LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: If this trifle could fill theaters and win prizes — it feels a lot like your average television sit-com, slightly souped-up — then the West has finally fully declined, the sun has set on Celluloidland.
I so agree about Boondock Saints. I don’t see the appeal.
I’m a big Lynch fan. But my dislike for Inland Empire didn’t sit well with the faithful.
My all-time pretentious film only film snobs love to love Death In Venice. Ya know the thrill of seeing a film that got you to love the cinema, this is the opposite.
I really like Lost in Translation but I don’t have a bit of a problem with those that don’t. However, I took some shit for calling Marie Antoinette like I see it. An excuse for Sophia Coppola to spend some time in France and to play dress-up. A movie that I was truly praying for it to be over.
L’Avventura. It’s not a bad film by any measure. But people come out of the woodwork when you mention any of its shortcomings.
CRASH is hands down one of the worst films I’ve seen in the last few years, and why it wasn’t laughed off the screen instead of garlanded with Oscars I have no idea. (US CRASH-haters will be cheered to hear that it was greeted with far more scepticism on my side of the Atlantic)
Here in Britain, we have a long-running drama series called CASUALTY (think ER but on a much lower budget) which makes its various moral/didactic points (several per episode) so bludgeoningly obviously that they might as well stick an animated wagging finger in the corner of the screen. CRASH was like that, but with far less excuse – I don’t know why they didn’t just call it RACISM IS BAD, M’KAY? instead of nicking the title of a far superior David Cronenberg film (and indeed J.G. Ballard novel).
“I don’t know why they didn’t just call it RACISM IS BAD, M’KAY? instead of nicking the title of a far superior David Cronenberg film (and indeed J.G. Ballard novel).
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So true, so true.
I don’t like Breathless (Contempt and A Band of Outsiders finally endeared me to Godard though).
Pulp Fiction is kind of boring.
Ditto for the Lord of the Rings.
My love for Star Wars ended at 12, and no one wants to let me forget how awful I am for this.
Mystic River. I hate it but everybody seems to love it.
Well, from serious film folks, I’m under the gun for my unrelenting dislike of Scorsese—especially his big three of Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Raging Bull. All I can say in my defense to his legion of admirers is, I’ve tried to give them each fair, honest viewings and still find myself repelled by both Scorsese’s style, and the characters on the screen. (I do care for him as a critic and popular figure; that camera commercial he did is one of my biggest laughs of the past ten years! (Only Yoko Ono’s singing in Rock And Roll Circus gets a bigger laugh out of me.) And no make-up team on Earth could fake those eye-brows!)
From people whose tastes run more along he lines of popular modern mainstream, I get lotsa flac for absolutely hating 300. Ancient Spartans with pirate accents, video game sensibilities, and executioner orcs!?!?!? Persian ninjas?!?!? During the speech towards the end of the movie, (given by the same pirate who narrated the entire film, but didn’t get his eye-patch until the end) I said audibly at the end of every statement, “On this, St. Crispin’s Day”! My girlfriend wasn’t too happy about that, but she did laugh the first couple of times and is still with me today. Plus, it was the only thing that made me feel I got my money’s worth.
Blades of Glory was a better film. (The decapitation scene ties with Scorsese and Yoko for laughs.)
I don’t really enjoy watching most Bergman or Godard films. I get shit for this constantly, and it annoys me. For some reason, if a film or filmmaker is considered part of the pantheon of “important cinema” then everyone who claims to be a lover of cinema is required to love it, and I think this is bullshit. I also think that its important to note that it is entirely possible to appreciate and “get” a film without enjoying it.
On the flipside of this I think that its completely OK to enjoy a movie that isn’t a “great film” and i get annoyed by snobbish people who don’t allow themselves to enjoy any film that isn’t incredibly obtuse and takes itself too seriously. This is why I think that not nearly enough credit is given to Horror and Comedy films.
That said, I think Wes Anderson is crap, and I was really bored this year with “Lars and the Real Girl”.
Um, first off, Goodfellas? Who the hell can actually like that? I don’t mind saying that I actually kind of enjoyed sitting through Blow and Lord of War, despite their faults. But Goodfellas? I would rather watch the Departed. Just give me Taxi Driver.
Also, anything by Gus Vant Sant. I haven’t seen Milk yet, which looks good. But only Good Will Hunting is tolerable. I like the style of Elephant, but it’s been done before and the story’s been better in those other ones.
Can I bring Michael Moore’s “ouvre” into this? If you can call it that. Sucks.
