Ishtar

No one rates that highly, dude.

The English Patient

Dave,

I see your Ishtar and raise you a Howard the Duck.

CHICAGO

Unwatchable. And I generally like musicals. It was like watching a high school musical with fantastic production values.

Dammit Slublog, I was ready to post that one.

Well, since it's still annoying to me, I nominate Titanic. I mean, it's got good special effects (and that's IT), but no way in HELL does it rate a Best Picture Oscar, PARTICULARLY over L.A. Confidential.

I still don't understand how C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud swept the Oscars that one year.

Gandhi

PS - You can piss of on that Godfather II pan, btw. Try taking some ritalin and watching it.

Dirty Harry.

I don't like musicals and don't watch 'em and I liked chicago.

Maybe I just don't know enough about them to know any better.

No one with a clue rates it, but the worst Best Picture winner, well, ever has to be American Beauty. (People talk about how lame The Greatest Show on Earth is, but no comparison.)

Hey, Ace, let's not tar Harrison Ford's serious films too broadly. Frantic is good and Presumed Innocent is damned good.

rdbrewer,

Them's fighting words.

Frantic is eh. Presumed Innocent is... uggghhhh.

And yeah, I read the book, which was really good, so maybe that hurts it.

Chicago. Good call. That movie really sucked and the critics were giddy about it.

Sorry to steal your thunder, Harry.

I just hated hated hated that movie. Should have been called "Director Plays With His Camera and LOOK at the PRETTY SANDDUNES!"

Dirty Harry really isn't all that good, actually. Has anyone tried watching it lately?

Nope, give me Magnum Force any day of the week.

He kills Otter!!! Now that's some fuckin' hard-nosed police-work!

Moulin Rouge

I couldn't make it through fifteen minutes of the movie, and I tried twice.

It reminded me of a restaurant in St. Augustine where blackened scallops are coated in cinnamon and you can't get a hamburger without papaya or guava on it.

It tried so hard to be special that you could see the effort.

Of course, I also hated (she ducks for cover) Pirates of the Carribean. I might have made it through thirty minutes of that one.

Okay, watch as I blaspheme...

The Deer Hunter

It kind of reminds me of Springsteen's The River: It's overlong. It's slow. It fetishizes the lower classes. It has no humor. But it ends well.

Just because it avoids the Hollywood cliches and has a powerful climax doesn't make it a great film.

Oh, wait... he doesn't kill Otter. Otter was "a sacrifice," Hutch tells him.

He does kill Hutch, though.

American Beauty

I found this film to be so-so on the first viewing, and unwatchable afterwards. Aside from the photography, there is very little to recommend about this film, especially the scenery-chewing acting by everyone in the damn movie. The script goes out of its way to be "meaningful", resulting in sheer boredom. This below-average whine-fest had the chattering classes (including my friends) gush about how good it was, but no one gives a shit now.

Your dislike of the Exorcist confirms once and for all what I've always suspected: you're a fag.

I liked Chicago too, though. So I guess we're fags together.

I already mentioned the Deer Hunter in the comments to Karol's post. How can a movie with Walken and De Niro in the cast be so excruciatingly dull? And yet it is. It's nigh miraculous.

"Apocalypse Now."

LOOK HOW CRAZY AND DEEP MAN CAN BE!

I can't believe we're even having this debate: "Titanic" is the biggest POS to ever win the Best Picture Oscar. Has there ever been a movie with more cliches? Plus the special effects weren't. Sucks SO bad.

I can confirm that American Beauty did, in fact, suckity suck suck.

I don't know how you can avoid an Oscar or an Emmy if you lampoon suburbia.

Neighbors managed just that, of course, which just goes to show you how bad a piece of crap that was.

And yet I've watched just about every movie Dan Aykroyd wrote, not learning my lesson, until he finally made Nothing But Trouble and the studios wised up.

Well, until Caddyshack II.

Go

Everyone talked about how 'hip' this movie was. I thought it tried too hard.

Good things about Dirty Harry:

He tortures the bad guy.

He reluctantly interrupts his foot-long hot dog lunch to shoot some bank robbers.

He orders the doctor treating his leg wound to cause Harry pain so he can save his slacks.

"Well, do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, DO YOU?

That's just for starters.

