le greatest foreign language films

[Blarg]

Yup. Same thing with writing. Everyone thinks they can write. Lots of those same people can barely write a memo that doesn't make them look like a clod.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
Yup. Same thing with writing. Everyone thinks they can write. Lots of those same people can barely write a memo that doesn't make them look like a clod.

[/ QUOTE ]

i had writing classes with those people in college

[Blarg]

Wait till you have jobs with those people.

[thecincykiddo]

Yeah. If 2+2 in general is any indication, then very few people know how to even talk to each other let alone talk about film. I like that idea of elitism for progress's sake, even if it just leads me back to the question of why we feel the need to standardize in the first place.

But the question doesn't really matter, I don't think. Sharing the most poignant offerings of other cultures is good karma enough for itself, and exercises like these seem to spread the word around more than they do to keep obscure titles in the dark. If it sheds light on art or culture or makes the world a better place, I'm definitely for it.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
Sharing the most poignant offerings of other cultures is good karma enough for itself, and exercises like these seem to spread the word around more than they do to keep obscure titles in the dark. If it sheds light on art or culture or makes the world a better place, I'm definitely for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

amen

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
Wait till you have jobs with those people.

[/ QUOTE ]

been there, done that

[thecincykiddo]

I've been writing for 25 years, and have no problem admitting that I'm still just a toddler, or not far past.

But I know a guy with a great story from a cocktail party one night when one of his stories published. A doctor strolled up to him and shook his hand and said, "I think I'm going to become a writer too when I retire."

My friend didn't miss a beat and said, "That's funny. When I retire, I'm going to become a doctor."

[Blarg]

Heheh very nice. I would have loved to see the reactions all around.

I've heard the photographer's version of this. Some photography great, forget which one, got told by a hugely famous writer after an exhibit(might have been Hemingway, I forget) something on the order of, "Those are great pictures. You must have had a really good camera." To which the photographer replied by thanking him, then complimenting him on a famous novel he wrote and saying "You must have had a really good typewriter."

[thecincykiddo]

That's fabulous. Of course, I used to know a very peculiar writer who really loved a good typewriter. He doesn't live in the States anymore, but I'm pretty sure he still writes on some dusty old thing rather than a keyboard. He probably wouldn't get the joke the first few times around.

This is off-topic but my father tells me that one time on MP duty in D.C. in the late sixties, John Steinbeck III was thrown in the brig for being drunk and disorderly. Dad says he went down just to get a look at the guy and make sure that it really was Steinbeck's scion. Funny what attracts us, but writing's so powerful in and of itself that when someone does it well, it's hard to shake it off. Even a couple of generations later.

[pryor15]

those are all awesome stories