unpopular positive movie opinion
On the subject of LB - https://retro.social/@ajroach42/102560485771740015 quoting https://m.xkcd.com/2184/ - I genuinely liked "The Core" (2003).
(Technically I just turned 18 that year, but I watched it later with a group of friends and was frustrated that other people didn't enjoy it as unironically as I did.)
40% on the tomatometer. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/core
Gonna give myself a minute, see if I can come up with another.
unpopular positive movie opinion
@packbat yeah, that one was all right. it was melodramatic and the science was bullshit but it worked as a movie OK
re: unpopular positive movie opinion
@Alyx I've thought back /recently/ on that bit about the characters feeling overwhelmed at the idea of trying to save the whole world, and them reframing it as just saving a handful of people instead
as someone who has a hard time thinking of myself as important, that idea just /worked/ for me
re: unpopular positive movie opinion
@packbat yeah. cos honestly the idea isn't a bad one, both from the practical dramatic standpoint of "okay how do you get your average human being even used to the idea of handling a gigantic crisis by reducing it to a few people" but also the plain truth that usually events *do* come to some kind of head where a few crucial decisions are the ones that matter the most. maybe not all in one place, in one group of people (the more the better, haha)
re: unpopular positive movie opinion
@Alyx yeah, definitely
plus, like, as a matter of practicality? it doesn't matter if you can defend it philosophically - if it gets you unstuck and able to act and do good, /it worked/
they did save the whole world
even if, in the end, they did it by trying to save a few people
scope and emotional weight (death and abuse mentions) re: unpopular positive movie opinion
@Alyx ...heh, it actually ties into a thought I've been knocking around for a long time, about scope and emotional investment
a lot of stories about saving The Whole World™ fall flat for me - the scope is just too big for the events happening in the narrative - but I can get completely invested in a story about an estranged daughter trying to make a good Thanksgiving dinner for her family because her mother is dying and they want to bury the hatchet
(...although not specifically that story recently, because both that mom and my mom are pretty abusive and I'm not up for thinking about that kind of gesture right now, but yeah - "Pieces of April" (2003), good movie)
By reframing saving the world as saving a handful of people, The Core kinda follows the same thought process, actually
scope and emotional weight (death and abuse mentions) re: unpopular positive movie opinion
@packbat I think, really and truly, that our culture has taught us to be baffled by large problems. we've made a fetish of complexity and of overwhelming scope, partly because it feeds into our civilization's nauseating preoccupation with being The Best, with point events and point sources of greatness. it benefits this society to present issues as too messy for all but a few geniuses or rich men to solve
scope and emotional weight (death and abuse mentions) re: unpopular positive movie opinion
@packbat so I feel like we should trust our feelings more on this one. it's not our feelings that teach us that complex issues sometimes boil down to a simple few decisions that do the most good. instinctively we feel like that's how things actually work. but we've been pushed away from this notion