"Are you not entertained?!" Well, actually, no, not very often.

The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
edited December 2024 in Heaven
So, this is a constant struggle, but especially difficult during the Hollidays: I can't turn off my inner critic. It sometimes drives Mrs. The_Riv crazy, because she has a wonderful ability to suspend her disbelief and appreciate the whole in spite of any errant parts, and always champions the people performing/presenting over what I consider to be the integrity or potential of a piece, whatever it may be. It's particularly trying re: music, because as a conductor I always have strong opinions re: all of the elements of music, as well as a myriad of extra-musical aspects of performances. So, the struggle is real (but just for me), LOL. It's not a Statler & Waldorf thing -- I'm not making fun of anyone -- but my senses seem to be hard wired to assess instead of access, and sometimes it's a real drag. Anybody else?
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  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    My husband is like this. I never let a few details get in the way of a good story. He can't help chipping in with the details!
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    So, this is a constant struggle, but especially difficult during the Hollidays: I can't turn off my inner critic. It sometimes drives Mrs. The_Riv crazy, because she has a wonderful ability to suspend her disbelief and appreciate the whole in spite of any errant parts, and always champions the people performing/presenting over what I consider to be the integrity or potential of a piece, whatever it may be. It's particularly trying re: music, because as a conductor I always have strong opinions re: all of the elements of music, as well as a myriad of extra-musical aspects of performances. So, the struggle is real (but just for me), LOL. It's not a Statler & Waldorf thing -- I'm not making fun of anyone -- but my senses seem to be hard wired to assess instead of access, and sometimes it's a real drag. Anybody else?

    I've got better at not excessively critiquing the physics in fiction (Jack in Titanic telling Rose to "swim up" when they go down with the ship was particularly mock-worthy). I find it helps to set aside particular media to watch with someone where heckling and mocking the plot, scenery, costuming, acting, score etc are all permitted, and then take a deep breath and suspend your disbelief for everything else.
  • Boogie wrote: »
    My husband is like this. I never let a few details get in the way of a good story. He can't help chipping in with the details!

    Yes -- and my relentless question is why there don't seem to be people like he and me working on these projects?! How does this stuff get past everyone?! Those who don't struggle to see and/or hear beyond these things wouldn't notice or care if they weren't there. But for some of us... it's the whole freaking ballgame.
  • If the details aren't right neither is the whole. The brightsiders can go away, to be polite, and bathe in the relentless mediocrity they apparently so prize. We will have quality. Real, authentic quality.
  • If the details aren't right neither is the whole. The brightsiders can go away, to be polite, and bathe in the relentless mediocrity they apparently so prize. We will have quality. Real, authentic quality.

    I'm not sure that's correct. For example, is Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar wrong or mediocre because it has its characters speaking Elizabethan English instead of classical Latin? I think that insisting there's only One True Way™ to tell any story is needlessly blinkered.
  • The_Riv wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    My husband is like this. I never let a few details get in the way of a good story. He can't help chipping in with the details!

    Yes -- and my relentless question is why there don't seem to be people like he and me working on these projects?! How does this stuff get past everyone?! Those who don't struggle to see and/or hear beyond these things wouldn't notice or care if they weren't there. But for some of us... it's the whole freaking ballgame.

    Because they fired us. Sincerely, a former professional proofreader
  • I mean the details of the performance. If it's Julius Caesar, give me Shakespeare's words - I know, of course, there are questions around the edge, but this is the basis on which I object to reworkings beyond a certain degree of flex. It's subjective, but it's not completely quixotic. It's a matter of judgement and taste. Which, again, is preferable to uncritical worship of mediocrity in the name of ersatz "authenticity" (there are not enough scare quotes on the planet).
  • I mean the details of the performance. If it's Julius Caesar, give me Shakespeare's words - I know, of course, there are questions around the edge, but this is the basis on which I object to reworkings beyond a certain degree of flex. It's subjective, but it's not completely quixotic. It's a matter of judgement and taste. Which, again, is preferable to uncritical worship of mediocrity in the name of ersatz "authenticity" (there are not enough scare quotes on the planet).

