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Critically-acclaimed movies you just don't get

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T

Trent Strong

Banned
Johnny Cage In The Shower said:
I have to agree with the OP on most points,

Although I loved Moneyball, then again I don't watch films to be entertained every second.

When it comes to dramas, I usually watch to get something out of them, something that the main character goes through, the choices he has to make that may resonate with my own life. (also see any given Episode of Mad Men)

I hate baseball, I couldn't even tell you when was the last time I watched a game of baseball more than 2 innings worth. But I loved Moneyball, simply because it was a well acted and written story about a man against the ropes, with all the odds against him, that had to go with his gut instinct to rebuild a life and give purpose to the people who depended on him (his team/franchise).

The movie might've been "boring" to some, sure, but the story was great, more importantly it was a believable story about any man that is struggling to hold on to a purpose in a contemporary world.

Also, was Mulholland Drive even critically-acclaimed? Kind of a strange film to discuss regarding this topic.
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81 percent on Metacritic. "Universal acclaim."
 
C

C4Lukins

Junior Member
mac said:
enter-the-void.jpg


Enter the Void.


Simply annoying. I can't stand any movie where the lead character is a burned out idiot that talks like this, "woah, man, I"m like dead, that's like crazy man. Woah, so crazy and shit man. "
Click to expand...

You are correct sir. To what degree can a normal person relate to the ideas in that film? Especially in the way they are presented.

I will add

The Tree of Life
Inland Empire
Dogville
 
R

rekameohs

Banned
Jezabel said:
i know right! are these the people that enjoyed movies like battleship and transformers 2
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Not going to get into details, but Battleship actually wasn't all that bad. It pulled off a dumb-ass action movie a lot better than Transformers. Doesn't mean it's good or anything, but it's got that going for it. :p

To contribute, I will say that I was disappointed a bit by The Tree of Life. I think I hyped it up a bit too much in my head, but I didn't enjoy it as much as other Malick stuff (I love Thin Red Line a lot). It's a good movie still, but I was expecting more.
 
R

revolverjgw

Member
A lot of Ozu movies don't click with me, mostly because some of the recurring actors are just annoying. I feel like I should care for them because the themes are strong, but I don't because they're just so vacuous.
 
S

SCULLIBUNDO

Banned
Time for some real talk.

DeMille's Ten Commandments is SUCH an overrated piece of shit. The script is absolutely awful in that it telegraphs every single line of dialogue as if the characters were in a school play and trying to outdo each other. It is very, very poorly structured in how lazily it follows the story of Exodus and makes no attempt to tighten it up for a screen adaptation. Charlton Heston is awful in the film, which is especially disappointing after Ben Hur.

Just a huge, bloated film that does nothing but announce itself with every new scene with the self-importance of a director who clearly has no intention of telling the story so much as yelling at the top of his lungs that this film is a GRAND EPIC.
 
NinjaBoiX

NinjaBoiX

Member
Johnny Cage In The Shower said:
Wow, that movie is praised more than I imagine, I wonder if the pretty actresses had anything to do with it? I'm more surprised at the high User Score of it on Metacritic 7.9! defaq!
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How does MC even come up with their aggregates for movies? Do they just read the review, then arbitrarily assign a number to it?
 
T

ThisWreckage

Banned
Johnny Cage In The Shower said:
Wow, that movie is praised more than I imagine, I wonder if the pretty actresses had anything to do with it? I'm more surprised at the high User Score of it on Metacritic 7.9! defaq!
Click to expand...

Mulholland Drive is often considered to be one of the best movies post 2000. It is constantly on the top five films post 2000 on directors and critics lists alike.
 
A

AAequal

Banned
rekameohs said:
Seeing Pixar in here is just baffling. I mean, what the fuck!?
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I never liked Pixar films nor DreamWorks films, there is just something about the animation style that rubs me the wrong way. As a kid I never liked Disney films either, too much singing and the good guys always won, and I thought that was stupid :D


revolverjgw said:
A lot of Ozu movies don't click with me, mostly because some of the recurring actors are just annoying. I feel like I should care for them because the themes are strong, but I don't because they're just so vacuous.
Click to expand...
I moved to Ozu's films during height of my Kurosawa fever and really hated them. Then some years later I popped in The End of summer for some reason and fell in love with the film, after that I re-watched everything from him and now he is probably my all time favorite director.
 
