Ace and Karol are both hosting threads dedicated to listing the most overrated movies of all time. Unfortunately, their readers have drifted into self-parody, including in the mix such unassailable titles as Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, and Caddyshack.
Now, long-time readers of this site know how much I dig ‘70s cinema; so when Ace listed among his choices for most overrated The Exorcist, Dirty Harry, Network, and others…well, I was forced to call him terrible terrible things. And to start my own thread.
So. Now’s your chance to chime in. I’ll get you started by naming three: Titanic, Chicago, and Vertigo—though Vertigo is overrated (as is Psycho) only because Hitchcock did so many other great films, whereas Chicago and Titanic just plain rot.
Bonus section
Some underrated flicks? Cutter’s Way, The Bad News Bears, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Henry Fool.
Now go. Your turn.
****
update: Sortapundit thinks ill of you.
Cutter’s Way was amazing. I still try to see it every few years.
Titanic was awful as a movie, but to date the best on-screen sinking of that ship, ever. The thing to do, if you’re a Titanic buff, is fast-forward through the “plot” and get to the special effects. (And watch all the little details put there just for the buffs: the drunken baker alongside the fictitious couple, the lifeboat that’s launched upside-down, the gun shot someone fired–we still don’t know who, for sure. All real.)
Yeah, dude, Bad News Bears is really “underrated.” It’s just one of the most beloved comedies of the 1970’s.
Shhhh…! Don’t let the word out and spoil this little secret we share.
Underrated: Once Upon A Time In America. It takes a long attention span to get through it at four hours, much less watch it multiple times to catch everything.
Also underappreciated: Tightrope with Clint Eastwood. Add Nighthawks to the list as well.
Overrated: Adaptation.
That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Damn! You already mentioned the Titanic.
Underrated? Very Bad Things.
Maybe its just my mood tonight.
Underrated:
Blade, Dazed and Confused, Mystery Men, About a Boy, Office Space!
Made my list of top films of the seventies, Bad News Bears. Number 2, even.
Too many people think of it as a kid’s movie because of all the knockoffs. But it’s not. IT RULES!
I should also add that Ace should be smacked in the testicles for those comments over The Godfather, Part 2.
I really liked Adaptation, too, Robert. I think Cage was ROBBED of the Oscar.
The most underrated movie ever is Groundhog Day.
The most overrated is possibly Network. Faye Dunaway is one of the worst actresses in the history of cinema.
And, yes, Office Space is completely overrated. Great concept, childish plot.
Underrated:
American Psycho, Guarding Tess, Gross Pointe Blank
Overrated:
Most Academy-Award winning movies since 1990 and…
Taxi Driver
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I’ll borrow Bill’s line from Ace’s thread – it’s good, but overrated. Raging Bull and Mean Streets were far superior.
Karol says Good Will Hunting. But I like the scenes in the Harvard pub.
It’s Robin Williams that drives me nuts. Burt Reynolds got fucked by the Academy that year, boy.
And, yes, Office Space is completely overrated. Great concept, childish plot.
Sacrilege! UNDERRATED. The (ostensible) plot is IRRELEVANT.
It is a cultural MARKER. Do you work in a flourescent-lit box? Well? DO YOU?!
The first two Godfathers are sacrosanct. Only a degenerate heathen would dare criticize them.
Somewhat OT: the worst propaganda movie I ever saw before Fahrenheit 9/11 was Ironweed. Saw it on mushrooms and could not believe how hamhanded it was.
Any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Jeff,
We’ll have to agree to disagree on Adaptation. I just don’t care for the movie; I own the DVD and have watched it three times, plus saw it at the theater. Maybe I just didn’t get it.
Allah deserves to have his pee-pee smashed for his comments on The Deer Hunter. The movie is too long and could be shortened by about 25 minutes, mostly by editing the first act. It would then be near perfect.
The worst flick ever? Patch Adams.
Made me want to strangle kids with cancer. And when that happens, you know you have a loser on your hands.
