# Movies suddenly no one likes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 1, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731 "2013-09-01T15:19:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/21 "2013-09-01T18:55:39Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I think **nearwildheaven** was saying they’re living the life Behrman was trying to rebel against. Maybe I wasn’t clear: I think you have to be living some form of that life, or have lived it in some way, to truly appreciate the film. Those who have never been trapped in that stultifying kind of situation will just see his behavior as idiocy. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/22 "2013-09-01T18:56:32Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I think you’ve got that backwards. Anyone who hasn’t gone through some period of being Lester Burnham doesn’t get it. To them, he’s just a creepy burnout pedophile doing incomprehensible things. I’ve always loved the movie (still do, although my love is more tempered now) and I saw it for the first time as a teen girl. I think Lester’s character is understandable to more than just guys going through a mid-life crisis. But, whatever, this isn’t the “Defend movies suddenly no one likes” thread. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/23 "2013-09-01T19:09:51Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Something like **Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves**? It was a sensation when it came out and a huge hit with critics and multiple demographic groups, because it perfectly captured that early-1990s trendy culture. Critical reception of the film was lukewarm and the only thing anyone praised was Alan Rickman. Rotten tomatoes has the film at 59%. I think what people are seeing is that the fans rave about the film when it comes out, while the critics are pointing out problems. But who listens to critics? But then, as the buzz wears off, the critics turn out to be right. **The Phantom Menace** got a 57% at Rotten Tomatoes and is a prime example of this. Movies like **Crash. Shakespeare in Love** and **The Crying Game** are all terrific films, but people tend to have trouble dealing with films dealing with serious issues. **Crash** is disliked mainly because so many people thought **Brokeback Mountain** deserved the Oscar, because people don’t understand the concept of “dramatic license,” and because others didn’t understand what the movie was trying to say and criticized it for what they thought it was saying, when the points it made were far more subtle. ---
**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:** [September 1, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/24 "2013-09-01T19:15:18Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Movies like **Crash. Shakespeare in Love** and **The Crying Game** are all terrific films, but people tend to have trouble dealing with films dealing with serious issues. The backlash against _Shakespeare in Love_ wasn’t because it was a serious movie. It wasn’t a serious movie, at all. It’s a light hearted romantic comedy. But it won out against _Saving Private Ryan_, which was Very Serious. Also very inferior, IMO. But I knew a number of people in real life who said that SPR should have won, because WWII is more important than Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/25 "2013-09-01T19:15:59Z")
If you look through a list of all the movies that were ‘big’ at the time, I daresay 2/3 are completely forgotten or seldom seen. There are Important Films and Movies Folks Like. (Kate Winslet won best actress for “The Reader”. I don’t know anyone who has seen it, and I haven’t heard a peep about it since 2008, it seems to have disappeared.) ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/26 "2013-09-01T19:23:02Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > If you look through a list of all the movies that were ‘big’ at the time, I daresay 2/3 are completely forgotten or seldom seen. Take a look at Nobel prizes for literature some time. And get ready to do your best owl impression. (“Who?”) Then follow up with the writers who didn’t get one and work on your Porky Pig splutter. (“W-W-What-the-the-F-F-F?”) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/27 "2013-09-01T19:45:02Z")