Oh wait, another one.

Amelie. The contempt Jeunet shows for their audience turns out, indeed, to be well-deserved.

I'll blaspheme again:

Citizen Kane.

It's only worth watching if you're a film student who's interested in cinema history or using cinematic techniques to tell a story. The film is a technical masterpiece in that it revolutionized how stories could be told in pictures.

But... The characters are wooden. The story pedestrian. It was just all an excuse to show off Welles' ideas on deep focus or whatever. Citizen Kane is not about life. And Welles was too much a genius to realize it.

CK is a very good film, and Welles was one of the first guys to distinguish being a filmmaker from mererly being a directory (like Hitchcock and Kubrick).

Rosebud. Give me a break. Who's gonna die and talk about a freaking sled?

But Touch of Evil blows it away.

(loose shit, should be 'his audience')

Here's one that steams my beans:

The Big Lebowski

Sucked.

From Blood Simple through Miller's Crossing, they could do no wrong, then came Barton Fink, THe Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski, which, for reasons unfathomable to me, people I actually like and respect seem to find amusing.

2001: A Space Odessey

The HAL sequence kicks ass.

Can anyone remain awake through the first hour and a half?

Bill's right about Apocalypse Now, but I enjoyed it anyway for the scenery-chewing factor. Brando, Duvall, Sheen, Hopper -- watching them try to out-over-the-top each other, it's pure candy.

Also happens to be the second funniest movie ever made. The first, of course, being Raging Bull.

Citizen Kane is a good answer (though come on, it's at least technically ambitious -- who seriously thinks a modest little success like L'Atalante is one of the 'greatest ever'?) for 'overrated'. But it's still actually a good movie, which I think violates the spirit of the question.

I liked Chicago too, though. So I guess we're fags together.

Well, that all depends, Allah. What did you and Ace think of "WILLIE WANKER AND THE FUDGE PACKING FACTORY?"

Happiness

Actually, I didn't like Welcome to the Dollhouse all that much either.

Todd Solodnz sucks.

Slublog: Sacrilege! Were you homeschooled or something?

And why are people mentioning Dirty Harry? Who is overrating Dirty Harry? It ain't the critics that's for sure. It has to be rated first before it can be overrated. I don't think it won any Oscars and it's rarely mentioned in top 100 lists, unless anyone can show me otherwise.

It's not a bad movie that has its rowdy right wing fans. But that hardly makes it overrated.

Might as well throw The Ice Storm onto the pile as well.

I used to work with a guy who was a movie critic, and he'd give me screeners. That was cool, until I realized most of these screeners were of pretentious piece of crap movies that didn't get wide distribution.

Were you homeschooled or something?

Heh. Nope. Public schools all the way through.

I'm relieved to hear that Godfather II is *actually* boring. I thought maybe it was just a girl thing.

Pulp Fiction is horribly overrated, too. In fact, it's not just ovrrated, it's not even really good.

I'm relieved to hear that Godfather II is *actually* boring. I thought maybe it was just a girl thing.

No, you were right the first time - it is a girl thing.

Deer Hunter with 45 minutes of tedious shit laying on the cutting room floor would have been OK.

Sublog

Happiness was one of the best films I've ever seen. But I agree the Ice Storm is a piece of self-loathing garbage. But I don't even consider the Ice Storm all that overrated because no one still talks about it or reveres it. It made a bit of a splash when it came out and that was that. In 30 years, when critics talk about the best films of the 90s, I promise the Ice Storm will NOT be mentioned.

My final overrated flims:

Forrest Gump and Silence of the Lambs.

These are overrated, popular, and bad. A striking accomplishment.

Titanic is a bit overrated. But not too much since the 2nd half of has some of the best action sequences ever filmed and edited. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days.

Full Metal Jacket is the opposite of 2001: ASO.

Okay, the scenes in Vietnam are okay, but come on, does anyone really bother watching past when Private Pyle kills Gunny?

Pulp Fiction doesn't really hold up, but I think it was so ... "different" at the time. Now, in hindsight, a lot of the devices in the movie (the quirky dialogue, for example) seems cliche and overdone.

I'd be willing to admit that Dylan Baker and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were great in Happiness, but overall, the movie just wasn't that good.

Boogie Nights.

