Okay. I think this film has finally put a nail in the coffin for me for films that have no purpose other than to portray violence on screen without a meaningful resolution. Now, I for one can take a bleak ending as I Loved how the Mist ended and it was perfect. It would have been even more perfect if the father had died too but that film qualified as entertainment for me. I was thinking about this on the way back from the theatre about how a film needs to either have tension, comedy, action, violence, sadness and other genres/elements combined in order to qualify as entertainment. This is the reason for me why some films can be completely sad, depressing, or extremely violent yet still maintain a level of entertainment.



Grade - F

and i'm done.

...you gave it an F because it wasn't entertaining? Shock, gasp. The audacity of these filmmakers to make something that doesn't make you feel like you just watched a piece of disposable entertainment.

What?!

EVERY movie should be entertaining.

There is no question about it.

If a movie is not entertaining, it should not be released.

Requiem for a Dream is not at all entertaining. Yet, it's an amazing film.

Poor logic.

You're obviously insane.

Irreversible and 13 Tzameti are both similar in the fact that they are portraying something that could take place realistically in every way yet I found both entertaining. I found nothing memorable about Funny Games. Oh, and entertaining doesn't just mean mindless fun, it can be thought provoking too but this was nonsense.

Another film came to mind, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer which also had senseless violence portrayed and is disturbing to watch as well (which I'll give FG credit in that regard). A particular scene in that film shows in about 5 minutes what takes FG 90 minutes to do. I didn't like it when it was portrayed in Wolf Crap and I don't like here when there just isn't any point to it. People die everyday, it's on the news everyday and so someone gets the idea to make a film about a bad guy(s) and feel compelled to show everything the bad people do for the joy and art of filmmaking and in the end have no resolution other than they continue to kill. That's pointless.

Also, people can make as many films like these but there are good ones like the two I mentioned in the first sentence and there are shit ones like Wolf Crap and this one.

Oh, and the whole rewind bit wasn't interesting, wasn't funny and didn't make the film any better.

You got pwned by Haneke.

Requiem for a Dream IS entertaining. Disturbing, but entertaining.

A better example of a great film that doesn't do much to entertain is 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days.

A movies entertainment value (or lack thereof) is the sole responsibility of the person watching it.

WHAT?!

Oh my god.

Then what the hell is the actors job? Then what is the directors job?

Their job? TO MAKE AN ENTERTAINING MOVIE.

No, their job is simply to make a movie.

Anyways, the brilliance of this movie is pretty staggering. It creates a fascinating duality - it's an indictment of itself and the type of person who watches (and enjoys it) while also being a pretty great example of... well, itself. It's tense and thrilling, but it also makes us feel like shit for it being tense and thrilling. I don't think it's the content of the violence so much that makes us feel guilty, but the fact that the movie seems to know what we are expectations of it are, and it goes out of its way to thwart them and make us feel silly. People tend to let experiences like this movie slide when they reach cathartic conclusions. The fact that Haneke takes this satisfaction away from us by literally rewinding the movie is hilarious, frustrating, and embarrassing. It's embarrassing because we realize we fell right into the trap laid out by Paul an hour earlier. He tells us exactly what we want as an audience, we think we can disagree with him and resist the manipulation of the filmmaker, but we can't. I wouldn't disagree with anyone that said this was a manipulative film that looks down on its audience, but I think that is where a lot of the beauty lies. It's a truly cinematic movie in the way it understands the way movies work and our reactions to them. I don't think Haneke is necessarily saying, "Hey, you're a fucked person for watching shit like this". I think it's more about trying to understand how cinema impacts us, and how it's possible to make stuff this unappealing a fascinating experience. The reason why it "looks down on its audience" is because it knows and understands the audience, not because it despises them.

Haneke's aesthetics are perfect here. His seemingly never-ending static shots make the experience all the more unpleasant, which is the point. He did the same thing with Cache. Cache is a frustrating, sometimes seemingly impossible chore, but it adds a layer of tension to everything that happens. It's another example of profound manipulation and understanding of the audience. Haneke is a master filmmaker, and Funny Games is him at his best.

This is playing steps away from me, yet I'm cursed with midterms. Fuck you, life.

