Posts by Matthew Anderson4

Thinking of God as some kind of person is basically ten-year-old logic. Yesterday, today, tomorrow... it just doesn't work like that. My bad.

Jessica Gonzalez said:I don't want to spoil the fun, but maybe that isn't actually a person. It almost looks like a doll to me, especially since it was pulled away just as they were about to be fully in view.

Right when it cleared the edge of that loading dock, too. Couldn't get a full shot before that since it was tucked inside the truck. Your theory's got zero legs. If it's a doll, who's pushing this massive thing?

brightpilot6 said:I’ll simply say that if you absolutely require some specialized background knowledge just to grasp or experience a piece of art, then in my view, it belongs in Category B. This applies to everything, not just cinema. It’s the same logic I apply to "art" that functions exclusively for idiots—pieces that essentially insult one's intelligence by being mindless.

Category A art is the kind that strikes a chord whether it’s being viewed by a guy working construction on a roadside or a tenured professor at Harvard.

Essentially, those specific elements of an artwork that correspond to our existing knowledge or niche interests provide pleasure precisely because of that recognition. We gravitate toward stacked references, subtle homages, or when certain technical flourishes are pushed to the foreground, because noticing them makes us feel smarter, more cultured, and more enlightened than those who miss the cues. People love that feeling, of course, and they consciously or unconsciously link that sense of intellectual satisfaction to the quality of the work itself. But to prioritize those components over the overall impact of the piece—or to assume someone like Joe Smith would find value in them—is nothing more than intellectual posturing or professional blustering. Or snobbery; call it what you will. I’ll admit, I sometimes catch myself falling into this trap in other artistic fields closer to my own interests, where I notice technical subtleties, but I can usually recognize the impulse and shut it down.

It would be like me trying to explain to you that you can’t enjoy a painting because you didn't notice the exact brushstroke technique used. How many people actually know how to spot something like that? Is that specific brushwork, which a few connoisseurs will argue about endlessly, more important than the final result that gives a broad audience butterflies in their stomach? Or is a painting inherently flawed just because you haven't studied ten thousand others in your lifetime? To put it in sports terms, do we need to understand the exact physics of the ball or every single muscle contraction involved for us to appreciate a legendary volley from Lionel Messi during a match in London? Why should I have to master the mechanics of directing and editing just to find a movie compelling—aren't directing and editing simply the very tools the artist uses to move me?

Look, I wasn't trying to say Perrie can't enjoy a movie. He just doesn't catch the direction, the lighting, or the script. If you don't notice those things—or haven't seen the classics—your take on a film's legacy or its place in history just doesn't carry weight. It's true for any art, really. My opinion on Matisse doesn't mean much either; sure, I've seen his work and liked it, but I don't know the first thing about painting. Same goes for me calling Messi the GOAT. I haven't even watched a single Pelé game. I might be right, but it's just an emotional hunch, not an actual argument based on the sport. If I happen to be right, I'm just lucky. Not exactly an expert.

Art shouldn't require a PhD just to feel it. It’s all about vibes and personal taste. Any piece of art—doesn't matter if you're a construction worker or a Harvard professor—should hit a nerve. If we're talking historical context or why a piece actually matters in the long run, sure, you need some background to place it properly. Like I said before. When I listen to someone like Leo DiCaprio talk about movies, I only expect him to know the technical stuff or the history if he's trying to rank the greatest directors ever or debate Oscar winners. I don't assume Leo can't enjoy a movie just because he doesn't know how they shot a specific frame.

Look, I just didn't feel like getting dragged into those endless debates about the Odyssey and the movie, and you guys wouldn't let it go. Just give us the rotation already.

brightpilot6 said:Well, I was referring to the modern mainstream, though I assumed that was self-evident.

When I say something goes against the current mainstream, I mean that films falling into that category are often dismissed from the very jump just because of where they sit on the spectrum. We see this play out repeatedly here on the forums, seeing the specific biases people bring to these films and the slim chances they afford them before they've even seen a single frame.

We can certainly agree that there is more garbage being produced today than there used to be, simply because the technical barrier to entry has dropped, allowing anyone with a camera to make something and put it online. But does a decline in the overall quality of the pool really imply that the absolute best works are automatically subpar?

It’s a bit like saying that because you could only watch major league baseball in the past, but now you have access to every minor league game in existence, all of modern baseball must be trash.

Not for me, perhaps, but it certainly seems to be the case for those who compiled the list. As for what I mentioned regarding a "primacy" of quality—or rather, a shift in standards—it applies to the decline just as much as the rise. While talent can fluctuate wildly from year to year, when we look at broader windows of twenty or thirty years, it becomes difficult to argue there are any truly massive deviations.

