When I lived in Boston, back in my first couple of post-college years, mid-decade, I barely ever went to movies. Mostly because Boston's cost of living is quite high and I was making very little money, spending most of my income on rent alone, and with the scant amount of my remaining income post-bills post-groceries going to trying to cobble together a social life built around bar-flying. The nine or ten dollars for a movie ticket was better spent on 1 1/2 beers. I did go to things occasionally (specifically, I can recall going to see Broken Flowers, Willy Wonka:The Remake (on a date), Sin City, Al Gore: The Dramumentary and Will Ferrel's Car-Racing Disappointment: The Movie (with a friend that was really really excited about it--and then profoundly disappointed by its incredible suckiness)). So, five movies in two years; obviously not the kind of clip you'd expect for someone as culturologically inclined as myself. But this past summer of not-going-to-movies has reminded me: if you don't go to movies all the time, the money actually starts to add up. I've saved nearly $100 this summer by not going out to see movies that I normally would go see.
Without fresh fodder, then, I'd like to return to a comment Nick made a couple of weeks ago, mentioning that he finally got around to watching Push, based on a recommendation of mine contained within a former Culturology post, and he couldn't even finish the movie, and hated it, and wondered how I could have been suckered by such a movie. It's a curious thing, since Nick and my taste in movies tends to be quite similar (except that he has a way higher tolerance for shitty comedies--and I go pretty far, relative to the norm, I think, in terms of enjoying bad comedies). This sudden disjunction between our movie-going tastes was highlighted at the beginning of the summer as well, with Wolverine: The Movie, where Nick couldn't believe that I didn't, based on my established set of movies-I-like, that I didn't like Wolvie: This Claw's For You. This is precisely the sort of thing that I take way too seriously, so I've been thinking about it a lot. I think it comes down to two things: category and expectation.
Category: To recap an argument that we really don't need to recapitulate here on Audioshocker (search "wolverine" to pick up some of the shrapnel): Nick thinks SNIKT!: The Musical was a solid action movie, I think it was tired and cliche-ridden, to the point where those oftentimes enjoyable action tropes didn't play out. As for Push: Push, I thought that, despite it's being a highly-flawed movie, the fact that it really went for something, showed some style, and was generally entertaining made it a solid movie-going experience. Nick's main problem with my disliking Berserk!: Logan's Tale was that I like so many other completely cheesy action movies with lame effects, how could I suddenly think this movie was the one that sucked, saying that if we viewed the aforementioned movie as a B-movie, we'd have had no problem with it, and probably enjoyed it.
But you can't watch an intended Hollywood blockbuster as a B-movie, it crosses the definitions (the categories, if you will). Here's another example: once upon a time, back in my first year of college, I would occasionally try to convince my rock n' roll friends that classical music was cool. I would do this by trying to play them what I thought was the coolest classical music around and saying "Isn't this cool?!?" A poor strategy, I'll admit (most people just don't like classical music), but once I had the interesting outcome of playing a friend Gorecki's Harpsichord Concerto, and having that friend make the decision, based on that, that I really really liked harpsichord music. So this friend misunderstood the category of the music: I was trying to play him "awesome classical music" but what he heard was "harpsichord music that my friend thinks is awesome because he really likes harpsichords." So, admitting to liking B-movies is not the same thing as admitting to like crappy mega-productions that may as well be B-movies.
Anti-Pull, in a lot of ways, is like a B-movie as well. It's pretty flatly acted, lacks a cohesive sense of style, and lacks the sense of pacing that better-made movies have. (See, so, comparing these two movies makes a ton of sense.) But Pushing Too Hard isn't a B-movie any more than Wolf: Man; I've already written about its being designed to specifically compete against blockbuster comic book movies, and several of its identity problems were almost certainly the result of studio interference (I'm not basing this on anything but a pre-established distrust of studios). If anything, these are both "comic book movies", even if one of them wasn't even based on a comic book. That being the category, Push was a better comic book movie than Wolverine.
Expectations: This is getting tired. The heading explains itself. I had no hope for Push being any good, so the fact that it was surprisingly entertaining made it seem better than it was. Wolverine, at least, should have been okay. I had low expectations, but not as low as the thing was terrible, thus it seemed even worse than it was.
Anyhoo, I'll still eventually get back out to the theaters, and then won't have to rehash old arguments anymore.
(And I'll get around to closing out the already defunct bookclub soon.)
interesting! i like what you had to say. this is definite a natural evolution of our earlier argument about Wolvie. honestly, i don't know how to come with a counter-point to your point about not enjoying the film.
i think, within the terms that you have laid out, you make perfect sense... except for the liking Push thing. i see why you didn't like Wolvie. but following that same logic, i still don't understand why you found Push acceptable.
to address a different point, i'll give you an example of a blockbuster that has different meaning when viewed as a B-movie: Bloodsport. the movie was based on many things, one of them being the experiences of a Warner Bros exec attending an actual Kumite (int'l mixed martial arts fighting event). so obviously (for many other reasons as well), this movie wasn't made to flop or live on as a second-stringer.
but viewed as a blockbuster, Bloodsport has a tough time holding up. the acting is stilted beyond belief and the filming is a little raw in places even for the late 80s. but if viewed as a B-movie (or rather, viewed with B-movie expectations), specifically as a descendant of Bruce Lee's films, this movie is a tremendous success.
nowadays, things are so different. the B-movie back then was a readl deal. but now, as a concept, it almost has no room to exist. due to the mass-production of professional level production materials such as digital cameras, as well as editing and FX software, the B-movie is more of a stylistic choice rather than a necessity.
with that said, let me propose a new type of B-movie: the studio interference masterpiece. if you can bend your mind a bit, it makes tons of sense - movie studios have a grand history of sabotaging their own films. people with little to no taste use their executive clout to fiddle with the plot, filming, editing, and marketing of major motion pictures all the time.
Wolverine, in my opinion, is a miracle of studio interference. the CG is overdone yet hackneyed. the actors are all big names but often shoved into underwhelming or under-represented roles. the story follows the comics to a degree, but obviously was tweaked against better judgment (for example, the "Deadpool" concept).
but, in my opinion, Wolverine still came out the other end as a fun and watchable movie. while i know you disagree, Pete, i think you're saying the same thing about Push in some ways. so, even though neither of these films work as B-movies when held up against the traditional criteria, they both fit the distinction of my new "studio B-movie," or as i like to think of it, BBB-movie (Big Bucks B-movie).