Why, what do you think was the best science-fiction dramatic presentation of 2013?
I thought it had a premise based on big explosions, slow-motion gunfights, and Carrie Anne Moss in a catsuit. Look at it through that lens, and it’s pretty good.
This would probably be my best answer to the OP question. I love the way the movie looks, and I greatly enjoy the really shameless scenery chewing by all and sundry among the performers. It’s delightfully silly. (And, yes, I was very familiar with the book before ever seeing the movie.)
Also: among the Marx Bros. movies, my favorite is either The Cocoanuts or Animal Crackers, depending on which I’ve seen most recently. (Virtually everyone who even knows who the Marx Bros. were will cite Duck Soup as their best movie. I love it, but I love the others more.)
I could never enjoy anything directed by Stanley Kubrick. His style always strikes me as weirdly-paced and self-congratulatory. Also, Dr. Strangelove isn’t nearly as funny as so many people say; it has some good bits, but it hardly ranks as one of the best comedies ever. Maybe it was a scream when it was first released, but it has not held up well at all.
Not going against the whole world here – reviews were basically mixed – but I rewatched Man of Steel on cable a while back and it held up better than I remembered. I thought the backstory stuff and the suspense were handled really well. The score was effective. Kevin Costner was great in his small role as Pa Kent. The villain was awesome – formidable, scary, but also somewhat sympathetic. A lot of people complained about the horrific collateral damage shown, but, without lapsing into deconstruction, the movie was grappling with what it might actually be like if characters who are essentially minor gods started duking it it out in a populated area – if it was a comic book doing this, it would be praised for it’s gritty realism. Good stuff!
ETA: Oh, and *Dune *is awesome. I liked John Hodgman’s line from this Ted Talk, something like: “It was a David Lynch movie, which meant that everyone was both sexy and deformed at the same time.”
Isthar is admittedly uneven, but far from terrible and some sequences are excellent. People are starting to realize the film doesn’t deserve its critical reputation.
Alien. The characters are so consistently stupid – doing exactly the wrong thing when there are many better choices. I can’t imagine why anyone thinks it’s a good film, let alone a classic.
Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is an excellent film, especially when you understand the title is ironic – it’s a tragedy, not a comedy, and one of the darkest films ever (since it’s message is that love is futile).
No place for old men. A horrible movie, just one cliche character after another. I never could understand the high marks it got.
I watched Ishtar about 15 years ago and thought it was laugh out loud funny. I also really like The Village. I hated Gravity.
Agreed about BWP. Extremely effective little movie. I thought the female lead gave a terrific performance.
No Country For Old Men.
Give it up already. You are the only person in the world that feels that way. And there have been many threads where people have pointed out your criticisms of some plot points are wrong.
Hate the movie - that’s fine. But it is still a classic.
And I submit this thread should be about badly received movies that are actually good, not the reverse. Every movie has people that don’t like it. Saying GWTW, Casablanca are bad movies - that doesn’t make you special, doesn’t make you the lone voice crying out in the might “The Emperor has no clothes!” It just makes you wrong.
Van Helsing - It got bad reviews and very few people watched it. But I liked it. I thought it was a nice homage to the Universal and Hammer horror movies and a decent horror/adventure thriller in its own right.
Pluses: Kate Beckinsale dressed up in leather.
Minuses: Exploding horse carriages.
I don’t understand why Death to Smoochy got near-universal scorn. I think it’s hilarious.
I’ve gone over the plot points very clearly, and it’s obvious that the people in Alien are consistently stupid; it’s what Damon Knight called “an idiot plot,” and Baird Searles, film reviewer for Fantasy and Science Fiction, refused to write a review of it when it first came out, saying it was just a cheap haunted house movie, and Ben Bova pointed out when it came out that the crew were acting like idiots, too.
I understand why people like it, BTW: it’s scary (if you like being scared) and somewhat entertaining if you don’t think about it and don’t care about plot logic or intelligent characters. But, God, the crew of the Nostromo is pretty damn stupid at every turn.
John Carter of Mars was a perfectly serviceable summer fantasy science actioneer that got dumped in March by a studio that had zero concept of how to market it. Frankly, it was a better movie than Avatar or Transformers (any of them), but lacking big names directing or in starring roles, a ginormous special effects budget, or toy tie-in, it was pretty much destined to be ignored.
It is best to watch Casablanca with a skeptical eye and the soul of a cynicist. Imagine the film as if written by David Mamet, with Ilsa and her band of expert grifters playing the long game in order to cajole Rick into using his influence to eliminate the impediments to getting Lazlo out of Nazi hands. Those “letters of transit” that make no sense whatsoever never really existed at all, and the supposed “Major Strasser” and his curiously small entourage of German officers was just the kick needed to get Rick to act all noble to take the fall for Victor Lazlo’s escape. When viewed from the low angle and sharp, exaggerated shadows of film noir, the plotholes and character inconsistencies fall away and it all suddenly makes sense.
Stranger
I understand the scorn, but think the warts are absolutely worth overlooking for such a strange, dark movie. I would say it’s nearly a poster boy for “third act problems,” though.
I think the world is wrong to have utterly forgotten the film version of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not because it’s good, per se, but I think it’s highly entertaining. It veers well into “so bad it’s good” territory, which is almost more impressive when taking into account how good the music is.
I thought The Lone Ranger was great. I don’t know why nobody seemed to like it.
I also thought Gravity was a bore. A storyline as deep as a puddle and some nice shots of things exploding in zero-g.
Saw A.I. again today and still think it’s a great movie and have no problem with the ending. A lot of interesting stuff there. I don’t get the hate.
You don’t even need to care about the crew to enjoy, it has amazing visuals, amazing sets, a true sense of mystery and wonder. Prometheus has ruined it but the derelict ship and mystery of where it came from and why the eggs were and the enormous pilot that appears to be fused into the ship were real imagination sparkers.(I often wondered whether the ship itself was meant to be an organic construct).
Shawshank Redemption, the highest-rated film on IMDb. It has ridiculously clichéd characters…they might as well have put the warden in a Nazi uniform.
Town & Country, with Warren Beatty, etc., was frickin’ hilarious. I’m convinced that if it came out in the 1970s it would be considered a comedy classic and quoted endlessly. But it seems to be hated by everyone else, including the people who made it.