I guess I wouldn’t make a good critic then. Sometimes I can like a movie without really knowing why, but when I hate a movie, I always know why immediately. It’s obvious. I hated Jurassic Park 2 because the protagonists were mostly thoughtless assholes who didn’t mind killing people who disagreed with them on animal rights issues. I knew that the minute I saw Vince Vaughn cutting the locks on the dino cages…it didn’t come to me afterward.
I hated Identity the minute I saw that they were going from The Big Reveal to the Big Shootout and thanks to the Big Reveal, I didn’t give a shit what happened in the Big Shootout.
I hated Dances With Wolves the minute the credits started and I was saying “That’s IT? THREE FUCKING HOURS and THAT’S how they end it?”
I might have a “meh” reaction to a movie I’d have thought I’d like and not know why, but if I HATE a movie the way some here hated FG, I know why immediately.
My most recent nomination would be Hancock. The premise had so much potential and it was, overall, a pretty entertaining flick. But I just felt they really messed it up. The pacing was weird, the central relationship lacked heat, and the ending made no sense. They were so close to making a good movie, but it ended up feeling like the result of too-many-cooks. Either one person lost track of his own vision, or (seems more likely) a bunch of studio execs, ego-driven stars or producers needed to have their say and it ended up a mess.
I am much more forgiving of movies that are just plain bad than those which have great potential but simply fail to deliver.
Excuse me for expressing my surprise that people would watch a movie like Forrest Gump and get so worked up over it because they think the message of the film is “virtue is more important than intelligence”.
Well, you’re talking about Spike Lee here. Similarly, Trash (that movie that won an Oscar in 2005 which appropriated the title of an ingenious adaptation by David Cronenberg of a J.G. Ballard novel - you probably know the one I mean) really pisses me off. The premise of the movie is just such a huge cop-out. Wow! A movie condemning preconceived racist notions about minorities! Holy Jesus H. Christ, how courageous and original and edgy can you get? It’s all the more insulting to Ballard’s novel and Cronenberg’s film which were truly transgressive works that seriously challenged commonly-held ideas about sexuality. Trash was hailed as some kind of masterpiece for teaching us a lesson about how we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that trite shit - are you kidding me? Is the world that we live in really that much of a pussy-assed, uncreative place? HOLY FUCKING JESUS, I never, ever, ever would have expected that the guy who seemed like a Latino gangbanger might actually have a heart of gold underneath his tough exterior! And I never in a billion years might have imagined that the evil racist cop might actually have a heart of gold underneath his tough racist exterior! And holy dogshit, I certainly NEVER would have imagined that the evil anti-Asian car thief might actually have a change of heart and prove that he has a heart of gold underneath his cold exterior! This movie was absolutely groundbreaking in its tearing down - nay, demolishing - our preconceived notions about race relations in America. Oscar! Oscar! Oh, Paul Haggis, you’re such a GENIUS! Tell me, Paul, do you prefer to have your balls fondled or a finger up your ass while you’re getting sucked off? Let me know, so that I can better please you for blessing us ignorant peons with such an unbelievably enlightened piece of cinema!
What the Bleep Do We Know? It had been recommended to me; I was under the impression that it would be something other than anti-scientific woo-woo bullshit.
Pssst . . . Forrest Gump isn’t actually about Forrest Gump.
Pssst . . . Requiem For a Dream isn’t actually about drugs.
Argent Towers for the win. 
I’m certainly no apologist for Ben Stiller movies and it admittedly follows one or two of the plot points you mention, but I’m not sure it’s completely fair to lump “Keeping the Faith” in that list. That’s actually a really good movie and Ben Stiller does put in a good performance in that one.
Actually, I think that they are the souless automatons, walking through the paint-by-the-numbers plot even when it makes no sense. I don’t demand that (all) films be realistic, or that they don’t exaggerate for humorous impact, or that characters all be sympathetic, but when they do things or respond to plot events in a way that no person in their right mind would the film is pretty much a write-off to me. Most romantic comedies are really creepfests hidden under a layer of sight gags. Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond had it right, especially with Sunset Blvd. and The Apartment: the rom-com genre is just wallpapered noir with jerky characters doing mean-spirited or weak-willed things.
Stranger
T2 made me angry. It ruined the Terminator for me. Arnold was way better as the evil cyborg that couldn’t be stopped. In T2 he’s a pussy that has to follow some ten year olds command not to kill, because god forbid the movie would touch on any complicated ethical dilemas. Also, the liquid metalator was just CGI crap. The orginal terminator got cut and bloody and kept on going even when it was burned down to its metallic skeleton. Liquid metalator could disguise itself as a linoleum floor. It’s like Warf to Odo. It doesn’t matter who would win a fight, Warf is way more threatening than Odo. Maybe if Robert Patrick took steroids for a few years and piled on some assault charges, he could have pulled threatening off better. Then there’s the whole “why didn’t you send the liquid metallator back in the first place?” question. It’s like when they resolve a Star Trek episode by boosting their signal with a power source they apparently had all along. I could really go on. T2 was just cashing in on an incredibly good movie IMO. I like the new series, but the instant liquid metallator shows up, I’m going to have trouble watching.
Then there is Gone in Sixty Seconds. I want my money back! I would have been more entertained watching the Home Shopping Network gem special.
Pssst… you’re being patronizing. You think the movie made me angry because I didn’t get it. Gotcha! Nope, sorry.
RfaD is a gimmicky and manipulative movie about how addiction in all its myriad forms kills people’s dreams. I know it’s supposed to be deep and dark but it turns out, it’s just a stylistically overwrought and pretentious cautionary tale. It made me angry.
