Had to share this: I attended the recent Rifftrax screening of Manos: The Hands of Fate. Before the movie started, they had a series of slides, like the slide they normally show before movies to give the crowd something to look at before the feature begins, but they were created by the Rifftrax crew, basically making fun of movies and actors and the slides themselves. My favorite one was a “MOVIE MISTAKES” card that said simply, “Sam Worthington”.
Of late, I’ve been far more impressed with foreign movies. There are whole countries of filmmakers with more to say and actors who blow truly famous stars out of the water in terms of chops.
“The Prophet”, “The Guard”, “36”, and “Gegen Die Wand” were outstanding.
Does anybody still think American Beauty or Crash deserved the Best Picture Oscar?
AB’s only real competition that year was The Insider, an equally brilliant film, but not nearly as subversive. I think it was fantastic. Still is. Crash had even lesser competition, although I still think Munich was criminally underrated.
Well, the year that Crash won the Best Picture award, Brokeback Mountain was also nominated (and had the most nominations overall) and was favored to win. So I wouldn’t say that “Crash had even lesser competition.”
I really can’t say as American Beauty is pretty much my favorite film.
A film that was hideously overrated to me was Bridesmades. Nowhere near as funny as Hangover.
The Insider was so much better than AB. The Insider is the king of underrated movies.
In my mind, yeah. Lesser. “Brokeback Mountain” is one of those films where the acting might get praised but the film itself is less than the sum of its parts. Michael Douglas was better than “Wall Street” and won the Oscar accordingly. “Chariots Of Fire” is a converse example of a film that was uniformly excellent but had no standout performers.
I am often underwhelmed by Best Picture winners, and those are two great examples. AB in particular — I was so bored that I would have walked out of the theater if my wife hadn’t been there with me.
But after it was over, she said I should have asked her, because she felt the same way. That surprised me, because my tastes are considerably more lowbrow than hers.
Pulp Fiction; I found it…well, a revolting mess of unlikeable people doing despicable things. I didn’t even like any of the one liners. I suppose it has some sort of ‘film snob’ merit for doing stylistic cinema things, but I still hated it. Like, really HATED it. It’s probably on my top five movies I enjoyed the least. (Which is in no way correlated to the much more entertaining “Top five worst movies” list.)
:rolleyes:
Lord save us from people who HAVE to have “In my opinion” tacked on to every sentence, even if it’s painfully obvious that the sentence has “In my opinion” unstated in it.
Sheesh
I don’t get the fan fuss about Buckaroo Baonzi. It’s an ok film, but…not I don’t get the love for it.
Crash
A.pair.of.lips Now
Some Like It Hot
Avatar
Best unkown by many but excellent and arguably timeless and applicable today
The Best Years of Our Lives
I don’t see why. Like others here, I thought it was a decent movie, even a good movie, but far short of great. Repeated viewings did nothing to change my opinion.
Others I don’t think are so hot are Star War (mostly boring), The LOTR tirlogy (not “bad”, either, but plot-wise, I’ve never seen what was so special about it, though I did enjoy the books more as a kid), and The Hangover (I think I laughed once during the entire movie).
Are we both talking about the Sigourney Weaver flick? Dumb movie. Dumb plot. The characters acted like idiots at every turn, except Weaver who only acted like an idiot when she was the last surviving human. The layout of the ship was stupid, but served to force the characters to be at risk by walking down an unguarded hallway when the monster was loose. The motivations of the human bad guys made no sense, and the aliens didn’t have motivation - it wuz just eeeeee-VUL. :rolleyes: And the walls in the bridge were obviously egg cartons with Christmas lights. Dumb and cheap. Yes, Alien belongs in this thread. Probably the rest of the series as well, although Aliens did have some moments of awesome, and some quotable lines.
I am Typo Knig and I endorse this message! phxjcc please start a thread on Under-rated movies, leading with The Best Years of Our Lives.
I only enjoyed Avatar because I was rooting for the humans the whole time. General Picket calmly sipping coffee as he destroys the Keebler Elf home of the Space Smurf Indians was one of the greatest scenes in movie history. I don’t understand why he was the villain. He drove them out with gas, it was humane! The Na’vi are selfish and xenophobic.
Speaking of Avatar, Dances with Wolves was an incredibly overrated movie. Basically, if the film’s plot follows the Dances with Wolves formula it’s almost certainly going to suck. Examples include:
The Last Samurai
Ferngully
Pocahontas
Bizarrely enough an exception to this might be Dune. Dune probably gets away with it because it’s not terribly preachy, among other reasons. On the other hand, I think the Dune sequels are a bit overrated, but now we’re in books here, so that’s a different thread.
Not I. There are some topics that are so universal, that I’ll read another one, or even reread all of a zombie thread: over-rated films, plot holes, bad movie science in movies…
Free advice for dealing with over-hyped movies: Check out what’s coming out ahead of time, and when something looks interesting, QUICK! rush out and see it before that one friend of yours says "it’s THE MOST Ay-MAY-zing movie…I mean, film!"
Mine? Most of the comedies my friends say I just have to see, NOW: “Duuuude, you’ve gotta watch The Hangover five times in a row with us!” “While we tell you all of Zach Gallifinwhatziz’s lines just before he does.” “Followed by Pineapple Express and Mallrats!”
Comedy’s subjective, duuuude. (Maybe I should make them watch Harvey…)
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating…
If you have not seen Citizen Kane in a movie theater, you have not seen Citizen Kane. The film was created for the environment of a movie theater, not a TV screen, and definitely not to be broken up with commercials.
Please, if you ever have a chance to see a film print in a theater, you owe it to yourself to see it. I’m confident your opinion will change. My wife had tried to watch it on TV before and had failed. But sitting next to me at Chicago’s Music Box theater, watching a 35mm print, we had substantially the same experience as the original audience of the film, and very likely the same experience as most of the film critics who praise the film.
Vastly overrated:
Gone With The Wind
Avatar
Dances with Wolves
Alien
E. T.
Lost In Translation
Good movies, yet over-rated:
Citizen Kane - belongs on all-time great list … but #1 ??
Sunset Blvd - good but #12 all-time rating is crazier than C.K.'s
Psycho
The Graduate
2001: A Space Odyssey - looks ridiculous now, but special 40+ years ago
Tastes differ dramatically, as some Dopers panned the following Excellent movies:
Fargo - one of my very favorite movies
Crash - one of my very favorite movies
The Sixth Sense
Pulp Fiction