"So watching all the popular films is part of developping a personal taste?"
Of course it is, personal taste has nothing to do with obscure movies and arthouse material. As many people said here, working a list is a good way to find new movies you would not watch otherwise.
As you seem to have problems with this, and you are apparently the 10% that does it the "right way", I would rather be part of the 90% that just likes to watch movies, be it artistic or blockbuster movies. God forbid I ever turn out to be like you, complaining on a site dedicated to checking off lists, that checking off lists is a baaaaaaaad thing. It's really kind of sad to be honest :(
There is now Empire's 301 Greatest Movies of All Time, to celebrate their 301st issue, apparently. I don't know if it should replace this one or become its own list. It's technically an update of the Empire 500, just with a lot less titles:
This seems to be more interesting than the imdb top 250, perhaps because it has more movies that do not qualify as blockbusters. A nice mix of all kinds of movies.
I guess this will be the list I am going to finish!
What do you mean by personal taste? Should we only watch films that we ourselves find interesting looking or intriguing? I have seen about 88 percent of this list and it has helped me to find films which I probably would never had considered watching before because they're not usually what I enjoy but films like The Apartment, The Big Country, Singin' In The Rain, Festen and Dog Day Afternoon all rank among my favourite movies of all time now.
There are films on this list that I've hated of course but that's all part and parcel of watching films some you love some you hate, it's impossible to tell whether you're going to like it or not so it seems logical to watch films that others have deemed worthy to get on this list.
Of course this list isn't my bible, I always try to watch films that interest me whether they be popular or incredibly obscure, this list may not be perfect but I've seen some incredible films thanks to it and I intend to finish it.
Maybe I've utterly misunderstood your point and am a complete idiot but I guess different people gather personal tastes in different ways, I'm sure there's some films out there you've never had any intention of seeing that you would love, but you'll never know if you don't try it, anyways just my 2 cents, enjoy all the wonderful films out there!
Why would I watch movies if I had no interest in them, seriously. I could just as well create a list of 100 ways to knit a hat, finish it and boast about it on the almighty internet, but that is no fun.
I find it quite simple to rule out "developing personal taste" due to the act of "finishing lists", as if both could not be done at the same time. You seem to be judging me based on a single statement, without any background knowledge what so ever.
So let me help you out; as my first post says, it seems to be a nice mix of different kind of movies, so thats why finishing this list will surely yield a wide variety of cinematic pleasures in all kinds of genres. Does this in any way comply with the idea of "developing personal taste"? Indeed it does.
You see, watching a lot of movies is indeed a goal, simply because it is a nice way to spend free time. A list like the Empire 500 or the IMDB top 250 is a good starting point because they are not made up of a single man's taste and there are no real restrictions on the movies that can be contained in them. As mentioned above, there is all kind of stuff in there.
Therefor I would like to conclude that developing personal taste is not quite the opposite of finishing a list.
Oh and for the "play it safe" stuff, am I supposed to ignore movies simply because they appear to be boring stories while 9 out of 10 people think it is a great movie? How will I ever know? By watching highly regarded movies even though they might appear to be not so great! How does one find such movies? By looking at lists that contain popular movies (one of the ways, at least)!
ICM fails to make a good presentation of arthouse movies. Nevertheless, most movies on this site are in some way good (it could be commercial, artistic of just impressive), or at least remarkable.
Nevertheless, the site life fully op to it's promise: 'the site let you see top movies, according to diverse lists'. This site combined with imdb will help put things into perspective. That's great, The Wizard of Oz is not my cup of thea, bit it's still a movie worth watching, if only for it's history value. The 18 lists (or something like that) made that very clear.
It's even more fun to see that the North-American dominated Reddit and IMDB diverse strongly from the Dutch lists like FOK!, FilmTotaal and MovieSense, the British Empire also differ from the North-American Reddit / IMDB and of the Dutch list (FOK!, FilmTotaal and MovieSense).
