Fun thread, felt I just had to contribute a bit here..
I completely agree with Natural Born Killers.. actually anything Oliver Stone makes put me to sleep fairly fast!

The royal tannenbaums.. is that the name? Well something like it. Never got what it was supposed to be... Lots of people were laughing around me though.

I agree on Chicago.. Loved Moulin Rouge though.

The Barbarian invasion. won the oscar for best foreign movie?? The worst crap I've seen in years!! (I'd rather watch Legally Blond 24 hours than watching that crap again.)

And finally I'll lose all my credibility, if I had one in the first place, that is..
The Godfather series.. What a hype!! AlPacino is boring.. (Before you disagree go and see, "searching for Richard the third" or something along those lines.)

How about the opposite.. a movie everybody thought stinking and you actually liked? (like mission impossible 2 or waterworld..)

Hey...

What about Gigli?

Anyone see it? Actually, scratch that.... I don't think anyone would 'fess up to it!

Someone here rented "Swept Away"... and I actually watched about half an hour of it.

I think Madonna blackmailed or somehow forced Guy Ritchie to make that piece of @#~¬.

While watching it I got the feeling, that no one on the set actually cared about the movie. No body believed in it (maybe Madonna?). It was like, ok we are getting payed, let´s get over with it.

Alfred: I did like Waterworld, and The Postman (a little bit), and while I´m with Costner.. I also liked that one with Kurt Russel where they rob a casino dressed like Elvis...

<<<-- Originally posted by Alfred Okocha : Fun thread, felt I just had to contribute a bit here..

How about the opposite.. a movie everybody thought stinking and you actually liked? (like mission impossible 2 or waterworld..) -->>>

Yeah, Starship Troopers for me. :)

Pearl Harbor! Yes! It was horrible. The ATTACK sequence was great stuff in CGI land but the movie was sooooooo bad. M. Bay is just bad for cinema.

We Were Soldiers! oh man, i saw that moviein the theater! so awfull that it became funny....it looked like it was shot in the santa monica moutains right here in good old southern cali. i herd they had to remove the hollywood sign from some shots.

I couldnt make it through the royal tannenbaums, put me right to sleep.

>>Another bad Gibson movie in which he starred was The Patriot which had me aghast at how cliches could be trundled out in such a lazy fashion.<<
Yes, I actually was rooting for the English by the end. Yuch. We were soldiers could never figure out what it was trying to say, and what it did say was sentimental and pathetic.

Scorsese hasn't had a decent film in over 20 years, why do they continue to lionize him?

Pearl Harbor. Well at least he made up for it with Pirates of the Carribean. See Tora Tora Tora for a good Pearl Harbor flick.

Swept Away? Guy Ritchie wouldn't let Madonna do the sex scenes and a lot of other stuff from the original, and yes I blame him for this piece of crap, not Madonna.
The only good thing he's done recently was the BMW short making fun of his new wife Madonna (she was actually pretty good in that one).

Dune part 2 on the scifi channel. The first one was passable for a very low budget movie, but the second series just plane sucked. They totally lost their way.

Just about any movie where English actors are playing Americans and don't get the accent right. Especially when they try to talk 'Southern' and constantly slip back into their native way of speaking. Really annoying, and it takes me out of the movie.
(I was raised in the south and know the dif between an accurate and phony southern accent).

I have to say I do like Kubrick. But he's an acquired taste for most.
Anybody who says he is overrated really doesn't understand his films. take the time to watch them again, and again if needed.

You didn't even like "Goodfellas" (1990), Joe?

Okay I take it back, 14 years then. Forgot about GoodFellas.

Welcome to the USA Keith, hehehe.

btw the latest issue if RES magazine has an interesting opinion piece by Rob Nilsson I think everyone should read.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. Could anybody PLEASE explain what exactly was SO fantastic with BASIC INSTINCT??

