Favorite and Least Favorite Movie Genre and why?

Funny you mentioned that ... I was just thinking about kicking off a thread about movies etc.

Just got done viewing some SNL (Saturday Night Live) comedy dvd's. Best Of: Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin ... hilarious! Also picked up a replacement "Young Frankenstein" (pronounced FronkenSteen) with Gene Wilder ...   

Comedy at this particular time, but I did get inti sci-fi for a while, until all the remakes of all the old ideas ran out, but that was at least a year ago.

What genre is "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" ? or "Gladiator" (both Russel Crowe) ?

Action everything. If something is blowing up or dying or big wars and goblins, it is'nt worth buying, only renting. Romantic anything should be reserved for women and never guys unless they want to get.......ahem, lucky    

Good topic...you'll get a lot of replies for this one I'm sure .

For some strange reason I have a great collection of westerns, even though I know almost nothing about that era.

I think it has to do with the whole morality issue of good and evil (of course in real life nothing is that black and white).

The genre, if there is such a category would be the "Revenge" or "Payback" type of films which I would consider my favourite.

My least favourite genre would be Romantic Comedies or Musicals (a close tie) .

Oh god, I forgot about musicals!   I DESPISE MUSICALS! Even when I was little and they had all of those stupid kiddie musicals, I hated those! The only western I liked noticably is the good the bad and the ugly, but in general I'm not all that attracted to westerns. And you don't like romantic comedies? Have you ever seen meet the parents? If not, no wonder you don't. On another note, mystery/thrillers are also pretty good.

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The very instant you show your weakness, your downfall will begin!

My all-time favorite, Sci-fi, Because it's cool.
I would have to say my least favorite would be horror, especially those ones made on the sci-fi channel. needless gore and VERY stupid people "hmm, I hear a growling noise , I think I will run screaming out of my hiding spot and into that dark alley."
*sigh*
'meet the parents' seemed to me more like a comedy than anything else.

Yeah, for sure, double-guessing the silly "kill me now so we can pretend this film has a point please" characters gets boring fast.

In "Young Frankenstein" [Gene Wilder] there are several subtle satires where for instance they are miming sneaking-around and Frankenstein [Gene Wilder] yells something like "stay down, you fool!" to Eegore [Marty Feldman] ...   

Another drag (apologies for being so negative) is action films where a car crashes into the side of the building at 20mph ... and instantly everything within 2 blocks starts blowing up with spectacular flashes. Sometimes I wonder who writes those toons, a producer or a 10 year old?

Totally. A lot of Horrors are stupid: "I think there is a monster behind this door, I guess I'll open it to find out." and the classic "Lets split up [and get killed] and cover more ground..." and "What does this button do? [He pushes the button...] OH MY GOD!"

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The very instant you show your weakness, your downfall will begin!

This genre is best known as Source-Mangled Historical Adventure. Not bad movies, though.

AFAIK Gladiator is an original screenplay, but any fan of "M & C: FSOW" should read the book (and series). Be warned - the story in the movie bears no relation to anything in the book of the 1st part of its name, and only somewhat parallels a small section of events in the book of the second part of the title (which is much later in the series).

drrider

Partial to what I'll call Small Group Action films, at least the good ones. These are usually war films but not always. Saving Private Ryan, A Walk In The Sun, Silverado, Dirty Dozen, Serenity. Film is actually in many ways a better medium for telling this sort of story than print, because quick jumps between the actions of several separated but cooperating characters can be done more smoothly in film.

Also, Spy/Conspiracy(/Techno) Thrillers. Borne Conspiracy, Shooter. Film works particularly well here too, because it handles the jumps between locales smoothly, with a lot of visual interest in much less "space" than setting a similar scene in print. It also handles the action sequences generally better than print, though usually with less accuracy and subtlety.

I put parentheses around the Techno Thriller sub genre, because too many of these sacrifice precision and believability-through-careful-and-accurate-explanation, strengths of the written form of the genre, for over-the-top action slapped on an carved up and illogical plot adaptation. Also, often movies don't do well/can't afford to believably depict the interplay of dozens of very expensive nation-scale resources. This is often a key element in the written Techno-Thriller. A few films have pulled it off. Red October was great, the other Clancy based films were not-so-much (Clear and Present Danger was a joke where they tried to both go low budget and focus a wide-ranging original story only on the star character - Sorry, Harrison.) Air Force One, and Peacemaker, with Clooney and Kidman, were terrific.

drrider

i didn't know that. Hmmm. Never paid much attention to the background source or the previous works they were based on. I suppose your definition of "Source-Mangled Historical Adventure Genre" is quite accurate.

My liking for those two was more the costumes and the detailed realism of every little item like the surgeon's tools & weapons for instance, and the uh ... character interactions plus the sub-themes of courage, compassion, love, loyalty, and inspiration the characters protrayed.

Something about Clooney just seems false somehow ... haven't liked a single movie he has been in so far. "Three Kings" had a great plot, but was not-quite-right. Can't put my finger on it, exactly, but he/his-producer give me the chillie-willies. yuk.

I like the Terminator films, all three. Even if they are a little cheesy and "Bruce Willis-Action-Like" in the stupid explosions once in a great while.

Oh, hey! Like being scared and small-group Action? Have you seen "Predator" ? or of course the Jurassic Park Dino-do-do? Jaw clamping action tdm(to the max). Jurassic Park actually combined scaring me half to death, making me yell at the stupid characters to tell them not to be so stupid, fantasizing what I would do (successfully of course) in their place, and graphic depictions of extinct ani-mals(moving-bad-things).

Gots to mention one (and only one) John Travolta film - "Get Shorty" - it's just "comic mobster hollywood-expose" ... great!

I love sci fi category movies and inspirational movies such as 'Amistad' and 'Braveheart'

I hate any movie that has wone any European film festival awards, their always stageringly crapola.

Whatever movie category that movie called 'The colour purple' was in would be my least favourite category. I remember when i watched that movie, 'the color purple', i sat down, started watching, waited for the story line and the plot to develop, then it ended?? A movie about nothing? yea, um.... well Seinfeld would love that!