Can there be such a thing as a Smart Film?

[bassman]

One word: Pi YES! Darren Aronofsky....great director. I'm looking forward to seeing "The Fountain" for that reason.

[_liam_]

pi is good. seventh seal, requiem for a dream, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, memento, eraserhead, lots of chin strokin movies worth checking out...

[capncnut]

pi is good. seventh seal, requiem for a dream, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, memento, eraserhead, lots of chin strokin movies worth checking out... Eraserhead, what a movie!

[Danny]

yeah, proper wierd i gurantee mz's seen it cus i saw a little of that in "VHS"

[MinionZombie]

I saw it once when I was 15. Took me a few months to get through it, I'd only manage about 5 to 10 minutes at a time and I'd be so weirded out I had to turn the tape off a wait a while before attempting the next part, so it ended up taking me a few months to actually get through the whole film! What in "VHS" reminded you of Eraserhead? (speaking of VHS, I'll do a write up of the Bloodbath Film Festival - where VHS was shown - I was at yesterday and will post a short video of it being shown soon as well).

[EvilNed]

I think Pi is a smart film. Watch it and you'll see how a film can be smart. But what makes it smart? And not just thoughtprovoking or "it has a message" or was well written. Because that's creativity or just preaching. What makes a film SMART? A film with a message is a film that's preaching something. A film that's thoughtprovoking doesn't have to be smart, because it's a message that the film might only agree with. A film that's well written is just creative. None of those things make a film smart.

[Eyebiter]

Finally found the trailer for Final Approach (1991)

[slickwilly13]

Jason goes to Hell was supposed to be a smart film. *L* Damn, they dropped the ball on that one. Seriously, the creators said that in Fangoria, before its release.

[MoonSylver]

I would say that the difference is: There are films designed to make you think and films designed to entertain you. Exactly. The only thing I would add to that is that there are some movies that have a certain degree of sophistication to their narrative that are require a modicum of intelligence on the viewers behalf (not to say you have to be a high falutin'-high brow mind you, but not an utter moron either.) Someone mentioned Memento earlier. That was a pretty smart movie IMO. Intelligently written & you had to stay focused & stay sharp to keep up. A certain segment of the shallow half wit viewing public would just not "get it" A movie like Road House, for example, is a fun film to me, an entertaining film, but smart? Eh...you can lay back & let it wash over you, it's easy to follow, doesn't take a lot of brainpower to figure out (though when someone pointed out to me how it follows the basic plot of a western w/ the new sheriff coming to clean up the town I thought that was moderately clever.) So I guess maybe the degree of intelligence in the writing & the degree of intelligence required on behalf of the viewer might determine what is a smart movie? Just my thoughts.