The movie was forgettable and not that special. Going to the IMAX with my uncle and three cousins and watching our first ever (and only ever) 3d movie together and squealing the whole 3 hour car ride home about how much fun we had as a family is one of my best memories.
I think this is what people forget about Avatar. It was never supposed to be the best writing or the best story. It was purely just to show off incredible ground breaking CGI technology. Seeing it in IMAX was a damn near religious experience, but watching on a TV at home just doesn't do it justice.
Bluntly manipulative melodramatic tripe that ejects me completely from the movie, just as with Titanic. James Cameron decided to keep churning out the modern cgi version of a top hat-wearing villain cackling and twirling his mustache as he leaves the damsel tied to the train tracks, and it is kind of dismaying that he got so thoroughly rewarded for it.
Back when Marvel was financially struggling, they started selling off rights to various characters. Sony bought Spider-Man (and a handful of other characters), and that’s where the Tobey Maguire movies came from. It’s also why the X-men will likely never be a part of the MCU, because Sony owns the movie rights to (most of) the mutants.
The Spiderverse movies are basically Sony riding the wake of the Tom Holland hype. To be clear, they’re phenomenal movies. But they’re only tangentially related to Marvel.
the spider verse movies are basically Sony riding the wake of the Tom Holland hype
But they also have some of the most incredible visuals I've ever seen in an animated movie. I still maintain that the second one could be watched entirely on mute, and you could still understand the story.
I liked the original tobey maguire spidermans, but that was 20 years ago when they came out (and I was a teenager). I like them now for the nostalgia, not so much for the movie it is. And after those nothing really spoke to me. I went to see quite a bit of newer movies because my gf and friends do like them, so occasionally I give in and tag along for the company (I distinctly remember age of ultron and infinity war pt I for how bad it was, but the memory of some others I've seen faded the minute we got in the car home)
For me these movies all feel the same and formulaic. The stories are predictable, the characters flat and the edit is just too much focused on extreme visuals, spectacle for the sake of spectacle. I find many storylines very forgettable, to the point I even forgot that I've seen some movies before. In the edit, they are trying very, very hard to evoke emotions from the audience using tricks and tropes; but in the end it's all a hollow shell, a cash grab without authenticity. At least, it feels that way for me. I understand many people love these movies, they're just not my thing.
The Dark Knight Rises. Not only is it a bad Batman movie, it oddly has a pro cop message. Also, I can't take Bane seriously at all with that ridiculous voice.
All of Nolan’s Batman movies were heavily pro-cop. Watch TDK again: the day is saved by illegal surveillance, and Batman faces no consequences for using it.
Prior to Rises, most of the Gotham cops were depicted as extremely corrupt, though. Gordon was something of an exception, although even he looked the other way for his corrupt co-workers
This is how I felt about all the Nolan Batman movies, except it was Batman himself I couldn't take seriously because of Bale's ridiculous Cookie Monster voice. I think I burst out laughing in the theatre when I first heard it.
The way I feel about the MCU is like an old relationship where there's not much love left and you can't seem to break it off. Some days you have vain hopes, other days you hate yourself for being too coward to leave.
That's where the comparison ends, because in a relationship you can talk things over together and try to work things out.
Almost all of Will Ferrell's movies, but especially Talladega Nights, a stupid movie about stupid people doing stupid things according to a stupid script. It's one of two movies I've ever walked out on (the other being Splice, which is just gross). Stranger Than Fiction is the only good movie with Will Ferrell in a starring roll.
But that’s the point of Talladega Nights, no? It’s meant to be stupid, silly, and absurd. It’s not a drama, it’s a comedy about race car drivers.
Like if that’s your opinion, fine, im not trying to change your mind. But walking out on a comedy cause you thought it was too stupid is like closing a book because it had too many words.
IMO good comedy is more than stupid people acting silly, that's an incredibly reductive view of the genre. Comedy should be clever and play to more than just the basest impulses. Even a comedy about stupid people can be smartly written. An example brought up in this thread is Zoolander. It's silly and absurd, but it's also smart, even though the characters are stupid. Talladega Nights is just stupid.
Mane I thought you were gonna say Office Space or like a West Anderson film as a “smart” comedy, not Zoolander lol. I wouldn’t necessarily call that high brow compared to Talladega Nights, but I haven’t seen it in quite some time so could be misremembering. I get what you’re saying though- a lot of the Will Ferrell comedies use really stupid visual laughs (or dead obvious lines) instead of anything that would require thinking a lil.
Office space is also good, Wes Anderson movies tend to be a little up their own ass for my taste. Zoolander works as a better comparison due to the intelligence level of the characters being about the same as Talladega Nights while the quality of the writing is much higher.
The only Will Ferrell movie I'll watch again is Anchorman. Because yeah, in most cases the humor in a Will Ferrell movie is just screaming inappropriate things.
I've got a similar problem with Ben Stiller. He is by far the worst part of Night in the Museum. We get a bunch of cool and funny stuff happening only to have it slam to a halt so we can have some "Excuse me, Mister sir, but you, shouldn't um." May god damn Ben Stiller to work in an obscure plumbing fittings retailer followed by retirement in obscurity.
Ben Stiller wrote, directed, and starred in it. He's good when he's not doing mid-tier family movies (although I remember him being great in Heavyweights). Similarly, Tropic Thunder is a brilliant movie that he wrote, directed, and starred in.
IMO he's really good when he's allowed creative control, which he wasn't for any of the Night at the Museum movies.
Probably getting some hate for saying this, but…. The Dune movies are some of the worst big budget movies I’ve seen. They look nice and the cinematography is awesome but that movie feels so damn empty.
Yeah the only reason it could be considered “bad” is because they ran out of money and the entire 2nd half is just a montage of shots to end the movie because the producers took over.
“Wooden performances” is the only way to describe the acting in Lynch’s. That movie is a confuding mess and painful to watch if you don’t know the story. A movie can’t simply assume you’ve read the book to understand it. People can only truly prefer Lynch to Villeneuve ironically. You can’t honestly think it’s better film.
I'm not sure why you're trying to argue this stuff. This is a thread about movies you can't be convinced are good. I'm not trying to convince you, I'm stating that I liked the David Lynch Dune considerably more than the new ones. Feel free to take that or leave it, art's not really objective, dude.
I've only watched the first one. Visually it was great, but the scenes over shadowed the plot to such a degree that, even having read the source, it was still hard to follow.
I would not call it a bad movie, but I'd file it with Avatar and the fountain as being more about the experience than the story.
I watched the first one in the theater and thought it was dry but okay. I tried rewarding it when the second one was coming out and I turned it off like 1/3 of the way through. I watched the second one but it couldn't hold my attention at all.
I agree with the Dune movies and in particular I think I don't like Denis Villeneuve; He takes a cute sci fi short story like "stories of your life" and turns it into a very self important dull thing. Then he takes a Novel about flying through space with drugs and doing guerriilla warfare while riding sand worms and it all feels so somber and rigid. Man has no fun in him.
Damn this one hard for me. I absolutely hated the casting and screenplay. But it really redefined how i see the universe in my head when i read the books.
Snowpiercer. It was highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes and from the poster I thought it stared U2's The Edge, so I took a chance. That was the dumbest shit I've ever seen.
I suppose a movie in which they spend half of the time running through sleeper cars wouldn't have conveyed the same message about classism.
Time to fight the army of goon in an empty car that seemingly serves no purpose than to host a large violent brawl, now it's time to walk through the sleeper car for all the goons you fought, now it's time to walk through the kitchen car for the goons, not it's time to walk through the laundry car for the goons. Oh look, it's a rich person party car, what a weird thing to have at all in any context, are they aware the world has ended? Now time to go through the partier's sleeper car, then the partier's kitchen car, then the partier's laundry car...
Literally the only movie I've ever turned off part way through. Youd think that the producers would have, i don't know, accurately depicted the force the movie is named after.
Once Sandra catches his broken teather he comes to a complete stop. The line is taught, so effectively they're both moving in roughly the same orbit as the station they're attached to. That means they're also moving at the same speed as the station. The net forces at that point for Clooney's character are effectively zero (not exactly zero as there is still a bit of atmosphere causing drag at iss heights).
In real life, he's "safe" in that scenario. In the movie, some magical force continues to be applied to him which ends up overpowering his grip, which was totally fine seconds before, and he falls to his death.
I dont know if the science gets better after that, never watched past it.
I would interpret that as still some residual force being there but dampened by the parachute lines (meaning a ruler would still see movement relative to the station) and thr amount of screen time couldnt show them drifting away from the station. This would be confirmed by the taut line and the "recoil" after Clooney let loose.
But the force for the amount of time shown is still too much to be logical.
Titanic is better if you interpret it differently:
Jack never existed. He was a coping mechanism for Rose to get away from crippling depression and self harm.
The whole movie can be interpreted that way, and it makes it much more interesting. There is no direct evidence for Jack's existence, and everything we hear about him interacting with others is from interviews with Old Rose.
In fact, some parts of the film make more sense when watching this way. Rose's near-miraculous ax hit to free Jack from handcuffs? Never happened. Not getting caught in cargo storage despite having a very involved tail who apparently just gave up? Never happened -- or at least, the part where Jack and Rose have sex in the car never happened.
There is a nude drawing of Rose which she says was done by Jack; however, it is actually signed "JD", so technically could have been any commissioned artist with those initials. In fact, Cal could even have set it up himself -- again, you only ever get Old Rose's version of events. Though we see Rose given the Heart of the Ocean diamond while on board Titanic (and she is wearing it in the drawing), there is once again no reason that must be the case, and since the drawing isn't dated, it could even predate her voyage. The letter she claimed she wrote to Cal about said drawing is not found with it, despite the two documents apparently being stored together.
And, note that a "Jackdaw" is a type of bird with various connections in lore -- one of which being that Jackdaws appear as a precursor to death or an omen of death. Rose claims she met Jack Dawson when he saved her from a suicide attempt.
The Godfather. The characters are empty and hard to attach to, the sound is terrible, there's so much filler in the editting it becomes a chore as I watch yet another seemingly pointlessly extended shot or micro-scenes—Why?! What was the point?!—And yet I'm meant to feel something when this character I hardly know since about 10 mins ago gets killed?
Highly agree. The stress and anxiety is there for a reason. I actually hated it the whole time I was watching, but it was very much worth it. That being said, I don't think I'd watch it again.
