I forgot to mention this one in the “dislike” thread. My wife and I saw this one as a sneak preview, and found two, maybe three laughs in it. The rest of it was a movie made by the “cool kids” about the social rejects that pretended to sympathize with the rejects while actually laughing at them. It’s the exact opposite of Judd Apatow’s “Freaks and Geeks”. I didn’t really grow to actively hate it until all the “cool kids” started wearing “Vote for Pedro” t-shirts. If you thought this film was funny, you - by definition - were not an outcast. You were one of the oppressors in school.
And “Dogville” deserves to be upgraded from “dislike” to “hate”. Lars von Treir is where they would stick the nozzle if they needed to give the entire planet an enema.
The Legend of Zorro. I can respect doing something in a Steampunk vein, but… The plot revolved around California entering the Union. This happened in 1851, and the president was James K.Polk. Who does the movie show welcoming them into the Union? Abraham Lincoln (President 1861-1865). Just plain lazy.
And don’t even start me on League of Extraordinary Heroes. Tom Sawyer as a 20-something? Mina Harker with amazing vampire powers? Hyde and Invisible Man as stand-up team players? Christ…
I’ll second Leaving Las Vegas. I’ve never much liked Nicolas Cage, but that movie made me loathe him and everyone who had anything to do with his existence.
Oh, and A Christmas Story. I successfully avoided seeing that piece of crap until a few years ago when my boss brought it to work and forced us to watch it as our holiday “celebration.” Made me wish for a Red Ryder BB gun my ownself.
I hate Unbreakable because it caused me to walk out of the theater because it sucked so bad.
I hate Twister because for a while there, it seemed like everybody I visited had it playing, and I was forced to watch that crap not only once but several times.
I hate Fur because here I thought it was going to be a good movie because it was about Diane Arbus and it starred Nicole Kidman, and it was utter dreck. It tricked me.
I hate The Brave One because it’s still fresh in my mind, having just suffered through it last night. That movie SUCKED, especially the dialogue.
I don’t think so. Don’t you remember how incredibly popular it was before the first sequel came out? OTOH:
You have succeeded in finally putting words to the unease I had with Episode 3, and with the entire series to a lesser extent. I think you nailed it: he simply doesn’t understand how humans, as social animals, work. And if you think about it, Episode 6 and to a lesser extent Episode 5 were studies in near-cathartic ill will of all kinds: Solo’s disgusting chauvinism, Lando’s cowardly revenge (hiding behind Vader’s coercion), the ease with which everyone but Solo and Artoo gives up on Skywalker on Hoth, etc. The incest revelation almost feels like Lucas giving into the temptation to destroy something beautiful. And yep, it’s definitely one of the biggest scams in history–it’s hard to believe that the world is so captivated by a series of oversimplified good-and-evil stories that stinks worse and worse with every movie, with awful dialogue and shitty character development all the way through.
Kicking and Screaming. The most horrible, horrible movie I’ve ever seen. It makes me mad thinking about it. The only reason I didn’t leave in the middle of it was that I was with some workmates and it was an “office outing” sort of thing. Ugh, that thing stunk.
I have a bad memory for movies, so I forget exactly why I hated some of these, just that I couldn’t wait for them to be over and felt poorer for having watched them:
Palindromes - I really liked the director’s Happiness, but this one just annoyed me.
Sweet November - the one with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. I hated their insipid characters from start to finish.
Phantom Menace - Jar Jar, crappy CGI and the bad kid actor were enough to stop me from seeing the other two prequels.
Touch of Evil - Just because I wanted it to live up to its reputation, and it didn’t. In fact, it had one of the worst idiot plots I’ve ever seen.
Titanic - I should watch this again; when it came out I was 19 and I absolutely hated Leonardo DiCaprio for being that smirky pretty boy who gets all the chicks (and draws them naked).
Now we just need someone to come along and mention Election and we’ll be three for three on Alexander Payne. Seriously, I can see why people don’t like these movies, particularly if they need a character to be sympathetic or redeemed, 'cause Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor just don’t offer up that kind of fiction; instead, they concoct stories where no one is really a villain, but there aren’t much in the way of honorable people, either. Sort of like real life, writ large. The problem with Schmidt, in particular, isn’t that he’s an actuary, but that it is all he is; he has nothing else in his life. I know plenty of people like that, including people who are would-be actors/musicians/et cetera.
Now there’s a hate I can buy into. A dreadful movie with a bizarrely inappropriate Cinderella message in the end.
My hated movies change over the years. For awhile I hated “Gone with the Wind” (fatigue more than hate probably). For a while I hated “Tootsie”; then after “Rainman” I realized it was Dustin Hoffman I really hated.
Right now I’m hating on “Atonement” (that book was really never, never meant to be a movie) and “Sex and the City” (did anyone read the bitchy Rex Reed review? That’s how I felt about this movie. only more so. )