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Reputation Comments, positive and negative

babe said:
See any correlation between these two facts?
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No, none at all. Some people acknowledge behavior without participating, others participate in ehaviors they deny. I am unaware of any correlation, or even connection. If you see a correlation, please provide the evidence for it.

babe said:
Anyway, I decided after all I don't care about the rep game in here. But nobody has signed a neg rep to me yet so I don't know who to thank. I'm trying to beat Dutch to the bottom. . . .
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I have given 1 (maybe 2) positive rep and never bothered to give a negative rep. Sorry, no help from me there.
 
This is absolutely 100% the saddest jazzfanz thread in history. It's like you all took Archie Moses pills...rectally.
 
TroutBum said:
Neutral rep from some hackAtron:

"You are this message board's Forrest Gump except less intelligent."

Hmmm, let's see. I have my own successful business, I'm a multi-millionaire, I can run like the wind, and I am going to bed each night with a hot blonde. I can dig it.
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That's pretty funny.
 
Stickler said:
Neg rep in reference to The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon, directed by Billy Wilder, winner of Best Picture 1960, Best Screenplay, and Best Director, a movie that changed filmmaking, a movie that is considered by every film critic alive to be a masterpiece of American cinema.

"Stupid movie."

**** you, neg rep giver. **** you. Memo to the cavemen: I know you don't like me. I don't care about that. But when looking for posts to give me neg rep for, at least find a post wherein I say something belittling or smart or cutting or arrogantly oblivious. God knows I make plenty of those. Neg repping me for liking one of the best films ever made is just a pure A-hole move. I mean, it's The Apartment. There's not even any controversy about its quality. It's not like I claim to like Forrest Gump or Transformers 2 or Irma La Douce. Were you thinking of The Room? You couldn't have been thinking of The Apartment. It's not possible.
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Well, personally I don't like The Apartment that much. I mean I wouldn't neg rep you or anything for it, but still.
 
The Apartment is exceptionally well-written, and Jack Lemmon is magical as C.C. Baxter. (I could elaborate on both issues, but I'll wait until I know what you think is wrong with it.)

Lawrence of Arabia doesn't particularly speak to me.

So what's wrong with The Apartment?
 
Stickler said:
So what's wrong with The Apartment?
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This isn't a position of strength for me, nor one I feel super-strongly about.

I saw The Apartment about five years ago; it was actually one of the first movies I ever rented from Netflix. It simply failed to grab me.

Some of this may be that I found it difficult to take Fred MacMurray seriously since I associate him so strongly with being the dopey dad in Disney films. I also think that it's a film that may not have aged particularly well due to its treatment of themes like adultery as something that's risque. I remember also having a pretty muted reaction to Shirley McClaine.

Some of this may also be that I have a very mixed record on how I feel about Billy Wilder films. Some of them I absolutely love. I count Some Like it Hot and Sunset Boulevard among my favorite movies of all time. Others, even those considered classics, I have had a very lukewarm response to, including another Best Picture winner in "The Lost Weekend." Some of it might be that I dislike what I perceive to be preachiness in these films, but I'd probably have to watch The Apartment again in order to give you more detailed criticisms. Obviously you've seen it both more frequently and more recently than I have.
 
I think that taking the basic position that there isn't necessarily anything wrong with a movie, but it just doesn't particularly grab you, is fair and valid. That's what I think you're saying here. Falling in love with Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment is really more about Jack Lemmon's performance than it is about Shirley MacLaine being lovable.

One thing I find particularly fun about older movies is extrapolating the culture-at-large from the content of the films -- that's especially true of the films from that era. In so many ways, America was a different country then, a completely different culture. So although I understand what you're saying about adultery, it really doesn't have any effect on my enjoyment of the movie.

Incidentally, though, I don't think adultery was presented as something that was risque. It was presented as something commonplace, well-known and socially accepted, if not actually ubiquitous. It's clear that Billy Wilder had a great deal of contempt for that reality. One thing you can say about Billy Wilder, whether the movie succeeds or fails, he was unusually honest about sex and sexual politics for his era.
 
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