I was gonna ask why so I could provide a counter argument, but then the question specifically asks for a movie you will never be convinced is good. So I won’t bother lol.
I gave them an updoot for answering the question even though my personal opinion is that the two new Dune movies are top 10 movies of all time.
Nothing appeals to everyone, and I dislike a lot of critically acclaimed movies and other media because while they just don't resonate with me. Top Gun Maverick was a mediocre retread of so many movies that came before it that while it was well executed from a technical perspective, I found it forgettable and don't understand the hype.
I have a hundred of top 10 movies, and I don't understand the hate for the new Dune movies. The actors are good, the movies stick to the script, the picture is pretty and the music is nice too. I was also pleasantly surprised that you could transpose all this world to a movie because it's kinda difficult. You can't please everyone though.
That goes for the main characters and the background characters imo. The second movie did a lot better in regard to showing off the different cultures but the first one just felt so...empty. People just did things and had things done to them, and I didn't understand why I was supposed to care about any of them.
Not the person you're replying to, but for my own POV:
I think the new Dune movies are the best they could be and I'm glad I was able to catch them in theaters, but they've also convinced me that Dune just isn't a franchise I'll ever be interested in. I'm not sure if I'd bother with the third movie, and any spin-offs are also fully out of the question for me.
Though, I kinda think it might be because growing up, this movie was spoiled in almost every cartoon I ever saw ("Rosebud" was the punchline of so many jokes) and maybe not knowing the ending would have made it better. 🤷🏻♂️
So many culturally defining movies came out before the 1980s that by the time you're being raised in the 90's, they're making children's media that references it. I knew the plot of Star Wars long before I saw it.
My favorite example is The Mask of Zorro, which...not an old film, but it came out when I was slightly young for it. A few years go by, I'm in high school, and Shrek comes out. Then it's sequel, with a swashbuckling orange cat voiced by Antonio Banderas. And then I eventually catch Mask of Zorro, and laugh through the entire thing because holy shit the main character sounds exactly like Puss In Boots.
Yes, I'm aware of this. The point I was making was I got the joke backwards. You're supposed to laugh all the way through Shrek 2 because the cat sounds exactly like Zorro.
A lot of things that were once creative experiences have been redone to death to the point that it can be difficult to understand what the whole hubbub was with the original.
So, yes, you have to think of it in the context of the era, which may require looking up what was made at the time, what had come before and what came after. It's a bit like paintings or other pieces of art, some of them are interesting beyond what they just represent, but for what they introduced in the world as a statement when they were made (which, admittedly can sometimes be a bit obscure). There too, a little work on the public's part is required to understand why one piece and not another is usually held in high regard (you're then totally free to disagree, or not enjoy it, but context matters quite a bit).
A lot of the hype was in the metanarrative around the movie - remember that it bombed in theaters and was only carried to far later acclaim. Newspaper journalists loved the fact that it called out one of their worst nightmares (W.R. Hearst) in very specific ways. Then the cinematographers caught all the tech that Welles used and tried to figure out how to make it all work for them. Actors loved it because it was a lot of great character work. 'Film buffs' started to enjoy it thereafter, in part because it had inspiration from films like Rashomon. Then you have the auteur directors who will always love Orson Welles, in spite of everything and anything against doing so. Mercury Theatre on the Air fans also liked the movie because it shared a lot of the same cast (and was only 3 years out from that show).
I'll admit, that's where I came at it from. My family was in papers, and was in a paper that actively fought the Hearst syndicate; one of the characters in the movie has elements of my grandfather in him, because he made sure to have people go into NYC to review Mercury Theatre productions and thus Welles cared about him as an editor. And then my experience having gotten briefly into stage and screen: The performances are amazing. Many of the sets are so perfectly evocative that they become a character unto themselves. The montages are technically inspiring to this day, and the scene transitions are pure technical excellence.
That's just what makes Kane good as a film.
The plot is one of a death-mystery of a 'great' man, of trying to approach a man's life and sum him up in just a few inches of text on a page. While Rosebud is the butt of jokes (and may well have been a nasty jab at Marion Davies), it's more of a chilling point. The point is not about the thing itself. It's the treatment of the thing. It's the last thing he thought about, and the whole movie is a quest to figure out what it "means" - and no one finds out, even though they spend this whole film exploring who the man was from vignettes of his existence. In the end, if it meant anything but a fleeting final thought, it still just goes in the furnace with the rest of his identity that can't be sold off at auction. It didn't define him, not really - in spite of what the editor in the smoke-filled newsroom wanted to push as his narrative. One word is never enough to define a person who lived a full life. But a full life that ended up hurting a lot of people is best defined by the wreckage left behind (human and junk). A drunk ex-wife, dead children, a disgraced media empire, a half-built house full of stuff for the furnace, and most painfully, no true friends to really speak well of him.
That's what makes Citizen Kane good as a movie.
So I'll say this - Rosebud is meaningless. It's a cheap parlor trick of misdirection, and like all such tricks people latched onto it. Instead, ask yourself something when you're watching that movie. When you're gone, what will you leave behind? And what will you do, starting right this moment, to leave behind the legacy you want?
Lucas directed Star Wars. Any. He's an awful director in almost every aspect. Some of the worst acting from extremely talented people I've ever seen because he doesn't know how to direct them.
Take the same cast, story, massage the script, and have ANYONE else direct, and it'd be great. I just can't with Lucas.
While he directed the first film, Empire and Jedi had other directors. When it came to the prequel series Lucas really tried to get someone else to direct, but everyone turned him down as the project was "too daunting".
7-9 don't even have a cohesive story. They literally did not have a plan going in and 9 spent a lot of time reconning what happened in 8 because the directors disagreed with each other. I feel like you're just trying to be contrarion with this statement.
This whole thread is contrarion to popular belief. I didn't say 7-9 were awesome, I said they passed the very low bar that 1-6 are for me. It's like, just my opinion, man.
BladeRunner - is like they wrote the screenplay based on the excellent source novel, then cut most of the ideas out, leaving only things that make no sense. Rick Deckard is a terrible detective, and only wins the final confrontation because Roy Batty... just gives up? I recently decided that my teenage self might have been wrong and rewatched it... nah, still terrible.
The directors cut/final cut does improve the plot line but admittedly the original movie is more vibes than substance. I think a lot of the "neo-tokyo" cyberpunk aesthetic we take for granted had tropes which originated in this film.
I'm pretty sure my recent rewatch was the director's cut. The theatrical release must have been indecipherable.
I hear what you're saying about the cyberpunk aesthetic - the visuals were the best thing about this movie. I would thoroughly recommend scifi buffs reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick - it's an excellent (and not overly long) dystopian novella that has so many layers and themes (that Blade Runner largely omitted).
I think the best way to experience a blend between the two is either the graphic novel of "Do Androids Dream [...]" or the Blade Runner PC adventure game, which fleshes out the story.
Eternal Sunshine if a Spotless Mind has such good reviews and people speak fondly of it online. I hated it, just thought both characters were insufferable, and there was nothing remotely romantic about it. Felt like I was trapped in the bad relationship with them.
Mad Max: Fury Road. I thought that was dumbest, most caveman pleasing trash that has ever received that much acclaim. Truly, the entire movie is designed to make a caveman go, "OOhhhH!.... WwAaHh!... FFIIRE!.... DwWoOah!..... HaHhh!..... OOhhhH! LaDy!!...HhaHh!... MAD!!.....WoOoHhh!"
I enjoyed it. Great cinematography and practical effects. My wife? Not so much. She broke it down as.. "oh look! They drove away! Then the drove back! The end! That was the whole movie!"
Thank you. I saw it, and it was one of the most boring movies I'd seen in spite of all the effects being thrown at me. Mind you, I went into it having watched Mad Max & Road Warrior hours before, and having skipped Thunderdome (and Waterworld). In all honesty, Fury Road is just "what if we actually made Waterworld the Mad Max sequel it was obviously supposed to be?"
Lol, I know you deleted this comment (fair), but it still showed up in my inbox. But I get it. Everyone loves that film, so I'm in a very fringe minority here. It's weird, too, because I love the post-apocalyptic genre, but I don't know, man. I just really disliked Fury Road.
Conversely, I really enjoyed The Northman in the same way everyone else does Fury Road. I thought it was a really fun, over-the-top Viking rampage revenge film, with cool cinematography. But everyone hated it.
Have they watched it more than once? I actually thought it was okay after watching it the first time, despite the confusing plot and a bunch of minor characters I just couldn't keep straight. So I decided it was worth another watch so I could pick up more of the story, but instead the second viewing was just painful as I ended up realizing how terrible and nonsensical the movie was.
I know they did and still liked it. I wasn't able to finish it on the second round. Some moments are amusing and some are interesting, but it just wasn't enough to keep me hooked.
A mix of half the movie being porn, the plot centering around a child in an adult woman's body doing nothing but having sex, the overall message being "women having sex with everyone makes them grow as a person".
That was my thoughts too, by the time she gets to the brothel, I thought okay she's going to get bored and move on with her story. But nope, she stays there for most of the movie. Like what was the message here?
My take on the movie was a lot about growing up and maturing.
If you notice the sky and general atmosphere of the movie becomes less fantastical as time goes on. Additionally the sex thing starts with her being taken of advantage, to her taking advantage of the second guy, and then to her using sex in the third arc, and by the end when the evil guy tries to force her to have sex she kills him. Additionally, through each of those progressions we also see her mature or learn more about the world.
Not saying it's the best movie, but there were at least some themes and plot points going on.
"Being smart is such a curse I'd rather get a lobotomy" is boring, self-serving and trite, but the Reefer Madness-level "drugs bad" thing in Requiem is unbearable and requires every character to be entirely nonsensical.
Trainspotting was four years old by that point. How critics let Aronofsky get away with it is beyond me. To this day the closest I've been from walking out of a movie theatre. The only reason I stuck around was it was in a festival and I was there with other people.
I know this is heresy but any Godfather movie, or the Sopranos, or anything that romanticizes the fucking mafia. To me organized crime characters are pieces of shit I can't admire or relate to. The only movie that ever made me root for gangster types was Pulp Fiction, which is a masterpiece.
It had to grow on me, kinda like a fungus. I didn’t like it the first time. For some reason I was convinced to watch it twice more. Now it’s solidly alright for me.
Good Lord some of the answers in this thread. I first thought this was like an unpopular opinion community. Is this all just Edge Lords trying to say the most popular and well regarded movies they can?
