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(Chicago Sun-Times) Followup Roger Ebert responds to WHARRGARBL after giving Transformers 2 a negative review. "It's not a critic's job to reflect box office taste. The job is to describe my reaction to a film, to account for it, and evoke it for others."   (blogs.suntimes.com) divider line 645
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AnotherDisillusionedCollegeStudent 2009-07-06 03:48:51 PM  
DamnYankees: Richard in a Box: I don't see how it's possible. These aren't truly quantifiable subject matters. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer. Sure, you can list specific reasons or criteria why you did or did not like the art in question, but those may not matter to someone else.

Well, this is false, empirically speaking. The fact that humans tend to gravitate towards certain things tell you there is something measurable. An overhwhelmingly large number of straight men will tell you that Catherine Zeta Jones is more attractive than Barbara Bush. If there was really nothing objective going on there, we would not expect that result - it would be random. Rather, we can sort of build up a profile of characteristics which correlate with "beauty". Then you test your subject against those characteristics.

You can do this with movies, art, music - anything. It just takes effort. Luckily, people study this shiat, and there are objective resaons why The Godfather is a *better* film than Troll 2.


I'm not so sure about this line of logic. In your first example, you're conflating "sexual attractiveness", an empirical statistic that can be correlated to several discrete factors (i.e. hip-to-waist ratio, body symmetry, range of motion, etc), with "beauty", a completely subjective value. There are people who find others with very few values of sexual attractiveness to be completely beautiful, for reasons that are unquantifiable.

Likewise with the other subjects. Most people enjoy music that matches certain common mathematical patterns that correlate with the wavelengths and frequencies of particular soundwaves, known as consonance. Hell, major studios run songs through analyzers with these equations plugged in to determine if a song is going to sell or not. However, there are those who find music that completely violates these rules to be quite beautiful in and of themselves.

With art, some people just like an accurate, pretty picture of something that exists in nature or society. Others like artforms that evoke ideas and states of mind. Others still like art that just exists for its own sake, and without any meaning attached to it. None of these are more "right" or "wrong" in what they find to be beautiful.

Finally, with movies - I say I thought Scarface was not a "good" movie and GoodFellas was, because they are by my personal standards, generally involving plot, characterization, script and theme. I made the assertion because I enjoy lively debate, and planned on learning something from the conversation (as I generally do with DROxINxTHExWIND). And yet, there will still be many people who think Scarface is the superior movie, based on other factors such as an identification with the themes of the movie, or a fascination with Tony Montana, either through Pacino's acting or the characterization. Both are equally subjective valuations based on personal preferences. Just because I think one way doesn't make that way of thinking right.

If you claim that there is such thing as objective beauty, then it only logically follows that the conclusion will be argumentum ad populam. Frankly, a world where Thomas Kinkade and country music are the objective standards of beauty would be a suffocating one, in my estimation.

 
Epsilon [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:48:52 PM  
I generally agree with Ebert's reviews, so I won't be seeing Transformers 2. I didn't see the first one, either, but I'm not one who enjoys flashy fantasy action movies that depend on smash-em-up, blow-em-up battle scenes to the exclusion of character depth and a compelling plot. I'm generally of the belief that such junk is best suited to children or viewers who haven't got the attention span to appreciate a truly good 2 hour movie that doesn't rely on an explosion every 10 minutes to keep you interested.

 
Richard in a Box 2009-07-06 03:49:13 PM  
mattharvest: DamnYankees: Richard in a Box: But see, it was good to me. It was not good to you.

You seem incapable of separating the idea of "good" with "enjoyed by me".

You're saying it was objectively bad, as opposed to just bad to you?


No, he (and others) are saying that according to some mystical standard of what makes a good or bad film, it doesn't live up to those and everyone should find it bad since there are right and wrong opinions.

 
DamnYankees [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:49:28 PM  
mattharvest: You're saying it was objectively bad, as opposed to just bad to you?

I haven't seen it. But I would say that about many things.

Richard in a Box: You seem incapable of separating my idea of good versus your idea of good, and that I don't have to say "I liked it even though it sucked" since I don't think it actually sucked.