There was an article in the New York Times recently on movies which were initially panned but over time have garnered praise from some critics (the purpose of the article apparently was to rehabilitate “Ishtar”). Which leads me to wonder what movies ever flopped initially, were “rediscovered” by critics and then sank once again into deserved mediocrity (I’m hoping that in another 50 years this appliles to “Vertigo”). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/28 "2013-09-01T19:45:32Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > A few more recent Oscar nominees that have not exactly become classics: > > Secrets and Lies > In The Bedroom > The Hours > Lost In Translation > Good Night, And Good Luck > Babel > Atonement > > Not to say there are no fans of the films above, but the huge hype for these films in their heyday has certainly died out. Oh man, but Secrets and Lies and Lost In Translation are so great! I agree that it has been fashionable for some years now to trash on American Beauty, though I think that is undeserved. On the Dark Knight thing, I disliked the earlier Christopher Nolan Batman movies even though I had really loved his first two films and am generally an easy mark for superhero movies (I even liked Superman Returns). So I finally gave up and did not even see The Dark Knight Rises. ETA: Agree about Vertigo! ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/29 "2013-09-01T19:57:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The backlash against _Shakespeare in Love_ wasn’t because it was a serious movie. It wasn’t a serious movie, at all. It’s a light hearted romantic comedy. But it won out against _Saving Private Ryan_, which was Very Serious. Also very inferior, IMO. But I knew a number of people in real life who said that SPR should have won, because WWII is more important than Shakespeare. There are still people who think \*SPR \*is the greatest war movie evah! They are remembering the first 20 minutes and forgetting the rest of the movie, which is your typical war movie cliches. _Shakespeare In Love_, OTOH, holds up quite well for the light comedy it is. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/30 "2013-09-01T20:00:54Z")
I think the backlash against **American Beauty** has little to do with the movie itself, and lot more to do with the fact that the public has grown sick and tired of Kevin Spacey. If he hadn’t made\*\* Pay it Forward, K-Pax \*\*or **Under the Sea** , people would probably like **American Beauty** more. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/31 "2013-09-01T20:32:35Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > There are still people who think \*SPR \*is the greatest war movie evah! They are remembering the first 20 minutes and forgetting the rest of the movie, which is your typical war movie cliches. _Shakespeare In Love_, OTOH, holds up quite well for the light comedy it is. I violently agree on both counts. William Shakespeare: Good title. Christopher Marlowe: Yours? William Shakespeare: “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter”. - Oh, yes, I know, I know. Christopher Marlowe: What is the story? William Shakespeare: Well, there’s this pirate… > [@Alessan](#): > > I think the backlash against **American Beauty** has little to do with the movie itself, and lot more to do with the fact that the public has grown sick and tired of Kevin Spacey. If he hadn’t made\*\* Pay it Forward, K-Pax \*\*or **Under the Sea** , people would probably like **American Beauty** more. Oh, yes. The Great Kevin Spacey Backlash of 2006 which has forced the once revered actor to retire in quiet seclusion to the half-constructed pleasure fortress on a remote island in the South Pacific… Seriously? However much you or anyone else may have connected with _American Beauty_, it was in any technical sense a poorly constructed film filled with clichéd characters and implausible situations, and is pretty much the benchmark for how and why voiceover narration should be used sparingly if at all. An ardent repressed homosexual/Nazi memorabilia collector Marine father who drug-tests his kid but doesn’t insist on seeing him pee in the bottle? An wound up and insecure real estate agent who has sex with a similarly superficial agent and then publically tramps around? A fed up worktron who gets a year’s severance simply by accusing his boss of sexual harrassment without a single shred of evidence or independent eyewitness? The vamping daughter’s friend who is secretly a virgin and lusts after–of all possibilities–Kevin Spacey? Uh huh. Compare this to the little seen but excellent _The Secret Lives of Dentists_ and it is obvious how clunky and contrived it is. You may like it despite its faults–I love the hell out of _Big Trouble in Little China_, and that film is no masterpiece–but it falls well short of being a great movie on any objective scale. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/32 "2013-09-01T20:57:54Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Take a look at Nobel prizes for literature some time. And get ready to do your best owl impression. (“Who?”) > > Then follow up with the writers who didn’t get one and work on your Porky Pig splutter. (“W-W-What-the-the-F-F-F?”) Not even Nobel Prizes - start going through [this list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1890s) year by year and see how far you have to go before you’ve even heard of the majority of titles. