Blue Velvet – good but no masterpiece
The Graduate – has not stood the test of time
Midnight Cowboy – same fate as the Graduate
Slumdog Millionaire – If it wasn’t for Danny Boyle the film would have looked like a Disney channel movie.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy – I couldn’t take it. Each film was a chore to sit through.
Christopher although its okay not to like a film, any of these included, you don’t really offer any reasons aside from ’ its boring".
Coupled with your sarcastic seeming attack at many of the forum goers that they “brag”, I highly doubt you are going to get any serious responses.
I still say Forrest Gump is perhaps my most despised film. Wretched Pap-claptrappery at its worst.
Other than that, I’ve already said I don’t find Vertigo to be Hitchcock’s best, so I suppose that means I think it’s overrated, but I still think it’s a well made film, and not bad. I also never understood the love for Shampoo, and that is especially painful for me because I really like and respect all who were involved in making it — Beatty, Ashby, Towne, Julie Christie, Jack Warden, Paul SImon. Maybe I needed to be older than 3 in 1968 to ‘get’ it?
As for the others on your list, Christopher, those are four of my very favorite films! I guess that means I’m going to get some flak for Gump.
1. The Best Years of our Lives- i have tried to like it but just cant
2. Breathless- also tried but no go
3. Lord of the Rings Trilogy- i couldnt take it either
4. The Graduate- no no no!
5. Forrest Gump- stupid!
I cant believe someone not liking Vertigo or The Battle of Algiers, Blue Velvet, or Midnight Cowboy. Blasphemy!!!
Chronologically:
-Murnau’s NOSFERATU – listless, weak cinematography and images (especially compared with the rest of Murnau’s work).
-Wilder’s SABRINA – despite the delightful Audrey Hepburn, laborious script with a painfully miscast aged Bogart.
-Naruse’s FLOATING CLOUDS – unbelievably trite and shallow, pathetic script.
-Bunuel’s PHANTOM OF LIBERTY – stale and visually very mediocre.
-Tarantino’s PULP FICTION – un-funny, un-sexy succession of tired, self-satisfied clichés.
@Christopher Kimsey, “Rear Window” on your list??…. how could you miss the utter cinematographic poetry of lives seen and drama defined through little rectangles that light up? And the magic of Stewart and Kelly and 50’s Greenwich Village?
I don’t say these are overrated, I just say they did not do it for me, for whatever reason:
Theodoros Angelopoulos: Ulysses’ Gaze (I’d rather read Homer backwards in greek with my head in a vice!)
Blues Brothers (probably because I saw it too late in life)
Lord of the Rings (good for one viewing, but that’s it)
Christian Petzold’s Gespenster (trying too hard to be different; I like most of his other stuff, though)
Fellini’s Casanova just makes me nervous.
Also I would not say that Forrest Gump is considered a masterpiece. It was just a very successful movie, but also dumped by a lot of critics. So though I do not like it very much I would rather not put it on this list.
Thorsten, nobody likes BLUES BROTHERS. It isn’t a matter of seeing it too late in life. It is a lousy movie in youth, adulthood or old age.
1. Breathless. Good film, that could have been better with a better editor and better music-or no music. But as it is I can only give the film 3 and a half out of five, and I see nothing in it to deserve the reputation that it has among some who would place it in the top ten or twenty films of all time.
2. Pulp Fiction. Completely vapid with the worst dialogue ever written for a film.
3. Nosferatu. I agree again with wonder 6789, compared to Faust and Sunrise Nosferatu, made just 4 or 5 years earlier seems horrible antiquated and completely underserving of its reputation. It has one great scene at the end where Nosferatu is evaporated by the sunlight, but it almost seems that the entire film was made just to justify that one idea.
4. The Graduate, as others have noted, is a terrible film, perhaps the worst to ever take home the best picture oscar. Poorly shot, poorly acted(over acted), poorly scripted, and there is absolutely nothing good about the film visually. I’d rather watch the Karate Kid.
5. Psycho. Much ado about nothing. Uninteresting and incomplete story about an uninteresting girl, who is suddenly killed before it can get interesting, and then it becomes an uninteresting and incomplete story about some weirdo who lives in an ugly gothic house up on a hill overlooking a roadside motel. I’ve never seen any greatness in this picture. Its a film based completely around the gimmick of killing the main character halfway through. Big whoop.
