Monty Python, while I have great respect for the individual actors and their later works, apart from a select few skits, the shows were a random pastiche of poorly done sketch comedy that was both tiring and predictable.
I got that on Netflix. I kept thinkin’ “What kind of pansy-ass gangsters are these??? Christ, the girls look tougher than the guys!”
There are a BUNCH of things left over from the '60s that you just have to assume were only big successes because the audience was stoned out of its gourd. Bob Dylan. 2001. Saturday Night Live (it’s from the '70s, but the same rule applies). Susan Sontag. Now that the '60s are OVER, can we move on?
I HATE this attitude. If the work is good, who cares if a bazillion other people agree? Judge the work on its merits. Looking down your nose at something just because it is popular is infantile. (And, by the way, just because something is unpopular doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck… a failing of most modern art critics!)
I think I agree with both of you. I fell prey to the “if it’s popular, it must be crap” mentality in my early 20s, and got over it by about 27.
But I think (and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, Roland, so correct me, please) Roland’s talking about stuff that’s OK, but not the be-all, end-all of entertainment. For me, that’s things like American Pie. I thought it was amusing, I laughed some. I might even watch it again on cable if there’s nothing else on. But I did not grasp the phenomenon it created. I don’t think it was dreck, but I don’t think it was (what’s that word?) the Bomb-Diggety Shiznit[sup]TM[/sup]
Neil Young sucks. Utterly.
I said it, I’d say it again if necessary.
But even stuff that’s OK entertainment, if judged merely as OK entertainment, nothing more, shouldn’t be looked down on just for being popular.
Filet mignon is wonderful, but, sometimes, all you want is a burger. And that’s OK, no need to sneer because the hoi polloi also like a burger.
There may well be valid reasons to criticize, for example, Lloyd Webber’s music, but the intensity of the disdain that is so commonly expressed is largely because the common folk persist in liking his stuff despite the critics’ sneers.
The other thing I find amusing about this attitude is that it occasionally gets inverted to the point where critics assume that if something pisses people off, it must be Great Art.
This rule is almost universal in current arts criticism.
Absolutely. But when I’ve been “burned” by American Pie and Something About Mary and (I dunno) pretty much anything by Ben Stiller post-Reality Bites, it does make me a little less likely to pay $10 to see Napoleon Dynamite in the theater. I’ve just learned that my taste in comedies marketed to 20somethings doesn’t really match popular acclaim. Does that mean Napoleon Dynamite sucks? I dunno, I haven’t seen it. But it does mean I’ll wait until it pops up on my Netflix queue.
I couldn’t agree more. My husband and I still argue about this one. I maintain that just because something was shot on a digital hand-held with a budget that fit on the director’s credit card and made $19.75 at the box office - that doesn’t make it a “fantastic independant art film.” It may just be crap.
I’ll third Seinfeld. At it’s height of popularity, I watched it. Unfunny. Then all the smartest people I knew started talking about how wonderful it was, so I tried it again. Still unfunny. One of my friends insisted that I had to watch it repeatedly in order to be able to “get it”, but there are a limited number of half-hours I’m willing to invest in something. In short, I never did get it, and I’m not regretful at all.
Not a big DS9 or B5 fan. While not actually diliking them, I just really don’t get what all the fuss is about. Meh.
Emenim a genius? So is the turd I dropped in the commode this morning, then.
Most of the flicks that have won Best Picture over the last 25 yrs or so are just so-so to me.
Can’t stand the boredom which is the Godfather series. Yeah, I tried.
Add “The Hours” to the list.
The whole premise of this POS seems to be" Lets write the most pretentious and boring thing we can, lard it with gay characters , and watch the critics fall all over themselves trying not to pan the movie for fear of being labelled ‘homophobic’."
The critics didn’t disappoint anyone but the audience.
Off the top of my pointy head: L’Atalante
I’ve seen this acclaimed Jean Vigo film several times and it still leaves me with that “meh” feeling. Nicely photographed, though.
I think you should switch to Preston Sturges. 
Peanuts.
There, I said it.
I must admit I enjoyed the cartoons as a kid. The strip, however…
If you look in the dictionary under “predictable” and “boring”, there’d be Schultz.
I Love Lucy
Citizen Kane
The Family Guy
Saving Private Ryan
All of them over-rated claptrap. Lucy isn’t remotely funny, Family Guy is just derivitive and stupid, as is Ryan. Kane is just boring.
Modern jazz makes me gag. I understand the basic concept - take a melody and dissect it eight ways from Sunday to show how utterly abstract and ingenious you can be. But the wandering, wobbling, wailing gobbledegook makes my brain hurt. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and all their ilk can just fuck the hell off.
(God that felt good. Mr. Pug worships these musicians and plays their crap all the time.)
Amelie.
Mention that you hate this piece of dreck and you might as well admit that you eat babies for breakfast. Barf.
Most old movies. My wife watches them and enjoys them greatly. Y … a … w … n. I find them all, almost without exception, boring. Fred and Ginger Rogers’ films, the Thin Man films … hell, just about ANYTHING shot in black and white … boooooring. There are a few exceptions, that are worth watching once like Sign of the Cross, but not fucking many.
There I said it. And it had to be said.
Are they tender? Are they juicy? Are they crunchable, prrecioussss?
Is what I came here to discuss. I watched it in its original run. The jokes are NOT FUNNY and the timing is weirdly off. It tried to imitate the madcap, irreverent humor of The Simpsons (even going so far as to steal some of their gags), but failed miserably. Watching Family Guy is like watching a grandpa on a skateboard: a pathetic attempt at edginess that leaves me cringing with embarrassment for all the people associated. What puzzles me even more is that some of my friends worship this crap, so I’ve had the pleasant opportunity of watching more of these episodes through the wonders of Adult Swim.