Gigli (Martin Brest, 2003)

[paranoid-knight2008]

Most of us here balance an open mind with the courage of our convictions, but you seem both immobile and unsure. The fact that people disagreeing bothers you so much might signal some inner doubt as to your own positions

There is no way I am doubting my views on the film, I'm just curious. Simple as that. You find the dialogue in that scene cheesy? I find it realistic and, well, funny. I don't see how that dialogue can rub off as cheesy and/or unrealistic. It's a bit satirizing the aspects of sexual behavior, but not to the point of where its over-the-top or ridiculous. It's honest and authentic to me.

Honestly, before this thread becomes even more of a trainwreck all I can say PK2008 is that it might make your life easier on this board if you spent some time lurking so you can better understand the kinds of films that our members are talking about and get a better sense of the3 personalities of our members. You are taking it far too personally that there is pretty much no interest in discussing this film. Let it go and move on.

I guess you're right. Maybe I should spend my time talking about the films that I love in, well... the Criterion group. I mean, this is the Criterion forum...

[Antoine Doinel]

As for the dialog you're praising, there is no conceivable context under which "It's turkey time" is clever or funny

That's not entirely true....

[domino harvey]

[paranoid-knight2008]

[Jun-Dai]

Honestly, before this thread becomes even more of a trainwreck all I can say PK2008 is that it might make your life easier on this board if you spent some time lurking so you can better understand the kinds of films that our members are talking about and get a better sense of the personalities of our members. You are taking it far too personally that there is pretty much no interest in discussing this film. Let it go and move on.

I disagree, somewhat. I think the film is worth discussing, but it is a very hard film to discuss. The onus is, of course, on PK2k8, if he wants the discussion, and if PK2k8 thinks the dialogue is good and turkey time is clever and authentic and no one else does, well that makes discussion a bit difficult if we can't move past that. It's also hard if PK2k8 seems more interested in discussing our attitudes and motives in disliking the film than he is in discussing the film. But there's more to it than that.

The fact that for the most part people aren't able to resist ridiculing the film while dismissing shows that while we can often explain what we like about certain films (although I would posit that most of these are stand-ins for the subjective, but real reasons we like the films), it's usually very difficult to explain what we don't like, unless a film offends us in some political or moral way (or aesthetic—e.g., "I can't stand films with shaky hand-held camerawork."). Consequently, we tend to find ourselves ridiculing aspects of these films we find ridiculous, even though pretty much any film is fairly easy to ridicule. It's a good exercise to watch a bad film occasionally and try to think about what you don't like about it without ridiculing it even once.

* * *

It's often said that it's much easier to tear a film down than it is to build up a critique in its favor. I think this only really refers to ridicule, though. I find—and I sense from what others write—that it's as hard to nail down those things that make us dislike a film as it is to nail down those things that make us like them. We can point to things like what I find to be the terrible acting in Gigli, the terrible dialogue, the terrible sense of dramatic and comedic timing, the unappealing premise, and the absence of redeeming qualities (cinematography, staging, editing, realism). But it's pretty hard for me to go any deeper than that. Why do I dislike the acting? It seems amateurish. But why should it seem amateurish? These are professional actors that are capable of decent performances, but for some reason I find them totally unconvincing and unengaging and quite self-conscious. Others may not find it amateurish. And where others find bad acting (as most of my friends do in Celebrity and The Talented Mr. Ripley), I find good, or even great, acting.

As much as PK2k8 has had a hard time articulating what he likes about the film, he's definitely done a better job than any one else has done articulating what they dislike about the film. If he can improve on that, then this could become one of the better threads here. The criterion for "belonging" here should have less to do with the films we choose to discuss and more about the amount of thought that goes into the discussion. If I had my way, good grammar and spelling would be another criterion, but I recognize that as a personal hangup.

[/soapbox]

[HerrSchreck]

I think you're taking for granted that the amount of energy expended in posting a brief negative opinion on an internet forum equals the sum capacity within that given poster's cranium for intellectual depth-of-possible reasoning on a given film. There are only so many hours in a day, only so many minutes in an hour, and I really don't feel the need to expend a full page's time, an hourlong post, devoted to repeating something that needs no repeating-- preaching to the choir. My kevyip is literally up in the hundreds, and if I'm going to spend considerable mental energy on something, it should at least be on a project whose authors expended at least half that amount thinking the damned thing up.

One doesn't need to dig a mile into the earth's crust to excavate a turnip.

Of course PK2008 is going to be expending the bulk of the energy and introspection here-- he's the agent of mild controversy going against the paradigm. He came in with that which he knew went against a major public opinion-- he against the world viz Gigli. But I can't think of a less appetizing exercise than putting together a dry and serious dissertation, a la my posts on Carl Mayer or Jean Epstein, about why I consider Gigli bad cinema.

