So far, Inglorious Basterds. I have this constant urge to fast-forward until something actually happens. I’ll start it back up again this weekend, I think.
Neither Donnie Darko nor The Big Lebowski lived up to the hype I had been told. Donnie Darko was an incomprehensible mess, especially.
Ultraviolet. Mostly because it was supposed to use a “purer” form of the “Gun Kata” martial art developed by the writer/director for his earlier film Equilibrium, but which was heavily modified by a choreographer for the latter.
Turns out that a) The original fake martial art really did look better when meddled with (tropes are not bad, kids!), and b) nothing could have saved that movie. Well, maybe if you cut out all the dialogue and filmed it like an early Aeon Flux episode. And had Milla Jovovich naked a lot more. And I mean a lot.
Batman (the Tim Burton one) - Jack Nicholson as the Joker? How could it go wrong?
I found out. Worst scene: The Joker pulls out a big pistol and shoots down the Batplane. Suuuuuure.
My wife adds: Forrest Gump. Good choice. Also, Enemy at the Gates. We saw it in a theater for free, and it was still too much.
Well, when I read the book, ISTR that I wanted to keep reading on and on to find out what happened next and next and next till it was all over.
Of course it was many years between the book reading and when the movie was made so nearly all the really stupid? details of the book had been forgotten. By that time I mostly just remembered that it kept my interest till the end.
Maybe you could say for me the writing style was able to overcome the stupid in the book. In the movie, all I think all the big screen, the actors, and visuals (pretty much the whole package really) did was amplify it.
The Star Wars prequels (well, okay, I only really had hope for the first two).
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Watchmen.
ETA: Cripes, how could I forget the granddaddy of this category, The fucking goddamn pusillanimous Blair Witch Project!
Seconded. Though I did really enjoy the second one (which I came thisclose to not seeing since I was so disappointed by the first one; though, in fairness, I must say that watching the [much] longer director’s cut on DVD a few years later significantly reduced my enjoyment of 2).
Agreed. Between the critics and a couple of my (usually discerning) friends, I had been assured that this was akin to the Second Coming. I hated it so bad that I wound up getting physically angry at the fact that I’d just sat through the giant, pretentious turd.
Waking Life. People kept recommending it to me, but God, I fucking hate that pretentious pile of warmed-over pseudophilosophy nonsense.
Aliens vs Predator
I love Aliens, I love Predator, surely both of them together was guaranteed to be a great time, right? No way they could screw this up, right? Right?!
WRONG
Dark Water. I liked the American remake of Ringu, and…I dunno, I just like horror movies. Ohhhhh boy was I wrong. It wasn’t scary, it was just fucking DEPRESSING.
Alexander. Ancient Greek epic? Awesome! What could go wrong? Well…lots of things. Actually, I mostly hated it because it was long and boring, and I was so ANGRY at myself because of it. I’m not SUPPOSED to hate movies because they’re long and boring, dammit, those are the kind of movies I typically like! But alas, it was so.
Some REALLY good ones in here. I’ll add my two cents to:
Lost in Translation
Indiana Jones IV
King Kong
Star Wars III
Donnie Darko
Lost in Translation
In Bruges
Reservoir Dogs
Star Wars - Episode III? You expected it to be good? Really? I know I have Episode II up and that itself is inexcusable… but at least that came right after a movie with Maul in it. But Episode III?
True. But we thought that all the bullshit tauntaun riding, lovey-dovey crap was done, there’d be an awesome lava pit fight scene, and we’d see great exposition on Anakin’s fall into the dark side. We got the fight scene, but nothing else.
But yeah - Episode II was probably a bigger let down.
Totally agree. I have to add a few more Bill Murray movies: Life Aquatic, Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums.
And Donnie Darko. I’ve heard it makes sense on repeated viewings, but I don’t think it’ll do it for me.
And I wasn’t expecting to LOVE Vanilla Sky, but I was surprised by the depth of my hatred for it.
Agreed. And they’re all Wes Anderson movies. I can’t for the life of me get what people think is so extraordinarily entertaining about his movies. IMO his films are quirky for quirkiness’s sake.
Amen, especially with The Royal Tenenbaums—again, just like with Lost In Translation, every self-styled “cinema critique” poseur this side of Sundance couldn’t wait to line up to sing undying praises to a very mediocre movie…
2001: A Space Odyssey. Here it was, science fiction at a time when filmed SF was rare, and by a director who did one of my favorite films of all time, Dr. Strangelove. I saw it in its original run at the Criterion Theater in New York (this was long before wide openings – it wouldn’t have reached me for at least a month). Found it visually fascinating, but duller than dirt, with a meaningless psychedelic light show at the end. A real disappointment.
I’ve seen it more recently. It’s not as bad as I remembered, but still is badly flawed. Kubrick had painted himself into a corner in the end, so threw in some bright shiny lights to make it seem like the film actually meant something.
The Mist - Wow. Great director, but a horrible movie. Hated it. Just nothing good in it. Big surprise.
**Underworld **- It looked good and I like cool movies like this, but it was terrible.
Annie Hall - I saw 5 minutes on TV, thought it looked funny, and got the DVD. Wow, this was horrifying. Hated it entirely.