Rules: explain why
Ready player one.
That has to be one of the cringiest movies I’ve seen, is tries so hard, too hard with it’s “WE LOVE YOU NERD, YOU’RE SO COOL FOR PLAYING GAMES AND GETTING THIS 80S REFERENCE” message and the whole “corporation bad, the people good” narrative seems written for toddlers… The fan service feels cheap and adds nothing to the story.
Finally, they trying to make the people believe that very attractive girl with a barely visible red tint spot on her face is “ugly”… Like wtf?
Yet it received decent reviews plus being one of the most successful movies of that year.
Inglourious Basterds.
However much I liked all the Tarantino flicks before this one, I just cannot get into Inglourious. Also, everything Tarantino made after that movie is also tainted by the same uneasy feeling I get. If pressed to guess why, I’d say he took the stories out of the ‘now’ and transported them to other times and places, which just does not seem to agree with me.
I think Basterds was his first movie that casually re-wrote history, which threw off the movie’s tone for me. Like a historical “what if” movie. And every movie he’s done since then has the same feel to me now.
ITT: people using the downvote button as an “I disagree” button when the entire point is to name popular movies that you dislike. Sort by controversial for the real answers, I guess.
For me it’s Alien. Maybe because I’m not a horror movie buff, but I do like sci-fi and yet it just didn’t really do anything for me. I somehow found Prometheus to be more engaging.
Oh wow, complete opposite here - I thought Prometheus was hot garbage.
“Hey everybody, let’s just remove our helmets in this totally unvetted environment, we’re all scientists but trust me, this is supes safe!”
“Aw look at the little alien snake, so cute, better get real close!”
“I’m clearly showing symptoms of exposure to some alien pathogen, but let’s just hide it from the entire crew, including my girlfriend, who I will be fucking.”
“Oh, a huge ring is rolling toward me and I’m gonna get crushed, better keep running in a straight line!”
I mean, come on.
Both can be true.
I never watched alien growing up, and only half-watched it with a girlfriend (sorry, good movies are great but… Boobs vs stereotypical teenager watching a movie…)
By the time I watched the movie fully, it just held no scare factor for me.
And so many dumb choices were made in Prometheus, it’s hard to take the people seriously when everyone is acting like children who have never been in space or a dangerous situation before.
Aw look at the little alien snake, so cute, better get real close!
The same can be said when in Alien the scientist shoves his face close to what is clearly a moving egg that responded to him as he got closer.
There were no scientists in Alien. It’s a bunch of space truckers and they’re infinitely more competent than the hand picked group in Prometheus.
angry upvote
But honestly, fair. Alien is a 50-year-old movie, so when viewed with a modern lens it might not seem to be anything special.
Part of the legendary status of Alien is just how influential it has been. Before Alien, a horror-scifi movie would be some schlock about flying saucers piloted by men in gorilla masks terrorizing Hollywood. Audiences certainly weren’t expecting a psychosexual thriller about forced oral insemination and mpreg.
And the android! Robots in movies were walking vending machines, and yet the robot in Alien is just some guy until he starts to malfunction. Plus in the context of the franchise, it makes you distrust every single android in each subsequent movie, and might even leave you guessing who else in the cast could be a robot in disguise.
Other movies have done it better since then. We all stand on the shoulders of giants after all. And the funny thing is, a lot of the time when you look back at the movies that spawn the tropes, they don’t seem that impressive because they haven’t been totally refined yet.
I have a soft spot for Alien, it’s my favorite in the franchise. It relies so heavily on practical effects, it’s got those retro-futuristic computers which I adore, and the smart woman saves the day (sort of) after all the dumb men tell her she’s wrong. And yet despite what I just said, I don’t think anyone is actually very dumb, the characters are all quite human and I understand and relate to their motivations.
It’s a movie that feels far more modern than it is. You might even forget that it’s fifty years old until you see that explosive finale in gloriously bad 70’s CGI
I also liked Prometheus. It’s not the best in the franchise but it’s certainly not the worst, and it doesn’t deserve as much hate as it gets in the community
I was with you until you implied Prometheus was likeable because at least it’s not the worst.
Some Nolan stuff.
Inception: I understand it, it’s just extremely convoluted and dumb.
Oppenheimer: It’s a movie with 95% dialogue, and he decided to put loud droning music under every conversation so you can barely hear the people talking.
The dark knight trilogy: I just can’t take batman seriously in it. The voice is so silly, and the pointy ears just look really out of place in this very serious take.
Anyway, I do like some of Nolans movies, these are my pet peeves.Nearly all Nolan stuff. His movies are cold and impersonal, and his characters are just dull (and he can’t write a woman character that’s not one dimensional). I can’t remember the name of any of the characters bar the main ones. I feel like that’s his main job and he can’t do it. Everything else in the movie has a team of people (sound, lighting, design etc) but his area is always the let down.
That Bane movie was one of the most comically bad I’ve ever seen. Terrible acting, ridiculous plot points, dozens of plot holes.
I think Nolan is good at putting things together, but he lacks emotion and depth.