    What "degree of flex" is permissible? I'd argue that re-staging with non-Elizabethan dress and settings is one of the ways Shakespeare's plays maintain their entertainment value and relevance. Plus there's the whole question of what onstage actions are "authentic" given Shakespeare's notoriously sparse stage directions. And does one need to use a real bear in Winter's Tale?

    Most narrative art by definition includes a bunch of fakery and falsehoods. That's not really Richard III, that's Ian McKellan pretending to be fifteenth century monarch. He's not really at Bosworth Field, he's on a sound stage in London. And the costuming is all wrong!
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    My husband is like this. I never let a few details get in the way of a good story. He can't help chipping in with the details!

    Yes -- and my relentless question is why there don't seem to be people like he and me working on these projects?! How does this stuff get past everyone?! Those who don't struggle to see and/or hear beyond these things wouldn't notice or care if they weren't there. But for some of us... it's the whole freaking ballgame.

    Because they fired us. Sincerely, a former professional proofreader

    And at least some of us, if not arguably all of us, are all the poorer for it. I wish more people were re-engaged in this kind of work.

    And, @Arethosemyfeet, you may remember the oft told tale, now, about how when watching Titanic for the first time, Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson was distracted and troubled by the haphazard smattering of stars in the skies surrounding the sinking ship, so much so that he contacted James Cameron to let him know the night sky in those scenes was totally wrong, explaining in great detail how and why. When the extended/anniversary edition of the film was released years later, Cameron had taken care to correct the skies to show precisely what stars everyone would have been under at that terrible North Atlantic place and time. "Swim up," was, if you'll pardon then expression, the tip of the ice berg.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    My husband is like this. I never let a few details get in the way of a good story. He can't help chipping in with the details!

    Yes -- and my relentless question is why there don't seem to be people like he and me working on these projects?! How does this stuff get past everyone?! Those who don't struggle to see and/or hear beyond these things wouldn't notice or care if they weren't there. But for some of us... it's the whole freaking ballgame.

    Yes, I understand that with films, plays, music etc.

    But when I'm relating an account of some funny incident - and the whole room is laughing - it's not the time to say 'actually, it happened on Wednesday'!

    Fun tales, stories and comedy is in the timing, and I'm good at it. Details (or spending time recalling details) definitely get in the way of the fun.

    Does that make sense?
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Sorry @Boogie -- I hadn't read your previous post in the After Dinner Entertainment kind of way, but yes! I happen to be pretty good in living rooms, too (hard as that may be to discern in here), but within our relationship, that's where our roles are reversed, b/c for Mrs. The_Riv, honesty is paramount, and there's only so much embellishment I can get away with before I begin to attract a certain look of hers, LOL.

    But I am mostly talking about films, television, plays, concerts, dance events, gallery exhibitions, even festivals to a degree. I can't give over to them for my own entertainment, and I do try. And I don't mean things like a Christmas Pageant where Lamb#3 suddenly makes eye contact with Grandma and takes off up the side aisle.
  • Thing is, picking holes in everything can be highly entertaining...

    Indulging one's inner critic can be highly entertaining.

    No need to suspend disbelief. Get out the red pen.

    Mwa ha ha ha ha!

    More seriously, I had a friend who was highly knowledgeable about cinema and who became a lecturer on film. He would examine and dissect absolutely everything. It added a great deal to the experience. He didn't do it an annoying way but in a way that enhanced your appreciation of whatever film it happened to be.
  • I enjoy humorous movie reviews (Honest Trailers, Cinemasins, Pitch Meeting, How it should have ended, etc.) that often do this kind of thing, but also try to enjoy movies on their own terms.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    I'm talking about being an anonymous patron. Just a guy in the audience or chair. I've nearly given up going to see any live stuff at all because I can't enjoy it on what I guess I'd call its own terms, or my frustrations with it eventually dampen or ruin others' experiences. When I was younger (and dumber) I told myself I had insight, but I don't feel that way any more. I just feel burdened. And sidelined. Everybody's enjoying Thing A, and I'm stuck wondering why I have to notice a laundry list of criteria that reduce Thing A to something less-than. I dunno.
  • Well, you might especially like Cinemasins and How it should have ended--they do some of what you describe in very funny ways. They're both on YouTube.

