Guess I’m just an old softie. I, also, like hearing why people don’t like the movies I do. Thus, my quizzing DTC. But, in real life, if someone asks me where to eat, I try to probe them about what they like. Turns out, they don’t like what I do.
Hard Day’s Night
I too hated SPR.
I don’t like Gone with the Wind. I didn’t love Big Lebowski.
SPR, from the scene in the church where we meet the characters I knew who was going to live and die and what order. It was really a by the numbers WWII movie.
Watch the mini series Band of Brothers. THAT is good. SPR, not so much.
And personally I don’t ‘love’ The Godfather movies. I know they are well made. Well acted, directed, written, etc. but I just don’t connect emotionally with the characters.
Oh and if you don’t like Apocalypse Now, watch “Hearts of Darkness” (the making of Apocalypse Now) Amazing look into how that movie was made. It’s a freaking miracle it was ever finished at all. Really, I think you would like that movie.
No Country For Old Men, just a big meh from me.
I thought I should see the classics so in college I watched all AFI’s 1998 100 best movies ever made.
#14 Some Like it Hot - you have to think men dressed as women is VERY funny then this will suck only moderately. Yeah, yeah, groundbreaking, gender-bending. Look, a classic is a movie that’s still great decades later. This doesn’t qualify according to everything thats right in the Universe.
It’s not bad, but it’s more of a tribute and less of a tale. The writers couldn’t really be critical of the characters in anyway thereby showing the frailty of the human condition and giving them depth because the actual people were alive, there, and about to do their opening monologue. I kept wondering what the side of the story was for the few people that got bad press (Captain Herbert Sobel, that red headed grunt). The tough guy chest pounding just got old after The Battle of the Bulge.
Rebel Without a Cause
I really wanted to like this movie, but just couldn’t.
I saw it quite a few years ago, so I forget why exactly I didn’t enjoy it, but I do distinctly recall being very disappointed. (I think I thought the pacing was too slow.)
This is one of the few “classics” of cinema that I didn’t like, so the memory of not liking it is still distinct.
Yeah, I mean, it was okay.
This question comes up periodically on this board and I always give the same answer: Vertigo. I saw movie when it first came out and hated it. But it got such rave reviews and developed such a following that when it was reissued twenty years later, I watched it again. I hated it. A couple of years ago a new, restored version was issued and I gave it another chance. I hated it! The main character is a creepy weirdo. The femme fatale is a compliant cypher. The whole plot is ridiculous. A total waste of time.
Jesus Christ, yes! I can’t believe I forgot it.
James Dean wailing and carrying on like everything was the end of the goddamn world was just embarassing. I saw better acting from the drama troupe when I was in 9th grade.
And the thing he was wailing about? His father dared to cook a meal while his mother relaxed. Christ again! Traditionally, it’s men who have been considered the world’s greatest cooks, so I don’t think it was too strange to see a man cooking even back in the 50s.
I’m firmly convinced that if James Dean had lived, people would look back at Rebel Without a Cause as that stupid teenager movie he did when he was just starting out. Just like most of today’s big stars have a lame teen movie or TV show in their pasts.
East of Eden was pretty good though.
I once read a piece where it was Marlon Brando who died in 1955 and James Dean lived to an old age.
Brando became the legend who died young after making just a handful of films like A Streetcar Named Desire, The Wild One, and On the Waterfront.
I’m Not There.
'Nuff said.
Plotless films ( or maybe near-plotless films ) can be interesting. At least for some folks. For example I’m a fan of the Mike Leigh film Life is Sweet, which really doesn’t have much of a plot. It’s more a “day in the life” film ( something Leigh is good at ) and works as a character study IMHO.
From your list, I sort of liked Lost in Translation which was indeed pretty plotless, but was largely indifferent to Broken Flowers.
It insists upon itself.
Gone with the Wind. This movie was a victim of ‘I read the book first’ syndrome. Scarlett O’Hara annoyed the hell out of me in the movie. She came across as a spoiled, vindictive, shallow, bitch. In the book she much more depth, purpose, and strength.
I found Fargo amusing although my husband, a native Minnesotan, didn’t like it at all. He thought the movie was insulting. When I visited Minnesota with him, I was tickled at the way the people of that state have a self depricating sense of humor about themselves, ie accent, fishing, passion for fishing, everybody elses passion for fishing, the importance of small talk, fascination with the weather, etc. I found it charming and saw it in the movie. If I didn’t know anything about Minnesota, I probably wouldn’t have found it funny.
Citizen Cane.
Its a Wonderful Life. (But I loved This You Call a Wonderful Life? SNL skit.)
Avatar.
The Hurt Locker.
I watched Apocalypse Now, extended version, last night. I can understand why some people don’t like it, but I just like the experience of watching it and absorbing it to get a sense of the Vietnam War. It was a crazy era and and a crazy war.
Someone mentioned The Hangover up-thread. Who considers that a “Great” movie?
Where did I say that “gangster film” was a genre? I mentioned it because I’ve tried watching several, and didn’t like any of them. People kept telling me “oh, well, maybe you’ll like Goodfellas.” Nope.
There was no need to drag out Mr. Rolly-eyes.
Heh, what I get out of these threads, is a sense I like - well, almost everything. I’m always thinking “well, I liked that one - and that one - and that one, too”. It’s really rare that I actually dislike a movie. 
Count me in as well.
Did any of you Apocalypse Now haters see Hearts of Darkness? That was the documentary Coppola’s wife made of the filming of that movie. I thought it was fantastic, but then I liked the actual movie, too.
Yeah, I’m a Minnesota native and when I first saw it I wasn’t so much offended as I took it for a cartoon.
After watching it a few times I’m convinced the director and writer treated us with respect. And while some realism is lost with the heavy accent, the scenes illustrating real life here are just too many to name.
I recommend The Straight Story (1999) for a truly great Midwestern movie.
The Coen brothers actually are from Minnesota. They didn’t intend anything as an insult. They grew up in St. Louis Park.