I was actually really enjoying the whole cat and mouse thing until the main fucking character died off-screen.
How does nobody ever talk about how shitty that "plot twist" is? It's not clever. It's not entertaining. It's just bad storytelling. They don't even show you a good shot of him to convey what actually happened. My girlfriend and I had to rewind it twice because it was so fucking stupid and made so little sense.
That's actually how I feel about most of the Coen Brothers' movies. The classical narrative structure exists for a reason. It's a good framework for telling a story that makes sense.
Sometimes there's a good artistic reason for diverting from that and telling the story in an unconventional way. Other times it's just pretentious auteur garbage.
This might come off as pretensions, but you should trust the writers more. The movie, and book, are very well written, and if something doesn't make sense, you should consider that you missed something.
I'll say this, Llewelyn Moss is not the main character. The movie doesn't start or end on him. He doesn't change or evolve as a character. How he died isn't the point.
It helps to focus on what Anton Chigurh said about rules, and what the Sheriff says about what he is willing to die for.
If you want me to just spell out the theme, I can do that to, but I think you would enjoy it more if you trust the movie.
Yeah, I've heard that before, about how Llewelyn isn't the main character. Not trying to be rude to you, but that sounds like bullshit. He's the character I'm rooting for. If the main character isn't the character I'm rooting for, then that doesn't sound like an enjoyable movie.
If you're saying Chigurh is the main character: he doesn't grow either.
If you're saying Tommy Lee Jones is the main character (which I've heard before), then I'm going to strain my eyes from rolling them so hard. He doesn't at any point interact with the plot. That's not good writing.
I get the Coens are doing it differently. They're not following the rules for how stories should be told. But different isn't the same as good, and the way they told the story was needlessly confusing and pretentious.
I always find it useful to use food as a metaphor to describe how I feel about movies. If No Country For Old Men were a meal, it would be expertly seasoned and cooked, with one extra ingredient that doesn't belong there and detracts from the whole thing, like if you made a perfect steak and drenched it in liquorice sauce.
And it would be served on a scrap of driftwood, or in a fishbowl, or on literally anything other than a plate. Everyone around me would be raving about the side dishes while I'm wondering why my meat tastes like shit.
You can include themes in a movie and still tell a coherent story. Try this: remove the theme. Is the movie any good? Is the plot entertaining, and does it make sense? No, it'd be really awful, and the inclusion of a theme doesn't excuse that.
Do you not like any movies or shows where the main character is the bad guy? The Sopranos is my all time favorite show but I've never rooted for Tony. Breaking bad is great too but I still never rooted for Walter White.
You really never rooted for Walt? You didn't hope that he'd make the right decision? You didn't find a little guilty pleasure in the satisfaction of a bad deed done well?
If not, then why did you even watch the show?
I'm fine with rooting for a bad guy. But no, I don't enjoy stories that only have irredeemable characters that I can't root for.
Besides, Javier Bardem won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, which doesn't usually go to main characters.
But ok, even if Llewelyn wasn't the main character, he's the central character of the plot. His death resolves the main storyline in the movie, and it happens off screen. That's not good storytelling.
Personally no i never rooted for Walt. Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed his character and the show overall but I figured him to be a pretty bad guy from the start. Sometimes I just enjoy a show even when all the main characters are bad people. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is another example from a completely different genre. Most episodes end with those characters in a bad predicament based solely off of their poor actions, but that's what makes it interesting to watch for me. I would feel like a shitty person of i rooted for them because they are incredibly shitty people. Another example i can think of is Narcos. That show was wildly popular, but there's no way anyone can justify rooting for Pablo Escobar.
Anyway I guess that's all beside the point of why you may not like No Country for Old Men. I haven't seen that movie in a long time so I can't recall many details. But I can still appreciate reading your thoughts on what makes for good storytelling. There's really no right or wrong as far as I'm concerned, everyone has their preferences.
It is obvious that the themes of the movie were lost on you, and that is ok. It takes time to understand a movie, then you might not get it completely. I had to watch the film 3 times before I got it. You are far to confident in your judgement. If you did understand the film, you wouldn't be say the Sheriff was disconnected from the plot. Everything in the movie was done with intent, and you didn't pick up on that, which, again is ok. Just please DO NOT say that it wasn't without purpose. You just failed to get it, and that happens all the time, especially to me. I hate to think about all the times I complain about a book or movie only for friends and colleagues to point out the obvious details I missed.
Not trying to be rude to you, but that sounds like bullshit.
In film, you can tell who the driving character is by seeing which character believes a lie and how they are forced change because of it. The Sheriff is the only character with an arc.
He’s the character I’m rooting for
I believe that this movie's theme attacks you personally, and is having the intended effect. Once he dies, that should tip you off to the movie was about something else, and give you more context to the events of the film.
He doesn’t at any point interact with the plot
The Sheriff is the only character who changes.
They’re not following the rules for how stories should be told.
They DO follow the standard story structure.
and the way they told the story was needlessly confusing and pretentious.
It was confusing, because they challenge your assumptions and established predictable cliche. They do follow a normal story structure, just not normal cliche.
You can include themes in a movie and still tell a coherent story. Try this: remove the theme. Is the movie any good? Is the plot entertaining, and does it make sense? No, it’d be really awful, and the inclusion of a theme doesn’t excuse that.
I don't know what you're trying to say here, but theme is the most important element.
In short, you should be more open minded. You didn't get the movie, that's ok. I don't think most video essays on youtube or reviewers get it either. But frankly, it's extremely well written, and it would be a measure of bad judgement if you dismissed it as senseless. I'll be clear, you didn't get it. The movie is amazing, and it will take thought to understand it, and not everyone is in a position in their life to get it. But some day, I hope you will, and the first step is to believe it is possible that you didn't get it, and to have trust in other people.
So often I hate mainstream movies, but this isn't it. This movie doesn't waste a single shot.
If it follows a standard story structure, then what was the climax?
I think I'm very open-minded about movies. For example in the mid-aughts I dragged my girlfriend to like five different Coen Brothers movies before I decided that I really just don't like them. For another example, I even like mainstream movies.
Isn't it possible I do understand it, and I just don't like it? I've put enough thought into it. I see the themes. I don't think those things outweigh the poor plot structure.
You can say No Country has a coherent plot, but it doesn't in the sense I'm talking about.
Skimming through the movie, I would say about 1 hour 39 minutes into the movie is the climax. The Sheriff enters the hotel Llewelyn was murdered in, not knowing if Anton is there. In the previous scene the local cop told him that Anton showed up two nights in a row to the scene of the crime, and the Sheriff went in knowing this. Every choice comes with risk. He took his final chance and survived, but not in tact.
When the movie starts, the Sheriff talks admirably of old cop stories, before saying;
"I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job, but I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, ok. I'll be part of this world."
By the end, everyone told him times have changed, except Uncle Ellis who says it has always been this way. People die, the world is chaos. Everyone is one coin flip away from death, even Anton who suffers a car accident no fault of his own. People frequently mischaracterize Anton as the manifestation of death, but he's not; he manifestation of chance. I picked up on this on a rewatched when he missed a shot on a still bird.
The Sheriff tells of the dream he had of his father going ahead, to prepare a fire for when he got there, before then waking up. To me, he has awoken to the truth; there is no justice, no happy endings, every has their time, and it's a fools work to worry about it, but he's now a lost man.
Rewatch the movie with this in mind, and I think you'll enjoy it far more.
A climax is supposed to be the turning point of the story, where the conflict is resolved.
You're saying the actual story is this old man who's barely in the movie realizing that life sucks. And this point in the story, where literally nothing happens on screen, is the resolution of the conflict of him not exactly realizing that life sucks.
Ugh. That's not complex or deep. It's oblique and pretentious.
The definition of a climax is "the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; a culmination or apex."
That scene is obviously not intense or exciting. It's only the most important part of this hidden plotline that's even more off-screen than Llewelyn's death since it only takes place in the mind of a character who's barely in the movie, who has no agency and no part of the actual events shown on screen.
It's insufferable. The things you're saying (which I was already aware of, to be clear) make the movie worse, not better.
Even if I was super into this extremely boring theme, it doesn't preclude the rest of the movie from containing a well-told story. And even if I went into the movie convinced that the Coens are geniuses and ready to forgive every other thing, voiceover exposition talking about symbolism-laden dreams is always going to be lazy writing.
I won't watch it again. I'm not trying to reevaluate it. I didn't miss anything. I just don't think it's any good.
You still don't get it lol. In 5 years you're going to feel silly about this whole thing when it clicks.
the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; a culmination or apex."
All scenes built up to that moment. You didn't notice it.
extremely boring theme
All themes are boring if you write them down. Movies justify themes.
it doesn't preclude the rest of the movie from containing a well-told story
I rewatched the movie last night, and every scene is critical. It is an very focused script. Each scene creates the next.
where literally nothing happens on screen
If you started watching that scene without the context of the rest of the film, you would say nothing happens.
I didn't miss anything
I went water skiing with some friends a few months ago. One of their sons couldn't figure it out. He blamed the waves to the speed of the boat or the skis. He wouldn't admit he was wrong and would get angry at us for trying to help.
My impression is that you continue to not understand the movie. If you did understand it, even if you disliked it, you would still appreciate how tight the script is, or how realistic the action is at least, or to understand how a character with less screen time could be the focus of the story. I meant it when I said in 5 years something will click and you'll get it.
If the main character isn’t the character I’m rooting for, then that doesn’t sound like an enjoyable movie.
Main character as the bad guy is very common and many great stories are told this way. If you can't find a way to enjoy any of them then idk what to tell you, restrict your viewing habits to marvel movies I guess
Did you read the book? I haven't seen the movie or read the book, but I just read mcarthys the road and it was excellent, no country is next on my list. Hopefully the book can redeem it for you, but if it's all a sour taste just read the road. It made me realize the point wasn't an explanation about what did happen or what would happen, he was exploring the relationship of father and son through what was happening.
I'm rereading the book right now and just watched the movie. While I agree it's... not good and certainly not faithful to the source material, I think the kids were all fantastic. They acted their little hearts out and - in my opinion - really nailed the characters.
I wanted to like it, but both my partner and myself were bored out of our minds watching it. Also what was that line… “I’m a BIPOC pangender”? Nobody has ever fucking talked like that.
End scene was fucking dope. That brought it up to a 6/10 for me.
