. Part one - Movies

Scott Adams has recently written an entry about "Judging Art" in his blog. Note how my clever substitution of the word "Judging" makes it look like I designed the title by my very self.

His main point is that instead of applying the standard, subjective criteria of (essentially) "do I like this", the quality of art should be judged by how well the artist achieves his or her objectives, whatever they might be. Thus, when art achieves its goal, it must be considered great. The primary example he mentions is the comic strip "Garfield" by Jim Davis, who set out to create a massively popular comic strip. Seeing as how he has realized this goal, "Garfield" is great art (if you consider comic strips as art, that is) regardless of its content or how many people actually find it amusing.

Although I do not necessarily agree that this is a good way of measuring anything but the artist's fragile grasp of reality, it certainly opens up for different interpretations of books, movies, music, paintings and whatnot than the ones you've already applied. It also requires the goals of the artist to be clearly stated as the project is released, so as to avoid situations wherein for example Jack Black would be able to say "Yeah; I was tired of being funny, so I made Nacho Libre just to get out of the media and lose momentum for a while" after the fact. Ditto Eddie Murphy post 1988.

Still, the method does not provide you with any criteria by which to estimate your potential interest for the product prior to e.g. watching/renting/buying a movie. Although if I had known ahead of time that George Lucas set out to emulate the massive success of Teletubbies by incorporating a similar character in his prequels, it would certainly have affected the odds of me seeing Episode 1 - The Merchandising Misanthrope....

Anyway; in the simple view that the quality of a movie is affected by the components (i.e. the script/story, the choice of actors, the director, etc.), it should be possible to get a decent estimation of whether or not the movie sucks by evaluating parameters independently, such as:
  • Storyline/script: Here, you often don't have much to go on, even if it's based on a book you've read several times, or a historical event. Even movies based on excellent novels can suck (e.g. "The Man in the Iron Mask"), and if you're assuming historical accuracy from movies based on actual events, I've got some prime office space in WTC2 you can rent real cheap. What you can safely assume, however, is that any movie based on a computer game probably won't have much in the way of what one traditionally refers to as a "plot".
  • Actors/Actresses: Parameter wherein the quality is proportional to [presence of (Gary Oldman + DeNiro + Ed Norton + Nicholas Cage + Allison Janney + Meryl Streep + Glenn Close +..) plus absence of (Tom Cruise + Leonardo DiCaprio + Keanu Reeves + Antonio Banderas + Samuel L. Jackson + Angelina Jolie + Mary-Louise Parker +...)]
  • Director: ...what I like to call the "Absence of Michael Moore and whomever made The Blair Witch project"-factor
  • Title/taglines: Phrases/words to avoid: "Snakes on a ...", "Frat", "ex-marine", "ex-black ops", "...this time, ...", "Revenge Of The........", "James Bond"
  • Budget: Sometimes, small, independent films can be absolutely great, i.e. "Clerks". However, if a movie comes with the label "as seen at the Sundance film festival" or something to that effect, odds are it's more akin to "The Blair Witch project". And that's not a good thing..
  • More?

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

So basically you say that a bad actor (in your view) can ruin a movie !! You also say that Pulp Fiction is a bad movie since S. L. Jackson is in it.


I have another debate for you !!
Is it possible to make a good movie adapted from a bad novel and have you ever seen a movie better than the original book. (I have plenty of examples)

Wilhelm said...

..well, yeah - absolutely. Don't you think the quality of, say The Godfather part 2, would have suffered if you replaced Brando and DeNiro with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal?

I'm not saying that Pulp Fiction is a bad movie as a whole, because you have to look at the sum of contributions, and I have to admit that Shaft does a decent job in Pulp Fiction.

About the good movie adapted from bad novel debate - sure; I've seen First Blood, and I've read the book, so I know where you're coming from here. Can't say that I could give you many examples though, because to me it kind of depends on how well the characters in the movie correspond with how you visualize them when you read the book (if you read the book first), etc.

What specifically where you thinking of?

Anonymous said...

mmmh... Steven Segal as Vito Corleone...
I don't know about you, but I want to see that movie! Not only is he a mafia Don, he's also a hairdresser and ex-special Op, with deep knowledge of eastern philosophy and martial arts. And he makes a dazzling spaghetti Bolognese too!
Man, what a turkey that would've been!

Anonymous said...

Many examples
The Shining
2001 a space odissey (and more or less all the Kubrick movies)
requiem for a dream
the 25th hour
Da Vinci Code (I'm joking for this one)

Wilhelm said...

..or Chuck Norris in Shine - that'd be really cool.

Replacing pretty much any Ed Norton character with either Chuck Norris or Keanu Reeves would rule for all of five minutes.

Wilhelm said...

You think The Shining was based on a bad novel? In my opinion, this one of the betetr novels by King - together with The Stand and Misery. If you want to use S. King novels as an example, it's all too easy to find examples of horrible movie adaptations, like Pet Cemetary, The Stand (miniseries), The Langoliers, It, Sleepwalkers, Tommyknockers, etc..

Come on - 2001 A Space Odyssey was as boring a movie as they get.

