Friday, March 13, 2009

For the Love of Boring/Slow Movies: Part 1



There are endless amounts of films out there that are boring. And usually “slow” equals boring or vice-versa, but for the sake of keeping it simple let’s just stick with boring. Here are some examples of some of my favorite, most boring movies!


I will go ahead and start with a movie that for about 15 years was my “number one”. “Blade Runner” directed by Ridley Scott is a fantastic unfaithful sci-fi adaption of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Whenever I talk to people about “Blade Runner” I always make the mistake of mentioning that it is a perfect film, which a friend of mine once replied “Isn’t it kind of boring.” In my mind I am thinking “I know, isn’t that great!” When you realize that this is technically a sci-fi action movie it makes it seem even more boring. There are long drawn out scenes of replicants harassing their human counterparts, beautiful long shots of the cityscape, and Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Rachel (Sean Young) staring at one another. The movie seems to go on endlessly, but because you are so sucked in by its gorgeous story and set you don’t notice until maybe the second or third viewing. For me it took about the 12th viewing. I went to see the recent release of the director’s cut of the director’s cut …cut on big screen. I was so excited and the movie was awesome even though it was the first time I really realized how boring the film really is. Remember, boring does not mean bad.

2 comments:

  1. Love the illustrations of the movie titles, they are truly great. :-)
    And here are the things that I have mentioned to you on Saturday. I've tried to post pretty images and tags to videos, but wasn't allowed, bummer!

    The Beyond
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgFMYRxdr3g

    David Heatley
    http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/images/panelHeatley.jpg
    http://twentyonwards.blogs.com/.a/6a00d834522e1369e20105364153ce970b-800wi

    Yoshihiro Tatsumi
    http://www.comicbookbrain.com/_imagery/_2007_04_10/tatsumi_savage.jpg

    What else was there? I feel we had a running list of things.

    Hope you are well. I ended up at the beach on Sunday myself.
    Dragana

    ReplyDelete
  2. Boring? Hmmm, perhaps we're redefining the word in that case, but if you're something "so uninteresting as to cause mental weariness" (thank you, online dictionary), there I have to disagree. I love Blade Runner as well, and the long shots too... It's all about atmospherics. It's like the moving taking a deep breath, and giving the viewer the chance to do the same - to take it all in and ponder what it means. This is something I really appreciate, in that Scott treats the audience as adults, not ADHD patients (sadly, a total lack of attention span is becoming all the more common in this country). He trusts us to think, not fall asleep or change the channel - and that's pretty rare. I think the Japanese know something about this (thinking about Kurosawa , Miyazaki, Ghost in the Shell, etc.) and about the need for atmospherics as well - another reason to do this for sure, it's not about character development or moving the plot but setting the mood and getting the feelings right. When done well it really, really enhances the film... When done poorly, it is unbelievably painful - hence the danger...

    ReplyDelete