Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Post Release - Page 22

I'm fairly relaxed. Chillin' on the couch, listening to tunes, taking a break from cleaning up the joint for a small NYE get together. But you're not being analytical. You're lumping people into sweeping generalizations based on their affection for a particular movie. That's offensive. It's cool, I know you don't mean it. But one doesn't need to be racist to be offensive.

You don't see me calling you a man child for your curious love of Adults as Children movies. I think it's interesting but I'm not going to make any grand statements about it or about you. Get me?

If you did, it wouldn't bother me. I'm comfortable with the adolescent side of myself. I love Batman and Batman movies. Is it because any actor that has played Batman has done so in some rich, illuminating way? No, it's because I want to be Batman. If the movie is actually good on top of that, bonus. My enjoyment of the character is derived from an adolescent power fantasy and I'm cool with that.

I lump the character of Scott in the power fantasy category because there really isn't anything in Michael Cera's performance. It's passable, he delivers his lines well. He's Michael Cera. His believability as a romantic interest is completely debatable. It's just OK. It does the job but that's it. But yet, people are completely captivated by this character. Why? Whatever it is, it's not onscreen, people are bringing it in with them. In my opinion.

You don't need identification with Nina in Black Swan because Portman's performance is so fucking good, she makes you feel it. It's there on the screen. There's a huge difference.

I like the way you insult people and then tell them not to take it personally. That's classy.

You're all idiots for loving Scott Pilgrim!!!

Don't take it personal, ok?

:P

If people are personally insulted by me saying there's some adolescent wish-fulfillment going on around here then they are way too fucking sensitive to be hanging out on a message board. Jesus, what did you do when Devin was around?

Yeah, cause that's exactly what I said. *Rolly eye emoticon indicating sarcasm.*

So you're telling me that I'm a geeky loser who only praises this film because it's about a geeky loser who gets a hot chick, basically saying that I'm so myopic that I'm allowing my hope for a fulfilling life (which I clearly don't have) to mistake a cinematic proxy's wish-fulfillment with great filmmaking. And that's not a direct insult that I should take personally.

You're a douchebag. Don't take that personally.

The hook here is that (though you'll refuse to accept this) you're wrong. I don't identify with Scott. At all. He's terrible. And that's the point. He has a lot of growth to get through, and by the end, he does. I admire this film because of its incredible filmmaking skill. Sorry you couldn't see it through the fight scenes and video game imagery. I guess you just don't have an eye for quality filmmaking. But don't take that personally.

I called him on his shit, just like I'm doing now.

I love how people who feel that I've insulted them have turned to personally insulting me. Way to keep it "classy" Greg.

You can feel however you want about what I have said in this thread, but I have personally insulted no one. You have. Who is the douchebag?

Seriously, you're starting to act kind of squirrelly.

I like the way you cut the first part of my post where I explained how you're insulting people. Clever.

So wait, that second part wasn't a personal insult? The part where Greg David, paragon of internet class called me a douchebag? Was I being over-sensitive?

Gentlemen, please! It's starting to smell like the internet in here!

You've utterly missed the point here, haven't you?

Look, ignore that part of the post. I'll even issue an apology if that will help. But you can't claim that you haven't insulted anybody who praises the film by saying that they only like it because it's wish fulfillment. It insults our ability to judge film, and issues personal insults at our ability to date attractive women. In what way is that anything resembling rational film critique?

Urgh, now he's going to say you're projecting onto his harmless comments and the cycle is going to repeat again.

Well, there is a lot of inference in that post, or would you disagree, Spike?

Gentlemen, it's Winter Classic Eve. Can't we all just get along?

Formal apology: I apologize if anyone was personally insulted by the implication that adolescent wish-fulfillment plays any role in your enjoyment of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD.

No I wouldn't disagree, at all. Your post reads exactly as Greg stated and you're either being a purposefully ignorant troll right now or you're autistic and generally don't understand what you've done.

The fuck is going on in here? Pretty much every person arguing is better than this.

I actually connect with Sebastian's puzzlement over people finding Scott Pilgrim as profound as they did. It's a fine entertainment, but I think there's nothing inherently wrong with exploring his initial analysis* over the demographic that DID connect with the film as hard as they did, and why he, while being very much a part of that demographic, did not. And bear in mind criticizing the critic plays in both directions.

As for where it belongs on a "best of" list - this is why I don't make "best of" lists. Sorry, High Fidelity.

*Yes, yes, I know it devolved into people feeling insulted or whatever. Talking about his initial, humble, non-threatening position of "I don't get the love."