Sometimes people make movies where there is no winner, I like those movies because it mixes things up from the normal formula, another one that is very bleak is "the road"
The 2005 Elektra movie. It nearly killed Jennifer Garner's career! There's so much of that movie where I just have to wonder "What the fuck were they thinking?"
Event horizon. It has a big following but I don't get the big horror. And the gore in the director's cut is more annoying than shocking. Maybe if it was the first space horror movie you watched
It's literally Indiana Jones but with kids (in a good way).
I think though if you didn't watch it as a kid it may not hold up as well. I know some people who watched it later in life and it didn't capture the same magic for them.
Nostalgia, mostly I'd guess. It was on all the time on TNT for years and I think we watched it so much that it became ingrained in us that it was great.
Both of them are kind of playing themselves in every film. Murray in particular has this brand of sardonic humour which is really distinctive. I could imagine someone not vibing with it but it just never crossed my mind until it came up in a similar thread to this one that some people hated Murray.
I hate 20th Century Classic that has been so impactful on film making that it suffers from the Seinfeld effect. Every aspect that it pioneered is just so cliched now in retrospect - how dumb were people back then to have been entertained by something pop culture has completely imbibed over the past XX years.
I found the special effects to be laughable; especially the practical ones. How could you watch anything made before CGI matured to a decent level?
Don't even get me started on the actors. None of them went method and abused their fellow cast and crew in the name of art. Additionally the script did not past the Bechdel test which completely ruined any sense of realism that the characters might have been attempting to portray.
20th Century Classic is just one example. There are hundreds of films that don't even have colour cinematography. Pretentious people try to tell us black and white cinematography is "more dreamlike", pul-lease! Why would you want to watch something that doesn't look like real life? You might as well be reading a novel at that point - and the whole point of movies is to completely replace novels so we can consume stories more efficiently.
Don't @ me on any of this. Just hop on your penny farthing bicycle and ride off into the sunset to your hipster neigbourhood.
"There Will be Blood" was one of the most drab, boring, washed out, and damn near unwatchable movies of all time, yet everyone claims it's a masterpiece. It's just a story of a man becoming richer than god, and going off the deep-end, culminating in a scene where his adopted kid tells him how much they hate him, and him murdering someone in a misguided fit of rage. None of the characters are relatable, redeeming or interesting. The script has like a grand total of 1000 words across the entire 2.5 hour run time, and none of it is particularly compelling. What a snooze fest.
I get where you're coming from. There will be Blood is based on an Upton Sinclair novel, Upton Sinclair was a staunch socialist and this could be felt in his writing. The film is a send-up of American exceptionalism. Daniel Plainview literally pulls himself up by his bootstraps. In my opinion it's an amazing comedy
I appreciate the perspective! Gotta say though, Jesus that's some deep-level dark comedy that I just don't understand. I was watching it as more of an art piece, and less of a commentary. I still don't like it, but I never thought of it in this light.
Yeah I totally get it, I think the marketing did the film dirty and the pedigree of the actors and director didn't help either plus all of the oscar nominations made people expect something different. It's a very melodramatic and campy film, in the original script Daniel throws Eli down the bowling alley to knock down the pins after killing him.
Honestly, any of the Monty Python movies. I know people love them, and they have a few funny jokes. But man are they ever drab, I just can't get into them.
More of a genre than a particular movie, but any and all video game movies that aren't the 90s shitshow M•rio movie or the 3 live action Sonic films. I'm talking live action because there have clearly been good video games based animated films like... well I can't think of any right off hand, but they surely exist.
I am not an irritable person, but the ending of the whale Made me get up from my seat and yell "OH COME ON!" To the screen; Frustrating, corny , manipulative misery porn.
While I like the movie overall, I don't get the hype about the diner scene with the jump scare. Even watched a couple video essays explaining it and don't understand how it does what people say it does.
I’m gonna give the opposite answer than you want. I feel like most movies recently are like that but some I had to get into the right mood to enjoy them. The first time I watched the new top gun I thought it was garbage propaganda then I gotta into jet sims and think it’s an awesome movie. Same with mad max fury road, thought it was trash until I watched 1-3 then 4-5.
Princess Bride. The narrative framework of some shitkid not appreciating that his grandpa is Columbo ruins the whole thing. Those two characters should be cut out and then it can be good. ...Okay, Peter Falk can stay.
Remove Savage and all the other characters, and just have Falk tell the audience the story without any kind of "imaginary" scenes. It's just Peter Falk talking into a camera. Preferably wearing Columbo's signature trench coat.
Avatar. Highest grossing movie in the world. Blue shit.
Best critique I ever heard about Avatar: "Eh, Fern Gully did it better."
I call it Space Pocahontas.
Or Pocahontas
The movie was forgettable and not that special. Going to the IMAX with my uncle and three cousins and watching our first ever (and only ever) 3d movie together and squealing the whole 3 hour car ride home about how much fun we had as a family is one of my best memories.
I think this is what people forget about Avatar. It was never supposed to be the best writing or the best story. It was purely just to show off incredible ground breaking CGI technology. Seeing it in IMAX was a damn near religious experience, but watching on a TV at home just doesn't do it justice.
dabu di dabu dai
Avatar was the best screensaver ever made.
Bluntly manipulative melodramatic tripe that ejects me completely from the movie, just as with Titanic. James Cameron decided to keep churning out the modern cgi version of a top hat-wearing villain cackling and twirling his mustache as he leaves the damsel tied to the train tracks, and it is kind of dismaying that he got so thoroughly rewarded for it.
It was an okay (but derivative) movie, but an amazing tech showcase for 3D. That's why it was the highest grossing.
Anything that comes from Marvel. Overrated CGI tripe.
Since you phrased it ambiguously, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is amazing.
I’d argue that those are Sony movies, not Marvel.
Back when Marvel was financially struggling, they started selling off rights to various characters. Sony bought Spider-Man (and a handful of other characters), and that’s where the Tobey Maguire movies came from. It’s also why the X-men will likely never be a part of the MCU, because Sony owns the movie rights to (most of) the mutants.
The Spiderverse movies are basically Sony riding the wake of the Tom Holland hype. To be clear, they’re phenomenal movies. But they’re only tangentially related to Marvel.
Oh I agree, I was just being pedantic because OP said "Marvel".
But they also have some of the most incredible visuals I've ever seen in an animated movie. I still maintain that the second one could be watched entirely on mute, and you could still understand the story.
The only Marvel movies I like and they are not even made by Marvel.
Since I'm already being pedantic, technically produced by Marvel Entertainment.
Even something like Iron Man 1 and 2?
I don't like Iron Man 3 but 1 and 2 are quite enjoyable to me.
I liked the original tobey maguire spidermans, but that was 20 years ago when they came out (and I was a teenager). I like them now for the nostalgia, not so much for the movie it is. And after those nothing really spoke to me. I went to see quite a bit of newer movies because my gf and friends do like them, so occasionally I give in and tag along for the company (I distinctly remember age of ultron and infinity war pt I for how bad it was, but the memory of some others I've seen faded the minute we got in the car home)
For me these movies all feel the same and formulaic. The stories are predictable, the characters flat and the edit is just too much focused on extreme visuals, spectacle for the sake of spectacle. I find many storylines very forgettable, to the point I even forgot that I've seen some movies before. In the edit, they are trying very, very hard to evoke emotions from the audience using tricks and tropes; but in the end it's all a hollow shell, a cash grab without authenticity. At least, it feels that way for me. I understand many people love these movies, they're just not my thing.
And that's totally valid.
Thank you for elaborating :)
Not even Xmen animated series?
The Dark Knight Rises. Not only is it a bad Batman movie, it oddly has a pro cop message. Also, I can't take Bane seriously at all with that ridiculous voice.
All of Nolan’s Batman movies were heavily pro-cop. Watch TDK again: the day is saved by illegal surveillance, and Batman faces no consequences for using it.
Prior to Rises, most of the Gotham cops were depicted as extremely corrupt, though. Gordon was something of an exception, although even he looked the other way for his corrupt co-workers
That's a valid point. I just remembered the pro-cop messaging feeling more overt in Rises, though it has been a while since I've seen them all.
I also have a soft spot for The Dark Knight because of Ledger's performance.
This is how I felt about all the Nolan Batman movies, except it was Batman himself I couldn't take seriously because of Bale's ridiculous Cookie Monster voice. I think I burst out laughing in the theatre when I first heard it.
any of the new MCU movies post-endgame. they were so generic, and it was clear some of the movies ran out of money on cgi or animation.
Guardians 3 was still good, I see it as the post credits scene of the MCU
The rest is boring to awful
introducing new content helps, rather than just promoting the next characther movie or show.
Even Shang-Chi?
The way I feel about the MCU is like an old relationship where there's not much love left and you can't seem to break it off. Some days you have vain hopes, other days you hate yourself for being too coward to leave.
That's where the comparison ends, because in a relationship you can talk things over together and try to work things out.
Almost all of Will Ferrell's movies, but especially Talladega Nights, a stupid movie about stupid people doing stupid things according to a stupid script. It's one of two movies I've ever walked out on (the other being Splice, which is just gross). Stranger Than Fiction is the only good movie with Will Ferrell in a starring roll.
Edit: Splice not Split
Stranger Than Fiction is by far Ferrell's best work, because it's the only film of his where he doesn't act like an insufferable man-child.
I wish he would play it straight in more films. He's actually a decent actor when he doesn't act like a fucking idiot.
Such a wonderful, weird and heartfelt film. I absolutely love it.
Zoolander?
Zoolander is a great movie.
Mugatu isn't a starring role and Will Ferrell plays the part well. If he was playing Zoolander the movie wouldn't be anywhere near as good.
Are you serious? I just told you.
But that’s the point of Talladega Nights, no? It’s meant to be stupid, silly, and absurd. It’s not a drama, it’s a comedy about race car drivers.
Like if that’s your opinion, fine, im not trying to change your mind. But walking out on a comedy cause you thought it was too stupid is like closing a book because it had too many words.
IMO good comedy is more than stupid people acting silly, that's an incredibly reductive view of the genre. Comedy should be clever and play to more than just the basest impulses. Even a comedy about stupid people can be smartly written. An example brought up in this thread is Zoolander. It's silly and absurd, but it's also smart, even though the characters are stupid. Talladega Nights is just stupid.