In fact, that movie contains the most overrated SCENE of all time.

Jesus, okay, yeah, I like hearing Sister Christian and all, but tossing firecrackers plus Night Ranger does NOT make a "the greatest scene I've ever watched, dude! It was so fuckin' INTENSE!"

oh, and Out of Africa

another example of trying to hard and letting the audience see the sweat.

The Tom Sizemore Sex Tapes.

I was hoping for more romance, myself.

And an actual erection here or there wouldn't have hurt things, either.

The two most over-rated movies I've ever seen are "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and "The Grifters".

However, "Brazil" and "Pulp Fiction" are two of the greatest movies ever.

Overrated movies?
No idea. Specialize in good bad movies.

I'm a crapster through and through. Love the crap, and can tell good crap from bad crap.

Worst crap movie, that was actually so bad it was vile, was National Lampoon's Class Reunion.

God, that did suck so hard.

Any zombie movie with slow zombies sucks ass.

I kid, I kid...

Oh c'mon guys, it's so simple, maybe you need a refresher course. It's all ball bearings these days - and the winner is "Dances with Wolves".

Laura,

I saw that. That was truly awful.

I don't get how National Lampoon can keep making so many bad movies. They've got a lot to answer for.

I hate to say this, but a lot of Caddyshack is really dated and not funny at all.

2001: A Space Odyssey is my first pick. I could hardly stay awake. And that ending? WTF?

The Crying Game with it's huge number of critics listing it in their Top Ten lists totally pissed me off. I was very close to kicking the ass of the putz that told me to check it out.

Animal House. I laughed once.

Once.

Taxi Driver

I think we're getting off target. A lot of these movies didn't get good reviews, so it's hard to say they're over rated.

How could I forget? The Blair Witch Project.

Lemme know when the scary part comes, 'kay?

If it's been mentioned before, I apologize, but the winner is clear.

Sideways

Hyped as the second coming of Gone With the Wind, it consists of two hours worth of completely pathetic, unsympathetic whiners. The entire movie has one good moment. When Sandra Oh beats the shit out of Lyle with a motorcycle helmet. Now that's entertainment.

No one rates that highly, dude.

Ok, so we're not talking pre-release hype, we're talking "movies everybody says were fab but really sucked"?

fine. whatever. Apocalypse Now. Mes-en-scene (sp?) notwithstanding, stupidest protrayal of a novel since Oliver

God even the title blows.

No wonder Ace and I clash from time to time: his taste in movies is for shit.

SHIT.

The Exorcist? Network? Dirty Harry? The Big Lebowski?

Fuck, man. It's like you're retarded. And I mean frumpy, tiny-headed, slack-tonged retarded, too -- not that chirpy Rosie O'Donnell schtick retarded.

Fuck. Boogie Nights? Pulp Fiction?

Seriously, man. I bet you must look like that pinheaded bird lady in Freaks. The retarded one. In the tutu.

On topic, though: Titanic, Forrest Gump, Army of Darkness, anything with the word "Star" in it (except maybe Star 80 and Star Chamber).

Slublog should just off himself now. TAXI DRIVER?

Why not just toss in Raging Bull, Rocky, and Jaws. Get it over with.

Let's recapt this thread's sins:

Taxi Driver is a fantastic movie. Caddyshack is a great film for the Bill Murray scenes ALONE. Animal House practically invented the screwball youth comedy genre and was worth the scenes with John Belushi ALONE.

And Godfather II is the most perfect movie ever made.

"recap"

I AM WITH YOU, GOLDSTEIN!

WE STAND TOGETHER!

Allah, you may not have liked Animal House, but my mother, the queen crapster (who taught me all I know), saw it when it was brand new in the movie theater and cried laughing.

I reserve judgement because I was being babysat by a cousin at the time it came out.

BTW, when she watched all the Pink Panther films, ushers had to come out and tell her to keep it down.

Hey...hey...

I hear you have a soft spot for Rosie O'Donnell movies.

Taxi Driver is great. It's a downer of a movie, but I watch it a lot.

It's cringey-funny.

I hate to say this, but a lot of Caddyshack is really dated and not funny at all.

I was going to bring this up, but I figured everyone would say I'm a girl.