The people actually making these lists aren't interested in tearing anyone down. Sure, you've got your idiots, but the real issue today is how everyone trashes older cinema. Most people won't even touch a black-and-white movie, let alone anything over 30 years old. Take *Citizen Kane*—it’s been called the greatest ever for decades, yet almost nobody actually watches it. Don't even get me started on foreign films; I could spend all day talking about how people react to a classic German noir. movie. 99 out of 100 people won't even bother looking at this because of those three words before the link. It's a movie that comes around once a decade—honestly, that black-and-white silent French flick only got an Oscar nod because of top-tier marketing, nothing else.

Not even gonna go there. Hardly anyone actually knows how to watch a movie anymore—you know, appreciate direction, script, cinematography, acting... the stuff that actually matters. You can't even wrap your head around it unless you've seen the heavy hitters, the iconic directors, and different eras of film history. You have to view it as art, not just some mass-produced distraction for some guy to kill time on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But people today? They just watch every blockbuster from *The Matrix* onward and think their take on "all-time greatness" actually carries weight. It doesn't. If you haven't seen Hitchcock or Kubrick, if names like Kurosawa or Bergman don't ring a bell, or if you start getting defensive when someone mentions cinematography because "that's not important" or "I just want to relax," then shut it. You don't get a vote when we're talking about historical context and lasting quality. Look, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but this crowd's understanding of cinema is basically zero. It's like asking a dog for gardening advice. Just because they're around doesn't mean they know anything. And I'm not saying this because I think I'm an expert, but because you're out here defending the exact kind of mediocrity that's killing movies in the first place.

Yeah, true. Talent fluctuates, sure, but look at the reality. You could have someone like Paul Thomas Anderson—arguably the best director of our era—drop a masterpiece like *There Will Be Blood*, and five years later he’s struggling to find anyone to fund his next project for peanuts. Why? Because it's safer for investors to dump money into some mindless blockbuster that’ll get Peron banned from the IMDb forums two months before release, just so they can pocket $50 million from various backers in the opening week. That's the problem. This hyper-capitalist consumerism isn't just killing great movies; it's basically defining the culture now. We don't have "good" cinema like we used to because of it. Out of every ten films that actually get the green light and production support, eight of them are guaranteed flops based on the sheer volume of garbage churned out over the last 15 years. Studios, producers, and big-money interests—plus an uneducated mass of viewers—are basically tailoring films for people who lack any real vision. It crushes actual artists who could be making stuff worthy of a real legacy. It's gotten so bad it feels unprecedented. Look back at 2009. In the Best Foreign Language Film category alone, there were three movies arguably stronger than anything nominated for Best Picture that year. You had *The Hurt Locker* and *Pan's Labyrinth* fighting through the noise against something as mindless as *Avatar*, alongside stuff like *The Blind Side*, *An Education*, *Up in the Air*, and *Precious*. Just seeing those names together shows how far the industry has slid. Don't get me wrong, there are good films out there, but even Peron mocks the Oscars every single year. And it's not the Academy's fault. The Oscars aren't a joke because they hand out trophies to bad movies; they're a joke because the art form itself has become a glorified cash cow. They'd give an Oscar to a total dud if they could, but honestly? There just aren't enough decent movies left to reward.

The foundation isn't just garbage; it’s basically got cancer. It spreads upward and rots the top tier, which should be holding its own against any era, but it just doesn't. Even the heavy hitters at the top are making concessions for Hollywood now that they never had to before. Look, *Interstellar* is a great movie—I love it—but the actual filmmaking behind it is kind of a mess. You can see it in even a single frame of *Oppenheimer*. Nolan, along with the rest of the A-list, is seeing his quality dip because the industry doesn't demand better anymore. Once you have a name, they don't want you to grow; they want you to dilute your style just to move more tickets. That’s why for guys like Nolan, Fincher, the Coens, Eastwood, Tarantino, Cameron, or Ridley, the best stuff is almost always from their early years. Everything else lately feels like mass-produced sludge—like those overcrowded public pools where you can't even tell who's floating in the water. They aren't making cinema that lasts. Nolan’s *Oppenheimer* is just his version of *Interstellar*; it won't be on any "all-time" lists in fifty years because the directing, the script, the cinematography, and the concept just lack the depth to stand next to something like *2001: A Space Odyssey*. Pretty much the only director actually maturing artistically right now is Wes Anderson. He’s managed to stay true to himself by some miracle, instead of making movies the way the suits want them. But even then, filmmaking is a weird beast. Unlike writing a book, painting, or jamming in a garage with friends, you can't do this alone. You need an entire massive industry to greenlight the budget and handle the logistics. And if the industry is as broken as it is today, everything starts aiming for the same mediocre middle ground. Top or bottom, it all ends up looking the same.

brightpilot6 said:It’s almost performative, isn't it? That desperate need to be contrarian just for the sake of it—embracing something purely because it stands in opposition to the mainstream, regardless of whether the actual quality holds any water.