There are cases where-- using myself as an example-- I would sincerely explore the reasons why I don't like a particular work... and it's usually because I am in a similar but reverse situation as PK2008-- for example Contempt. It was a film that is lauded by people I respect, was made with a sense of genuine Contemplation Worth Contemplating.

As for

things like what I find to be the terrible acting in Gigli, the terrible dialogue, the terrible sense of dramatic and comedic timing, the unappealing premise, and the absence of redeeming qualities (cinematography, staging, editing, realism).

I don't see why that's unsatisfactory as a list of reasons... simply because people don't explain each bullet point in depth doesn't mean they can't. It's just that they feel certain things don't need explaining.

What do you mean btw when you say "pretty much any film is fairly easy to ridicule"? I mean beyond the bounds of the fact that, if a person wants to be overly cynical, sardonic or sarcastic, a person can make fun of virtually anything on the face of the earth... what is inherently ridicule-worthy about Any Film?

[Jun-Dai]

I think you're taking for granted that the amount of energy expended in posting a brief negative opinion on an internet forum equals the sum capacity within that given poster's cranium for intellectual depth-of-possible reasoning on a given film. There are only so many hours in a day, only so many minutes in an hour, and I really don't feel the need to expend a full page's time, an hourlong post, devoted to repeating something that needs no repeating-- preaching to the choir. My kevyip is literally up in the hundreds, and if I'm going to spend considerable mental energy on something, it should at least be on a project whose authors expended at least half that amount thinking the damned thing up.

One doesn't need to dig a mile into the earth's crust to excavate a turnip.

Understood, and I don't mean to say that any of us should rise up to PK2k8's challenge, and most of the time when we don't care about a film, there's no need to. But when we ridicule a film, we are rarely saying anything interesting about the film, we are only practicing our ridiculing skills. I do think there's value in occasionally putting some real thought into why I don't like a particular film, but I'm not really interested in rewatching this one to do that. Perhaps if someone made a more compelling case for the film that I wanted to work off of. I've certainly done it for some films. In some cases I ended up loving the film (Annie Hall), and in other cases I still wasn't able to come to terms with it, although usually my repulsion is less pronounced than in my first viewing (Traffic). In both cases, it was because someone whose opinion I hold in some particular esteem really liked the film and I couldn't quite articulate why I didn't like it, which seems to be in line with what you said next. In this case, PK2k8 has an extra burden because so many of the people that have seen the film have disliked it that it's gotten a special reputation, and the people that dislike it dislike it so much that most of them aren't particularly open to reexamining the film. It would definitely take a formidable defense of the film (or a defense of it from someone like, say, Terence Malick) to get me to rewatch it, but it's not quite inconceivable.

As for

things like what I find to be the terrible acting in Gigli, the terrible dialogue, the terrible sense of dramatic and comedic timing, the unappealing premise, and the absence of redeeming qualities (cinematography, staging, editing, realism).

I don't see why that's unsatisfactory as a list of reasons... simply because people don't explain each bullet point in depth doesn't mean they can't. It's just that they feel certain things don't need explaining.

Well, in that example, I've just broken my dislike into a few broad categories. Instead of giving the film zero stars, I've broken it into a handful of aspects and given each one zero stars. It's not to say that there's no value in that, but it doesn't bring much more to the discussion other than to say that I've thought about it from a few angles and… nope, still don't like it. It's not much of an exercise in criticism.

What do you mean btw when you say "pretty much any film is fairly easy to ridicule"? I mean beyond the bounds of the fact that, if a person wants to be overly cynical, sardonic or sarcastic, a person can make fun of virtually anything on the face of the earth... what is inherently ridicule-worthy about Any Film?

I can ridicule Citizen Kane by saying that, when all's said and done, after all the angst and fancy expressionist stylings, the film just boils down to a rich guy that wants to be loved, and who wants to watch that? Or I can turn around and say that Vertigo is really just a sequence of slow, endless car shots from a stalker's perspective, repeated twice over for good measure, with a surprise middle and a surprise ending that are only really surprising because, well, something actually happened. The process is basically the same for any film, and no film is immune to it. The ridicule heaped on Gigli is no different, other than the volume of ridicule it receives.

Ridiculing is simply an act of boiling something down, taking some aspect of something, and then elevating that in an odd light for everyone to look at, and it's more an act of performance than an act of criticism, and that's what all the RT critics were doing that PK2008 was, er… countering. It's a lot like caricature. Barbra Streisand has a funny nose, so you make the nose even bigger and emphasize its funny characteristics, and then do a few more things like that, and when you're done, everyone instantly recognizes the subject, but you've distorted everything in the process. Through exaggeration, you've taken an observation and made a performance out of it.