B**** Rant and Moan About Overrated Movies! (IYO of Course)

[Flanger-Hanger]

uh...

[SpringHeelJack]

P.S. If you want to come visit, you can watch the original original trilogy. It's not anamorphic, so it won't look great on my TV, but it will do.

[Flanger-Hanger]

P.S. If you want to come visit, you can watch the original original trilogy. It's not anamorphic, so it won't look great on my TV, but it will do.

Oh yes, I heard about that DVD and I considered buying it, but the lousy treatment it got made me just spend my money elsewhere.

I'll be sure to visit the next time I'm in Boston. Whenever the hell that'll be.

[slave2moonlight]

As for my list of overrated. Hang on to your hats kids, because some of you may start exploding when reading this:

• The original Star Wars Trilogy
  Jaws
  Indiana Jones (as a franchise)
  Iron Man
  The Pianist
  Crash
  The Matrix
  The Lion King
  Monsters, Inc.
  Any Burton movie (especially Sweeney Todd)
  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  The Breakfast Club
  Cinderella
  101 Dalmations

That should irritate people enough for now.

Some quick reactions:

I agree about The Breakfast Club, actually. In fact, I consider most of that Brat Pack stuff overrated, except for 16 Candles. The rest all feel like chick flicks to me, or maybe you had to be a teen in the '80's. Thankfully, I'm young enough to have not been that. I do like some '80's teen movies, but 16 Candles is the only Molly Ringwald (sp?) one.

I also agree about some Tim Burton stuff. Not all. I like most of it but still feel it is overrated. Nightmare Before Christmas for example. It's great, but some people... oy. On the other hand, I could never feel that Sleepy Hollow is overrated. Love it. Love Sweeney Todd too, and Ed Wood was great and I'd hardly call it overrated. One that I didn't love was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory though. It was okay, but I'll take Gene Wilder's version any day. Edward Scissorhands was good, but I'd call it overrated, and definitely Beetlejuice.

Of course, I totally disagree about Star Wars and Indy. Wouldn't be bothered by someone calling Star Trek overrated though.

Are you talking about the original 101 Dalmatians? I LOVE it, but I can kinda agree that it is maybe a bit overrated, as is Cruella DeVille. Great character, but I think people were too awed by the concept of someone wanting a coat made of puppies.

As long as Shrek beat Monsters Inc. for the Oscar (grrrr) I can't imagine it being called overrated. Shrek, fun as it is, is overrated, as a film AND as a franchise.

I disagree about Cinderella and am on the fence about the Lion King after rewatching it recently. It really is a masterful film, and while still not my favorite, it seems worthy of A LOT of praise to me and I don't know if it got more than it deserved... It did get A LOT though...

[slave2moonlight]

While I can't agree about Spider-Man 2 (LOVED IT), I can totally agree about Juno. I thought it was an okay movie, entertaining enough, but not much for rewatchability, I hated the way they kinda made Jason Bateman's character look like a bad guy by not following up with him even once (He was being treated kinda badly in that relationship, as Garner's character just seemed to want a baby and couldn't care less about him and his feelings), and it all but destroyed my rapidly growing attraction to Ellen Page (more because of her personality in the film than her being pregnant throughout).

[2099net]

The Truman Show is incredibly overrated.

Perhaps its just me, but I find it terribly boring. It thinks its profound, full of biting social commentary. It thinks its clever by having metaphorical links to classic ancient Greek and Roman mythologies. It thinks its ho-ho funny by calling the "everyday man" Truman and his director (God if you like) Christoph (you know, like Christ?) but its not. And the actual logic of creating and filming such a show is pure fantasy.

And yet, EDtv which game out at a similar time, and was a much better take on the whole concept was slammed and ignored. This is a film which actually did have relevant commentary to make on TV at the time, about celebrity culture, about making ordinary people people celebrities simply by them being on TV, the consequences of such actions, and the Network TV's indifference to how they screw up people's lives simply to chase revenue and ratings... and the film actually had a proper ending too.

Truman sucks.

[Just Myself]

I find David Fincher's two most highly praised films to be incredibly overrated - Fight Club and Se7en.

Now Fight Club is a film that I do like, but in my eyes it's not the masterpiece of modern cinema that a lot of people deem it to be. I dunno, something about it just never connected with me. And Se7en - I couldn't even finish this film. It was so incredibly grotesque and disturbing, it just rattled me to my core in all the worst ways. I literally felt sick watching this film. I had to shut it off about half an hour into it.

Other films I find overrated:

The Godfather trilogy
Pretty much anything by Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie
Taxi Driver
Crash
Brokeback Mountain (Let the flogging begin)
A Clockwork Orange
Full Metal Jacket (A film I used to be a huge supporter of)
Annie Hall
The Excorcist
Halloween
Knocked Up
And others.....

Cheers,
JM

[SpringHeelJack]

Oh, I forgot the Godfather trilogy. Never got it.

Also pretty much any Woody Allen movie. I never found any of the ones I've seen funny. Or really very redeeming to me in any sense at all.

