Export: It just means something can be enjoyable despite being flawed, predictable, cheaply made, badly acted, whatever.
I understand, but that neatly circumvents my whole point. I can enjoy something despite it being flawed, predictable, cheaply made and badly acted, but that simply means I think it's good despite being flawed, predictable, cheaply made and badly acted. I am self-confident enough to believe that every movie I enjoy is good. Not necessarily intellectual, or technically brilliant, or innovative... but good.
Example. One of the few blockbuster movies of recent times I really enjoyed is Jackass Number Two. It's certainly intellectually pretty much bankrupt and as low-brow as it gets, but it's also very funny, bold, unpredictable, clever in the way it plays with its medium and often successfully Dada in a way many Dadaists never would have dreamed of. In short, it's a very good movie. And I would argue that it is better than the technically brilliant Tokyo Story, widely regarded as one of the best films ever made.
Divorcing enjoyable from good in a strict way means belittling oneself.
Export: As for the Citizen Kane and gamers thing, would it not just be because your sample is people you've spoken to online, and they'll usually be gamers? It can be pretty misleading, just like how I may say "Americans tend to..." or "Americans say..." when I'm mainly going of Americans I've spoken to online, and are therefore typically male, 18-30 and probably pretty geeky.
Nope, the Citizen Kane thing comes up far too unproportionally often to be easily dismissed. I suspect that it has to do with gamers wanting the medium of their choice to be more widely accepted and appreciated, that it is a reaction to the "games are for kids" mindset that's still prevalent. They want their Citizen Kane moment, to transform the public opinion in a way that they think the movie did. Only that, of course, movies were regarded as an important art form almost from the very beginning, even by institutions such as the Vatican, the American President or Salvador Dali. Meaning by pretty much everyone, from the most conservative to the most avant-garde. And Kane is just a part of the evolution of the medium of film, not some giant leap forward.
While I appreciate the intention behind it all, it's still based on false assumptions and besides feeds into the whole "Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever made" bullshit absolutist mindset which I dislike. And it's dismissive towards my very favourite film, which is 13 years older than Kane. Which isn't to say that I didn't very much enjoy Citizen Kane (meaning, yep, I think its' very good)!
granny: Yep. I don't mind films that make you think, but the implication that pretentious crap is more worthwhile than watching explosions and gun fights for two hours,
just because it's 'cerebral', really smegs me off.
People watching "pretentious crap" rather than explosions and gun fights is indeed more worthwhile... to me. People who have been exposed to high levels of "pretentious crap" tend to be more interesting in my opinion, and since the only things I care about in other people are their looks and how interesting they are to me, and there isn't so much you can do about the looks, I'm all for more "pretentious crap"!