Patricia Abbott (pattinase): Your Least Favorite Genre (for lack of a better word)

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Your Least Favorite Genre (for lack of a better word)

I was reading about a new movie by Barry Levinson, described as eco-horror and realized that sort of thing is my least favorite genre for a book or movie.Give me a horror story that is completely fictional like vampires, ghosts or zombies any day. Eco-horror is too likely to occur to derive any pleasure from reading about it or watching it. I have kept my distance from these sorts of books/movies since COMA, which seemed all too likely--and it is.

What subject matter do you shy away from?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...: So called Rom Coms are right up there, especially if they star J-Lo, Kate Hudson, or Jennifer Aniston. Bromances aren't too far behind.

Any movie with Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller automatically goes on my "avoid at all costs" list.

Jeff M.; 9:12 AM
Jerry House said...: I can't think of any genre that leaves me cold. The handling of a genre, though...

Most movies today I watch without much expectation. I'm interested how a movie's plot, pacing, characterization, and special effects. Many flicks seem to have a dirth of the first three and an over-reliance on the fourth.

In books, I'll read almost anything, although I avoid most simplistic romances. It's the author's vision and language that counts, not their genre.; 9:34 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I don't like to be on the edge of my seat. And with eco-terror, it's to real for me. I don't know if I have ever read a book you would classify as a "romance" but maybe I am looking at the genre too narrowly. I think I read FOREVER AMBER in high school but that's the only one I remember. Or would you say REBECCA is a romance?; 9:39 AM
Randy Johnson said...: Like most males, romance novels leave me cold. A lady friend used to like what she termed "bodice rippers" and I never got it.

In movies. most romantic comedies are not my cup of tea, though there have been one or two I thought were superiro.; 10:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Patti - Interesting!!! With one or two very specific exceptions (I have a friend who does this genre pretty well, so I except his work), I generally avoid straight-out horror.; 10:18 AM
Chris said...: I avoid comedy; pretty much never read it, and avoid it, with rare exceptions, at the movies. On the fence about reading horror, but again rarely watch it in the theaters. To me, CONTAGION is the kind of horror I do like. Take a look at the horror in theaters now and you'll see perfect examples of the stuff I'm not interested in.; 10:27 AM
Charles Gramlich said...: I very seldom watch by choice straight comedies. Only watch them with Lana. I typically don't watch straight mysteries either. Unless there's a horror or supernatural element I probably won't watch them.; 10:30 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I am never able to step back from the horror at all. It feels very threatening to me. It seems likely to happen.
And, like Margot, I rarely watch any traditional horror movies although I can read them more easily.; 10:31 AM
George said...: I'm with Randy: romance novels. On the flip side of that, porno novels are tedious and dull. 50 SHADES OF GREY looks like the worst of both genres.; 11:31 AM
Kieran Shea said...: Movies: Modern melodrama as a genre but any film that's a remake I usually avoid. o; 11:42 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: At least they don't remake novels. Well, I guess some authors do actually.
It is shocking to see those piles of 50 Shades. Who knew there was a pent up desire for soft porn. Or maybe it isn't so soft.; 12:25 PM
Prashant C. Trikannad said...: In movies and books, my least favourite genre is sports, particularly those starring Adam Sandler, although I have seen and liked a few others like THE CHAMP, BULL DURHAM, CINDERELLA MAN, and even THE ROOKIE where father-of-three Dennis Quaid returns as a baseball pitcher. A true story, I believe. I'm not sure but I think there might be more films about boxing than any other sport.

In novels, I steer clear of romance including the Danielle Steel-Judith Michael-Barbara Taylor Bradford kind of books.; 12:35 PM
Deb said...: I hate the "crazed psychopath" in both novels and the movies. Perhaps, as you note, this type crops up so often in real life that I have no desire to encounter him/her in fiction. There is a subgenre of thriller I like to term "the psycho in italics," where we see things through the psychopath's eyes and--just so we know this--the text is usually in a different font than the rest of the book. I rarely finish a book that us written in this manner.

Btw, I would not classify Rebecca as a romance. I would call it a mystery because of the numerous secrets that are uncovered during the course of the story.; 12:56 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: No, I don't think of it as a romance but I wonder if men do.
Serial killers turn me off too.; 2:53 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: THE ART OF FIELDING was a pretty good sports novel although it really wasn't about baseball in the end.; 2:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Yes, serial killers for the most part (with few exceptions) I avoid. Any Lifetime Channel-type movie with the psycho husband/ex/stalker trying to kill the heroine. "Updates" of classics that didn't need updating. Remakes, ditto (THE IN-LAWS, THE HEARTBREAK KID, which I didn't even love the first time around).

I don't like drag in general, whether it's Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence, or Tyler Perry, or for that matter even Monty Python. I love comedy but don't think this is funny, never have.

Jeff M.; 3:28 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Not even (well actually especially) when Milton Berle did it. And I don't think I remember it as much as remember seeing clips of it later.; 3:33 PM
Rick Robinson said...: Just about any kind of comedy, though there were a few things in the late 50s I thought entertaining. I avoid comedy, sit-coms. Also I don't read horror of any kind but will accept it if it's science fiction, such as ALIEN or THE THING.; 3:54 PM
Chris said...: I feel like I should be more specific. I like horror as it relates to aliens or monster movies or things like that. But I don't like torture porn like the SAW movies, slasher movies, stuff like that.

Julia and I watched Meatballs last night. I love that movie so much. I think what I love and laugh over so much now when I see it is all the ways my long lost friends and I used to incorporate the dialogue into the silly things we'd do. That, and at its heart the movie is kind of sweet, not so mean spirited as so much comedy is nowadays.; 11:12 PM
J F Norris said...: I can't stand the new raunchy comedy genre. The ones that are about men who are really stunted teenagers and the jokes are all about body parts, farts, toilets, barfing, getting drunk, and getting laid. I pass on all of them. Not too surprisingly these usually have Adam Sandler or Ben
Stiller in the cast. The guy that used to be on The King of Queens (Kevin...somebody) has become, IMO, the new Adam Sandler. He's absolutely unfunny, makes nothing but TERRIBLE movies, and is pretty damn sad to watch on any of the talk shows.; 11:21 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Yes, that genre has worn out its welcome here. There is a mean undercurrent, a hatred of woman especially. And it is drifting into TV series as I flip by. This is the age of incivility.
I love great verbal wit but none of these have a bit of that.; 12:12 PM