Mane I thought you were gonna say Office Space or like a West Anderson film as a “smart” comedy, not Zoolander lol. I wouldn’t necessarily call that high brow compared to Talladega Nights, but I haven’t seen it in quite some time so could be misremembering. I get what you’re saying though- a lot of the Will Ferrell comedies use really stupid visual laughs (or dead obvious lines) instead of anything that would require thinking a lil.
Office space is also good, Wes Anderson movies tend to be a little up their own ass for my taste. Zoolander works as a better comparison due to the intelligence level of the characters being about the same as Talladega Nights while the quality of the writing is much higher.
The only Will Ferrell movie I'll watch again is Anchorman. Because yeah, in most cases the humor in a Will Ferrell movie is just screaming inappropriate things.
I've got a similar problem with Ben Stiller. He is by far the worst part of Night in the Museum. We get a bunch of cool and funny stuff happening only to have it slam to a halt so we can have some "Excuse me, Mister sir, but you, shouldn't um." May god damn Ben Stiller to work in an obscure plumbing fittings retailer followed by retirement in obscurity.
Have you seen zoolander? I pretty much agree with you but zoolander is great. Didn't even like anchorman
I haven't seen Zoolander. Ben Stiller is also in that, right?
Ben Stiller wrote, directed, and starred in it. He's good when he's not doing mid-tier family movies (although I remember him being great in Heavyweights). Similarly, Tropic Thunder is a brilliant movie that he wrote, directed, and starred in.
IMO he's really good when he's allowed creative control, which he wasn't for any of the Night at the Museum movies.
Correct, double whammy
Do you feel that way about Megamind, too?
I've never seen Megamind so I'll reserve judgement.
Fair enough. It's a fun movie in my opinion.
Probably getting some hate for saying this, but…. The Dune movies are some of the worst big budget movies I’ve seen. They look nice and the cinematography is awesome but that movie feels so damn empty.
Yeah, I'd rather watch the Lynch version anytime, the new ones are like 6 hours of bland, boring choices and wooden performances.
lol, true. At least Lynch‘s version is a entertaining fever dream.
Yeah the only reason it could be considered “bad” is because they ran out of money and the entire 2nd half is just a montage of shots to end the movie because the producers took over.
“Wooden performances” is the only way to describe the acting in Lynch’s. That movie is a confuding mess and painful to watch if you don’t know the story. A movie can’t simply assume you’ve read the book to understand it. People can only truly prefer Lynch to Villeneuve ironically. You can’t honestly think it’s better film.
I thought watching the new ones was like watching paint dry. At least Lynch's version had some personality.
Not all personalities are likeable.
I'm not sure why you're trying to argue this stuff. This is a thread about movies you can't be convinced are good. I'm not trying to convince you, I'm stating that I liked the David Lynch Dune considerably more than the new ones. Feel free to take that or leave it, art's not really objective, dude.
Even the three part TV movies from around 2000 are better.
I thought that version was generally well received?
I will say, the first one is the most to-the-letter book adaptations i have ever seen.
ive told my friend that its a brutalist screensaver, and he got so mad.
lmao, what a perfect insult.
I've only watched the first one. Visually it was great, but the scenes over shadowed the plot to such a degree that, even having read the source, it was still hard to follow.
I would not call it a bad movie, but I'd file it with Avatar and the fountain as being more about the experience than the story.
lol, yes. The first avatar was mostly goosebumps to this day but avatar 2 was „wow, that looks nice. When does the plot start?“
Regarding the fountain, I always wanted to see that movie because it looks interesting. But I heard a few times now that it’s not really good.
I watched the first one in the theater and thought it was dry but okay. I tried rewarding it when the second one was coming out and I turned it off like 1/3 of the way through. I watched the second one but it couldn't hold my attention at all.
I agree with the Dune movies and in particular I think I don't like Denis Villeneuve; He takes a cute sci fi short story like "stories of your life" and turns it into a very self important dull thing. Then he takes a Novel about flying through space with drugs and doing guerriilla warfare while riding sand worms and it all feels so somber and rigid. Man has no fun in him.
Damn this one hard for me. I absolutely hated the casting and screenplay. But it really redefined how i see the universe in my head when i read the books.
Any superhero movie since 2008.
I guess it was a pretty broad stroke and there is some collateral damage. I might look into this one.
Snowpiercer. It was highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes and from the poster I thought it stared U2's The Edge, so I took a chance. That was the dumbest shit I've ever seen.
I suppose a movie in which they spend half of the time running through sleeper cars wouldn't have conveyed the same message about classism.
Time to fight the army of goon in an empty car that seemingly serves no purpose than to host a large violent brawl, now it's time to walk through the sleeper car for all the goons you fought, now it's time to walk through the kitchen car for the goons, not it's time to walk through the laundry car for the goons. Oh look, it's a rich person party car, what a weird thing to have at all in any context, are they aware the world has ended? Now time to go through the partier's sleeper car, then the partier's kitchen car, then the partier's laundry car...
Gravity.
Literally the only movie I've ever turned off part way through. Youd think that the producers would have, i don't know, accurately depicted the force the movie is named after.
Mind to elaborate?
Sure thing!
The scene where George Clooney dies is just stupid wrong. https://youtu.be/9La4T6GBsLA?si=3TaChBLOqGRSzX5n
Once Sandra catches his broken teather he comes to a complete stop. The line is taught, so effectively they're both moving in roughly the same orbit as the station they're attached to. That means they're also moving at the same speed as the station. The net forces at that point for Clooney's character are effectively zero (not exactly zero as there is still a bit of atmosphere causing drag at iss heights).
In real life, he's "safe" in that scenario. In the movie, some magical force continues to be applied to him which ends up overpowering his grip, which was totally fine seconds before, and he falls to his death.
I dont know if the science gets better after that, never watched past it.
I see where you are coming from.
I would interpret that as still some residual force being there but dampened by the parachute lines (meaning a ruler would still see movement relative to the station) and thr amount of screen time couldnt show them drifting away from the station. This would be confirmed by the taut line and the "recoil" after Clooney let loose.
But the force for the amount of time shown is still too much to be logical.
Did you think The Martian was similarly problematic?
Avatar. Good Lord what bad acting and visual dynamics will do for a movie.
Titanic
Titanic is better if you interpret it differently:
Jack never existed. He was a coping mechanism for Rose to get away from crippling depression and self harm.
The whole movie can be interpreted that way, and it makes it much more interesting. There is no direct evidence for Jack's existence, and everything we hear about him interacting with others is from interviews with Old Rose.
In fact, some parts of the film make more sense when watching this way. Rose's near-miraculous ax hit to free Jack from handcuffs? Never happened. Not getting caught in cargo storage despite having a very involved tail who apparently just gave up? Never happened -- or at least, the part where Jack and Rose have sex in the car never happened.
There is a nude drawing of Rose which she says was done by Jack; however, it is actually signed "JD", so technically could have been any commissioned artist with those initials. In fact, Cal could even have set it up himself -- again, you only ever get Old Rose's version of events. Though we see Rose given the Heart of the Ocean diamond while on board Titanic (and she is wearing it in the drawing), there is once again no reason that must be the case, and since the drawing isn't dated, it could even predate her voyage. The letter she claimed she wrote to Cal about said drawing is not found with it, despite the two documents apparently being stored together.
And, note that a "Jackdaw" is a type of bird with various connections in lore -- one of which being that Jackdaws appear as a precursor to death or an omen of death. Rose claims she met Jack Dawson when he saved her from a suicide attempt.
I am not convinced
Propeller guy was the best part of the movie.
Titanic would’ve been a better movie if they’d cast someone other than DiCaprio. But it probably wouldn’t have been as big of a hit.
The Godfather. The characters are empty and hard to attach to, the sound is terrible, there's so much filler in the editting it becomes a chore as I watch yet another seemingly pointlessly extended shot or micro-scenes—Why?! What was the point?!—And yet I'm meant to feel something when this character I hardly know since about 10 mins ago gets killed?
If a film had an inflated ego...
Thank you, absolutely. So slow and boring.
Uncut Gems
A stressful two hours of screaming and bad decisions
That's the point... We're watching the spiral of a gambling addict. Its pure anxiety, and it's done so well.
I get that but you are not convincing me that this is good
I guess its personal preference, it's like eating food with a lot of spice. Some people enjoy the stress it brings.
Highly agree. The stress and anxiety is there for a reason. I actually hated it the whole time I was watching, but it was very much worth it. That being said, I don't think I'd watch it again.
It's good at what they were trying to do. It's not enjoyable.
New Dune.
I was gonna ask why so I could provide a counter argument, but then the question specifically asks for a movie you will never be convinced is good. So I won’t bother lol.
I gave them an updoot for answering the question even though my personal opinion is that the two new Dune movies are top 10 movies of all time.
Nothing appeals to everyone, and I dislike a lot of critically acclaimed movies and other media because while they just don't resonate with me. Top Gun Maverick was a mediocre retread of so many movies that came before it that while it was well executed from a technical perspective, I found it forgettable and don't understand the hype.
I have a hundred of top 10 movies, and I don't understand the hate for the new Dune movies. The actors are good, the movies stick to the script, the picture is pretty and the music is nice too. I was also pleasantly surprised that you could transpose all this world to a movie because it's kinda difficult. You can't please everyone though.
i think its that theres no investment in the characters unless youve read the books.
i didnt care about any of the characters in the movie. it feels though that if i had read the books, i might have.
just a hunch; from someone else who only mildly liked the movies and has not read the source material.
It's fair. I have read the books quite a few times in my childhood and the movies were almost like I have been thinking of the whole time.
That goes for the main characters and the background characters imo. The second movie did a lot better in regard to showing off the different cultures but the first one just felt so...empty. People just did things and had things done to them, and I didn't understand why I was supposed to care about any of them.
Pretty accurate. Most of the first movie is basically the prologue to the main story.
The first movie is extremely loyal to the book; I have yet to see the second movie, but I would be surprised if it wasn't much the same.
Funny thing: theres a surprising number of Dune references in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
Not the person you're replying to, but for my own POV:
I think the new Dune movies are the best they could be and I'm glad I was able to catch them in theaters, but they've also convinced me that Dune just isn't a franchise I'll ever be interested in. I'm not sure if I'd bother with the third movie, and any spin-offs are also fully out of the question for me.
I don't really get the hype for Citizen Kane.
Though, I kinda think it might be because growing up, this movie was spoiled in almost every cartoon I ever saw ("Rosebud" was the punchline of so many jokes) and maybe not knowing the ending would have made it better. 🤷🏻♂️
That right there is the millennial experience.