If there are people that actually dislike movies, please go somewhere else. But if your into movies, why shouldn't you pursue the award of some list? If you like it, it's okay. But if you are a member of a moviechickingsite and you actually dislike that people pursue one or more list..... Well, that's not completely sane if you ask me. If your member of the local soccerclub, do you also get upset when people make the effort to actually kick a ball?
I like going off lists because it allows me to choose movies to watch without having them spoiled.
Reading a critique or a synopsis, or watching a trailer will often affect my expectations of a movie before I begin watching it.
When I get a new movie from Netflix I often don't know or don't remember even the basic premise of the movie, and I never read the DVD jacket. Too many spoilers.
I like to go in as fresh as possible and let the movie stand on its own. Going purely off lists is a pretty good way to do this. You can be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised. Or not surprised at all sometimes :)
Pinhead you say "Nice try but you didn't have enough background knowledge to make that kind of post about me". However, I had the same amount of background information that you had when you made your remarks about grit: I had your icm profile, cataloging all the movies you've checked, which paints a certain portrait; your comments gave insight as well. Overall, you are free to hold your opinions and you clearly have a lot of movie knowledge (being #596 in the charts), but I think your argument is somewhat underdevloped.
Ultimately you doubted grit's interest in film and those like him who look at lists to try to develop personal taste. Yet you admitted that lists are a "starter". A starter for what? I would presume that they are a starter for developing personal taste. Everything else is a irrelevant. You then go on to raise a lot of dubious objections (some of which people like myself might be inclined to agree with in passing conversation), yet you offer no real solutions. The fact of the matter is one has to start somewhere.
I feel like a lot of your arguments are the equivalent of looking at a child who is trying to speak and saying: "You're doing it wrong." Everyone has to develop personal taste in their own way, and everyone does. Some tastes aren't as refined as others (just as some people have larger vocabularies than others).
What's most baffling to me about your comments is this: How the fuck can someone find what kind of movies they will or will not like without watching a lot of movies (once again a good start is the Empire FIVE HUNDRED)? Your arguments are not only unclear, but they don't make sense even when they are clear. Unless you have something substantial to add, I'm hoping that this conversation can be done soon... and hopefully you will mull over the responses you've received as well.
Pinhead, I have no doubt that you do indeed love films. You seem to get overly defensive and somewhat aggressive when someone else has another way trying to "watch films [they] will enjoy". That to me suggests that you take films very seriously, and I can therefore deduce that you pride yourself on your movie-watching; not only that, but perhaps more accurately, you just truly revel in the experience of a good film. But others do, too---and others have different ways of coming to see films... A lot of users on ICM rely on lists to accomplish their cinematic goals. Grit's argument seemed sound enough... and he seems to have an interest in finding those "quality" films and not just blockbuster-type movies. Ultimately, I would like to restate that I do not doubt your love of cinema, but rather, I must wonder why you should doubt another person's interest in cinema just because they have a different approach.
My reasoning is that not all good movies seem interesting from their description, or trailers for that matter. By working off a list that is supposed to hold a lot of good movies, you can experience new movies that otherwise would have remained unwatched.
Speaking out of my own experience. Its how I found out about 12 angry men and loved it, while the description did not really attract me.
And of course there is the psychological effect, as jbbeebe mentioned. Personally, I just like to finish stuff, as a fake feeling of accomplishment while I am fully aware it will not bring me anything good except for an image of a platinum object on this site.
The magazine itself does not pay that much attention to a certain order - the Empire 500 issue of last year had the films lined up in alphabetical order.
@eachwishresigned - Princess Mononoke is so much magical than Howl's Moving Castle... but Howls's is more recent and the internet was not that well spread back in 1996.
The Transformers movie was awful, and i've seen it :P
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Comments 1 - 15 of 37
grit
"So watching all the popular films is part of developping a personal taste?"Of course it is, personal taste has nothing to do with obscure movies and arthouse material. As many people said here, working a list is a good way to find new movies you would not watch otherwise.
