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#115411 11/07/03 04:48 PM
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You have a point, Ravi. But I'll still vote against Titanic. I saw it in its entirety and while I wouldn't vote for it as the greatest story ever told I didn't think it was all that bad. Not worth seeing again, but there's plenty fit that category. I forget what it got its Oscars in but there's plenty things can be done well and still not make a movie good.


#115412 11/07/03 05:17 PM
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As you said, de gustibus non thingem

For what it's worth, another of my favourites, for overhyped or over-Oscar-ed films is The English Patient.

Go on, you can throw your tomatoes now...


#115413 11/07/03 06:55 PM
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over-Oscar-ed

You understand that one of the most important factors in who gets Oscars is who we should have given one last time but we couldn't because we were too busy giving it to someone we should have given it to the time before that.


#115414 11/07/03 09:30 PM
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Your reference to Bergmen movies reminded me, unfortunately, of a movie I just saw called Wings of Desire. I'd read about it on http://www.rottentomatoes.com where it had received an unprecedented 100% as well as the Cannes Award for Best Director. It's about an angel in Berlin who falls in love with a circus performer and wants to become mortal. Of course, it turned out to be one of the most tedious movies I've seen in quite some time; slow and depressing. Bergman would be proud.


#115415 11/07/03 10:45 PM
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I sometimes surprises me how vehemently people feel about something that has become phenomenally popular.

For instance, Céline Dion is one of the best-loved singers in America. She sells millions of records yet all of a sudden, all we hear is how people despise her. It has became uncool to like her and the Céline lovers don’t voice their opinion. Who wants to be uncool? Nobody wants to sit at the geek table so people don’t speak up...yet, as I said, millions of records are sold.

The same holds true for Titanic.

Can somebody with knowledge of psychology explain that phenomenon to me?

Oh, and for the record, French Céline – love, English Céline – not crazy about, Titanic – like enough to watch again when I’m feeling soupe-au-lait*.


I have no idea what the English equivalent of soupe-au-lait is. It’s when you’re feeling emotional and teary for no particular reason and anything will set the sprinklers flowing - a sad commercial, a misspoken word – anything. Soupe-au-lait literally translated means milk soup.


#115416 11/07/03 10:58 PM
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> Re: art-house
I sometimes surprises me how vehemently people feel about something that has become phenomenally popular.

Well, I disliked Titanic before it was released, so that lets me off that one, and I concur with your opinion of Céline - I like her French-language stuff, but dislike her attempts to out-Babs Streisand


#115417 11/07/03 11:07 PM
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I have a friend who, back in the late '60s, had decided not to read Catch-22 for the simple reason that it was on the NY Times best-seller list. In the period of about two weeks he was advised to read it by an ex-soldier, an ex-marine and an ex-sailor, all friends whose opinions he valued. He read it. He did not regret the decision.


#115418 11/08/03 11:01 AM
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In reply to:

Who wants to be uncool? Nobody wants to sit at the geek table so people don’t speak up


I'm sorry, I thought this was the geek table, or at least the wannabe geek table.

BTW If you ever do find an English term for this soupe-au-lait thing, do let us know. I certainly recognise the feeling -- though I've generally attributed it to a blocked nose squeezing my tear ducts (without the slightest idea of whether this is actually an anatomical possibility). Otherwise the best I can come up with is "a bit weepy".

Bingley



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#115419 11/08/03 02:27 PM
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Oh! Oh! Maybe it's...there are tear ducts and milk ducts, and...you know how, um, sometimes nursing mothers sometimes, um, well, leak with even the slightest of stimuli? Maybe that's the connection.


#115420 11/08/03 06:31 PM
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Could mean "milksop", I suppose, but the definition is a little wide of what I understand the mark for soupe-au-lait to be.


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