Okay, apart from some Ted Knight bits... this movie just isn't very good, and I'm not sure that the people who quote it really think it's funny. I think they're just quoting other people who quote it as some kind of tribal signalling system.

IT'S A MAD HOUSE! A MAAAAAADDDD HOUSE!

lauraw, it bugs me that I have more in common with your mom than you.

as Clouseau said, the case, is sol-ved.

The Aviator.

What the hell was up with the ending?

Pulp fiction was groundbreaking. Still one of my favorites. Another awesome movie is American Psycho, now that is an UNDERRATED movie. The business card scene is hilarious.

BTW, when she watched all the Pink Panther films, ushers had to come out and tell her to keep it down.

And that's my blood, man. My blood.

Alien-- the original.

Not all that good.

What's with that computer room with lots of blinking lights? Didn't the randomly-blinking-light-computer kinda go out of style in the mid-seventies?

Oh, and the rest of it is kinda lame. Yeah, that ONE SCENE -- that's good. The rest of it... not so good.

Aliens-- now there's a fuckin' movie!

I'm really amazed no one has yet mentioned The Piano.

Wait... alien was 1979, right?

Still, for someone who seems kinda smart and concerned with production design... I can't forgive Ridley Scott that dumb blinking-light computer room.

Ok a REAL overrated movie?

Vertigo.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

"Does your dog bite?"
'No.'

*gets bitten by dog*

"You said your dog does not bite."
'That is not my dog.'

Movies like The Ice Storm and The Piano are what I think of as "disposable classics." The critics hype the shit out of them, they win all these awards, but you KNOW not a goddamned person is ever going to watch them ever again once they're done rerunning on HBO.

And no one will ever mention them again or think about them again.

Shouldn't an actual great movie leave some ripples behind?

I don't remember a movie that scared me more than Alien

taking into account I was 19 at the time.

Ok a REAL overrated movie?

Vertigo.

I bet Jeff shits himself when he sees that. But ... I agree. That's a good example of Hitchcock going for something big and forgetting to make it entertaining.

Movies like The Ice Storm and The Piano are what I think of as "disposable classics." The critics hype the shit out of them, they win all these awards, but you KNOW not a goddamned person is ever going to watch them ever again once they're done rerunning on HBO.

Plus, the 'Harvey Keitel cleans a piano' scene still gives me nightmares.

Vertigo was silly.

Movies like The Ice Storm and The Piano are what I think of as "disposable classics."

Well said. Same goes for American Beauty, The English Patient, Shine. Most of the recent award winners fall into that category.

most of hitchcock is silly. vertigo's one of the least silly. At least it's about something cool (sexual obsession).

north by northwest is silly.

dial m for murder, I'm sorry, that's fuckin' silly too. And stagey. (yeah, I know, because it's from a stage play, but... man, did it seem like just that.)

strangers on a train, goofy-silly.

That's a good example of Hitchcock going for something big and forgetting to make it entertaining.

In addition to going big and making it boring (though, yes), it's also that Hitchcock didn't convince me of the plausability during the execution. I just sort of shrugged at the end. Rear Window was better, but not an astounding movie either. (good enough, though)

Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this was overrated:

Clerks.

Not necessarily bad, mind you. Overrated.

AH! Most overrated movie I've seen in the past year:

Rebel Without a Cause

Clerks sucked. College pals swore by it, I finally saw it and kept waiting for the payoff. Much like the Blair Witch Project, in fact.

Big laugh/scare any minute now! Annnnnny minute now....

Clerks sucked. The one good thing was the kid who worked *at the video store.

Make a movie about that kid and I'll enjoy it.

God, I hate Kevin Smith.

* I use this term advisedly.

Chariots of Fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Let's face it, any movie about "overcoming adversity" is pretty much going to suck.

You know what I mean about adversity. I don't mean a big shark or a Dark Lord of the Sith.

Racism, alcoholism, a batterer of a husband, etc.-- these movies all suck.

Allah,

Most of the recent? Let's cut to the chase. Let's just say that most award winners (of any era) aren't worth shit.

BTW, I watched twenty minutes of Blair Witch Project.

That was plenty for me.

Racism, alcoholism, a batterer of a husband, etc.-- these movies all suck.

Like, say, Leaving Las Vegas?

