The Index of ILX Film Snobs

(xpost!)

(xpost)

Is BB still around?

6. amateurist
Defining Characteristics: the knows-way-more-than-you type who actually does know more but is oh so vague about offering it
Most Famous Battle(s): with himself over Elephant
Humanizing Factor: acknowledges the extent to which personal opinions color film discussion and demonstrates it more tactfully than the other ILX film snobs
Secret Powers: has actually lived in the world capital of cinephilia
Origin of Name: amateur/auteurist/eucharist/ate
Weak Point/Guilty Pleasure/Kryptonite Analogue: posting phrases in French
Known Enemies: Gus Van Sant

Also, I think you are confused about his friends and enemies!!
Well, I think these things are a little fluid.

(or, at least, I hope not!)

note to jaymc: please refrain from impulse to correct Origin Of Name field by reference to actual 'facts'

where are the J.D. and gygax! humanizing factors?

where are the J.D. and gygax! humanizing factors?
Feel free to feel in the missing fields, estela

Secret Powers: has actually lived in the world capital of cinephilia

me too! I was supposed to be at school but I did nothing but watch movies all day, surely that counts.

ken, i am much too shy and reserved to make declarations about young film gentlemen's humanizing factors and anyway the ones you wrote for the others were funny and nice and far better than anything i would write.

I think we disagreed on Lone Star but he introduced me to The Endless Summer and he likes Chris Marker.

Alright, but only because J. Blanchard refused to post on film topics that weren't on ILF.

Alfred's too much a dilettante in his snobbery.

Tbh actually thought about adding Lord Soto and clemenza but couldn't be bothered to fill out the form for either of them

Let me preempt some proud charter members resigning in protest, or hunting you down and beating you up--I'm as middlebrow as it gets. (Wendy and Lucy's like my ideal art film.) I do have pockets of music snobbishness, especially with regards to a devout belief in the superiority of the '70s over the '80s.

Eric is a delightful guy.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, March 8, 2007 1:25 PM (4 years ago)

when have I ever said otherwise, doll?

I'm the one disagreeing with your assessment.

yeah yeah, posts very much in character.

Lord Soto = Pete Rose

Alfred's too much a dilettante in his snobbery.

― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Sunday, January 15, 2012 3:41 PM

quite otm

for the record i no longer think 'breakfast at tiffany's' is a very good movie.

Mistah Dirringham, I simpry must plotest!

(Sorry, that joke was old already when it was done over here: TIME magazine claims to know the Top 100 Films of All Time; Millions snicker at results...)

Lord Soto = Pete Rose

a beergut and choler?

I mean the 5 Gs you have riding on the Pazz & Jop results.

Who's flying in to go to the Bela Tarr retro with me?

I'm closer to Susan Lucci.

Think he means you're permanently barred

AdamRL
Defining Characteristics: Like a young Woody Allen without the glasses. . . also generally less cranky. . . and more British. . .

I met admrl! He is a nice fella and has great hair.

Couldn't decide what thread to post this in:

Ironic laughter has ruined a half-dozen old movies I've gone to in the last few years, and it seems be getting louder. I've heard horror stories of audiences guffawing through The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Thing, Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather—c'mon, The Godfather!? And perversely, the same crowds stay quiet during actual classic comedies. It's like modern audiences must one-up the past. But that's a contest where everyone loses: the filmmakers whose efforts go ignored, the hipsters who wasted their money, and the rest of us who wanted to enjoy a good movie without getting distracted wondering how to murder a yukster with a bucket of popcorn and a straw.

http://www.laweekly.com/film/stop-laughing-at-old-movies-you-anding-hipsters-5523746

well, there are actual unintentional laughs in The Godfather, frequently involving Brando's mystifyingly beloved performance or Diane Keaton's hairstyles.

as for the superior guffaws, i started discreetly avoiding crowded screenings of yukbait at least 5-10 years ago, and you'll never catch me at a color Sirk melodrama in a theater again.

it's tough because i don't like policing reactions to movies, i can't pretend i'm above chuckling at something striking-in-hindsight, but at the same time i probably am likely to avoid movies where this is going to be the norm

I have mostly managed to avoid these incidents, but short of laughter during Marker or Bresson maybe, I can't picture myself stabbing people in a theater. The former is frequently funny, even.