Recent ones include the three new Star Wars and the Dark Knight. I got them. The special effects in Star Wars weren’t special anymore and the Dark Knight was okay, but I don’t dislike it just because everyone else loves it (I was told this).
Oh yeah, ENCHANTED. That movie blew. Everyone I’ve talked to said that is was awesome, but I saw it and it wasn’t. They had a high concept, but did crap with it. LAME. It wasn’t enjoyable. I sat restlessly in my seat, waiting for it to be over.
Most things by Ozu… I faked liking it when I lived in Japan… but now I can’t be bothered.
@Bradley Gardner
“Most things by Ozu… I faked liking it when I lived in Japan… but now I can’t be bothered.”
Hilarious! I lived in Japan for a few years. I didn’t discover Ozu until later. I really love his major works, and yet I know exactly what you mean. I also know why you’ve rated 400+ films, probably for the same reasons I’ve rated that many: I always dug film, and I had oceans of time to watch videos in Japan.
@ Max Buckner
re: “I don’t really enjoy watching most Bergman or Godard films. I get shit for this constantly, and it annoys me.”
I agree with you about Godard. Every film I’ve seen by him (HAIL MARY, BAND OF OUTSIDERS, BREATHLESS, WEEKEND) was pretentious crap, or at best, a qualified, overstudied average. One notable exception for me was ALPHAVILLE, because I admire that Godard managed to make a lazy sci-fi film out of parisian architecture and randomness. Though the feat is quite abstract: making a film that parodies other films of a genre with a wink and a bit of fun— this was more about Godard’s freedom than considering an audience. Godard was playfully making films, and unluckily some distributor felt that these films needed an audience. I’m sure it is fun to be Godard, playing in the sandbox of cinematic expression. This does not make up for his films being completely devoid of non-esoteric, non-abstract self-referential goodness.
A general rule: if a work cannot be enjoyed on its own within a century of creation, without a corpus of criticism to explain its purpose -if the work demands one to read lots of commentary and criticism for contemporaries to “get it”- then, the work does not meet one of the preconditions for being great. Having lots of talk, rationally discussing the meta-anything ad nauseam, of a relatively young work means it probably sucks.
I loathe “A Christmas Story”/
I don’t necessarily “catch shit” for not liking them (well I don’t really “not like” them, I just don’t “like” them, if that makes sense), but:
“Alien”
“Jaws”
“Re-Animator”
“Return of the Living Dead”
I never “catch shit” for not liking a movie — just for the ones I recommend.
Every single one that made alot of money, because unfortunately, they’re all good and I’m just jaded about it’s popularity.
Reservoir Dogs – a string of “F” bombs isn’t my idea of creative dialogue.
After reading the Funniest Film thread, so many people selected The Big Lebowski. Now, I like the film but that’s not good enough for some people. I’ve seen it on the big screen too and don’t remember a single out loud laugh from the crowd. Heck, Raising Arizona got more of a laugh at the theatre. Sure it’s funny but if you don’t think it’s great, people give you shit.
Brokeback Mountain
Definitely think Scarface and other De Palma films are overrated.
I am also not 100% on the Departed bandwagon, good movie, nothing more, I like the original better.
@Tommy- Star Wars Trilogy is FARRRRRRRRRRR better than LOTR.
Anybody with me on HATING Gladiator? Cause pretty much EVERYONE i know loves that movie. And I think it’s a pile of shit. Terrible shit. I don’t even like one small part of it. I think it’s a big ropey one all over the unsuspecting stupid audience.
Once.
I saw it without hearing any hype, couldn’t stand it. Everyone I know loves it. I like the soundtrack, but I can’t stand the film.
Seven Samurai. I mean, those are the world’s dumbest bandits
I liked Boondock Saints as pulp trash and I don’t mean transcendental pulp trash like Paul Verhoeven films or hilariously awful pulp trash like Con Air. I liked it for what it was: two Irish dudes shooting a bunch of people and William Dafoe hamming it up. That’s it. If you like this film as anything more than that, you have problems.
Seven Samurai has two major flaws imo: 1) the young samurai is annoying 2) the bandits should have just fucking attacked a different village after they found out the villagers had hired protection that was gradually whittling down their numbers
Gladiator would have been much better if he didn’t give the retardedly ahistorical ending speech and just either keeled over having got his revenge or shacked up with Commodus’s sister and ruled the empire using the kid as a puppet. Imagine all the trashy sequel opportunities. I mean like the awesome Rocky style of good trashy sequels, not the direct to DVD Disney/Starship Troopers crap.