Can you tell me something you think is not good but you also liked? Then we can figure out how that thing is different from TF2.

 
louiedog 2009-07-06 03:49:32 PM  
So for everyone demonstrating that this movie met their expectations with a checklist of things it had in it, and saying you didn't need anything else, what would it have taken to be a bad movie? If it had consisted of nothing more than two robots punching each other in front of a background of exploding cars, with a few cuts to Megan Fox licking a lollipop, would you have been satisfied giving up $10 and 2.5 hours for that?

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:49:46 PM  
bigmattress: vanhalenfan32:
I guess my major point here is just this. Ebert's first mistake is calling Transformers 2 a film, and comparing it to opinions involving "The Godfather". The Godfather is a film, Transformers 2 is a summer movie. It is no more a film than The Jetsons movie or Crocodile Dundee 2 were.

Shush. Anything put to film is a film...by definition. Everything you listed above is a film. Some are much better than others.

I hear what you're saying, and I agree, but you're saying it the wrong way.

/film snob, kind of


Well, the way you're using the term seems obsessed with the medium, and would demand that I ask what you think something shot 100% digital should be called?

Is it a film if it's just copied onto film? Does it stop being a film if it's copied off film to purely digital formats before distribution?

 
towatchoverme 2009-07-06 03:49:59 PM  
DamnYankees: You seem incapable of separating the idea of "good" with "enjoyed by me".

LOL ... said the guy who never got over the ending to BSG.

 
SonOfSpam 2009-07-06 03:50:55 PM  
Even Shia LaBeouf essentially admitted the movie was senseless garbage, on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. When Conan asked him to set up the clip they were about to show, Shia said, "A whole lotta bang-bang, I imagine."

 
Jument 2009-07-06 03:51:31 PM  
mattharvest: So, you went into the movie with the preconceived notion that the core concept of the movie was silly and something you disliked? Then you were pissed off at it? Now, you're going to rent the sequel?
Sounds like you're either a glutton for punishment or you're looking to complain.


I went for the effects and the action. It wasn't the notion that transformers are robots that turn into shiat that annoyed me about the first movie. It was just too cutesy. I mean the humans, the script. Not the farking giant robots.

I'll rent the second because I like effects. But yeah I will probably still biatch afterwards about how lame the movie was/is. That's how I roll.

And yeah, Megan Fox isn't all that amazing. I would, of course, hit it repeatedly and with gusto.

 
icanhazstapler [recently expired TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:51:33 PM  
Sgt Otter: The FAQ doesn't even cover the massive continuity error of having a complete Devastator fighting one battle, while miles away, some of the individual robots who make up his body parts are fighting as themselves at another battle miles away.

Speaking of continuity errors...

But seriously, good catch. I think I noticed it too, then shrugged it off as maybe there were other construction 'bots someplace else.

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:51:58 PM  
Bill Frist: Anyway, I truly do totally disagree with your premise that everyone's opinion is equally valid. I think that is a truly lazy idea that is sadly common in modern society.

Well yeah, of course not everyone's opinion is equally valid with all others; however, enjoyment of something isn't the same as an opinion, actually.

For example, I might enjoy a meal but not have any opinion (other than to say "it was good" as pure synonym with "I enjoyed eating it").

Now, obviously, some foods are "better" than others in that they're crafted more expertly, contain more flavorful ingredients, etc. but that doesn't diminish the enjoyment of lesser foods, right? Just because you love a filet mignon doesn't mean someone else can't enjoy - honestly and viscerally - a McDonald's burger, right? Or do you think such a person actually doesn't know what "enjoy" means?

 
GoNDSioux 2009-07-06 03:52:24 PM  
zedster: I'm still upset that no one threw a hissy-fit that they ran from Egypt to Jordan without passing thru another country

Or that Davis-Monthan AFB was somehow in the Smithsonian's backyard.

/Assuming that that is indeed AMARG, which is at Davis-Monthan.

 
vanhalenfan32 2009-07-06 03:52:35 PM  
bigmattress: vanhalenfan32:
I guess my major point here is just this. Ebert's first mistake is calling Transformers 2 a film, and comparing it to opinions involving "The Godfather". The Godfather is a film, Transformers 2 is a summer movie. It is no more a film than The Jetsons movie or Crocodile Dundee 2 were.