Roscoe, still I got laughed at by friends for being a cinerati, who knows so much movies, but has never seen Blues Brothers, a film which everybody in the world seems to know. : -)
It’s not that these films are awful. It comes with people gushing about these films when I don’t see them meriting it.
1. The Seventh Seal.. There have been many films about Death versus Man but perhaps none as uninteresting. I think the film was satirized in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “Bring out your dead” The protagonist was uninteresting, Death was uninteresting. Shots upon shots of people suffering. And what exactly is the story that should resonate with the viewer? I love some of Bergman’s work (particularly Wild Strawberries) but this left me cold. So much so I had to stop the DVD two times to make it through the film.
2. L’Avventura. I like this film, I really do. But some self-glorified film snobs make this film about rather empty and uninteresting people more than it is.
1. Mon Oncle – Two hours of sight gags wears out it’s welcome eventually, especially with no emotional investment behind anything (Chaplin this aint). Not to mention mocking modern life and technology is like shooting fish in a barrell
2. Army of Shadows – A movie about a Resistance is going to rely on feeling a connection to well-developed characters. But here there was no real attempt at that. The film was cold and distant.
3. Kwaidan – Basically series of Twilight Zone episodes. Not that The Twilight Zone is bad… but it doesn’t make for a great movie.
4. L’Argent – Whatever Bresson is trying to say here gets lost as he seems to have no direction or focus. I love art films as much as the next guy, but plot isn’t for sissies…. plot can actually be important. Bresson seems to have this belief that films that implore tactics to entice the viewer in emotionally are cheap or manipulative. C’mon… emotion is all we have!
5. Three Times – I just can’t get behind Hou. The three vignettes here don’t work as anything individually. Contrast them and the message about the evolution of love isn’t that interesting. And the middle segment as a silent film (though not black and white) just seems like a pointless gimmick.
2001: A Space Odyssey: I shouldn’t have to be high to be able to sit through a film. Overwrought sophistry.
Easy Rider: Talk about not aging well. An embarrassment.
Pulp Fiction: Hey, let’s drop a few “N” and “F” bombs, that’s great dialog. The camera work sucks too. What I like most are L’il Quentin’s acting cameos. He can’t act either, has no concept and I believe he tried studying acting.
Juliet of the Spirits: Although in its defense Fellini’s color films would get even more self indulgent. Fellini also has to be partially held accountable for “Cinema Paradiso”.
Black Narcissus : Bored me to death, both of them. Powell and Pressburger are real hit and miss for me. When they hit it’s great and when they miss it’s just scenery chewing.
Thorsten, wear their scorn with pride. You hadn’t seen BLUES BROTHERS because you were too busy seeing 400 BLOWS, etc.
Doinel, I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “overwrought sophistry” when it comes to 2001. Can you elaborate?
I’d like to add “Bridge on the River Kwai”. A three hour epic with only 3 locations does not make for a visually interesting film.
I don’t know if I would call it boring, it did hold my attention, I did not fall asleep, even though I only slept 3 or 4 hours the night before, but I do think that the film is a failure on many fronts. I would rate it a 6 out of 10, and I’ll tell you why.
First the film is slow, one of the very slowest films of that I have ever seen. It is slow in every aspect, and worst of all, is that this only hurts the film in times when it is supposed to be a moment of reflection in the movie-like Nicholson’s speech on the bridge- but you hardly notice because it just continues the same pace as the rest of the movie. The action does pick up at the very, very end; but still not even at a level that John Ford would move at. Its just slow, and for no real reason. So much time is wasted in this film on nothing, and there is never any anticipation, except at the very very end, and it does not have nearly as dramatic an effect as it could have.
Secondly, in this movie, that runs at close to 3 hours, there are only 4 real characters in the movie. Nicholson, who only developes enough to come to a point where he wonders about his legacy. Saeto who becomes softer, though still undoubtably a bad man. Shears, who becomes less of a whiner, and almost courageous at the end-at least enough to get himself killed. And of course Wardon, whos only change is physical-he’ll probably end up losing his foot.
Not that a movie must have characters who grow to make it a good film, but if it doesn’t have that than it better have other things. The photography was outstanding, but I am sorry to say that there was no cinematography in this film. The camera seemed like it never moved, and there seemed to be less than five tracking shots in the whole picture. I can watch this with Ozu, but not in an adventure/epic. Though I understand that the colors have become drained over time, I didn’t see much there other than green, so I can’t imagine the film being all that lush even on opening night, 1957.
