Crap movies that are critically acclaimed or loved by others

DrBoost said:

anything Bruce Willis is in. 

You go watch RED and then shut your filthy mouth.

Just kidding.  Sorta.  I have no idea if your mouth is filthy or not.

Duke said:

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Star Wars ep I, II, and III, never have three movies done so much disservice to a franchise.  They are ripe for being re-written and made with decent scripts.  I think even the most die hard fans could get behind that move to fix the franchise.  

Ep VI, VII, VIII are not much better than the prequels, except for the notable absence of Jarjar (the Forrest Gump of the Star Wars universe).

Rogue One knocked it out of the park.  Solo was mediocre at best.

I think II and III were better than the sequels (I assume, you meant VII, VIII, and IX). Bad dialogue and directing aside, they actually told a real story that covered new ground.

The sequels actually *showed* us why the Jedi order was unhealthy, needed to, and DID die. Just like Return of the Jedi actually *showed* us how we'll win by saving what we love rather than trying to kill what we hate.

I think Rogue 1 is incredibly overrated. It was fine, but ultimately had a lot of unrealized potential and mostly just succeeded at being an inferior Dirty Dozen.

I've never understood the appeal of any Tim Burton movie.

Gravity as well. Beautiful but dull.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Correct, I meant VII, VIII, and IX - thanks.  I edited my original post.  Though I do think VI sucks, too, despite being part of the original trilogy.  Mostly I think that's down to the Ewoks.

The sequels didn't show me anything about how the Jedi Order was unhealthy, or any of that.  They showed me a main character I couldn't care about at all, another main character with zero understanding of how he got to be the way he is, a couple of semi-interesting side characters that never really became anything believable, and a previously-likable character who became a weird old man.

Maybe that's just my failing.  I couldn't get past the structural issues in any of those movies, or keep up with the director-of-the-week changes that kept invalidating previous canon, elevating obscurities to prominence, and dismissing previously-groomed major characters out of hand.

bobzilla said:

Gravity as well. Beautiful but dull.

Ad Astra is the same

I think Star Wars episode VII is actually a really good movie.  It may be a rehash in many ways of ep IV, but it was a great movie that set up some really good characters and story arcs that were wasted in ep VIII and IX.  They aren't great movies, but not bad either.

"Mother" with Jennifer Lawrence and the slaughterhouse piston guy from No Country for Old Men.

I warn you. Never under any circumstances see this movie. 

Ummm, no offense intended to the other poster, but prompted by the "Funny movies" thread:

Step Brothers - I cannot watch even 30 seconds of this movie, though many many people find it hilarious.  I admit to a low tolerance for Will Farrell in general - I also can't stand Elf except for Bob Newhart's bits - but to me Step Brothers is about the worst of the worst.

Scotty Con Queso said:

"Mother" with Jennifer Lawrence and the slaughterhouse piston guy from No Country for Old Men.

I warn you. Never under any circumstances see this movie. 

You and I disagree about Step Brothers, but we are in complete harmony about Mother.  Terrible, pretentious, and dull - but a critics' favorite.

Just about every "critically acclaimed" movie if I'm honest. The English Patient? My Left Foot? Dangerous Liaisons? Total crap. Heck, I have never made it through Its a Wonderful Life. I am in the camp of box office revenue is a better indicator of how good a movie is. If people pay for it, they must be enjoying it. If a snooty expert has to explain why a movie is good, no thanks. Take that with a grain of salt of course, I also have no need for movies without fight scenes, explosions or car chases. 

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

By the "everyone is going it must be good" bandwagon theory I got suckered into seeing "The Blair Witch" years ago.  Stupid movie full of stupid people doing stupid E36 M3 in the woods, that somehow conned millions of people into plunking down perfectly good money to watch.  Those film makers needed a good kicking for that!

In reply to KyAllroad :

At least you weren't dumb enough to get suckered into the second one. In theater. 

Appleseed said:

In reply to Duke :

The only part of Dunkirk I enjoyed were the aerial scenes. 

There was no sense of dread or defeat, just a bunch of soldiers on a beach looking out to the sea.