Shush. Anything put to film is a film...by definition. Everything you listed above is a film. Some are much better than others.

I hear what you're saying, and I agree, but you're saying it the wrong way.

/film snob, kind of


The Dick Van Dyke show was not a film

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:52:45 PM  
icanhazstapler: Sgt Otter: The FAQ doesn't even cover the massive continuity error of having a complete Devastator fighting one battle, while miles away, some of the individual robots who make up his body parts are fighting as themselves at another battle miles away.

Speaking of continuity errors...

But seriously, good catch. I think I noticed it too, then shrugged it off as maybe there were other construction 'bots someplace else.


Yeah that was baffling.

 
lukelightning 2009-07-06 03:52:56 PM  
SonOfSpam: Even Shia LaBeouf essentially admitted the movie was senseless garbage, on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. When Conan asked him to set up the clip they were about to show, Shia said, "A whole lotta bang-bang, I imagine."

That's the same thing porn actress Shia LeButt said about her clip.

 
shivashakti [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:53:13 PM  
Goddamn, I fear for the future of this country.
There are a lot of stupid people out there.

Look, if you like crappy movies, there's nothing wrong with that. You like what you like. But why knock Ebert? The guy uses a different set of standards to rate movies than someone who would enjoy Transformers 2.

So, you like movies with giant robots that transform into cars and planes and such. You like movies with action and explosions and hot chicks. So what? Why do you care, then, what Ebert thinks? Why even pay attention to it?

 
mike.thesauce 2009-07-06 03:53:47 PM  
i can understand all the hate towards transformers, i've never seen the two movies, but i was a huge fan of the cartoon and the original animated movie. which is the reason why i haven't gone to see these two films. that being said, if you think these movies are awful, wait until the voltron movie comes out.

 
DamnYankees [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:53:51 PM  
AnotherDisillusionedCollegeStudent: In your first example, you're conflating "sexual attractiveness", an empirical statistic that can be correlated to several discrete factors (i.e. hip-to-waist ratio, body symmetry, range of motion, etc), with "beauty", a completely subjective value. There are people who find others with very few values of sexual attractiveness to be completely beautiful, for reasons that are unquantifiable.

I was just using "sexual attractiveness" as an analogy. I didn't intend to conflate them. But take something which is more "beautiful" - Michaelangelo's La Pieta. Now compare that to my 3rd grade art project. It's the same basic principle. There are certain things which are ingrained in being human which make La Pieta more "beautiful" than my garbage.

AnotherDisillusionedCollegeStudent: If you claim that there is such thing as objective beauty, then it only logically follows that the conclusion will be argumentum ad populam. Frankly, a world where Thomas Kinkade and country music are the objective standards of beauty would be a suffocating one, in my estimation.

I don't know what the phrase "objective beauty" could possibly mean. Beauty is a property which emerges as the result of the interaction between a sentient observer and its object of observation. It has no other existence other than that. And when all sentient observers share common traits, as humans do, you now have 2 objective things to work between - the non-changing objective of the observation, and the unversial traits of the shared observer. I fail to see why we can't tease a solid standard of beauty out of that, any less than we can tease out a solid standard of language.

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:55:25 PM  
DamnYankees: I was just using "sexual attractiveness" as an analogy. I didn't intend to conflate them. But take something which is more "beautiful" - Michaelangelo's La Pieta. Now compare that to my 3rd grade art project. It's the same basic principle. There are certain things which are ingrained in being human which make La Pieta more "beautiful" than my garbage.

Are there? What are they?

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 03:55:44 PM  
AnotherDisillusionedCollegeStudent: With art, some people just like an accurate, pretty picture of something that exists in nature or society. Others like artforms that evoke ideas and states of mind. Others still like art that just exists for its own sake, and without any meaning attached to it. None of these are more "right" or "wrong" in what they find to be beautiful.

They may not be wrong in what they find beautiful, but artistic merit is not judged on what one individual finds beautiful. That would be an insane standard.

Let's take an extreme example here.

Take a person who has studied the history of painting in depth. Then take a person who lived in under a rock their whole life and never saw a painting until today.

Are these two people equally qualified to discuss the artistic merit of a painting I show them?