So many culturally defining movies came out before the 1980s that by the time you're being raised in the 90's, they're making children's media that references it. I knew the plot of Star Wars long before I saw it.
My favorite example is The Mask of Zorro, which...not an old film, but it came out when I was slightly young for it. A few years go by, I'm in high school, and Shrek comes out. Then it's sequel, with a swashbuckling orange cat voiced by Antonio Banderas. And then I eventually catch Mask of Zorro, and laugh through the entire thing because holy shit the main character sounds exactly like Puss In Boots.
Well, it was the same actor, so...
Yes, I'm aware of this. The point I was making was I got the joke backwards. You're supposed to laugh all the way through Shrek 2 because the cat sounds exactly like Zorro.
A lot of things that were once creative experiences have been redone to death to the point that it can be difficult to understand what the whole hubbub was with the original.
So, yes, you have to think of it in the context of the era, which may require looking up what was made at the time, what had come before and what came after. It's a bit like paintings or other pieces of art, some of them are interesting beyond what they just represent, but for what they introduced in the world as a statement when they were made (which, admittedly can sometimes be a bit obscure). There too, a little work on the public's part is required to understand why one piece and not another is usually held in high regard (you're then totally free to disagree, or not enjoy it, but context matters quite a bit).
A lot of the hype was in the metanarrative around the movie - remember that it bombed in theaters and was only carried to far later acclaim. Newspaper journalists loved the fact that it called out one of their worst nightmares (W.R. Hearst) in very specific ways. Then the cinematographers caught all the tech that Welles used and tried to figure out how to make it all work for them. Actors loved it because it was a lot of great character work. 'Film buffs' started to enjoy it thereafter, in part because it had inspiration from films like Rashomon. Then you have the auteur directors who will always love Orson Welles, in spite of everything and anything against doing so. Mercury Theatre on the Air fans also liked the movie because it shared a lot of the same cast (and was only 3 years out from that show).
I'll admit, that's where I came at it from. My family was in papers, and was in a paper that actively fought the Hearst syndicate; one of the characters in the movie has elements of my grandfather in him, because he made sure to have people go into NYC to review Mercury Theatre productions and thus Welles cared about him as an editor. And then my experience having gotten briefly into stage and screen: The performances are amazing. Many of the sets are so perfectly evocative that they become a character unto themselves. The montages are technically inspiring to this day, and the scene transitions are pure technical excellence.
That's just what makes Kane good as a film.
The plot is one of a death-mystery of a 'great' man, of trying to approach a man's life and sum him up in just a few inches of text on a page. While Rosebud is the butt of jokes (and may well have been a nasty jab at Marion Davies), it's more of a chilling point. The point is not about the thing itself. It's the treatment of the thing. It's the last thing he thought about, and the whole movie is a quest to figure out what it "means" - and no one finds out, even though they spend this whole film exploring who the man was from vignettes of his existence. In the end, if it meant anything but a fleeting final thought, it still just goes in the furnace with the rest of his identity that can't be sold off at auction. It didn't define him, not really - in spite of what the editor in the smoke-filled newsroom wanted to push as his narrative. One word is never enough to define a person who lived a full life. But a full life that ended up hurting a lot of people is best defined by the wreckage left behind (human and junk). A drunk ex-wife, dead children, a disgraced media empire, a half-built house full of stuff for the furnace, and most painfully, no true friends to really speak well of him.
That's what makes Citizen Kane good as a movie.
So I'll say this - Rosebud is meaningless. It's a cheap parlor trick of misdirection, and like all such tricks people latched onto it. Instead, ask yourself something when you're watching that movie. When you're gone, what will you leave behind? And what will you do, starting right this moment, to leave behind the legacy you want?
Pulp Fiction 🤷♀️
Lucas directed Star Wars. Any. He's an awful director in almost every aspect. Some of the worst acting from extremely talented people I've ever seen because he doesn't know how to direct them.
Take the same cast, story, massage the script, and have ANYONE else direct, and it'd be great. I just can't with Lucas.
I think George Lucas would agree with you.
While he directed the first film, Empire and Jedi had other directors. When it came to the prequel series Lucas really tried to get someone else to direct, but everyone turned him down as the project was "too daunting".
Lucas is best as the idea guy.
Not true, they did this already with Ep7.
My hot take gets hotter...as flawed and problematic as they are, I think they 7-9 are better. The bar is THAT low in my mind for 1-6.
7-9 don't even have a cohesive story. They literally did not have a plan going in and 9 spent a lot of time reconning what happened in 8 because the directors disagreed with each other. I feel like you're just trying to be contrarion with this statement.
This whole thread is contrarion to popular belief. I didn't say 7-9 were awesome, I said they passed the very low bar that 1-6 are for me. It's like, just my opinion, man.
BladeRunner - is like they wrote the screenplay based on the excellent source novel, then cut most of the ideas out, leaving only things that make no sense. Rick Deckard is a terrible detective, and only wins the final confrontation because Roy Batty... just gives up? I recently decided that my teenage self might have been wrong and rewatched it... nah, still terrible.
The directors cut/final cut does improve the plot line but admittedly the original movie is more vibes than substance. I think a lot of the "neo-tokyo" cyberpunk aesthetic we take for granted had tropes which originated in this film.
I'm pretty sure my recent rewatch was the director's cut. The theatrical release must have been indecipherable. I hear what you're saying about the cyberpunk aesthetic - the visuals were the best thing about this movie. I would thoroughly recommend scifi buffs reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick - it's an excellent (and not overly long) dystopian novella that has so many layers and themes (that Blade Runner largely omitted).
I think the best way to experience a blend between the two is either the graphic novel of "Do Androids Dream [...]" or the Blade Runner PC adventure game, which fleshes out the story.
Oooh, there's an Androids graphic novel?!
There is!
I know we're dunking on a beloved classic, but it would be fair to state this even more harshly.
I felt like there's really barely even a scrap of
Do Androids Dream of Electric SheepinBladeRunner.I think BladeRunner is cool, and I'm thankful BladeRunner 2049 actually at least has some ideas from the book.
But I can't help but regret that BladeRunner has kept us from ever getting a proper
Electric Sheepmovie.Honestly, I really just want more people to get all the amazing Turtle-on-its-back jokes done with Bender in Futurama.
Edit: And how does a movie skip over the
::: spoiler Huge Spoiler for the Book - Don't click if you haven't read it yet. The electric spider?! :::
That would have made a fantastic movie ending to roll credits on.
Eternal Sunshine if a Spotless Mind has such good reviews and people speak fondly of it online. I hated it, just thought both characters were insufferable, and there was nothing remotely romantic about it. Felt like I was trapped in the bad relationship with them.
Chappie. I had to leave the theater early to prevent any more brain damage.
I agree. It was Short Circuit meets District 9.
Yeah it really sucked
This movie introduced me to the majesty that is Die Antwoord, and that alone made it worthwhile.
If The Sopranos was boring, what you’d get is The Godfather. It’s boring. And it insists upon itself.
Mad Max: Fury Road. I thought that was dumbest, most caveman pleasing trash that has ever received that much acclaim. Truly, the entire movie is designed to make a caveman go, "OOhhhH!.... WwAaHh!... FFIIRE!.... DwWoOah!..... HaHhh!..... OOhhhH! LaDy!!...HhaHh!... MAD!!.....WoOoHhh!"
I enjoyed it. Great cinematography and practical effects. My wife? Not so much. She broke it down as.. "oh look! They drove away! Then the drove back! The end! That was the whole movie!"
Wasn't there some water at one point? apart from that, fair summary.
UNGA BUUUNGA!!! >:O
Thank you. I saw it, and it was one of the most boring movies I'd seen in spite of all the effects being thrown at me. Mind you, I went into it having watched Mad Max & Road Warrior hours before, and having skipped Thunderdome (and Waterworld). In all honesty, Fury Road is just "what if we actually made Waterworld the Mad Max sequel it was obviously supposed to be?"
I thought that when it was my first mad max film. Going back to the first one I thought it was amazing.
Lol, I know you deleted this comment (fair), but it still showed up in my inbox. But I get it. Everyone loves that film, so I'm in a very fringe minority here. It's weird, too, because I love the post-apocalyptic genre, but I don't know, man. I just really disliked Fury Road.
Conversely, I really enjoyed The Northman in the same way everyone else does Fury Road. I thought it was a really fun, over-the-top Viking rampage revenge film, with cool cinematography. But everyone hated it.
I was going for feigned outrage for humor, but I ended up deciding I didn't think it was worded well enough
I loved the northman, the meathorse scene was great.
Once upon a time in Hollywood.
Closely followed by anything that's self-jerking Hollywood's ego. I'm looking at you too La La Land!
Jupiter Ascending
That was a pretty roundly panned movie.
And yet... I know someone who loved it, sadly
Have they watched it more than once? I actually thought it was okay after watching it the first time, despite the confusing plot and a bunch of minor characters I just couldn't keep straight. So I decided it was worth another watch so I could pick up more of the story, but instead the second viewing was just painful as I ended up realizing how terrible and nonsensical the movie was.
I know they did and still liked it. I wasn't able to finish it on the second round. Some moments are amusing and some are interesting, but it just wasn't enough to keep me hooked.
Probably the same people up there that prefer Lynch's Dune to Villeneuve's.
Hey i thought Jupiter Ascending was raw ass, but Lynch's Dune was rad - despite being objectively bad
Damn you're carrying that over from the other thread? I don't even necessarily disagree but that's petty af
Poor Things. Watched it in the cinema and it was just disgusting, I don't care how critically acclaimed it is.
What was disgusting about it? (I absolutely loved it)
A mix of half the movie being porn, the plot centering around a child in an adult woman's body doing nothing but having sex, the overall message being "women having sex with everyone makes them grow as a person".
Fair points!
That was my thoughts too, by the time she gets to the brothel, I thought okay she's going to get bored and move on with her story. But nope, she stays there for most of the movie. Like what was the message here?
My take on the movie was a lot about growing up and maturing.
If you notice the sky and general atmosphere of the movie becomes less fantastical as time goes on. Additionally the sex thing starts with her being taken of advantage, to her taking advantage of the second guy, and then to her using sex in the third arc, and by the end when the evil guy tries to force her to have sex she kills him. Additionally, through each of those progressions we also see her mature or learn more about the world.
Not saying it's the best movie, but there were at least some themes and plot points going on.
