2001: A Space Odyssey- I find this one boring and unwatchable, and I'm an Arthur C. Clarke fan!
The Wes Anderson ouvre- Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. They're not bad movies, I just don't see what the fuss is about.
The Pink Panther films- These are funny? Ooookayy....
Crouching Tiger - Hidden Dragon - watched it twice and can't remember a damn thing about it.
Titanic - My only regret is that Leonardo and Kate were not on the real titanic when it went down
I throw the matrix into this mix, I just don't see what everyone sees about this film
Mean Streets. And I love anything directed by Martin Scorsece.
You can probably put most Oscar winners down as overrated, only one I can recall offhand is Out of Africa, the alas-woe-is-me-being-a-rich-plantation-owner movie of the year. Course I saw The Color Purple at the same time, and whatever that movie's flaw are, it at least had characters going through real difficulties.
I like 2001. Sure it is a bit slow in places, but I like that they got the science right.
American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, and anything by Michelangeo Antonioni
Anything by Wes Craven-I know I'll get heat for it but I don't think the man has made a decent film....Ever
Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums are great, Bottle Rocket I can take or leave.
I'm gonna say that Unbreakable is really overrated. I thought The Godfather was just plain boring. And everyone on the planet loves The Lion King except me.
#1 overrated movie: Citizen Kane
I love classic films, I love all kinds of films. This film is ALWAYS #1 or near it on critics most praised lists.
The most overrated films to me are:
BRAVEHEART- OK, so it won Oscar for Best Director and Makeup as well as some other ones. Makeup? It was God damn warpaint! And Best Director? Proves that Mel Gibson is as bad a director than he is an actor. And the script, my God awful dialouge abound. But it was written by Randall Wallace, so expect the same historical inaccuracy (i.e. William Wallace DID NOT screw the Princess of Wales) and stereotypical characters (i.e. Gibson is the good guy, everyone else is bad) you will find in PEARL HARBOR. And this film won Oscars? Proves that the Academy Awards wouldn't know a good film if it bit them in the ass.
BLACK HAWK DOWN- I watched it over again and it was a little better, but I still think that it could have had more polish on the script and performances. Otherwise, flat-out dull and drags on too much.
THE MATRIX- Easily proves that if you throw in a bunch of special effects and spend little time on plot, characters, and just abount anything else then the audience will rave about it. Of course, I didn't fall for it. The effects, while not bad, were really nothing special to write home about anyway. I mean, I was impressed but at the same time I was quite bored when it kept going on back and fourth. And the casting? Keanu Reeves also proves that SPEED was a fluke (and I liked that movie too).
like Susan Said with Citizan Kane. One time my friends rented Casablanca. WOW that was boring/dull
I know we all have opinions, yadda yadda yadda, but anyone who does not see the greatness of The Matrix has something seriously wrong with them. Think about it, have you ever seen a movie that looks like that (up till that point before every movie, warranted or not, ripped it off)? I'd expect a b-movie fan especially to appreciate the melding of sci-fi, Hong Kong style and gunplay.
It is Titanic, everyone knows that.
I have to say Edward Scissorhands. Maybe because it was after the his first Batman movie that I thought this Tim Burton film would at least think, if not laugh. It didn't do a thing for me, even if others thought it was good.
Some recent overrated movies-
Moulin Rouge- A mess of elements from musicals and comedies apparently edited together by a hypperactive speedfreak with an electric current running through his body.
Shrek- Hardly the subversive laughfest it was made out to be. I chuckled once.
Gladiator- Okay, but it could have been much, much better.
The thing about Citizen Kane isn't that it's the greatest movie ever made, but that it was so danged influential. From the non-linear storytelling, to using the camera so innovatively... I mean, the final revelation of the "Rosebud" mystery is done with a visual and no dialogue! That's old hat to us, but it was honestly the first time that someone had thought to do it that way, without somebody saying, "Hey -- the sled's named Rosebud! By golly, all this time, all he's really wanted is the sled, and the parental love it symbolized for him!"
Sure, everyone's taken all of the tricks that Welles first tried out in CK and refined them, and they've become such a part of the basic filmmaker's repetoire that it's hard to imagine a time when no one had thought of them... but there was.