It is plain to see that Lean did learn a few things from this film, and put those lessons to good use in the much better “Lawrence of Arabia”. It still is a very long movie, with only one real character, whos development is rather vague, but atleast it is sumptious and colorful, and the supporting cast has personality and more talent. And LoA had action to pick the movie up a bit, though neither film contained much humour.
I must say that I haven’t been this dissapointed in a film in a long while. “The Bridge on the Rived Kwai” is a film that never once moved me in any real or even ‘artificial’ way. I never felt anything…oh except for the end, when something perhaps could have been resolved-or some kind of statement been made, but all we get is Nicholson ACCIDENTLY fainting and falling on the plunger. What kind of ending is that? The main character doesn’t make a decision to blow the bridge or not, NO, he is given a pass, a scape goat and it is an accident, maybe if he would have blown it up or decided NOT to blow it up the audience would have been forced to feel something-David Lean obviously did not want that.
Birth of a Nation: technical virtue or innovation will never salvage a work cobbled out of hate, pig-ignorance, anachronism and wish-fulfillment palmed-off as historical material. Griffith isn’t Shakespeare, and Birth of a Nation isn’t The Merchant of Venice – i.e., where one sees some explicit indications of humanism and of personal context even among the explicit stereotypes. If it had been, say, Fritz Hippler pioneering the close-up in Der ewige Jude, would that have rendered the film an eternal classic? If “The Turner Diaries” contained some purely technical innovation in literary prose, would that make it an eternally significant and must-read book? No, don’t think so. Does it indicate a weakness in film criticism and canonization, and in cinephilia, that this sort of half-witted, overwrought garbage is rated so highly, and for purely technical reasons?
Yes, 2001 strikes me as New Age musings. There’s nothing concrete and the final “star gate” sequences are fine as eye candy but I’m skeptical that some omniscient robot would pick a Louis XIV bedroom to make the future “star child” content. It’s all pretty outlandish.
Long on visuals and short on content. That was often the Kubrick formula.
1. NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS — I’ve seen it many times, usually in the company of people who just LOVE it. After years and years of seeing it and seeing, I can finally now say that I just plain don’t like this film. The story’s cool, the design is great, but there’s just something missing, that something extra that would make it all work. The bad score and songs don’t help, and after all these years I still have no idea what the hell Lock Shock and Barrell are saying in that song with the walking bathtub.
2. THE LADY EVE — basically most of the Preston Sturges I’ve seen, but this one takes the cake. I hate every minute of this film. The story is kind of amusing, I guess, but I never feel any chemistry at all between Stanwyck and that Fonda guy. Why on earth she’s interested in him, apart from his extreme wealth, is a mystery. MY MAN GODFREY this ain’t.
3. CRIES AND WHISPERS — yeah, pretty use of color and nice costumes and all that. But the story never interests me, and two scenes in particular are annoying as hell. The dinner scene between two of the sisters where Ingrid Thulin tells Liv Ullmann that “I’ve always hated you!!!!” with maximum face-twitching intensity seems like something from the Carol Burnett Show. And the big self-mutilation scene always mystifies me. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Wouldn’t any husband take one look at his wife with her own vaginal blood smeared on her face and have her committed forthwith?
4. PULP FICTION — It is a Royale With Cheese. Same shit, different name.
5. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN — God I hate this film. I hate Gene Kelly’s shit-eating grin. I hate the musical numbers that just go on and on and on. That Broadway Melody ballet just never fucking ends. It all feels so rehearsed and composed, I never feel any real life anywhere in it. And Kelly’s big smarmy face, god, I want to reach for a hatchet every time I see it. How this thing keeps getting listed among the Greatest Of All Time just mystifies me.
Roscoe – allot of people love the Blues Brothers. Most people who love the blues enjoy this film.
Matrix, Silence of the Lambs, Gone With the Wind, Breakfest at Tiffiany’s…..
Robert — bully for fans of THE BLUES BROTHERS. There are certainly worse movies out there. I’ll admit to a certain fondness for selected bits of the movie, but they are too far and few between. Carrie Fisher’s big scene at the end is still funny. Every movie has an audience somewhere.
But does anyone consider it a “masterpiece”? Really?
Masterpiece .. no but the Blues Brothers 2000 Now tha tis closer. na not really.
Wow, another one of them this movie sucks!!!111 threads, pass.
