94 replies to this topic

[Loomis]

Most people seem to like MILLION DOLLAR BABY, SIN CITY and the SPIDER-MAN films. I don't.

[spynovelfan]

That Buffalo Bill character is the only scary thing in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Hopkins was about as frightening as the Moomintroll character Stinky:

[Jim]

Jaws. Never liked it. Never quite got it, I suppose. Perhaps I lack the patience, but it does seem hugely padded out. Bit dull, frankly.

Every version of King Kong I've seen (three). Guess it's just not for me. Perhaps I should have realised that after the first one.

Anything directed by Abel Ferrara. I have never seen a film I liked by Abel Ferrara. I have seen four. Perhaps there's a good one out there but I'm not particularly bothered about searching for it.

The English Patient. How did we fall for this...this...this pus?

[Loomis]

Anything directed by Abel Ferrara. I have never seen a film I liked by Abel Ferrara. I have seen four. Perhaps there's a good one out there but I'm not particularly bothered about searching for it.

I'm no expert on the man, but I gather his films are not supposed to be liked. They're supposed to be admired ( ), which I guess puts him in the same category as, say, Cronenberg and Scorsese. Very Important, but not much fun.

[Tarl_Cabot]

1. Days Of Thunder: A two hour beer comercial with an extremely obnoxious, self undulgant star...took me 15 years to get over it. Now, I hate to admit it but I own two Tom Cruise films(Collateral and War of the Worlds).Don't tell anyone.Please.


2. Minority Report: A vapid eye sore of a film.No really interesting ideas to bounce off us... "pre-cogs" have to be the most ridiculous charcaters ever.

3.Die Another Day. This my Phantom Menace.

4.Chicago. I live here and I still hate it.

5.A Beautiful Mind.Another extremely annoying Oscar winner that we'll all forget in 3 years.

6.Shrek: Not funny. No original humour. None. It takes little imagination to reference The Matrix and Saturday Night Live. Mike Myers can be a comedic genius in the same way George Lucas can be a great storyteller.Didn't bother with Shrek 2.

7.Arthur 2. Yeah, I really wanted Arthur to get off the booze...How to take a crap on one of the best comedies ever? See Arthur 2. Thank god he didn't do "11".

8.Anything Tim Burton has ever done.

9. Any Given Sunday.Worst film ever in most obnoxious genre we have: The American sports movie.

10. U-turn.He should have retired after wallstreet.

[TortillaFactory]

Meet the Parents - All my friends thought it was funny. Ha ha, look! Ben Stiller in a Speedo. Most of the humour is just painful mishaps, unfunny in the extreme. It just feels like you, personally, are being dragged through all of them. Owen Wilson was hilarious for a moment, which was a brief respite from the plodding frustration.

Citizen Kane - I'm sure it was revolutionary when it was made. This doesn't make it suck any less. There is nothing I despise more than avant-garde for the sake of avant-garde, and Citizen Kane defines this. Nobody has anything to say, they're just mucking about because they can.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Very, very poor attempt to repeat the glory of Much Ado About Nothing. Same story - all-star cast, much of it American, et cetera, et cetera. Rupert Everett is sweet as Oberon, but he's the only bright spot in this whole mess. Kevin Kline, whom I love, is wasted as Bottom. Calista Flockhart is pained, and keeps looking as if she might snap in half. Everybody delivers the lines like they have no idea what they're saying - which we don't, either, but that's the problem. With the exception (naturally) of Keanu Reeves, everybody in Much Ado seemed to know exactly what each convoluted line actually meant, and their inflection clued the audience in. This is a complete disaster, and it has 7/10 on IMDB.

[Loomis]

1. Days Of Thunder: A two hour beer comercial with an extremely obnoxious, self undulgant star...took me 15 years to get over it. Now, I hate to admit it but I own two Tom Cruise films(Collateral and War of the Worlds).Don't tell anyone.Please.


