High Fidelity
John Cusack’s character is a jerk, baby-steps his way to emotional maturity (really, really baby steps) and his hot lawyer girlfriend puts up with it after a failed attempt to get away from the vortex of self-pity and stagnance that he happens to be.
Didn’t she have ANY girlfriends? Not a SINGLE one that’s like “ditch the loser!!!”
Well, the OP started with the one (Christmas With The Kranks) that occurred to me a nanosecond after reading the thread title and pretty much covered its obnoxious paean to sheeplike confirmity.
The other ones that come to mind are Starship Troopers (bad adaptations are simply Sturgeon’s Law in action, but willful desecration of the source material is something else altogether) and The Island (even setting aside the unacknowledged ripoff of Parts: The Clonus Horror, this is a particularly egregious case of crapping up what could have been a good concept with random action-movie razzle-dazzle – I swear, you could almost point to the exact frame where Michael Bay’s latest dose of Ritalin wore off).
Bravo!!!
What really pisses me off most about this movie is it was directed Peter Weir, whose other works (The Truman Show, Master and Commander, Fearless, Witness, etc) are nearly without flaws. I guess you can’t win 'em all.
Father of the Bride. We are seriously expected to believe that Steve Martin is being a jerk for not being excited at the prospect of spending tens of thousands of dollars on his daughter’s wedding. He makes it clear that doing so puts a huge dent in his savings, but nooooo, we are supposed to think he is being a stingy curmudgeon.
Every time someone in my family turns this movie on (as they do, periodically), I throw things at the television until they turn it off.
Ditto on the hate for American Beauty (shallow and obvious, but we’re supposed to think it’s sooooo deep) and Lost in Translation (don’t care about whiny boring people, and Scarlett Johanssen can’t act).
I sort of liked Sideways because we’re supposed to think the two main characters are jerks. I just hate movies where the main characters are jerks, but we’re supposed to like and sympathize with them.
Nubile: Sexually mature and attractive. Used of young women.
She was nubile. Capable of having sex and she was okay looking, what’s the phrase, ah yes, “Attractive enough for all normal puposes”
What makes you think a putz like Lester is any kind of hero. Coming to your senses after a crisis in which you’ve behaved like smegma doesn’t make you a hero.
I’ll apologize to Brain Glutton, it isn’t pedophilia, it is indeed ephebophilia (even at my age I can learn new words). Thank you for that – the movie still pisses me off!
However a psychiatrist could have helped him without breaking the law or endangering his marriage and responsibilities.
Now, I for one think drugs shouldn’t be illegal (ie. should be legalized) – but they are illegal and Lester is a first class putz. I HATE this film and it is compounded by people imagining some deep moral or lesson is derived from it. It is a textbook case of “Don’t do that shit” [NWS=“http://videos.cainer.net/how_not_to_get_your_ass_beat.wmv”]NWS SAFE, Don’t click it till you’re home [/NWS].
I have a 19 year old daughter and if in her jr. or sr. year of HS, I thought some 40 year old guy was planning on banging her I would be up on charges. I’m managing my mid-life crisis with just slightly more suicidal thoughts than usual, no sports car, no nubile young ephede, and no weed or other drugs (not even OxyContin) and no psychiatrist. So, yeah, there are better ways to handle it than mentally abusing your family and balling up in a heap of self-absorbed BS.
The only thing that pisses me off more than this movie is the absolute LOVE people have for this trash.
Sorry, volatile subject. Rant done – no hard feelings, I just HATE this film for a myriad set of reasons.
Did you get the ending(because you were paying attention earlier when they were interviewing people) and not like it? or did you not get it?
I ask because most of the time, people who hated the ending weren’t paying attention when they were intreviewing people in the town about Rustin Parr, one of whom explains what happens at the end.
I thought nobody was paying anyone to beat the shit out of each other. It was volunteer and no money was changing hands.
I kind of agree. I didn’t hate it but it did nothing for me either. The only thing that I remember is that Tokyo looks just like every other Western Urban center. Kind of a shame really.
I don’t want to answer for ArrMatey!, but I fully understood what was going on at the end and thought it was an interesting concept.
However, I was still pissed because it was poorly executed and the move, which had been sold out for a week, was terrible.
I am reminded of the scene from Family Guy where Brian the Dog is a seeing eye dog and takes a blind man to see the film:
“Brian: Okay, they’re - they’re in the woods. The camera keeps on moving. Uh… I think they’re looking for some witch or something; I don’t know, I wasn’t listening. Nothing’s happening. Nothing’s happening. Something about a map. Nothing’s happening. It’s over. A lot of people in the audience look pissed.”
I’m going to have to agree on this one. That movie pissed me off because I hated all the characters and didn’t care what happened to them. And this movie tries desperately to be deep, but instead only becomes pretentious. Someone once defended this movie by saying “The characters are all deeply flawed, because we all are deeply flawed.” So, I guess the point is, you have to be seriously screwed up in order to relate to (and appreciate) this American Beauty.