    I wish I could help somehow. Maybe if you feel burdened by this, rather than that you have insight, the next step will be (somehow) learning to enjoy things without the critical stuff you feel burdened by?
  • Thing is, picking holes in everything can be highly entertaining...

    Indulging one's inner critic can be highly entertaining.
    Oh, how I can relate to this. :lol:

    I can be very critical, but I usually try to channel that inner critic into humor and laughter instead of disgust. It doesn’t always work. But if it’s a serious gaffe in an otherwise okay bit of entertainment, I try to remember the wisdom I learned from Animal House:
    D-Day: [to Bluto] War’s over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
    Bluto: What? Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
    Otter: [to Boon] Germans?
    Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.
    Again, sometimes easier said than done. But wisdom can always be found in Animal House.

  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Crœsos wrote: »
    I mean the details of the performance. If it's Julius Caesar, give me Shakespeare's words - I know, of course, there are questions around the edge, but this is the basis on which I object to reworkings beyond a certain degree of flex.
    What "degree of flex" is permissible? I'd argue that re-staging with non-Elizabethan dress and settings is one of the ways Shakespeare's plays maintain their entertainment value and relevance.
    We both read Brett Devereux' blog - in fact I think I first came across it via your link. (Here for those uninitiated.)
    He spends a good many articles dealing with these kinds of questions. Some are I think only of interest to specialists: it's nice to know about why pop culture depictions of armour do and don't work, but not much turns on it. Maybe there are people who watch Gladiator II, and come away thinking that the Romans had newspapers. On the other hand, when he talks about depictions of the Dothraki he's picking up on something that perpetrates racism; and when he talks about the Fremen mirage or the Spartans the errors he talks about have serious political ramifications for modern worship of strong leaders and militarism.

    (I am I think not sure that updating Shakespeare's costumes and settings is as easily done as said. It usually works in the comedies. But in the tragedies or histories I think it blurs the specific issues Shakespeare is talking about into general ahistorical ideas about power - and power is nothing if not instantiated in specific institutions.
    Too often I think people staging Shakespeare go for a generic twentieth century kind of fascist set-up - which blurs the point of the plays. We may not believe one monarch is more legitimate in another, but many of the characters in Shakespeare's plays do. As Devereux doesn't quite say, people in the past generally believed their political structures.)

  • There are lines from a poem by Charles Tomlinson entitled DISTINCTIONS that say,

    Art exists at a remove
    Evocation, at two,


    My engagement with Art, when I'm not directly responsible for it, feels as if it happens from lot farther away than a single "remove," whatever that distance is. And I don't assume that the things for which I have been directly responsible (musical events, mostly) weren't susceptible to the same critique by others. I just want to be transported every now and then. and it just doesn't happen.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    (I am I think not sure that updating Shakespeare's costumes and settings is as easily done as said. It usually works in the comedies. But in the tragedies or histories I think it blurs the specific issues Shakespeare is talking about into general ahistorical ideas about power - and power is nothing if not instantiated in specific institutions.