Is it also possible that you missed the actual message? Does your username check out?
Pi and Requiem for a Dream as a one-two punch.
"Being smart is such a curse I'd rather get a lobotomy" is boring, self-serving and trite, but the Reefer Madness-level "drugs bad" thing in Requiem is unbearable and requires every character to be entirely nonsensical.
Trainspotting was four years old by that point. How critics let Aronofsky get away with it is beyond me. To this day the closest I've been from walking out of a movie theatre. The only reason I stuck around was it was in a festival and I was there with other people.
Right there with you on these two. So overhyped.
I know this is heresy but any Godfather movie, or the Sopranos, or anything that romanticizes the fucking mafia. To me organized crime characters are pieces of shit I can't admire or relate to. The only movie that ever made me root for gangster types was Pulp Fiction, which is a masterpiece.
The Big Lebowsky
That’s a rough one. Everyone ever loves it… I completely do not get it.
It had to grow on me, kinda like a fungus. I didn’t like it the first time. For some reason I was convinced to watch it twice more. Now it’s solidly alright for me.
Everything Disney did with Star Wars
2012
Good Lord some of the answers in this thread. I first thought this was like an unpopular opinion community. Is this all just Edge Lords trying to say the most popular and well regarded movies they can?
La la land. I hate that shit, I was happy when he lost the Oscar and I hadn't even seen the one he won.
Yeah I never got the hype for it being an oscar contender.
Hollywood is self-centered and loves movies about Hollywood. That's really the only reason La La Land was in the running.
Oppenheimer.
3 hrs of nausea-inducing quick cuts
Uwe Boll's "Alone in the dark"
I rented that movie, and it was so bad that half way through it I turned it off. When I went back to the rental store they offered me my money back.
I said no. Because some lessons have to be painful in order to learn from them.
No Country For Old Men.
I was actually really enjoying the whole cat and mouse thing until the main fucking character died off-screen.
How does nobody ever talk about how shitty that "plot twist" is? It's not clever. It's not entertaining. It's just bad storytelling. They don't even show you a good shot of him to convey what actually happened. My girlfriend and I had to rewind it twice because it was so fucking stupid and made so little sense.
That's actually how I feel about most of the Coen Brothers' movies. The classical narrative structure exists for a reason. It's a good framework for telling a story that makes sense.
Sometimes there's a good artistic reason for diverting from that and telling the story in an unconventional way. Other times it's just pretentious auteur garbage.
This might come off as pretensions, but you should trust the writers more. The movie, and book, are very well written, and if something doesn't make sense, you should consider that you missed something.
I'll say this, Llewelyn Moss is not the main character. The movie doesn't start or end on him. He doesn't change or evolve as a character. How he died isn't the point.
It helps to focus on what Anton Chigurh said about rules, and what the Sheriff says about what he is willing to die for.
If you want me to just spell out the theme, I can do that to, but I think you would enjoy it more if you trust the movie.
Yeah, I've heard that before, about how Llewelyn isn't the main character. Not trying to be rude to you, but that sounds like bullshit. He's the character I'm rooting for. If the main character isn't the character I'm rooting for, then that doesn't sound like an enjoyable movie.
If you're saying Chigurh is the main character: he doesn't grow either.
If you're saying Tommy Lee Jones is the main character (which I've heard before), then I'm going to strain my eyes from rolling them so hard. He doesn't at any point interact with the plot. That's not good writing.
I get the Coens are doing it differently. They're not following the rules for how stories should be told. But different isn't the same as good, and the way they told the story was needlessly confusing and pretentious.
I always find it useful to use food as a metaphor to describe how I feel about movies. If No Country For Old Men were a meal, it would be expertly seasoned and cooked, with one extra ingredient that doesn't belong there and detracts from the whole thing, like if you made a perfect steak and drenched it in liquorice sauce.
And it would be served on a scrap of driftwood, or in a fishbowl, or on literally anything other than a plate. Everyone around me would be raving about the side dishes while I'm wondering why my meat tastes like shit.
You can include themes in a movie and still tell a coherent story. Try this: remove the theme. Is the movie any good? Is the plot entertaining, and does it make sense? No, it'd be really awful, and the inclusion of a theme doesn't excuse that.
Do you not like any movies or shows where the main character is the bad guy? The Sopranos is my all time favorite show but I've never rooted for Tony. Breaking bad is great too but I still never rooted for Walter White.
You really never rooted for Walt? You didn't hope that he'd make the right decision? You didn't find a little guilty pleasure in the satisfaction of a bad deed done well?
If not, then why did you even watch the show?
I'm fine with rooting for a bad guy. But no, I don't enjoy stories that only have irredeemable characters that I can't root for.
Besides, Javier Bardem won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, which doesn't usually go to main characters.
But ok, even if Llewelyn wasn't the main character, he's the central character of the plot. His death resolves the main storyline in the movie, and it happens off screen. That's not good storytelling.
Personally no i never rooted for Walt. Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed his character and the show overall but I figured him to be a pretty bad guy from the start. Sometimes I just enjoy a show even when all the main characters are bad people. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is another example from a completely different genre. Most episodes end with those characters in a bad predicament based solely off of their poor actions, but that's what makes it interesting to watch for me. I would feel like a shitty person of i rooted for them because they are incredibly shitty people. Another example i can think of is Narcos. That show was wildly popular, but there's no way anyone can justify rooting for Pablo Escobar.
Anyway I guess that's all beside the point of why you may not like No Country for Old Men. I haven't seen that movie in a long time so I can't recall many details. But I can still appreciate reading your thoughts on what makes for good storytelling. There's really no right or wrong as far as I'm concerned, everyone has their preferences.
It is obvious that the themes of the movie were lost on you, and that is ok. It takes time to understand a movie, then you might not get it completely. I had to watch the film 3 times before I got it. You are far to confident in your judgement. If you did understand the film, you wouldn't be say the Sheriff was disconnected from the plot. Everything in the movie was done with intent, and you didn't pick up on that, which, again is ok. Just please DO NOT say that it wasn't without purpose. You just failed to get it, and that happens all the time, especially to me. I hate to think about all the times I complain about a book or movie only for friends and colleagues to point out the obvious details I missed.
In film, you can tell who the driving character is by seeing which character believes a lie and how they are forced change because of it. The Sheriff is the only character with an arc.
I believe that this movie's theme attacks you personally, and is having the intended effect. Once he dies, that should tip you off to the movie was about something else, and give you more context to the events of the film.
The Sheriff is the only character who changes.
They DO follow the standard story structure.
It was confusing, because they challenge your assumptions and established predictable cliche. They do follow a normal story structure, just not normal cliche.
I don't know what you're trying to say here, but theme is the most important element.
In short, you should be more open minded. You didn't get the movie, that's ok. I don't think most video essays on youtube or reviewers get it either. But frankly, it's extremely well written, and it would be a measure of bad judgement if you dismissed it as senseless. I'll be clear, you didn't get it. The movie is amazing, and it will take thought to understand it, and not everyone is in a position in their life to get it. But some day, I hope you will, and the first step is to believe it is possible that you didn't get it, and to have trust in other people.
So often I hate mainstream movies, but this isn't it. This movie doesn't waste a single shot.
If it follows a standard story structure, then what was the climax?
I think I'm very open-minded about movies. For example in the mid-aughts I dragged my girlfriend to like five different Coen Brothers movies before I decided that I really just don't like them. For another example, I even like mainstream movies.
Isn't it possible I do understand it, and I just don't like it? I've put enough thought into it. I see the themes. I don't think those things outweigh the poor plot structure.
You can say No Country has a coherent plot, but it doesn't in the sense I'm talking about.
Skimming through the movie, I would say about 1 hour 39 minutes into the movie is the climax. The Sheriff enters the hotel Llewelyn was murdered in, not knowing if Anton is there. In the previous scene the local cop told him that Anton showed up two nights in a row to the scene of the crime, and the Sheriff went in knowing this. Every choice comes with risk. He took his final chance and survived, but not in tact.
When the movie starts, the Sheriff talks admirably of old cop stories, before saying; "I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job, but I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, ok. I'll be part of this world."
By the end, everyone told him times have changed, except Uncle Ellis who says it has always been this way. People die, the world is chaos. Everyone is one coin flip away from death, even Anton who suffers a car accident no fault of his own. People frequently mischaracterize Anton as the manifestation of death, but he's not; he manifestation of chance. I picked up on this on a rewatched when he missed a shot on a still bird.
The Sheriff tells of the dream he had of his father going ahead, to prepare a fire for when he got there, before then waking up. To me, he has awoken to the truth; there is no justice, no happy endings, every has their time, and it's a fools work to worry about it, but he's now a lost man.
Rewatch the movie with this in mind, and I think you'll enjoy it far more.
That's the worst climax ever.
A climax is supposed to be the turning point of the story, where the conflict is resolved.
You're saying the actual story is this old man who's barely in the movie realizing that life sucks. And this point in the story, where literally nothing happens on screen, is the resolution of the conflict of him not exactly realizing that life sucks.
Ugh. That's not complex or deep. It's oblique and pretentious.
The definition of a climax is "the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; a culmination or apex."
That scene is obviously not intense or exciting. It's only the most important part of this hidden plotline that's even more off-screen than Llewelyn's death since it only takes place in the mind of a character who's barely in the movie, who has no agency and no part of the actual events shown on screen.
It's insufferable. The things you're saying (which I was already aware of, to be clear) make the movie worse, not better.
Even if I was super into this extremely boring theme, it doesn't preclude the rest of the movie from containing a well-told story. And even if I went into the movie convinced that the Coens are geniuses and ready to forgive every other thing, voiceover exposition talking about symbolism-laden dreams is always going to be lazy writing.
I won't watch it again. I'm not trying to reevaluate it. I didn't miss anything. I just don't think it's any good.
You still don't get it lol. In 5 years you're going to feel silly about this whole thing when it clicks.
All scenes built up to that moment. You didn't notice it.
All themes are boring if you write them down. Movies justify themes.
I rewatched the movie last night, and every scene is critical. It is an very focused script. Each scene creates the next.
If you started watching that scene without the context of the rest of the film, you would say nothing happens.
I went water skiing with some friends a few months ago. One of their sons couldn't figure it out. He blamed the waves to the speed of the boat or the skis. He wouldn't admit he was wrong and would get angry at us for trying to help.
