State your unpopular film related opinion - Part 10

I think it's a better endeavor in writing than it is in filmmaking.

 

Damn. I wrote a big chunk and it stayed in the other topic.
Copy paste:

Memento is a hard movie to love, that is true. But from a story-telling point of view, it's a magnificent piece of cinema. Just the fact that you, as a viewer, are in the same position as the character (not knowing what the hell happened before) is truly genius.

Until this day, I don't really know if Joe Pantoliano's character is good or not, or if Guy Pierce killed the guy, or whatever. I understand the entire mechanics of the plot, but I still couldn't figure out if what the characters are saying to him is true or not, who is lying to him and who isn't.

It's a very entertaining movie, one of those that you can talk with someone afterwards.

 

You know, I've never got around to seeing Memento. Is it a film that you guys would recommend?

 

I like it. I think it's still on Netflix, so if you have that, you may wanna check it out.

 

It's definitely a movie you should see.

 

I recommend Memento to pretty much everyone.

It is still on Netflix Instant, yeah.

 

Definitely. You're gonna have to use your head, so don't be tired when you watch it.

 

Following is on Netflix Instant too, and that's also worth seeing.

 

I prefer Following, myself.

 

I hated Following.

 

I hated your mom.

 

Following was okay. A little rough around the edges, but it's an okay debut for Nolan.

 

It was raw. Unfettered creativity and furvor. That's why I like it.

 

Fair enough. I agree that it did show ambition.

 

It just looked like your typical college level, art house style type of movie.

 

A guy who goes to an incredibly artsy film school, I agree.

 

It's the same quality I saw when I used to watch college films on campus back in the day.

 

Well, Nolan did make this with his own money over the course of a year with little resources, limited equipment, and a cast and crew who had other things including full time jobs.

He might as well have been a film student with this production.

 

It always kind of amazes me how trivial attending film school is if you don't have that fire of true genius and creativity. There's so many of you dudes here who've gone and - no offense - its not like any of you are Roman Polanski in real life.

Or I'm reminded of that guy who directed Assassination of a High School President, Brett Simon. That guy has a PhD in film, yet could barely make a passable DTV movie. It's pretty incredible.

 

That's what's cool about it.

It's the same reason I like THX-1138 so much; The more limited your resources are, the more creative you're forced to become. And I dunno, I swear those films just burn with passion and intimacy that no big budget movie can ever quite capture.

 

I never went to film school, but I did host film and music events, so I can use the venue for comedy shows.

 

I never saw anything as assured as Following in my days as a film student. It's rough around the edges, it has its weak spots, but you can see that filmmaker underneath that has something to say, that has real ideas about how you construct a movie, that really knows how to speak the language of cinema and is already audacious enough to push at the conventions of storytelling without ever forgetting to actually tell a story. I see exactly why that little no budget movie got investors to put trust in Nolan and get his first "real" film made.

 

You can stop right there. It just is. 95% of the people who went to the film school I attended had no real passion. The ones that did I thought were wasting their time. School or not, these people were going to make movies, come hell or high water. They were going to work three jobs and eat Ramen and fish sticks so they could buy film stock (yes, film stock. I was a member of perhaps the last generation of film students who actually had to shoot and cut on 16mm).

That 5% made me realize that I don't have it. I dropped out.