2. Minority Report: A vapid eye sore of a film.No really interesting ideas to bounce off us... "pre-cogs" have to be the most ridiculous charcaters ever.

3.Die Another Day. This my Phantom Menace.

4.Chicago. I live here and I still hate it.

5.A Beautiful Mind.Another extremely annoying Oscar winner that we'll all forget in 3 years.

6.Shrek: Not funny. No original humour. None. It takes little imagination to reference The Matrix and Saturday Night Live. Mike Myers can be a comedic genius in the same way George Lucas can be a great storyteller.Didn't bother with Shrek 2.

7.Arthur 2. Yeah, I really wanted Arthur to get off the booze...How to take a crap on one of the best comedies ever? See Arthur 2. Thank god he didn't do "11".

8.Anything Tim Burton has ever done.

9. Any Given Sunday.Worst film ever in most obnoxious genre we have: The American sports movie.

10. U-turn.He should have retired after wallstreet.

I like DIE ANOTHER DAY, A BEAUTIFUL MIND and ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (a realistic look at American football, for all I know - BTW, off-topic, and, yes, I know he's a basketball star, but it's all the same thing , but here in the UK everyone is suddenly finding out who Dennis Rodman is, thanks to his currently being in "Celebrity Big Brother"), but apart from that I agree with you 100%, Tarl.

ARTHUR is terrific, and 10 a superb film.

[Tarl_Cabot]

Meet the Parents - All my friends thought it was funny.  Ha ha, look!  Ben Stiller in a Speedo.  Most of the humour is just painful mishaps, unfunny in the extreme.  It just feels like you, personally, are being dragged through all of them.  Owen Wilson was hilarious for a moment, which was a brief respite from the plodding frustration.

Citizen Kane - I'm sure it was revolutionary when it was made.  This doesn't make it suck any less.  There is nothing I despise more than avant-garde for the sake of avant-garde, and Citizen Kane defines this.  Nobody has anything to say, they're just mucking about because they can.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Very, very poor attempt to repeat the glory of Much Ado About Nothing.  Same story - all-star cast, much of it American, et cetera, et cetera.  Rupert Everett is sweet as Oberon, but he's the only bright spot in this whole mess.  Kevin Kline, whom I love, is wasted as Bottom.  Calista Flockhart is pained, and keeps looking as if she might snap in half.  Everybody delivers the lines like they have no idea what they're saying - which  we don't, either, but that's the problem.  With the exception (naturally) of Keanu Reeves, everybody in Much Ado seemed to know exactly what each convoluted line actually meant, and their inflection clued the audience in.  This is a complete disaster, and it has 7/10 on IMDB.

When my film professor said "La Dolche Vita" was his favorite film I knew he was a tosser. That's the ultimate avant-garde for the sake of avant-garde film.

I love Much ado about Nothing and Henry V. Too bad Branagh never lived up to that potential again. I thought he was gonna be the next "Orsen Welles", if you don't mind me saying that.

[stromberg]

Harry Potter - gave it a try when the first one was on TV, wanted to see if it was worth the fuss people were making about it. Was willing to give it a chance, but had to give up after 40 minutes.

Charlie's Angels - Caught it on TV when there was absolutely nothing else and I was to lazy to pick a DVD to put on. Made it twenty minutes into this complete annoyance. Decided to watch DAD instead (was the first DVD I could grab). Advice for people who don't like DAD: force yourself to 15 or 20 minutes of Charlie's Angels and you'll find DAD to be an enjoyable movie.

The Jackal - What is the point of this movie? The original version was near perfect and as close to the novel as possible. Horribly miscast (Gere and Willis - the last persons one may think of when reading the book) and evrything completely overdone, in order to make this a star-studded Hollywood action blockbuster instead of a decent thriller. Of course I had to watch it - I have a thing for train-wrecks. At least, it was a good excuse to get drunk.

[Hitch]

By God, that last sentence is pure genius.

[Tarl_Cabot]

More bitching:

1.Silence of the Lambs: Don't understand the fascination with horrifically violent movies.