As you seem to have problems with this, and you are apparently the 10% that does it the "right way", I would rather be part of the 90% that just likes to watch movies, be it artistic or blockbuster movies. God forbid I ever turn out to be like you, complaining on a site dedicated to checking off lists, that checking off lists is a baaaaaaaad thing. It's really kind of sad to be honest :(
JCS
Great magazine and a well-mixed list.owliesomething
There is now Empire's 301 Greatest Movies of All Time, to celebrate their 301st issue, apparently. I don't know if it should replace this one or become its own list. It's technically an update of the Empire 500, just with a lot less titles:http://www.empireonline.com/301/301.asp
grit
This seems to be more interesting than the imdb top 250, perhaps because it has more movies that do not qualify as blockbusters. A nice mix of all kinds of movies.I guess this will be the list I am going to finish!
reid916
Its a entertaining movie. Now if transformers 2 was in this list that would be awfulDonkeysRAliens
What do you mean by personal taste? Should we only watch films that we ourselves find interesting looking or intriguing? I have seen about 88 percent of this list and it has helped me to find films which I probably would never had considered watching before because they're not usually what I enjoy but films like The Apartment, The Big Country, Singin' In The Rain, Festen and Dog Day Afternoon all rank among my favourite movies of all time now.There are films on this list that I've hated of course but that's all part and parcel of watching films some you love some you hate, it's impossible to tell whether you're going to like it or not so it seems logical to watch films that others have deemed worthy to get on this list.
Of course this list isn't my bible, I always try to watch films that interest me whether they be popular or incredibly obscure, this list may not be perfect but I've seen some incredible films thanks to it and I intend to finish it.
Maybe I've utterly misunderstood your point and am a complete idiot but I guess different people gather personal tastes in different ways, I'm sure there's some films out there you've never had any intention of seeing that you would love, but you'll never know if you don't try it, anyways just my 2 cents, enjoy all the wonderful films out there!
grit
Why would I watch movies if I had no interest in them, seriously. I could just as well create a list of 100 ways to knit a hat, finish it and boast about it on the almighty internet, but that is no fun.I find it quite simple to rule out "developing personal taste" due to the act of "finishing lists", as if both could not be done at the same time. You seem to be judging me based on a single statement, without any background knowledge what so ever.
So let me help you out; as my first post says, it seems to be a nice mix of different kind of movies, so thats why finishing this list will surely yield a wide variety of cinematic pleasures in all kinds of genres. Does this in any way comply with the idea of "developing personal taste"? Indeed it does.
You see, watching a lot of movies is indeed a goal, simply because it is a nice way to spend free time. A list like the Empire 500 or the IMDB top 250 is a good starting point because they are not made up of a single man's taste and there are no real restrictions on the movies that can be contained in them. As mentioned above, there is all kind of stuff in there.
Therefor I would like to conclude that developing personal taste is not quite the opposite of finishing a list.
Oh and for the "play it safe" stuff, am I supposed to ignore movies simply because they appear to be boring stories while 9 out of 10 people think it is a great movie? How will I ever know? By watching highly regarded movies even though they might appear to be not so great! How does one find such movies? By looking at lists that contain popular movies (one of the ways, at least)!
So go ahead, doubt all you want.
Atreides
ICM fails to make a good presentation of arthouse movies. Nevertheless, most movies on this site are in some way good (it could be commercial, artistic of just impressive), or at least remarkable.Nevertheless, the site life fully op to it's promise: 'the site let you see top movies, according to diverse lists'. This site combined with imdb will help put things into perspective. That's great, The Wizard of Oz is not my cup of thea, bit it's still a movie worth watching, if only for it's history value. The 18 lists (or something like that) made that very clear.
It's even more fun to see that the North-American dominated Reddit and IMDB diverse strongly from the Dutch lists like FOK!, FilmTotaal and MovieSense, the British Empire also differ from the North-American Reddit / IMDB and of the Dutch list (FOK!, FilmTotaal and MovieSense).