Nathan
Redjack wrote :
"Titanic - My only regret is that Leonardo and Kate were not on the real titanic when it went down"
My husband would agree with you.
The only part I like about the movie is watching the ship sink. It reminds me how dumb humans get when they think nothing can happen to us.
Titanic
Sixth Sense-"I see dead people." Yeah great, now do something with it!
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-Pretty good movie but not the amazing film everyone calls it. There are way better martial arts movies out there(and way more original.).
Raging Bull-The good stuff I hear about must have happened while I was asleep.
Casablanca-This so called great moving film didn't get much of a reaction from me.
J.R. wrote:
>
> I know we all have opinions, yadda yadda yadda, but anyone
> who does not see the greatness of The Matrix has something
> seriously wrong with them.
Not to get in an argument here (which, by the way, is the last thing I want to do), but what is really wrong with not liking THE MATRIX? I didn't like it, and I didn't like it due to the overbearing special effects. The effects were GOOD, but they were also way OVERUSED. I kept asking myself "What happened to the story here?"
The story does have promise, but when using special effects to cover up a storyline that is a bit underdeveloped then I ask "So where's the story, where's our characters?" And the acting wasn't too bad, but I would have hired somebody else who is better than Keeanu Reeves. He always acts like he is stoned in his films (except in SPEED, his only greatest acomplishment). I would have also asked for more character development, but when THE MATRIX is all about the effects and not the story then expecting to know our characters a bit more is not gona happen.
Maybe I need to watch THE MATRIX over again, but in the meantime I don't see what is so special about it. Maybe for groundbreaking visuals, but thats the same with STAR WARS and I am definately not a fan of that trilogy either. I really ask for too much when it comes to being entertained, but why not? It wouldn't have killed the writers and the director to stop shooting for a day or two and work on the script problems.
So I don't like THE MATRIX. Big deal. Like I say to those who are in shock that I don't like BRAVEHEART, the end of the world is not coming if I don't like a certain film.
Lee wrote:
>
> Sixth Sense-"I see dead people." Yeah great, now do something with it!
>
Uh, he did...at the little girl's funeral, then with his mom, and finally with Willis's character. As a character oriented drama it was a damn fine little movie, but what were you expecting? The kid's eyeballs to glow and shoot out fireballs? Rotating heads? Dozens of far cheesier (not too mention badly written) schlock 'thrillers' are jammed with the stuff and not one of those elements would have improved on the actual story nor made it more interesting, just cheap and laughable.
Seven:
Good but no way as good as everyone makes out.
Blade Runner:
I'm gonna get some angry people for suggesting this one, but I found it to be a very slow, and therefore dull film. Good ideas and plot, but it didnt keep me interested.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (aka Sorcerer's) Stone:
Dunno how it was received in the US but in Britain it was supposedly great fun for all ages, but I couldnt see anyone older than 12 really enjoying it.
I'd also agree with 'Shrek' and 'The Sixth Sense'.
I finally saw "Charade" recently, and I have to say it was every bit as good as it's been built up to be. A true classic. Usually something that hyped disappoints, but I loved that movie a whole bunch. As far as hot retro chicks go, Audrey Hepburn now fills my #2 slot, just below Patty Duke.
Silence of the Lambs was very good, and deserved most everything it got, but it did leave me a little dissapointed, I was expecting a masterpiece, which it is not. I think Se7en was a better movie by far.
Forrest Gump. I dunno, it just didn't do much for me. Pulp Fiction should've won that year.
I liked the Matrix, but it was nowhere near as mind-blowing and "deep" as everyone made it out to be. At its heart, it's just a somewhat goofy sci-fi/kung-fu flick with a nifty premise and Gap commercial technology. Ditto Shrek; I liked it, but most of its "revolutionary" humor had been done before in Animaniacs and other shows.
And I wear as a badge of honor that I've never seen, and have no plans to see, Titanic.
