Movies -- what was all the fuss about?

Star Wars

Debbie Does Dishes...

Lord of the Rings. SO. FUCKING. BORING. Beautifully shot, though. It deserved all the Oscars in the world for the visuals, but the story was beyond boring to me for some reason. Maybe if I'd seen it as a kid. I loved movies like Labyrinth, Willow, and The Neverending Story, but Lord of the Rings did nothing for me.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

I am typically the direct opposite from the critics and fan buzz - they love it, I hate it - they hate it, I love it.

Call Me by Your Name.

1,000 threads on DL and reviewers pissing their pants with joy, but I found it sluggish with two leads I felt almost nothing for.

Another one -- The Usual Suspects. I waited for over two hours for it to become amazing.

LaLa Land. Had to force myself to sit through the last 10 minutes. Big bore. Another vote for CMBYN. Kept waiting for something to happen.

I'm with R6. Couldn't wait to see "Call Me By Your Name" and found both leads passive and kind of nasty. And was surprised to see yet another Great Gay Love Story -- told between bouts of fucking women (both men, actually). A whole lotta nuttin' save for that one great song.

Star Wars

The Usual Suspects

Alien

"Inception" - the hype would have made you think you were witnessing a masterpiece to end the moviemaking as we know it and the entire time I kept thinking " 'Last Year in Marienbad' was so much better..."

Avatar.

Red Eye

The Dark Knight

I thought it was okay the first time, and it was on TV again last night and I found it a slog to get through. Thank God for the Avengers movies.

I still remember sitting in the audience watching Pretty Woman with people really laughing and enjoying themselves and feeling like their was something very wrong with me because I hated every single thing about it.

Nocturnal Animals. Amy Adams deserved an Oscar, please. What a piece of SHIT. Tom Ford trying (and failing miserably) to be Ken Russell.

The Fighter. Everyone raved about how great Bale was but all he did was come off as some arrogant, self centered asshole (which is not a stretch) with his usual hammy acting. Spent most of the movie wondering why Wahlberg just didn't tell his repulsive ass to fuck off.

None of the Nolan Batman movies hold up. They're just not any fun.

And may be in the minority, but Streisand was terrible in Owl and the Pussycat. Another movie you spend wondering why George Segal didn't just throw her ass out after five minutes.

I like history and political satire but found Death of Stalin repetitive and flat.

Star Wars and all its sequels

Pulp Fiction

The English Patient

Three Billboards In Ebbing, Missouri

The Shape of Water

American Beauty

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Ghost

The Color Purple

Shakespeare In Love

Saving Private Ryan

Forrest Gump

Working Girl

Titanic

Pirates of the Caribbean and all its sequels

Twilight and all its sequels

Dreamgirls

Chicago

The Blair Witch Project

Monster's Ball

Slingblade

The Social Network

Bridgette Jones' Diary

Bridesmaids

Erin Brockovich

Pretty Woman

Juno

Paranormal Activity

Chocolat

The Hurt Locker

Almost Famous

DjangMo Unchained

Kill Bill

Moulin Rouge

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Boyhood

The Fault In Our Stars

Gangs of New York

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Crash

La La Land

Avatar

American Hustle

Silver Linings Playbook

The Black Swan

Casablanca

r16 yes, that's how I feel about the Nolan Batman movies. They are joyless. And Bale's heavy voice seems like a parody.

Roundhay Garden Scene. I accidentally blinked when the movie started and missed the whole thing. I still want my money back...

I echo the Nolan films. None have failed to underwhelm me.

Ditto for Star Wars, a dismal series that started out ok and plunged into one dreary sequel after another. I've walked out on a couple.

And don't get me started on LOTR and oh yeah the comic book films - except for the Sam Raimi films and Deadpool.

The later Bond films are all action and no panache or humor. I've literally slept through a couple.

So yeah I occasionally and dutifully allow myself to be dragged to one depressing big film after another. I am invariably disappoint.

Casablanca And Citizen Kane.

Easily my #1 is Ghostbusters, followed by Star Wars, The Matrix, Lord Of The Rings and Avatar.

On some other thread about camp, someone nominated the Nolan Batman films as a different form of camp- masculine and so earnestly grave that their deathly serious intent sent them headlong into a new twist on the field of camp.

[quote] I'll start. I went to see Stake Out in 1987. Yes, I'm old. Everyone told me I HAD TO SEE IT, and I went to see it, and it SUCKED.

It was an awful movie. the only thing I really remember about it other than that is that Aiden Quinn had one of those really horrible ultraviolent deaths that movie villains always had in the 80s (this one was in a paper mill--guess what happened, and you'll be right).