Underrated:
Election
Amongst Friends
Happiness
I loved Very Bad Things and Adaptation but those were pretty acclaimed.
The first two Godfathers are sacrosanct. Only a degenerate heathen would dare criticize them.
Amen.
What, is Bill getting kickbacks from the National Office Space Promotional Board>
Oh, and Chariots of Fire. Jesus! You know why Englishmen are smarter than us? It’s the accents.
Whoa dude.
Agree on Deer Hunter, Robert. And I wouldn’t edit a thing. That movie gets better with age.
And good call on Election, Karol. I’ll add Miller’s Crossing, which I think is one of the best mob movies ever.
Made me want to strangle kids with cancer. And when that happens, you know you have a loser on your hands.
Yep. That would pretty much be the definition.
And let’s not forget that Corinna, Corinna is a very underrated movie, even with Whoopi Goldberg in it.
I agree with Toby on Corinna, Corinna. I think Ray Liotta is one of the more underrated actors working today.
Actually, Jeff, Vertigo is a great demonstration of Hitchcock’s creepy fetishism. I love that movie, right down (or up) to Kim Novak’s pointers.
Ace is over there pissing on Alien.
Alien.
That’s like saying oxygen is overrated. Or pizza. Or Diet Dr Pepper.
It just isn’t done.
What, is Bill getting kickbacks from the National Office Space Promotional Board
Office Space captures something. Perfectly. The TRUTH:
God yes.
And COMEDY (cooincidentally, also “the TRUTH”):
And finally, WORDS TO LIVE BY:
That’s true, slublog, because he was great in Copland.
Overrated: The English Patient
You know what my bias against Office Space is, Bill? I have a friend who’s been writing that same fucking story for the past decade with every story he writes. So I’ve seen it in many different permutations, but I’m not all that much closer to feeling an empathy for the soft livers of the bureaucratic world.
Maybe I should give it a second look.
Actually, I think Copland deserves to be added to the underrated list.
Copland is underrated. Stallone was very good.
But I have a question: who fucking disses The Exorcist?
I get less upset when strangers show me pictures of my Mom, her tits painted with daisies, giving them head at some acid party in the late 60s.
And yeah, that’s happened.
Stupid internet.
Any empathy, that is.
Yes, The English Patient is another one of those unopened Book of the Month Club kinda movies: you’re supposed to like it, but don’t.
Another underrated flick is Smile. Y’all need to check that out.
The Exorcist scared the living shit out of me. I watched it without my parents knowing and had nightmares on and off for weeks.
Decided to watch it again a few years ago. Still scary as hell (no pun intended).
I doubt I’ve ever seen The Exorcist. And I know I’ve never seen The Deer Hunter. So it’ll be nice to finally see what all the fuss is about.
Oh, well, as far as underrated horror flicks go, The Changeling with George C. Scott scared the living shit out of me.
“Smash Palace”, directed by Roger Donaldson.
Toby –
So I’ve seen it in many different permutations, but I’m not all that much closer to feeling an empathy for the soft livers of the bureaucratic world.
Feeling empathy for them might be harder to do than just appreciating the illustration of the futility and ridiculousness of the work environment.
If you’ve ever been forced to go to an “office birthday party” while some chirpy busybody makes inane small-talk and painful quips, or had to sit through a four-hour “team building session” at a company that has no real incentive based compensation system, the movie RESONATES.
Frankly, it’s a stinging rebuke of the unrealistically idealistic soft socialist culture that lurks within BIG capitalism, a paradigm that avoids being real socialism because one does indeed “just hard enough not to get fired.”
I meant to say that “Smash Palace” is an underrated movie. It’s amazingly good.
sorry-
because one does indeed WORK “just hard enough not to get fired.â€Â
Another overrated flick: Reality Bites.
Underrated film: Valley Girl. That movie STILL influences the way people talk, just not in an obvious way. The constant use of “like” and “totally” being two instances I can remember.
Jeff,
As for Ace and friends pissing on Alien, it’s like they say in Pulp Fiction about keying a man’s car: you just don’t DO that.