To me, that idea is absurd. the latter person has no knowledge of the art world or art history and thus has no grounds to discuss technique, originality, influence, cultural resonance or anything else.... they can only relate their pure subjective experience.

Is that really all their is to art?

a similar thing exists with people who just watch a few summer blockbusters a year versus someone like Ebert who has a vast knoweldge of film. The former people are really not qualified to discuss the quality of a film, because they dont' even have a basic lens to judge it in.

 
wyrlss 2009-07-06 03:57:10 PM  
Dr_Gats: can somebody else confirm for me, I could have sworn that the motorcycle transformer was a singular entity, and a decepticon when in the cartoon, although still "female". Am I mistaken?

Yes. And no. Only time I remember seeing that whore (arcee, fyi) was in the movie. The first movie. Not that movie, the other one. Orson Welles' last role. She was also not a motorcycle, but some sort of cybertronian car. And she was an autobot.
Technically, there was only one arcee, but she had two partners in this one for some no reason.

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:57:45 PM  
Bill Frist: Are these two people equally qualified to discuss the artistic merit of a painting I show them?

What does artistic merit mean?

Not trolling or anything; I'm just trying to suggest that the term "artistic merit" is a social construct, one which has been shown to not necessarily cross cultural lines in any meaningful way (especially with regards to technique, content, media, etc.).

So, how do you define artistic merit in order to use it as a measurement?

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 03:58:19 PM  
AnotherDisillusionedCollegeStudent: If you claim that there is such thing as objective beauty, then it only logically follows that the conclusion will be argumentum ad populam. Frankly, a world where Thomas Kinkade and country music are the objective standards of beauty would be a suffocating one, in my estimation.

Do not agree with either of your ideas here.

It is neither true that
a) if objective beauty exists it is based entirely on inter-subjectivity (ad populam). It is certainly possible, as Plato argued, that an objective beauty exists outside of our sujbecitve or inter-subjective experiences, even if we can not fully know it.

or

b) that even in the case of inter-subjectivity, some kind of democratic vote is what decides what is good. Why wouldn't knowledge and experience factor in?

 
mvfreeman 2009-07-06 03:58:24 PM  
Megan Fox is just the new "it" girl. Her time will pass.

That being said, I'd hit it like a pile driver. Repeatedly. Freaky looking thumbs can be covered with gloves.

i124.photobucket.com

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:58:48 PM  
wyrlss: Dr_Gats: can somebody else confirm for me, I could have sworn that the motorcycle transformer was a singular entity, and a decepticon when in the cartoon, although still "female". Am I mistaken?

Yes. And no. Only time I remember seeing that whore (arcee, fyi) was in the movie. The first movie. Not that movie, the other one. Orson Welles' last role. She was also not a motorcycle, but some sort of cybertronian car. And she was an autobot.
Technically, there was only one arcee, but she had two partners in this one for some no reason.


It was Arcee and the Twins in the latest movie, if I'm not mistaken. They were basically disposable.

Arcee, in a bizarrely disturbing concept, had her comic origins in an experiment to introduce gender to the Transformers, which led to a murderous rage.

 
vanhalenfan32 2009-07-06 03:59:02 PM  
Bill Frist: AnotherDisillusionedCollegeStudent: With art, some people just like an accurate, pretty picture of something that exists in nature or society. Others like artforms that evoke ideas and states of mind. Others still like art that just exists for its own sake, and without any meaning attached to it. None of these are more "right" or "wrong" in what they find to be beautiful.

They may not be wrong in what they find beautiful, but artistic merit is not judged on what one individual finds beautiful. That would be an insane standard.

Let's take an extreme example here.

Take a person who has studied the history of painting in depth. Then take a person who lived in under a rock their whole life and never saw a painting until today.

Are these two people equally qualified to discuss the artistic merit of a painting I show them?

To me, that idea is absurd. the latter person has no knowledge of the art world or art history and thus has no grounds to discuss technique, originality, influence, cultural resonance or anything else.... they can only relate their pure subjective experience.

Is that really all their is to art?

a similar thing exists with people who just watch a few summer blockbusters a year versus someone like Ebert who has a vast knoweldge of film. The former people are really not qualified to discuss the quality of a film, because they dont' even have a basic lens to judge it in.


