"Turn you brain off."

Am I the only one who hates this phrase? I mean it seems like such a cop-out. "Yeah, this movie had horrible acting, unclear camerawork, lackluster music and the characters were so one-dimensional that you couldn't give a rat's ass whether they live or die, but if you turn your brain off, it'll be AWESOME!" I mean yeah, the movie will be good if you just ignore all the crap in it. Are you seriously going to stop thinking and let the movie win just for the sake of a few hours of cheap entertainment?

Yes, you're the only one.

/thread.

No I agree too.

It's a crude of way saying something that's essentially true. I hate people who whine about Transformers movies and then complain about the unlikeliness of it all, or that it relies on special effects too much, or that the plot was too predictable. And I'm like, yeah, no . That's what you get with this type of movie.

People don't know how to adjust their expectations. When you go see Fast Five you don't go in with the same expectations you'd take to seeing, say, Public Enemies. But people don't know how to do that.

Originally Posted by The Dude

It's a crude of way saying something that's essentially true. I hate people who whine about Transformers movies and then complain about the unlikeliness of it all, or that it relies on special effects too much, or that the plot was too predictable. And I'm like, yeah, no . That's what you get with this type of movie.

People don't know how to adjust their expectations. When you go see Fast Five you don't go in with the same expectations you'd take to seeing, say, Public Enemies. But people don't know how to do that.

This. But worse than this (and I am not accusing anyone here, just people I know in RL) are those who take it a step further and tell me I am dumb or am not on the same intellectual plain as them because I can watch Commando or 300.

I agree, it's an excuse for mediocrity... If it's crap it's crap, there's no turning your brain off.

No reason to lower my standards. If it sucks, that's it. Why go see a bad movie anyway?

If you want to talk about why I hate the Transformers movies, I hate them because they don't deliver on their promise of telling a story about a robot war and force the title characters into a secondary role, instead being about ing annoying humans played by overpaid models who can't act to save their lives. And when we do get to the robot fighting you can't tell what the hell is going on because the robots all look the same and the ing camera jerks around like the cameraman is having an epileptic seizure.

And I don't adjust my expectations because my sole expectation is to be entertained. To that end, it's the job of the director, writers, actors and whoever else is involved to entertain me. I shouldn't have to actively make myself stupider, I just spent an hour on the bus and paid twelve fifty to see a movie in a crowded theater.

Edit: jesus christ why are the paragraphs spaced differently? And why is the first paragraph now black?

Agree with the OP 110%

There is a point where you have to watch a movie for fun and then watch a movie because you want it to be real.

Turn your brain off is a applicable phrase if you watch something and it has to be 100% real all the time and your just being a cynical douche. Like people who are pissed off about the movie 300 not being real when that is NOT AT ALL that film's purpose. It is the nice way of saying "stop being a cynical douche", stop nitpicking the movie, and enjoy the fun of it.

I hate them because they don't deliver on their promise of telling a story about a robot war and force the title characters into a secondary role

Your missing the point. The purpose of this movie is:

Robots fighting
Explosions and destruction of property.
Hot girl

If you talk about this movie and you dont care about any of the three above then its pointless to discuss it.



Watch the movie Commando, if you can't laugh and have fun watching that movie when Arnold is doing the most ridiculous over the top 80s action and most corny lines of all time then you need to stop watching movies.

Originally Posted by Kanaric

There is a point where you have to watch a movie for fun and then watch a movie because you want it to be real.

Turn your brain off is a applicable phrase if you watch something and it has to be 100% real all the time and your just being a cynical douche. Like people who are pissed off about the movie 300 not being real when that is NOT AT ALL that film's purpose. It is the nice way of saying "stop being a cynical douche", stop nitpicking the movie, and enjoy the fun of it.

I'm not a hard guy to please-I thoroughly enjoyed Thor even though I probably shouldn't have. There are plenty of movies I enjoy specifically because they're dumb fun, I just hate the attitude that because it's supposed to be dumb fun that excuses any and all flaws.

Your missing the point. The purpose of this movie is:

Robots fighting
Explosions and destruction of property.
Hot girl

If you talk about this movie and you dont care about any of the three above then its pointless to discuss it.

I care specifically about the robots fighting. In fact if you read my post you would realize that I dislike the movies because there's hardly any robot fighting and when it does have robots fight it's so hard to see that I can't tell who's who.
If I want to see buildings blown up I'll watch old war footage. And why should I pay money to see Megan Fox half-naked when I can see her fully naked for free?

Watch the movie Commando, if you can't laugh and have fun watching that movie when Arnold is doing the most ridiculous over the top 80s action of all time then you need to stop watching movies.

Again, there are plenty of movies I enjoy because they're dumb fun. The animated Transformers movie made in the 80s, for instance.

Originally Posted by Kanaric

There is a point where you have to watch a movie for fun and then watch a movie because you want it to be real.

It has nothing to do with being real or not. It has to do with being good or bad.
Lord of the rings and transformers are both unreal, but one is good and the other is bad.