Okej Sharon Stone and all that, but the movie steamed quit alot IMHO..

i catch a lot of gruff for this, but i can't stand BLADE RUNNER.
and i'm a science fiction movie fan, and a big fan of Harrison Ford's early acting.

i get the argument that it's "true" science fiction instead of "science fiction as the background for a story" (i.e. star wars, etc.) but i don't care how original the science fiction is.
it's just a bad movie. bad writing, bad dialogue, bad acting, bad lots of stuff. (I also get that the main character's acting "should" be a little wooden, since the whole thing is an exploration of the fact that the humans are less human than the replicas...... WHATEVER)

the only thing it has going for it in my opinion is great atmosphere. it has that in spades, but for the life of me, i cannot
figure out why everyone thinks it's such a seminal science fiction film. YUK!

"bowling for columbine"...simply awful in every way.

It is clear that the only reason it got the oscar in the documentary category is that Michael Moore is held in high political foavor by the members of the academy.

It is not even a documentary, but a crude, deceptively edited low-quality diatribe with a "hate America first" agenda.

I could be charitable and call it a satire or comedy, but that would be unfair to "This Is Spinal Tap" or "A Mighty Wind" or "Best In Show" which are truly funny mockumentaries.

I loved it.. Moore rules. ;-)

-Moore is infact full of it. i dont know why they havnt revoked his oscar.


I dont like Mulholland Drive, made absoloutly no sense to me, strangely enuf i liked lost highway.

I thought mad max was long and boring.

Matrix 2 and 3 are pathetic and they should rename matrix 2,"Matrix 2, The Exposition"

Entropy , some film with stephen dorph.

From Dusk till Dawn, - didnt like the way it went horror, but i dont like horror anyway.
Spy kids 3 - need i say more

Anything with puppets in it like Dark Crystal.
Jackie Brown,

supertroopers is not good too.

"i dont know why they havnt revoked his oscar."
real simple, the same reason they gave it to him to begin with...the Hollyweird establishment sheeple who make these decisions all (mostly all) love his moronic bolshevik arse. They think like he does and share his radical politics, and it's real cool and hip to vilify America and Americans. And anyone in the film industry who dissents to this lockstep does so at the risk of his career.

Whether the picture was good or awful (it's the latter) it is certainly not a documentary. Hell, by the standards they applied, Harry Potter is a documentary about English boarding schools! (hee hee)

And even conceding the category, the film was not eligible for the award in the year it was granted, because its distribution timing was wrong to be nominated in that year. Oh well, more powerful people than me made this selection.

We had this debate a long time ago like after last year's Oscars. Please do a search and save us the trouble of dragging it out again.

Hmm. I loved Jackie Brown. What's not to like about that one?

Not a debate, just an attempt at a theory to solve Ben's mystery. And my guess is as good as anybody's. hahahaha

Now, the question from Kevin about Jackie Brown, that could be the opener of a debate. But I can't help you guys there, I haven't seen it.

Actually, Joe has been kind enough to favor us with another thread for those who are fans of Columbine or Jackie (again, i don't know about that one) or any other steamers mentioned here, and it's called: "Movies you like but shouldn't have"...

And I like Joe's rules: no flames, nobody is wrong or stupid, etc.

Oh yes, and back to movies I hated, let's try Blair Witch Project.

No flame intended, I was just curious about what he didn't like with Jackie Brown. The lo-o-ng shots, the script, the acting, what? It's an unusual movie and there's lots of room for opinion. I agree that there are no right or wrong answers here.

Dunno just didnt like it.

Kill Bill was pretty damn good,
cant wait to watch the sequal.

My Fav Tarantino Films in Order.

Four Rooms
Kill Bill
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Jackie Brown
From Dusk till Dawn

Tarantino didn't make From dusk to dawn. Only acted. That's Roberto Rodriguez.
Since he claims that Kill Bill was his fourth movie, I'm not sure what's the deal with Four Rooms either.. Anybody?

He wrote the screen play.