When I was a kid everyone was going on about this movie but I didn't see what all the fuss was about.

R18 and I would not be movie buddies. For the love of Christ, what do you like?!?!?

Aidan Quinn was so beautiful, though, r25.

Surely that made his shredding even harder to sit through.

Avatar

Girls Trip

Birdman

Inception

The Shape of Water

And to think it won Best Picture Oscar this year makes my hair stand on end. Fall of the empire.

The one where it looks like the train is coming right at you. People around me were screaming and fainting. I was all, like, whatever, bitches.

LOVE THIS MAN^!!!

RIGHT THERE WITH YA.

LETS START ANOTHER EMPIRE!!!

The Piano (1993) I hated this boring, incoherent piece of shit.

R31 is a cunt who wasn't funny the first time. And then, what, three more attempts? Sad.

My mom dragged my dad to see The Piano. He said it would have been a much better film if Holly Hunter's character played the tuba.

Dr. Strange. Friends thought it was great, I thought it was boring.

R18 Just stay home and watch the Olsen Twin's movies.

Movies are subjective to the individual. I was in a room full of horror movie fan people, and I was the only one who loved The Blair Witch Project, and was creeped out by the ending.

Another group of movie buffs watching Angelica Houston in Enemies: A Love Story. I was riveted and moved by the subject matter plot and acting equal to Sophie's Choice. Again I was the only one and everyone else was bored.

There were movies I totally passed on, such as The Right Stuff and Out in Africa (not to be confused with Out IN Africa, the Bellami gay porn, ahem, classic). I watched them later on the small screen, and was totally blown away by both, and wished I had seen these two movies on the big screen.

My movies that all the critics hailed, that I was completely bored were The Unbearable Likeness of Being and The English Patient. They were beautifully filmed, but plodding and stale, IMHO.

Call Me By Your Name. I say that as someone who loved the book

Moonlight. I was so disappointed and thought it was dull as dishwater. I would've preferred had La La Land won!

War for the Planet of the Apes. It wasn't horrific, just overly long and dull in spots. Also predictable.

The Black Swan. What dreck.

R35 - I now have to re-watch The Piano, imagining HH playing the tuba.

"The Revenant" - beautiful to look at, but a total "Meh".

ALL OF THEM except Call Me By Your Name

Watch for any signs of movement in Holly Hunter's face. If it's a drinking game, you will still be sober at the end of the night.

(Godawful Scottish accent too).

OUT OF AFRICA was a complete bore of a film and cemented my belief that Robert Redford is basically a cipher onscreen.

Gravity was trash and I got sucked in by the marketing.

"Out of Africa" was the only movie ever during which I fell asleep. And I say that as someone who thinks "L'Avventura" is a masterpiece.

Oh, you GOTTA see Wonder Woman!

But I don’t like superhero movies.

Oh, but WW is different! Made by women for women!

Um, OK....

:(

Another vote for Lord Of The Rings. It really took a combined nine-to-ten hours to tell that story?

Black Panther is different! It’s about BLACK PEOPLE!

Deadpool is different! It’s a comedy!

Infinity War is different! They all die!

Etc., etc.

Avatar is really a terrible film. Yes it's beautiful visually but that wears thin after the first hour, and the story is so fucking hokey and it shows what a horrible writer James Cameron can be.

12 Years a Slave

Gravity

The Revenant

The Martian

I hate everyone that tricked me into watching these horrible horrible horrible movies. And I hope they die.

Innerspace

Silver Linings Playbook, Lady Bird and the Florida Project. After they were nominated for Oscars I was convinced that people can buy their awards with a blowjob.

I will never understand the hype.

I've never seen Avatar. Just watching a few clips of it, I could tell I wouldn't be interested.

[quote]Silver Linings Playbook

God, yes. It ended with a dance contest, for fuck's sake.

I can think of at 21 films that received Oscar nominations that I hate with a passion.

For me, I thought Soderbergh's Side Effects was like that. It was promoted as possibly being about pharmaceutical companies and how messed up they are. Then, it has a twist later on that is just underwhelming and completely changes the story. It resorts to fake lesbianism which is always a turn-off. There is no point to the plot twist. What's unfortunate is that up until the twist, it is a very good movie.

For every good marvel movie, there are about 6 or 7 boring or mediocre ones. No longer falling for the hype.

"Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club." Never saw what was so wonderful about either of them.

Never got any of John Hughes' films.

Also, The Iron Cunt....ER I mean Lady.