xpost avoid screenings, i mean. but then my most negative reactions to audience response have actually been at non-repertoire films. I saw Lady Vengeance at a theater in Philly and was seriously turned off by where the audience decided to giggle, even if i'm sympathetic to the need for nervous release

but like, if you don't want to find out how your peers react to a movie, take the money you spend on repertoire theater tickets and save it to buy a widescreen

that sounds like nervous laughter, gen much better than "I am going to HAW HAW because old movies ARE SO STUPID!!!"

i like policing reactions to everything, when they are the wrong ones. (Like that "a widescreen" is better than a proper theater.)

i didn't say it was better, i said it was an alternative if audiences have made theaters insufferable

and we can imagine the next 12 posts of this croup-morbs exchange, so no need to actually create them.

i'm sorry, morbs. please ignore me.

occasionally this can actually be sort of interesting. A few years ago I saw Badlands with a full house and people cackled throughout like it was Raising Arizona. seeing it in that context it did reveal itself as possibly very deadpan funny. then I watched it again about a year later at home with my wife who found it very disturbing and grim.

I mean, my god, Sirk movies are funny (too).

Not start to finish! No wonder you've soured on prime Jerry Lewis.

I went to a 35mm screening of FORBIDDEN PLANET with some ILXors last month, and one goon on the far right of the theater was screeching at every "50s" line of dialogue until about 15 minutes in, when he realized he was all alone.

Also, one can find things some funny w/out actually making a noise.

I haven't soured on prime Jerry Lewis.

https://instagram.com/p/veUUV_vr-z/

ok, i swear you made such a claim to me in the last 3 years. somewhere.

btw the two Dean & Jerry movies A.E. did figure heavily in Mark Rappaport's recent video essay Becoming Anita Ekberg.

i am all for telling anomalous loudmouths in theaters to pipe down. one time a guy made clear during the opening credits he was planning to give a running commentary "ah, (name of actor), YES.... *claps twice*" and thankfully received a loud, effective "SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP!" before we got to scene one

I'm no better tho. I told a woman crinkling cellophane during Notre Musique that she was ruining the movie for everyone.

even tho i seem to spend most of the time arguing with him about things other than film, frederik b is by some measure the best 'film poster' these days, alongside amateurist and ward fowler

I told some guy who kept oohing and ahhing loudly at the cinematography in "Mr Turner" to (please) keep quiet. His wife gave me the best Midwesterner (cuz no way were they native NY'ers and they had Fargo-ish accents) ice grill ever.

Frederik B's rant about French new extremity yesterday certainly qualifies him for this canon.

He can have my slot since I generally don't watch movies anymore.

Fred B's been exhaustive in the best way.

he sees too much for my taste :)

It's making the rounds: http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/when-you-laugh-at-old-movies-the-joke-is-on-you-20150428

Once heard about a guy giggling at a Tarkovsky film and a woman got up and punched him in the face.

I've heard stories of the child who dared laugh during Blow Job and it turned out it was just a particularly agorophobic Pekingese who mistakenly wandered in after having bought a ticket for Grand Prix.

Aw, thanks guys! Can I put those quotes on my CV, would help a lot...

Sometimes it's really weird when people don't laugh in the theatre as well. I was at Bonello's House of Tolerance yesterday, his film about a bordello in Paris around 1900, and I was seated next to an elderly couple. Well, the film is quite serious and provocative yet empathetic, but it is also kinda funny, the girls tell a lot of really ribald and lewd jokes about their costumers to make it through the day, and the theater chuckled along. Except for that couple beside me. At first they were just quiet. At a joke about fucking someone in the eye-hole, they both sighed pretty angrily. Again with the semen-joke. At this point, I began to felt a bit uncomfortable. But finally, a woman onscreen told a longwinded story, the point of which turned out to be that she was a sword-swallower, and the sixty year old lady beside me couldn't help but giggle ever so guiltily. That was cool. A bit awkward, but cool.

RIP, buddy. WIll miss you.

We’ve been wrong this whole time

Which level cinephile are you? pic.twitter.com/AV2h9ekeVi

— Im sorry I bet guys probably bother you a lot but (@paynushater) April 4, 2023

hahahaha

Alfred's too much a dilettante in his snobbery.

― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Sunday, January 15, 2012

In this case, apparently as trustworthy as the World Almanac!