I never saw Cast away and My goal is never to see it. And to take any actions that I need to in order to get out of seeing it
Here's what I mean. In Stir Of Echos, Kevin Bacon was seeing dead people(or dead girl I guess is how I should put it.). But there was a point to her showing up. It was about solving the mystery. Sixth Sense doesn't have that! The dead people just show up and we're supposed to care! Why the HELL do people like this movie?! It's boring and goes abosolutely NOWHERE!!!!!
More overrated movies:
Cast Away-BORING! That and Helen Hunt is in it.
Pulp Fiction-makes nosense and just plods along forever!
Fight Club-Cool flick but it didn't re-invent the wheel as so many think.
LOTR-Except for the last twenty minutes this was a bore.
Ironically both Stir of Echoes and The Sixth Sense covered the same ground. Both dealt with characters that communicated with the dead and helped the troubled souls find closure. The primary difference was that Bacon's character had a latent talent that was awakened (notice how 'wasted' he feels about his life prior to the hypnosis) and that he has unknowingly passed onto his son. That he will continue to contact dead people is inferred by the sounds of voices his son here in the closing moment of the movie.
The character in Sixth Sense has similiar struggle in that he has a power that he does not want and fears using. The irony that both Willis and the boy help each other toward a necessary goal is what drives the plot, not the genre elements that it only brushed upon (unlike Stir of Echoes).
I'm not surprised that most genre fans would prefer Stir of Echoes (which is a GREAT little movie) because it is more firmly rooted in the genre. The Sixth Sense is not. It is a mainstream drama (NOT a horror movie) with only one or two truly unnerving scenes, but mostly it is a character driven story, the plot revolving around the surrogate father/son relationship that develops between the doctor and the boy. The movie is clearly NOT without a point, but it is a dramatic one and not a genre one...some examples...
1) In the opening sequence Willis laments not having children of his own, that he has neglected his wife and put off having children of his own for personal goals..something his wife denies, but which he does not believe. It is that sense of failure that keeps him hanging around.
2) No mention is ever made about the boy's absent father, but the need for a guiding male figure for him to relate to is made clear (note his first appearance at the boys home, he is sitting across from the boy's mother, much in the way a mother and father would be waiting for an errant child to arrive home - the mother then, after having her say, gets up and leaves the room so the 'father' can talk to the boy man to man - that she is actually unaware of Willis's character is called irony - also note that later Willis is sitting next to her when the emergency room doctor accuses her of child abuse, again the visual mother/father symbol is sent again and, again, Willis as a 'man to man' talk with the boy)...that the boy later helps his own mother with a family problem (revolving around a MATERNAL dispute) also backs that up. His embracing of his calling is symbolic of the transition from childhood to manhood.
3) Consider the funeral scene where the boy reveals the Munchausen by proxy actions of the mother to the clueless father (this also shores up the film's underlying message that a father is needed to be more active in the family - also note that the problem there was between a mother and a daughter)
4) The boy has become a man and the doctor is made to understand that his life has not been wasted, that he was a surrogate father to many and that his wife HAD understood that loved him all the more for it. THAT was the point of the movie, a dramatic one, not a genre based one (i.e. the solving a murder). So I dispute the statemet that movie went 'nowhere'...as far as finding it boring, like I said...the movie was a supernaturally themed drama, not a genre movie in and of itself, so those expecting a thrill ride type of experience would be disappointed. I loved the movie, but I do hesitate in praising it for more than it is - but I did think that the Oscar nominations were deserved.
While I'm here let me add Forrest Gump to the overrated stack, I hated the movie did not see why so many people loved a movie that said, in no uncertain terms, that to be truly successful in America you had to be a moderately talented, status quo idiot. Hard work and using your brain has at all nothing to do with. The meek won't inherit America, the morons will!
27 replies and no mention of TRAFFIC...
I couldn't stand that f**king movie. I saw the first 45 minutes of it, and then fell asleep. And the sad part is that I wasn't even tired.
It didn't really open up any eyes to the world of narcotics, and if it did, the owner of those eyes was a very sheltered human being.
Add in BLOW and THE X-FILES to overrated pieces of crap...
The Sixth Sense revived a sort of horror/chiller genre long lost since Freddy Krueger I guess.