But if this were anyone other than someone from your cadre of friends would you be so intent on leaping to his defence. It wasn't simply a 'I don't get the love', it was a 'people who put this film into their top ten are suspect and their lists are invalid'. That's a massive fucking difference in tone.

No, I understand. I just don't agree that what I said is insulting because I can reflect honestly on myself about why I like certain things.

(I apologize if the above statement personally insults anyone by inferring that they cannot reflect honestly on themselves)

Greg is saying that I am calling everyone who likes the film a loser who can't get girls. I didn't say that. He is extrapolating and inferring to justify the butthurt that drove him to personally call me a douchebag. All because I'm trying to understand why people love the movie beyond its obvious technical merits, why they seem to connect to it on some sort of deep emotional level, an emotional level that frankly I don't see in the film as is.

Spike, you like Doctor Who, right? Do you honestly think your love of Doctor Who -- a character aimed squarely at adolescents -- has anything to do with adolescent wish-fulfillment? I mean, does it play any role whatsoever in your enjoyment of Doctor Who? I know that it does for me.

And here's where I have to repeat myself, to both Sebastian and (unbelievably) Phil; a film does not have to be profound or touch viewers on a deep emotional level to be a great film. Who wrote that rule?

As a child I always wanted to be the bad guy in films, and that has never changed. The Master is more my adolescent wish fulfillment than the Doctor, so no, I really don't get what you're saying.

However I had a little distaste for Pilgrim's character until I realised he was a critique. He fits so broadly into the nerd archetypes that he can seem like an audience surrogate, but I think the film goes out of its way to paint him as kind of an ass. Which is why the alternate ending with him getting Knives irks me somewhat. Because it betrays Knives character, regresses Pilgrim and falls back on the old Yellow Fever cliches associated with Nerd culture.

I admit to poor wording in my posts, and I admit to enjoying pushing buttons sometimes. But I honestly never strive to hurt people's feelings. I'm thick-skinned, so I am often guilty of being insensitive. My apologies are sincere.

I do think I have a fucking point though.

Well, yeah. I have a long history of defending people when I think they're dogpiled on, Spike. Sebastian could have chosen some words better, but he's been apologizing for them since the 29th.

Also, Beck isn't young people music.

This isn't a dog pile, and I'm just fascinated at watching someone make my mistakes who isn't me. I've been taking notes.

I'm not arguing that. (True Grit might be my favorite movie of the year, and it does absolutely nothing revolutionary or profound to me. It's just a damn good film.) Unless I'm mistaken, Sebastian was wondering out loud about the folks who did in fact find the film to be very deep and profound and resonant. I believe Devin compared it to If..., by Lindsay Anderson. Not begrudging or dismissing that comparison, but surely it can withstand having its tires kicked a little?

Just saw this...great little gem of a movie. I enjoyed the hell out of it. There was nothing deeply profound about it IMO...just very very cool, like an 80s Hughes comedy on acid. Would go next to Weird Science on my shelf.

Yeah, I have no problem with people enjoying it far more than I did. I find it shocking to see it so high up on "Best of" lists around here. To me it was an amusing but ultimately forgettable piece of fluff that survived two boring leads with no chemistry based mainly on a stellar cast of side characters and some very clever and exciting visual craftsmanship.

Either some people must be finding something deeper than a good popcorn flick to be calling it one of (if not the) best film of the year, or this was the worst year in modern film history.

OR people are appreciating the craft and energy and tone of the film. It's such a weirdly binary complaint, this adamant belief that great films have to be deep films. ENTER THE VOID is a great film just because it does stuff with film as an artform which is just incredible even if emotionally speaking it never quite hits the mark it wants to hit.

I feel exactly the same way. Story wise there was nothing new going on IMO. Plus, I could never figure out what Ramona saw in Scott, who did just about everything wrong, and they didn't have any chemistry. Cera isn't very interesting either.

The innovation was in the way the story was told. But even that wasn't doing anything unheard of...it didn't add any resonance to the narrative, only to the tone and pacing.

The real stars of this movie were the periphery characters. I don't like Cera in the lead. He's decent enough, but I feel like this could have been a classic if the leads were better and had actual chemistry...it would have made the love story come alive. Ramona was okay, but again, nothing interesting or memorable.

This could have been a breakout role for someone...like Hanks in Big. Cera just doesn't do anything to elevate this. Just my opinion.

I think that on even on a nuts and bolts level, the film doesn't stack up to the best of the year. The structure is repetitive with fight after fight. It's video game structure. Intentional perhaps, but that doesn't make it good structure.

So we have a structuraly unsound story with a blank lead and a central romanctic plot that doesn't work. Yet it's on many internet critics best of the year list, many at #1. Sorry, the "it's just a fun movie" justification doesn't wash. People are taking a personal, emotional ownership of this film that it simply doesn't merit on its own.