Overrated: Mrs. Dalloway
Underrated: Grand Canyon
Ah, Valley Girl. Along with Fast Times, Risky Business, and The Last American Virgin, one of the quintessential teen flicks.
Cage was great in that flick, too. Anybody ever see Vampire’s Kiss?
Cool little cult flick with Cage and Jennifer Beals.
Overrated: American Beauty, Napoleon Dynamite.
Underrated: Deconstructing Harry, In the Bedroom.
Haven’t seen Vampire’s Kiss, but I’ll check it out.
Under-rated: Peggy Sue Got Married
Over-rated:The Conversation
Sticking to one director for now
I don’t know about the latter two, but Valley Girl, Fast Times, Bill ‘n’ Ted, and countless others were all about displaying the foibles of a certain type of SoCal youth culture.
Accordingly, when Robert P notes
he’s missing the point—there was a certain SoCal youth culture, then there were movies made to ridicule this phenomenon, and yet the influence of this youth culture continues to spread.
That doesn’t make the film underrated, it makes the film, like, ineffectual. Totally.
Most under rated: Cold Comfort Farm “I saw something NASTY in the woodshed”
Underrated, but not necessarily classic:
The Bone Collector
Frailty
The Gift
Narc
Red Rock West
A Simple Plan
Wild Things
Might be underrated and definitely classic:
The Grifters
No Way Out
The Last Seduction
May come up with more later.
Jim in Chicago:
The Conversation overrated? You must be kidding me. It’s one of Coppola’s (sp?) very best.
cthulhu,
Valley Girl is underrated for other reasons, like Jeff’s point on Cage’s performance. It also captured a time and place perfectly and the story is good as well.
Greatest movie of all time, of course, is ‘Night of the Comet’. Nearly everybody dies.
Followed closely by ‘Night of the Creeps’. Duh.
Hmmmm…’Cross of Iron’, or ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ for runners up? Tough one.
‘Rollerball’, or ‘A Boy And His Dog’? Another tough one.
‘Where Eagles Dare’…Honorable Mention.
‘Shaft’. Duh.
Lately? ‘Devils Rejects’…top that if you can.
Maybe ‘The Ninth Configuration’ could try…
overrated: Forrest Gump. Stop running, already.
underrated: The first 30 minutes of Ishtar. I’m not kidding. That would have been a really good movie if they would have taken out the bad parts.
Some of my favorite flicks that weren’t blockbusters (does that make them “under-rated”?):
Bedazzled (the original with Dudley Moore)
One, two, three (Cagney in hilarious cold-war era comedy)
Death and the Maiden (originally a play, I think)
Muriel’s Wedding (comedy/tear-jerker)
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (drag queens and Abba, what more do you want?)
Death Trap (comedy/thriller; adapted from the stage)
A Man for All Seasons (period piece/morality play adapted from the stage)
Over-rated (IMHO):
2001: A Space Odyssey (I know, heresy)
Blade Runner (like 2001, great visuals but little else…)
Harold and Maude
Not over-rated:
Network (still amazing to see how the stuff of parody 30 years ago is tame compared to today’s MSM…)
Overrated—Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now
Underappreciated—De Palma’s “Scarface”
70’s comedies…
Slapshot and Kelley’s Heroes are two great comedies from the 70’s that I’d rank ahead of Bad News Bears (a funny flick to be sure).
The original Longest Yard may also edge out BNB.
M*A*S*H is maybe not underappreciated, but overshadowed by the TV series, which a lot more people have seen (running three times as long as the actual war it was based on)
The Candidate is another one of those films like Network where reality has overtaken parody in the intervening decades…
The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid have got to be in any top five.
Underrated:
* My Dinner with Andre
* Xanadu
* NightHawks
* Silent Movie!
Over-Rated:
* Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
* Barbarella
* Life of Brian
Seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey on the overrated list – which I understand but disagree with –
2010 is an under-rated film.
ooh, the Temple of Doom is a horrible movie. And Kate Capshaw was horrible in it and I could never understand why Spielberg put her bad-acting self in that movie. But then he married her and I figured that out.
