Movies That Everyone Seems to Like... Except Me (and Explain Why)
07-18-05, 06:13 AM
#26
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: So Cal
Posts: 7,071
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I also disliked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Nostalgia isn't a factor as i've never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The jokes were stupid and the dry humor was a little off for the movie. I really agreed with Ebert's review that Willy was a bit too much like Micheal Jackson for my tastes, and the flashbacks really weakened the movie. They could have been edited out of the movie entirely. They didn't explore enough of the nuances of Willy Wonka's candy or his factory like they did in the book, and given the movie's running time it could have been possible. There were way too many moments of silence that were supposed to be funny but were really a waste of time. Depp doesn't do half as good a job here as he did as a gay pirate in Pirates. The kid actor was really good though.
07-18-05, 07:46 AM
#28
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Shelby, NC
Posts: 486
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by Superboy
I also disliked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Nostalgia isn't a factor as i've never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The jokes were stupid and the dry humor was a little off for the movie. I really agreed with Ebert's review that Willy was a bit too much like Micheal Jackson for my tastes, and the flashbacks really weakened the movie. They could have been edited out of the movie entirely. They didn't explore enough of the nuances of Willy Wonka's candy or his factory like they did in the book, and given the movie's running time it could have been possible. There were way too many moments of silence that were supposed to be funny but were really a waste of time. Depp doesn't do half as good a job here as he did as a gay pirate in Pirates. The kid actor was really good though.
Sorry Johnny, you're no Willy!!
Take care all!
07-18-05, 09:22 AM
#29
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Ok, since someone skewered one of my favorites above (won't say which one), I'll play:
Taxi Driver(1976)
Others' views:
8.5/10 (50,265 votes) on IMDb
There have only been two movies that I actually saw in a theater that left me feeling I wasted my money and this much worshiped Scorsese movie was one of them. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of movies I don't like, just that I am careful to not go see them. With Taxi Driver I let the reviews and a friend persuade me to see it (the friend didn't like it either).
Let's see, loser guy, who happens to drive a taxi, doesn't much like the people, on the streets around him. Develops a fondness for a 12 year old prostitute and decides to save her from the ugly world she lives in by becoming a vigilante and mowing down all the other losers around him. That about it? Since I don't much care for graphic violence (I will never watch a Quentin Tarantino movie, for example) Taxi Driver had no appeal. Didn't care a whit about the main character and wasn't entertained in the slightest.
As to whether or not that movie is considered a work of "cinematic art", I don't know nor do I care. Being a philistine, I watch movies to be entertained, not to watch "art".
Taxi Driver(1976)
Others' views:
8.5/10 (50,265 votes) on IMDb
There have only been two movies that I actually saw in a theater that left me feeling I wasted my money and this much worshiped Scorsese movie was one of them. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of movies I don't like, just that I am careful to not go see them. With Taxi Driver I let the reviews and a friend persuade me to see it (the friend didn't like it either).
Let's see, loser guy, who happens to drive a taxi, doesn't much like the people, on the streets around him. Develops a fondness for a 12 year old prostitute and decides to save her from the ugly world she lives in by becoming a vigilante and mowing down all the other losers around him. That about it? Since I don't much care for graphic violence (I will never watch a Quentin Tarantino movie, for example) Taxi Driver had no appeal. Didn't care a whit about the main character and wasn't entertained in the slightest.
As to whether or not that movie is considered a work of "cinematic art", I don't know nor do I care. Being a philistine, I watch movies to be entertained, not to watch "art".
07-18-05, 09:48 AM
#31
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Thread Starter
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Others' views:
- 8.1 rating at IMDB.com
- 90% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes
- Winner of the Best Picture Oscar for 1978
- The Great Films site's Another 100 Greatest Films list
My view:
The Deer Hunter is one of those movies that I think benefited greatly from the timing of release more than anything else. At the time, the post-Vietnam gloom was felt in the nation and a lot of movies were released that dealt with the war. The Deer Hunter was released at just the right time. A year later, it would've been buried by the vastly superior Apocalypse Now. But instead, The Deer Hunter was the biggest award winner of the late-'70s Vietnam Movie boom.
However, there is a problem with the movie...
It's not that great.
The Greatest Films site sums up the movie well when it says the movie is "often pretentious, ambiguous, overwrought and excessive, and loosely edited, with under-developed character portrayals and unsophisticated, careless film techniques." All of the reasons why this is NOT a great movie.