I agree w/Roscoe re Singin’ In the Rain: I mean, I have nothing against it—but I can’t grasp just how this particular musical is head-n’-shoulders above so many others. For instance, I like An American In Paris just as much, if not more—it’s as good an example of Gene Kelly’s perfectionism, athletic style, etc; and it’s got Gershwin!
wow. you guys are on a rampage! some of these complaints are amazing. my favorite by far:
on breathless: good film, could have been better with a better editor.
that’s high comedy to me! like saying 2001 could have been better if it wasnt set in outer space.
Pulp Fiction – Not a terrible film, but HUGELY overrated. Just a collection of comic-book characters in a hyperviolent film spouting clever dialogue. There is no sense of humanity in this, or any of Tarantino’s films.
2001 – I’m sure I will receive flak for this, but let me preface this by saying that I saw 2001 a few years ago, before my movie-making tastes had really matured. But I found it to be self-indulgent, overlong, uninteresting, and just plain boring. But it’s one of those films that is so highly praised that I should really give it another chance.
Blade Runner – Nice visuals, extremely sluggish pace, no humanity. Boring, above all.
Forrest Gumper – I enjoyed it, but it’s basically just fluff.
Breathless – I just wasn’t taken with the story, with the characters, with the style, with any of it. Although I’m certainly willing to give it another chance.
Interesting that everyone keeps picking The Graduate. It seems popular to say that it hasn’t stood the test of time (even Roger Ebert said so), but I watched it for the first time a few weeks and loved it. I loved the cinematography (that shot of Benjamin at the bottom of the pool is gorgeous), the use of music, the acting. It’s a very effective film about alienation, but also is flat-out hilarious. And it doesn’t resort to the cheap happy ending. Although Benjamin and Elaine escape, the music cue at the end – “The Sound of Silence” – says a lot.
Armacord (I tried, oh, I really did)
Blue Velvet (nothing impressive)
Ran (so overblown, especially considering it looks like the colour was filled in by a child)
A Clockwork Orange (I hate everything about Alex’s character)
Weeping Meadow (I’m a huge fan of minimalist drama (Tarr, Hou, Tsai, Bresson all being good examples) but, if there is a definition for reductive realism this film is the poster child. Every single shot is set up exactly the same, no variation at all, how tedious does Angelopoulos want to make his film)
Robert – The middle vignette in Three Times was made silent because the actors couldn’t learn the Mandarin dialect that was spoken at that time in history. It probably doesn’t change anything for you, but it’s not a gimmick I would like to make that clear. It’s more for the sake of realism.
I’m going to have to go along with the anti-BREATHLESS crowd. I’ve seen it, find it almost completely uninteresting except as a historic artifact. It must have blown everybody away whenever it first came out, but time has not been kind. Dated beyond all hope of retrieval, I’d say.
Of course, I may be wrong. Maybe I should see it again.
Every film by Spilberg except Duel.
The Shawshank Redemption: A vile mess of heartfelt narration and Hollywood normality.
Star Wars: A film that has inspired horrible directors, countless obsessions and has allowed for George Lucas to continue his career.
Tootsi
North by Northwest: I’ve seen this a handful of times and I find that it becomes elementary, predictable, and even unwatchable after the first 30 minutes.
The Graduate is an interesting choice. I hope those saying it doesn’t stand the test of time would expound on how so?
To me, as long as young people dread living the boring unimportant lives of their parents, The Graduate will be relevant.
^ I completely agree with you, Robert. I didn’t think that The Graduate was dated at all.
Chopin
Alrite so basically list 5 films you HAVE seen that you thought were overrated,horrible or you just “didnt like.”
Only list five, none of this “oh my there is nooo way in the world I can only list 5! Let me make a list of 47 films to brag” bs
Anyways here is I’s
1. Vertigo
I lost focus throughout. It was boring and abrubt. My classification – Overated
2. Rear Window
I liked it more than Vertigo but was still bored and at the end felt like I was cheated. He uses his camera as a weapon? Come on. Overated
3. The Battle of Algiers
I respect it for its importance and also for its ideas. But, I felt so distant from the characters and needed more of a story. Did not like it.
4.Army of Shadows
I was bored out of my mind, almost forcing myself to watch this. Did not like it
5. Breathless
It gave me a headache 5 minutes in. I felt the story was stupid. Although, I did like the parts which went edited in a woodchipper. Did not like it/ Overated