2. Good Fellas. See above.

3.All of the other Martin Scorcese movies. "Very Important, but not much fun"-that's perfect Loomis; the worst has to be "The age of innocence". And I hate how movie stars worship him.It's just gross. I was overjoyed when he didn't win the Oscar last year.

[00-FAN008]

Dwelling on the bad is an evil thing to do, but I'll do it anyway; what the hell.

Double Take
Godzilla
Garfield (minus JL-H)
The Royal Tennenbaums
Kill Bill Volume One
Pulp Fiction

I know a lot of you consider Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill good films, but I just did not "get" them. I don't think they suck, but they are truly bizzare and Quentin Tarantino is a scary, scary man.

[Loomis]

More bitching:

1.Silence of the Lambs: Don't understand the fascination with horrifically violent movies.

2. Good Fellas. See above.

3.All of the other Martin Scorcese movies. "Very Important, but not much fun"-that's perfect Loomis; the worst has to be "The age of innocence". And I hate how movie stars worship him.It's just gross. I was overjoyed when he didn't win the Oscar last year.

Is SILENCE horrifically violent, though? Granted, the subject matter is very dark (and the film is basically ridiculous, although I find it so well-made as to succeed in papering over its own absurdity), but it's hardly a graphic gorefest. Watching it again the other day, I thought it was quite an old-fashioned film (in a good way).

As for Scorsese, I never saw THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, but I find GANGS OF NEW YORK unwatchable (now there's something I think horrifically - and gratuitously - violent), and dislike most of his other works.

However, GOODFELLAS is excellent, and CASINO (while horribly overlong) may be even better. On the whole, though, he's deeply dull and silly, and preposterously overrated.

BTW, the best film about serial killers, and a better film than anything I've seen of Scorsese's, as well as quite possibly one of the best films I've ever seen, is HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Very bloody, harrowing and disturbing, of course, but then it needs to be. MONSTER is also very good.

[00-FAN008]

More bitching:

1.Silence of the Lambs: Don't understand the fascination with horrifically violent movies.

2. Good Fellas. See above.

3.All of the other Martin Scorcese movies. "Very Important, but not much fun"-that's perfect Loomis; the worst has to be "The age of innocence". And I hate how movie stars worship him.It's just gross. I was overjoyed when he didn't win the Oscar last year.

Is SILENCE horrifically violent, though? Granted, the subject matter is very dark (and the film is basically ridiculous, although I find it so well-made as to succeed in papering over its own absurdity), but it's hardly a graphic gorefest. Watching it again the other day, I thought it was quite an old-fashioned film (in a good way).

Silence of the Lambs is pretty mild compared to today's standards. Graphic, yes... but it's also got more depth than your average gorefest. If it was your average film they would have made Lecter the villain, and it would have been about him eating people. In Silence they made him a key character in helping the police track the real killer, and despite being locked up for most of the movie, he was still pretty scary. IMO, that's good psychological horror that deserves it's credit.

[Harmsway]

More bitching:

1.Silence of the Lambs: Don't understand the fascination with horrifically violent movies.

Is SILENCE horrifically violent, though? Granted, the subject matter is very dark (and the film is basically ridiculous, although I find it so well-made as to succeed in papering over its own absurdity), but it's hardly a graphic gorefest. Watching it again the other day, I thought it was quite an old-fashioned film (in a good way).

Yeah, it's not that violent, IMO. And one of the best thrillers ever made, as well.

[Mr Malcolm]

I know a lot of you consider Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill good films, but I just did not "get" them. I don't think they suck, but they are truly bizzare and Quentin Tarantino is a scary, scary man.

As a fan of both these, what can I say? I'm just a sick, sick puppy!

That said, I'm no fan of Reservoir Dogs, which I just didn't get at the time. Maybe I was too young for it then. I'll have to give it another bash sometime.