The movie is presented in a three-act structure. The 1st Act, which introduces the characters, seems to go on forever. First, there are the scenes of the male characters constantly singing songs together (to indicate their "camaraderie" - This whole music binding stuff will be repeated again and again, as if the filmmakers saw some study that said "People like characters who sing more than characters who don't"). Then there's the long deer hunting sequence so that the whole "one shot" thing can be set up (which is explained as some sort of macho thing, instead of being something that's necessary to simply kill the deer before it can run away). After that, the movie then has the most unnecessarily long wedding sequence in movie history. So long that it's easy to forget that the movie isn't actually about a wedding.
The movie spends so much time in this 1st Act, that it then cuts short the important 2nd Act, where the guys are in Vietnam. Because the guys first are shown fighting in Vietnam, but then - in a major jump cut that leaves out too much - they are instantly all prisoners of some sadistic Vietcong. The Vietcong keep them in a mostly underwater cage, and just bring them up for sadistic games of Russian Roulette. This section is well-known to be fictional, and although a lot of people think it's a great scene, it's actually rather stupid. The North Vietnamese were well know to torture POWs, but it was always to get confessions for propaganda reasons. Killing them via Russian Roulette doesn't fit into this at all. Anyway, the guys escape together (but don't even bother to also help the other prisoners escape) and are rescued by a helicopter. But one of them falls off the helicopter into the river, so Michael (Robert DeNiro) lets go to save him. Does the helicopter stop to rescue them from the river again, or call for another helicopter to come back to save them? Uhhmm, no. (I guess the pilot was too busy to waste his time with such minor things as saving lives.) So Michael has to rescue his friend alone, but then dumps him off to get medical aid without even trying to stay with him. (I guess he was too busy to make sure one of his best friends was all right.)
The 3rd and final Act deals with the guys returning home, so it's all overwrought melodrama from this point on, with Michael trying to regain his pre-War life and help his friends get their lives back, and the "one shot" making its return again as he tries to save his last friend still in Vietnam (in an ending you can see coming from a mile away).
In short, this is one sloppily-made, extremely pretentious movie. The only thing actually good about it is the acting, which is excellent across the board. But "great acting" does not equal a "great movie". After this, the director Michael Cimino next made the mega-flop Heaven's Gate, a movie which has been universally panned. However, everything that's wrong with that movie was already present in The Deer Hunter. The fact is they are both bad movies (IMO, that is).
Others' views:
- 8.1 rating at IMDB.com
- 90% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes
- Winner of the Best Picture Oscar for 1978
- The Great Films site's Another 100 Greatest Films list
My view:
The Deer Hunter is one of those movies that I think benefited greatly from the timing of release more than anything else. At the time, the post-Vietnam gloom was felt in the nation and a lot of movies were released that dealt with the war. The Deer Hunter was released at just the right time. A year later, it would've been buried by the vastly superior Apocalypse Now. But instead, The Deer Hunter was the biggest award winner of the late-'70s Vietnam Movie boom.
However, there is a problem with the movie...
It's not that great.
The Greatest Films site sums up the movie well when it says the movie is "often pretentious, ambiguous, overwrought and excessive, and loosely edited, with under-developed character portrayals and unsophisticated, careless film techniques." All of the reasons why this is NOT a great movie.
The movie is presented in a three-act structure. The 1st Act, which introduces the characters, seems to go on forever. First, there are the scenes of the male characters constantly singing songs together (to indicate their "camaraderie" - This whole music binding stuff will be repeated again and again, as if the filmmakers saw some study that said "People like characters who sing more than characters who don't"). Then there's the long deer hunting sequence so that the whole "one shot" thing can be set up (which is explained as some sort of macho thing, instead of being something that's necessary to simply kill the deer before it can run away). After that, the movie then has the most unnecessarily long wedding sequence in movie history. So long that it's easy to forget that the movie isn't actually about a wedding.
The movie spends so much time in this 1st Act, that it then cuts short the important 2nd Act, where the guys are in Vietnam. Because the guys first are shown fighting in Vietnam, but then - in a major jump cut that leaves out too much - they are instantly all prisoners of some sadistic Vietcong. The Vietcong keep them in a mostly underwater cage, and just bring them up for sadistic games of Russian Roulette. This section is well-known to be fictional, and although a lot of people think it's a great scene, it's actually rather stupid. The North Vietnamese were well know to torture POWs, but it was always to get confessions for propaganda reasons. Killing them via Russian Roulette doesn't fit into this at all. Anyway, the guys escape together (but don't even bother to also help the other prisoners escape) and are rescued by a helicopter. But one of them falls off the helicopter into the river, so Michael (Robert DeNiro) lets go to save him. Does the helicopter stop to rescue them from the river again, or call for another helicopter to come back to save them? Uhhmm, no. (I guess the pilot was too busy to waste his time with such minor things as saving lives.) So Michael has to rescue his friend alone, but then dumps him off to get medical aid without even trying to stay with him. (I guess he was too busy to make sure one of his best friends was all right.)
