Pretentious films

this was a comedy right? it was one of the funniest movies ive seen since happiness

most self indulgent thing I've ever watched

I mean it wasn't bad but damn

How exactly is this pretentious?

that depends, are we defining "pretentious" as "having an unusual premise?"

Neon Demon

I was going to post this.

How is either of these pretentious? They are both amazing films

You don't /thread your own fucking post you faggot

I have never understood why people react to that film that way. I get that it is vague and there is minimal exposition and dialogue, but the premise isn't very hard to grasp, right? What do you actually think is specifically pretentious about it?

I'm not sure I really understand the term pretentious

Dictionary says:
>attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

I can understand how a person would meet this criteria, they think they are more important or influential than they are, or they think they have experienced a culture more thoroughly than they have relative to others

But how does a movie meet this criteria? The movie does not make a statement about itself, the movie presents a series of images, ideas, etc, and then it lets you receive and judge them

Unless the movie has a message from the director or writer explaining the importance of the movie or its greatness, AND that message is inaccurate, I just don't see how a movie can be pretentious

Witnessed

I guess for one by alluding to themes or ideas it doesn't actually fully understand or grapple with in any significant way

Why does that make it pretentious though? Wouldn't that make it humble? By referring to concepts that are beyond its capabilities of exploring, showing that they exist, but not trying to do them justice when it knows it can't?

I enjoyed it

>I'm not sure I really understand the term pretentious

there are definitely some pretentious works out there, sure, but the average person who throws the word around also thinks that "artsy" is a useful pejorative when criticising something.

take the word with a grain of salt when someone says it, that's all i'm saying.

They don't understand what pretentious means.

Pretentious is like my high school short film when I was lazy as fuck and needed to finish it so I did all this cringy shit to try and piece together what I wrote what I was going to actually do but failed because it made no sense.

Okay I typed like a retard there....

How is this pretentious?

wtf???

In that case nothing but a person can be pretentious.

A lot of terms you hear are often used in bastardized contests, so you should take them with a grain of salt and do some more research on what they actually mean before you listen to what others may have to say, because these others are most likely wrong themselves.

A movie can be pretentious when the series of images, ideas, etc it presents are presented in an attempt to convey themes and ideas that the movie, quite simply, lacks the tact and intelligence to truly portray. It's like a child who discovers curse words and keeps repeating them back and forth, not because it understands what they mean, but because it wants to create an image of itself. Movies that are pretentious are movies that are clearly made with the intent of making statements but fail in presenting those statements with coherence, subtlety, a clear grasp on the subject, etc.

Look at pic related, for example. V For Vendetta is a pretentious movie. It's a dumb shlocky adaptation of a comic book that tries to pass itself off as a dark narrative about anarchy. It tries to criticize authoritarism and oppressive government through shallow caricatures and cartoony characters devoid of any semblance of realism. It parades "anarchy" not as a social movement, but a trendy style it's protagonist wear. It's filled with trite, meaningless speeches about concepts that the movie clearly has a very superficial grasp on. Even the comic book, though it wasn't good, at least understood the hypocrisy of it's main hero, where as if the movie attempts to pass him off as a super-ninja-Batman type of character who is just too smart and too ahead of everyone and was completely justified.

This is a pretentious movie, because the overwhelming sense of self-importance blinds the movie to it's faults.

genuine answer imo

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