I understand your understanding of 2001, but disagree with your disagreement.
Speaking of Kubrik, did Eyes Wide Shut end up being critically acclaimed or not? Because if that was rated well at all, it was overrated.
Sorry, Jeff. Pulp Fiction is overrated—and I loved Reservoir Dogs, it’s one of my favorite films ever!
Other overrateds:
Sin City (boring little piece of nothing)
Spiderman (I and II)
Mystic River
Sideways
DEFINITELY Titanic
Underrrated:
Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer
Videodrome (really nearly any Cronenberg)
Jeff, I LOVE Henry Fool. Absolutely great film.
I agree.
Another 70’s film that I think is way under-rated is The Poseidon Adventure. I guess it did pretty well at the box office, but it has a lot more depth and subtlety than one finds in other formulaic disaster films that came out around the same time.
Underrated: To Live and Die in L.A. – that movie was one hell of a lot more than just a car chase
Overrated: Dances With Wolves (It beat out Goodfellas… why?)
My personal feeling about Network is that it is at least one of the five greatest pieces of screenwriting ever- especially Holden’s speech toward the end when he leaves Faye Dunaway.
Underrated: The Wild Bunch, Strictly Ballroom
Overrated: Leaving Las Vegas, Chicago
The best and worst of movie making is encompassed in the two Vanishing Points. Barry Newman and the wabi-ness of the 1971, even down to the subtle acting by the secondary cast is amazing, as well as having better car action scenes than Bullitt. The Viggo Mortensen remake is so lame its hard to pick out whats worst: The cinematography, the casting, the acting, the writing. It’s a car crash.
I see your The English Patient and raise you The Hours
I’ve written an analysis of both Jeff’s and Ace’s reader picks. Didn’t turn out like I exected. I thought your readers were much weirder, Jeff.
ACK! I’d forgotten about Dances With Wolves And the first halves of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket are great. The second halves stink. And I was on drugs the couple of times I tried to enjoy AN
I don’t know about all this overrated/underrated stuff, but I do know this: Never, EVER, see any move that’s described as “the story of four extraordinary women.” (Doesn’t have to be “four” could be any number.)
Unless it’s porn.
I’ll admit that I’m a cinematographically ignorant genre-watcher (’bad scifi is better than no scifi’
, and I’ll also admit that Sturgeon’s Law applies to most ‘genre’ films without pity. I’ll grant that it was essentially derivative, heavily reliant upon special effects…
…but I’ll maintain to my grave that Alien is one of the finest scifi movies ever made.
And that Aliens is perhaps a close second.
Overrated: Bob Roberts
Underrated: Little Big Man
Underrated: Better off Dead
Not Another Teen movie
Jumanji
Van Wilder
The Replacements
Way Underrated: Field of Dreams
Way, WAY Overrated: Almost Famous (Should have been titled “Almost Watchable”)
Underrated: The Warlock, The Prophecy, Dreamscape
TW: poor—Draw your own conclusions
How can anyone disrespect The Exorcist? Unless you insist that scary movies be devoid of thoughtfulness and depth, preferring the gruesome slashing of naked teenagers to fulfill your horror needs.
Underrated:
Sorcerer—William Friedkin
Snatch—Guy Ritchie
Babe—Chris Noonan
Hamlet—Kenneth Branagh
Back to the Future—Robert Zemeckis
The Winslow Boy—David Mamet
Three Kings—David O. Russell
The Nightmare Before Christmas—Henry Selick
Glory—Edward Zwick
Robocop—Paul Verhoeven
Heat—Michael Mann
Last of the Mohicans—Michael Mann
Manhunter—Michael Mann
All That Jazz—Ray Fosse
Overrated:
Tootsie—Sydney Pollack
Braveheart—Mel Gibson
On Golden Pond—Mark Rydell
Dirty Dancing—Emile Ardolino
Ghost—Jerry Zucker
Born on the Fourth of July—Oliver Stone
All the Star Wars movies—George Lucas, et al
Most of Stephen Soderbergh’s oeuvre
Everything Woody Allen has done since Annie Hall
Watching all the original Star Wars movies again recently, it surprised me how dated they have become and how incredibly cheesy they have always been. Oh, I enjoyed them immensely for many years, but it just shows you how low Hollywood had sunk until they came along. Kind of reminds me of where Hollywood is today, now that I mention it.