The 3rd and final Act deals with the guys returning home, so it's all overwrought melodrama from this point on, with Michael trying to regain his pre-War life and help his friends get their lives back, and the "one shot" making its return again as he tries to save his last friend still in Vietnam (in an ending you can see coming from a mile away).
In short, this is one sloppily-made, extremely pretentious movie. The only thing actually good about it is the acting, which is excellent across the board. But "great acting" does not equal a "great movie". After this, the director Michael Cimino next made the mega-flop Heaven's Gate, a movie which has been universally panned. However, everything that's wrong with that movie was already present in The Deer Hunter. The fact is they are both bad movies (IMO, that is).
Last edited by dhmac; 07-18-05 at 09:53 AM.
07-18-05, 05:46 PM
#32
Even though a lot of my sacred cows are being slaughtered, I just thought I'd say that everyone's detailed, thoughtful posts have made this the most interesting thread I've read in Movie Talk in ages. Keep 'em coming.
07-18-05, 08:21 PM
#33
DVD Talk Hero
Originally Posted by UAIOE
I like the action stuff as well but i like FRWL simply because Bond actually *did* some spying (the Bond girl in that movie being really hot is also something to take into consideration 
).
Sometimes spying is good to see after watching alot of Bonds more gadget heavy flicks.
).Sometimes spying is good to see after watching alot of Bonds more gadget heavy flicks.
oh my cat's grandfather was the cat in "thunderball", or so i was told by their owners (they had certificates to proove it)
07-18-05, 08:49 PM
#34
DVD Talk Legend
I should get my flame retardant ready.
My pick is Citizen Kane
It is AFI's top movie of all time. I haven't checked the rotten tomatoes meter. I know that a zillion people swear by the movie, and that it is referenced in pop culture all the time.
While I can appreciate what Orson Welles did for cinema in this film, and many of his ideas were ahead of their time and outright extraordinary the first time anyone saw the film, it is just dead boring.
It was just a thinly veiled biopic, and a little bit of an insult to William Randolph Hearst. I can certainly appreciate what Welles was trying to do with his characatures and such, but I just cannot stand the movie.
At all.
It grates. It is shrill. It is unpleasant pretty much most of the time. And that damned cockatoo makes no freakin' sense.
When Edward D. Wood tried the same thing in his movies, he was reviled.
My pick is Citizen Kane
It is AFI's top movie of all time. I haven't checked the rotten tomatoes meter. I know that a zillion people swear by the movie, and that it is referenced in pop culture all the time.
While I can appreciate what Orson Welles did for cinema in this film, and many of his ideas were ahead of their time and outright extraordinary the first time anyone saw the film, it is just dead boring.
It was just a thinly veiled biopic, and a little bit of an insult to William Randolph Hearst. I can certainly appreciate what Welles was trying to do with his characatures and such, but I just cannot stand the movie.
At all.
It grates. It is shrill. It is unpleasant pretty much most of the time. And that damned cockatoo makes no freakin' sense.
When Edward D. Wood tried the same thing in his movies, he was reviled.
07-18-05, 09:42 PM
#35
DVD Talk Hero
[QUOTE=mllefoo]I should get my flame retardant ready.
My pick is Citizen Kane
At all.
It grates. It is shrill. It is unpleasant pretty much most of the time. And that damned cockatoo makes no freakin' sense.
QUOTE]
Ebert said in the commentary that the cockatoo was there mainly to make sure people pay attention to the next part of the movie as it was important.
My pick is Citizen Kane
At all.
It grates. It is shrill. It is unpleasant pretty much most of the time. And that damned cockatoo makes no freakin' sense.
QUOTE]
Ebert said in the commentary that the cockatoo was there mainly to make sure people pay attention to the next part of the movie as it was important.
