I know that, but well… IMO, I think it works when you’re doing an epic war peace, either from the view of the soldiers being detached from the horrors of war or when you have generals and politicians making decisions from abstract location, but less so when you’re trying to do psychological horror. I’m not faulting his directing decision, I just do not like it.
Pulp Fiction – Tarantino doesn’t make films, he makes conceited caricatures of films.
While I agree with your assessment of Tarantino, (that’s why Kill Bill makes my list), I did enjoy Pulp Fiction and feel that it’s the most watchable and enjoyable of the bunch.
Thank you for summing up my position perfectly. There is something too cold about Koobric that just leaves me uninterested. Strangelove is the only film of his that I’ve watched that I really thought had soul.
I like some of the movies on everyone’s lists, but I won’t say which ones because then I’ll get laughed at. But I will agree that Crash was abhorrent. I can’t bear to let people think I might like that one.
Anyway, using Larry’s* method of grabbing from IMDB, I wind up with:
3. Million Dollar Baby
The movie where Clint Eastwood and “Red” from Shawshank Redemption compete for the right to be called “Pops”. Overlong, dark, grimy and dull.
2. Gladiator
Two good fights mixed into two and a half hours of pretentious pseudo-Shakespearian dialog do not a good movie make.
1. The Green Mile
Really? You’re gonna keep the part where he gets a urinary tract infection? Didn’t realize that was one of those Stephen Kingisms that only works on the page huh. Darn. Lord this was interminable.
I watch this occasionally and mostly enjoy myself. Then Tom Hanks starts shooting at the tank with his handgun and I hate him and the movie all over again.
The Departed- It seemed like an okay movie until the Joker showed up and I was all whaaaa?
Mystic River- I may be biased. After the opening credits I slipped into a two hour coma.
Inglourious Basterds- I get it. I honestly get it. I do. I’ve always been a Tarantino fan, so I get where the guy’s coming from and what he’s trying to say. I still really disliked the movie. It’s my fault, I know. There’s like three movies here, each of which could have been a pretty good movie, but together feel like an incomplete mess. I guess I just wanted the movie the trailer advertised, rather than the look-its-a-film-about-film that I got.
Bonus. Inception- I’ve argued about it, defended it, looked for the deeper meaning. I respect a lot about this movie. That said, I didn’t much care for it when I saw it and I never really need to see it again.
Aw, what the hey, man. I’ll let you borrow my BRs of Toy Story 1 and 2! C’mon, give 'em a shot.
Oh. I’m apparently approaching this thread incorrectly. Please add ‘and if you do like this movie, you’re a dumbass!’ to the end of all of my entries above.
I’d argue that Jackie Brown is the most watchable, if only because it has a bare minimum of jumping around. It shows a couple of scenes from multiple perspectives, but that’s about it.
I find everything from the theme to the aesthetic unappealing, and unfortunately the adult endorsements have mostly become a deterrent like so much Harry Potter fandom. I couldn’t even muster interest when they remade one of my favorite cartoons (Monsters Inc) into a pixarlike (or was it actually pixar?). I just want the Shrek back in the bottle and my animation primarily 2d, grumble bitch grumble.
I like both versions a great deal, but the simple answer would be that I don’t think that many people ever saw the original. What’s crude about the remake? If anything, it deserves credit for capitalizing on the strengths of the actors and what the new director wanted to emphasize (and succeeding!) instead of just redrafting the original in English.
I hated Jack Nicholson’s profanity-spewing, look-how-evil-I-am character – compare that to Eric Tsang’s affectionate uncle, occasionally punctuated by extreme brutality. Changing the love story gave it undue importance and also missed how the original made fun of the psychology sessions, as obviously totally unhelpful in the mole’s actual situation. The immigrant community sub-story felt like Scorsese wanted to tack on some American cultural relevance for no good reason. There was nothing in the remake with the elegant suspense of the original’s cell phone hunt. Bah, I hated basically every single scene of the remake.
All three are unwatchable, boring, overwrought pieces of shit, and it truly boggles my mind every time someone says they like one of them.
Edit: the Tom Chick method gets me American Beauty, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Good Will Hunting, none of which I feel nearly as strongly about.
Seconded. The amount of nerd cred this movie gets is baffling to me. I’m fine with low-budget films, but if you’re low budget, you had damn well better be well-written, which this was not.
Yeah yeah, I know… GUN-KATA! spooge pretty much sums up the appeal.
I thought it was about how corrupt methods ruin what you are trying to achieve. You know how some people are ‘the ends justify the means’ people? How, as long as their goal is noble, they justify any method to achieve it?
In The Godfather, Don Corleone is trying to protect his family and build a base of power so that they can prosper in a hostile(to them) country. He even says at one point how he hoped his kids would grow up to be a Senator or President, meaning join the mainstream of America. His goal is NOT to be a badass gangster or have the most powerful crime family, that is merely his means to his goal. But because the means is criminal and corrupt, he dooms his family from the start.
In contrast, Forrest Gump has some kind of “if only you were a moron look how awesome your life would be” point.
3.) Spiderman 2/Spiderman 3
2.) The Hangover
1.) A History of Violence
The Spiderman movies grow exponentially worse with every release. The first one was alright. The second one wasn’t all that great. The third one is awful. Awful. (The dance scene was so bad…) The Hangover was amusing, sure, but a couple smirks is about all I got out of it. (Perhaps I would have liked it more if my mom wasn’t in the room going “Watch this, this is funny.” before most of the jokes.) A History of Violence is, in my opinion, so irredeemably bad that I cannot fathom how anyone could enjoy it, let alone the vast majority of people.