It’s pure posturing, really—the kind of performative intellectualism where someone pushes a narrative they know is false just to cultivate that certain "expert" persona. Is there anything more transparent than someone sacrificing the truth simply to bolster their own image?

It’s clearly untrue for one simple reason: there is never a single moment in the history of human endeavor where quality or excellence—or whatever metric you care to name—is the sole driving force. It doesn't happen in professional sports, it doesn't happen in the fine arts, and it certainly doesn't happen in our pursuit of wellness. In fact, if we look closely enough, we find that even in Hollywood, pure meritocracy is nothing more than a convenient myth.

Not sure what's "anti-mainstream" about this list. I mean, Citizen Kane is sitting right at number one, for crying out loud. 😕
What would you even call mainstream here? A list topped by The Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings, or Inception? Putting Kane at the top is the ultimate mainstream move.
So they squeezed The Godfather Part II, Casablanca, Psycho, Singin' in the Rain, Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, and Citizen Kane into the top 10. And that's supposed to be "counter-culture"?

Plus, I don't see where I implied any one era holds a monopoly on quality. You think basically the whole history of film is one era, and then the last 15 years is just another one?

James Anderson5 said:I agree with you regarding modern music; Dylan is definitely at the top. But honestly, I think anyone with even a basic understanding of classical music would pity you for not seeing how Mozart and Beethoven operate on an entirely different level. It’s just like how fine art stands above photography, even if both are valuable ways to express ourselves...

If we were sending a space probe out with humanity's greatest achievements or things that truly represent us as a species, do you really think someone would pack Bach and Mozart versus Bob Dylan?

Rock and pop belong to different categories; they have value, but they are inherently secondary to peak classical music. Besides, Beethoven has been performed in concert halls for 250 years, and I seriously doubt anyone will still be playing Dylan in those same venues centuries from now, regardless of what people think today. Even looking back at the music from the '20s, '30s, or '40s, so much of it is already forgotten. Very little survives the test of time, whether it's books or music...

It’s like comparing LeBron to Jordan, or maybe Picasso to Rembrandt. To me, the gap between Dylan and Mozart is just down to timing—purely fate. Everything happens when it's meant to. Art styles shift, and an artist is always shaped by their era, but they aren't trapped by it. Even Tolstoy didn't write for the stage, but that doesn't make him any less of a genius than a folk singer.
The whole painting vs. photography comparison feels right on the surface since they look similar, but it’s total nonsense once you actually dig in. They aren't even playing the same game. Painting is about building a new reality from scratch, whereas photography is basically just stripping down what's already there. A feature film is more like a painting than a documentary is—and a documentary is closer to a photo than it is to a movie, at least in terms of how they communicate. Trying to force that analogy is like comparing apples to oranges. It's as pointless as trying to compare Mozart to Bob Dylan.

James Anderson5 said:I agree with you regarding modern music; Dylan is definitely at the top. But honestly, I think anyone with even a basic understanding of classical music would pity you for not seeing how Mozart and Beethoven operate on an entirely different level. It’s just like how fine art stands above photography, even if both are valuable ways to express ourselves...

If we were sending a space probe out with humanity's greatest achievements or things that truly represent us as a species, do you really think someone would pack Bach and Mozart versus Bob Dylan?

Rock and pop belong to different categories; they have value, but they are inherently secondary to peak classical music. Besides, Beethoven has been performed in concert halls for 250 years, and I seriously doubt anyone will still be playing Dylan in those same venues centuries from now, regardless of what people think today. Even looking back at the music from the '20s, '30s, or '40s, so much of it is already forgotten. Very little survives the test of time, whether it's books or music...

Hopefully he can find room for both. Wouldn't want him sending over an 8MB memory card from a PlayStation 2 or something.
Your question doesn't even make sense. You’d send the music over anyway, even if it was just some indie rock instead of Dostoevsky, knowing damn well some random Martian isn't going to translate the prose, let alone read it. They can at least listen to the tunes. Doesn't mean American folk-rock is better than classic literature, or that the band is somehow bigger than the author.