Valley of the Dollsch. Fuckersch fired Mama.

no surprise but The Greatest Showman.

Granted, it was panned but the box office???!!!

"It." There was all this anticipation over it, and it turned out to be a be a big expensive nothing of a movie.

REMAINS OF THE DAY , I fell asleep

American Hustle

Dunkirk

Avatar

Dirty Dancing. It is so stupid I want to die.

that one where G played the transsexual with the bad perm who kept trying to stab Michael Douglas.

"Billy Jack". Day after day people that I'd eat lunch with were talking about what an amazing movie it was. Knew it was something I had to see... and it sucked. Big time. I could not believe what a crappy movie it was. Fortunately, the friend I went to see it with agreed with me. I still don't know what kind of crack all those kids got ahold of to rave about it like that.

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde

Scary Movie 4

I think there are so many more underrated movies than overrated ones.

The Crying Game. It was so low budget and those cockney accents. Fook. I walked out.

Age of Innocence. I fell asleep.

Another vote for The Piano. Jane Campion sucks.

E fucking T

Seriously. I hated ET. I thought it was stupid and manipulative.

And those space suits!

Yeah OP it happens to me a lot. But I love movies and I've seen thousands and by now I've learned to sift through the hype. Anymore I rarely see films in a theater, and seem to have different expectations if I'm watching at home or on my laptop. Maybe it's the ability to pause the movie if I start losing interest and knowing I can come back with a fresh attitude and finish it off. .... Anyway, interesting topic OP - looks like it's getting a little traction !!

Argo-WTF

Another one here for The Shape of Water. I normally love Benicio Del Toro, but I couldn't even get halfway through this movie. I just thought it was tedious.

R70, you are right, Age of Innocence is soooo overblown. I think Winona and Michelle were both miscast. Not one of the director's better movies.

The Matrix - what the hell was even going on?

Run Lola Run - I watched this at home and kept falling asleep. Everytime I'd wake up for a second I'd look at the screen and the damn girl was still running but I didn't know why

The Apostle. I think Robert Duvall is overrated anyway.

The Piano would have been better if Harvey Keitel had a huge cock.

The Road to Perdition. It took itself SO seriously but the whole time I was thinking, well, when is this going to become as amazing as it thinks it is?

Any film by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Blue Velvet. I saw it at a preview and when I read the reviews, I really thought I was in the wrong theater.

JJ Abrams Star Trek movies.

And I say that as a Star Trek fan.

Trek was better when it was just a niche market for nerds. Now it's all action sequences and lens flare.

The one and only Transformer movie we saw. We lasted less than 30 minutes before leaving.

"My Dinner With Andre." Plant a camera in front of two insufferable talking heads. What an innovative idea for the cinema! Siskel and Ebert would not shut up about how great it was. It was on all the Ten Best Films lists. It was a self-indulgent piece of crap.

La La Land and Black Panther were both big let-downs for me.

r83 and r84 were given each other's tickets by accident

The King’s Speech and the Danish Girl. Mediocre and boring!

Another vote for "The Piano," although the heavy-handed symbolism at the end, when Holly Hunter's character is literally being dragged to her death by the piano, was a laff riot.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Mad Max. How this movie got almost 100% on Rotten Tomatoes is beyond me.

What did you not like about it, r90? I'm not challenging you, but most people are just saying they found it lacking without actually saying why.

Two Shoushand and One: a Shpace Oddeshy.

Forest Gump. I don't like movies about tards.

""Schindler's List." Actually, almost anything by Steven Spielberg.

“Black Swan” was interminable.

The Big Lebowski. It was nothing special.

Every Kevin Spacey movie ever. No, I'm not being facetious. I gave nearly every one of his movies a chance and saw nothing special. Se7en felt like it was running off the fumes of Silence of the Lambs. The Usual Suspects was just another Pulp Fiction wannabe. American Beauty, I loathed for so many reasons too numerous to mention.

Tropic Thunder. I heard people rave that it was our generation's Blazing Saddles and that Tom Cruise was so brilliant in it. They're kidding, right? The movie was parodying a genre that hadn't been done in 20 years, the trope of the idiot who can't tell the difference between reality and play acting had been done to death and Cruise was obnoxious.

Fargo. Another cheap Pulp Fiction imitator, and one of the most mean-spirited movies I've ever seen. And it's a one joke movie.

Gladiator. Awful. It was like someone saw every Roman and Biblical epic from the 1950s and 60s, ate every trope and threw them all back up onto one plate.

Inception. Poor Matrix retread and Jason Gordon-Levitt was absolutely terrible in it. Had decent ideas but the reason for the heist was stupid.