N

Nlroh

Member
Jezabel said:
i know right! are these the people that enjoyed movies like battleship and transformers 2
Click to expand...

Seriously? Not liking all of the Pixar movies doesn't mean you like shitty films. Even though I like most of Pixar movies I should say that if there's one movie that I hate more than any other is TOY STORY. For me, it has the most boring, unrelatable, unlikable lead characters in any animated film ever. Woody AND BUZZ. I was so happy when they were going to die in the third one. I just hate them.
I suppose there must be something special about it, it's the only movie I remember with all this hatred.
 
Sye d'Burns

Sye d'Burns

Member
Scullibundo said:
Time for some real talk.

DeMille's Ten Commandments is SUCH an overrated piece of shit. The script is absolutely awful in that it telegraphs every single line of dialogue as if the characters were in a school play and trying to outdo each other. It is very, very poorly structured in how lazily it follows the story of Exodus and makes no attempt to tighten it up for a screen adaptation. Charlton Heston is awful in the film, which is especially disappointing after Ben Hur.

Just a huge, bloated film that does nothing but announce itself with every new scene with the self-importance of a director who clearly has no intention of telling the story so much as yelling at the top of his lungs that this film is a GRAND EPIC.
Click to expand...


I feel like we've had this conversation before. I knew I shouldn't have entered this thread.

edit: Ah, yes. I see your position hasn't softened.

Scullibundo said:
So after the news earlier this week - and the fact that I've been on an oldschool swords and sandals epic kick lately, I decided to go back a revisit DeMille's Ten Commandments (50's version of course) after what must be a decade since I had seen it.

The film has an impressive sense of scale, but is hot garbage in almost every other department. It is such a goddamn lazy film from a narrative standpoint and has absolutely no place being held in the same breath as epics like Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur or Spartacus.

The Prince of Egypt shits all over The Ten Commandments from great heights and Spielberg won't have any problem topping it, should he decide to sign on.
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V

Ventilaator

Banned
Donnie Darko is acclaimed, right? I sure didn't like that movie at all. Finest example of a movie being cryptic/weird because ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT, not because it actually means anything at all.
 
C

C4Lukins

Junior Member
Scullibundo said:
Time for some real talk.

DeMille's Ten Commandments is SUCH an overrated piece of shit. The script is absolutely awful in that it telegraphs every single line of dialog as if the characters were in a school play and trying to outdo each other. It is very, very poorly structured in how lazily it follows the story of Exodus and makes no attempt to tighten it up for a screen adaptation. Charlton Heston is awful in the film, which is especially disappointing after Ben Hur.

Just a huge, bloated film that does nothing but announce itself with every new scene with the self-importance of a director who clearly has no intention of telling the story so much as yelling at the top of his lungs that this film is a GRAND EPIC.
Click to expand...

Yeah but it is 60 years old. It holds up quite well for that time and place.
Unless you are talking about the 1920's version which I still think is pretty damn good.

I mean they were still working shit out back then. But the scale and the acting for the time is still really impressive. That would be like a 200 million dollar movie today. I like it.
 
NinjaBoiX

NinjaBoiX

Member
Ventilaator said:
Donnie Darko is acclaimed, right? I sure didn't like that movie at all. Finest example of a movie being cryptic/weird because ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT, not because it actually means anything at all.
Click to expand...
It's not really critically acclaimed, more of a cult movie.

I like it.

"YOU'RE A FUCKING DUMBASS! OMG, HOW COULD YOU NOT LIKE THAT MOVIE? YOU ARE A BAD PERSON!"

*ahem*
 
L

Lucius86

Banned
The Godfathers are good for me, but not amazing. I'm surprised everyone raves over them as much as they do. Oh, and any western film, but that's because I hate that genre.
 
D

daviyoung

Banned
LOTR is bad. It takes itself pretty seriously for a film with elves and wizards. Especially the third film, with all its cheese and multiple endings. I therefore found it funnier than I was supposed to and didn't care about anything that happened.

Also, Nolan's dark and gritty Batman movies are tragically terrible and suffer the same issues.

The Hurt Locker is a piece of shit and so is Avatar. I wonder if Cosmopolis is critically acclaimed, because that movie is proper bad too.
 
T

tino

Banned
AAequal said:
Wes Anderson movies. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was good but other then that his movies aren't really for me.

edit. I will throw into Terrence Malick too. His movies are hit or miss with me. Thin Red Line is one of my all time favorites but his other films just don't do anything for me. Given that I can appreciate visual aesthetics of his films, they always look so dam good.
Click to expand...