James Anderson5 said:I agree with you regarding modern music; Dylan is definitely at the top. But honestly, I think anyone with even a basic understanding of classical music would pity you for not seeing how Mozart and Beethoven operate on an entirely different level. It’s just like how fine art stands above photography, even if both are valuable ways to express ourselves...

If we were sending a space probe out with humanity's greatest achievements or things that truly represent us as a species, do you really think someone would pack Bach and Mozart versus Bob Dylan?

Rock and pop belong to different categories; they have value, but they are inherently secondary to peak classical music. Besides, Beethoven has been performed in concert halls for 250 years, and I seriously doubt anyone will still be playing Dylan in those same venues centuries from now, regardless of what people think today. Even looking back at the music from the '20s, '30s, or '40s, so much of it is already forgotten. Very little survives the test of time, whether it's books or music...

More apples and pears. Purely aesthetic stuff. Would you even show up to a concert hall to hear Dylan if he wasn't the one playing? Modern artists create for themselves—Dylan creates for himself—just so he can step out on stage and actually perform it. He isn't doing it for some hired guns scattered across the globe like they do in classical music. And what about those playwrights whose works have been on stage for centuries? Does that automatically make them better than novelists whose books just collect dust on a shelf? The "test of time" thing is kind of a wash. You can look back 500 years and find something decent from pretty much every single year. You’ll find something signed by Hemingway, maybe some Twain or Oscar Wilde. They all passed the test, and there's zero reason to think Dylan—basically the GOAT of modern music—won't. We aren't even talking about Joy Division here. So, the test of time doesn't really tell you who belongs at the absolute top. Honestly, the most objective way to judge an artist's impact is looking at how much they mattered when they were actually relevant—kind of like how soccer legends are judged by how they dominated their own era.

Larry Fox5 said:Look at him go—defending Dylan like his life depends on it. Whatever, let him have it... 🤣

Obviously, Bob is in a league of his own—no debate there. It just ticked me off how vague you were being—you basically pushed the actual music to the side instead of focusing on it.

To me, Dylan was always like Leonard Cohen—just someone who uses music as a vehicle to get the lyrics out. A guy with incredible poetry—except one grew up right here in the States where he could become a legend, while the other was stuck in some backwater nowhere that barely even understood him...

That’s easily one of my favorite Dylan tracks.

Croce would be our Dylan, but I think there's more to the gap between them than just that one stroke of luck you're talking about.

And Dylan’s sitting there on some all-time greats list right up there with Mozart and Beethoven. Modern music just lacks that scale and complexity, so you can't really count him out for that. I feel for anyone who doesn't get it.

Larry Fox5 said:Look, I just can't get behind that. Music isn't just some "tool"—it’s at least as important as the lyrics, if you ask me... actually, it's more important. What about all the instrumental symphonies? Classical, jazz, folk, rock...

By your "formula," guys like Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven & stuff wouldn't even count as great artists—even though people were writing full symphonies for orchestras and scores for fifty different instruments. You basically can't even compose that stuff unless you have perfect pitch...

My whole post was pretty abstract, maybe even sounding a bit preachy, so why take my use of 'storyteller' so literally? Like, am I really crazy enough to claim the greatest artists are only the ones who scribble lyrics? To me, Mozart and his crew are storytellers. No clue what they are to you or what else they could be. Maybe I should've said you're a better artist because you're a better storyteller. And you're a better storyteller if you can actually pull a listener into your world. In that sense, Bob Dylan is at the top of modern music. Not just for the lyrics, but for the whole package; the whole thing which includes the lyrics, which I just simplified by calling "music." It's all just tools. Melody and lyrics. If it wasn't a tool but some ultimate end goal (what else would it be?), then he wouldn't be an artist, he'd just be a hack. Like that Yngwie Malmsteen guy or whatever—as hard as he plays, he's a total hack as an artist because he's empty. There's nothing there. His goal is technique, and if technique is your goal, you're a hack, not an artist. A real artist is a storyteller; they use their craft as a tool to tell you what's going on inside them (unlike Yngwie, where the guitar is basically just a way to jerk off, for example). That's what I meant by storyteller. Hopefully clearer now. Thx, sry, bb.

Count however many grains you're ready for, then add one... boom, you've got a pile.