Actually, Four Rooms had four directors and four screenwriters. Tarantino wrote and directed the "The Man from Hollywood" segment. Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, and Robert Rodriguez wrote and directed "The Missing Ingredient," "The Wrong Man," and "The Misbehavers."

Drawing influence from other films (as in all his works), Tarantino looked to "The Man From Rio," an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which, in turn, finds its pedigree from the Roald Dahl short story "The Man from the South." This would explain Roald Dahl's credit in Four Rooms.

I hated the first of the Tolkien's so much I wont see the others. Sorry. Too much, too often. Too visually rich for me. . . . I must be the only one on the Planet . . there again I loved Paris Texas and Rumble Fish.. . well, that figures I guess . . . oh yeah, loved Toy Story 1 . . .

<<<-- Originally posted by Keith Loh : We had this debate a long time ago like after last year's Oscars. Please do a search and save us the trouble of dragging it out again. -->>>

? ? ? ? ? ?

I actually manage to not see many bad movies these days. I have a sixth sense for them at this point, in combination with a "life is too short" attitude. Most films are quite shallow and plod along like novels or Three's Company. Most of cinema can be classified as Stupid Human Tricks, as far as I'm concerned.
Let's see, what's come up in recent days...

Scarface - wow, insatiably worthless drivel. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Naqoyqatsi - total failure as cinema. Thumb in eye symbolism and distracting image effects. This failure matters to me because the first two in the trilogy, particularly the first, have had such a lasting, positive, and profound impact on me as an artist and thinker and participant in Life.

I'm running short on my list! That's good, right? It means I've chosen to focus on what really matters most to me. Have we started a thread for this area yet? I'll look around.

Speaking of The Sixth Sense... I've often thought that the best way to watch Shyamalan films is on VHS in fast-forward.

Any "video game" movies suck. "Natural Born Killers" is a movie I have never been able to sit through and I have sat through some god awful flicks. I'm pleased to see that there are some fellow Kubrick haters to be found. I didn't like "Chicago". I never have liked musicals, but "Moulin Rouge" was even worse. Was it really a musical? What the hell was that anyways?

Kubrick had a positive influence on me in my adolesence, but I feel I've pretty much outgrown him. I do like Barry Lyndon quite a lot, though.

"No flame intended..."
I know, that's cool, I'm just being generally pre-emptive here.

"I agree that there are no right or wrong answers here."
That's what I like about this thread.

Ok, here's another sucky movie: "Glengarry Glen Ross." Just really depressing and annoying.

There's a tie for the two worst movies I ever saw. "Joe Vs. the Volcano" and "Lust in the Dust". Everyone who appeared in either of those should be ashamed for being tricked into having such a degrading mark on their filmographies. Of course, the maker of Lust in the Dust, deliberately tried for it to be the worst movie of all time and was hugely successful. How sad that the other one apparently was intended to have some redeeming qualities.

Steve McDonald

Here's my list of movies that most people like, but I really didn't find impressive at all:

- Goodfellas (another mob movie.... what else is new?)
- Lawrence of Arabia (loved the first half, but I wanted to kill myself as it dragged on and on)
- Resevoir Dogs (flat and dull... I'm really not a Tarantino fan)
- Donnie Darko (Although in this community I'm probably not alone)

and I'm really gonna get it for this one, but....

- Citizen Kane

I thought it was boring to be honest. Yes it was monumental in reshaping the art of cinema, and it has tons of redeeming qualities, but I seriously fell asleep the first time I saw it. I just wasn't very impressed considering it's the #1 movie on AFI's 100 best list.

I'm sure there are others but this is all I can think of for now. For some reason, people absolutely love these movies and I just didn't find them very enjoyable to be honest. I won't bother mentioning the B-movies I don't like because it's pretty obvious that most people don't like them.

This thread reminds me. All you folks should go to Ray Carneys' site and read his thoughts on American Cinema, how most movie critics are clueless dilletantes and what he feels good independent cinema is.