Now on to movies I get shit for not liking:
- Crash (Paul Haggis one)
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It’s way overlong, repetitive, Cate Blanchett is annoying, and Benjamin Button himself is a watered down Forrest Gump. Easily David Fincher’s worst movie.
- The Fountain. It could have been about living forever, Aguirre 2, or lots of other good things. Instead it sucked. It’s Zardoz minus the campy fun. I don’t get why people like it.
- Gandhi. Fuck this overlong, boring piece of shit. Sure Ben Kingsley was good as Gandhi but the movie is a bore. Richard Attenborough IS NOT David Lean. If this movie was not about Gandhi, nobody would like it. Attenborough is a shitty director. Maybe even worse than Uwe Boll as at least Boll, despite his lack of skill, has some interesting ideas and is actually slowly improving film by film (his latest In the Name of the King AKA the DUngeon Siege movie is ACTUALLY WATCHABLE!)
- Reservoir Dogs. Some good dialogue, scenes, and characters but ultimately more a pastiche of good ideas than an actual movie.
- Enchanted. This was horrible. It’s as if everything bad about Disney movies came to life.
- LOTR Trilogy. They are solid movies. I just don’t like them. It had some good scenes, characters, acting, etc but I loathe the films. Frodo and Sam are really fucking annoying, the large battles have no emotion (the smaller fights such as the one where Beretorn dies, are much better), Sauron as a flaming eye (I wanted to see how horrible they could make him look without armor) and the ending sucks. Why the hell does it take them half an hour to sail off to the undying lands/Valhalla/Avalon/whatever? John Boorman managed to do the same thing in Excalibur in about 20 seconds. Boorman had some awesome ideas about how to do LOTR. Like Gandalf would have been made otherworldly (not a swords and sorcery Obi Wan Kenobi like Peter Jackson did), the Nazgul would have rode skinless horses, and the wizard duel would have been inspired by how actual shamans and witchdotocrs dueled with words in sub-Saharan Africa instead of Peter Jackson’s old man Mortal Kombat. Boorman lost the rights and made the awesome, better than LOTR imo Excalibur instead. I had it out for LOTR ever since I first saw the prologue to Fellowship of the RIng in the theater. You know, where Sauron is a giant Power Rangers villain? I was thinking to myself “oh my fucking god this is right out of fucking Power Rangers.” And you never really felt that this was a guy who could literally just charge into battle and slaughter tons of dudes. I mean he just swung his magical mace and everybody fell down. It was just underwhelmed when compared to other prologue battles like Highlander or Bram Stoker’s Dracula where you really got the feeling that those guys (Dracula and the Kurgan) could just ride down and single handedly slaughter hundreds of people. And to top it all off, Peter Jackson didn’t even represent what happened in the books. In the books, basically Sauron was beaten back to his tower, which was being laid siege to, and eventually was forced to attack the alliance of Elves and Men with a heavily outnumbered force. The scales seemed to be shifting with Sauron’s attack and basically the King of the Elves, Gilgalad, and the King of Men, Elendil decided to take him on themselves. Both were killed but Gilgalad managed to mortally wound Sauron (his body, not his soul which is in the ring) and Isildur later cut the ring off of Sauron corpse after his attack collasped without him. That would have been a lot more epic than the movie. Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Viggo Mortensen, and Andy Serkis were good in it though.
oh gosh, most of Bergman. It’s just too overwrought. Most Fellini, too. A lot of Hitchcock. One reason I like David Thomson is he made convincing arguments for why all three of those guys are second-rate. I suddenly didn’t feel so alone any more. Oh, and Cassavetes.
Justin, run! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!
lol, Soybean, I guess I’m kinda used to being in the minority. But I’m willing to listen to fans who want to try to change my mind.
the goonies
all john hughes films
napoleon dynamite
forest gump
the warriors
I tend to Forget films that I truly hate however…
I Hated The RING!!!! Yet everybody loves it.
Not a big fan of Excalibur Yet a lot of people like it
Despised Gladiator
Hated Forrest Gump (Thought it was pretentious)
Disliked Kill Bill (Tarantino needs to stop going to anime Conventions)
Not a big fan of Austin Powers (Yet they say Mike Myers is the next Peter Sellers)
I think I’m okay for now.
THE FLIGHTOF THE RED BALLON: AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS IS A COMPLETE SHIT?
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: WHY SOME PEOPLE THINKS IS COOL?
CHINATOWN: AT THE END THE CARACTER OF JACK NICHOLSON ACTS LIKE A PUSSY, HE NEVER EXPLODES HE CONTINUES BEING A COWARD.
donny brook
The Boondock Saints
Carrie
Wall-E