As for the absolute worst film I've ever seen, it's not too well known, but I'll pop it in anyway in case anyone else has been scarred by this travesty. It's called Dutch (or Driving Me Crazy in Britain, I believe), and was written by John Hughes (I think anyway; I've no wish to revisit it to find out). Basically, it's a heartwarming family comedy (which should instantly be suspect) about a particularly repugnant rich brat at a boarding school who hates his mum for getting a divorce and (no!) getting a working class boyfriend. Said boyfriend (who's supposed to be wacky and full of life, but is actually a seriously bloody annoying gimp) offers to go and pick Brat up from school and bring him home over the holidays. Naturally, wacky hijinks follow. Such as:

- Gimp does various moronic unfunny things to amuse Brat, like setting fire to box of fireworks and flashing nude playing cards at him. Brat is unamused.
- Brat gets annoyed and dumps lit cigarette end on Gimp's crotch while he's driving.
- Gimp gets really annoyed and dumps Brat on the side of the road, leaving him to walk into the town they're approaching.
- Brat gets really really annoyed and nicks Gimp's car and drives it into the middle of the road to get crushed by oncoming truck. Nearly getting himself killed in the process. I really am not making this up!
- Repeat for about two hours, while Mr Malcolm writhes like Bond in a wicker chair. I need scarcely point out that all is made up in the end, and Gimp, Brat and Mum live happily ever after.

I saw this while on a bus in Mexico. Unfortunately, it was in English with Spanish subtitles, and turned up loud so I couldn't ignore it. Or leave the room. It was a very painful experience, and although it's neither good or well known enough to really be considered overrated, I submit it as a warning to all of you for your own sakes. Please don't let yourself be subjected to the pain I was!

Edited by Mr Malcolm, 23 January 2006 - 06:36 PM.

[Harmsway]

Films I really dislike:

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE - Sappy dross that I can't stand.

BOONDOCK SAINTS - Doesn't do anything for me. I felt like it was 2 hours of utterly pointless shootings and story without any real conclusion or point.

THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE - Took one of the greats of children's fiction all about atmosphere and added so many Hollywood cliches. Mix in some bad child actors, some cheap atmosphere, bad make-up jobs, and some laughable fight scenes and you'll see where this leads ya.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY - Considered one of the great, "gritty" entries in the Bond canon, but I think it's pretty darn boring. And that Bill Conti score is so horrendously awful that it's hard to get over.

AMERICAN BEAUTY - I find nothing about this movie interesting or appealing.

[Tarl_Cabot]

More bitching:

1.Silence of the Lambs: Don't understand the fascination with horrifically violent movies.

Is SILENCE horrifically violent, though? Granted, the subject matter is very dark (and the film is basically ridiculous, although I find it so well-made as to succeed in papering over its own absurdity), but it's hardly a graphic gorefest. Watching it again the other day, I thought it was quite an old-fashioned film (in a good way).

Yeah, it's not that violent, IMO. And one of the best thrillers ever made, as well.

It's not violent in a bloody, high body count sort of way but the film is too grim for my tastes.

[Tarl_Cabot]

I must, MUST resurrect this thread.

Gone With the Wind - I am sure the book is much better.  Unfortunately it's five inches thick and the typeface is a millimeter high, so I haven't gotten around to cracking the spine yet.  The film is utter tripe - hailed as a classic because it's old and they burned a bunch of stuff to make it.  Main characters are gratingly OTT and spend a great deal of time sweeping around in stiff clothing and wailing at each other.  Goes on about twice as long as it needs to.

Forrest Gump - Approximately ten hours long, and I believe I cracked a smile once.  I think it was something about shrimp.  Unforgivably simplistic, gimmicky, syrupy.  Tom Hanks is pretty good, but that doesn't quite save it.

Buffalo Soldiers - Relentlessly unfunny dark comedy about war, or the lack thereof.  Shame on you, Joaquin Phoenix.  Anna Paquin could not act her way out of an open Rubbermaid container.