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/33 "2013-09-01T21:28:55Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Oh, yes. The Great Kevin Spacey Backlash of 2006 which has forced the once revered actor to retire in quiet seclusion to the half-constructed pleasure fortress on a remote island in the South Pacific… Joke all you want, but besides playing the voice of a robot in **Moon** , Spacey hasn’t made a good movie and/or a successful one since 1999. The man’s a punchline. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/34 "2013-09-01T21:29:27Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Seriously? However much you or anyone else may have connected with _American Beauty_, it was in any technical sense a poorly constructed film filled with clichéd characters and implausible situations, and is pretty much the benchmark for how and why voiceover narration should be used sparingly if at all. An ardent repressed homosexual/Nazi memorabilia collector Marine father who drug-tests his kid but doesn’t insist on seeing him pee in the bottle? An wound up and insecure real estate agent who has sex with a similarly superficial agent and then publically tramps around? A fed up worktron who gets a year’s severance simply by accusing his boss of sexual harrassment without a single shred of evidence or independent eyewitness? The vamping daughter’s friend who is secretly a virgin and lusts after–of all possibilities–Kevin Spacey? Uh huh. Compare this to the little seen but excellent _The Secret Lives of Dentists_ and it is obvious how clunky and contrived it is. > > You may like it despite its faults–I love the hell out of _Big Trouble in Little China_, and that film is no masterpiece–but it falls well short of being a great movie on any objective scale. > > Stranger Like I said, a bit too precious…😉 ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/35 "2013-09-01T21:34:01Z")
I’m not sure The Phantom Menace is a good example of this. Everyone I know who saw it and was over the age of 20 or so was incredibly disappointed immediately. If anything, it seems like opinion of it is creeping ever so slightly up as the people who enjoyed it as children (and many children really did enjoy it) get older. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/36 "2013-09-01T21:41:20Z")
Anyone who thought the characters in _American Beauty_ were implausible or behaved implausibly really should watch the film again after they get out of high school. For one thing, while they have have been a bit stylized, you can say that about nearly every character in nearly very serious movie made; we may have moved away from the extreme hamminess of vaudeville, but even the most grit-tastic film still uses a stylized visual language and depictions. We just accept it, but I assure you any film of the present era will look stiff and artificial when viewed 40 years from now. There are a lot of broken and half-broken people in the world who can manage a pretty good “sobriety” most of the time, but mask bizarre thoughts, actions and behaviors even weirder than anything in _AB_. If you don’t like the film, fine - but dissing it as unrealistic or artificial takes a very narrow perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/37 "2013-09-01T21:42:03Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > There are still people who think \*SPR \*is the greatest war movie evah! They are remembering the first 20 minutes and forgetting the rest of the movie, which is your typical war movie cliches. _Shakespeare In Love_, OTOH, holds up quite well for the light comedy it is. “Greatest 20 minutes ever!” Is pretty much what I say about _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_. Don’t get me wrong, I like the movie and the first 20 minutes is perhaps one of the greatest comedy movies ever made, but then it rolls violently down hill and peters out at the end, like a toy car on a Hot Wheels track. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/38 "2013-09-01T21:52:54Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Joke all you want, but besides playing the voice of a robot in **Moon** , Spacey hasn’t made a good movie and/or a successful one since 1999. The man’s a punchline. I very much disagree. The Big Kahuna, Shrink, and Margin Call are all excellent movies IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/39 "2013-09-01T21:57:39Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > “Greatest 20 minutes ever!” Is pretty much what I say about _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_. Don’t get me wrong, I like the movie and the first 20 minutes is perhaps one of the greatest comedy movies ever made, but then it rolls violently down hill and peters out at the end, like a toy car on a Hot Wheels track. (raises hand in agreement, nods thank you) ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731/40 "2013-09-01T22:05:35Z")
How about the films of Frederico Fellini? They were Oscar winners, and staples of film schools everywhere … but conspicuously absent from anyone’s list of favorite movies, because they are pretty much unwatchable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-suddenly-no-one-likes/667731.md?page=3)