[Goliath]

I find David Fincher's two most highly praised films to be incredibly overrated - Fight Club and Se7en.

The Godfather trilogy
Pretty much anything by Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie
Taxi Driver
Brokeback Mountain (Let the flogging begin)

How can you *not* like The Godfather movie?

Do agree with you about 'Knocked up', though... and all other films Seth Rogen has been in.

[pap64]

Funny enough, despite my loud opinion on films I don't have that many overrated films.

The only one that comes to mind is "Bambi" and "Lilo and Stitch". I understand that Bambi was a breakthrough during its initial release and its very respected among everyone who enjoys animation. But it just doesn't connect and I find myself more bored that I should be. Believe me, I've watched it plenty of times and still no emotional connection.

"Lilo and Stitch" was cute. The characters are fun and memorable, the art style is very warm and it had a cute story. But its in no way the best Disney film ever.

No offense to those that liked said films, though.

The funny thing, pardon the redundancy, is that last Friday I watched a bunch of Batman movie reviews by James Rolfe (aka the Angry Nintendo Nerd). While he told everyone to see each film as its own spin on the Batman universe (talking about classic 60s film) he highly criticized Batman Begins for being a too serious and pretentious look at the Dark Knight.

The way I see it, "Batman Begins" is more about Batman the man than Batman the hero. This movie tells people that Batman is just as emotionally disturbed, if not more, than the criminals he fights. Plus, the film places Batman in a real world Gotham City. In the other movies Gotham was always portrayed as this silly and gothic place. Nothing wrong with that, but its interesting to see the city through a believable light. I think the casting of lesser known villains was good. Again, the movie is about Batman the man. If they put The Joker or any other famous villain the audience would have been distracted by it.

I can see how it can be overrated, but at the time the last Batman picture was so horrendous that a do-over was seriously needed. The movie restarted the Batman movie franchise and it got people excited, so can you blame them if the hype got out of hand?

James Rolfe also calls the movie "pretentious". Yeah, it does blur the line at times, but did he see the first Hulk movie? Now THAT was a pretentious movie...

[PeterPanfan]

Goliath, just because you call a movie "overrated" doesn't mean you have to dislike it...

[pap64]

Goliath, just because you call a movie "overrated" doesn't mean you have to dislike it...

Quite true. In my case, even if I feel a film is overrated I still give it the credit it deserves. If it got overrated its because the film is good to begin win and has won fans.

The ones guilty at the people, the ones that get too excited about a movie and over blow its qualities.

[slave2moonlight]

I always thought Batman Begins was more of a quiet success. I never heard much hype about it. I remember the trailers were so different from what folks had come to expect from a Batman film. More epic like Superman the Movie or something. It seemed like audiences weren't sure what to expect and weren't going to get their hopes up. And even after I saw the movie and LOVED it, I wasn't hearing a lot of noise about it for a while.

Anyways, I just wanted to back up the folks who feel the Godfather movies are overrated, and I'll throw Scarface in there too. Honestly, I don't see the appeal of these kinds of movies. Not that they can't be good, but I don't know how people can come to love them soooo much or their despicable (and hardly in a likable way) characters. Goodfellas was a pretty good one though, I'll give that one credit. I know Tarantino has been dogged a bit here, but when it comes to crime type stuff, his might be the only ones I like.

[TM2-Megatron]

I loved the novel, but the The Godfather film just failed to wow me... I can't believe it won Best Adapted Screenplay. Best Photocopied Screenplay is more like it; the thing was lifted practically word for word.

And Superman: The Movie. Sorry, but the John Williams soundtrack aside (you just can't go wrong with that), this movie was ridiculous. The "Can You Read My Mind" monologue killed it for me, but Lex's plan was nearly as stupid as the one from Superman Returns.

[littlefuzzy]

Transformers: I still have to wonder how this movie made such a killing at the box office since brand recognition can't be THAT strong, can it? The stuff with Shia's character I admit was pretty decent, if a little Terminator 2-ish. The other 64 subplots were just extraneous and added little-to-nothing to the overall picture. Then there's the fact there's not much of a storyline there, period. It's all about Megatron trying to take over the world, bla bla, and some random deus ex machina gets thrown into the story at the last act. There's plenty of action, but Michael Bay shoots it so in-your-face that you honestly can't tell who's fighting who and who's winning. Let's see how the sequel fares.

Fight Club: I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. Or, rather, I get what the film's trying to say, but I don't get how this resonates with so many people. There's absolutely no one likable in this movie, not even the ever-dependable Edward Norton. Everyone and everything in this film is simply off-putting to me, and I don't think I'll ever really come to appreciate it whatever it is that people see in it.

Agreed on both of those.

One that I particularly hated was Napoleon Dynamite. Everyone kept telling me to see it, saying it was the funniest movie they had ever seen, etc.
So I rented it, and it was the worst 90 minutes of my life. I didn't laugh AT ALL, I thought it was a stupid and pointless movie.

I may have had a few chuckles, most of it grated on me.

I've never seen it, but the fact that (Moulin Rouge! ) made AFI's top 25 musicals list while Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver!, Oklahoma! and others never even made the cut bothers me.

