Review of My Dinner with Andre (1981) by Mandy L — 23 Feb 2010

My Dinner With Andre puts in a nutshell the fevered intellectual scramblings of "creative" people; their rehashing of what it means to be human. Watching this will help you further realize how stupid they are, how stupid and overwrought and played are the ideologies of members of the cliched art-world.

They have some interesting stories and debate the pretentious, impossible, self-obsessed, overly thought out world of performance art and creativity they are in love/hate with. I wonder how the creators decided their medium would be film, because this material is barely transferable outside their own heads! They did a good job, I just did not like the content. I found it interesting (at the start) but not at all revelatory.

Don't even think about multitasking--the only way you can understand this constant stream of consciousness is to be present for it at all times--otherwise its like having to resurface towards the end of a monologue directed at you, and having to ask "What was that, again?". On the other hand, if you skip a chapter or two, they'll either be talking about something different, or more about the same...so you would resurface after a while, and save some time.

This movie makes me hungry, and kind of sick of smart people who find meaning in everything. I mean...thats great for YOU, but its hard to translate because it is absolutely tailored to YOUR imaginings. It gets so oppressive. Actually...kind of annoying. "...I looked at these show-business people, who know nothing about Billie Holiday, nothing, so they're really kind of in a way intellectual creeps. And I suddenly had this feeling, I mean, you know, I was just sitting there crying through most of the show. And I suddenly had this feeling, I was just as creepy as they were! And that my whole life had been a sham, and I didn't have the guts to be Billie Holiday either.".

This sums it up to me. Judgmental, disconnected, hyper-realistic, and filled with bouts of random crying.

Has intellectual people's view of the world changed since 1981? (blahblah no way to wake people up, everyone is depressed, everyone is acting, blahblah) I have literally been hearing the same conversation my entire life and apparently it has been going on before then. Maybe its time to get over it. This dinner is cold.