Ah, well, it's damned late. I'm going to bed, right after I loot a few more bodies.

Ditto on Kevin Smith. I don't know how he pulled it off, but he's managed to craft a reputation for being underappreciated while in fact being massively overrated.

Do I trust a man who thinks Silent Bob is funny to make me laugh? I do not.

Other rules for movies that suck:

Any movie with the word "Water" or "Waters" in the title.

Any movie named after a place. A movie named after a place is a movie that doesn't fucking know what the fuck it's about and so it just says, "Hey, let's title it by the setting. People have heard of Kansas City, right?" (Obviously, there are a couple of exceptions, like Chinatown.)

Any movie whose trailer "invites" me to take a "journey" of some sort, worst of all a "magical" one.

Any movie named after a place.

Here's where Goldstein says "Nashville".

The only thing I respect about him is that he makes poop and fag jokes and gets hailed as a genius for it.

I think the son of a bitch has preempted my niche.

Ishtar? That one was undeservedly savaged by the critics. The song lyrics are worth the price of the ticket alone.

Lyle Rogers, Chuck Clarke: [singing] Telling the truth can be dangerous business; /
Honest and popular don't go hand in hand. /
If you admit that you play the accordion, /
No one will hire you in a rock 'n' roll band. /
But we can sing out hearts out. /
And if we're lucky, then no neighbors complain. /
Because life is the way we audition for God; /
Let us pray that we all get the job.

Need I even say it?

Dances With Wolves.

Need I even say it?

I think it's understood.

Another disposable classic.

I don't know if it's just geek culture or what, but...

I think movies should be judged by their replay value.

Is it just me, or is a great movie good enough to be watched multiple times?

Has anyone ever watched Dances With Wolves a second time, except maybe as a dare?

What's a better movie-- Crimson Tide or Dances With Wolves?

Seems like there's a clear winner. And all the critics who fell over themselves praising DWW knew they'd never watch it again, and they all knew they'd watch CT again when it was on cable.

And I'm not just talking "fun" movies... Taxi Driver isn't fun, but I've seen that a bunch of times.

Another OT; craptastic underrated movies.

FX
Once Around

Once Around being somewhat of a chick flick. Cut me some slack.

BTW, I watched twenty minutes of Blair Witch Project.

The usher had to wake me up so they could clean out the aisle...

Snoozer != scary

I think Vertigo and Psycho both massively overrated. I'm a Rear Window guy.

Did Ace say the original Alien?

Fuck.

Tutu. With the tiny, bald bird head.

(And Allah, Nashville is TITS)

Laura,

Start a companion thread. There's no cost, and you'll probably attract more comments.

It's more fun to talk about good bad movies than bad good movies.

Like Streets of Fire.

I'm a Rear Window guy.

Really?

I still can't believe you shit on the Exorcist and Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry?

Favorite scene: when Harry steps on the gunshot wound in Scorpio's leg. Fuckin' sweet.

That's Allah-brand justice right there.

Most Overrated? That's easy.

THE DAY AFTER

The stupid liberal logic that Cheney's failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol causes global warming and ushers in an Ice Age just 1 week later was enough to give me the heaves.

I still can't figure out how 1 week of global warming causes an instant ICE age, but leave it to liberals to make sense of that one.

I'm sure if I go back and watch the STUPID movie again, I'll find mention of Halliburton.

Eh. It's okay. Look, I get annoyed when liberal movies club me over the head with messages... and the messages in Dirty Harry were not, um, subtle.

He gives like three speeches about crime and the rights of the public to be safe from murder.

C'mon.

He CARED, Ace. That's a cop who CARES.

You know what was an awful movie, but eminently watchable? Death Wish. Starring Jeff Goldblum as the rapist.

Yeah, but it's DIRTY FUCKING HARRY giving those speeches, man. Through gritted teeth and steely squint. Packing a big ass gun...

Say. Is it possible I might be gay?

I admit, when Harry steps on Scorpio's leg ... I get wood.

1. Rushmore
2. Royal Tenenbaums
3. Life Aquatic

(Listed in order of least to most smug and descending order of watchability. The Life Aquatic is particularly crappy. I can just hear the trendies at college cinema societies everywhere laughing knowingly at the irony, man)

Rushmore was awesome.