Is this thread supposed to be people saying what movies made them angry, and then other people coming in and giving them shit for their opinions? Sorta makes the thread a less enjoyable concept to me.
Yeah, but it had really good SFX…and…er, well, really groundbreaking CGI, anyway.
How To Tell If Your Watching A Bad Nicolas Cage Movie. Next time, save yourself the heartache. Go rent Raising Arizona or Adaptation instead.
Stranger
I think I understood the movie.
The son is a coward who is willing to erase his family and suppress who they are to impress some uptight jerk. If you’re going to marry someone and spend the rest of your life as part of their family, but your own family has to hide their identities, and one member of the family has to be completely left out… how is that OK?
Of course they love their son. But it was something their son should not have asked of them. It was wrong of him-- he sold them out. Plus, the premise is ridiculous-- the politician would lose the election if his daughter marries a guy who has a gay father? Really? Thus justifying the self-closeting contortions of a gay couple? Grr.
Yeah, maybe that would have been better.
Rachael Rage for the win. I haven’t seen much of you around here - weird, with such a unique handle. Want to go for a drive?
Dave pissed me off. OK, you’ve got a well-meaning guy who doesn’t know diddley-shit about politics, and suddenly he’s thrust into the position of leader of the free world, and then he goes about fucking around with the budget and doing a whole bunch of shit no one elected him for, 'cause it seems like the right thing to do. Have I got that right so far? Did I miss any of the subtext? Of couse, it all works out, because he’s Dave, right? He’s Kevin-fucking-Kline, and how can anything this sweet, aw-shucks, normal guy starts end up badly? I mean, Dave’s in the White House. Isn’t that cute?
No actually, it’s one of the most fucked-up things I’ve ever heard of. We’re just about at the end of an eight year administration ostensibly headed by a sweet, well-meaning guy who doesn’t know diddley-shit about politics who does things just because they seem like the right thing to do. Have these years been cute? And that guy was elected! Well for one term, anyway.
I don’t know about the psychotherapy stuff, but people like Will Hunting do exist. After reading up on Langan for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s not quite as bright as he thinks he is, but he’s still a genius. Certainly Will Hunting-level bright.
The message of MTP is that you bend over for The Man. Dad is The Man: ex-CIA, nut-cuttin’, race-baitin’, head-game-playin’ master of his household.
You don’t mess with The Man; you wait him out and let force majeure take him down. And how women react to The Man is entirely epiphenomenal. They’re set dressing.
For an even purer example of not messing with The Man, check out Mr. Woodcock. The Man wins that one in straight sets.
No no no no. Meet the parents was not a good movie for me because it did not make me laugh. If it doesn’t make me laugh, for me there’s no movie, period, to paraphrase you. And it did not make me laugh, it made me angry. That’s why I hate it.
Intellectually I can see what the director did to create his comedy - well intentioned but goofy man thrown in the pit with an overly defensive family, har har, hear the laffs. But it didn’t click with me. I only saw a stressed out man meeting an asshole parents with skeletons in the closet and getting more and more stressed until he reached breaking point and he buggered off. If they didn’t tack in that happy ending from the Book Of Corny Happy Endings in the last few minutes, it would have been a good drama - provided they’d make Stiller give a nice big cathartic punch to De Niro.
Se7en, or **Seven ** or whatever you call it. I am kinda suprised it hasn’t been mentioned. I find the places that David Fincher wants to take me, and the methods he chooses to take me there, are manipulative and needlessly grotesque and disturbing.
Well, perhaps you can explain your position more clearly? Because that did appear to be exactly what you were saying. The idea of “inventing” a reason not to like something doesn’t make any sense to me. If someone doesn’t like a movie, there’s got to be a reason, right? You said lissener had a “gut-level” dislike for a movie, and then invented a reason to explain it, and you seemed to be implying that the reason he invented was somehow not the real reason he disliked it. But that just seems bizarre to me. Why would he need to invent a reason to dislike something other than the real reason he disliked it? Why not just say what the real reason was upfront?
In your last post, you give some examples of movies that you hated, and you knew right away why you hated them. But the thread isn’t about movies you hate, it’s about movies that make you angry. Maybe I’m splitting hairs, here, but to me, there’s a difference. I might say I hate a movie that’s poorly made, but I don’t really invest the emotional energy in it to get angry. To make me angry, a movie has to have a message that I strongly disagree with. And that message isn’t always going to be immediately obvious while I’m in the middle of watching it. Often, it’s going to be conveyed in the subtext of the movie, and while I’m aware of it on some level, I don’t usually try to work out the subtext during my first viewing of a film. The three examples you gave of movies you hated, two of them are for reasons of incompetence: they’re poorly plotted or don’t make sense. Jurassic Park 2 is saying something that you disagree with: that eco-terrorism is an acceptable action. But that’s not subtext, that’s plain text: the “heroes” releasing some dangerous animals and getting a bunch of people killed is a major plot point. What pissed off some of the posters here about Forrest Gump isn’t a matter of competency: it’s a very well made film. And it’s not a matter of plain text, because the movie doesn’t overtly convey any objectionable messages. But some people are finding a message in the subtext that they find disagreeable, and it often takes a certain amount of reflection to understand subtext. If they’re like me, when they’re first watching the film, they’re sensitive enough to the subtext that they’ll pick up some negative vibes from it, but they’ll be too busy actually watching the movie to examine the subtext and figure out why they’re reacting negatively to it.
:rolleyes: You obviously need a refresher course in industry jargon. Today the phrase is daring, original and refreshingly in-your-face.