Well, that ought to get some flames…
Underrated: The Last Boy Scout. Seriously. No movie better captured the spirit of a particular genre than this movie. This movie boils the “action adventure” movie down to it’s roots, leaving us with all the juicy good stuff we want out of a popcorn joy-ride. Funny lines, lots of guns and explosives, and a dash of football tossed in. lines like Bruce Willis waking up in the morning and saying “Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You’re gonna lose. Smile, you fuck.” Good stuff.
Earlier in the thread someone mentioned “Vampires Kiss”. Great movie. Everyone should go out and rent it now.
What the heck are you still reading for? I said go get the frickin’ movie now.
As for overrated movies….hell, just about anything that’s won an accademy award. I would say that the big daddy of overrated crap, however, is Gone With The Wind. That movie gets so many undreserved kudos that it makes me punchy. I may have to go all punchy on somebody right now.
Overrated:
Sideways – Most pathetic, unlikable lead character of all time. A movie so bad you’d drink a jug of Boone’s Farm just to forget you ever watched it.
Blair Witch Project – Step away from the camcorder!
American Beauty – I’m trying to find one more unoriginal premise, but I think they used them all.
Underrated:
Valley Girl – For the soundtrack alone, this was a classic.
L.A. Story – Maybe you had to have lived there to appreciate it.
Jersey Girl – Despite the presence of Ben Affleck, it’s a fairly smart, funny movie. George Carlin turns in a great performance.
Overrated:
American Beauty
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Bringing Up Baby
Underrated:
Top Secret
Not in Brooklyn, where every third hoodlum has a shirt that says ‘say ‘ello to my little friend’.
I like Psycho, although my favorite Hitchcock film is probably Rear Window – Grace Kelly, yum.
I’d agree that Vertigo is overrated, but that’s because it was Hitchcock’s “WTF” film – a strange outpouring of the director’s inner angst, if you will, so unless your name is Alfred Hitchcock, it probably won’t be precisely your cup of tea. Hey, that’s life. Deal with it.
Psycho‘s kind of like that too, but in that case it’s because he wanted to make a cheap film (comparatively – under a million was the target, I think) that really got to people. I tend to think that’s why it was shot in B&W – not as some artistic statement, but because it was cheaper. And, oh yeah – let’s kill off the lead 30 minutes in, really have the audience confused and maybe a little angry.
Great cinematography in that one, as well.
Anyhow:
Overrated –
Titanic, Forrest Gump, Lucas’ latest merchandising opportunities.
Underrated –
Out of the Past, Elizabeth, Ronin
Some great movies: Almost anything by Preston Sturges. A film that has stuck with me for years is “Nashville”. That was Altman at his very best.
A seriously underrated film was “Heaven’s Gate.” Widely panned, I think beause of the massive budget overrun and the apparent self indulgence of director Cimino, it is an incredibly ambitious attmept to recreate the look and feel of the Old West. And takne on its own terms very successful. The LP of the music is also good, one of the reasons why I still own a turntable.
A really funny film that is rarely seen is from 1941. It’s called “Nothing But the Truth” and stars Bob Hope and the incredibly babacious Paulette Goddard.
Most of the feature films released today are so inept and unoriginal that I cannot bear to watch them. I never got into renting videos. My wife and I like to actually go to movies. But when we see the previews and have bo desire to see most of them.
Reviewing the list of overrated movies on offer here, I think the more accurate description of them was bloated and overblown. Titanic comes to mind. As does the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Star Wars series.
