# Dumbest reasons to dislike a movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 11, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041 "2009-05-11T15:59:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/61 "2009-05-11T22:52:00Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > I knew someone who hated _The English Patient_ but it “glorified adultery.” I always thought that was pretty stupid. That’s what I heard, and one of the reasons I haven’t seen it. That, and it looks longwinded and slow. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/62 "2009-05-11T22:53:52Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I know this is a TV show, but I can’t stand it when people say, "I don’t want to watch Battlestar Galactica. I don’t like SciFi. " > > :mad: I don’t get it. Is BG not considered SciFi, or do you just not like people who dismiss an entire genre? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/63 "2009-05-11T23:02:28Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I don’t get it. Is BG not considered SciFi, or do you just not like people who dismiss an entire genre? I took **Mahaloth** to be vexed by people who dismiss a show sight unseen based only on the genre rather than its merits. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/64 "2009-05-11T23:04:32Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I don’t get it. Is BG not considered SciFi, or do you just not like people who dismiss an entire genre? I can’t speak for **Mahaloth** , but to me, that’s like saying “I don’t want to watch _The Godfather_, I don’t like period films.” There is so. much. more. to it than that. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/65 "2009-05-11T23:13:19Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I respectfully disagree. This is a very common argument so I won’t hijack any further but I can’t help but offer that I find this attitude particularly “pretentious”. Sometimes a movie just doesn’t appeal to an individual. Sometimes it just plain sucks (in someone’s opinion) regardless of what the critics and hipsters are saying. No need to be insulting; everyone’s mileage tends to vary. This is true. But it is also not what **Knorf** is talking about. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/66 "2009-05-11T23:13:20Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > I can’t speak for **Mahaloth** , but to me, that’s like saying “I don’t want to watch _The Godfather_, I don’t like period films.” > > There is so. much. more. to it than that. Oh, I dunno. At least in my case, when I tell you “I don’t like romantic comedies”, I really mean, “I don’t like the vast majority of romantic comedies - I recognize the utter brilliance of _Gross Pointe Blank_, but please do not expect me to spend two hours of my life on something unlikely to entertain me when I can be watching _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ instead.” I don’t consider this abbreviation unreasonable. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/67 "2009-05-11T23:28:29Z")
> [@runcible\_spoon](#): > > Oh, I dunno. At least in my case, when I tell you “I don’t like romantic comedies”, I really mean, “I don’t like the vast majority of romantic comedies - I recognize the utter brilliance of _Gross Pointe Blank_, but please do not expect me to spend two hours of my life on something unlikely to entertain me when I can be watching _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ instead.” I don’t consider this abbreviation unreasonable. But in that example, you’re not ruling out any specific _widely critically acclaimed_ and (relatively speaking) _immensely popular_ title because of your predisposition. If you had said you wouldn’t watch _Grosse Pointe Blank_ because you don’t like romantic comedies, I’d feel just as sorry for you as I would for someone who won’t watch _Battlestar_ because they don’t like science fiction, and for the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/68 "2009-05-11T23:39:45Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > Mr. brown will start watching a movie with me, but will instantly away in disgust if there is featured an actress who is: > > 1. Old; > 2. Overweight; and/or > 3. Homely. Every now and then I’ll read something that reminds me, as if I ever needed reminding, which I don’t, just how much I love my husband, and what a wonderful, kind, decent, thoughtful, open-minded and loving man he is, and how lucky I am. Thank you for being the latest to give me that reminder. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/69 "2009-05-11T23:54:24Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > But in that example, you’re not ruling out any specific _widely critically acclaimed_ and (relatively speaking) _immensely popular_ title because of your predisposition. > > If you had said you wouldn’t watch _Grosse Pointe Blank_ because you don’t like romantic comedies, I’d feel just as sorry for you as I would for someone who won’t watch _Battlestar_ because they don’t like science fiction, and for the same reason. Well, fair enough. Since I don’t watch romantic comedies, I can’t think of any widely critically acclaimed examples, but I’d still be damn reluctant to watch them. I’ll agree that a unequivocal ruling-out of a genre is silly, however. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/70 "2009-05-11T23:57:40Z")
> [@Sir\_Rhosis](#): > > A guy I served with in the marines back in the early 80s decided that he could no longer watch the John Wayne westerns written by Leigh Brackett when I told him Leigh was a she and not a he. > > Likewise, off topic, he had given up on the SF of Andre Norton when he discovered that “he” was really Alice. > > Sir Rhosis Why would Alice Norton write as a man? You’d think that for every fan like your friend she would lose she’d gain three from fanboy lust alone. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/71 "2009-05-12T00:06:53Z")