The Red Sox are a better team than the Yankees, not even just record. Their farm system is better, where as the Yankees is weak. They have a cohesive TEAM as opposed to a collection of all-stars. Therefore it is retarded to like the Yankees instead of the Red Sox.

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 03:59:11 PM  
mattharvest: Not trolling or anything; I'm just trying to suggest that the term "artistic merit" is a social construct, one which has been shown to not necessarily cross cultural lines in any meaningful way (especially with regards to technique, content, media, etc.).

Yet surely one person's wholly subjective experience with no broader context is even LESS likely to cross cultural lines, no?

 
TsukasaK [recently expired TotalFark] 2009-07-06 03:59:49 PM  
Tooting my own horn a bit here, but it's relevant. Farking critics..
Mah blog (new window)

 
chaoswolf 2009-07-06 03:59:53 PM  
Pxtl: Considering the suck that Bay has at anything but pure action, this is the movie Bay should make:



/hotlinked


...

I would go see "River Tam Beats Up Everyone."

/Twice.

 
cervier 2009-07-06 04:00:15 PM  
Telos: ObscureNameHere: Telos: yogaFLAME: Didn't read Ebert's review, but I guarantee he was far too nice to the film. This is better.

Yeah, it's like what an idiot would write if he were trying to make a film look worse than it was so that he could brag to his friends about his popular internet site.

Hey look! Michael Bay has a FARK account!

Yeah, that's it. :roll:

Sorry if I'm capable of noticing when someone writes an outright lie when he's trying to make a movie look bad.

Ooh, or how about let's explain the entire decepticon plan ourselves in 2 sentences and THEN claim the movie never explained it? Even though you just did, based on watching the movie.

Yeah.

The real thing is, the actual problems he noticed were made less noticeable in his blog by the crap he made up. when you've read 10 misinterpretations/lies/retarded statements the 2 or 3 true ones just kind of fade away...

/liked the movie
//it was FUN
///blog article was stupid.


waaaah, waaaah, someone made fun of my precious movie, waaaaahhh!

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:00:24 PM  
Bill Frist: Why wouldn't knowledge and experience factor in?

Arguably, that which requires specialized knowledge to access might not be "art", but rather something else entirely.

I might argue that the only thing that is actually "art" is that which can be shared by everyone.

/I'm not arguing that at the moment, but you seem to discount it innapropriately

 
robsul82 [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:00:26 PM  
SonOfSpam: Even Shia LaBeouf essentially admitted the movie was senseless garbage, on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. When Conan asked him to set up the clip they were about to show, Shia said, "A whole lotta bang-bang, I imagine."

Oh, God, after the nuclear-level stupid expressed by Michael Bay after Megan Fox admitted the movie was awful, get ready for even more bile by the man who gave us The Next Tom HanksTM!

 
at80eighty [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:00:42 PM  
aggravatedmonkey

I'm starting to think you're this guy

dogandponyshowwebsite.com

 
DamnYankees [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:01:14 PM  
mattharvest: Not trolling or anything; I'm just trying to suggest that the term "artistic merit" is a social construct, one which has been shown to not necessarily cross cultural lines in any meaningful way (especially with regards to technique, content, media, etc.).

I don't understand why "social construct" has to preclude objectivity. The English language is a social construct, but "bachelor" objectively and 100% means "guy who isn't married".

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 04:01:37 PM  
vanhalenfan32: The Red Sox are a better team than the Yankees, not even just record. Their farm system is better, where as the Yankees is weak. They have a cohesive TEAM as opposed to a collection of all-stars. Therefore it is retarded to like the Yankees instead of the Red Sox.

I know you are trying to troll me here, but the argument doesn't make much sense because you don't like a team based purely on their record.

A better analogy might be that even if we can't 100% objectively prove which team in basebaell is the best right now (yanks? sox? dodgers?) as the records a lone can't settle this.... nevertheless ONE of those teams must truly be the best and for someone to argue that the Oriels are actually the best team because they subjectively experience them as the best team would be pretty silly.