Hear hear. I begin to think Wes Anderson is only work for very specific demographic, like white middle America. Is this true?
 
R

raphier

Banned
More like short TV-series, but Band of Brothers sucked. The first four episodes were stellar and then it took a dive with boring and overlong drama.

Cabin in the woods. I don't know, I understand it was all satire, but I still think it was stupid.
 
J

jgminto

Member
Lucius86 said:
The Godfathers are good for me, but not amazing. I'm surprised everyone raves over them as much as they do. Oh, and any western film, but that's because I hate that genre.
Click to expand...

The first is good. The second is amazing. The third would be good except for one problem.
 
B

blainethemono

Member
raphier said:
More like short TV-series, but Band of Brothers sucked. The first four episodes were stellar and then it took a dive with boring and overlong drama.
Click to expand...

The battle of the bulge episodes were some of the best, and Crossroads had some amazing editing

I can't even understand this
 
M

M.D

Member
Star Wars

My dad took me to the The Phantom Menace (I was 7 or 8 at the time), and I had no idea what Star Wars was. I remember thinking it was going to be a movie about the Phantom of the Opera, and I was like "WTF IS THIS"
I don't remember much of the actual movie. The opening scene had a princess and some big fight scene and there was that little boy in the movie right?

I tried watching Star Wars movies a couple of times but they look so.... weird. I just could never get into them. I like the universe they created tho
 
C

Cipherr

Member
King of the Potato People said:
2001

Sure the special effects were so good at the time and the sets still look good, but it's so boring and slow to watch nowadays.
Click to expand...

Its definitely this for me. The movie as a whole had some very interesting messages and a very interesting 'story' per se. But it is not the Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega of all cinema that a lot of people convinced me it would be. And I absolutely loathed the pacing. In the end, the pacing may not have been such a big deal if the payoff and the core of the story, concept and message weren't so damn underwhelming.

The movie ends, and its supposed to leave you in awe and deep thought. And to a degree it does, but its not nearly potent enough to satisfy what I had prepared myself for after legions of people pumped my expectations to the freaking moon.
 
R

Reuenthal

Banned
Scullibundo said:
Time for some real talk.

DeMille's Ten Commandments is SUCH an overrated piece of shit. The script is absolutely awful in that it telegraphs every single line of dialogue as if the characters were in a school play and trying to outdo each other. It is very, very poorly structured in how lazily it follows the story of Exodus and makes no attempt to tighten it up for a screen adaptation. Charlton Heston is awful in the film, which is especially disappointing after Ben Hur.

Just a huge, bloated film that does nothing but announce itself with every new scene with the self-importance of a director who clearly has no intention of telling the story so much as yelling at the top of his lungs that this film is a GRAND EPIC.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree. I actually like most of the films mentioned here so finally a post I agree with.
 
B

BHK3

Banned
daviyoung said:
LOTR is bad. It takes itself pretty seriously for a film with elves and wizards. Especially the third film, with all its cheese and multiple endings. I therefore found it funnier than I was supposed to and didn't care about anything that happened.

Also, Nolan's dark and gritty Batman movies are tragically terrible and suffer the same issues.

The Hurt Locker is a piece of shit and so is Avatar. I wonder if Cosmopolis is critically acclaimed, because that movie is proper bad too.
Click to expand...

Love this post.

"Fuck elves and wizards who takes that seriously? Fuck New batman old batman was more fun! Fuck this movie and fuck that movie! Was this movie really good? Cause fuck that movie too!"

I didn't know the 3rd LOTR film had multiple endings...
 
K

King of the Potato People

Member
Yeah I didn’t enjoy Slumdog Millionaire either, so melodramatic and predictable. I didn’t care whether he won or not by the end (although the name gives it away). So many better films deserved best picture over it.
 
M

Martian

Member
The Warriors

Is it a musical? Is it a comedy? Is it a thriller?

Make up your mind!

NY looked great though, and thescene with Caaaan you digg it was cool, I guess
 
D

daviyoung

Banned
BHK3 said:
I didn't know the 3rd LOTR film had multiple endings...
Click to expand...

It fades to black so many times at the end I was up and down as if the cinema seats had spikes in them. Anytime I was glad it was over it jumped back in with someone saying goodbye and floating down a river in melancholy, or the king singing a song of his people. It could have ended an hour ago!
 
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