Games I'd Like To Acquire

People smarter, more knowledgeable, and better-written than I can make a solid argument that Star Wars and Shrek are art. Idiots can make a decent argument for it, too. Thankfully, you only asked for my personal perspective, so that's what I'll give.

There are formulas, forms, principles, and techniques for all types of film. Moviegoers who have never seen an avant-garde film can recognize the style of the "killer videotape" in Verbinski's The Ring "experimental" (or "out there" or just "really f*cked up"). Perhaps they saw Requiem for a Dream and knew its camera and editing techniques belonged to the realm of "experimental" or "art" films. My brother watched Gerry and Elephant and, though he didn't have the filmic vocabulary to articulate it, knew that it belonged to a special brand of minimalist film.

The formulas, forms, etc. of mainstream films are even better known. These are "popcorn flicks", "chick flicks", "rom-coms", "slashers", property-based special-effects kiss kiss bang bang blockbusters. Speilberg, Jackson, Cameron, Bay. I know nothing about painting but I can tell the different between Dali, Picasso, Klimt, and Hopper. One of these is not like the other, though all are great. So, too, I think most moviegoers know the difference between art and mainstream film (and both can be great), but it could take 1000 pages to distill the differences to a series of equations. If it's possible at all.

Between art and entertainment films are the "quirky" brand. I Heart Huckabees, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There's also faux-indie: Garden State, Kill Bill, Lost in Translation. Both types stray just far enough from formula mainstream pics to be somewhat special, and retain enough mainstream forms to be digestible for casual moviegoers.

Whether movies of any style or genre are "art" is another question. That's what movie reviews and discussion are for. "Art" says something new (Un Chien Andalou, Persona), does something new (Battleship Potemkin, Citizen Kane, Last Year in Marienbad), says something in a new way (Memento, Dead Man), matches its technique to its message in a special way (Requiem for a Dream, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, overflows with ebullient creativity and good ideas (Pulp Fiction, 2001: A Space Odyssey), etc. Or usually, "art" does something that has technically been done before but has been done so rarely that the possibilities of that form have not been exhausted as they have for mainstream forms (Ran, Fantasia, and actually, many of the examples above). Most of these examples are so good they match several of these descriptions. I'm not normally a huge fan of "aesthetics" or direct realism as art. Return of the King is beautiful, but not especially interesting as art. Realism is often refreshing amongst the glut of exaggerated, sickening faux-reality of mainstream movies, especially teen flicks, but it takes a special statement in realism to be artistically fresh, I think. Italian Neo-Realist pics, for example, are now considered among the "art films", but most of them are of questionable artistic art for me, however enjoyable and heart-wrenching they are.

When I refer to "entertainment" or "entertainment films", I mean mostly common, overly derivative films that usually aspire to be nothing more than a money-making good time. I do not mean that art films cannot entertain. They often do. And many entertainment films have large doses of art.

I do not only give high praise to art films. Chinatown, for example, is not particularily artistic, but it is the single most perfect film ever made and therefore among the greatest films of all time.

I feel I will never sufficiently answer your question, but I gave it a shot. How'd I do?