I’ve ranted here about this before, and yeah, I hated most of the film except for the ending. Plus the actors couldn’t do improv dialogue without resorting to the use of the word “fuck” in just about every sentence, and it got really jarring.
(Here’s where I admit that I hate most gory, creepy films, but I loved Seven, and thought it was very powerful and troubling.)
A friend of mine in college loved Pretty Woman, to the point where he even thought it was a good date film. :smack: I asked him why, again, did Roberts’ character resort to hooking? She wanted to go to college, to make something of her life. What happened at the end? She hooks up with her sugar daddy. I might’ve thrown out my reservations about the rest of the film if she’d told him she’d prefer to go to college with the money he gave her.
My husband and I watched The Truth About Cats and Dogs with another couple we were friends with, and the two of us just detested the film. First of all, we have Janeane Garofalo in “ugly girl” mode via glasses and mousy hair/clothing, which is a major strike against it. Then at the end, they completely drop the plotline with Uma Thurman and her abusive boyfriend, expecting you to just be all “aw, how sweet” over Garofalo’s happy ending and completely forget that her friend was in danger.
I have to concur on The Birdcage, not only for the reasons listed by sampiro (lame stereotypes, lack of any sense of a genuin relationship) but because I found the entire premise to be obnoxious. I HATED the son. “Hi dad, can you pretend you’re not a queer for a while so you don’t embrass me in front of my girlfriend’s fascist parents ? Thanks a bunch”)
I thought Robin Williams should have told his son to get fucked from the get go. You could have a much better movie simply by showing those two couples being forced to deal with each other as they were. Instead we get the always unfunny gag about the man trying to pose as a woman (for that matter, ANY plot device where a character is trying to fool people into thinking he/she is really someone else is always lame and never funny).
I also have to add to the list, The Parent Trap (either version) just because I find it incredibly unbelievable that any real parents would split up a pair of twins like that and just decide to never see one of their own children again. What kind of sickos would do that?
Another hijack: He used to appear on Judging Amy as well and had a few episodes on Will & Grace as a recently out man. He’s also one of the only celebrities I’ve ever known of who gave the “I don’t discuss my personal life” answer to questions about his orientation who, when his orientation came out, was straight.
I was surprised that his nomination is for “Adapted Screenplay”. He wrote a screenplay that used part of one book for its source material, true, but I think there was enough originality to it to be considered Original. Anybody who writes a script based on an actual person’s life is going to have to use source material of some kind- for example, Good Night & Good Luck, which is nominated for Original Screenplay, is based on primary sources and interviews. Whatever.
[/HIJACK]
But, except for blackmailing his boss, he did nothing he shouldn’t have! Even if he had actually banged the teen virgin!
Ooh, good one. I remember a scene where the girl falls asleep reading some magazine about how to save money on a wedding (like having a friend make the cake, etc.) Steve Martin comes in and sees that and feels bad that his daughter has resorted to that. Of course he then gives in and spends an ungodly amount of money. My wedding cost hundreds, not thousands, and was just fine. I think a friend did make the cake (I don’t remember, it’s been 12 years), and I borrowed the dress. What that movie told me was that us poorer folks are so crass for not spending thousands for a single party.
Another one: My Best Friend’s Wedding. I didn’t hate this one the first time I saw it, but a few years later, it started pissing me off. It’s not that Julia Roberts’ character should’ve gotten the guy (she was a jerk and got what she deserved); it’s that Cameron Diaz’s character should’ve dumped his ass, too. She was putting her career on hold for this guy, even though it was apparent she didn’t want to. The only thing the two had going for them was “twue wuv.”
I’ve always wanted to see a sequel: My Best Friend’s Divorce.
OK - then someone want to spoil it for me because I aparently didn’t “get it”.
Oh and as for the OP - Phonebooth.
Just plain old unbelievable from the get go, with and ending you saw comming from a mile away. And boring. Did I mention boring? Yeah it was boring.
Lester’s the hero because the only one in the movie (barring maybe his daughter) with any sense. He knows the stupid things in life are not worth getting worked up about. “It’s just a couch!”
His wife is in her own little world. More simply, she’s a bitch.
Mena Suvari would rather be seen as a whore than a prude.
The Neighbor Boy: “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.” No, it’s just a bag you pretentious freak.
The Neighbor Boy’s father is a violent homophobic gay man.
That’s why Lester is the hero.
The only movie that actually made me angry in the theater was Schwarzenegger’s True Lies.
Not because of the outrageous plot, and not because of bad acting.
Because it dresses up the psychological abuse and sexual degredation of Jamie Lee Curtis’ character at the hands of her “hero” husband as comedy.
“Oh…look at the funny scared woman stripping for a stranger in a hotel room because she thinks something awful will happen if she doesn’t.”
:rolleyes: Sheesh. And I’m a GUY.
Well, it is better to be a whore than a prude (appearances aside) . . .
Yeah, I’ve also wondered what was going through Cameron’s head. This from the man who brought us Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley?