Clones or evil Doubles.
Always a bad idea. Just…Just bad.
Of course there are exceptions but man…
Ghost stories. There are no ghosts and even if there were, they don’t do anything dramatic or worth filming.
Examples: Don’t look now, asian ghost stories, ad infinitum.
Fun Exception: Topper?
Err… are you talking about some sort of ghost “documentary”? Because there certainly are fictional ghosts as much as fictional everything-else-under-the-sun, and they can do whatever the hell the filmmaker wants them to do. That’s such a ridiculous criticism.
Smid
February 2, 2016, 1:38pm
45
DaphneBlack:
I mean, I hate gangster movies (all of them!) but everyone else seems to love them.
And I like vampire movies, but I feel they might qualify for this thread.
Last lovers left alive. Daywalkers. Stakeland, break these rules.
What we do in the shadows is a fun exception.
But it probably held true until five years ago.
Smid
February 2, 2016, 1:41pm
46
msmith537:
Genre: Biblical apocalypse / Book of Revelations films
Critically Acclaimed Exception: The Leftovers (HBO series)
Consider Rapture-palooza , it’s definitely a bit of a giggle…
If anyone wants to watch any of these excellent movies, the titles are:
Only Lovers Left Alive
I think Stake Land is the best of the three, but they’re all very good.
EDIT: Also, don’t forget Let the Right One In. And finally, Byzantium tried, but didn’t really work for me.
Malthus
February 2, 2016, 2:09pm
48
High school based teenage comedy. Most are worthless; there are notable exceptions though. For example: Heathers .
EllisDee:
If anyone wants to watch any of these excellent movies, the titles are:
Only Lovers Left Alive
I think Stake Land is the best of the three, but they’re all very good.
EDIT: Also, don’t forget Let the Right One In. And finally, Byzantium tried, but didn’t really work for me.
Worked for me.
Also What we Do In The Shadows, The Hunger…
The Breakfast Club? Clueless? Or to go in a more critically acclaimed direction, Election?
There are a LOT of high school based teenage comedies.
Lumpy:
I’ve gotten pretty tired of police dramas that hew to this formulaic script:
Detective So-and-So is an overworked, under-appreciated member of the Big City Police Department. His/her personal life is a train wreck and they’re approaching burn out, which they deal with by excessive drinking and/or meaningless hookups, when not crashing in their tiny squalid big city apartment.
The Detective is assigned a seemingly routine case involving some dead lowlife nobody would ever miss. But the Detective can’t shake a nagging feeling that some tiny clue just doesn’t add up. The more they dig, the more it turns out that the lowlife’s death was just the tip of the iceberg, and moreover important and dangerous people want the case dropped.
The Detective pursues the case with increasing risk to his/her career and/or life, their only ally their partner (who has at least a 50% chance of getting killed as a result) and either their estranged ex or someone new they’re falling for. The conspiracy reaches even into the Department itself, and the Detective has to survive a betrayal or ambush by one of their own. They persevere until the bad guys are exposed, justice is done, they reconcile with their ex or form a new relationship, and they realize their job is worthwhile after all. The End.
Yeah, I’ve seen that one.
Lumpy:
I’ve gotten pretty tired of police dramas that hew to this formulaic script:
Detective So-and-So is an overworked, under-appreciated member of the Big City Police Department. His/her personal life is a train wreck and they’re approaching burn out, which they deal with by excessive drinking and/or meaningless hookups, when not crashing in their tiny squalid big city apartment.
The Detective is assigned a seemingly routine case involving some dead lowlife nobody would ever miss. But the Detective can’t shake a nagging feeling that some tiny clue just doesn’t add up. The more they dig, the more it turns out that the lowlife’s death was just the tip of the iceberg, and moreover important and dangerous people want the case dropped.
The Detective pursues the case with increasing risk to his/her career and/or life, their only ally their partner (who has at least a 50% chance of getting killed as a result) and either their estranged ex or someone new they’re falling for. The conspiracy reaches even into the Department itself, and the Detective has to survive a betrayal or ambush by one of their own. They persevere until the bad guys are exposed, justice is done, they reconcile with their ex or form a new relationship, and they realize their job is worthwhile after all. The End.
This is a fun exception though…
OK fair enough but the ones I’ve seen have a lot of closeups of scared people and not a lot else. I don’t see how anyone could be bothered to watch.
Maybe there’re good ones out there. Your move: give us some great ghost story movies.
I thought of ghostbusters but decided it was too obvious.
MaxTheVool:
The Breakfast Club? Clueless? Or to go in a more critically acclaimed direction, Election?
There are a LOT of high school based teenage comedies.
And you didn’t even mention Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Dazed and confused.
Colibri
February 3, 2016, 2:00am
55
drad_dog:
OK fair enough but the ones I’ve seen have a lot of closeups of scared people and not a lot else. I don’t see how anyone could be bothered to watch.
Maybe there’re good ones out there. Your move: give us some great ghost story movies.
I thought of ghostbusters but decided it was too obvious.
Spirited Away (though there are other supernatural creatures as well)The Innocents The Devil’s Backbone The Shining The Sixth Sense Beetlejuice
Baker
February 3, 2016, 2:02am
56
EllisDee:
There are more critically acclaimed sports movies than you can shake a stick at. In addition to Million Dollar Baby, there’s Creed, Rocky, Raging Bull, The Fighter, Cinderella Man (it’s apparently very difficult to make a bad boxing movie), Jerry Maguire, The Blind Side, Friday Night Lights, (geez, football is up there with boxing), Moneyball, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, A League of Their Own (and so is baseball!), Foxcatcher, Seabiscuit, etc…
I think you have the rule backwards.
You forgot Chariots of Fire !
This isn’t a stellar lineup. Are any of these better than “Don’t look now”?
If you want I’ll be specific to today: Korean extreme ghost story movies are unbearable, at least to an american. Spanish ones are not much better.
Miller
February 3, 2016, 3:29am
58
drad_dog:
This isn’t a stellar lineup. Are any of these better than “Don’t look now”?
The Sixth Sense is a ghost story from way before the big twist at the end. Did you miss all the other ghosts in that movie? The angry housewife? The kid with the back of his head blown out? The people hanging in the school corridor? The little girl who was poisoned by her mother? The slave in the attic? There’s ghosts all over that film.
The Shining is indeed a horror movie. It’s a horror movie about ghosts. Again, kind of hard to miss this, what with all the ghosts all over the film.
That’s a hell of a list of first-rate movies. I’d add to it:
The Haunting of Hill House
And fuck yes, Ghostbusters belongs on this list.
Political dramas. The novels can be gripping, but unless the movie ends with an armed rebeliion and lots of shooting, you’re doomed to watching scene after scene of two or three people talking, with long stretches of exposition.
Example: Seven Days in May
Exception: All the President’s Men . Or is that a “journalism” movie? Movies with reporters as the heros were common in the 1930s, although pretty rare by the 70s.
Dewey_Finn:
Genre: Movies based on television shows
Critically Acclaimed Exception: The Fugitive
Nah. Brady Bunch is “fun exception.” It would have been really great to watch stoned. It was high camp: everyone in it seemed to be having such a good time making it, that it was fun to watch.
Mine:
Movies based on Agatha Christie novels (or pastiches thereof):Witness for the Prosecution ; Murder on the Orient Express . Campy semi-exception: *The Mirror Crack’d *(the one with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple).
Not really a genre, but a sure-fire formula for a bad movie: a remake .Gaslight ; The Maltese Falcon ; The American *Intermezzo; the 1931 (first sound) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde *is probably the best of all versions, making it better than the previous silent ones. I could list a few more, but I’ll stop. I could list bad remakes, but it would take all the power of the whole internet to even make a dent in the list.
Colibri
February 3, 2016, 4:38am
60
I think it’s a list of pretty damn good movies. In any case, the standard isn’t “stellar,” it’s “not a bad movie.” They are certainly not bad movies.
As good as, certainly. In any case, I didn’t include “Don’t Look Now” because it’s not actually a ghost story.
Another good movie that may-or-may-not be a ghost movie is Polanski’s The Tenant .
As Miller says, it’s full of ghosts throughout.
It’s also full of ghosts.
Beetlejuice, never had the urge.
The Innocents is a classic B&W movie. I haven’t seen it in so long I don’t know if it holds up today. Obviously I’m thinking no.
If you haven’t seen or can’t remember the movies you’re in no position to give an opinion on them.
Sure, there are bad ghost movies. But I wonder why you’ve been watching the bad ones instead of the good ones.
It won the Oscar for Best Picture, and is one of my favorite all time movies. At least in the top ten.