Road to Perdition - Vague, rain-soaked gangster movie with a woefully miscast Tom Hanks and a little boy attempting valiantly to change facial expressions as his son.  Lots of people are shot, but I couldn't force myself to care.

Tombstone - Makes little or no sense if you don't already understand the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which I don't.  Lots of men in mustaches gallop around and stare meaningfully at each other.  Val Kilmer is all right as Doc Holliday, but most of his dialogue appears to have been swept up from the Indiana Jones cutting room floor.  When he gets weirdly sentimental at the end, it is meaningless and unsettling.  Had to watch this for a screenwriting class, and I haven't quite forgiven the teacher yet.

The Tailor of Panama - Got to add my vote to Jim's on this one.  Brosnan is oddly unappealing, Jamie Lee Curtis' dialogue is just strange (Le Carre's fault, probably), and Geoff really should stick to parts where his Long John Silver voice doesn't seem out of place.  He was great as Barbossa in POTC, and he was fine as the Marquis de Sade in Quills.  He is not great as a tailor in Panama.  Whole thing feels like an early 90s made-for-T.V. movie, and nothing's improved by tacking on an artifically upbeat ending.  I'm a fan of Le Carre, but I never did make it through this particular book.

Brother Bear - Not charming, not funny, and amazingly heavy-handed.  Even for Disney.

My deepest apologies to anybody who enjoyed these.  You're wrong. 

Tombstone???? That's one of the best westerns ever!! It's a classic!

btw, look at the real Doc Holiday: he looks exactly like Pierce Brosnan

Attached Files

•  DOC.jpg   9.55KB   15 downloads

[Tarl_Cabot]

More bitching:

1.Silence of the Lambs: Don't understand the fascination with horrifically violent movies.

2. Good Fellas. See above.

3.All of the other Martin Scorcese movies. "Very Important, but not much fun"-that's perfect Loomis; the worst has to be "The age of innocence". And I hate how movie stars worship him.It's just gross. I was overjoyed when he didn't win the Oscar last year.

and more:

1. Terminator 2: The liquid metal shape shifter thing was too fantastic. I love the first one because of Cameron's ingenuity, working with limited $7M budget.I also HATED the fact that they turned one of the greatest movie villians ever into the good guy.

2.Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade: I hate this movie. I hate the family drama crap(would you wanna see Bond arguing with his father?). I hate the fake looking sets, cookie cutter story and the weak score.And I hate that Indiana's collegue was reduced to an incompetent tourist for a cheap laugh.I waited eagerly for 5 years for this dud.

3.Ghost: Patrick Swayze...

[Harmsway]

1. Terminator 2: The liquid metal shape shifter thing was too fantastic. I love the first one because of Cameron's ingenuity, working with limited $7M budget.I also HATED the fact that they turned one of the greatest movie villians ever into the good guy.

Awww... you hate T2? IMO, that's one of the greatest action flicks ever made. Making the Terminator the hero figure was one of the best sequel twists they could have done. And I dunno that the shape shifter thing is too fantastic for a movie about machines traveling back in time...

[Bon-san]

I didn't fancy "Napoleon Dynamite". It left me cold. My wife liked it a bit. But for me, just not funny. Perhaps if I'd seen it before the mass hysterical hype about how wonderful it was, I might have thought it MILDLY amusing. But I doubt it.

Also loathed:

"Jerry Maguire" and "Born on The Fourth of July". The memory of each gets more bitter with time, perhaps due to my increasing distaste for Tom Cruise. I remember sort of liking "Jerry Maguire" on first release, but I saw it with a lovely girl, with whom I was in the early stages of courting, so that probably colored my perceptions. I disliked "Born on the Fourth of July" immediately, both for Cruise's annoying over-acting, and Stone's heavy-handed script/direction.

Which reminds me, I rather dislike Rain Main, too.

[Genrewriter]

High Tension: I have no problem with gory horror films or films with twist endings but I generally like said twist to actually make at least a little bit of sense. Good lord, the last ten minutes shoot the first eighty all to hell.