AGREED! (I've never seen it either, although I own it.) It doesn't deserve to push something off of AFI's list.

======

Others of mine:

*SOME* Quentin Tarantino - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction. First of all, I'm not a big fan of the POV of the criminal, and the dialogue seems off (there ARE people who can communicate without using 15 cuss words to every 1 non-cuss word! )

*ALL* Woody Allen. About the only thing I can stand is Sleeper. We get it, he's a neurotic Jewish New Yorker!

The Dark Knight - it was good, but WALL*E was much better - my favorite of the year, and maybe more! Of course, I grew up with the 60s Batman on reruns, and I actually like Batman Forever (in a cheesy sort of way.)

Hostel, Haute Tension, Saw, and sequels - Torture Porn. Haute Tension was interesting the first time around.

Happy Feet - It devolved into a "global warming preach-fest" in the last half of the movie.

A Christmas Story - loved by both of my brothers, who are ~12 years older than I am. I figure this is loved by people who grew up in that era, or by people who were kids when the movie started airing on TV every year. The father is foul-mouthed, and the movie is all about the kid's greed. I much prefer movies about the "spirit of Christmas": Elf, Miracle on 34th Street, It's A Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Ernest Saves Christmas, and so on.

Disney - The Lion King. I don't DISLIKE it, in fact, I haven't seen it in a while, and it's probably due. I just don't think it's the greatest that Disney has put out, or even the greatest since the 90s.

Pixar - I like ALL Pixar films. That being said, Finding Nemo is the WORST of all Pixar films, probably followed fairly closely by Cars. The rest are grouped more towards the top.

Silence of the Lambs - not my cup of tea (but yet I watch cheesy horror...)

Star Wars prequels only - I grew up with the original Trilogy and love 'em!

Juno - I haven't seen it, but still...

Crash - ditto.

Any Rob Zombie film so far - House of 1000 Corpses and Halloween remake (I haven't seen The Devil's Rejects yet)

Brokeback Mountain - haven't seen it, don't plan to. It's not my thing, and I've heard that if it weren't for the "Groundbreaking Gay Romance" part, it would just be a forgettable romance movie. For that matter, I wouldn't like it as a modern cowboy movie, either.

[Flanger-Hanger]

I love Scareface: The Shame of a Nation (1932) it's one of the great old gangster films. The 1983 version? Forget it. I have no intention of watching it.

[Disney's Divinity]

Agreed on Brokeback Mountain. That was such a horrible movie. It presented itself well, but it's storyline was in no way "groundbreaking" for gay romance (especially the lovers were also adulterors...how can you honestly feel that sorry for them?).

I also agree about Batman Begins and Lilo & Stitch. The former was boring (which The Dark Knight greatly improved upon) and the latter was a bit stupid, imo.

Crash was also overrated though I still enjoyed it... Maybe it has to do with it being overly praised on Oprah.

[PatrickvD]

The Truman Show is incredibly overrated.

Perhaps its just me, but I find it terribly boring. It thinks its profound, full of biting social commentary. It thinks its clever by having metaphorical links to classic ancient Greek and Roman mythologies. It thinks its ho-ho funny by calling the "everyday man" Truman and his director (God if you like) Christoph (you know, like Christ?) but its not. And the actual logic of creating and filming such a show is pure fantasy.

And yet, EDtv which game out at a similar time, and was a much better take on the whole concept was slammed and ignored. This is a film which actually did have relevant commentary to make on TV at the time, about celebrity culture, about making ordinary people people celebrities simply by them being on TV, the consequences of such actions, and the Network TV's indifference to how they screw up people's lives simply to chase revenue and ratings... and the film actually had a proper ending too.

Truman sucks.

aaaaaaah my ears and eyes!

I thought EDtv was beating a dead horse actually. Especially now 10 years later, Truman holds up while EDtv has lost al relevance. Everyone knows television networks exploit people for ratings. It's old news.

But every year something more rediculous happens on tv that reminds me that the concept of the Truman Show was far from rediculous. From "The Momen of Truth" and "The Golden Cage" to a woman giving birth in the Big Brother house. Where does it end?

By leaving things open for interpretation, I found the Truman Show much more interesting than EDtv.

but this is the rant thread, so to each his own.

[SpringHeelJack]

especially the lovers were also adulterors...how can you honestly feel that sorry for them?

Seriously? Is this like, the 18th century? I mean, I know adultery is bad da da da da da, but if you're unable to sympathize with someone because they're doing something you disagree with, something's amiss. Fictional characters do stuff all the time I wouldn't do, and yet I can still sympathize with them. Look at Jean Valjean, Macbeth, Jay Gatsby, Hannibal Lecter, Gollum, Sam Spade, Batman, etc. I mean, if you're going to let that stand in the way, you're going to miss out on a lot.

[Thailog]

ET: The Extra Terrestrial
Napoleon Dynamite
Wall-E
Juno
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Superbad
Knocked Up
Batman 89
Batman Returns
Crash
Shakespeare in Love
X-Men 3
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire