# Petty rants against well liked movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2009, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550 "2009-02-05T11:16:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/21 "2009-02-06T06:27:01Z")
Yeah, **Saving Private Ryan** was both a film that contained one of the best 30 minutes in all of cinematic history as well as a film that was merely solid but uninspired. Tremendously overrated because of its director and legendary opening act. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/22 "2009-02-06T06:41:35Z")
_Saving Private Ryan_ is often compared with _The Thin Red Line_, another major movie about WWII which was released around the same time. _Saving Private Ryan_ was certainly much more popular but I think _The Thin Red Line_ was a better film. At least, I felt its depictation of the reality of war was much truer. Wars aren’t won by a handful of men fighting one mission - they’re won by a country that mobilizes millions of men and fights for years. _The Thin Red Line_ seemed to be trying to show that. It didn’t hand the audience an easy plotline built around a bunch of recognizable individuals so you could follow along. It essentually threw the viewer into the middle of the battle and like the soldiers you had to try to understand what was happening from seeing a few small pieces of larger events. Individuals and events appeared and then disappeared without their “story” be resolved or even without their story being explained. The fighting just continued without the movie trying to break it down into a simple plotline. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/23 "2009-02-06T07:16:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _Saving Private Ryan_ is often compared with _The Thin Red Line_, another major movie about WWII which was released around the same time. _Saving Private Ryan_ was certainly much more popular but I think _The Thin Red Line_ was a better film. At least, I felt its depictation of the reality of war was much truer. Wars aren’t won by a handful of men fighting one mission - they’re won by a country that mobilizes millions of men and fights for years. _The Thin Red Line_ seemed to be trying to show that. It didn’t hand the audience an easy plotline built around a bunch of recognizable individuals so you could follow along. It essentually threw the viewer into the middle of the battle and like the soldiers you had to try to understand what was happening from seeing a few small pieces of larger events. Individuals and events appeared and then disappeared without their “story” be resolved or even without their story being explained. The fighting just continued without the movie trying to break it down into a simple plotline. _The Thin Red Line_ was quite annoying in its own right, especially the scene toward the end where the humane Japanese sergeant ( I think) pleads with one of the half-dozen unrecognizable mud-covered GI protagonists to surrender peacefully, we don’t need to fight, I really don’t want to shoot you. Yeah. _Right_. Unless he was trying to save a bullet so that he’d have the pleasure of cutting the American’s head off instead. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/24 "2009-02-06T07:26:05Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Also, **Knead’s Laws of Running Away** : > > 1. Never run up in a building. > > 2. Never run down in a boat. (Unless your boat is called _The Poseidon_) ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/25 "2009-02-06T10:27:59Z")
WALL-E: only stalking - including dressing up and taking on “dates” the unconscious body of a woman who thinks you’re an annoying pest - can save us now! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/26 "2009-02-06T11:03:22Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > No, the message I took from that movie is that Nazis sell movie tickets, and that Stephen Spielberg is a classic self-loathing Jewish-anti-semite. No, he isn’t, and \*you \*have no right to call him that. Get it? And Kubrick was wrong: \*Schindler’s List \*was not a movie “about the Holocaust”, just as \*Ryan \*wasn’t a movie “about WW2.” They were stories like any other, set in a specific time and place. Don’t confuse the subject with the setting. There are thousands of stories about the period, and those were just two of them - two very good stories that offer a certain amount of insight on their settings, but don’t attempt to define them. Was \*the Guns of Navarone \*supposed to tell us the story of WW2? Was _the Dirty Dozen_? Or _Where Eagles Dare?_ SPR was nothing more and nothing less than a WW2 action movie - and one of the best of them, as Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of action movies ever to live. As for _Schindler_, well, it’s not as if we haven’t been inundated with enough Holocaust stories. It was nice to finally see one with a happy ending. I know the Hollywood hype tried to sell Spielberg’s films as “the story of the Holocaust/WW2.” Ignore that. Just watch them as a Holocaust movie and a war movie, and judge them by their merits. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/27 "2009-02-06T11:13:29Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > \*t’s not as if we haven’t been inundated with enough Holocaust stories. It was nice to finally see one with a happy ending. Permission to make that my sig? ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/28 "2009-02-06T11:52:10Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > WALL-E: only stalking - including dressing up and taking on “dates” the unconscious body of a woman who thinks you’re an annoying pest - can save us now! Another thing. Why wasn’t Wall-E the girl, and Eve the guy? Eve is an inexpressive robot who shoots before it asks. Wall-E is afraid of physical confrontation, and spends it life cleaning up. Ok, I’m mostly joking. But still, the lead is male way too often. ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/29 "2009-02-06T11:57:50Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > **Dances With Wolves** > The buffalo didn’t look real at all. Ah, a fellow member of the DLDWWS! ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/30 "2009-02-06T12:27:42Z")