My impression is that you continue to not understand the movie. If you did understand it, even if you disliked it, you would still appreciate how tight the script is, or how realistic the action is at least, or to understand how a character with less screen time could be the focus of the story. I meant it when I said in 5 years something will click and you'll get it.
The Dude isn't the main character in the Big Lebowski either
Main character as the bad guy is very common and many great stories are told this way. If you can't find a way to enjoy any of them then idk what to tell you, restrict your viewing habits to marvel movies I guess
Did you read the book? I haven't seen the movie or read the book, but I just read mcarthys the road and it was excellent, no country is next on my list. Hopefully the book can redeem it for you, but if it's all a sour taste just read the road. It made me realize the point wasn't an explanation about what did happen or what would happen, he was exploring the relationship of father and son through what was happening.
That's probably a good point, but yeah, I don't need to read a book to try to salvage a movie I didn't like. There's just no time for that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GOGru_4z1Vc
citizen kane. I mean I get it. If you geek out on cinematography history and the first of doing stuff but its just plain boring.
Braveheart
I haven't watched it since Mel Gibson was revealed to be a giant POS but King Steven is by one if my favorite characters of all time.
Such a quotable movie
The godfather movies.
I understand they influenced many other movies but they are just so fucking boring.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
Absolute snoozefest with possibly the worst cast leads in modern history.
Avatar
Mid story, great visuals.
I know everyone hates it but i loved it at the time and I'm scared to watch it again because I'd probably hate it now but avatar😭 i want it to be good
IT (2017).
I'm rereading the book right now and just watched the movie. While I agree it's... not good and certainly not faithful to the source material, I think the kids were all fantastic. They acted their little hearts out and - in my opinion - really nailed the characters.
True, I have no problem with the actors
Do you like the one from 1990?
I tried watching that one a few years ago. It aged poorly
Accept no substitute
I couldn't get into any of the LOTR movies. I like fantasy, I like adventure, I like fighting, but those films are boring as hell to me.
Tar. Just, so boring.
I wanted to like it, but both my partner and myself were bored out of our minds watching it. Also what was that line… “I’m a BIPOC pangender”? Nobody has ever fucking talked like that.
End scene was fucking dope. That brought it up to a 6/10 for me.
Unfortunately people do talk like that, lol.
The Talented Mr. Ripley. Awful, truly awful!
Poor Things. I turned it off after~30 minutes.
Poor things gave me a headache, genuinely pissed that Emma stone won the oscar
Wife and I walked out of Poor Things. So bad
I slogged through Poor Things just to say I finished it. It was a spite watch.
Sometimes people make movies where there is no winner, I like those movies because it mixes things up from the normal formula, another one that is very bleak is "the road"
I'm sold, I'm gonna watch it.
The Sadness is another Korean movie which is fucked up beyond belief
The 2005 Elektra movie. It nearly killed Jennifer Garner's career! There's so much of that movie where I just have to wonder "What the fuck were they thinking?"
That movie can be summed up in one line:
"Pass the coke, bro!"
It's such an incoherent, jumbled mess that it makes the garbage Daredevil movie from which it was excreted seem like high art.
Event horizon. It has a big following but I don't get the big horror. And the gore in the director's cut is more annoying than shocking. Maybe if it was the first space horror movie you watched
Thank you!! I'm a big horror buff, and the amount of praise this movie gets is utterly baffling to me.
Super Mario Bros (1993) - it is just horrible, the only good thing about the movie is that it has a practical Yoshi puppet.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I never liked Hunter S Thompson's writing style but I like that his work exists.
Teen Wolf, Goonies, ET
I'll give you Teen Wolf, but Goonies?! Man, what an adventure
It's literally Indiana Jones but with kids (in a good way).
I think though if you didn't watch it as a kid it may not hold up as well. I know some people who watched it later in life and it didn't capture the same magic for them.
when's the last time you watched it?
I probably watch it at least once a year and it always brings me joy
Slumdog Millionaire
Avengers. Any of them, probably.
How about one that will actually piss people off: The Shawshank Redemption
This movie is fine. I don't understand why it tops so many peoples lists for greatest movie though.
Nostalgia, mostly I'd guess. It was on all the time on TNT for years and I think we watched it so much that it became ingrained in us that it was great.
I think it's kind of schlock personally.
The princess Bride post is much more effective
Tom Hanks at his finest.
Gladiator.
Were you not entertained?
Here are a few I could just never get into.
Brazil, Godfather, Fight Club, Wizard of Oz, and Gone With The Wind
I guess I can convince myself by rewatching if it actually is good, but:
Cabin in the Woods.
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler I understand they were going for meta-horror, but it was so in your face, so mediocre, so shallow.
Scream series is far better meta horror imo. :::
Airplane. Dodgeball.
I am prepared for your animosity.
Surely you can't be serious?
Dont call me Shirley!
What generation are you btw? I was horrified to discover that a lot of zoomers hate Bill Murray's comedy/acting so wonder if it's an age thing.
Hmm I'm a mid-millenial and always liked both of those actors and their schticks. I guess that's my theory debunked!
Both of them are kind of playing themselves in every film. Murray in particular has this brand of sardonic humour which is really distinctive. I could imagine someone not vibing with it but it just never crossed my mind until it came up in a similar thread to this one that some people hated Murray.
Have you seen Fletch?
Yes, but Chevy Chase is also kind of scum as a human being, so it comes through in his comedy. I haven't heard anything bad about Nielsen off-camera.
I have to agree, his delivery really doesn't work for me. It feels like he's elbowing me in the ribs with every gag.
That said, it's not enough to spoil Airplane for me. Airplane is a masterpiece.
The whole thing is that he was a dramatic actor who was hired to be the deadpan in Airplane, and then realized he genuinely preferred comedies.
All the Presidents Men. I can see why its a classic, but every time I try to sit down and watch it, i wake up at the end with the typewriter going.
Almost every live action adaptation of any classic animated movie.
I hate 20th Century Classic that has been so impactful on film making that it suffers from the Seinfeld effect. Every aspect that it pioneered is just so cliched now in retrospect - how dumb were people back then to have been entertained by something pop culture has completely imbibed over the past XX years.
I found the special effects to be laughable; especially the practical ones. How could you watch anything made before CGI matured to a decent level?
Don't even get me started on the actors. None of them went method and abused their fellow cast and crew in the name of art. Additionally the script did not past the Bechdel test which completely ruined any sense of realism that the characters might have been attempting to portray.
20th Century Classic is just one example. There are hundreds of films that don't even have colour cinematography. Pretentious people try to tell us black and white cinematography is "more dreamlike", pul-lease! Why would you want to watch something that doesn't look like real life? You might as well be reading a novel at that point - and the whole point of movies is to completely replace novels so we can consume stories more efficiently.
Don't @ me on any of this. Just hop on your penny farthing bicycle and ride off into the sunset to your hipster neigbourhood.
"There Will be Blood" was one of the most drab, boring, washed out, and damn near unwatchable movies of all time, yet everyone claims it's a masterpiece. It's just a story of a man becoming richer than god, and going off the deep-end, culminating in a scene where his adopted kid tells him how much they hate him, and him murdering someone in a misguided fit of rage. None of the characters are relatable, redeeming or interesting. The script has like a grand total of 1000 words across the entire 2.5 hour run time, and none of it is particularly compelling. What a snooze fest.
I get where you're coming from. There will be Blood is based on an Upton Sinclair novel, Upton Sinclair was a staunch socialist and this could be felt in his writing. The film is a send-up of American exceptionalism. Daniel Plainview literally pulls himself up by his bootstraps. In my opinion it's an amazing comedy
I appreciate the perspective! Gotta say though, Jesus that's some deep-level dark comedy that I just don't understand. I was watching it as more of an art piece, and less of a commentary. I still don't like it, but I never thought of it in this light.
Yeah I totally get it, I think the marketing did the film dirty and the pedigree of the actors and director didn't help either plus all of the oscar nominations made people expect something different. It's a very melodramatic and campy film, in the original script Daniel throws Eli down the bowling alley to knock down the pins after killing him.
Well, thanks for the new point of view. I might re-watch it at some point in life- if I do, I'll try it with this mind set.
Gone With The Wind
Can it be a director?
The dark Knight is the only good Nolan movie. And Heath carried all of the weight
Honestly, any of the Monty Python movies. I know people love them, and they have a few funny jokes. But man are they ever drab, I just can't get into them.
More of a genre than a particular movie, but any and all video game movies that aren't the 90s shitshow M•rio movie or the 3 live action Sonic films. I'm talking live action because there have clearly been good video games based animated films like... well I can't think of any right off hand, but they surely exist.
I really liked the newest DnD film. It was fun and got a lot right
I thought the last Mortal Kombat movie was pretty good.
Kano was good, Cole and Sonya not so much.
Mothman prophecies
Ch ch ch chapstick
I am not an irritable person, but the ending of the whale Made me get up from my seat and yell "OH COME ON!" To the screen; Frustrating, corny , manipulative misery porn.
A Complete Unknown. It was very long, and I just found Bob and his life a bit boring. Apart from the music, of course.
Most of action movie franchises, tbh: James Bond, Transformers, Mission: Impossible, Fast and Furious, to name a few
Mulholland Drive.
While I like the movie overall, I don't get the hype about the diner scene with the jump scare. Even watched a couple video essays explaining it and don't understand how it does what people say it does.
Raising Arizona
This is a polarizing film. A bit like a live action cartoon.
Event Horizon.
I’m gonna give the opposite answer than you want. I feel like most movies recently are like that but some I had to get into the right mood to enjoy them. The first time I watched the new top gun I thought it was garbage propaganda then I gotta into jet sims and think it’s an awesome movie. Same with mad max fury road, thought it was trash until I watched 1-3 then 4-5.
blade runner 2049. It's a crap story with crap acting and direction. The visuals are just bad. I have no idea why it's so liked.
The Princess Bride
... Sorry. It's just not good.
Whoa there. This was a hard one not to down vote, well done.
damn, coming out swinging with these fighting words
I get why people like it, but I dont.
Completely agree.
Princess Bride. The narrative framework of some shitkid not appreciating that his grandpa is Columbo ruins the whole thing. Those two characters should be cut out and then it can be good. ...Okay, Peter Falk can stay.
Remove Savage and all the other characters, and just have Falk tell the audience the story without any kind of "imaginary" scenes. It's just Peter Falk talking into a camera. Preferably wearing Columbo's signature trench coat.
And he should narrate the whole story like this: