You’ve Got Mail. How I hated that movie. It made me so angry!
Good Will Hunting. God Damn, I hated this movie.
Kill Bill, both volumes. They were ridiculously gory and violent and could’ve been much cooler had they not had so many amputations and decapitations.
Reservoir Dogs. Okay, most anything by Quentin Tarantino. I really don’t get the casual violence. Why is it supposed to be so cool? I see nothing artistic about it. It’s just violence. Pulp Fiction was at least mildly funny, though not so much so that it was really worth watching the whole thing.
The Piano and The English Patient. Again, both were very artsy, which is just not my style of movie. I can appreciate some artsy movies, but I really watch movies to be entertained, not to extol the virtues of various methods of directing, shooting and acting, so many critically acclaimed movies are just lost on me. Plus, The English Patient confused the hell out of me. But at least it was a lot like the book, which also confused the hell out of me.
Million Dollar Baby.
American Gangster. I just kept sitting in the theater waiting for something-anything-to happen. When my husband started snoring, I decided it was time to leave.
Of those already mentioned, I agree with Saving Private Ryan (wildly overrated) and Field of Dreams (schlocky and stupid, Kevin Costner).
My addition: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I was REALLY looking forward to this and I expected to love it. But I found all of the “inside Jim Carrey’s head” sequences ridiculously boring. It was like when someone tells you about their crazy dream from last night and asks you what you think it means. If they had cut those sections down by about 85%, I think I would have liked it a lot more.
But I am apparently alone in this opinion. Everyone else thinks this movie is awesome.
this one. I hated pulp fiction.
Did people really like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? I’m not sure. I remember a bunch of hype about it, but I don’t know if it was good hype or bad hype.
Anyway, I saw it for the first time last night and pretty much hated it. A poorly written wankfest of codependency and dysfunction with mediocre acting.
Yeah, but as I said, Superbad isn’t something just a circle of my friends liked!
I hated it, too. And people kept telling me I had misunderstood it or whatever. It was a crock of shit and I just hated the principle characters.
Of the others mentioned, I will agree to E.T. definitely, though I didn’t realize I hated it until years after I had seen it, and then I felt robbed.
I also appreciate the realism of the beginning of Saving Private Ryan and I recommend everyone see it after they have watched too many “candy” war flicks. The rest of it was a bit boring I agree.
Titanic.
Avatar.
See a pattern here?
Did people like this?
I can’t think of anything anyone else hasn’t mentioned, but I do want to add my voice to those who hated Crash and City of God.
Lost in Translation. Aptly named; something didn’t make it from the inspiration to the screen. Just kind of wandered and didn’t do much for me. I like Bill Murray and I was expecting a lot from this movie, especially given the reviews.
Contact. I really wanted my money back on this one. Over time I’ve come to understand that there are two different cultural mindsets & ways of thinking about “contact with extraterrestrial intelligences”, one of which derives from standard science fiction and assumes that contact with ETs would be akin to contact with a previously unknown human culture, the other of which is a woo-woo semi-spiritual semi-religious belief system about conspiracies, aliens as special/spiritual guides or leaders for humankind, and the conflict between True Believer who believes in aliens and alien abductions & crop circles versus skeptical people who would say “Cite?”. I was expecting the former and got the latter. Also, the main character at no point gains a toehold and manages to succeed or take control of any situation she is in; it was like the worst of old gothic paperbacks like Mary Roberts Rinehart. Damsel in perpetual distress.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Not so fantastic. Good execution but the story itself was sort of all over the place. Slow-moving. Interminable. Eventually boring.
City of Lost Children. Unwatchable. Weird for the sake of weird. We ejected the DVD and went on to watch something else.
Sunshine Cleaning. Had high hopes for this one, from the same folks who made Little Miss Sunshine, but somehow it never gelled into any kind of compellng story.
OK, it’s not exactly Avatar or anything, but the film had a budget of $400K and brought in $44 million domestically. That’s not chump change. Compare that to Goodfellas which had a $25 million budget and brought in about the same take as Napoleon Dynamite.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: I keep getting told how great it is and how the fact that it’s such a great film about mumble. I find it hard to watch, I don’t know, I’ve heard that was the point. All I know is that I got bored about halfway through and never finished it.
I also hate E.T. (someone mentioned it above), but that’s probably partially because I was scared of E.T. when I was little.
My wife and I rented Prizzi’s Honor one evening. The critics thought well of it, a lot of people had recommended it, good actors in it, etc.
Hated it. HATED HATED HATED it.
Usually, a film this well recommended should score no worse than an “Eh”, but not this one. HATED HATED HATED it.
The Others. Actually, save for the first 10 minutes I never actually watched it so I can’t really say I hated it, but I figured out the twist before the opening titles finished so I turned it off.
I’ll agree with City of God. I saw it, thought it was forgettable, and couldn’t believe when I found out that people thought this was great art. The only thing it seemed to have going for it was that it was super violent.
Yeah. Well, I didn’t hate it, but it left me scratching my head. I mean, people kept telling me how gawddamn funny it is, so when I finally saw it I was expecting to laugh hysterically. I kept waiting for the funny parts… and waiting… and waiting…
“Godfather Part II”. Never understand why people fawn over it as “greatest sequel ever”. Which isn’t much of a field except for “Bride of Frankenstein” and “Empire Strikes Back”.
“Carnal Knowledge” As Mad magazine said at the time, who is going to believe Candice Bergen is a wallflower at a dance?