Supposedly good films that you thought were shit?

[BlueSmarties76]

I've just watched Before Sunrise & Before Sunset. Both highly rated and well regarded. I didn't enjoy either of them, especially Before Sunset. It was basically two quite uninteresting characters talking to each other for the duration of the film, and I didn't even like the characters either!

Tell me some of the highly rated / regarded films that you think are crap?

Oooopps, posted too soon. Meant to add - yet I am anything but unpredictable and avant garde in my tastes, since most of the movies in the BFI top 50 poll would be in my personal top 100. Which makes me a pretty typical middle class viewer, I guess

www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time

That BFI list is bizarre in that the there's really nothing post 1970 apart from Mulholland drive in 2001 (pretentious twaddle). Really no good films in a whole decade?

There are some fantastic films on it - but Citizen Kane falls into my 'really?' list.

Oh, I'd forgotten '(Fucking) Amelie' . I hate it too.

And It's a Wonderful Life. I hate James Stewart

I love Mulholland Drive - I really like Lynch, and for me, that's him at his best. But I can see how he's not everyone's cup of tea. There's Close Up on there too, which is a masterpiece of the 80s and of course Taxi Driver, Shoah.

The list seems heavily modelled around ideas of the auteur director - so you get a big spike in 50s (24) and 60s (23) movies in the top 100. 70s movies are also really well represented though- there are well over 15 in the top 100 by my count. There are far more of them than 20s, 30s or 40s films, for instance. It does peter out in the 90s and 00s, though. That's just a feature of this kind of canon formation, though (and one of its very many limitations).

OnlyLovers - hooray for another Amelie hater!!

In Team America, there is this sequence where they're in France and the pavement is made of cobbles shaped like croissants. I've always thought the pavement in Amelie should be like that - like this horrible caricature that left me feeling unclean. I had to go watch La Haine straight after I saw that film.

Many CGI films are too bright and rubbish. I don't like any zombie films.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is just braindead rubbish.
Disney Alladin will give me an epileptic fit.

I haven't seen La Haine but I appreciate the sentiment. I'd forgotten about the croissant cobbles but yes, Amelie practically has those doesn't it? Along with every French cliche under the sun.

God, it's so sickly. My teeth are aching just thinking about it.

Kitsmummy was just coming in here to type the same thing. Hateful eight is very disappointing. Really slow, story that doesn't really go anywhere and far too long. I'm usually a big fan of Tarantino too.
Anyone seen Tree of Life? Won a Palm D'or. Thought I'd take myself out of my comfort zone but even Brad Pitt couldn't save it.

There are some fantastic films on it - but Citizen Kane falls into my 'really?' list.

I sort of think that too, but I'm assured by friends who know far more about film history that the technique of telling the story through a flashback was innovative and that its impact has been diluted by subsequent imitators. That said, Orson Welles is far more watchable in The Third Man (also one of the rare cases where the film is better than the book).

I love the Third Man - I'm obviously in the category of people that need more watchable films!

Only - YES! Short of Amelie going 'haw-he-haw-he-haw-he-haw'. It grates!!

ComposHat - Great point. I'm no film historian, but I know it Kane was hugely innovative in narrative terms, but also in terms of cinematography. Famously, it uses 'deep focus', where both foreground and background are in focus, to tell the story in a far more fluid and dynamic way. Some of the angles are amazing, too - and things like the breakfast montage showing the breakdown of the marriage found a newly economical and elegant way of showing the passage of time. The use of sound (still comparatively new) is also brilliant - the way that sentences bleed from scene to scene, and the intermittent Hermann score that just emphasizes poignant or exciting moments.

Virtually all the tricks it pulls had been used before, by someone, somewhere (often an expressionist in Germany) - but Kane threw them all together in a new way, and massively increased the ambition of the American picture while it was at it. So many of them have also become old hat now, by dint of constant repetition by other directors. I think this is maybe why it doesn't seem so extraordinary now?

Great lover of The Third Man here, too. The entrance (finally!) of Harry Lime has to be one of the greatest in all cinema!

Wow really interesting post holly thanks!

Holly

You are expressing yourself so beautifully could I listen to you for hours! I think I fell in love with you just a little bit!
Please can you come round on Sunday afternoons and tell me all the things you know about?

I couldn't bear:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The English Patient

O Brother Where Art Though

I love Shawshank Redemption though, I can't believe people find it dull!

It's not my typical film choice but I loved Tinker Taylor - I thought Gary Oldman / Kathy Burke were brilliant and brilliant that Colin Firth wasn't cast as a good guy for a change. The final scenes were brilliant.

Prometheus was incredibly dull. Rooney Mara completely overacted and Fasbender wasn't believable as the droid.

How many times have I said brilliant

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVENT SEEN GRAVITY

It would have been far better if, as she went through the earths gravity, she'd exploded. Big visual impact, turning to black screen and haunting music. As it was, the ending was so dumb it ruined the film. