Comments on: Shutter Island

By: bmw

bmw — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:09:14 +0000

ferrari…

[...]Shutter Island | The Life and Art of Vern[...]…

By: Certainly

Certainly — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:50:15 +0000

An interesting discussion is value comment. I feel that you should write more on this subject, it might not be a taboo topic but generally individuals are not sufficient to talk on such topics. To the next. Cheers

By: ClintJCL

ClintJCL — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:48:21 +0000

hamslime, that’s why I rate my movies on two scales: The netflix stars scale, defined by netflix as 1=hate, 2=didn’t like, 3=like, 4=really like, 5=loved; and the IMDB scale [which everyone is familiar with, me personally, 5=neutral/halfgood/halfbad].

Thus I can rate a movie 8/10 but only give it 2/5 stars because it’s a total masterpiece that I loved watching, but I hated how it ended and was disappointed with it despite appreciating it’s artistic merit. (Good example: David Lynch films the first time you see them.)

I can also rate a movie 5/10 — saying it barely has any redeeming value as a movie — but give it 5/5 stars because it’s bad in such a way that I emotionally loved it, even though it was terrible.

Mainly I started this simply because I visit both sites to rate. We use decimals now because there’s 5 stars, but then there’s “barely 5 stars” (4.6/5 stars), “almost 5 stars” (4.4/5), etc. It works well, actually. I

By: neal2zod

neal2zod — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:05:51 +0000

Call me insane (pun intended) but I actually liked this one better than Inception. It’s kind of crazy how similar the two are – besides Dicaprio being haunted by the memories of his two (crazy/suicidal) wives, there’s a similar loud, booming orchestral score, similar shots of him looking outside his kitchen home/cabin into the backyard, plunging his face in water and staring at a mirror trying to pull himself together, being facedown on the shore, etc…

I did like Inception but think it was incredibly overrated and while well-made didn’t really speak to me on any level other than being well-crafted entertainment. On the other hand, I’ve never met a single person who liked Shutter Island and didn’t see the twist coming a mile away (which was nicely spoiled for me somewhere on this site in another movie board that wasn’t Inception). It’s kind of like The Village, where I guessed the twist BEFORE THE MOVIE STARTED but still appreciated the craft, acting and style so much that it didn’t matter to me. Sure, the twist is kind of dumb and a cheat and you can spend all day poking holes in the inconsistencies, but I genuinely felt w/ both movies the “shocking twist” isn’t really supposed to be a shocking twist per se, just a major beat in the story with something bigger to say.

And oh, I like the comment above mentioning how Scorsese gets points for having a definitive answer in the crazy/not crazy mystery, and how any lesser director would have tacked some bush-league ambiguity at the very end. Which is kinda hilarious since that’s the end of Inception right there.

By: hamslime

hamslime — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:20:44 +0000

If your readers need to break out a calculator to decipher your review then maybe you should be substituting an Algebra class instead of reviewing movies. Just a thought.

I give the above advice a (2.891 x 6.77791) – 9.5949378 / out of 10.

By: Gwai Lo

Gwai Lo — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:07:42 +0000

You know what kills me is how some of the guys at CHUD were using decimal points on a 10 point scale for a while. You’d see 9.6 ratings, 7.4, 3.2. Which meant their scale had 101 possible ratings. Fuckin ridiculous. I rate everything I see on IMDB so I default to a 10 point scale, but I find that you get into a weird netherverse under a rating of 5 or so. If I’ve rated a movie a 1 chances are that it’s so disastrously inept that it’s a hell of a lot more watchable and entertaining than a 4, which is probably so bland that I’ll forget it almost instantly. Rating systems are tricky, because you’re always going to run into problems with the subjective distinction between actual cinematic quality that most would agree on and guilty pleasure favorites that only you appreciate.

By: Pauly G

Pauly G — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:03:16 +0000

Dont be upset man, i was just kidding with you, i wont crash your site im havin to much fun rofl. It’s funny but maybe we do have similar movie taste

By: FTopel

FTopel — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:51:23 +0000

Vern, FWIW I am a professional entertainment journalist and I gave up the idea of a rating system as a teenager (although the school paper still made me use one ’til I graduated). People kept saying to me, “How could you give that movie 4 stars? Or 1 star? or 2 stars? or 3.5 stars?” And I kept thinking, “Uh, I wrote a whole god damn essay about why I felt that way.”

So please continue to express your thoughts in intelligent writing.

By: Outlaw Vern

Outlaw Vern — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:18:15 +0000

Sorry Paul, we just don’t gel. Can’t you see it’s never gonna work out? If you hate me, my reviewing style and my thoughts about movies then there are several, perhaps dozens of other websights that contain other types of content. I think it would be better for everybody if you went and commented at one of those instead of here.

thanks for your input

By: Mouth

Mouth — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:11:21 +0000

To paraphrase Calvin Broadus aka Snoop Dogg, “Ho’s up, G’s down while you motherfuckers troll to this! Lol smiley tongue wink thingy”

[Even that jokey textese makes me sick that I used it.]