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The Yellow Pages is a better book than The Great Gatsby, if you're looking for an effective doorstop.
Excellent! Thanks. ;)
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Now I'm sure that Citizen Kane in very many terribly important respects is a better movie than Young Frankenstein, but if I had to bring just one of them on a desert island, I'd reach for Young Frankenstein without batting an eyelid.
Sure, and there are people -- Denis Dutton, say -- who would argue that the Beethoven piano sonatas are the apex of western cultural achievement. I would rather listen to The Clean. But that doesn't mean I think The Clean are better art.
Citizen Kane wouldn't be my desert island movie either. If I had to pick one, maybe Solaris.
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3410,
Oddly, in art, quality is somewhat a measure of how the work conforms to standard forms, but also somewhat a measure of how it deviates from them.
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You know, I haven't seen Howard the Duck. Odds are I would rate Citizen Kane as a better film, but again that's just me. I think you're proposing objective measurements, no? For instance upthread you said that Toland's cinematography was groundbreaking. And it's probably true, but what does it say about absolute (as opposed to historical) value? The cinematography of films nowadays is fantastic, from a technical standpoint they leave most older films for dead.
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The Yellow Pages is a better book than The Great Gatsby, if you're looking for an effective doorstop. As literature though...
But `as literature' is meaningless, and in practice leads to rigid formalism and rather bizarre prescriptions about what art forms Ought To Be.
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Citizen Kane wouldn't be my desert island movie either. If I had to pick one, maybe Solaris.
This whole "what would you take to a desert island" thing really doesn't work in the modern world.
Not only are we taking a DVD, but we're also presumably taking a player, a TV, and a magic source of electricity.
And if we've got magic electricity, wouldn't some sort of ham radio make more sense?
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3410,
The cinematography of films nowadays is fantastic, from a technical standpoint they leave most older films for dead.
Depends if you value 'professionalism' or 'authenticity'.
Citizen Kane wouldn't be my desert island movie either. If I had to pick one, maybe Solaris.
Best movie evah? Cul-de-sac.
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You know, I haven't seen Howard the Duck.
It's not as bad as people say. But not nearly as good as the original comics. Subjectively speaking.
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Depends if you value 'professionalism' or 'authenticity'.
Are you saying that Toland's work was more 'authentic' than Dean Semler's (2012) or Jan De Bont's (Die Hard)? And if so, how?
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Expect Jonathan Livingston Seagull by around page 17.
Ow! Flew into a cliff ...
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Hearst takes a Kaning...
Degrees of separation (in which I digress):
Citizen Kane writer Herman Mankiewicz also assisted with the screenplay adaptation of The Wizard of Oz . W R Hearst is an alumnus of the Harvard Lampoon and here is Hearst lampooned as the "Wizard of Ooze" in Harper's Weekly...
..spooky!Don't forget we have Hearst to thank for championing George Herriman's
kaleidoscopic Krazy Katre the cinematography of Citizen Kane
I think Peter Jackson is still using depth of field and scale tricks (in LOTR) pioneered by Welles...We have come a long way from the WELLYWOOD sign haven't we?
has anyone suggested FREE WELLY! ? -
Howard the Duck is an awful movie, even as far as movies about ducks go.
It's not as bad as people say. But not nearly as good as the original comics. Subjectively speaking.
I used to think so, but I watched it again recently and...yeah. Awful. I loved it when I was a kid though.
Actually, another movie I loved as a kid but just doesn't hold up any more is John Boorman's Excalibur. I was an Arthurian nut as a teenager, and thought it was so perfectly true to Mallory's material. But watching it again was terrifying-everything I thought I loved about it was simply a product of my faulty memories (and Charlie Boorman as Mordred was simply creepy.)
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And if we've got magic electricity, wouldn't some sort of ham radio make more sense?
The end of the world is nigh, I'm the last guy on the space capsule and I have an old small USB stick with just one Gb on it and I have to choose between two pirated AVI files on my computer - either Citizen Kane or Young Frankenstein. There is no time to compress them so that they will both fit.
Happy?
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Don't forget we have Hearst to thank for championing George Herriman's
kaleidoscopic Krazy KatNow that, sir, is an existential work.
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The end of the world is nigh, I'm the last guy on the space capsule and I have an old small USB stick with just one Gb on it and I have to choose between two pirated AVI files on my computer - either Citizen Kane or Young Frankenstein. There is no time to compress them so that they will both fit.
Mashup.
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Mashup.
Exactly. Young Frankenstein it is.
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3410,
Are you saying that Toland's work was more 'authentic' than Dean Semler's (2012) or Jan De Bont's (Die Hard)? And if so, how?
Not necessarily, but it's worth considering.
Like, is Mark Knopfler a better guitarist than Keith Richards?
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Depends if you value 'professionalism' or 'authenticity'.
You know, once you've read HRO you can't take authenticity seriously any more.
(It's a serious problem.)
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we fast forward through the toll booth scene.
ergo - the very child friendly The Phantom Tollbooth
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If I was to be forced to take only one movie, I'd take one I haven't already seen. It could be a lemon, sure, but any movie is going to get old real fast if it's the only one you've got.
If I had only one GB, I'd take e-books. I might even finally get around to reading them.
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3410,
You know, once you've read HRO you can't take authenticity seriously any more.
Well, sure. 'Authenticity' is a construct, like anything else, but a useful one.
Um... what's HRO?
If I was to be forced to take only one movie, I'd take one I haven't already seen.
Good luck, man; they're mostly rubbish.
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We have come a long way from the WELLYWOOD sign haven't we?
has anyone suggested FREE WELLY! ?THIS IS ORCWOOD
Which, as you may notice, is where I currently reside, metaphorically speaking...
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The end of the world is nigh, I'm the last guy on the space capsule and I have an old small USB stick with just one Gb on it and I have to choose between two pirated AVI files on my computer - either Citizen Kane or Young Frankenstein. There is no time to compress them so that they will both fit.
Happy?
Well that's even more silly. What are you going to watch it on if you're leaving your computer behind?
I can see you now. Up in space, by yourself, holding your wee USB stick in front of you. "Man I should have brought a book!"
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Not necessarily, but it's worth considering.
Like, is Mark Knopfler a better guitarist than Keith Richards?
I couldn't say, my ears are purely decorative. But we're conflating a few issues, aren't we? Is innovative the same as authentic? And is innovation enough to make a film aesthetically superior to later films that build on that innovation? My problem here is that I can't see how objective, absolute categories can also be historical.
(Toland, incidentally, was a great technical innovator, which complicates things further.)
Put it another way: was Jesse Owens a better runner than the guy who came last in the final of the 2008 Olympics? Most athletics buffs would say "yes". But by the only available objective standard - speed on the hundred metre track - Dervis Patton would leave Jesse Owens for dead.
(This post was brought to you by the Institute for Far-Fetched and Quite Possibly Unhelpful Analogies. Donate to the Institute today!)
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