While he is p#ssing you off, remember..
He isn't trying to get you to agree with him. He is trying to get you to think for yourself and be honest.

He also understands how difficult it is to think outside the limited universe that commercial film making has been shoving down our collective throats.

One of the reasons I like him is because he is so strongly against ideoligcal films. They are nothing more than propaganda. Advertising for the self rightious set(pick one, left or right). He (like me) believes extremist ideologies destroy real art. (whether it's political, or religious).


btw, if all you want to do is make low budget versions of Hollywood movies, I wouldn't recomend reading his stuff.

He is also the foremost authority on John Cassavetes.

Believe it or not, many of you have similar sentiments to his.
It's nice to see that.

http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/

Carney makes some decent points about breaking the rules of storytelling to tell new stories, but he also makes the classic iconclast mistake that good art must be complex art. What the hell is wrong with a good story well told anyway? He also makes the classic mistake of labeling Hollywood films mass produced art when they're not. They're art produced by masses.


As to films I like but no one else does:

I don't know. I really, really like the Star Wars prequels. A lot.

I don't know what else. Of stuff I've seen on this list - I love Shawshank, I love Joe Vs. The Volcano I think it's Hanks best movie. I'm more or less indifferent to the Matrix sequels - they're fun to watch if you don't think about them too much. Love The Godfather. Love Deer Hunter, though it is certainly not my favorite Vietnam movie. And I haven't yet seen a Tarantino movie I didn't like. Same with Lynch.

And I may be alone on this, but I did really like Donnie Darko.

The worst movie I've seen in the last decade or so was Batman & Robin. I was with some other people so I couldn't leave, but I did get up and stroll around the theater a bit, and didn't care what I'd missed.

Felt about the same for Godzilla and The Postman. I didn't hate Titantic, but I was awful bored by it, the dialog and the acting were so bad. The same with Braveheart. Between that and The Passion, Mel Gibson has used up his lifetime's share of slow motion, the over crank should be permanently removed from his camera. I know there's stuff I've seen that I thought was overrated, but I can't think of it right now. Didn't care for About Schmidt too much. It was just so obvious and condescending.

I have strong disagreements with some of his conclusions also. He is sometimes given over to outrageous statements intended to upset more than educate. His dismisive attitude about movies dealing with the Holocaust is unforgivable.
He tends to reject the influence of outside forces and the impact they have on our lives. For him, it's the inward journey, the ever growing minutae of the inner self. blah. Most people really aren't that deep. Most people lie to everyone and about everything many times during their lives. Most people already know that and they don't want to pay 10 bucks to be reminded of it on the screen.

Even the philosiphers know there is difference between self discovery and selg absortion.


But I agree with his assesment that hollywood films talk down to their audiences telling them when to laugh, cry, jump,scream, be sad, be glad....Hollywood doesn't trust the public to figure things out for themselves, and over the years the public has bought into it.
Hollywood rarely produces art. They are in the entertainment business. Nothing wrong with that.

Art isn't about being beautiful or even complex. It's about redefining the boundries of what is normal. many times it's starts out rather ugly and confusing until enough people start to get it. And art shouldn't be for the elite or the snob, it should be for everyone, even though not everyone will understand it.

I think it is entirely possible to add depth , discovery and meaning to a genre film if done right.

Which is why I laugh when clueless dillitants criticize Kubriks' 2001 or movies like BladeRunner or
Get upset over Cassevetes 'Woman Under the Influence' because the characters are flawed and very real and like most people, sometimes very unlikeable.
Those people want movies to be their rah rah affirmation about theire own shallow lives.

I mean reading one post where someone 'grew' out of Kubrik tells me they never got him in the first place.

We haven't even begun to list all the bad movies.

re: quentin's best.
i think kill bill (the whole thing) is his magnum opus (thus far). i didn't like all 3 of his other works as much as kb cause kb had heart (literally) between uma the mother and the child. i think it's quentin growing up. i didn't get res dogs, pulp hoopla, jackie brown was extremely slow.