The Shawshank Redemption. My boyfriend at the time absolutely loved this film. I can’t stand it. Blokes in prison are so Noble and Misunderstood. They deserve to be free! Bleurgh.
I’m curious to know how that was your takeaway from the movie. The protagonist was wrongly imprisoned and I thought the film thoroughly demonstrated the worst of humanity in some of the incarcerated, juxtaposed against the corruption of prison staff and the protagonist’s own struggle for a pretty powerful message.
Maybe I need to watch it again. It’s been years.
Napoleon dynamite was fucking garbage and don’t think it should have ever existed. No humor and barley anything. Honestly feel like the movie rubber was better
I wonder… is it because you have little/no experience with small town America? I loved Napoleon Dynamite partly because it’s somewhat nostalgic for me. The movie appeals to people who grew up in the sticks and knew people like Napoleon Dynamite.
Hard disagree, lol. That’s a classic.
What?!?
What?!?
As an older millennial, that movie was a work of art. I was about 20 when I seen it, stoned, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Fellow elder millennial that also never understood the appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, still don’t and I’ve watched it stoned as hell
Also elder millennial. I watched half the movie and turned it off. It was horrid.
I just don’t get it. I absolutely loved every second of it. From the opening scene to the credits it was one of my favorite movies ever made and still is.
Borat.
Supposedly it’s a comedy, but it’s completely devoid of humor.
Borat isn’t my favorite of the genre but I love those kinds of movies that mix fictional plot line with interactions of real strangers. I wish there was more love for those kinds of projects.
Borat (and SBC in general) is known for treating those real strangers like shit and leaving the places they film in worse off than when they got there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borat check under controversies.
Yeah… The part where they tricked the town into thinking it was a real movie and gave them scripts reflecting as such, then just put the jokes the studio ACTUALLY wanted in the subtitles was really low of them to do. I don’t see how that’s at all removed from just doing “Kazakhstan: The Minstrel Show”
I will say I liked the movie a lot better before I knew that. When I first saw it I was a highschooler who had assumed Kazakhstan was a fictional place made to be a stand-in for Eastern European countries. Even when I learned it was a real place, I thought surely they just made a set or something.
Because only a monster would actually fly to a third world country, say you’re going to bring in a lot of money for a town that desprately needs it, pay them far less than they were promised, and blatantly lie and say that it’s a film about a guy going off on a big fantasy adventure instead of some white guy doing brown face to show how backwards and evil not only the town, but the nation as a whole is…
Titanic.
The hype here was insane, when I finally saw it the experience was… underwhelming. Such a boring slog of a movie, mediocre CGI when disaster finally struck and that stupid end… Get on the piece of wood that is obviously big enough to hold you both, you dolt.
Only upside is that I watched it on TV, so apart from some hours of my life I’ll never get back it didn’t cost me anything.
The explanation about the door is that it wasn’t about the size, it was about the buoyancy. If they both got on it then they both would’ve sunk
It wasn’t about size or buoyancy, it’s about the plot. Jack had to die, and that was the prop they had.
If you wanna retcon an explanation onto it, I’d say its about stability. They’d both be kept afloat, but they’d get wet.
I didn’t retcon anything, I knew it, and I googled it to confirm before i posted. Cameron has said this himself. Mythbusters even tested it and showed that unless they did a trick with the life jacket then they both would’ve drowned if they both tried to stay on the door
The English Patient. Sex in a tub? That doesn’t work!
But for real, Elaine is right, The English Patient sucks. What a fucking bore of a film to watch.
i see a seinfeld reference
Giddy up!
Harry Potter.
Before JK went mask off, I had dropped the books about half way though for being increasing annoyed with how they ended. Never any change to the status quo except Harry actually regressing in character development. I watched the first movie, but that was around when I dropped the books and never looked back.
I was able to just quietly keep my opinions to myself, but with with JK becoming increasing unhinged with both her tweets and books, I haven’t felt the need to be polite with the “separate the art from the artists” types. Especially when they just assume that you’re a fan if you don’t correct them.
I’m just gonna hop on to say that there is zero world building in Harry Potter. I know that’s because it was written for a youngish audience, but like the only things that are ever built on are used directly for the story in that book, then mostly left alone.
No one comes back years later with a Time Turner and wrecks havoc, for instance.
The few comparisons to Tolkien I’ve heard of her works are so unbelievably unfounded and off base.
Not to mention she’s a TERF
I’m just gonna leave Shaun’s review here.
Harry Potter unintentionally made a whole subgenre of fiction that could be called “Harry Potter, but fixed”. Little Witch Academia’s workers union episode was great and Reign of the Seven Spellblades is a mid, but still fun anime that seemingly takes aim at opposing Harry Potter and JK(specifically, her anti-trans shit) at every turn. I haven’t read it, but Shaun seems to think that The Hog Father is a direct reaction to the house elf shit in HP.
Hogfather as in the Discworld novel? I could have sworn that was older than Harry Potter.
Edit: it is, but surprisingly only one year older than the first Harry Potter book.
