If you can struggle through this guy’s writing, he makes a good point:
“Forrest Gump is a starkly puritanical and cynical film, where the ambitious are struck down, the worldy are punished and only humble mothers and the film makers’ feverdream of an anti-intillectual [sic] superhero are rewarded with peace. And why? Beacuse [sic] they didn’t ask too many questions. They didn’t try too many things or think too many thoughts. In other words, they were content to just stupid their way through life.”
Here are other reactions, bad and good, that might shed some light on it.
<<To some critics, the movie is profoundly anti-intellectual, a celebration of passivity and a rejection of thoughtful analysis. “I think we need to ask if our society really is one that esteems education and hard work,” wrote Susan Hunt in an editorial in The Phoenix Gazette in which she acknowledged that her views on the movie might seem “unpatriotic,” given its popularity. “More importantly, who in our society benefits from the glorification of ignorance and inactivity?”
While Anthony Lane, writing in The New Yorker, said that the movie was so “insistently heartwarming that it chilled me to the marrow,” >>
Very good point. It’s also riddled with factual errors regarding casting and trivia, and has some of the dumbest message board commentators this side of YouTube.
As for the list, I couldn’t really get on board with a single selection until at least #25.
I see no shortage of overrated films in the list, but the first one I hate is at 32: The Matrix. I will never understand what people liked about this movie. From the first time I saw it, I was laughing at the stupidity of it and the terrible actiing. I gave it a 3.
Next up is Modern Times at 75, I know it is blasphemy, but Chaplain does nothing for me. I like other silent film stars, but Chaplain is not funny to me. This talkie was more Chaplain crap. For the record I really enjoy Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.
So next on the list for me is **The Kid ** at 224.
Amazingly this means there are only three on the list I actually would rate below a 5. I have seen roughly 180 of the films on the list I believe.
For the record, I hate the movie, it is boring and had the worst main song ever! I only gave Dark Knight Return a 6 but yet I gave Forest Gump a 10 and I stand by it. Same for Raiders, Arsenic and Old Lace & Harvey.
So I often like popular movies, but have no use for the crapfest known as Titanic.
Hate is a pretty strong term, and while there are definitely movies that I hate, none of them are in the top 250. There were plenty that I thought were overrated, and many that I have no interest in seeing.
Looking through my vote history, the one I come the closest to hating is probably Sin City, which I rated a 4.
I hated A Clockwork Orange. My girlfriend and I both sat through it for the sake of the other. Once it was over, we talked about it and learned that we both hated it and couldn’t wait for it to be over.
Just like the OP, I just cannot stand to watch the Kill Bill movies. Those are just about the only ones on the list that I find unwatchable. Some of the real old movies are in teh same boat but just beacuse they’re so out of touch with our time. That doesn’t mean they weren’t masterpieces when they came out in their respective eras.
What makes peace such a reward, though? I watch Forrest Gump as a tragedy. Here’s a guy who was present at some of the foundational moments of the last half century. He met Elvis (young Elvis, even), won the Medal of Honor, mooned the president, travelled to China, brought down Nixon, and made a fortune in the stock market, and he could not appreciate any of it. What could be sadder than that?
I’ve only seen 50 odd movies on that list. I finally saw “Some Like It Hot” a couple of weeks back and, well considering it was voted the greatest American comedy film of all time by the American Film Institute in 2000, I was disappointed, to say the least.
I realize acting styles change, and so do rules of society, but I did not find the film in the least bit funny. Two guys in drag, joining an all-girl band and running from the mob. Christ it could have been a half hour Flintstones episode.
I saw it 30 years ago and I never thought it was all that funny. I don’t dislike it, but it is nothing great. I like the Flintstones comparison, didn’t they actually do this in one episode?
A more recent example I didn’t enjoy that was a big hit was Mrs. Doubtfire and I am one of the few that will admit to liking Robin Williams. It can’t just be “men in drag = unfunny” to me as I did like Tootsie.
I don’t know, but I’m sure they (Flintstones) did something similar. It seems all the old sitcom jokes were used in the Flintstones; trying to be in two places at the same time, overhearing part of a conversation and misinterpreting the meaning, switching costumes at a masquerade ball, amnesia, staying one night in a haunted house. Boy those wacky Flintstones! I like them too BTW.
I also did not like Mrs Doubtfire. It was the first movie date my wife and I ever went to. She liked it; I didn’t. (I should have recognized the foreshadowing.)
Movies I don’t particularly enjoy but don’t really hate either:
Alien (1979) - Starts too slowly and I’m not a big sci-fi fan to begin with
Raging Bull (1980) - I really want to like it but I can’t seem to get through the first half hour without falling asleep.
Finding Nemo (2003) - this is as close as I get to hating any of the top 250 movies. The main reason I think I have such a negative response to it is because I was dragged to the damn thing all the while telling my friends that I don’t particularly respond to the humour in this movie and that I probably won’t like it. As it turns out I was right and now resent the movie (I probably should resent myself for letting myself get dragged to the movie…)
Scarface (1983) - overrated and I think people love it for a few memorable scenes rather than the movie as a whole
Heh, as I was flipping through it, realized I’d finally seen every single movie on the list.
MY dial goes to 11. (Why the heck isn’t that one on the list, either?)
Can’t say I hate any of the IMDB top 250. I’ve seen just over 200 of them (which was a surprise) and I liked or loved most of them.
The two exceptions are “Forrest Gump” which I found distasteful and manipulative for the reasons stated above and the “Bourne Ultimatum” which was a huge disappointment, mostly because I thought the first Bourne movie was a classic of the spy genre. The shaky-cam, flash-cut editing absolutely killed it for me.