07-19-05, 12:49 PM
#36
DVD Talk Special Edition
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: L.A., CA
Posts: 1,102
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Million Dollar Baby
91% on RottenTomatoes
8.4/10 on IMDB
It felt slow and was depressing as hell. I still cannot comprehend why it won best picture (but then again the other contenders weren't stellar--THE AVIATOR, FINDING NEVERLAND, RAY, SIDEWAYS)
91% on RottenTomatoes
8.4/10 on IMDB
It felt slow and was depressing as hell. I still cannot comprehend why it won best picture (but then again the other contenders weren't stellar--THE AVIATOR, FINDING NEVERLAND, RAY, SIDEWAYS)
07-19-05, 02:00 PM
#37
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Tennessee, USA
Posts: 3,514
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Raging Bull
8.4 on IMDB
Won Oscar for Best Actor (DeNiro) and nominated for Best Picture, Best Suporting Actor and Actress, Director, Cinematography, etc.
I had heard so much praise for this movie going in. Best sports movie ever!! Now this is just one man's opinion, but I hated it. I honestly can't figure out why so many people love it. Two idiot, scumbag brothers for an entire 2 hours. The plot was so predictably tragic. Everyone knew from the beginning that DeNiro was dumb enough to screw up his life and everyone around him. I will say for the most part the boxing scenes were well done. Everything else was a disaster.
8.4 on IMDB
Won Oscar for Best Actor (DeNiro) and nominated for Best Picture, Best Suporting Actor and Actress, Director, Cinematography, etc.
I had heard so much praise for this movie going in. Best sports movie ever!! Now this is just one man's opinion, but I hated it. I honestly can't figure out why so many people love it. Two idiot, scumbag brothers for an entire 2 hours. The plot was so predictably tragic. Everyone knew from the beginning that DeNiro was dumb enough to screw up his life and everyone around him. I will say for the most part the boxing scenes were well done. Everything else was a disaster.
07-20-05, 02:39 PM
#40
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Tampa, FL
Posts: 920
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by peon73
Million Dollar Baby
91% on RottenTomatoes
8.4/10 on IMDB
It felt slow and was depressing as hell. I still cannot comprehend why it won best picture (but then again the other contenders weren't stellar--THE AVIATOR, FINDING NEVERLAND, RAY, SIDEWAYS)
91% on RottenTomatoes
8.4/10 on IMDB
It felt slow and was depressing as hell. I still cannot comprehend why it won best picture (but then again the other contenders weren't stellar--THE AVIATOR, FINDING NEVERLAND, RAY, SIDEWAYS)
07-20-05, 02:41 PM
#41
DVD Talk Limited Edition
It's interesting to see so that so many people hate certain movies just because they don't like the characters, especially with movies which have main characters you aren't really supposed to like or empathize with (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Godfather movies, etc.)
07-20-05, 02:55 PM
#42
DVD Talk Legend
I have to go with The Two Towers and Return of the King...I just dont see the emotion this movie supposedly evoked. I thought it was flat and lacked any kind of emotion and I didnt feel for any of the characters. I enjoyed FOTR a great deal, but TTT and ROTK were just boring to me. The Hobbits (especially Frodo and Sam) grated on my nerves, and I just wanted both of these movies to end so I could see what was going to happen (of course ROTK never seemed to end, another one of the problems I had).
07-20-05, 04:12 PM
#43
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Tennessee, USA
Posts: 3,514
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by FinkPish
It's interesting to see so that so many people hate certain movies just because they don't like the characters, especially with movies which have main characters you aren't really supposed to like or empathize with (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Godfather movies, etc.)
07-20-05, 04:38 PM
#44
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 704
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by taa455
Raging Bull
8.4 on IMDB
Won Oscar for Best Actor (DeNiro) and nominated for Best Picture, Best Suporting Actor and Actress, Director, Cinematography, etc.
I had heard so much praise for this movie going in. Best sports movie ever!! Now this is just one man's opinion, but I hated it. I honestly can't figure out why so many people love it. Two idiot, scumbag brothers for an entire 2 hours. The plot was so predictably tragic. Everyone knew from the beginning that DeNiro was dumb enough to screw up his life and everyone around him. I will say for the most part the boxing scenes were well done. Everything else was a disaster.
8.4 on IMDB
Won Oscar for Best Actor (DeNiro) and nominated for Best Picture, Best Suporting Actor and Actress, Director, Cinematography, etc.
I had heard so much praise for this movie going in. Best sports movie ever!! Now this is just one man's opinion, but I hated it. I honestly can't figure out why so many people love it. Two idiot, scumbag brothers for an entire 2 hours. The plot was so predictably tragic. Everyone knew from the beginning that DeNiro was dumb enough to screw up his life and everyone around him. I will say for the most part the boxing scenes were well done. Everything else was a disaster.