    I'm not sure we can give Shakespeare full marks for historical accuracy. He was closer to our own time than he was to that of Julius Cæsar or Macbeth and he seems to have mostly been engaged in pop history of dubious accuracy in service of whatever was required for the plot to work. Even his more recent historical plays of English monarchs had a certain pro-Lancastrian (and therefore pro-Tudor) bias to them.
  • Me? I like to find mistakes in movies. It may take me watching a movie a couple of times before I see some of them. I am with @Gamma Gamaliel on this. I find the flaws entertaining. My kids used to roll their eyes when I would point the flaws out to them, but I find them doing the same thing when they are watching a movie.
  • My husband watches Vietnam war movies for the fun of pointing out that the actors have Chinese accents and the uniforms are all wrong... Strange pleasures for a camp survivor, but whatever floats his boat. (You should hear him cackle.)
  • (((((Lamb Chopped’s husband)))))
  • My small pleasure is in spotting churchy/worship things that are wrong in historical drama.
    My big problem is that I can't engage with most TV drama. I just don't believe it. There is always the voice in my head telling me that I am watching actors who are being paid to mouth someone elses's made up words. For some reason this doesn't apply in sci-fi/fantasy drama. Perhaps because nobody is expected to believe it is "real life."
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    This brought back a memory! Some 58 years ago I was at the penultimate night of the Promenade Concerts in London at the Royal Albert Hall in London. As usual in those days, it included a performance of Beethovens 9th (Choral) Symphony. I was completely embraced by the performance and then, to my right, I heard a ‘tut, tut’. Distracted, I looked to the right and saw a man reading the score and shaking his head. I have no idea what made him cross but at the time it struck me as very strange that someone would go to a concert with a music score to check that everything was being done correctly.

    I suspect it was a very minor thing and might even have been a question of the conductor’s interpretation. Personally I don’t function like that. But this thread has opened my eyes to why folks do.

    I’m not a perfectionist. One of my favourite sayings is “the best is the enemy of the good”. That may annoy some of you!
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    And now I see that I repeated “in London”! An inadvertent error. My apologies to all irritated by that.
  • Watching anything vaguely "churchy" with my late Papa was torture - in the end we used to mute coverage other than the musical items. As for watching international rugby with him: his animus towards the late Bill McLaren, aka The voice of rugby, was impressive but wearing.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    I gave up reading a crime thriller set in Edwardian London because, more than once, people got on or off trams at Oxford Circus. Trams were never allowed to sully central London streets.

    More recently we've been watching (and enjoying) "Moonflower Murders". It is purportedly set in Suffolk but mostly filmed in Ireland. For the most part the illusion worked - except for one road sign that got into the picture, of a kind definitely not used in the UK!

    As you may suspect, I get annoyed by wrong railway details!
  • I also get irritated in historical dramas when in a church scene the congregation is merrily seen singing a hymn that wasn't written until years later, accompanied by a very unlikely organ.
    I simply refuse to watch Father Brown. It gets pretty much every detail of RC stuff wrong, from the actual building to the vestments.
  • Yes indeed.

    And why (a) are churches always filled with lit candles; and (b) are vicars always skulking around somewhere inside?
  • I recall reading an article by a mediæval historian who claimed in all seriousness that A Knight's Tale was his favorite mediæval movie because of the anachronisms. One example he cited was the use of Queen's We Will Rock You in the opening credits scene. His argument was that using this music (and having the various actors and extras interact with it) communicated to a modern audience the kind of event they were witnessing (a big tournament) in terms they would have been familiar with (a large stadium sporting event) much better than trying to meticulously re-create details that would have eluded more than 99% of the intended audience. He also made the point that the kind of swelling symphonic score played by a nineteenth century style orchestra that we routinely accept as soundtracks for that kind of film would have been just as big an anachronism as Queen.
  • I love A Knight’s Tale, and would agree that the anachronism are both intentional and lots of fun. But yes, generally church scenes demonstrate serious unfamiliarity with the church.


  • Oh no -- I hate A Night's Tale -- LOL. I do, however, really like Kingdom of Heaven. Not sure how historically accurate it is compared to real life, but compared to A Knight's Tale (or equally bad in that genre despite its fictionality, First Knight, it's pretty damn close.
  • I don't mind anachronistic music in a film when it is accompanying action etc. But when you see a Tudor dance and the music is part of the action, it is a different matter. Or when the music apes the period but gets it wrong (Elizabeth for me is unwatchable because the music grates.)
  • There is deliberate knowing anachronism, where the audience knows this is anachronistic, which is fine. There's anachronism that is deliberate on the part of the producers, but the audience aren't necessarily in on the lie (cf. every period drama featuring women laced in to corsets over bare skin. Producers do this because it's sexy. Actual women would always have worn a chemise or something under the corset, because you can wash a chemise much more easily than you can wash a corset!) That's annoying.

