Movies I find to be bad or at least overrated

[ryans87]

Most Overrated Films, In My Opinion:
1. Casablanca
2. Garden State
3. Breathless
4. Romeo + Juliet
5. Gladiator

Some Fantastic Films Which Everyone Misses the Point Of, and Loves for The Wrong Reasons:
1. Dazed and Confused
2. Goodfellas
3. Sin City
4. Oldboy
5. Reservoir Dogs

Most Overrated Films That I Haven't Seen, And Accordingly Don't Want To Anymore:
1. The Boondock Saints
2. Little Miss Sunshine

Most Annoying Musical That Everyone Thinks is "Classic": South Pacific

My 2 Favorite Wildly Entertaining Howlers/Craptaculars/Cult Classics:
1. The Man in the Iron Mask
2. Frogs!

Best Low-Rated Movie That Actually Isn't Half Bad:
Are We There Yet?

Movie That Would Actually Be Pretty Good, If We Forgot the Hype and the Image and Considered It Objectively:
Napoleon Dynamite

[captainofbeef]

I don't really agree with the Casablanca, Gladiator, and Breathless opinions but you are spot on with the other two.

[ryans87]

Well, I'm a little hard on those three, but I've heard a lot of really wild opinions about them that blow their actual value way out of proportion.

[Clark Nova]

meh, of course i gotta disagree on Casablanca, the great romance of our time, but naturally it won't be everybody's cup of tea, as it's shown the tiniest bit of age.

I would definitely give Little Miss Sunshine a chance, though. It's actually got some very, very good moments. Very good movie IMO. And yeah, get a restraining order against that piece of shit Boondock Saints.

[wkw]

Casablanca is one of the most quoted films ever, for good reasons. I do think Sin City is pretty overrated, it's like a noir Pulp Fiction without the great dialogue. Add Kill Bill to that list too.

[ryans87]

I've gotta say, though, I am not really a Bogie fan, nor an Ingrid Bergman fan, nor really a Claude Rains fan...stylistically, the movie is locked in its time period (the high days of classical Hollywood style of cinematography and editing, which I think can be kind of limiting)...and I personally think that a lot of the film's appeal comes from its already "classic" (not "classical") status, if you know what I mean...everyone's seen it, and everyone likes it at least somewhat, so we can consider it an important film with mass appeal--whereas, really, many people watch it because everyone else watches it, and like it because they haven't seen what's better. So if you ask me, is Casablanca an important or an influential or even a good film, then of course, yes, it is...but is it a provocative and transcendent masterpiece with enough staying power to ensure its place in the art world one hundred years from now, I'm not so sure.

By the way, I personally think Sin City has a great script, and a really accurate and subversive statement on the way moviegoers view violence...the style is good, but I kind of don't view that as the whole point of the film. Pulp Fiction has the same message in part about sensationalized violence, but that film has much more to say about other subjects as well...I think Sin City is a bit more focused (for better or worse, and probably worse) on scandalizing and reshaping the viewer's expectations about violence.

Kill Bill is definitely overrated for the wrong reasons, but I think it's way underrated for others...Bill and Beatrix are a much more real, flawed, and lovable couple than Bogie and Bergie ever will be to me. The chapel scene at the beginning of Volume 2 is perfectly scripted, and the last forty-five minutes, after the big revelation, are absolutely transcendent. And that message (trying not to spoil, here) is the point of the film--all the crazy violence and heroic posturing of the first three hours or so of the saga collapse into a smoking wreck, and the characters are stripped down to show that they are deeply human after all, just stubborn and awkward about their emotions. I think the KB film (once its recombined into a single film) will be one we'll be studying many years in the future, perhaps even like Vertigo, once the misinformed hype dies down.

[kiddo]

ryan87: You're a great "contribution" (sorry if that sounds impersonal - that's not the intension ). You seem like a guy genuinly interested in film, and seem to have a head with many interesting thoughts and reflections hidden behind the layer of skin. A warm welcome!

[lordofdance]

Kill Bill is definitely overrated for the wrong reasons, but I think it's way underrated for others...Bill and Beatrix are a much more real, flawed, and lovable couple than Bogie and Bergie ever will be to me. The chapel scene at the beginning of Volume 2 is perfectly scripted, and the last forty-five minutes, after the big revelation, are absolutely transcendent. And that message (trying not to spoil, here) is the point of the film--all the crazy violence and heroic posturing of the first three hours or so of the saga collapse into a smoking wreck, and the characters are stripped down to show that they are deeply human after all, just stubborn and awkward about their emotions. I think the KB film (once its recombined into a single film) will be one we'll be studying many years in the future, perhaps even like Vertigo, once the misinformed hype dies down.

