"highly rated" films that you just didn't like.

Cloud Atlas. Heard the hype and watched it, totally lost after 15mins and it was no clearer by the end!

The book is amazing. Completely unlike any other book (well, except for all his other books). The film does well to come close, but is always going to be hard to make sense of on its own.

The first 3 modern episodes on the other hand…..

+1

World War Z? Quite enjoyed it; watched it in 3D and went with the nonsense.

Lost in translation is utter crap.

My choice would be Big Lebowski. Watched it sober, watched it while splattered; equally pointless.

Yet some folk rave about it. Weird.

Lost In Translation. Dull dull dull

Agreed. I saw it at the cinema and kept looking around to see if anyone else was enjoying it.. The place was pretty much silent. I think most people think it’s shit.
Also, American Beauty. Very very average at best.

The thing is, I reckon, is that people see a review or opinion from some cool person or critic of films like this that says how hip and cool etc the film is, then realise that’s must agree with them to be hip and cool also. Same goes for some music.

Oh, also in the same vein – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
A very average at best serial killer film trying to be something it’s not. Rather pretentious.

EDIT
Swift edit there Jon. Why did you remove your post? I saw it.. 🙂

Recently, Dark Night Rises. A real let down in comparison to others so I, and only I, thought.

Pans Labyrinth…. Yawn art school toss fest…..

LOTR, best described in Clerks 2

(removed link to YouTube as swearing subtitles on linked still)

Shawshank redemption is predictable Hollywood feel good toss. Why do people like this derivative rubbish?

Blame Stephen King, he wrote the book, and the film is very true to it.

Fight Club

Swift edit there Jon. Why did you remove your post? I saw it.

It sort of came across as a bit more argumentative than I’d intended, so I just edited it.

I expect to be flamed for this…

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
Oh, and Withnail and I +1

Anchorman and all that “hilarious” antics style film (actualy might be Will Ferrell films).

“I am Legend”, great book totally lost on the makers of the film, who should have renamed the film as the “legend” no longer existed.

Fargo.

In fact, most of the Coen brothers oeuvre.

Die Hard series

Star Wars

Star Trek

Alien

Avatar

American Hustle- watched it last night. It’s not bad, but it’s pretty hard to match the film with the hyperbolic, frothing-at-the-mouth uber-praise that a lot of critics are giving it. It looks amazing and has some genuinely witty moments but it suffers from that ‘oh god the director’s letting the actors improvise the lines again’ thing where you end up with messy scenes full of repeated phrases and over vocalisation of internal dialogue and exposition. On a plus note Christian Bale puts in a star turn and Amy Adams really, er, lays herself bare for the sake of her role.

Anything by Tarantino.

Jeez, I hope 12 Years A Slave lives up to expectations. Just checked the metascore on IMDB!

Oh, and Withnail and I +1

Is that the sequel? Featuring a precocious brat who is seemingly lost they are thrown together by unlikely circumstances and forced to go on a road trip together, no one getting along at first but by the end they find a mutual respect and admiration as well as the kids parents who turn out to be billionaires and shower everyone with money and sweets? Don’t think I saw that one…

Theres a hell of a lot of si-fi on here….

Moulin rouge
Life of pi

Agree with Withnail & I, LOTR and Shawshank.

But come on, nobody rated the second and third Matrix films highly.

Wonder if I’d like Withnail more if I hadn’t heard it quoted so often by drunk/drugged people. I guess we’ll never know.

Quadrophenia
Vanishing Point

Just don’t get them.

Absolutely ANYTHING which is filmed on a camcorder with the story that the tape was “found” and shows some supernatural/scifi rubbish. There is usually no music, a rubbish script, terrible special effects and the whole thing is a low rent money making exercise which is pretty much unwatchable tripe.

And anything Matrix related.

I used to like Raiders of the Lost Ark until Amy pointed out on the Big Bang Theory that the story wouldn’t have changed if Harrison Ford Hadn’t of been in it. The Nazi’s would still have found the Ark, taken it to the Island and still died, even if Harrison had never of existed.

‘cept that’s not true, is it? The Nazis only had half the inscription on the head of the staff and consequently were looking in the wrong place, it was Indy that worked out where the correct location was…

Remains of the Day for me, although having not made it all the way through due to boredom I might be being mighty unfair, perhaps there’s a big battle against invading space aliens in the final reel that I’ve missed.

S’all subjective innit?

