Top 5

Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

Okay, I know there are often films that many people call "great", and you have to bite your tongue to avoid an argument against the masses.  Well here are my top five that I dislike.  I can't say that I "hate" them, but it sounded like a better discussion topic to say the word "hate".  And I'm not just talking about Pirates of the Carribean 8 that will still make a billion dollars, so the "masses" love it, but I'm talking about dissagreements with your respectable peers.

 This list is in no particular order and just some that came to mind.  I'm sure I've got hundreds.

 1.  Reservoir Dogs - I have to say this film was a big dissapointment.  Maybe it was the mood I was in, but it just didn't engage me.  Violence and surprises.  Not refreshing.  It was an amateur film by a then amateur director.  

 2.  Vertigo - Do not get me wrong here, I consider myself a Hitchcock fan, and this may be blasphemy seeing most people say this was his masterpiece.  I found it excruciatingly boring, unnecessarily confusing (the first time around), and one of his weaker films.  

3. Every James Bond Film - These films are a one trick pony.  The franchise is a cliché of itself.  Yet whenever there is a new Bond film, everyone and their grandmother want to go see it.

4. Ocean's 11 - I mentioned this in the top 5 heist category as one I disliked.  I just don't like the genre in general, and this seemed like a rehash of the genre (i know i know it was a remake).  It seems like somebody thought it was actually smart to have "a bunch of really interesting characters pull off a heist, and have hillarity and trouble ensue!"

5. Anchorman - Why is this film funny?  Why do my friends think Will Ferrel is so great?  All he did in this movie is talk in his deep voice that he does for every other character, and act like every other snl character he ever played.  I absolutely despised this film (and his most recent Talledega Nights was atrocious as well).

 You can argue me here, I'd actually like to see some defense for these films.  What are your films that everyone else loves but you don't?

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

No order on these...

• Gladiator - I just don't like this type of film and I particularly didn't like this one.
• Lord of The Rings - All of them.
• Ben Hur - Aside from having a great dislike for Mr. Heston, this is another that falls into the just don't like the type.
• Titanic - If I hear that song one more time...if I hear those lines one more time!
• The Manchurian Candidate - I think I was in the wrong mood for this one and the remake.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

tmoney:

  1.  Reservoir Dogs - I have to say this film was a big dissapointment.  Maybe it was the mood I was in, but it just didn't engage me.  Violence and surprises.  Not refreshing.  It was an amateur film by a then amateur director.  

This is still my favorite Tarantino film.  I think it's his simplest and tightest film.  The real time current action is enlightened by the flashbacks that come at just the right time and pace.  The ending is still one of the most visceral I've ever seen.  "I'm a cop Larry"

tmoney:

 2.  Vertigo - Do not get me wrong here, I consider myself a Hitchcock fan, and this may be blasphemy seeing most people say this was his masterpiece.  I found it excruciatingly boring, unnecessarily confusing (the first time around), and one of his weaker films.  

I actually still say this is my favorite Hitchcock film even though I saw it long enough ago that I can hardly remember any of the specifics.  I still just have this feeling of being blown away by it.  I guess I should see it again if I'm going to try to defend it though.

I'm not going to try to defend the rest of the films.  I haven't even seen Ocean's Eleven.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

Little Children  (2006) - Something about this one bothered me and I dropped out halfway through.  Seemed too written. The spousal unit liked it.

Lucky Number Slevin (2006) - The cold-blooded revenge killer thing didn't work for me.  I would have been ok with Bruce Willis and Josh Hartnett getting took out along with the other bad guys.

Se7en  (1995) - I'll have to watch this one again, so many people put it on their lists. I was just annoyed -not least because now we've got "5ive Girls,"  "4orty2wo Entertainment,"  "6ix," etc., etc.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

strangeframe:

Larry David is a great comedic writer IMHO, but to see him deliver lines pains me.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

1.  Shrek -  Yeah this and all those other family oriented, 3-D CGI Dreamworks/Pixar kind of deals.  I actually haven't seen most of these types of movies in their entirety.  Gave up after the first generation of them, but they only seem to be the same crap.  Maybe I'm hardhearted, but this stuff just isn't funny to me.  The movies are the most annoying of all the huge corporate francises.  I have to see these characters in every kind of sick ad for products I would have never even wanted to hear about in the first place.  The messages they deliver are trite platitudes.  And most of them are just big music videos for annoying bands like Smashmouth doing remakes of The Monkees.  Uuuugh.  And it's all this politically correct new-age shit.  Let's not speak of that anymore.