    And then there's anachronism that's unknowing because the producers are just making it up, through either accidental or deliberate ignorance. That's also annoying.
  • Alan29 wrote: »
    I don't mind anachronistic music in a film when it is accompanying action etc. But when you see a Tudor dance and the music is part of the action, it is a different matter. Or when the music apes the period but gets it wrong (Elizabeth for me is unwatchable because the music grates.)

    This is kind of interesting because it illustrates that certain kinds of inaccuracies in art are considered more acceptable than others. Particularly the way we more or less automatically accept the idea of a musical soundtrack in most on-screen art forms. In most real life situations we don't get a sound track following us around, adjusting to the narrative necessities of whatever situation we find ourselves in. (Though it would be helpful to have a musical cue that something important was about to happen.) That's okay, but mediæval nobility dancing to David Bowie's Golden Years is going too far? (Yes, I'm going to flog the Knight's Tale thing to death.)

    On a related note, there's the Bill and Ted test.
    I spent six years writing a book on Regency fashion, called Dress in the Age of Jane Austen. I have spent a lot of time looking at genuine Regency dress. But I also spent a lot of time in the last year or so doing a lot of tedious production work for the book. I watched a lot of films on the way. I love Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I was watching it in the background as I was copy editing my index or some tedious, tedious thing and just enjoying it. Then, we got to the bit where they kidnap Beethoven.

    My eye is so attuned to Regency dress, and anyone who follows my Twitter will know that I get quite opinionated about Regency costume on-screen. I was looking at the background extras, and I suddenly paused it and went, “Hang on a second.” I rewound it a bit and went through it in slow motion and went, “You know what? This is really, really good.” It’s a 1980s teen comedy. You don’t expect a high standard of costuming. After that, I thought, well, that’s it. That’s my benchmark. If the main characters’ costumes in a Regency production aren’t better done than the background extras’ in a 1980s teen comedy, I think you’ve failed in the costume design.

    So Ms. Davidson's standard isn't perfection per se, it's whether you're at least as accurate as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The Bill & Ted test had a Twitter account for a while, but since it's acquisition by Musk it's not terribly accessible to non-Xitter subscribers.
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    I used to do Tudor re-enactment and can hand make my own authentic sixteenth century clothing (and clothing from a few other centuries too). Every time I saw a woman not wearing a shift under her gown in The Tudors I inwardly screamed. I belonged to a Facebook re-enactment group where we shared screen inaccuracies. Modern hair styles and make up are particularly entertaining.

    As an ex-nurse, I can’t bear to watch medical dramas…
  • I remember attending a two man show about Neville Chamberlain with a theatre costumer. She was continually distracted by the fact that the actor playing Chamberlain's wing collar and neck tie would have been tremendously out of fashion by 1939. When she mentioned this after the show I was able to pull up the famous photo of Chamberlain brandishing the Munich Agreement in 1938 on my smartphone to show her that, out of fashion or not, that was the way the man actually dressed.
  • I remember reading in Manchester’s biography of Churchill that his clothing choices were considered quite old fashioned by the 1930s but that he didn’t change them. Sometimes real life is just strange!
  • I can understand all these objections but also find it astonishing how literalaudiences can be.

    Many years ago I sat behind two old ladies at a performance of King Lear in Stratford. The scene where they gouge out Gloster's eyes occurred just before the interval. It was dramatic, gruesome and bloody.

    As the lights went on, one of the women turned to her friend and said, 'As if he could say all that when his eyes were gouged out!'
    To which her friend answered, 'Oh, I don't know, they were a lot tougher in those days.'
  • My husband and I have this issue with crime dramas, particularly those involving a maverick, lone wolf type detective, who solves the crime by using some subterfuge to gather evidence, which would make that evidence inadmissible in court.

