17 Happy Things to Watch, made to my taste, precisely
I wanted to list the first 15 films I could remember enjoying, and still approving of, today. It turned to 17. My bad.
17 and in some ways some of the choices probably look really odd next to each other. But this is my taste... Random. Or not really?
Then I thought that they do tend to have something (things?) in common. But could I verbalize these things?
An attempt.
Sometimes they are "costume" or period dramas but this aspect must work skillfully and not clumsily; the dialogue is natural and simple or it succeeds in its attempted elegance and is not anachronistic. They can be romantic but there is often a hint of the melancholy, the grotesque, the bizarre; romance needn't end happily to be very affecting (and if it does end happily it needs some of the above 3 qualities together or singly to counterbalance it, I find).
Quirkiness and wittiness get extra points in my book. Characters who are eccentric or outsiders with insight. Adventure must take you somewhere really different; hence no modern thrillers. There must be a certain panache or flair that I deem to have been successfully achieved (I omit obvious attempts--and nauseating failures--like "Juno"). I tend to avoid the too-obvious crass vulgarity of a lot of the pop culture guy movies, or the romantic comedy cheesinesses. If, in the end, my choices are strange, jarring, & even cheezy in their own way, I must submit to this criticism, and sigh, and admit it to be also my way of cheeziness. For here are things that it gives me pleasure to watch.
17 and in some ways some of the choices probably look really odd next to each other. But this is my taste... Random. Or not really?
Then I thought that they do tend to have something (things?) in common. But could I verbalize these things?
An attempt.
Sometimes they are "costume" or period dramas but this aspect must work skillfully and not clumsily; the dialogue is natural and simple or it succeeds in its attempted elegance and is not anachronistic. They can be romantic but there is often a hint of the melancholy, the grotesque, the bizarre; romance needn't end happily to be very affecting (and if it does end happily it needs some of the above 3 qualities together or singly to counterbalance it, I find).
Quirkiness and wittiness get extra points in my book. Characters who are eccentric or outsiders with insight. Adventure must take you somewhere really different; hence no modern thrillers. There must be a certain panache or flair that I deem to have been successfully achieved (I omit obvious attempts--and nauseating failures--like "Juno"). I tend to avoid the too-obvious crass vulgarity of a lot of the pop culture guy movies, or the romantic comedy cheesinesses. If, in the end, my choices are strange, jarring, & even cheezy in their own way, I must submit to this criticism, and sigh, and admit it to be also my way of cheeziness. For here are things that it gives me pleasure to watch.
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