[lbo-talk] great movies -- was: "great" "conservative" movies

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at aapt.net.au
Wed Feb 18 23:57:56 PST 2009


I'm actually a big science-fiction fan, I was reading Arthur C Clarke when I was 12, along with the other popular Sci-fi stuff, like Asimov, Heinlein, Wyndham, etc Jules Verne and so on even earlier. (No TV you see, but I did get a big kick out of Doctor Who when we did eventually get TV.)

Which probably explains my strong reaction to 2001. If I had no interest in the genre then presumably I wouldn't be that bothered it was such an awful film.

As for Sci-fi films I do like, sure. Most of them. Most movies I've seen aren't as satisfying or as entertaining as books, though I haven't actually got around to watching a lot, so I can imagine there might be exceptions. (For example, I gather there's a movie version of Dune, But I've never seen it.)

I don't usually resort to defending myself, I prefer to address substantive arguments. But You haven't given me that option, you haven't presented any reasons why 2001 should be rated higher than I have. But in short, it isn't that I didn't care for it, I actually disliked 2001 a lot. I dislike it because it is so pretentious. I dislike it more and more as time goes by and am stunned to see reviews praising it. Reviews written by pretentious wankers who try to make it out as high art.

Science fiction is entertainment. Any film or book that needs pretentious wankers to tell you what it means has just got to be rubbish. Even, especially, if the interpretations reveal something about the story that an audience might miss, it must have failed to tell the story. Its science fiction, not mystery. If the film-maker tells the story in such a way to necessitate someone explaining it to the audience later, then the film is a failure at best. At worst, such a film is a pretentious wank. Which is what we have here, not just a dismal failure, that would be forgivable, but a deliberately obscurant rendering of the story.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas

At 1:44 AM -0500 19/2/09, Percival Myers wrote:


>On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
>
>>> <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=REVIEWS08>
>>
>> Which includes 2001 A Space Oddessy. Perhaps one of the worst films of all
>> time...The whole film is an enormous wank.
>
>It would seem that you are universally opposed to that. Also, that you
>have no appreciation for Science Fiction theater. Tell us, if you care
>to, why you didn't simply say "I saw it but didn't care for it"
>instead of what you did: equate it with wallabee dung. For the record,
>are there any Sci-Fi movies that you do like or can your pronouncement
>be tossed out, like entrails for the coyotes? Er, dingoes?
>
>Percy
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>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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