I liked "Stir of Echoes" better. WHY? Because it was unformulated. It put CLICHE movie moments right out there in front of you and intentionally avoided them. He reaches under the bed....any other movie woulda had something grab him or appear when he gets up. But nothing, so first it got all those cliches out of the way so that it could "Grab" you at truly unexpected moments. (like when he leans back on the couch..yikes) I like that.
Oh, "The English Patient". Need i say more
LOTR ruled and you sir have no taste. I find most Oscar contenders suck. Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Moulin Rouge, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, etc., all crap.
And Silence Of The Lambs. An above average thriller but was it the best movie of 1991?
Hey J.R., bite me!
MATRIX, THE - Live-action anime. Too bad I'm not an anime fan.
TITANIC - They wasted all those great FX on an overblown romance novel?
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS / HANNIBAL - "Sir" Anthony Hopkins grinning wickedly & acting peculiar in front of a young lady. I don't get it.
BRAVEHEART / GLADIATOR - Get your history straight. Try again.
Anything made by M. Night Shymalan - He's a ghost. He's a superhero. Fine. Why does it take you 2.5 hours to make your point? The Twilight Zone did it in 30 minutes & did it better.
Anything made by Quentin Tarantino - Watching bad people talk about everyday topics does not make them cool. It makes them boring. Get to the point.
Anime in general - He's misunderstood. He's a rogue warrior given one last chance to make right. She's a lonely princess no one understands. She's a feisty princess no one understands. Gee, how many movies have I just described?
SAMAURI JACK - Nice gimmick that wore itself out by the 2nd episode.
SURVIVOR / BIG BROTHER / MOLE / [insert reality show here] - Everyone's a backstabbing a$$hole. I learned this is elementary school. What else is new?
Any Stanley Kubrick film - Yes, nice camera angles. Now try & make it exciting.
SCHINDLER'S LIST - Beating a dead horse dead, part XXIII.
Any film with either Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman playing the "wise" or "disadvantaged" African-American stereotype.
That's all I can think of off the top fo my head. Bye.
No one bites a dwarf!
Frederico Fellini . . . god lord, how many semi autobiographical movies can one man make that focus on the horrendously boring, only to attempt to convince the viewer through excess and flambouyancy that what were watching is interesting! . . . and why is he so obsessed with fat . . . err. . voluptuous women! and George Lucas, good salesman, no doubt there, overrated director . . . except for "Howard the Duck" of course, that was a real winner!
Funny(sarcasm).
**sniff, sniff**
I like Howard The Duck...
Howard the Duck...All I rememebr was the female ducks breast...i liked that movie.
it's a shame overrated lucas didn't get together with overrated speilburg to make a movie about howard the duck in a concentration camp . . . or getting balsted apart storming omaha beach . . . or getting devoured by a shark . . . or getting crushed by a rolling boulder . . . what was lucas thinking? "hey, ive gotta make a flick about a creepy, horney duck! and its not enough to have a creepy, horney duck, it has to be a creepy, horney duck that wants to have sex with humans! . . . lets make the duck an alien too!"
Howard The Duck scared me when I was younger. Seeing Mr. Rooney from Ferris Bueller all possessed was disturbing to me. And just where does Tim Robbins get off being so politically outspoken? No one who appeared in such a horrible film has any right to tall anyone how to think. Same goes for Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, George Clooney, Barbara Streisand, etc., etc.
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON didn't do much for me. Okay, so it's an action movie that isn't totally retarded. I didn't see what was so special about it, and I'd rather see real martial arts than all that flying around crap.
Just about all Robert Altman films, with the exceptions of MASH, THE PLAYER, and OC AND STIGGS.
I generally like the Coens, but BARTON FINK epitomized everything that is bad about independent film.
I didn't like MAGNOLIA much either.
I kinda agree about Wes Anderson's films...I like them, but they seem to lack a basic humanity, and that keeps me from really embracing them.
Four Weddings and a Funeral.
I don't know if the US really did like it (I'm sure critics did but what does that mean?). I found it one of the most painful experiences of all the films I've seen. I have never seen the end of it as I had decided that they had taken three quarters of an hour from my life, and that was enough.