Vertigo was great, because James Stewart was great. The war transformed him from a charming screen young screen actor to a complex man with a mean streak.
Under-rated:
Badge 373
Gideon’s Day
The Black Windmill
The Wicker Man
Stranger Than Paradise
Ride the High Country
From Hell
Roadracer
Walking Tall(the original)
Ghost and the Darkness
Thunderheart
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Sonatine
The Parallax View
Angel Heart
White Sands
Chopper (this one is freakin’ amazing!)
Dog Soldiers
Bad Taste (Peter Jackson’s first effort)
Forgotten Silver
Heaven Help Us
Gangster Number One
I, the Jury (Armand Assante version)
Crimson Rivers
Bubba Ho-Tep
American Psycho (“Hey! Paul!”)
The Mackintosh Man
Pirates of Silicon Valley (TV-movie)
and, in a special category of films under-rated by fanboys/genre-phobic film elitists:
Evil Dead 2
Batman Forever
Army of Darkness
Not Sufficiently Appreciated:
Fail Safe – w/Henry Fonda
Rasomon – by Kurosawa
Marat/Sade – w/ Glenda Jackson
The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer w/ Cary Grant
Overrated:
Platoon
Star Wars 1,2 and 6
Tootsie
Don’t believe these recommendations for Vampire’s Kiss! It has a great concept and good script, but Nick Cage is awful in it. He does the worst British accent in film history – right up there with Kevin Costner’s in Robin Hood and Dick van Dyke’s in Mary Poppins.
Overrated, though I used to like it: The Big Chill. Return of the Seacaucus Seven was the same movie but better.
Overrated but still good: 28 Days Later, Almost Famous, Miller’s Crossing
Underrated (largely dure to being bizarrely unwatched): Quick Change, The Zero Effect, War of the Roses, Matinee, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Grosse Point Blank, Pump up the Volume, and (tragically) Jackie Brown
TW: here, as in “This is a good list you’ve got going here.”
No way! Cage is AWESOME in Vampire’s Kiss. But then, I’ve always had a soft spot for unabashed scenery chewing. I loved Johnny Mnemonic as well (or at least Keanu’s rant).
MayBee, if you take the bad parts out of Ishtar, you’ve got about a 2-minute short of a camel spitting. You know it’s bad when you leave the theater with your 14-year-old daughter and she says, “That’s the dumbest thing I ever saw. I’m glad you were paying.” And this from a girl who watche the Three Stooges and later loved MST3K. She knows bad when she sees it.
One, Two, Three is definitely underappreciated. Haven’t seen it in one piece for many years, but it was really good.
Underrated:
Beautiful Girls. An unexpected gem of a movie, starring a very young Natalie Portman, who is terrific.
Miserably overrated: The Maltese Falcon. Frustratingly pointless, and absolutely devoid of suspense or drama. How this is regarded as a great (or even nominally respected) movie is beyond me.
Vampire’s Kiss is hilarious. Cage’s accent isn’t supposed to be British, it’s supposed to be ridiculous and snooty, like a blueblood-Thurston Howell III kind of accent. He’s a funny, pathetic and unlikable character.
I love that movie. I actually just purchased it from one of Mr. Goldstein’s film sales.
Yeah, the original Bedazzled was marvelous. Can’t find it anywhere.
Underrated:
-The Fly by Cronenbeg, in reality a Greek tragedy.
-The Thin Red Line (Malick)
-The Fisher King
-Kingpin
-The Hidden
-Roxanne
-Topper
-Dead Ringers
-After the Fox
-Beat the Devil
Overrated:
-Jurassic Crock
-Deer Hunter
-Saving Private Ryan
-It’s a Wonderful Life
-Original ‘Night fo the Living Dead’
-A Beautiful Mind
-Crouching Tiger…
-Moulin Rouge
Oh, and also Underrated:
The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
Made for Each Other (1971)
I’m with Ken. At least he recognizes that films before 1975 can be considered.
Nice to note that Felinni’s 8-1/2 continues to float above the fray- neither underrated nor overrated, as befits the finest piece of writing/cinematography/editing/music/acting EVER.