RT was, uhhhh, okay in patches.

I couldn't get through Life Aquatic.

He's just very mannered and arch and artificial... it was charming in Rushmore, then it just began seeming forced and rote.

One-trick pony stuff.

You are all sick sick sick. THE most overrated and very worst film ever was midnight cowboy. As for Dirty Harry---first it was the only film series that reflected any of my views in the 1970's, done by a guy, Eastwood, who was ostracized by the Hollywood lefties and had to go to Italy to have a movie carreer at all ( where he made westerns).Second, the film was hated by hollywood(which right there makes me all warm and gooey) and made lots of money. (Remember we are capitalist pigs so money counts) Lastly it gets my vote for best film made after 1959 because of the line "You have to ask yourself: do you feel lucky, punk. DO you" Those who disagree with me are whiny, weak kneed, light in the loafers weenies who probably voted for Ford over Reagan in 1974 and who need to stick with their vegetarian burgers, soybean milk, and tofu. No doubt you also define sex as the number between five and seven and are (even as I am typing) considering a sex change to let the real you out. Of course, I could be wrong about these films. Never mind.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Agreed, Allah. I could watch Death Wish - and most Bronson movies before 82 or '83, a hundred times.

Mechanic is great. But his most underrated is Hard Times.

The worst flick ever, though? Patch Adams.

Made me want to strangle kids with cancer. And when that happens, you know you have a loser on your hands.

Ace, you just made my permanent enemies list by dumping on Alien, which is the greatest sci-fi/horror film of all time. One of the VERY few arguably *perfect* movies - aesthetically, intellectually, and in terms of acting, plotting, and technical achievement - I have ever seen. Also easily the most terrifying monster in the history of cinema - nothing else comes REMOTELY CLOSE. Nothing, not a goddamn thing. Aliens, which I also love, was a brutishly unsubtle playground stomp compared to the first one.

In fact, Alien is really the only reason anyone ought to think highly of Ridley Scott.

OVERRATED:

- Blade Runner: You want BORING from Ridley Scott? Okay, now THIS is boring.

- Gladiator: While we're on the subject of Ridley Scott, I consider this film largely unforgiveable.

- Every single Kubrick film save Paths Of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and MAYBE The Shining.

And the stupidest, most useless and overrated 'cult' film of all time:

- The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Will somebody please tell me why this film has spawned such an intolerable cult following? Where is the redeeming value? Surely not in the "camp." The old TV Batman - now there was quality camp. This is unredeemable. Is gay culture really that aesthetically stunted?

Dammit, there was one really, really obvious overrated movie that nobody had said yet...and it's completely escaped my mind. It'll come back, I hope.

I'm going to make Bronson my desktop image. With the caption, "This ain't over."

Most Overrated? That's easy.

THE DAY AFTER

That's actually The Day After Tomorrow that had the superfast temperature changes. I was rooting for the wolves. The Day After was a nuclear war, made for tv movie about 20 years ago. Also over rated.

This one will probably come back to haunt me during my inevitable contentious confirmation hearing:

Schindler's List. There, I fucking said it. Deal with it.

If you're gonna do a Bronson desk top, make it Mr. Majestyk. Bronson, his melons, and his righteous indignation.

Unless you can find the still from Death Wish where Chuck ices Freddy Boom Boom Washington.

Jeff Goldblum was one of the rapists in Death Wish, by the way.

That's old, Ace. We already covered it several comments before.

Even in his own comments thread Ace can't help being old and out-of-date.

Thelma and Louise. Couldn't we speed you along to the cliff about 45 minutes sooner?

American Beauty was not great but good. Watch it after you turn 40.

Lauraw, I've never laughed harder in my life than when Clouseau was sniffing the laughing gas and pulled the guy's wrong tooth.

Thelma and Louise. Couldn't we speed you along to the cliff about 45 minutes sooner?

See my post above discussing Ridley Scott. As I said, the only meaningful contribution he ever made to film - and to be fair, it's a heckuva contribution - was Alien.

Let me put it this way: if Spielberg put out a director's cut of Saving Private Ryan that snipped out that frame narrative, and then included only the first 25 minutes or so? That movie would rock.

Really though, has Spielberg ever lived up to the hype since Raiders Of The Lost Ark? I mean, maybe I'm harsh, but I can never forgive him for The Color Purple.

