Okay, this really burns my toast.
I waited for Garden State to come out for about three years. I saw it change from Zach Braff's Untitled Natalie Portman Project to Large's Ark (Large's Ark was a much better title by the way) and when it came out, I did love it. Of course, the more I watch it now, the more fault I find in it because Andrew is a terrible character, but I digress.
It seems like everyone saw it and because everyone saw it, inevitably, stupid people saw it too and they love it without knowing why they love it, some reading into things that don't mean anything and totally misunderstanding a completely understandable, straightforward film.
But here's what gets me...here's what sparks a fury in my soul.
Why now are people incapable of watching a coming of age story or a movie about coming home without comparing it to Goddamn Garden State?
I watched two movies which were new to me in two days. All the Real Girls and Fireflies in the Garden and on the IMDB messages boards for both, people were comparing them to Garden State.
First of all, All the Real Girls, all things considered is probably a better movie than Garden State. Fireflies in the Garden probably not as good, but still a pretty darn good movie.
All the Real Girls is about a manwhore changing his ways when he meets the right girl. Largeman can't feel and changes his ways when he meets the right girl...so what? The conflict is entirely different. Stories are made by conflict and conflict is about the problem and sometimes the cause, not the solution. And anyway, maybe Largeman felt something because he stopped taking the damn anti-depressants, maybe if he'd been off them for a year, he wouldn't have been so overwhelmed by Natalie Portman's sudden burst of awesomeness. When I was watching it, Garden State never once came to mind, not once, and yet on IMDB some dumbass says, "This is just like Garden State and Garden State is better. Go watch that."
And my first thought was, "No it's not and no it isn't, and don't tell me what to do fuckwit."
Fireflies in the Garden, a writer comes home for his mom's graduation, she dies. People say "He came home because his mom died just like Largeman."
Wrong!
"He needs to fix his relationship with his father which is the same conflict as Garden State."
WRONG!
The relationship with the father in Garden State is a subplot. The fact that he's too doped up to feel anything is the main conflict.
I should never read those message boards because 60% of the people on them have the IQ of Forrest Gump, 30% are artfags who probably don't watch half the films they claim are their favorites, and only 10% are people like me who actually give a damn about things they watch and give things a chance to be something all their own before comparing them to something else.
GRRRR!
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i havent seen any of those films but you just added an awesome new word to my vocabulary: artfags!
ReplyDeletehate the IMDB message boards...they're almost as bad as reading the comments for things on youtube where every single ill-mannered malcontent in the universe posts a nasty comment somewhere for something at sometime or other.
"Artfag" is one of my favorite words.
ReplyDeleteEmbrace it.
Haha, I know. I read youtube comments constantly though because they make me laugh. It's harder for me to laugh on IMDB because I take film too seriously sometimes...or all the time. But I'm not an artfag because I can appreciate movies that aren't "good."
There are lots of movies that I love that are terrible, but there's something about them that's wonderful. I can't even call them guilty pleasures, because I don't feel guilty for liking what I like.
I have my reasons.