Gravity. It was basically just another mindless popcorn action film with the pretense of being deep because it was shot in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was so exhausting to watch, too. One thing happens, then another, then another, then another....

Taxi Driver. Was brilliant until that last scene when the movie resets the switch and tries to pretend that Travis Bickle wasn't a lunatic who went cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Nah, he was just a lovable loser whose inner hero was struggling to get out. Tons of subliminal racism. Glamorized gun violence, too. F this movie.

Forrest Gump. Ick. Don't even get me started on this one.

Requiem for a Dream. An anti-drug film as corny and lacking in subtlety as any "Just Say No Very Special Episode." I love the casual racism, too. When the chick sleeps with the first john that was no big deal but as soon as she has to blow the black guy, DUN DUN DUNNNN...Oh, the horror! (Seriously, listen to the music cue in that scene. It's hilarious.)

The Professional. Lauded for being ooh so edgy and daring for toying with pedophilia and a girl assassin but then didn't do anything with it, was just another conventional Hollywood movie playing out the tired trope of the lonely drifter forced into a parental role Also, reportedly a ripoff of "Gloria", which I haven't seen but wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

ET. Completely forgettable. ET was also a hideous and stupid looking character design.

Schindler's List. No, hear me out. It's a beautifully shot movie. But it had Oscar bait written all over it. Plus, everyone was saying that this was "mature" Spielberg. But it wasn't. It used the same manipulative tactics that he's known for in most of his movies. Also, lost major points for me when it turned out that the only reason why he had shot the entire movie in black and white was so he could do that corny Hallmark card thing of the one girl's coat being tinted in color.

The Last Picture Show. It's Peyton Place, people. Except with guys.

The Tin Drum

Dune

DItto on Forrest Gump

Who fussed over “Dune”? I remember it being a big flop and everyone hating it.

Chritiane F !!!

It looked traumatic and scary and gritty and shocking for the 9 year old kids we were. The publicity was everywhere ! " At 12 , valiums, at 13, heroine. Then she became a hooker ". Adults freaked out and explained everything about the danger of drugs. Us kids, were fascinated, but couldn't see the film, of course. From the adds, "prostitutes" seemed to be some kind of Zombies. Years later, I got to watch it. Meh ! All that for that ? Nothing much there.

In the recent years, Imitation Game. The topic is brilliant, but the execution lacked focus, there were unralistics twists (my brother is on this ship ! Or something like that), and the homophobic, tragic persecution, was an afterthought.

Agreed, r94, and I'll add "Saving Private Ryan" as my choice.

Between the two was confirmation Spielberg is a big-budget hack filmmaker

It's easier to just count the ones I liked.

r96, most definitely agree about ET-- my contributions: American History X and Braveheart--both of them utterly horrible wastes of time, money, resources and effort (what little there was given).

[quote]Who fussed over “Dune”? I remember it being a big flop and everyone hating it.

Maybe Miss r97 remembers there was a ton of press coverage of it while it was being made, which is true. But as you say, when it came out, it was met with scorn. I actually rather like it though, although I readily admit to its flaws.

[R91] I found it empty and boring. The script, to me, was very flimsy and pointless. It was a verrryy long race in the desert and some of the scenes with the Victoria Secret models were laughable. The special effects were good, but that’s about it, for me.

But I must admit that I’m not a big sci-fi fan to begin with.

What about the War Boys though?

Any and every Wes Anderson movie owns this thread.

So fucking tedious and one note.

I want to punch in the face every fucking hipster who raves about these dreary movies.

Though I admit I am not opposed to the idea of being spit-roasted by the Wilson brothers.

Could someone be a dear and post a new thread for me? I think this would be a hoot but I don't pay for DL and can't start threads:

What is the most hipster thing you have ever done?

Me: While living in Portland (a city full of endless hipster opportunities), I once went to a brew and view with friends and drank microbrews while watching a Wes Anderson movie. I am pretty sure it was Darjeeling Limited, but I can't be sure because I was drunk before the movie even started and all Wes Anderson movies are the same. Anyway, that gives me 3 hipster points: 1) Portland 2) Microbrews at a "brew and view" and 3) Wes Anderson movie.

Beat that!

R106 Amen to that.

After going to see "Moonrise Kingdom", which critics raved about, I vowed never to watch another Wes Anderson movie again. Never.

Anderson is the patron saint of Quirk. I used to like quirk but we are drowning in a sea of it these days, much of it brought to you by Madison Ave.

R107, I think everybody can start a new thread. The icon is at bottom left.