YES about Hurt Locker. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it for my OP.
Last Tango in Paris. My college film club (which made pretty much all great picks) had it for one of their weekly theater showings. I didn’t know much about it except that it 1. was a classic, 2. had tons of sex, and 3. had Marlon Brando (whom, ok, I wasn’t a huge fan of necessarily, but he had still done some movies I loved, like Apocalypse Now). One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m not even talking about the grossness of the sex scenes.
I was really looking forward to DePalma’s BLACK DAHLIA, and boy oh boy did that one go south fast.
Another vote for LOST IN TRANSLATION, too. It takes a special kind of genius to make so boring a film set in one of the most interesting cities on Earth, starring Bill Murray. Boring, boring, boring.
I should have remembered that. I suppose on the heels of Pan’s Labyrinth the hype machine was churning and this sequel was supposed to be his tour de force.
Ah yes, thanks for reminding me. Although I usually categorize this movie under “movies that are great…except for the ending.”
I will have to also note Lost in Translation. I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never did. I thought I would love it because I love Bill Murray, and I enjoy seeing movies set in other cultures and countries. But pretty pictures of the lights at night in Hong Kong (or wherever they were) do not a movie make.
I really thought I would enjoy Up in the Air as I’m a George Clooney fan and the premise looked interesting and hey, it’s up for an Oscar! Clooney nominated for Best Actor! A couple of neat scenes here and there, but overall underwhelming. I had to file it under “don’t like”. I thought Clooney was much more interesting and did a better acting job in Ocean’s Eleven!
Kind of felt the same way about The Hurt Locker. Some interesting scenes, but I came away from it feeling like I was waiting for something that never happened. And I was not all that impressed with Jeremy Renner’s performance, I thought the other 2 actors did a better job. Was very disappointed.
I also had high hopes for Babel but I absolutely hated it! This movie horribly suffered from “Idiot Plot”, meaning if any of the major characters were not an idiot, there would not be a movie.
Rats, you beat me to it. It won the Academy award for best picture, fercrisakes. I like war movies. I like tension-filled, defuse-the-bomb scenes. I went in really expecting to enjoy it.
But that shaky camera!!! Cripes, how in hell did that woman win for best director? There could have been a giant pink bunny in the forefront of every scene, and that would not have been as distracting as that damnable shaking camera! I couldn’t get into the movie, I couldn’t get “lost” in the tension-filled scenes, because that damned gyrating camera just kept screaming, “This is a movie, you’re watching a movie, hey, lookee how the camera is trying to make you feel like you’re there!”
The story was cliched and lame, the characters one-dimensional cardboard, but I still probably would have enjoyed it if only I could have actually watched it.
Yes! Yes! Thank you! The first one with that weird rabbit crap going on, wtf was it with that voice? Other films use that effect for serial killers. And the second one, excuse me, but aren’t comedies supposed to be funny? I seem to remember being trapped into seeing it by the requirements of politeness, and only managed to endure it by spending my time mentally cataloging the variety of dumb ass plot twists.
Naturally, they are Prince Charming’s #1 and #2 favorite movies of all time.
I’m having trouble understanding why someone who loved the book of Watchmen didn’t care for the movie. It was the second-most faithful adaptation of a comic book to a movie I’ve ever seen (after Sin City). Not disputing your opinion; I just don’t get it.
Definitely agree with you there… I have no idea what the film was about or why people seemed to think it was so great.
I thought I was going to like the first Lord of the Rings movie. However, I lost track of everything that was happening after about half an hour, and I just sat in the theater bored out of my mind for the remaining two and a half hours.
Well, Clash of the Titans. I just got back from the theater. I am so easy to please about these kinds of movies, although I will echo what others have said about Alexander…another big disapointment.
But, yeah, waited so long to see Clash. I can’t believe it let me down.
I don’t get that either.
That said, if you’ve read the comic, there’s really no need to see the movie. If you haven’t read the comic, I doubt the story made much sense. I watched it with my dad and had to explain various plot points because the movie just didn’t flesh out that world very well.
Jurassic Park 2. I loved the first one and had such high expectations for the second…but it didn’t live up to them. Not at all.
I had high hopes for The Golden Compass. Those books were some of the first fantasy I read, and I really liked them. I almost walked out of the movie. They didn’t even begin to tell the story – they just filmed the highlights, or what they thought should be the highlights. I’m not surprised that we won’t see movies from the other two books in the trilogy.
Another for The Royal Tennenbaums. I loathed it.
And…okay, I didn’t think I’d love it, but I thought the first Transformers movie would be a mildly entertaining explosion movie. I was totally unprepared for how much I hated it. Incredibly boring, total waste of time and money.
Oh god yes, this. Liked the book, liked the look of the cast…but it was just so BLAH. Not to mention the ending seemed so unfinished that when the credits rolled I wanted to shout “hey, HEY! What are you doing? Turn those lights back down, we’re not done here!” Look, I get that you think you can’t end a movie on a bad note, but come the fuck on. You can’t just end it wherever the hell you want!
And I agree with another poster who mentioned The Black Dahlia. I watched it with a (then) boyfriend, and we got so bored that we finally just went “okay, how much more of this is there?” and looked at the back of the DVD. We had over an hour left. We decided it wasn’t worth it and turned it off.
Because movies do NOT equal books (and vice versa). What I, as someone who cherished the source material, longed for was a director competent enough to film his own vision of the graphic novel, but who wouldn’t lose the spirit of the source. What I never wanted was some hack director who was a) so fucking clueless as both an artist and a craftsman, and b) so slavishly enamored of the source material that he/she would literally concoct a near-shot-for-shot transposition of book to film. And that’s exactly what I and everybody else fucking got. Damn it.
Not hate, but here are three movies that I had really high expectations for based on their reputations but which disappointed me:
On the Waterfront: I found it melodramatic rather than dramatic. And Brando’s method acting has never been a big plus for me and he was laying it on here.
The Sting: I loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and I expected this to be at the same level. But when I finally watched it, I found it surprisingly weak. It seemed like a well-made TV movie not a major feature.
Saving Private Ryan: The first twenty minutes were brilliant. But after that, this was just another routine war movie like any one of dozens of others. And I hated the “earn this” ending.
Did you see it in 2D or 3D? If you saw it in the latter format, was the 3D as dodgy as I’ve been reading?