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Film categories
Topic Started: Aug 28 2013, 10:01 AM (231 Views)
JazzGuyy
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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It seems that people categorize films differently. Some people take a broad view of a category and others a more narrow view. For instance, film noir means only black & white crime films made from around 1940 through the mid-50s at the latest and always has to have a femme fatale and a central character who is morally compromised. Others take a broader view and would include a movie like Chinatown in the category. Another example is that some people don't consider something a true serial unless it has cliffhangers. For others, any multi-part story film could be considered a serial.

There are also some who dismiss categories altogether.

I tend to fall into the more liberal interpretation category and for some categories, it's more like I know it when I see it.

So where do you fall in categorizing movies? Or do you even bother to?

TANSTAAFL!
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mort bakaprevski
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JazzGuyy
Aug 28 2013, 10:01 AM
There are also some who dismiss categories altogether.


That's me.

And, as you know, I dismiss them in music as well.
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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CliffClaven
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Most of my classifying is by date.

A baby boomer lady of my acquaintance avoided old B&W stuff, a habit carried over from childhood and the still-fresh novelty of color TV. I talked her into some VHS classics. She's now something of a B&W snob, scanning the TCM listings religiously and taking points off for films in color.

Myself, I went through a period of dismissing most stuff after the mid-30s; eventually embracing WWII programmers. Still working on my bias against postwar through early 60s (60s on gets a pass as personal nostalgia).

Beyond that, four broad categories:

-- Genuinely good films of any era.

-- Genuinely classic comic-driven comedy; silent & sound; shorts, features and cartoons. By comic-driven I mean powered almost entirely by a classic clown. I'd put "Hobson's Choice", "The Apartment" and Lubitsch films in the first category, but probably not here.

-- Unapologetic "junk food" studio product, usually very firmly of its era: genre films, series, serials, busy B stars, etc. I class the better summer blockbusters here, right next to Torchy Brown and Disney's early live action. Also the better TV series.

-- Stuff I just don't care for, whether it's good or not.
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riddlerider
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For catagorizing to mean anything, it should be undertaken objectively, with clearly defined standards. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case. Most people who write about film today — especially the bloggers, who have no editors to answer to — have little or no historical grounding. They either ignore, or remain blissfully ignorant of, classifications established by the industry decades ago. For example, practically nobody today (outside places like the Balcony) understands what a "B" film is — or was, since that category is extinct.

Also insufficiently understood is that there are categories within categories. Many of us (including me, on occasion) will refer to something as a "B Western" when the proper designation is actually "series Western." For example, George O'Brien's early Thirties Westerns for Fox — his Zane Grey adaptations and standalone productions like MYSTERY RANCH — were not Bs, strictly speaking. They cost as much as $200,000 to make and, depending on a theater's size or location, might appear on the top half of a double bill or even play as a single feature backed up by a short-subjects program. But the O'Brien Westerns of that period often get lumped in with those featuring his contemporaries: Jones, McCoy, Maynard, Gibson, et al, because they were marketed as a series, with a fixed number of entries released every year and pre-sold to exhibitors in groups.

I used to get annoyed when I saw the "B movie" label affixed to recent films made for sixty or eighty million dollars. But in the end, what does it matter?

When writing about movies for books or magazines, I use and acknowledge the categories recognized within the industry. Otherwise, there are only two categories that matter to me: films I like, and films I don't like.
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Chandu
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riddlerider
Aug 29 2013, 11:53 AM
When writing about movies for books or magazines, I use and acknowledge the categories recognized within the industry. Otherwise, there are only two categories that matter to me: films I like, and films I don't like.
When writing or speaking about movies for books or magazines, I use and acknowledge the categories recognized within the industry. Otherwise, there are only two categories that matter to me: films I like, and films I don't like.

That pretty much covers it for me too.
Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...
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panzer the great & terrible
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Categories are just marketing. If you call something noir it makes more money. If you call it a B noir it makes even more.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Laughing Gravy
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Ah, well, I have no problem with categories, but I get ugly when people use the term "B movie" to refer to something that's not a B movie at all, particularly when they use the term to mean "bad movie". Hmpf.

That said, I fully recognize that I could write a review of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and stick it in the Foreign Film, Silent Film, Horror, or Cult categories and nobody would notice. Or care. I agree with RR (of course) that some of what is thought of as a B western isn't. My beloved drive-in double features of the '50s are not B movies either; they were produced and designed as co-features. Let's see, what else? Sometimes, a movie will have a few songs in it to break up the monotony, but that don't make 'em musicals (in my book). At my house, my categories are Noir/Crime, Mystery, Horror, Sci-Fi, cult, documentaries, musicals, animated, comedy, drama, and Criterion and boxed sets and DVDs I've worked on and Midnite Movies and Warner Archives all get their own areas. Blu-rays are all in ABC order regardless of genre. I just wanna find stuff.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Frank Hale
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The American Film Institute Catalogue has always avoided slippery genre classifications by using just key-words in its subject indices.

In other words, if you are wanting a list of film noirs, you are going to have to look up various entries like Los Angeles, venetian blinds, wet pavement, femme fatale, and that sort of thing rather than just "film noir". Not entirely convenient, but I'm sure it cuts down on the angry letters from readers.

As to defining "B-Westerns", if anyone has missed this Old Corral article, it's a good read. Elsewhere on the site they also allude to the strong "morality play" component:

http://www.b-westerns.com/terms2.htm
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