2.  Crash / Million Dollar Baby - two recent Oscar winners both written by that hack Paul Haggis.  These movies are manipulative in the worst way.  I call these movies where I can feel the writer's pen on the paper.  Every character and development is impletemented to make you feel an exact emotion.  I guess that doesn't have to be a bad thing, but when it's such an issue concious movie and you can really SEE what the filmmakers are doing, it really puts me off.  Especially when people talk about how important these movies are.

3.  Jules and Jim / Breathless / Chungking Express -  I'm naming these movies because they seem to have something in common.  The first two are from the French New Wave, and the latter is obviously inspired by the French New Wave, specifically Breathless.  What can I say other than I just don't relate to these characters.  I don't find them amusing either.  In fact the generally bore me or get on my nerves.  I won't try to argue too much with anyone who does like it, but it's just not for me apparently.

4.  High Fidelity - Maybe the characters are too close to me.  I like making lists too.  HOLY SHIT, I'm making a top 5 list right now!  But just something about his past relationships and his attitudes towards them, even when his attitudes change, it's just something that irks me.  You can throw in Empire Records as another movie about record shop employees that people seem to love but annoys the hell out of me.  I can't deal with the mainstream I guess.

5.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Graduate.  They don't really go together in anyway, and also I don't really hate either of them.  But I don't love them.  And I think other people love them too much and I get sick of it.

Maybe I just don't know how to love.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

Great topic!!!  I'll play.

tmoney - my #1 is your #5

1.) Anchorman - Don't get me wrong.  I actually like Will Ferrell.  But not in this stupid movie.  He made me want to hit him.  Seriously.

2.) Wedding Crashers - Please tell me why this movie is supposed to be funny.  I'm asking.  Oh, and Will Ferrell appeared in this one too.  Hey, I thought he was hilarious as Ricky Bobby.  I always say it's a crapshoot with him.

3.) Citizen Kane - Ok, before you start hurling tomatoes, hear me out.  Yes, it was a breakthrough.  Yes, it was ahead of its time.  Is it the greatest movie of all time????? Why?  The movie is sooooooo boring!  I like cerebral films, I do.  I like those kinds of quasi-biographical quasi-allegorical type films.  I don't hate it completely, but I'm tired of everyone telling me it's the best there is.  I still think Casablanca and The Godfather are both far better movies, and they're entertaining too.  Those movies have it all!  Sorry, Orson.  Here's looking at you.

4.) Gladiator and Braveheart - Two best picture winners.  I don't absolutely hate them.  Maybe it's because I lack testosterone, but why are they so great?  Braveheart is the better of the two, but maybe it's because I like Australian Mel over Australian Russell.   I just did not get into either one.  And I'm all for fights for freedom and that.  Gladiator in particular did not have me thinking it was the bee's knees.  I've only seen either once and have no desire to do so again.

5.) And I totally agree with tmoney about Vertigo - It has to be my least favorite of Hitchcock's, and I love him so much.  The idea of it is genius, on the one hand, but on the other hand, I find it a hard movie to watch for all the same reasons.  I agree with absolutely everything you said, tmoney, so if you've blashphemed, then so have I.  Damned we shall be.

Now - to defend.

Ocean's 11 - Again, the lower the expectations, the better you will find this flick.  If you are trying to see cinematic integrity and seriousness in this film, then you've exempted yourself from enjoying it.  It is totally a picture about having fun, as it is, after all, a caper film. If you try to look at it as more than that, then yes you will be disappointed.  Just saying.  I liked it because I liked what, or specifically, who I was looking at.