Interesting though – I don’t think I’d get on with anyone who didn’t like The Godfather, for example.
Or Bladerunner. Or The Big Lebowski. Or Raiders etc…… 🙂

And can you imagine being snowed in with someone who didn’t like Alien?
Yes, I can see how The Godfather might not appeal to someone used to exploding helecopters & vampires, but Alien? Really?
I’d love to know what possible reasons someone could have for not liking that one.

Capt. Kronos – Member

Absolutely ANYTHING which is filmed on a camcorder with the story that the tape was “found” and shows some supernatural/scifi rubbish. There is usually no music, a rubbish script, terrible special effects and the whole thing is a low rent money making exercise which is pretty much unwatchable tripe.

Low rent can be good.
I really can’t see the correlation between budget and artistic merit.
Have you seen Festen, for example?
I loved the Dogme manifesto movies – a conscious attempt to do something different and to me, very interesting indeed.

Loved Cloverfield and Trollhunter, excdellent films both.

‘cept that’s not true, is it? The Nazis only had half the inscription on the head of the staff and consequently were looking in the wrong place, it was Indy that worked out where the correct location was…

If Indy wasn’t in the film, they’ve have had the staff head with the inscription on both sides and would have worked out the truth a lot quicker and easier than Indy did. 😉

Die Hard series

This shit just got serious!!!!!

Interesting though – I don’t think I’d get on with anyone who didn’t like The Godfather, for example.
Or Bladerunner. Or The Big Lebowski. Or Raiders etc……

Yes, which was a concern of mine when I was trying to force myself to enjoy Blade Runner. I consider myself a film lover and as such have a group of friends who are film nerds and love nothing more than to discuss the nuances and mise en scene of a film. It took a long time for me to pluck up the courage to admit my dislike of blade runner. It didn’t go down well even though I attempted to make a decent argument for my disdain for it.

I agree with you on Alien though. It’s not possible to dislike or at the very least not appreciate the brilliance of it surely?

CountZero – Member
It’s funny, all the comments about the likes of Raiders, Aliens, 2001, Star Wars, Bladerunner, etc; I saw most of them first time around, as soon as they were released, long before there was any kind of media bigging them up, so I made my own mind up.
And all of those films made a huge impression on me. Know why? Because all of them were absolutely unlike any film that had gone before. They were all, pretty much, ignored by the mainstream movie-goers too, it was only after some time that they started to get attention.
People now have the benefit of hindsight that wasn’t available back in the sixties/seventies/eighties, or whenever.
Everyone now is so bloody blasé about films that were absolutely ground-breaking when released.

Star Wars? Ignored? It was the biggest thing that happened that year. You couldn’t get away from it, the advertising, the action figures, the books, t shirts, posters, strange breakfast cereals….

No they wouldn’t. Indie stepped in to save Marion in her bar, thus preventing the Nazi’s from obtaining the medallion.
Some mentioned aready. I would add:-
Django Unchained
Lincoln

The Departed.

Shutter Island.

Man of Steel.

Definitely The Big Lebowski.

the deer hunter.

I can only think that the director was wanging loads of coke.

At risk of having several contracts taken out on me:

Shawshank Redemption.

I mean it’s OK, but it’s cloying and stretches credibility too far IMO.

derek_starship – Member
Definitely The Big Lebowski.

Jesus, not you too 🙂

C’mon Derek, good Salford lad like you, must have smoked your own bodyweight in dope by the time you were 16. 😀

What’s not to like?

Another vote for The Big Lebowski.

Watched it at uni on the insistence of one of my housemates who’d promised us that it was the best film of all time ever.

It wasn’t.

I know a lot of you like it on here, but Drive was utter tosh!

Have to agree with the new superman tho!

The only star wars that was a dissapintment was episode 1.

Never quite got that Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger. I thought it was pretty shit tbh.

The Big Lebowski

There Will be Blood

With Nail and I

Anchorman

crazy-legs – Member
Another vote for The Big Lebowski.

I thought that but it was a lot better on the 2nd viewing.

Most things featuring Daniel Day Lewis – especially Gangs of New Yoyk
Most things featuring Russell Crowe – especially Gladiator and that twitch-fest Beautiful Mind

I know a lot of you like it on here, but Drive was utter tosh!

I wouldn’t go as far as to say utter tosh, but I thought it was meh. Too cynical for my taste.

Agreed about Russell Crowe – he’s ruined a lot of potentially good movies.

Apart from Kevin Costner and Nicolas Cage, has there ever been a worse leading man?

No they wouldn’t. Indie stepped in to save Marion in her bar, thus preventing the Nazi’s from obtaining the medallion.

If Indy wasn’t there, they’d have taken the medallion easily and been on their way thus accelerating their progress to the burial site and thence the island and their impending deaths.