I wholeheartedly agree, actually. Now if I can only convince everyone that high culture is only the expression of insecure snobbery.
People seem to favor either low-culture (exploitation or porn flicks) or high-culture media (boring Oscar movies) but are intensely critical of mainstream media. I think all it has to do with is money.
But the differences in terms of mainstream cinema and "high-cultured" media such as stage, dance, and sculpture are superficial and subtle, and therefore unimportant.
I am personally not above enjoying Bay/Bruckheimer summer blockbusters (Transformers is the best movie of the year, thus far).
These "hidden messages" in the so-called higher art films are really little more than advertising.
And I must say that product placement in mainstream cinema is often quite clever.
If culture is more about appreciating the beauty of the performance, then what makes elaborate f/x sequences in blockbusters any less of beautiful performance?
Well said, all around. I've never understood why schools insisted on teaching us about classical music. "Its sophistocated", they once told my brother when he asked the teacher. But how? Its music. It felt like I was getting ripped off not learning about all the different types of music (which is something I now do on my own time as much as possible).
These things need a concrete definition... either all films are art, or none of them are. Either all music is, or none of it is. Either all paintings... ect. ect. ect. They can't be "more art" or "more culture" than something else. They can be of different quality, but that must be judged on an individual basis, not weather it is an indie film or some other non-mainstream form of "high culture".
I particularly liked "Now if I can only convince everyone that high culture is only the expression of insecure snobbery." I have felt like that many times when I've heard people (especially those of authority) talk about art and culture.
"These "hidden messages" in the so-called higher art films are really little more than advertising." I enjoy "hidden messages" and symbols, but I see them all the time in good "low-culture" movies, too. You can make symbols all you want with pretty much anything, and thats what I like to do to enjoy my movies!
I don't see how a movie like "Transformers" or "Superbad" is any less a work of great art than Shakespeare (who bothers me, by the way). Transformers, as you mentioned, had incredibly well done visual effects, and it was extremely enertaining because of the impeccable mix of the action and humour (giant fighting robots is a sure winning forumula, anyway). Superbad had a very good plot, and very good characters, too, and was hilarious, yet because it had a lot of cock jokes a lot of snobs will probably look down on it. And those cock jokes were smart, too.
zombie movies are hillarious! as someone who is always hoping to see bodily harm inflicted on people in movies I'd think that there would be some more appreciation of a genre in which people get torn to bits and eaten!