Chris,
oh i absolutely agree with you chris, the problem with modern film+stage is that everything is so anti-everything, so negative. for a REALLY good musical check out Silk Stocking (50s). it not only had good musical numbers but excellent dialogue/story. you+thewife will luv it i garauntee it... but it can be rented in places like netflix not your local video store.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : The wife and I absolutely loathed Chicago.*snip*-->>>

Rob, people who luv the matrix trilogy (all 3) falls into a SMALL minority of people. you're the first person on the internet i know who liked all 3, CONGRATS! you should pick up some of the books they have on the matrix. very interesting, especially baudrillard. i still believe (which is a theme driven home by oracle @end of revolution) that the matrix trilogy is the most "philosophical" films ever made.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : I actually liked the whole Matrix trilogy, especalliy since I started
reading more into all kinds of stuff. I didn't like all of it, but mostly-->>>

i think it's quentin growing up. i didn't get res dogs, pulp hoopla,

Pulp Fiction is about Grace. That's all you need to know.

The Blair Witch Project.

Stupidest F(&%n movie I have ever seen. Great Marketing. Horrible Movie. I can't believe they sold millions of tickets. How the hell do you get lost in the woods in a couple of hours in broad daylight. Then that 5 minute scene where we look up that crying b!$%es snot hole for five minutes. Actually that part was one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen.

Just for the record, you are all allowed to bash my movies when I get around to them. That would at least imply that you watched them. How about another thread about movies that are cool.

I think the Matrix sequels failed because they spent too much time with unimaginative cliche characters in the "real world" and thus lost the narrative drive of the story focused on The One. I think if you took the Matrix sequels and edited out 90% of what didn't involve Neo, you could end up with a well conceived film. The theme of peace and spiritual enlightenment at the end is inspired, if not exceptionally well acheived.

I loathe the Kubrick films - most recently saw Dr. Strangelove, and thought "Gee, this movie would be supremely funny if they didn't keep going to these drawn out-still shots that eliminate any sense of comedic pacing." The material was still funny beyond that, but there's no excuse for poor editing.

There was a cinephile hoo haw about the issuing of the 'director's cut' of Sam Fuller's "Big Red One" at the local cinematheque. One of the people I trust who is a big cineaste said it was on his best of list this year.

Well, I remember seeing it as a kid and I loved war movies but I think I gave it a fair grade then and I give I was pretty disappointed.

This was everything I hated about war movies growing up.

Not enough realism (blood and guts, proper heavy equipment, tactics), cliche characters and drawling narration.

It dragged on and on. There were some funny scenes but it was a big snore mostly. I liked the bare bones structure of it with the parallel German sergeant character but it wasn't tightly integrated.

People who have seen the appearance of authenticity in "Saving Private Ryan" would probably be appalled at this, even given "SPR's" story problems.

Star Wars Movies: any of them, do a diservice to Sci-fi and are impossible for me to sit through. Yeah, the first one was groundbreaking, blah, blah, blah. Metropolis was ground breaking.

The Passion: plotless, self important dud. If I wasn't sitting through it for free I would've turned it off as soon as the slow-mo fight scene started. Just idiotic.

Club Dredd: I loved Super Troopers but Broken Lizard really dropped the ball with Club Dredd. Brittany Daniel running around in a bikini the whole time does always make me pause on it while flipping through the channels.

Note on Natural Born Killers: one of favorites of all time, definetely Stone's best work. Tarantino bitched because he gave the movie substance and meaning instead of sticking to Tarantino's script which actually celebrated ruthless killing with absolutely no social commentary. Also, note that he did have his name put back on after the movie became popular. Tarantino is the most over-rated director out there. He does nothing original or moving. Just homage's to other people's work. I could sit through Kill Bill because the fight scenes were great. Kill Bill 2 was the biggest pointless borefest loaded with characters that were so cardboard it was impossible to actually give a shit about thier useless musings.