If there are people that actually dislike movies, please go somewhere else. But if your into movies, why shouldn't you pursue the award of some list? If you like it, it's okay. But if you are a member of a moviechickingsite and you actually dislike that people pursue one or more list..... Well, that's not completely sane if you ask me. If your member of the local soccerclub, do you also get upset when people make the effort to actually kick a ball?
nygfred56
I like going off lists because it allows me to choose movies to watch without having them spoiled.Reading a critique or a synopsis, or watching a trailer will often affect my expectations of a movie before I begin watching it.
When I get a new movie from Netflix I often don't know or don't remember even the basic premise of the movie, and I never read the DVD jacket. Too many spoilers.
I like to go in as fresh as possible and let the movie stand on its own. Going purely off lists is a pretty good way to do this. You can be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised. Or not surprised at all sometimes :)
Jumping Elephant
Pinhead you say "Nice try but you didn't have enough background knowledge to make that kind of post about me". However, I had the same amount of background information that you had when you made your remarks about grit: I had your icm profile, cataloging all the movies you've checked, which paints a certain portrait; your comments gave insight as well. Overall, you are free to hold your opinions and you clearly have a lot of movie knowledge (being #596 in the charts), but I think your argument is somewhat underdevloped.Ultimately you doubted grit's interest in film and those like him who look at lists to try to develop personal taste. Yet you admitted that lists are a "starter". A starter for what? I would presume that they are a starter for developing personal taste. Everything else is a irrelevant. You then go on to raise a lot of dubious objections (some of which people like myself might be inclined to agree with in passing conversation), yet you offer no real solutions. The fact of the matter is one has to start somewhere.
I feel like a lot of your arguments are the equivalent of looking at a child who is trying to speak and saying: "You're doing it wrong." Everyone has to develop personal taste in their own way, and everyone does. Some tastes aren't as refined as others (just as some people have larger vocabularies than others).
What's most baffling to me about your comments is this: How the fuck can someone find what kind of movies they will or will not like without watching a lot of movies (once again a good start is the Empire FIVE HUNDRED)? Your arguments are not only unclear, but they don't make sense even when they are clear. Unless you have something substantial to add, I'm hoping that this conversation can be done soon... and hopefully you will mull over the responses you've received as well.
Jumping Elephant
Pinhead, I have no doubt that you do indeed love films. You seem to get overly defensive and somewhat aggressive when someone else has another way trying to "watch films [they] will enjoy". That to me suggests that you take films very seriously, and I can therefore deduce that you pride yourself on your movie-watching; not only that, but perhaps more accurately, you just truly revel in the experience of a good film. But others do, too---and others have different ways of coming to see films... A lot of users on ICM rely on lists to accomplish their cinematic goals. Grit's argument seemed sound enough... and he seems to have an interest in finding those "quality" films and not just blockbuster-type movies. Ultimately, I would like to restate that I do not doubt your love of cinema, but rather, I must wonder why you should doubt another person's interest in cinema just because they have a different approach.grit
My reasoning is that not all good movies seem interesting from their description, or trailers for that matter. By working off a list that is supposed to hold a lot of good movies, you can experience new movies that otherwise would have remained unwatched.Speaking out of my own experience. Its how I found out about 12 angry men and loved it, while the description did not really attract me.
And of course there is the psychological effect, as jbbeebe mentioned. Personally, I just like to finish stuff, as a fake feeling of accomplishment while I am fully aware it will not bring me anything good except for an image of a platinum object on this site.
Thats why.
charlottelebeau
The magazine itself does not pay that much attention to a certain order - the Empire 500 issue of last year had the films lined up in alphabetical order.cowboybibop
@eachwishresigned - Princess Mononoke is so much magical than Howl's Moving Castle... but Howls's is more recent and the internet was not that well spread back in 1996.The Transformers movie was awful, and i've seen it :P
jbbeebe
Transformers is listed because of the reader vote, I'm sure (well not really, but I assume it's the reader vote).Showing items 1 – 15 of 37