EVER.
Underrated:
Dead Ringers
Absolutely bloody terrifying, and I don’t even have a vagina.
Brazil
Okay, this movie was highly acclaimed, but it’s even better than that. I see something new every time I watch it.
Overrated:
Hannah and her Sisters
Purple Rose of Cairo
Or any other Woody Allen Movie for that matter. I mean, Sleeper and Bannanas each had two funny scenes in it, Zelig had one, and I can’t remember any of them. And then there was Interiors, Woody’s first shot at a drama feature, which ranks in my book as the second-worst movie of all time, barely edged out by Excorcist II: the Heretic, in which you can see Richard Burton’s chilling portrayal of a character lost in the dementia of terminal-stage alcaholism. Oh wait…
:peter
A clarification.
I’m with Ken on the films thing. On the hurricane response, let ME be the 1350th person to call him an idiot.
I’m with Bill on Office Space. There are so many terrific scenes in that movie. My favorite: the gangland slaying of the fax machine.
And, Ahem…Roxanne…another good flick, I agree. The ‘20 better insults’ scene is priceless.
JorgXMcKie- but it is a funny two minutes!
No, no, no, the secret to watching Ishtar is to not sit through all of it. You have to get up and leave when it starts getting bad, because it eventually becomes so horrible you’ll get repressed memory syndrome and forget the funny parts.
Overrated:
Stripes After the first 20 minutes, I wanted to throat-punch Murray and Ramis. Quite possibly the stupidest movie ever, and that’s counting Pauly Shore’s ouevre.
Jerry Maguire “You had me at hello” ‘Nuff said.
Say Anything… Cusack violates about 10 different stalking laws in this one.
A Few Good Men A Sorkin propoganda piece that is notable only for the irony of Nicholson’s courtroom tirade, which turned out to be such an unintentionally thorough spanking of liberal anti-military snobbery that it was posted in my dorm room at basic.
Underrated:
Frequency Was pleasantly surprised by this one.
Eight Men Out Not given nearly the respect it deserves as a good sports movie because 1)the book was magnificent and 2)Field of Dreams came out around the same time.
National Treasure People bag on it for it’s “Da Vinci Code meets American History” overtones, but it’s hard not to appreciate the respect and enthusiasm Cage’s character shows for our nation’s past.
Just my two cents:
Underrated:
Glengarry Glen Ross – Loved Lemmon in this movie.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles – Easily the best thing that John Hughes has ever been associated with.
Overrated:
Kill Bill (Vol. 1 and 2) – Love Tarantino’s stuff, but this isn’t the best thing since sliced bread, like everyone seems to think it is.
Shrek – Anything that leans this heavily on pop culture tends to get stale pretty quickly, and this is no exception. Of course, it’s an animated film, so maybe I shouldn’t expect too much…except everyone seemed to love this movie when it came out. Arrgh.
T/W: evening. Think I call it one myself.
My selections are older. But so am I. If you don’t have a good grasp of 20th history skip them.
Great movies not noticed at all these days:
Night And The City – with Widmark, avoid remake, see why Howard Hughes married J.Peters.
The Band Wagon – musical with Astaire.
The Bedford Incident – again with Widmark, ignore know-it-all Poitier in a PC nonsense role.
People I Know – Pacino, Ryan O’Neal, perfect cast .
Mr. Goodbar – Keaton
Parallax View – a few mention it. watch Daniels as CIA spook (or is he?)
Blue Sky – Jessica Lange defines madness.
Snake Pit – dated because Freud is kaput. but did a hell of a job with what doctors then believed.
Cold Comfort Farm – someone above cited it, even better than Ridgemont High to watch stoned.
The Night Porter – Nazi vs. Nazi, nobody is sane.
Kapo – skate the slippery edge of the Holocaust.
East West – want to know what Stalinism was like?
Brazil – though I don’t usually like Gilliam.
1984 – the version with Hurt and Burton. if you dislike it watch again.