Good movies that everyone else thinks are bad...

[kornula]

A couple of nights ago, I watched THE MAGUS (1968) with Michael Cain, Anthony Quinn and Candice Bergen. All the reviews really dump on this movie.  Peter Sellers (not Woody Allen) said he wished if he had his life to live over again, he'd wished he never watched THE MAGUS.   Heck, Michael Cain has gone on to dump on his own movie.   Having read all that, watched it and I am totally baffled as to why everyone hates it.   The movie  has great acting, a decent script ectera.   Where it falls flat is the ending itself.  It falls short due to its own cleverness.

Having said that, I ran through my head and thought about other movies I've watched that I heard were bad, but I didn't find them total stinkboms.. or unwatchable at all such as, ZARDOZ.

Does anyone else have movies they heard were terrible and you found they weren't at all?

[Gabriel Knight]

THE PHANTOM MENACE, still my favorite Star Wars movie.
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, I thought it was great fun. Crappy special effects, but fun nevertheless. Same with VAN HELSING.
Love THE HOBBIT trilogy, I'm still trying to understand what's so bad about it. Pretty sure it's just people getting conditioned by the media's agenda, as usual.
I consider THE NUMBER 23 one of the best acting efforts of Jim Carrey, and a great mistery overall.

[ER]

A couple of nights ago, I watched THE MAGUS (1968) with Michael Cain, Anthony Quinn and Candice Bergen. All the reviews really dump on this movie.  Peter Sellers (not Woody Allen) said he wished if he had his life to live over again, he'd wished he never watched THE MAGUS.   Heck, Michael Cain has gone on to dump on his own movie.   Having read all that, watched it and I am totally baffled as to why everyone hates it.   The movie  has great acting, a decent script ectera.   Where it falls flat is the ending itself.  It falls short due to its own cleverness.

Having said that, I ran through my head and thought about other movies I've watched that I heard were bad, but I didn't find them total stinkboms.. or unwatchable at all such as, ZARDOZ.

Does anyone else have movies they heard were terrible and you found they weren't at all?

I haven't seen The Magus but it's a good book. John Fowles is one of my favorite writers, and as I mentioned on here a long time ago, when he died I bid on some of his books, and found a beard hair inside one of them that surely was his. (I guess I now have his DNA and could clone him.) When I was a teenager someone warned me not to read his novel The Collector, and he said it'd get into my head in particular, and he was right, it certainly did. Much later I watched the 1960s movie version and thought it was made by people who barely skimmed the book.

But to answer the topic of this thread, I always liked The Phantom Menace and think it'll become more appreciated with time.

[zelmo73]

Love THE HOBBIT trilogy, I'm still trying to understand what's so bad about it. Pretty sure it's just people getting conditioned by the media's agenda, as usual.

I thought they were okay up until the third one, which I thought was boring as hell and some of the battle strategies made little sense; you would think 5 armies would know how to fight each other properly.

My immediate picks go to The Dunwich Horror (1970) and Mark Of The Devil (1970).

The Dunwich Horror (1970) was not a very good H.P. Lovecraft movie, but it was a very well done witchcraft/demon summoning thriller. Yes, Yog Sothoth looked silly as hell, but Dean Stockwell was appropriately creepy and the overall feel of the movie had a very gloom-and-doom effect which I found to be delightful. Mark Of The Devil (1970) suffered from a terrible movie score, but I thought that the plot was actually pretty good, where a couple of government cops are sent to investigate illegal witch hunts/trials and discover a corrupt witchfinder and a governor. The torture scenes are still disturbing, but I thought that the acting in this movie was pretty good, even by the usually godawful Udo Kier. The gory "tongue-pulling" scene is still disgusting to watch, and watching the one guy go insane by repeated water drops on his head was also pretty messed up. Both of these films, while admittedly terrible, are nonetheless entertaining in their own way. 

[kornula]

THE PHANTOM MENACE, still my favorite Star Wars movie.
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, I thought it was great fun. Crappy special effects, but fun nevertheless. Same with VAN HELSING.
Love THE HOBBIT trilogy, I'm still trying to understand what's so bad about it. Pretty sure it's just people getting conditioned by the media's agenda, as usual.
I consider THE NUMBER 23 one of the best acting efforts of Jim Carrey, and a great mistery overall.

There is no main character or story..or plot to focus on. Its a jumbled mess for the Phantom Menace.. but eh

I haven't seen LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN yet.   

As for THE HOBBIT;  Jackson sucked the life and joy out of what is esseintally a cute adventure story.  Not a huge epic battle.   That's what Lord of the Rings actually is.

As for NUMBER 23:  I ususally avoid any movies with Jim Carrey.

[kornula]

A couple of nights ago, I watched THE MAGUS (1968) with Michael Cain, Anthony Quinn and Candice Bergen. All the reviews really dump on this movie.  Peter Sellers (not Woody Allen) said he wished if he had his life to live over again, he'd wished he never watched THE MAGUS.   Heck, Michael Cain has gone on to dump on his own movie.   Having read all that, watched it and I am totally baffled as to why everyone hates it.   The movie  has great acting, a decent script ectera.   Where it falls flat is the ending itself.  It falls short due to its own cleverness.

Having said that, I ran through my head and thought about other movies I've watched that I heard were bad, but I didn't find them total stinkboms.. or unwatchable at all such as, ZARDOZ.

Does anyone else have movies they heard were terrible and you found they weren't at all?

I haven't seen The Magus but it's a good book. John Fowles is one of my favorite writers, and as I mentioned on here a long time ago, when he died I bid on some of his books, and found a beard hair inside one of them that surely was his. (I guess I now have his DNA and could clone him.) When I was a teenager someone warned me not to read his novel The Collector, and he said it'd get into my head in particular, and he was right, it certainly did. Much later I watched the 1960s movie version and thought it was made by people who barely skimmed the book.

But to answer the topic of this thread, I always liked The Phantom Menace and think it'll become more appreciated with time.

John Foweles wrote the screenplay of his own novel. He has only himself to blame. The movie (and script) works up until the last 10 minutes where it totally falls flat. 

As for Episode I:   It's been 22 years and it still has no main focus what so ever..

[kornula]

I agree with you on THE DUNWICH HORROR

[pacman000]

10,000 B.C.

The pace is a bit slower than modern movies, &, sure, the history's wrong, but it does have an appropriately epic scope. It feels like something from the '50's or '60's, with modern FX.

[claws]

Titanic and Avatar.