But Ian, how do you really feel about those films?

"Tarantino bitched because he gave the movie substance and meaning instead of sticking to Tarantino's script which actually celebrated ruthless killing with absolutely no social commentary"

Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed Natural Born Killers, but am I the only one that thought the script was nothing more than a retelling of 'Badlands.'?

No one ever seems to mention that, but if you watch both those films back to back, you'll see they are much too similar to be coincidence (in my opinion).

;) Definetely influenced by Badlands. In fact I'd call a '90's remake of Badlands but the fact that it had such a nineties feel, more over-the top, more MTV morose, more violent, that it was timely.

Also, this does support my "Tarantino does nothing original" sentiment.

It was Stone that made Tarantino's script more than a rehash.

Hey Ian,

Tarantino isn't as original as everyone says he is..but, he is a very talented writer and director. Pulp Fiction is definately excellent work. You can't tell me the scene where Bruce Willis is being chased and ends up in that little store where he almost gets raped by those guys isn't TOTALLY original?? It came out of nowhere and definately stands out.

I'm not saying he's the best or anything. But, you can't dismiss someone's work because you don't like it. The fact is every single film ever made that was actually completed and shown in a theater is a success. If you don't believe that - well, that's like saying you are a failure for not having a theatrical release of a feature film. You aren't a failure. I would say Tarantino is a huge success and talent for doing all those movies.

I didn't like Kill Bill 1&2 much, but those movies killed the box office.

"The fact is every single film ever made that was actually completed and shown in a theater is a success."

This discussion seems to be more geared towards the subjective reaction to movies as "art," not just commercial success.

If you only use commercial success as a standard, then we should all be heralding the merits of "White Chicks" as well.
:)

Chris,
He's undoubtably successfull and I don't hate his work entirely, Pulp fiction being his best, but Pulp fiction was a conglomoration of a bunch of shorter stories that he had mulling around anyway. While the movie is entertaining (and I'm all for entertainment for entertainment's sake at times) it was really only original in its structuring. Really it had no point. I'm guess I'm saying I agree totally that he is talented but I don't think he's ever going to be in the league of Ozu or Fellini or Visconti or De Sica or Renoir or Kurasawa or contemporaries like Aronofski (the jury could still be out but his first two films blow the doors off of Tarantino's work), Solonez, Anderson, Clark, The Coens, Sophia Coppola, Lynch...
I guess you see my tastes...

Anyhow, he's good, I just think he's overrated, especially by himself :0

And I'm no film-snob either. House of 100 Corpses was one my favorite movies in along time. I can't wait for the Devil's Rejects.

I hear you, Luis.

House of 1000 corpses wasn't well recieved anywhere but I thought it was great example of arthouse splatterfilm. All-time classic, no, but fun.

I'm gonna throw Sin City out as one my biggest film disappointments before it has even come out. It cannot live up to comic or my expectations. Not to mention, Frank Miller behind the camera. Anyone remember Robocop 3. Eeeeeeeeeeesh. Just gettin' that out there.

ian, you haven't even seen sin city yet!

as for tarantino, i think his magnum opus is KB. so full of vitality/emotion it was. i think it's his "grown up" film.

Yi, I know I haven't seen it. That's the point. I fear seeing it because I've been a fan of the comic for so long. It looks great, I'll give it that. Who knows. Of course, I'm hoping for the best.

As for KB, my problem is this, and I'll bring up H1000C again because I think their comparable (I know I'll hear it for that) because they are both homage's to certain genre films. Zombie revelled in making a tribute to the horror films of the seventies, Tarantino seems to think he's actaully adding something to the genre (or mish-mash of genres in KB's case), furthering it, as though his touch makes it more than just a hack and slash flick with fight scenes that don't even touch the beauty and skilled choreography of Crouching Tiger (for instance). I guess I'm saying Tarantino's like a genre/story blender but what comes out isn't anything new, its just the same old frappe, just with different ingredients.

I'm really sorry about that pun...