It's not insight that I find pretentious, nor any particular visual style. Monster's Ball, although I hated it, I didn't find particularly pretentious.
The ultimate in pretentious, to me, is movies/music/art that sets itself up as some weird kind of coolness test. I got the feeling watching "Fight Club" that it was (in part) some kind of "how cool are you?" test. If you got it, it meant that you were smarter than all the other pathetics drones who just weren't cool and hip and smart enough to get it.
Then again, as I said, I did spend too much time with people like Merlyn and Alex and their friends. They made some utter crap as art, and would verbally berate me about how if I was cooler, I would get it and appreciate whatever crap they were working on that week. So part of me having a problem with things I perceive as being cooler-than-thou is a reactio against crap from the past, and not necesarrily to do with anything right now.
Anyway... the interior of your brain is like a perfume commercial, eh? Nuts, man. I had no idea :>
But yeah... there is a line for films where on one side there is opening people's eyes to wider view of the world and the "poor miserable people who populate it", and the other side is just emotional masturbation masquerading as education.
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timeasmymeasure
pretension
Date: 2005-02-16 06:25 pm (UTC)The ultimate in pretentious, to me, is movies/music/art that sets itself up as some weird kind of coolness test. I got the feeling watching "Fight Club" that it was (in part) some kind of "how cool are you?" test. If you got it, it meant that you were smarter than all the other pathetics drones who just weren't cool and hip and smart enough to get it.
Then again, as I said, I did spend too much time with people like Merlyn and Alex and their friends. They made some utter crap as art, and would verbally berate me about how if I was cooler, I would get it and appreciate whatever crap they were working on that week. So part of me having a problem with things I perceive as being cooler-than-thou is a reactio against crap from the past, and not necesarrily to do with anything right now.
Anyway... the interior of your brain is like a perfume commercial, eh? Nuts, man. I had no idea :>
But yeah... there is a line for films where on one side there is opening people's eyes to wider view of the world and the "poor miserable people who populate it", and the other side is just emotional masturbation masquerading as education.