And once again, Nolan goes out of his way to try and make what should be a simple plot be as confusing as possible to follow

I liked Blair Witch.  I liked it even more when I learned how it was made.  I found the acting very true-to-life (because it was) which meant that the atmosphere of paranoia and tension was very relatable.

All bets are off about the second one.  It was clearly a cash-in from the first concept meeting.

NickD said:

Appleseed said:

In reply to Duke :

The only part of Dunkirk I enjoyed were the aerial scenes. 

There was no sense of dread or defeat, just a bunch of soldiers on a beach looking out to the sea.

And once again, Nolan goes out of his way to try and make what should be a simple plot be as confusing as possible to follow

I didn't find Dunkirk hard to follow.  Nolan gave you the time key right in the opening credits.  On the contrary, I found it made an otherwise simple (albeit heroic) story even more interesting.

Without the layers, you're stuck either with a condensed documentary of the defeat and withdrawal of the BEF, or with a short, no-context slice of personal story, like FURY.  Having the multiple time scales allowed you to have both and more in Dunkirk.

Indy - Guy said:

Rocky Horror Picture Show.

What the actual Berk?

If you're watching the movie as a movie, you're missing the bits that make Rocky Horror great.  You need to see it in a theatre, with a live cast in front of the screen, at midnight, and with a hundred other weirdos.

NickD said:

American Graffitti. All the car shows and Hot Rod Magazine hyped the E36 M3 out of it, and after years of wondering what the appeal was, I finally found a copy at the local library and rented it. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I didn't really get the appeal. It's just watching a bunch of people that I never had a reason to care about futz around for an evening, and it keeps building up the big street race, and it finally gets to it at the very end of the film....and one of the cars crashes immediately. 

Exactly.

That's what makes it a generational thing. I saw it in the theatre with my parents when it came out. They loved it because it was them in the years before they got married and had me. I liked it because it gave me a visual to fill in the stories my Dad had told me of the good old days. The cool cars were a bonus, and it was no coincidence that ten years later my own 55 Chev looked very much like the one in the movie.

As far a critcs go, I loved Siskel and Ebert. They were great because they judged a movie based on its own merit.  National Lampoon's Vacation would not be held to the same criteria as the Godfather. Most, if not all, of todays critic forget this.

STM317 said:

Not that I've seen very many, but I've never been impressed by a Tarantino movie.

I liked Reservoir dogs. I recently saw Pulp fiction for the second time and thought, what a stupid movie. I don't think it aged well.

In reply to Duke :

https://creepycatalog.com/the-blair-witch-project-movie-facts/

I'll give you that is some interesting stuff.  But the shaky cam is atrocious, and if you can stay lost in the woods of Maryland for three days, you genuinely deserve whatever bad thing happens to you.

Avatar was just a relocated and CGI'd Dances With Wolves.  I didn't care for either.

slantvaliant (Forum Supporter) said:

Avatar was just a relocated and CGI'd Dances With Wolves.  I didn't care for either.

 

Ferngully in space.

Duke said:

Agreed, Avatar is terrible.  A simplistic, melodramatic storyline with possibly the most stereotyped, one-dimensional characters ever written, wrapped in an expensive wrapper that utterly failed to make up for the total lack of substance inside.  And even a lack of substance can be forgivable... but not when it has pretensions of being deep and thought-provoking.

Another popular producer / director I can't stand is Zack Snyder.  We get it, 300 was good.  Now move on.  And 300's quality was largely down to Frank Miller, not Zack Snyder.

 

It was pretty bad. It was such an obvious, over-the-top roasting of "big evil corporations" that was funded by a huge multi-billion dollar company. The irony is overwhelming. 

Tangentially related, I'm getting really tired of that trope. I recently saw a sponsored ad for Rage Against The Machine merchandise on my Facebook feed and couldn't get past the blatant hypocrisy. Zach de la Rocha and Tom Morello both individually have net worths approaching $30 million. 

They continue to scream "berkeley Capitalism" while at the same time asking you to BUY their $30/each T-shirts. 

I still love their music, but I'm getting tired of people who are rich telling me the system that made them rich is terrible. 

I went to Wikipedia to look up the Best Picture winners and the only one I've seen in the last 20 years is Birdman.  I couldn't get halfway through.   The English Patient and Out of Africa would qualify as my nominees for the thread.