Anonymous said...

I didn't say that the original book was bad, i just say that the movie is better (Even if I think that in this particular case, the book sucks !!!!)

For the worst actors ever, you forgot the best one (Moreover he's french): Christophe Lambert !!!

Wilhelm said...

...there can be only one....

The problem with making a "10 worst actors/actresses ever" (read it with a Comic Book Guy from Simpsons voice) is that beside having oh so many to choose from, you'd have to define what separates actors from what's essentially extras (think naked girl that gets killed in the shower Friday the 13th style). Britney Spears has starred in a movie, and should thus be defined as an actress.....

Unless you set some kind of limit, the list would be cluttered with the likes of Dennis Rodman, Jennifer Lopez, Pamela Anderson, Erika Eleniak (who made Steven Seagal look like Geoffrey Rush in Under Siege), Dr. Dre, Shaq, Mario Van Peebles, Pee Wee Herman and so on.

All things considered, Christopher Lambert isn't so bad.

Anonymous said...

Erika Bleniak ?
really ???
never heard of her dude
I think you're too strong for me !!!!

Anonymous said...

Damn
She has done that !!!
I have to see this one !
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367677/plotsummary

Wilhelm said...

..this one's even got freakin' Coolio in it. Amazing.

Wouldn't know it is it wasn't for the Seagal connection, dude. Your status as King of the Motion Picture Nerds is safe. Long may you reign.......

Anonymous said...

Did I miss something here? Is Requiem for a dream considered a GOOD movie? Damn, the dude at the video store must have misplaced it with some crappy semi-pornographic drug trip flick when I rented it.

Michael Moore makes social comments, not art or documentaries. And is pretty good at it, in my opinion. But then he ruins it all by doing these crappy TV shows that looks like a Jerry Springer Show with a social conscience.

Anonymous said...

of course, it's a fantastic movie !!!!
One of the must disturbing of all time (at least !!!)
But I understand that you probably prefer some S. Spielberg crappy movie where the children win at the end (ET, Hook ...)

Wilhelm said...

Michael Moore doesn't exactly make unbiased social documentaries. In my opinion, dude is a little bit like Von Däniken, in that he starts off reasonably enough, points towards discrepancies, injustices and such, before he launches into some inane diatribe.

I also don't particularly respect the fact that he is making a fortune off of complaining that other people are greedy. The expression PC thug comes to mind.

Hypocrisy - meet Michael Moore. Oh, you've already met.......

Anonymous said...

A topic about art and Michael Moore.
A topic about movies and M. Moore.
Is there something wrong or is it me ?

Wilhelm said...

...are you saying that a topic about obesity, bandwagon jumping, dressing like a blind hobo and opportunism would be better suited for somone of Moore's character?

Pigeon said...

Yes that's exactly what I'm sayin'. or a topic about guys that wear 25 years old caps.

Wilhelm said...

..my bad, by the way. As has been pointed out to me - Brando wasn't in Godfather part 2....

..so imagine what having Van Damme playing the part of Michael Corleone would do for the movie...

Anonymous said...

I never said the Michael Moore made "unbiased social documentaries". I fact, I said that he did not make documentaries. The fact is that he has an agenda and he really makes no attempt to hide it either. In his movies, he does raise some good points, although they get a bit watered out after a while. He style of fashion or the fact the he's movies cries out for a body stand-in doesn't bother me, nor does it take away from the fact that there are some food for thought in his movies (his TV shows is another deal).

DeNiro and Brando played the same part, but in different movies. The actually both won an Oscar for the same role.

Yes, Mr. Anonymous Pigeon, if you base your likes and dislikes based on movie critics alone, I guess that RFD is a great movie. But in my unbiased and not-so-professional opinion, it's a crap movie concealed as some deep, provocative art flick with a social comment. And btw, I've never seen Hook, didn't see E.T. before I was an adult, and don't fancy movies where the children wins in the end. Now, movies where the children looses at the end, that's another story...

Wilhelm said...

Of course LunchBox makes some good points. It's not exactly controversial to grind the "damn greedy companies moved all da jobs from my home town, and now folks ain't got no jobs no more" axe. Neither is pointing out the blatantly obvious, i.e. "discrimination is bad", "not all politicians are honest", "the people who make money off of oil aren't generally too interested in sponsoring campaigns for alternative fuels", "President Bush ain't exactly a nucular physicist" and so on.

What controversial position is he going to pursue next? That genocide ain't cool? That you shouldn't run with scissors?

Btw; I checked out the description of Requiem For A Dream, and based on that, I'm strongly inclined to agree that the movie reeks of artistic suction.

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with you that Michael LunchBox isn't so controversial about greedy companies and so on. That's why he doesn't makes documentaries, but (subjective) social comments. And just compiling the facts, both the well known and the not-so-well known, about issues like the Columbine shooting and the 9/11 bombings, makes a strong statement. And that's what it is, a statement.

I think somebody has to pick up a copy of Requiem For A Dream on the way home... ;-)

Wilhelm said...

How 'bout if I don't, but say I do?