Not really intended as an attack on Lissener, but I have to find his reason for hating Schindler’s List to be stupid. He doesn’t like it because the movie isn’t a 3 hour hatefest of Germans, and instead has people who do good things–i.e. it’s not the movie he would make. But just from the title, you know it’s a movie about an individual. You might as well complain that a movie about Jimmy Carter is hateful because it focuses on all the things he did to win a Peace Prize rather than focusing on why life sucks in Haiti. Or hating Zorro because it does anything other than present itself as a documentary on the hardship of Mexicans in Southern California previous to joining the US. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/72 "2009-05-12T00:21:39Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Why would Alice Norton write as a man? You’d think that for every fan like your friend she would lose she’d gain three from fanboy lust alone. [According to her Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Norton), which I use as a cite mainly because I haven’t met my hypocrisy & laziness quotients today, she was active in her writing starting in '34. The world was different then; I can easily imagine her getting sent to the women’s lit ghetto at such a time. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/73 "2009-05-12T01:11:03Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Any examples? There was a thread a while back where someone said that having an actor with a diacritical mark in their name ruined any movie they were in. I think that’s a stupid reason to dislike a movie. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/74 "2009-05-12T03:43:00Z")
Lots of people here won’t go to movies by or starring certain people because they disapprove of some aspect of their personal lives, e.g., Woody Allen for his alleged behavior toward Soon-yi and/or Mia Farrow; Tom Cruise or John Travolta, because of their religion. I have no idea about, and less interest in, what happened in the Allen/Farrow household 20 years ago, and knowing that someone sincerely buys the the tenets of Scientology (or any other religion, for that matter) certainly does nothing to raise their reputation in my eyes. But a person’s personal life, whether I approve or not, has no bearing on his or her professional talents. I don’t change my opinion about their ability because of their private behavior or beliefs. If they’re in a movie I’m interested in seeing, I’ll go and see it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/75 "2009-05-12T04:00:14Z")
Following up on **commasense** ’s post, I have a friend, diehard Republican, who has a number of liberal actors on his Shit List, and has a strong aversion to watching any movie in which they star. Me, short of being a member of the American Nazi Party I leave that stuff at the door of the theatre (thus if I dislike what Mel Gibson has done lately it isn’t because of his politics). ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/76 "2009-05-12T04:01:04Z")
> [@DudleyGarrett](#): > > A reason for me: If Ben Affleck is in it, the movie is shit. Weirdly, I cannot stand Michael Caine. Your mileage may vary. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/77 "2009-05-12T04:02:04Z")
I resolved a long time ago not to see any Roman Polanski films until he’s dead, and I’m sticking to it. More than anything it’s because I’m afraid they’ll be brilliant, and it’ll be easier for me to accept that if he’s a historical figure than if he’s a guy living it up in France potentially anally violating little girls. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/78 "2009-05-12T04:15:14Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > I can’t speak for **Mahaloth** , but to me, that’s like saying “I don’t want to watch _The Godfather_, I don’t like period films.” > > There is so. much. more. to it than that. I didn’t like _Godfather_ because it insisted on itself. More seriously, I don’t care for films that glorify criminals and regardless of the tragic way Michael was pulled into the family business, he sure indulged himself once he got there. As an afterthought, I won’t pay to see any Jane Fonda films. Since she makes so few of them nowadays, that’s not really a major statement. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/79 "2009-05-12T04:25:18Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > There was a thread a while back where someone said that having an actor with a diacritical mark in their name ruined any movie they were in. I think that’s a stupid reason to dislike a movie. If I’m remembering that correctly, they were taking that as a sign that the movie would be sub-par, not a reason to dislike the movie itself. Actually, quite similar to the whole genre-thing - there is, in my mind, a rather large difference between something being a cause of scorn and just a red flag. As another example, [movies produced by the Sci Fi channel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sci_Fi_Pictures_original_films) are covered in red flags to me - generally speaking, I wouldn’t hesitate to say, “I dislike Sci Fi channel movies”, even though i haven’t seen them all (or many, thank god) and can’t rule out the existence of a hidden gem or two. ---
**Author:** ![Reepicheep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@Reepicheep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reepicheep)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041/80 "2009-05-12T05:47:28Z")
OK this is not a movie but a TV show. I hate _Walker, Texas Ranger_, not because it’s a bad show (which it may be, I’ve only seen two episodes). I hate it because they canceled Raven, and put WTR in the timeslot. I liked Raven. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dumbest-reasons-to-dislike-a-movie/496041.md?page=5)