Everyone said “Oh no, really, this isn’t just a soak in a blood-sweat-and-semen filled testosterone bath…it’s got a moral! It’s deep!”
I watched it.
It was a soak in a testosterone bath, with a few characters that would seem deep to a high school sophmore (wow…he like…goes to support groups…that is so about the state of masculinity…man). Of course there was a crudely executed “plot twist” at the end, where we are all supposed to see what they were actually saying and go home thinking deep thoughts. That somehow made up for the hour and a half of violence we just subjected ourselves to.
(I started to write this post with a description of what I hated about each of these movies, but realized each description was the same: idiotic plot, terrible acting, poor direction, basically everything that could be wrong was)
Matrix
Crouching Crap, Hidden Hamburgers
Blair Witch Project
Good Will Hunting
Fight Club
Dances With Wolves
The Mummy. I saw it when it came out and I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. It was terribly slow for the first hour, and then I thought it was an Indiana Jones rip-off. But then, I doubt you can film any movie in Egypt without it looking like an Indiana Jones rip-off. But I digress. Now, all my friends are going estatic about The Mummy II and I can’t see the big deal. I’ll probably go and see it, but I’m not hoping for much.
Another one I hate, HATE, is Austin Powers 2. What a piece of crap.
Leaving Las Vegas. That was the most boring, worthless piece of crap I ever saw. Guy drinks. Treats hooker like crap but she likes him anyway. He still tries to kill himself by drinking (are there no bridges or high buildings in Las Vegas?) Hooker gets beat up. Guy dies. What’s the point?
Oh, and my wife also hates It’s a Wonderful Life, despite the fact that she is a crazy Christmas nut. She hates Jimmy Stewart, which is odd as we now live in Jimmy Stewart’s birthplace, Indiana, PA, and she could probably be stoned if word ever got out.
It would be much easier for me to list the movies I didn’t hate than to list the ones I did. I personally think 90% of all movies released suck. 90% of the rest are just “not very good”, and the remaining 1% of all movies released are actually good. Needless to say, I don’t go to see movies often. I base my personal evaluations on movies I eventually see on cable.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought Sleepless in Seattle was a mediocre movie.
But my personal all-time can’t-stand-this-movie-that-everyone-else-loved is The Big Chill.
It doesn’t matter whether you evaluate it on its own, or compare it with Sayles’ Secaucus 7 (IIRC, I saw Chill first); it’s a piece of dreck either way. A bunch of former movers and shakers in the antiwar movement have somehow stayed in loose touch while becoming movers and shakers in the machine they used to rail against: Yippies, Yuppies, what’s the difference, right? They’ve all (except the druggie and the dead guy) done the Jerry Rubin number, and are about as lovable as him.
Meanwhile, whatever they were pissed at each other about, fifteen years earlier, they’re still pissed at each other about, only more so. Time has done nothing to improve the attitude of any of these serpents toward any of the others. When the only two remotely sympathetic characters - in a movie whose entire focus is the characters and their interrelationships - are the airhead and the druggie, you know you’re in trouble.
Not to mention that if any of these characters had two dimensions, it would be an improvement. Everybody can be captured by a catch-phrase, whether it’s The TV Star or The Druggie.
The only redeeming feature about this movie is the soundtrack. And now that we can all burn our own custom CDs, you gotta say so-what to that as well.
Anything that involves Woody Allen. I’ve sat through a few of his movies at the bequest of my friends and each time I come away thinking, “Wow! That guy is the biggest whiner in the history of whiners. Didn’t I see this plot in his last movie.!”
Another quick turnoff is Billy Crystal. I enjoy (not love, or hate) him as a stand up, but his movies all seem to suck.
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How is Spy Kids for adults alone? I’m interested in seeing it with my wife (the son’s too young for any movies), but while all the reviews say it’s a great family movie for adults and kids, they neveer mention how the movie stands up as adults-only entertainment. Any tips here?
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As to the OP: if we’re only counting movies actually seen, then I’d give it to Titanic. Aside from the niftyness of watching James Cameron recycle his action shots 2/3rds of the way through the movie, it was a bore.
If we’re talking about popular movies that I avoided seeing because I knew I wouldn’t like them, it’s a much longer list, topped by American Beauty.
I did an IMDB search. It was the 1st Austin Powers movie, The Spy Who Shagged Me.
“It sucked the big green one”, to use a contemporary phrase.
And they even made a sequel? Go figger.
Peace,
mangeorge
Yeah, interesting. I’ve never seen the movie. Now I’m going to have to rent it, just to see what’s so anti-intellectual about it.
Do you have the same disdain for anti-doofus movies?
Peace,
mangeorge
As Good As It Gets is a work of pure genius! Any director who can convince an Academy Award-winning actress to do a totally gratuitous wet t-shirt scene should get a special Oscar.
One I hated was Citizen Kane. A gazillionaire newspaper magnate is unable to make a star out of his talentless girlfriend? In the United States? Puh-leese!
The Godfather - Boring Titanic - Melodramatic, inane It’s a Wonderful Life - Mushy, inane Gladiator - Boring, ordinary Shakespeare In Love - Pretentious 2001 - Boring, pretentious Austin Powers 2 - Unfunny, juvenile There’s Something About Mary - Juvenile, unfunny The Wizard of Oz - Silly, juvenile
Just to put this all in perspective: even though I hated The Godfather, I loved Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction. I hated Gladiator, but loved Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hated Shakespeare in Love, love Shakespeare. Hated Austin Powers and There’s Something About Mary, but loved South Park.
And yes, I am fully prepared to get stoned for dissing Godfather, Wizard of Oz and 2001.
I love baseball, and I love cinema, but there are precious few good baseball movies. Most agree with that general assessment, but many then offer up Field of Dreams as a notable exception. Sure, it’s better than The Babe Ruth Story starring William Bendix, but please! Even an otherwise good movie can be ruined by a single dreadful, painful scene, and that’s certainly the case in Field of Dreams when the nit-wit playing the wife of the Costner character surrenders to her social radical impulse at the public meeting held in the local HS gymnasium. And then, just when one thinks the worst piece of acting in American movie history has mercifully concluded, she takes her ineptitude into a nearby corridor and continues her annoying ninny act. Bull Durham it wasn’t.
