This is what I was talking about. My initial reaction was to break the board rules and wish death on someone. I realized that was uncalled for though and asked him why he felt that way. It is just so surprising to me.
I don’t know if it’s a classic, exactly, but I rented Topkapi (1964) after I got back from a trip to Turkey and I thought it was awful: silly, predicable, overwrought, like the worst 10 minutes of nine random James Bond films strung together randomly. IMDB gives it 7.1 out of 10.
The Wicker Man is later than the OP’s parameters (1973), but I think it’s a classic that fails to live up to its hype. I really wanted to like it, but I didn’t find it especially creepy or evocative, and the music takes me right out of the story. I’m sure the remake will figure out a way to be worse.
I remember being vaguely disappointed by The Great Dictator, but that was 15 or 20 years ago – I’d have to see it again to make a judgment.
Now you’re talking. Pay attention and that’s one of the darkest movies you’ll see. Anything with Violet Bick reeks with small-town venality (trust me, I grew up there).
Oops. Quoting It’s a Wonderful Life made me forget to mention Vertigo. The plot is just too absurd; I don’t care how well it’s made.
As I said to my sister after watching it with her: “Hitchcock: his pace was as glacial as his blondes.”
I agree. Rear Window was Hitch’s masterpiece. Vertigo has its moments, but ultimately it fails to come together for me.
I agree with most of the movies mentioned so far. I do like Citizen Kane, but more for the technical aspects than the performances or storyline.
A couple do come to mind for me, though:
Cape Fear - both original and remake are just plain stupid
In Harm’s Way - This is a John Wayne/Kirk Douglas staple that I simply abhor…the SO loves the Duke however and this is one of his favorites. Grrrr
I haven’t seen Casablanca for a while (obviously, because I don’t like it . . . ) so I cannot exactly put my finger on it. Perhaps I am not sentimental enough: I never give a monkey’s what happens to Ilsa. Plus I seem to remember it looking strange - sequences which are far too quick, for example.
Surely I can’t be the only one in the world who doesn’t rank it among his favourite 67,000 films?
On the other hand, I do like some of the ones mentioned above such as Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Gone With the Wind. I am not a complete Philistine!
vibrotronica- thank you! I thought I was the only one who thinks Night of the Hunter is utter crap and that Out of the Past is prime Mitchum- even if after many watchings I still don’t understand some the plot. And I wish that the kid at the end would have told her that Mitchum WAS really coming back for her.
And I also agree Topkapi is one of the lamer heist movies, as is Grand Slam. Give me Rififi or The Killing anyday. And that Vertigo looks great, but if you think about it all, it really is kind of preposterous.
The reason I don’t like Casablanca is because, excepting The Diary of Anne Frank, no chick flick can include Nazis without insulting our intelligence.
How about a historically plausible plot: Major Strasser goes to Rick’s and sees Victor Laszlo. His men grab Victor and hustle him out to their HQ, where he’s tortured to death. Renault can’t do anything about it and knows it, and all Rick can do is piss in Strasser’s schnapps.
Same goes for Sound of Music. Those weren’t Nazis, for Christ’s sake. Those were Rogers & Hammerstein Nazis!
I’ve got to disagree with this and agree with the other that say It’s A Wonderful Life is dark. Probably one of the darker movies you’ll ever watch, and definitely not suitable for Christmas viewing–Christmas is depressing enough without it!
Always disliked Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Sappy manipulative crap where being good and being smart are apparantly mutually exclusive. I like Mel Gibson’s version better.
Chalk me up for not liking Casablanca either… it was boring and didn’t really engage me. Of course part of my problem is I watched it after seeing (and loving) Notorious and I couldn’t help comparing the two (the only common denominators being Claude Rains and Ingrid Bergman and mention of Nazis).
By the way, what does “it insists upon itself” mean, anyway?
OK. You’re entiltled to your opinion on The Graduate. I would certainly agree with you if you said it’s reputation has diminished over the years, and that it hasn’t aged particularly well. Read Roger Ebert’s two reviews of the movie, the first when it came out and the second more recently. Very illuminating.
But long? At 105 minutes? :dubious:
Return of the King was 201 minutes. Gone with the Wind was 222. THOSE are long movies.
I came in here to mention Citizen Kane. I should probably watch it again, having only seen it once, but I recall my reaction at the time being “Eh…”. I didn’t actively dislike it, but I didn’t get what all the hubub was about.
One thing that I have found interesting about this thread, is the reaction of many posters to negative comments concerning Casablanca. There are a lot of well-loved movies mentioned in this thread: The Graduate, Gone With the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life, et al. Nobody seems to blink an eye that there are prople that dislike these films. But someone comes along and disses Casablanca, well, those are fightin’ words!
Not that I necessarily disagree…after all, Casablanca is the Greatest Movie Of All Time[sup]TM[/sup]… just an observation.
True, I meant long-winded
“If you see only ONE Rains/Bergman picture with Nazis this summer, be sure it’s…”
I used to be a big fan of Roger Ebert’s reviews, and bought a few editions of his books in the 80s. An appendix mentioned the 1982 decennial Sight and Sound movie poll of the world’s film critics, and listed its 10 (well, 11 including ties) best movies. I decided I’d try to see them. At that time, the films were:
- Citizen Kane (Welles) - love it
- La Règle du jeu (Renoir) - didn’t see what was so special
- Seven Samurai (Kurosawa) - College friends (from Boston and NYC) and I were watching this to while away the early, less interesting parts of game 6 of the 1986 World Series. When we heard screams erupt from the other dorms, we had a choice of switching over to find out what was up, or popping in the second tape. We uanimously decided to finish the movie. It’s that good.
- Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly, Donen) - loved it
- 8 1/2 (Fellini) - loved it
- Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein) - The Odessa Steps sequence is still gripping, 90 years later, and the rest is… so not.
- L’avventura (Antonioni) - Absolutely freaking HATED this pretentious, glacial, pointless piece of crap.
- The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles) - Not bad. Especially when you find out what a technical nightmare it was to make this film, mostly due to extremely poor choices by an ignorant Welles about sound. Many scenes are dubbed as a result.
- Vertigo (Hitchcock) - Loves me some Hitchcock, AND some Kim Novak, but give me Psycho or The Birds any day.
- The General (Keaton) - Love silent comedies in general, and have seen some great Keaton. This isn’t one of them.
- The Searchers (Ford) - didn’t see it.
FTR, the current top ten list from 2002 (from critics AND filmmakers, who were added in 1992, harkening back to the original survey of directors in 1952 tha inspired the Sight and Sound list), can be found here (critics) and here (directors)
I’m surprised that hasn’t been mentioned before. I loved it, but a lot of people hate musicals, and would certainly not care for a 20-minute song and dance sequence that actually does nothing to advance the plot of the movie.
“I make more money than Calvin Coolidge. Put together!”