im sorry but this movie isnt for you.

i am (attempting) writing to an audience of mostly cinephiles; hard core movie fans who view movie watching as something other than a way to pass the time. ive discussed here in the past about movies as entertainment vs movies as fun vs movies as experiences. movies, like life experiences, may not always be good or fun, but sometimes, one profits from them anyway. is anyone going to walk away of Schindler's List saying, 'DUDE! THAT AWWWWE-SOME! the explosions were fuckin fantastic! and those naked chicks!" i hope not. or if they do i hope im around to blog about it after. regardless, it was a movie that was meant to be experienced in all of its gory, graphic, and sad detail. no, a movie like this is not meant to be fun.

with a somber, well publicized film about the holocaust, its easy to know that if you like movies for a bit of good times, you may want to give ole Schindler's List a miss. With other movies, its not as clear. This morning, i was listening to the OPIE AND ANTHONY show who were looking at a list of the top 50 best movies of the aught's from the I HEART CHAOS blog. on that list were the usual suspects (amelie, downfall, lord of the rings, beautiful mind) but there were odd and contraversial choices as any good list has -- namely, the twilight samurai (which i have yet to see!), southland tales, and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK.

while i definitely question the inclusion of southland tales, synecdoche was the one that O&A particularly beat up on. they never heard of it and one of their callers called it 'shit' and 'boring.' i really wanted to call and tell them this wasnt a movie made for mass consumption and they shouldnt even try to comprehend it. this was not a movie made either for them or a majority of their listening audience. snooty? yes of course. true? i think so.

synecdoche, if you havent seen it, was a very challenging film to watch by any stretch. it was almost 3 hours long and begins with complicated premise: theater director gets a grant and builds a scale replica of new york in a warehouse in order to put on a play about his life. so, we are already into the realm of conceptual art which is hard enough for anyone to follow. then, as the story wears on and the play becomes part of his life, replicas of new york are being built inside the warehouse as the story of his life develops in real time. so, at any given moment, there are numerous actors playing the director, stars, publicists and then actors are hired to play the actors and so on. more models are being built and the play of his life merges with his actual life. the ending is sad, beautiful, poignant, and a little bit tragic as the warehouse play goes on continually for decades.

this isnt exactly transformers. synecdoche is a midfuck of a film about obsession, self delusion, and subtle captures the stages of life in a literal and figurative sense. to put it simply, this was not a movie made for the masses; much like how bride wars, matthew mcconnaughey movies, and tyler perry things werent made for me.

so, unless you enjoy hearing yourself complain or take to the internet to do so, before launching into a diatribe about a movie you hated and think if you were really the target audience. and THAT is why i am never going to write anything about high school musical. that shit scares me. the acting is like silent movies with talking