Overrated Movies

I'm not sure this is 100% true. I often prefer to read negative reviews - they're generally more entertaining. Plus, it's a convenient way to use as a measuring stick for this thread.

I think Cameron and Spielberg get a lot of heat for making movies that appeal to wide audiences. Especially with Cameron, the dialogue isn't very good in them, but they both always seem to make movies that work, at least for me.*** I wonder if it's tougher to make well crafted movies that do that than it is to make super-artsy stuff that appeals to MFA students.

I want to like Kubrick movies! I do like Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket & Shining. Not Strangelove, 2001, Barry Lyndon & Eyes Wide Shut. They might very well be wonderfully made movies of the highest artistic quality. I just thought they were boring. It's probably me.

*** OK, War Horse was melodramatic schlock and it's getting hard to defend Avatar even though I liked it when I first saw it at IMAX. The special effects really drive that movie, certainly not the plot or dialogue.

Grassopper wrote:

Too many to list. The problem I have is not so much with specific movies but with directors who are elevated to Godlike status even though their output is mediocre. The best example is Steven Spielberg. IMO Poltergeist was good, but pretty much all the rest is typically badly paced and boring. The ideas are great, I just don't like the execution. Also I am still waiting for a really good one from Ron Howard (and he's made some stinkers).

Spielberg produced Poltergeist; Tobe Hooper directed it (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame). This probably makes you dislike Spielberg more :)

zephito wrote:

I want to like Kubrick movies! I do like Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket & Shining. Not Strangelove, 2001, Barry Lyndon & Eyes Wide Shut. They might very well be wonderfully made movies of the highest artistic quality. I just thought they were boring. It's probably me.

2001 is well disliked. I don't know anyone who liked it. It is so disliked, you can't call it overrated.

However, 2001 is amazing. It is supposed to be slow.. Watch it when you have lots of time on your hands.It is a really good lazy Sunday afternoon movie. I'm always drawn in. It is the ultimate story of sacrifice and selfishness. The main guy abandons his family to go to space (see Interstellar below). Although this is shown better in the book. 2010==rubbish.

I disliked the other ones you mentioned too. Strangelove is not my cup of tea.

The director of Interstellar clearly saw 2001. It's pretty much an updated near exact copy IMO. Monolith Black Hole theme, family abandonment for greater good, etc.. I preferred 2001, but enjoyed Interstellar too. If anything, Interstellar is overrated.

Fight Club. Ugh!

Once overheard a college professor that taught film critique say it was the greatest movie ever made - what!?

a little less recent wrote:

Strangelove is not my cup of tea.

Ya, maybe it was too much expectation for me. I heard it was one of the funniest movies ever, but when I watched it I thought it was "meh". Maybe you had to be there. maybe it was relevant at the time.

Hfsghnb wrote:

Fight Club. Ugh!

Once overheard a college professor that taught film critique say it was the greatest movie ever made - what!?

Obviously he's never seen Blow Up.

*Clam Depression - when the clam realizes that no matter how hard he tries, he will never produce a pearl.

BTW. Lost in Translation was great in my book. Lots of other hate on nere for movies that I thought were pretty good....especially Gravity. I actually liked that movie quite a bit.

a little less recent wrote:

However, 2001 is amazing. It is supposed to be slow..

Exactly. Clarke himself said that one of his major motifs was the idea of people becoming more robotic (machine-like), and machines becoming more like humans. Note HAL's more enthusiastic tone relative to the drab tone and dull movements of Dave and the other characters.

If I were a mod I would delete every last anti-Kubrick post

sadfasdf@asfdasf.com wrote:

well.... wrote:

This is another good one. Consistently ranked among the best science fiction movies or all time. I was able to finish it the second time I started it, but only after reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and watching it with the goal of seeing how it differed from the book.

A lot of the suggestions on this thread are movies that are merely *popular* but not highly rated.

The question is do you like any Sci-Fi type movies (versus fantasy movies like star wars)? There is also a lot of personal biases in these things where an ok movie in a genre you like become great while a great movie in a genre you don't like.

Yes. I like Total Recall, Terminator 2, Minority Report, and A.I. (it took a second viewing to appreciate A.I.)

agip wrote:

If I were a mod I would delete every last anti-Kubrick post

Why? Are you incapable of hearing dissenting opinions?

Link wrote:

And to you Kubrick haters: You're like the philistines who, looking at a Picasso, mutter 'anyone could do that'. You really don't know what you're talking about.

If Picasso didn't want people to insult his art, he should have painted things they'd like to see. Art is not supposed to be some kind of intellectual discussion between a snob elite, film even less so.

Along with Kurosawa and, maybe, Fellini he is among the very best, most influential film makers in the history of the art. Kubrick is Spielberg's idol. In spite of ET, that's pretty heady praise.

Kurosawa didn't forget to make his great movies be about interesting things like samurai and adventures. Most of Kubrick's films failed to be about much besides weird ideas.

Spielberg is a fountain of pop culture garbage, the most overrated moviemaker of all time. Not a good reference for Kubrick at all.