MoragaBear;842619655 said:
I go to movies to be entertained, not to make lemons out of lemonade.
I get that, and I am glad that you and so many others really liked the film. But I don't get the "I go to be entertained" sentiment. My wife says that all the time too. We can all of course chose whatever criteria we want and experience a book, film, or anything on the terms we chose...but I don't get how "entertained" is used as a sort of antithetical to films that are deemed "artistic" "intellectual" or "boring"---and people who are observing the faults in an "entertaining" movie as being "finicky", "negative" or "making lemonade".
I too go to movies to be entertained (I was first in line at Force Awakens and was as excited as anyone), but I can't be entertained if their are huge plot holes and "we" (the audience) are not filtering the story through a plausible POV (or camera) or moved through a well-structured narrative. This isn't over intellectualizing, it's the visceral, embodied viewing experience I have of being disconnected by poor story telling, poor craft, poor acting, etc. It breaks with our experience of the world when our stories ring false...and then I'm bored...and not entertained. I could go into narrative theory here and how story works on us at the cognitive level, but then you'd think that I am sitting there in the theater watching as an academic when in fact I TRY to fall completely into story without critical faculty. When I start breaking into analysis (my head intruding on the experience) it is a sure sign that there are faults in the craft and that it is losing me.
While I may also have a preference for films that push artistic envelopes (like Birdman as a recent example--I was on the edge of my seat excited through that whole film, just couldn't believe what I was seeing) I also like a well-made commercial film...but it has to be well-made. It doesn't get a pass for exhibiting the tropes of being "entertaining" (the signature moments of a big budget action film we all know). I was unexpectedly surprised by Guardians of the Galaxy as a recent example of a popular film in the action genre that had some bones to it and stayed within genre while not being completely predictable--where as most of the Marvel films the past few years I think are complete formula (AntMan a pleasant exception I thought). The Lord of the Rings trilogy (not the Hobbit) was an "entertaining" series that was also an artistic success. They are not mutually exclusive. A film can be good and entertaining, just like Cal football can be smart AND successful ;-)
More than anything, I don't like seeing the studios getting away with creating pap that is nothing more than a marketing vehicle and thinking that is all they have to do--the public isn't smart enough to notice and box off is big enough justification to keep churning out the crap. Film is culture. I'd like to see the cinema return to a more artistically driven enterprise. There are not as many Godfathers being made today and it's a shame.
Meanwhile, TV audiences are demanding more and more in terms of excellence, authenticity, and originality. There are more and more shows like Sopranos, Breaking Bad, MadMen, Lost, etc. We went from a Golden Age of film to crass commercialism, while TV went from crass commercialism to a Golden Age.
I liked Steven Soderbergh’s speech on the state of the film industry:
http://deadline.com/2013/04/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address-486368/