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION

Sebastian, we're cool and no need to apologize. Like I said before, I don't think you intended to be offensive, it just seemed that way.

It's difficult for me to explain why I loved this movie as much as I did. Part of it is what Damon's talked about: it featured the best cinematic language of the year for my money. I got drunk off the movie. It was a movie that seemed drunk off movies and pop culture in general. It's not simply that "it was a fun movie" and I don't think anyone is simply saying that. But the best reasons I can think of to defend the movie have been written by other folks. I know you said before that you don't care what some jerks on the internet say, but to be honest it would be dishonest of me to present this argument as my own. But this is the best review I've read about why the movie is more than simply "fun." I quoted the conclusion below.

You can disagree and that's fine. But if you want to know why, that paragraph pretty much sums it up for me.

No worries man we're cool. That goes for Greg and Spike and the rest of y'all as well. Happy New Year.

And the paragraph you quoted does go a long way to helping me see what you guys see in the film. I don't know if I'll ever come around to it to that extent, but it's helping me get a more well-rounded picture of all the love.

See, I think that is wrong on two counts

1) 8 bit videogame nostalgia has nothing to do with the youth experience of most people Scott's age. It felt like a phony pop culture confection more aimed at the over 30 set than 20 somethings

2) That review assumes that there is apparently something worthwhile in emulating ADHD culture for emulations sake. It is clever enough but does not connect with me emotionally

I'd say the closest soulmate to Scott Pilgrim that came out this year was Enter the Void. If Scott Pilgrim feels like it takes place inside a video game, Enter the Void feels like a metaphysical pinball machine, bouncing the soul of the main character through different places and times in the past, present, and future. Both are impeccably directed, incredibly inventive films that are so cinematic and amazing that (for most, but not all people) the flaws in story and characters are able to be overlooked. Both are films that (finally!) utilize CGI to tell a story in a way that hasn't been told before, instead of to create ornate and fake looking worlds wholesale. I can see them both as being hugely influential to present and future filmmakers*, the kind of movies that make you expand your idea of how the power of cinema can be harnessed. These are films that couldn't have been made 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago, films that represent the singular vision of real artists.

Both (I feel) suffer from the story being told; Enter the Void with it's poor actors and despicable characters, Scott Pilgrim with it's rushed story and center relationship that's too slight to really care about. I feel that Scott Pilgrim puts a lot more it's weight on these problems than Enter the Void does, and suffers more as a consequence. But to discount the films because of these flaws feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And you don't even need to throw out the bathwater, because there's a drain in the bathtub. Use that, and you will keep your infants a lot safer.

What was I talking about?

I understand if Scott Pilgrim didn't make your personal Top 10 (it didn't make mine), I understand if you didn't even like it (I really liked it), but to make condescending assumptions about WHY people would disagree with your personal opinion is narrow-minded and silly.** Debate the film, your problems with it, but trying to understand why someone would call Scott Pilgrim the best film of the year is like trying to figure out why someone would like the movie Clifford: it just spoke to them the right way, I guess.

*Filmmakers of the past, like John Ford, will probably remain too dead to care.

**Unless you're talking about Wilco, which sounds like every other alt-country band ever, and yet has a huge indie following. That emperor has no clothes and I feel like a crazy person for being the only person who realizes it.

Wilco appeals to a broad base because they are bland and non-challenging. I wouldn't level that criticism at SCOTT PILGRIM at all.

The point is not that SOMEONE would put SP at the #1 spot in their list, but that so many people in this little corner of the film criticism community did. It's a movie that I have seen have little to no impact in the "real-world" film community I hang with, so I find this schism puzzling. What is it about SCOTT PILGRIM that appeals to this little demographic so profoundly? I want to know why -- and it being just a decent little movie isn't sufficient for me. I'm interested in psychology, and I honestly think there is some underlying psychological factors at play here. There is a "cult" of Scott Pilgrim, and I wanna know why! Is it folly for me to want to know? Yeah, probably.

PLEASE NO ONE TAKE THE USAGE OF THE TERM CULT AS AN INSULT, THAT'S WHY IT'S IN QUOTES

The movie's style is nice, but it doesn't do anything to elevate the story for me, which is weakened by the leads and their flat tire of a romance. To me, you almost had to go really far out and make it melodrama rather than drama to match the emotional intensity of the style. It was like they went through all that noise over a couple boring people who don't even fit together.

There was nothing memorable about the story to me, and you needed killer leads to make it more than a night at the movies. Great film, and I can even see it being on top ten lists, but not at the level of reverential worship its getting.