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:01:39 PM  
Bill Frist: mattharvest: Not trolling or anything; I'm just trying to suggest that the term "artistic merit" is a social construct, one which has been shown to not necessarily cross cultural lines in any meaningful way (especially with regards to technique, content, media, etc.).

Yet surely one person's wholly subjective experience with no broader context is even LESS likely to cross cultural lines, no?


Not necessarily. It perhaps might reflect something more universally human - something intrinsic to the experience of growing, making friends, forming relationships, etc. - by virtue of not being tainted by "art"-specific education.

Alternately, it might reflect something more honest, less encumbered by artistic "training".

 
bigmattress 2009-07-06 04:01:44 PM  
mattharvest: bigmattress: vanhalenfan32:
Shush. Anything put to film is a film...by definition. Everything you listed above is a film. Some are much better than others.

I hear what you're saying, and I agree, but you're saying it the wrong way.

/film snob, kind of

Well, the way you're using the term seems obsessed with the medium, and would demand that I ask what you think something shot 100% digital should be called?

Is it a film if it's just copied onto film? Does it stop being a film if it's copied off film to purely digital formats before distribution?


ANYTHING shot on film is a film. Dick Van Dyke, if it was filmed, was a film. Just because it was broadcast later doesn't mean it wasn't originally shot on film.

And I'd say anything shot 100% digitally would not be a film, so you got me there. But Dundee and likewise, crap as they may be, are films.

Original recording techniques is what matters there, just because it is later transferred to DVD doesn't mean it stops being a film. It just becomes a digital copy of a film.

It's just a pet peeve of mine when I hear people say "That's just a movie, but THIS IS A FILM". It makes no sense if they were both shot on film.

 
TribeFan695 2009-07-06 04:01:47 PM  
Bill Frist: a similar thing exists with people who just watch a few summer blockbusters a year versus someone like Ebert who has a vast knoweldge of film. The former people are really not qualified to discuss the quality of a film, because they dont' even have a basic lens to judge it in.

Ebert isn't the only person with this qualification, though. The fact that Transformers doesn't have a 0% T-meter proves that it at least has a little artistic merit in the eyes of some critics, if not the majority of them.

 
ninjasquirrl 2009-07-06 04:01:58 PM  
I refuse to give money to see a michael bay movie....he must stop

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 04:02:53 PM  
mattharvest: Yet surely one person's wholly subjective experience with no broader context is even LESS likely to cross cultural lines, no?

Not necessarily. It perhaps might reflect something more universally human - something intrinsic to the experience of growing, making friends, forming relationships, etc. - by virtue of not being tainted by "art"-specific education.

Alternately, it might reflect something more honest, less encumbered by artistic "training".

Don't make this about academia or "training."

One can learn plenty about art through one's own instruction. THis is not about university degrees.

 
Psumek 2009-07-06 04:02:56 PM  
Bill Frist: Richard in a Box: OK then, Mr. Expert, tell me why I should not have liked this movie.

Because it sucked.

Anyway, I truly do totally disagree with your premise that everyone's opinion is equally valid. I think that is a truly lazy idea that is sadly common in modern society.

You can read this if you like though:

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/subjective_objective.html


It was an absolutely horrible movie I had to watch until the end. Every single horrible minute of it. From the Air-Space museum leading directly into the desert and the NJ air base with convenient mountains like it was actually 29 Palms or something like that. And then the friggin twins "We can't read." Seriously. For all these reason and thousands more it was hideous.

/up there with "Mission to Mars"
//7-10 base pairs = the perfect woman...wtf!!!!
///sorry just adding to why this movie was horrible

 
Jim_Callahan 2009-07-06 04:02:57 PM  
(1) This movie was terrible. To demonstrate how terrible: i saw one of the random one-off episodes of one of the newer transformers cartoons on tv the other day, some construction equipment accidentally got turned into robots and went around getting ironhide drunk and catcalling at sports cars and generally annoying everyone... i turned it off after like 10 minutes so I don't know if there was a plot. It was still a better movie than transformers 2.

(2) I don't understand the thing FARK has for Megan Fox. Or rather, I do (any moderately attractive actress associated with a science fiction piece gets the same treatment) but i don't really sympathize -- it's a correlative observation, not a causative one.