I like it when a film is done badly but for some reason there is an unitentional comedy timing that works. I hate it when people try to parody bad films and do a bad job at it as the timing is just so bad its not funny.

Back on point I like it when a film can follow its own internal logic and rules without breaking them. For example back to the future series of films very good because it kept within its logic. Start Trek by JJ abrams bad (although enjoyable for entertainment) because its logic didnt fit within series or its own film.

If something is bad most people can see it for what it is. If it is a side badness where you have to be obsessive to notice it usually passes for entertainment.

I love movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan but I don't expect them to be good in the way a Terence Malick or Christopher Nolan movie is going to be good. It's really about what your expectations are when you watch a film. Like '300', you're not supposed to put a tonne of thought into that film, you're just supposed to sit back and enjoy the ridiculousness. It's fair enough if you don't like it but don't criticise it for not 'developing the characters/plot' enough or what have you, since that isn't what the movie set out to do. It's like criticising a 100m runner for not jumping high enough.

I've always thought its like you don't have to follow the dialogue or plot line to carefully, just sit back and enjoy the pretty lights....= Turn your brain off

But other movies like The Prestige, Inception(my g/f said it was that kind of movie) ect......... you have to keep track of things other wise your lost and that ruins the movie.

You could take it like that lower expectations but I never did. Most action flicks to me are turn your brain off movies anyways. Hero never dies, bad guys aplenty,love interest, mentor/best friend/family member hurt or dead/ Hero kills main villain, kiss the girl.

You shouldn't turn your brain off, you just need to know that the movie is only offering certain things.

Transformers was complete crap. I haven't even managed to watch the first one all the way through yet (3 times no luck) and the critics have said they're all pretty much the same crappy movie. I mean basically it craps on the cartoon. If you can't make a movie as good as a 1980s saturday morning cartoon designed to sell action figures shoot yourself in the face bro. I mean not only did he not capture the nostalgia, he basically just made a terrible film series.

I don't like that it's become a trend that you can give no substance because it still looks cool. That bothers me. I like corny. Fine. But don't give me mindless. Avatar was dumb because it was stories that have already been told many many times and the only thing original was how much money they spent making it look cool. Unfortunately if all a movie has to offer is visuals they better not only look cool, but make sense. Avatar's visuals didn't make sense. It was clearly a "wouldn't it be cool" brainstorm direct to filming.

300 gets exempted IMO because unlike transformers it gave it's subject matter a fair treatment. 300 was not the story of Thermopylae. If it was it would be a catastrophic failure. It was however a very accurate rendition of the style offered from a comic book. So don't judge the film, judge the comic book. I'd attack Frank Miller for writing it, not Snyder for telling Miller's story well.

Problem becomes that all people want anymore is "300" which means you're never going to see the "4300" ie the real story of what happened. Personally I think the actual story of events told straight is far more captivating but it requires more skill. Alexander played it pretty straight. Good movie. The old Epic movies from the fifties and sixties and stuff were amazing films. We need more of that. Spartacus: Blood and Sand is cool (because it looks cool), Gladiator was Great (although it played loose with the history it told a good story), but Spartacus was amazing, and I think the truer to life you go the better the movie is.

I certainly see where the OP is coming from, but I'm not sure it can just be summed up as a "cop-out". Boiled down, it's just a simpler way to state that you know what you're getting into, sit back and take it at face value. Actually Col. Tarleton gets it on the nose:

you just need to know that the movie is only offering certain things.

.

And yet these films keep cropping up with monotonous regularity. Pardon the cynicism but perhaps the fact that these films exist implies that such films are made solely because they make money and make market sense - itself implying that we might not be as highbrow as we like to think.

Personally when I switched off my brain, so to speak, in a certain way I did enjoy the visuals in Avatar, Transformers, Armageddon, Star Trek etc. I think that such films retain their popularity due to their stirring certain primitive emotions. No, they will never be anywhere near as good as something like The Fall, and I much prefer a film stimulates me up there rather than stimulate my adrenal glands, but sometimes I do need a break from thinking.

In a similar fashion, I don't listen to Miles Davis' In a Silent Way in a club - I listen to Taio Cruz' Dynamite.

Transformers 3 was pretty ing awesome. Just sit back and enjoy the carnage. One of the most awesome films ive ever seen.

Originally Posted by Eirmar

Transformers 3 was pretty ing awesome. Just sit back and enjoy the carnage. One of the most awesome films ive ever seen.

I laughed alot, easily the best of the 3.

The action was ok, although I am not a fan of what they did to my sacred 80's cartoons I did enjoy Shia alot in this one. He made the movie very enjoyable and there wasn't even the endless slo mo running close ups of _______ model/ actress this time which got to the point of uncomfortable the last "movie".

The movie experience is getting old for me though, I am a big guy and can't sit in small seats surrounded by small people who get noticeably upset over time I shift around because my long legs get sore an hour of being cooped up.

But I will probably go to see that Immortal movie in later on this year, another turn your brain off action flick but a couple of those a year aren't bad.