Crash - You love it or you hate it.  Personally, I think it's high time someone manipulated people on this subject.  I commend Haggis for tackling it head-on and purposefully throwing the subject in people's faces, since most people (especially not of color) seem to want to avoid these taboo topics.  I'm a civil rights investigator by day, and I do consider it an important film.  Did it manipulate?  Hell yes.  If it unseated a few people and finally got them to reflect on what they do on a daily basis, I'm all for it.  Rar.  But I respect that being manipulated can be equally annoying, Risselada.  There are movies that find me thinking the same things - like, let me form my own opinion or something.

Shrek/Pixar - First of all, you CANNOT compare Pixar to any other mass-marketed CGI firm.  Shrek and its ugly cousins compared to all of the Pixar flicks are apples to oranges.  Pixar is a QUALITY movie firm with unusual/original storylines and making and groundbreaking CGI animation.  Dreamworks is the copycat that produced Shrek and many of the other tripetastic CGI wannabes.  However, the first Shrek is actually an extremely funny movie.  It gets dumber as it gets sequelized.  It's all owing to Eddie Murphy as Donkey.  He alone is worth the watch.  Still, give Pixar a chance.  In fact, try out Ratatouille.  You will almost forget it's supposed to be a cartoon.

Tarantino - Again, you love or you hate him.  I favor the former.  I don't like all of his films, but I hold Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills in very high regard indeed.  While profane, bloody, and graphic, they are also masterworks of ingenious filmmaking and storytelling, even if QT is really a grownup Nerd having his revenge (I hold to that).

I haven't seen High Fidelity or Eternal Sunshine...but I really want to based on the hype, so I'll wait and see if it's overrated or not.  I agree that the Graduate was also not the most entertaining film out there, but you gotta agree it had its place.  Kind of like Citizen Kane, only with more sex.

Lord of the Rings - Well, I can't even make a coherent sentence.  You must not like the genre.  These are some of the best films ever made.  Oh yes.  But I realize hobbits and such aren't for everyone.

Se7en - I don't think as many people like this one as you think.  Still, I did.  I thought it was another well put-together movie.  Not my absolute favorite, but one when, I can stomach it, I enjoy watching.

Ok, I'm spent.  Peace out.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

pippin06:

Still, give Pixar a chance.  In fact, try out Ratatouille.  You will almost forget it's supposed to be a cartoon.

It doesn't really matter to me if it's a cartoon or not.  That's not the issue.

Maybe just maybe I'll check this one out.  But all I keep thinking about is all of the fat slobs with BBQ sauce dripping off of their face wandering aimlessly at the Taste of Chicago food fest with these obscene paperhats on that say "Ratatouille" because they were passing them out as a part of some big marketing campaign.

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

Risselada:

pippin06:

Still, give Pixar a chance.  In fact, try out Ratatouille.  You will almost forget it's supposed to be a cartoon.

It doesn't really matter to me if it's a cartoon or not.  That's not the issue.

Maybe just maybe I'll check this one out.  But all I keep thinking about is all of the fat slobs with BBQ sauce dripping off of their face wandering aimlessly at the Taste of Chicago food fest with these obscene paperhats on that say "Ratatouille" because they were passing them out as a part of some big marketing campaign.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't like the fact that it was animation.  I was making a general comment that Ratatouille is just so sophisticated for what it's supposed to be, that's all.  I get that you don't like the mainstream/mass-marketed/mass-produced/shove-it-down-your-throat advertised quality of the CGI brands.  They are, after all, trying to get families and bunches of people to see the movies, though.  Some of them are actually quite good, is all I'm saying.  Connection to Taste of Chicago visitors (fat, slobby, or otherwise) aside.  I encourage you to ignore the hats.  Though that's kind of clever.  No one was passing out hats in Grand Rapids.  Hm.

Incidentally, what do you think about the mass marketing gimmicks being used for The Simpsons Movie?   Like 7-11's into Kwik-E-Marts and the Simpsonizeme Burger King campaign? 

Re: Top 5 Everybody Seems To Love But I Hate!!!

pippin06:

Incidentally, what do you think about the mass marketing gimmicks being used for The Simpsons Movie?   Like 7-11's into Kwik-E-Marts and the Simpsonizeme Burger King campaign? 

Some franchises like Simpsons and Star Wars have just been so consitantly prevalant for so long that it's hard to even notice them.