See my post above discussing Ridley Scott. As I said, the only meaningful contribution he ever made to film - and to be fair, it's a heckuva contribution - was Alien.

Not quite true - Ridley Scott did an excellent job with Blackhawk Down.

Yes, he's definitely overrated as a director. Good with prod. design and lensing and all, not so good at picking scripts or telling a story.

But up in the underrated movie thread, I mentioned GI Jane, which he directed. Surprisingly good, way way better than you'd imagine.

Someone to Watch Over Me was good, too.

Hey Bill - you're right, I forgot he helmed Black Hawk Down. That actually forces me to reclaim him from the scrapheap.

Oh wait, I forgot the greatest Ridley Scott movie of them all (also clearly Tom Cruise's finest cinematic moment):

Legend.

I still can't believe it got made.

Ace --

You busted on Alien, Dirty Harry, and the Exorcist, but then went ahead and cozied up to GI Jane?

Fuck.

Hat with a pinwheel, man. And a little dress.

I can’t believe no one has mentioned Fahrenheit 9/11 – I understand that was very well spoken of ... (runs for cover).
But seriously: Oliver’s King Lear. Jeez, did he ever mail that one in.

I think you're not grokking "overrated."

Do I like Dirty Harry? I do. I like Magnum Force better. I think Dirty Harry is overrated. It's okay.

The Exorcist... well, well-acted, edgy, naturalistic, but... kinda slow and look, for me? Not scary. Never thought so, even when I was little. Overrated.

Alien is again, okay, and has some good moments, but it's overrated. It's not all that scary, and, hey, I've got to tell you-- I don't understand how a ten inch baby alien added about four hundred pounds of mass in the span of eight hours, tops.

Is it dumb to boot a movie over something like that? Maybe. But... sci-fi. Not fantasy. At least make the thing missing on the ship for a week or something, with lots of their food missing.

Overrated. Okay, but not as good as a lot of people think.

Well. Then that's that, then.

The Big Lebowski...

Didn't laugh once...didn't even finish it despite being about 20 mins from the end.

Not just bad, but overrated

The Duellists was a good Scott movie.

I don't much like any postwar Hitchcock, except maybe the semi-goofy Under Capricorn. The black&white stuff is excellent.

But hey, I liked The Ice Storm.

Forrest Gump.

Rollerball.

OK, I guess I need to specify, the original Rollerball.

Any and I mean ANY movie with Woody Harrelson in particularNatural Born Killers! What a piece of garbage.

"I can’t believe no one has mentioned Fahrenheit 9/11"

That wasn't a movie, that was a documentary!

/sarc off

Life Is Beautiful

Three words:

Eyes Wide Shut

Eeeeeuuuuuuurrrrrrghhhh.

Bourne Identity.

God that movie sucked. Contrived, forced plot, shitty dialogue, uber-stereotypical main action character with uncanny ability to know exactly where his enemies are and what they are doing.

Just a horrible fucking movie.

Digitalbrownshirt:

Holy crap, you're right. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

Shows you what an "impact" that idiotic movie made on me....

I might get soundly trashed for this, but I'd like to add as over-rated:

STAR WARS, EPISODE III

The Hollywood preaching was too much for me. I was rooting for Vader.

Just about anything directed by Robert Altman sucks . . . "Short Cuts," especially, but also "Pret-a-Porter," "Vincent & Theo," and the misogynistic bile that was "Dr. T and the Women."

I liked "Good Will Hunting," though. A little oversentimental, yes, but entertaining.

I REMEMBER THAT SCREAMINGLY OBVIOUS TERRIBLY OVERRATED MOVIE (which is why I'm screaming):

The Big Chill. What a fucking load. Soundtrack was the only reason anyone remember it today. Kevin Costner gave the best performance of the movie...as the corpse.

By definition, any movie Robin Williams appears in.

Buckaroo Banzai: an attempt by mainstream Hollywood to deliver a pre-fabbed cult movie. Coupla good lines, but end-to-end stupid.

Are you high, geoff? Buckaroo Banzai is flawed, but there's nothing even remotely mainstream about it. Fantastic movie, and the recent DVD release is even better (totally faithful to the concept).