Forrest Gump: I honestly don't hate this one, Hanks and Snise are fine and the Vietnam sequence has some strong moments but the rest of the film is just a chore to get through. Cut it by twenty minutes or so and make the entire movie about the Gary Snise character and I might like it a bit more. Plus, Sally Field in anything past around 1979 irritates me to an unbearable degree.

Ghosts of Mars: I love the films of John Carpenter but this was just plain awful.

[Qwerty]

Vanilla Sky - not so much of a film I completely do not like as a disappointment. I'm definitely not a big fan of Tom Cruise (although I think his performance in Magnolia is excellent), but I decided to try this suspense drama.

It jumps around and the first thirty or so minutes are probably the most enjoyable part of the movie. Difficult to watch from start to finish. Cameron Diaz is good however.

[TortillaFactory]

Squirm - Don't understand why this is taken as a serious horror film. All the characters are unlikable in the extreme, the worms are ridiculous, and the mother is lifted straight out The Glass Menagerie, minus the charm. "YOU'RE GONNA BE THE WORM FACE!!!!" Does everyone in a horror film NEED to have a psychotically retarded brother/gardener/caretaker? Or, to quote MST3K in The Screaming Skull, "hasn't anybody wised up to hiring people like that?"

O - Silly, self-important rehash of an already dodgy (sorry, Shakespeare) tale. Josh Harnett is awful, and I even liked him in 40 Days and 40 Nights. Much ado is made of "Oden"'s race, even though it never seriously comes into play - as one who doesn't buy that Othello was ever meant to be about race relations anyway, I found O somewhat simplistic and insulting. Shakespeare can't be updated simply because it only works in the context of a time long ago in a place far away...otherwise, we'd never buy it. Because it is - sorry, Shakespeare - kinda ridiculous. It's great if it's done right. O is utter, utter crap.

[TortillaFactory]

Harry Potter - gave it a try when the first one was on TV, wanted to see if it was worth the fuss people were making about it. Was willing to give it a chance, but had to give up after 40 minutes.

The first one? I've never been able to suffer all the way through it, it is pretty awful. The second isn't much better, but the third is FANTASTIC...still haven't been to 4, but I'm working on it.

The books are delightful.

[Johnboy007]

Cruel Intentions 2

God.

[Turn]

A couple that people mentioned I agree with are Million Dollar Baby and Silence of the Lambs, two of the most overpraised films of the last 15 years.

MDB is filled with cliches and characters I've seen dozens of times in other films and offer nothing fresh. Notice how broadly everybody is painted. The main three characters and the slow guy are the loveable and can do no wrong while everybody else is bad or a jerk in some way. The last half hour may be topical, but it's not enough to save the film, because I couldn't find myself caring about the main characters.

Silence of the Lambs is okay and it features a great performance by Hopkins. Beyond that, it just doesn't do that much for me. Lecter overwhelms the film and I find myself caring less about what happens with the kidnapped girl or Starling or the the prancing villain and hope Lecter will show up, say something pithy and cause mayhem in a creative way.

Spider-Man 2 is another film I wasn't bowled over by. It followed a pattern of Peter Parker moping and pining for Mary Jane, a fight with Doc Oc and repeat.

I do, however, like a lot of the Tom Cruise films a lot of you don't. He may not be everybody's favorite, but you have to admit the man has gone to great lengths to work with talented directors and picked a variety of rules rather than just sticking to safe formula films all the time.

[mccartney007]

btw, look at the real Doc Holiday: he looks exactly like Pierce Brosnan

I have yet to see how everyone thinks they look alike.

[ACE]

OK, movies I think are REALLY over-rated:

Shane
Bullit
A Clockwork Orange
As Good As It Gets

OK, movies I really like:

Kelly's Heroes
The Avengers
The Phantom Grimace
Attack Of The Clowns

Go figure...

BTW, Thunderball and YOLT are the most over-rated Bonds.

Anyone here LOVE Gattaca? Me too!