    What is the point in solving a crime, if the evidence won't stand up in court? THERE IS NO POINT! I hate it when the crime is solved by some vainglorious eejit detective more interested in short term crime solving than actually putting the miscreant away.

    I want JUSTICE! My husband is happy with action and clever plot twists, but I want to know that not only has the scofflaw been unmasked, he's also going to proceed to court where, after a fair trial, he's going to end up in jail.

    My husband prefers to watch crime drama without me sighing and saying "Oh, the defence lawyer is going to have a field day with that one!"
  • My husband and I have this issue with crime dramas, particularly those involving a maverick, lone wolf type detective, who solves the crime by using some subterfuge to gather evidence, which would make that evidence inadmissible in court.

    What is the point in solving a crime, if the evidence won't stand up in court? THERE IS NO POINT!

    What makes evidence inadmissible depends on the jurisdiction. In the U.S. police are legally allowed to lie to suspects during investigations, including during interrogations. For example, in the U.S. it's perfectly legal for police to tell suspects that they've been caught on video, or that multiple witnesses have identified them, and to strongly imply that their best option is confession and a plea deal. Even when those are bald-faced lies.
  • Don't get me started on the back to the future guitar issue...
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    Boogie wrote: »
    My husband is like this. I never let a few details get in the way of a good story. He can't help chipping in with the details!

    Yes -- and my relentless question is why there don't seem to be people like he and me working on these projects?! How does this stuff get past everyone?! Those who don't struggle to see and/or hear beyond these things wouldn't notice or care if they weren't there. But for some of us... it's the whole freaking ballgame.
    I remember reading in Manchester’s biography of Churchill that his clothing choices were considered quite old fashioned by the 1930s but that he didn’t change them. Sometimes real life is just strange!

    I wonder if in 90+ years people will be quibbling that JRM's double breasted jackets or Corbyn's street market shirts are anachronistic.
  • Twangist wrote: »
    Don't get me started on the back to the future guitar issue...

    Quite apart from the guitar not existing yet, while it might just be possible to push the amp to get the lead tone he uses at the end without blowing a tube, and with enough practice and built up finger strength manage to play the shredding solo on the gauge of strings usual in the 1950s (12s or 13s with wound G) without breaking a string on a bend, someone used to a modern guitar with light strings wouldn’t have a hope.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    My husband and I have this issue with crime dramas, particularly those involving a maverick, lone wolf type detective, who solves the crime by using some subterfuge to gather evidence, which would make that evidence inadmissible in court.

    What is the point in solving a crime, if the evidence won't stand up in court?
    I am pretty sure this was the line of thinking that led to Broadchurch season 2. The problem with Broadchurch season 2 is that it didn't really have anything better to put in the place.

  • Don't most of us accept inaccuracies in pictures or statues which in some way or another represent the birth of Jesus ?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I remember reading in Manchester’s biography of Churchill that his clothing choices were considered quite old fashioned by the 1930s but that he didn’t change them. Sometimes real life is just strange!

    I remember an OU programme which featured an interviewer dressed in the (then) height of fashion - wide lapels, kipper tie, psychedelic shirt - talking to an academic in any-time-this-last-thirty-years shirt, tie, jacket etc. You can guess which one looks the more anachronistic.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    We think this heavenly !

    Doublethink, Admin
  • Forthview wrote: »
    Don't most of us accept inaccuracies in pictures or statues which in some way or another represent the birth of Jesus ?

    My old mother in law didn't. She had a bee in her bonnet about Christmas cards showing the Magi visiting the infant Christ, because 'if you read the scriptures you will see he would have been about 18 months old.'

    She genuinely thought it would be an obstacle to people finding faith.

    Bless her, she seemed to have forgotten the Nativity scene and crib she and my father in law made with my late wife and her sister which shows just this. Handmade shepherds, Magi and the Holy Family.

    I get it down from the attic every year and put it out on top of the now long unplaced piano. It cuts me up every time but can do no other.
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