Good Will Hunting Okay, I guess there’s nothing at all creepy about coercing someone into a therapeutic relationship with a psychologist who is even more unhinged than the original guy. And it’s also demeaning for a smart person to do manual labor. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/31 "2009-02-06T16:02:00Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Permission to make that my sig? Sure, knock yourself out. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/32 "2009-02-06T19:43:30Z")
Sleepless in Seattle: Annie is living with one guy while pining for another. Her boyfriend is nothing but nice to her, and she lies and sneaks around on him the whole movie. Finally, after years together, she accepts his proposal and his absurdly expensive ring then dumps him on Valentines day for someone she has never met before. The boyfriend is mildly dissapointed the love of his life has dumped him, and the psychopath goes on to be with the vulnerable man and his vulnerable son. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/33 "2009-02-07T13:44:45Z")
Personally I thought that Saving Private Ryan was an excellent movie,not just the beach scene(Which WASN’T the opening scene) but even the bits without bangs and flashes. It was a good story done superbly and IMOone of the best war movies ever made. But Thin Red Line was quite frankly pure cliched mediocrity from start to finish. I dont know if it was rushed out to capitalise on SPRs success or if it was just a pretty dreadful concept in the first place. Totally forgettable. I also thought that Schindlers List was an incredible movie and didn’t get any vibes of self loathing anti Semitic etc.etc. Though to be fair I’m not Jewish and might have missed that if it actually were the case. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/34 "2009-02-07T16:18:08Z")
> [@](#): > > But Thin Red Line was quite frankly pure cliched mediocrity from start to finish. > I dont know if it was rushed out to capitalise on SPRs success or if it was just a pretty dreadful concept in the first place. > Totally forgettable. Considering Terrence Malick had been working on the film since 1989, I think we can discount that idea it was “rushed out” for its 1998 release. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/35 "2009-02-09T16:26:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Considering Terrence Malick had been working on the film since 1989, I think we can discount that idea it was “rushed out” for its 1998 release. So hes been working on it for all those years and nothings happened but SPR comes out and then all of a sudden the project is on go. I remember that at the time there were a number of famous actors begging for parts in TTRL after the shock and awe of the movie going publics reaction to SPR. This long after we forget how gobsmacked so many people were about SPR I remember walking out of the cinema with two friends(Both ex soldiers)after seeing it and we were as was the other leaving film goers totally silent. Watching TTRL a lot of the audience eventually started chatting to each other during the movie(Something that normally infuriates me)and nobody seemed to care. If I hadn’t have paid to go in I would have left halfway through it was such a non event. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/36 "2009-02-09T17:06:20Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Watching TTRL a lot of the audience eventually started chatting to each other during the movie(Something that normally infuriates me)and nobody seemed to care. My memory of TTRL was this… _grasses blowing_ _soldiers stare silently at each other_ _cloud drifts across sky…grasses blowing_ _soldier is about to speak, thinks otherwise, continues to stare_ _grasses blowing_ Me to wife “Screw this, I’m getting popcorn, want some?” If an interpretive dance poet sat down and made a war movie, this was the result. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/37 "2009-02-09T17:17:54Z")
I certainly agree that _The Thin Red Line_ had flaws. Malick tried to do too much and lost focus. He shot a lot of extrra footage and then tried to edit it down (it’s always a bad sign if the filmmaker doesn’t have a good idea what the final film should look like during the shooting). He let himself get talked into packing the film with star cameos that were distracting. And he used way too many of those “still life” shots that Gargoyle talked about. But all that said, _The Thin Red Line_ at least attempted to convey a larger message about its subject. _Saving Private Ryan_ had all the depth of a _Die Hard_ movie - it was entertaining but disposable. Spielberg never tries to talk to his audience; he just pushs their buttons. ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/38 "2009-02-09T17:30:07Z")
> [@Rufus\_Xavier](#): > > **Raiders of the Lost Ark** > > Dude. When the boulder starts rolling down the ramp, he should have run back under the ramp, not the other way. Not that it matters, because Indy probably isn’t even a human being; after being dragged under and behind a speeding truck over a dirt road, a normal human would be dead with very little skin left. Plus, he rides a submarine across hundreds of miles of open ocean. **If the boulder had hit him, it probably would have just bounced back.** It would’ve, had Chuck Norris played Indy. As it was, they cast wimpy Harrison Ford in the role, who ran away from the boulder like a scared little girl. ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/39 "2009-02-09T19:08:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But all that said, _The Thin Red Line_ at least attempted to convey a larger message about its subject. _Saving Private Ryan_ had all the depth of a _Die Hard_ movie - it was entertaining but disposable. Spielberg never tries to talk to his audience; he just pushs their buttons. I find it kind of hard to picture what the “greater message” that people seem to want from _Saving Private Ryan_ could possibly have been. Its basic point seems to be “War sucks, and messes you up.” It really doesn’t strive for anything above and beyond that, and I’m hard pressed to think of a better illustration of that than the D-day scene, or a scene where a soldier is stabbed to death excruciatingly slowly, trying to talk his assailant out of it the entire time, and we have to watch. I mean, really, what could/should Spielberg have said about war that didn’t get said there? As someone said very eloquently upthread, he was telling a particular story set in WWII, not THE story OF WWII. He did a great job, in my opinion, and any heavier messaging would have gotten in the way of the development of a group of characters who we may have seen before, but still felt very human throughout. Also, I may be one of the only people in the world who liked both SVP and _The Thin Red Line_, but did Malick really accomplish much more with his film than “War sucks, and messes you up?” Is there much more that CAN be accomplished in a story about characters in wartime? Both directors used very different methods to tell stories that, in my opinion, had very similar points. War sucks, and messes you up. What more of a point can there be? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/40 "2009-02-09T19:09:22Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Then the boulder would’ve blocked the only exit. Actually, no. We see an open shaft above the pit after the spike trap and the falling doors. Had he really been smart and thoroughly investigated the site using professional excavation methods he could have bypassed all the traps (except those in the shrine itself) by climbing down the shaft. Also, if Dr. Jones had just stayed home and graded term papers, he never would have led Toht and his henchmen to Marion Ravenwood’s bar, they never would have gotten the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, they would not have found the Well of Souls, and thus wouldn’t have located the Ark of the Covenant (which apparently ends up in William Randolph Hearst’s massive collection). And even if Belloq did manage to stumble across it by accident, it would have fried all the Nazis who were in its presence when opened possibly including Der Fuhrer himself. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Sleepless in Seattle: Annie is living with one guy while pining for another. Her boyfriend is nothing but nice to her, and she lies and sneaks around on him the whole movie. Finally, after years together, she accepts his proposal and his absurdly expensive ring then dumps him on Valentines day for someone she has never met before. The boyfriend is mildly disapointed the love of his life has dumped him, and the psychopath goes on to be with the vulnerable man and his vulnerable son. Excellent summary. Now try the grammatically offensive _You’ve Got Mail_ for the bonus round. _Goldfinger_: In the teaser sequence, Bond ignores advice from his compatriot to take the next flight to Miami, instead incautiously returning to play cabana boy to the club dancer who turns out to be a honey pot trap. He survives the brutal fight only by luck and the fortunate placement of a heat lamp. Once in Miami, Bond is given explicit instructions to observe Goldfinger but not to interfere; instead, he breaks into Mr. Goldfinger’s suite, interferes with a cheating scheme of no importance, runs off with Jill Masterson back to his own suite, and then fails to lock the door or set alarms, allowing even someone as fumbling as Oddjob to enter unheard, knock Bond cold, and kill the girl. Bond then catches up with Goldfinger in England, outcheats Goldfinger at golf (the only thing he does well in the film), and then proceeds to knock a woman off the road, get caught scoping out Goldfinger’s metallurgical works, gets Tilly Masterson killed in the attempt to evade capture despite his tricked out car, nearly sliced in half by a laser, knocked out, sent to Kentucky, meets and fails to charm Pussy Galore, discovers Goldfinger’s plan owing to the latter’s hubris and stupidity, fails to deliver a message to his counterpart at the CIA, locked in a vault with an atomic bomb, defeats Oddjob again by pure luck, and finally completely fails to disarm the device, saved only at the last minute by a CIA technician. Bond is then recaptured by Goldfinger and barely survives thanks to Pussy’s flying skill and the unlikely availability of a parachute. Bond couldn’t be more incompetent in this movie. It’s like a spoof of spy-actioneer films. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550.md?page=3)