Still don't get why that whole movie list is being called hipster nonsense. 🤷

Larry Fox5 said:I don't care if he hits a few flat or sharp notes here and there—honestly, I value raw energy and actual emotion over perfect pitch any day... It’s about how a performer connects with the crowd! Take someone like Bruce Springsteen, for example—he might miss a note once in a while, but he absolutely lights up every stadium he steps into. Same goes for Bono from U2...
Look, maybe Dylan’s vibe just hits you differently because of his delivery—I get it—but even if we take the vocals out of the equation, the instrumentation is just... thin. Seriously, it's super lacking.

Not sure if you play guitar or whatever, but his sound is just plain basic—and honestly, I bet he doesn't even care that much since his whole thing was always about the lyrics anyway.

Just compare his guitar work to someone like Beck. It’s night and day.

Oh, for sure. If you look at the pieces individually, Dylan's strength is strictly songwriting and melody. You won't find him on any "Top Vocalists" or "Top Guitarists" lists. But that doesn't touch his legacy. Nobody's claiming he's a virtuoso. The idea that he's the greatest solo artist in modern music is basically an axiom at this point. He earned that spot. (Where are all those mediocre players who actually had better technique but zero impact?) Great artists have always been storytellers. From Homer to now, it's the same thing. Dylan is a storyteller; the music is just the vehicle. And what a storyteller. His influence reaches way beyond just music. There hasn't been an American artist in the last 50 years who hasn't admitted being inspired by him. When you break him down into parts, you see the magic: the whole is way greater than the sum of its parts. That’s the wild part. Even if he isn't a top-tier guitarist or singer compared to his peers, the sheer quality of his body of work puts him right up there with the Beatles. It makes sense when you think about him stating he sold his soul to the devil. Dylan is sitting way up in the pantheon of true greats.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770802/

Grab the high-def version. If you don't get it, you clearly don't know real cinema. Watch it again. Thx, my bad, peace out.

Yeah, what Larry Fox5 said about Like a Rolling Stone? Spot on. There are definitely "better" versions out there. If some math nerd tried to analyze every one of Bob’s takes, his might not even crack the top 10. You could nitpick forever. But none of them hit quite as hard as his does. Same goes for All Along the Watchtower. Jimi took that track and turned it into an absolute rock anthem. But man, there's a reason Moore had Dylan's version in mind when he referenced it in Watchmen. It's hard to put into words, but I feel it deep down. Listening to Jimi's version just hits different—nothing else gets close, no matter how much you're vibing.

Dylan’s whole thing is how he nails every single note just right for the lyrics, like in this one. Sure, he doesn't have the best voice on the planet, but honestly, nobody else could pull off a song this perfectly as a complete package. That imperfect voice and how he works it—that’s his X factor.

Take this performance, for example. Gives me chills every single time. He tells the entire story within the first word he says.

This one hits way too hard:



Knopfler on guitar, Dylan on keys (might’ve even been Mick Taylor on this version, honestly can’t tell).

Larry Fox5 said:Yeah, true—but the question is just which dimension we're talking about. Half the time Dylan is totally faking it, playing like he couldn't care less, and his voice? Absolute garbage. My old mentor always said he was a brilliant songwriter, sure, but a pathetic musician and singer at best...

Between Seal & Jeff Beck, Jimi & BB King, and even the Stones on *Stripped*, there are plenty of versions that are five classes better than the original.

Ever actually heard Dylan when he sings like a normal person?

brightpilot6 said:Following that recent debate about Interstellar—specifically those arguments regarding "head and tail" structures versus the "superior storytelling" found in other films—I felt somewhat compelled to revisit Kubrick’s Odyssey. My god 🤦

It seems to consist of ten static shots lasting five minutes each, serving absolutely no purpose because there isn't a single thing to actually process; the "plot" is frustratingly vague, filled with such murky details and loose ends that trying to dissect the film's logic feels entirely futile, not to mention that not a single character possesses any depth beyond being paper-thin, with motivations either non-existent or left completely unexplained.

Aliens leave behind monoliths that supposedly help amoebas evolve into cats. Or maybe they don't. Wow.

It is just a classic case of "the emperor has no clothes," a Rorschachian image of a film where a simple pipe against a white wall becomes the subject of novellas written by wannabe connoisseurs. After all, it's Kubrick, so one assumes they won't look foolish for suggesting it isn't a masterpiece. Of course, Kubrick anticipated all these debates and carefully planted the triggers for them, yet directors of Interstellar and similar flicks don't spend even a second considering the things we are actually discussing here.

The Odyssey is famous for its technical perfection, not its plot. To me, it's one of the best-executed films ever, but even with Kubrick, I can find movies I personally think are better.

Come on, just hurry up.