I love Buckaroo's Bruce Springsteen-like sidekick. So '80s, and yet still strangely relevant.

Hi skinbad, miss ya

Are you high, geoff? Buckaroo Banzai is flawed, but there's nothing even remotely mainstream about it.

I don't think you remember the hype surrounding the release - they had the fan club going months before the movie came out. They blitzed our campus with publicity in the month leading up. We were all looking forward to it, stood in quite a long line on opening day, but were very disappointed by the time we left the theater.

But you're probably right - seemed like a major release in my campus microcosm, but it turns out it was only released in 236 theaters and only grossed $6 million domestically.

Rented it recently to show to the kids-we couldn't even finish it.

Peeked with Time Bandits? Ugh. That's not saying a hell of a lot. I actually liked Fisher King better.

I just didn't get the ending of Time Bandits. I saw it when I was a kid, and the ending bothered me for years. I later rented it as an adult not because I really wanted to see it or thought I'd enjoy it but just because I wanted to see if I'd missed something. I hadn't.

It's not that I don't understand something about it. I understand it fine. And it's not that I'm down on unhappy endings. Quite the contrary, I like it when movies don't wrap everything up neatly with a nice "and they all lived happily ever after" bow. It is just that the ending of Time Bandits seemed so flat and worthless. Surely, I felt, there had to be more. But there wasn't.

Wrote about this a while back.

Most Overrated Movies

...and cozied up to GI Jane?

The scenes where Demi played chicken with the senator and the senator flinched were great.

Pretty visceral stuff with Chiefy beat the living shit out of her, too.

Don't feel like reading all 166 comments; surely someone's mentioned Titanic? If not, there ya go.

Any and I mean ANY movie with Woody Harrelson in particularNatural Born Killers! What a piece of garbage.

Tell me you aren't including King Pins. That's the only movie he made that was worth watching once, let alone a couple times.

The film with the best happy ending ever: Easy Rider. You can tell even the filmmakers had had enough of those jerks. The one sequel-proof film.

Any Tarantino movie except Jackie Brown -- a middlin' movie middlin'-rated.

That means Reservoir Dogs (passable), Pulp Fiction (highly overrated), Kill Bills (so god-awful they tore away part of my soul).

Also: Snatch.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (actually, most Spielberg movies -- INCLUDING comic-book-cum-movie Raiders and anything remotely straining to be serious)

Dazed and Confused

I'll add Magnolia to Boogie Nights (Hard Eight is by far PTA's best, though I find Punch Drunk Love charming, if slight)

Hmmm...

A bundle of Godard -- Weekend... Alphaville... Breathless and Pierrot are great or near-great, though.

Eraserhead.

Eraserhead.

How could I forget that piece of crap?

Eraserhead.

How could I forget that piece of crap?

Wish I knew. That's one piece of crap I would love to be able to forget.

Chariots of Fire

Eraserhead... Worst.Movie.Ever... I sucked... straight, stoned or drunk!

Fuck... IT sucked... I didn't, don't, and won't!!1!

Mystic River - way over rated.

THE most overrated movie of all time:

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

Highly rated comedy - I didn't even crack a smile.

Runners up:

STRIPES

GHOSTBUSTERS (I & II)

DANCES WITH WOLVES

Mike

Mystic River's another one of those Disposable Classics.

I'm gonna use that term a lot from now on.

Road To Perdition and A Beautiful Mind are two others.

People think just because something's boring it must be serious.

American Beauty was a pretentious piece of dooky. Nietzche wasn't all that peachy. The message was that there are no moral absolutes.

Chicago was a piece of dooky as was Apocalypse Now.

Meryl Streep is a horrible actress.

Anything that the Mainstream Media considers deep is really shallow and petulant.

Great movies that have been unfairly dinged in previous comments:

Brazil, The Fisher King... how anyone can watch these and not be in awe is beyond me.

Truly horrible movies that Hollywood loved:

Titanic... how embarrassing to be DiCaprio, when everyone but the caterer got Oscar nominations... except him. The only good thing about this movie was the special effects.

Shakespeare in Love... how this dog got the Best Picture Oscar is beyond me, especially when the competition was "Saving Private Ryan." Guess which one they'll be watching in 50 years... and it ain't "Shakespear..."