While I appreciate your personal interpretation of the relationship and movie, I have difficulty looking at either character as lovable or real. I like Casablanca, but inspite of the romance rather than because of it. The dialogue in Casablanca flows more more smoothly than in the Kill Bill movies, particularly because everything Bill says sounds artificial and scripted. Of course, in a Tarantino movie all the characters sound scripted pretty much, but few have sounded more forced than Bill (though the chicks in Death Proof were more annoying). The only Bill dialogue I liked was that bit about him being at his most masochistic just before he busts a cap in Beatrix. Sure, Bill and Beatrix have typical motivations for their behavior, but it doesn't make them lovable or real to me. These people are murderers, and there's really nothing heroic about Beatrix. She just wanted revenge, even though she's probably killed plenty of people herself. I never cared about her cause. I liked watching her kill people, but she wasn't a great deal better than the people she knocked off during both movies. I think Tarantino made a mistake by trying to humanize Bill and Beatrix because they aren't believable or deep at all. All the yapping at the end was entirely unconvincing and tedious (the bit about the fish was particularly egregious). I'm not saying that the end of Kill Bill 2 couldn't have worked, but Tarantino's approach failed miserably in my opinion. These are two characters that don't sound real, don't act real, and aren't even sympathetic if one gives it some thought.

[sacrilegend]

You can't just write Little Miss Sunshine off like that, if I were you I'd at least give it a chance. I mean, if you deemed Are We There Yet? "not half-bad" you could benefit by seeing this. Pfff.

[sacrilegend]

Oh, and Romeo + Juliet isn't especially overrated, I mean, more so than other films. It wasn't so good but I don't think people rate it so highly, or as highly as, say, Garden State or Gladiator.

[ie]

police386 said:

meh, of course i gotta disagree on Casablanca, the great romance of our time, but naturally it won't be everybody's cup of tea, as it's shown the tiniest bit of age.

We're living in the 40s? ;D ;D

[criterionmaster]

sacrilegend said:

You can't just write Little Miss Sunshine off like that, if I were you I'd at least give it a chance. I mean, if you deemed Are We There Yet? "not half-bad" you could benefit by seeing this. Pfff.

i am glad he doesn't have to suffer through little miss sunshine, actually. it is REALLY overrated. although i hate completely dismissing a movie before i see it. but it definitely is on my most overrated list, so i don't mind him not checking it out, in fact, if someone asked me if they should check it out, i would never recommend it in a million years.

and yeah, i don't know many people who rate romeo + juliet that high, but if they rate it higher than a 3/10, then that makes it overrated, haha.

[sacrilegend]

Fuck that, you definitely can't have something on a list if you haven't even seen it! This makes me so sick.

[ryans87]

Sorry I didn't answer all these comments right away, I was kind of tied up the past week or so.

In any case, here are some thoughts:

Re: dialogue in Kill Bill: I guess it's disputable, I personally consider it some of the best dialogue ever written and filmed, because to me, it matches depth with realism--people would actually say these things in these situations (which, granted, are fantastical) but they also offer superb character revelations (in terms of motivation and personality). I also think that the characters are sympathetic--not because they're killers, but in spite of it--it's like Shakespeare's Macbeth. He's the protagonist of the play, and the most sympathetic figure in it, in many ways--at least, the viewer is forced to feel what he feels, and comes to understand him and empathize with him through that. KB works much the same way, except that the characters have a bit more charm to ease the process.

Re: Romeo: I guess that's what I meant, any rating is too high a rating. And I know a lot of people who really love it. But right, not as bad as Garden State or Gladiator. I just saw the Criterion restoration cut of Spartacus, by the way...so Gladiator goes down another few notches in my estimations.

Re: Little Miss: Sorry to raise a row over this one, I was partly being facetious, but the hype's been very high and I have my doubts about it's quality. One day I'll try to watch it, but it would be dishonest of me to say that the hype hasn't had a negative affect on my expectations.

Re: Casablanca...sorry, not changing my mind on this one, personally...I know why other people like it, and I can see its value, but it's never impressed me in style or substance...nearly everything in it had either been done earlier, or has since been done better. I view it as the best film of its kind, I guess (best A-film wartime romance at the height of the Hollywood studio era, in the classical Hollywood shooting and acting style) but I'm not sure that merits the accolades it's received, though it does hold an essential place in film history, for now at least. As far as it's dialogue goes, I find it sappy at best, empty-headed at worst. Smooth, perhaps, but not particularly rich or engaging.