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Saturday 11 April 2015

Exceptions

We all have certain genres, certain kinds of films or books that aren't really our thing, don't we? Not that they're generally bad or inferior to others, we're just not into them. But there are always exceptions. So here is the list of genres I'm generally not interested in*, and some exceptions** (= those I like, which means that the films I find good but don't particularly like, e.g Gravity, Interstellar, Clueless, Audition, The Fly, Moonrise Kingdom, Little Miss Sunshine... won't be included).

- Sci-fi films/ books, including dystopian works:
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)
Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
1984 (George Orwell)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

- Superhero films:
The Dark Night (Christopher Nolan)
Iron Man (Jon Favreau)- 1
The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb)- 1

- Action films:
The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman)
The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass)
The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass)
Léon: The Professional (Luc Besson)
Mission: Impossible film series
The Fast and the Furious film series
Casino Royale (Martin Campbell)

- Crime/ mystery/ detective novels:
"Sherlock Holmes" stories (Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins)

- Post-1960s romantic comedy films:
Play It Again, Sam (Herbert Ross)
10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger)
Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
Enchanted (Kevin Lima)
L'Étudiante (Claude Pinoteau)
Hors de prix (Pierre Salvadori)
Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) 

- Teen films/ young adult fiction:
10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger)
The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)
Mean Girls (Mark Waters)
Juno (Jason Reitman)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)- the film
The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)***

- Children books/ films:
The Little Prince (Saint- Exupéry)
Tottochan: The Little Girl at the Window (Tetsuko Kuroyanagi)
Andersen's tales
Harry Potter books and films 

- Cartoons/ animations:
Ratatouille (Brad Bird)
A Christmas Carol (Robert Zemeckis)
Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, Mike Johnson)

- Horror films:
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
Ringu (Hideo Nakata)
The Tenant (Roman Polanski)

What's your list? 


*: Don't be surprised to find many classics missing here. I'm generally not into these genres, you see. 
**: By "some", I mean there are definitely some others I like but right now can't remember. So suggest some titles, maybe I just forgot about them.
***: I'm not sure it should be there. This book is not merely about teen angst, but if you count all books that have a teen protagonist then I suppose it can be included. 

3 comments:

  1. Your list is most interesting. You are obviously an eclectic sampler of many different forms and styles.

    As for me, I have too many favorites to even begin making a list. My posting at Beyond Eastrod shows what I am up to now as an eclectic reader. I will read just about anything. However, I draw the line at modern "bodice ripper" romance novels and anything involving vampires (excepting Stoker's novel) or zombies.

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    Replies
    1. "Bodice ripper". Hahahahahhahaaha.
      Guess I'm eclectic to some extent when it comes to films, but it feels like I'm a different person when it comes to books, because over the past few years I've mostly read classics, literary fiction, 19th century especially. In a way I feel like I'm not against many genres in books, but in some way it's perhaps better to say I'm against genre fiction in general @@ Okay I don't even know what I'm saying @@

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  2. I guess the example that comes most readily to mind is The Master and Margarita. The "magic realist" genre wasn't officially around then, but this is clearly the "genre" it belongs to (if we insist on trying to classify this rather unique novel). I've never cared for "magic realism", but this is quite clearly a great novel.

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