There's no memo mentioning BVC3, haha. But everywhere I look online, every film podcast I've listened to lately, I'm seeing SMOOCHY hailed as a witty, cutting edge black comedy and brilliant social satire on children's entertainment.

The film's gained a huge cult audience. A lot of them treat it like it's some subversive black comedy & edgy commentary on children's entertainment, or the media in general. I think it's ludicrous to put SMOOCHY in the ranks of films like NETWORK.

My gratuitous singling out of BEVERLY HILLS COP III is that its another dumb film that juxtaposes violence with children's entertainment (in this case, amusement parks rather than television). I don't think SMOOCHY is nearly as dark or as smart as its fans do. In terms of prescient social commentary, I think it's closer to films like ANCHORMAN or BEVERLY HILLS COP III than NETWORK or A FACE IN THE CROWD.

Fair enough. Until this post I was blissfully ignorant of any cult following for SMOOCHY. Now I'm sad to hear of it. Thanks a lot.

Nolan may be hit or miss, or even despised by the majority here, but he still puts more thought into his creations than most people do into their life.

Oh, and Interstellar was alright.

Beverly Hills Cop III might be one of the worst sequels of all-time next to A Good Day to Die Hard, but Death to Smoochy is Citizen Kane in comparison (and it took me awhile to warm up to Smoochy, although I still feel its praise isn't warranted).

If he had just made Batman Begins and didn't follow it up with any sequels, he'd still be regarded as a brilliant director.

A lot of people have issue with how popular The Dark Knight was (I guess the film that really catapulted him in to the mainstream), and in turn rag on Inception (which has flaws but is still a damn good movie) and anything else the guy's fingerprints are on.

His being despised is unwarranted. He's one of the better directors putting out movies today.

This forum was where I learned LAKE PLACID had a cult following. So I guess I'm just paying it forward?

But seriously. I think I became desensitized to misguided film cultists after seeing FREDDY GOT FINGERED being compared in high esteem to Andy Kaufman or Luis Bunuel. That made me sad!

I dunno. I'm going into a whole new topic here, but it seems to me that the term "cult classic" doesn't have the same pedigree that it used to. "Cult followings" used to take years, even decades to gestate (ie: John Carpenter's THE THING). But now we get films considered "instant cult classics." Sharknado, The Room, Birdemic. Those "deliberately bad" movies churned out by The Asylum & ScyFy.

I honestly don't understand why mediocre films such as LAKE PLACID and ANACONDA have gathered cult followings.

Hell, it looks like Ridley's Scott's THE COUNSELOR is already being reevaluated as a cult classic. It bombed in theaters and is gaining a cult following on Blu-ray and streaming video. http://trailersfromhell.com/counselor/

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To go off on a little tangent, it bugs me the way any film that wins an Oscar is instantly devalued by film snobs. Most Oscar-winners do suck, yes, but I thought NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN was a masterpiece long before Oscar season, and the fact that it won Oscars didn't change anything for me. It's so bizarre to me that people think THE COUNSELOR has more "indie cred" than NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN simply because the former bombed and the latter accidentally won some Oscars and is thus devalued as an establishment film.

I have nothing against people enjoying any of the films I've critiqued. I just hate when opinions are formed merely by the perception that given films are "overrated" or "underrated".
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Which, I suppose, goes back to the question about what makes a statement "bold."

I love both NCFOM & The Counselor. As I posted earlier, I believe that The Counselor is Ridley Scott's best film since Blade Runner.

I've only seen the Blu-ray director's cut of The Counselor, do you have any thoughts on Theatrical vs DC? Which is to say, would someone who disliked the Director's Cut like the Theatrical Cut better?

Have not seen the theatrical cut.

After watching TGBH last week I stand by this statement that I made 4 months ago. My opinion of course.

Superman III is a trenchant satire on 200 years of race relations in this country.

Brian DePalma is a vastly more interesting filmmaker than Alfred Hitchcock.

Fuck John Hughes. Fuck the Brat Pack. HEATHERS is the most relatable high school movie.

I never saw a high-school movie which seemed to represent reality to me, but I went through most of it with blinders on, so maybe that why. I didn't mature as much as I should've, but I never found it the mythical place crawling with cliques and seething with sex that I always see in movies. Sometime, I wonder if I missed the fun part!

There are many films which portray realistic teenagers but they are usually just made outside of the Usa . The most enjoyable among them are probably the Lukas Moodysson films Show Me Love and We Are The Best!.

It's sooo very.

They can be found in the USA just don't look to the mainstream. I find certain elements of River's Edge, Out of the Blue and Suburbia (Spheeris) to be pretty realistic. I also hung out with metal heads, punks and stoners, many who came from dysfunctional families, so I can relate to those films.

Most of the actors in high school movies are too old for the roles they're playing.

That's not bold.

Walter Matthau was a better actor than Jack Lemmon

Oh no he d'dnt.

I went to high school where Monday mornings were full of stories of drinking and hunting (yes, at the same time) and boasts of sexual conquests. And given the teen pregnancy rate, I have to say many of the boasts were truthful.

Blasphemy! Oh, you'll smoke a turd in hell for that!

River's Edge and Out of the Blue are awesome.

We were getting a lot of non bold ones

Hey, I went to Catholic school, we were all angels . In all seriousness, I'm definitely not saying that stuff like that didn't happen. Even in my super-conservative world, word got around about who was experimental, who smoked and did more than just that, but they seemed to be pretty infamous for it. It is of course fully possible that they were just the ones who got the attention for it and that it was happening all over the place, I'm just saying that the soap-opera version of high school was never as hyper-concentrated as it was in the movies. Looking back, I kind of wish it was .

There were undoubtedly some braggarts, but I did occasionally wonder how much was embellished. Probably 50-50, young and stupid has been a combination for time immemorial.

Then again, my foolish, judgement, retrograde thinking which continued well after that cost me some friendships when I reacted badly to things I found out later on, so I was definitely pretty naive about such things, even more so back then. I was a good schoolboy, but I had a lot to learn about reality. That's something that you can't learn out of a book. But I naively thought I was mature for my age (I wasn't), and I've found many, many films of youth put the words of adults into the mouths of youth. Or generally, the words of the writers.