I find this incredibly ironic for someone who has over 10,000 many message board posts on this very forum in little over one year.

But couldn't it just be that this little corner of film criticism is one that pays an above-average level of attention to things like editing? Because that's really one of the things that I think this film excels at. In its way, it utilizes film editing in as revolutionary a way as Star Wars did in 1977. There's an early sequence in which a conversation is carried on across multiple time changes and settings, moving the story forward at an accelerated pace, that I found extremely exciting; it was a filmmaking choice that I haven't seen before, at least not done quite this way.

Okay, we get it man. I'll let go of that portion of the debate.

Yeah, the editing is fantastic, Devin goes over that in detail in his review. The film is innovative, no doubt about it. But do you really think that's what's putting it on the top tier of so many Chud (and other geek-friendly sites) year-end lists? Do all these people work in editing?

I get the larger point of what you are saying, but I don't agree with you that there is no shared emotional component to this, or for lack of a better term, phenomena. I mean, maybe people are getting different things out it, but they are getting SOMETHING beyond what the film is presenting on the surface. You don't call a film THE BEST OF THE YEAR if it just impresses you technically.

My personal favourite multiple endings movie is the home video version of "Clue", where they ran one alternate ending after the other. It worked even better as even though they obviously contradicted each other, they kept escalating to build up to the final one which was the most over the top.

It had a great final line too:

"I'm going home ... to my wife!"

I'm going to venture a guess and attempt to answer this question because it is how I came to really love the film, in a "top 10 of the year" kind of way.

What first drew me in from the trailer and ads (other than Wright's involvement) was the 8-bit game references, garage-rock-ish music, and Batman-style visual sound effects. So with all these familiar and beloved elements it's no surprise that the nerd-leaning corner of the Internet got excited.

But that's not enough to make a great movie. What put it over the top was the humor, the energy, the undeniable visual innovation and most of all for me, the fact that it is not a celebration but rather a (sympathetic) critique of Scott.

I'd say the video game/comic book aesthetic created the "cult" of fans but the addition of Wright and company's amazing skills and deeper themes (not "watch geeky Cera win the hot girl") brought on the critical love.

Not to start it up again but there's a difference between analyzing a movie and analyzing its supposed audience. When we (the CHUDfolk) talk about movies, we have years upon years of movie knowledge backing us up, when we "analyze" the audience, its pretty much filtered Oprah level bullshit and all the Freudian nuggets of info a person can get from the movie Brazil. Let's stick with what we know.

As for the movie, still got some problems with it, but think its editing and directing is mind blowing. And fun!

EDIT: Sebastian, I just saw you diss Wilco. Now THAT'S unforgivable.

I respect the film. The editing and directing is great. I just didn't care for the characters and I didn't bother to watch the ending. I've never read the comics so maybe that has something to do with it.. But damn the film looked and sounded great.

This deconstruction of its fans is not fair in one bit. Either you liked it or you didn't. No one should be taken to task for where they put this on their list or how much the film moved them or what not. But hell, it's the Internet.

Oh Jesus H. Fucking Christ. No one's being "taken to task". I'm interested in poking at the psychology behind the phenomena. I'm sorry no one here is comfortable exploring the emotional reasons why they like something. I'm sick of explaining this. I don't care anymore why this clearly flawed film has been practically declared the best film around here by unanimous decree. I don't mind, I just think it's weird. Sorry for asking for some introspection.

EDIT: Nick, if "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" is all you need from your film discussion, and you hate the internet, why are you even on this board?

I've gotta say--I think people are getting too hung up on the argument that, because most of the video game references are 8- or 16-bit stuff, that it's aimed more at decrepit 35-year-olds. The fact is, the old-school video games have more distinctive imagery than modern games; you look at the Universal logo at the beginning an think "Video game!" in a way that something with modern graphics might not register.

The fact is, the movie is aimed at gaming nerds, who, regardless of age, have probably spent some time playing old school video games, or who are at least aware of them. In the same way a 20-year-old film fan is probably familiar with movies that were made before 1999.

Strong point. I'm not a gamer and it could be the reason it didn't resonate AS strongly for me. Back when I saw it I compared it to watching a samurai film, where you're just dropped into the world and it's on you to get up to speed on the specifics of the culture. And I mean that in a good way. But being mired in videogame culture probably would help one get more out of the film.

Someone should bump one of the many "videogames as art" threads and get all cranky about "how come videogames can't be art but a movie that uses video game imagery and trappings can be art?" Just for fun.

Then we can go say Candyman in front of a mirror 3 times while wearing a red Starfleet shirt in a cabin on Crystal Lake.