(3) I still watched the movie, knowing it would suck horribly, and while it hardly exceeded my expectations it didn't go below them either, so I didn't really have a bad time. I'd give it a "meh" and a half.

 
at80eighty [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:03:43 PM  
reading this thread is like watching a collecting bunch of high strung fanboys expecting a Schindler's List life changing experience and then spewing enough sand out of their balloon knots to rival Krakatoa

 
BojanglesPaladin 2009-07-06 04:03:56 PM  
BergZ: I thought it was a bit too political in nature because there was one point where (and I could have misheard it) but I believe they mentioned President Obama by name (instead of just saying "the President"). At one point in the movie the President's representative says that his administration is "considering all possible options" including turning Sam over to the Decepticons... I thought that was a positively despicable misrepresentation of Obama's position WRT the War on Terror.

Interesting. I overlooked that during the movie, but you are right. Although, in fairness, I think we were meant to understand that the pencil neck power mad buerocrat was overstepping his authority.

Also the movie sucked.

 
DamnYankees [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:04:01 PM  
Bill Frist: A better analogy might be that even if we can't 100% objectively prove which team in basebaell is the best right now (yanks? sox? dodgers?) as the records a lone can't settle this.... nevertheless ONE of those teams must truly be the best and for someone to argue that the Oriels are actually the best team because they subjectively experience them as the best team would be pretty silly.

A good analogy. The question for "best" then is "best at what?" In baseball, the best team is pretty simply the one who wins the most games - that's what they are trying to do. Some statisticians might want to break that down and say "the best team is that which plays in a way where they are expected to win the most games". That's just refining.

So the question then becomes for movies, what are they "intending" to do, and are they thus the best at it. And I can't imagine any measurement where Michael Bay can be said to "succeed" at any intention other than making money and perhaps demanding high quality CGI.

 
mattharvest [TotalFark] 2009-07-06 04:05:48 PM  
DamnYankees: mattharvest: Not trolling or anything; I'm just trying to suggest that the term "artistic merit" is a social construct, one which has been shown to not necessarily cross cultural lines in any meaningful way (especially with regards to technique, content, media, etc.).

I don't understand why "social construct" has to preclude objectivity. The English language is a social construct, but "bachelor" objectively and 100% means "guy who isn't married".


Something is only objectively true if it would be true regardless of any context. "2+2=4" is true (in Base-10) because there is no conceptual way for it to be false (other than to redefine terms). On the other hand, there is no objective definition for "art", "good", or "bad" the way there is an objective definition for "2", "+", "4" and "=".

My point is that there is definitely no universally accepted definition of "art", much less "good" or "bad" as applied to art, in any language in the history of mankind. Thus, any such definition will have to be - at best - limited in time and space.

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 04:06:23 PM  
mattharvest: Bill Frist: Why wouldn't knowledge and experience factor in?

Arguably, that which requires specialized knowledge to access might not be "art", but rather something else entirely.

I might argue that the only thing that is actually "art" is that which can be shared by everyone.

/I'm not arguing that at the moment, but you seem to discount it innapropriately


While I DO discount it, you seem to have misunderstood me. I did not mean that you NEED specialized knowledge to like a piece (say, some art film or something). What I meant was something a little more simple.

Take Guy A who has watched 10 random films in his life. Then guy b has watched 10,000 films.

Surely guy b is going to have a better time talking about what films are the best (or important, influential, etc.) thatn guy a... guy a just doesnt' have the knowledge to talk about these things.

Likewise Guy A will a weaker framework to judge his 11th movie, Transformers 2, than Guy B.

 
mvfreeman 2009-07-06 04:06:40 PM  
Pirate Bay has some good telesyncs up for anyone who doesn't want to waste their money at the theater.

 
Bill Frist 2009-07-06 04:07:03 PM  
mattharvest: Something is only objectively true if it would be true regardless of any context.

Wrong.

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/subjective_objective.html

 
iollow 2009-07-06 04:07:07 PM  
tarvuz: This is the first movie I ever walked out on in my life. It made the first transformers look like Citizen Kane.

First movie I ever walked out of was Showgirls. Not to be ripped off, I went to the next theater over and saw The Usual Suspects.

Best upgrade ever.

 
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