God yes. Fuck you, Mr. Haneke, and your never-moving camera. It's one of the most unsettling aesthetics I've seen in a very long time.

Sounds like you were entertained.

I don't even know what to say about this movie. It's definitely one of the most disturbing and terrifying films I've seen in recent memory. Some scenes in it are just so bone-chilling and intense (the sequence with Georgie hiding from Paul in the neighbor's house was seriously one of the scariest movie moments I've ever seen). Basically everything in the final hour or so of the film is almost hard to watch, and the interaction with the audience made it even creepier. It's not an "enjoyable" experience in the slightest. However, that being said, I thought this was a great film. The message it was trying to send was very clear and executed well. The screenplay was believable and added a certain realism that made it all the more effective. The direction was absolutely brilliant. I loved the way the whole film was shot, the cinematography and the use of long single-takes throughout. And the performances were stunning across the board. Considering most of the violence occurs off-screen, the bulk of the reason the film is so effective is because of the character's reactions to the situations at hand. Naomi Watts is phenomenal in a physically demanding role and gives one of her strongest efforts yet. Tim Roth is also great, as is an incredibly creepy Brady Corbet. But Michael Pitt is just undescribably terrifying as Paul, and it's doubtful that I'll ever be able to look at the actor again without remembering how terrifying and meancing his performance was. By the chilling final frame of this film, it is certain that you will leave the theater affected by the film in some way. It will either disgust and offend you or terrify you and make you think. Either way, it is certain that Funny Games is an experience that won't soon be forgotten. A-

I would agree with this. As I said, I understand what Haneke was trying to do with it...I don't think it works in the slightest. He could have found a less lazy way to get the same point across.

As for the entertaining bit...well, the thing is the movie's point is not as brilliant as some make it out to be. It makes a statement about movie-going audiences but that statement is quite shallow. It takes itself too seriously. The movie works best when it has a dark tongue-in-cheek humor about things. So when you have a movie like City of God, which is disturbing and tough to watch but has point to get across, and does so it's fine. But I think some of you give the film too much credit. It starts off fine, then just goes off-track and is hardly any better than those films on which it is based on. I would say Naomi Watt's performance in the film is the best in a horror film since Nicole Kidman in The Others. Michael Pitt is superb as well. So there ARE some redeeming qualities scattered throughout but....no.

Also I wouldn't say I hate the genre as a whole. I do enjoy films like The Descent and others. I hate the Saw series. I think the difference is in films like Saw the ONLY purpose is to go and see a bunch of people be tortured and die one by one. The studios bank on audiences lining up to see that. But other than that there are no redeeming qualities in the film. The torture is the whole point of the films. And I really don't understand why people would want to put purposely themselves through that? What about it is entertaining.

Interestingly enough Haneke obviously feels the same way. The difference between him and I is that he seems to think that he has made a film that sets itself apart from those other films. I would strongly disagree.

The theatre did not recieve the print they had advertised and were supposed to recieve. I took it in stride, but let me just say, in regards to the Haneke fans who left in disgust and outrage: those bitches is intense.

I've been reading through some of the interviews Haneke gave regarding this movie, and I'm not 100% convinced he understands his own movie, or at least the level it works on.

Funny Games is a brilliant satire. I think Haneke fucked up in the sense that in an attempt to make a movie that made its audience feel dumb, he made a movie that has such a thorough grasp and understanding on the inner-workings of the genre it exists in it brings the audience in on the joke - even if it's uncomfortable. Funny Games completely gets movies like this, and the manipulation of the expectations is what makes it worthwhile.

Please explain Uwe Boll, Brett Ratner, and Mc G then? Their films aren't remotely entertaining and yet they keep churning them out?


As far as Funny Games go's its one of those films that you either love or hate. There really isn't any grey area with this one. I can see where some of us would love it and how others would be turned off by it, and with this film I'm cool with that.

This guy has some thoughts that I really like regarding the differences between the 97 and 08 versions of this film. A lot of it highlights why I (think) I prefer the newer one.

Really great. Glad to see some more folks recognizing it as the satire it is.

Here is a link to my review of the most irriatating film ever made...

http://nevadasagebrush.com/blog/2008/03/17/it%e2%80%99s-only-funny-when-someone-gets-hurt/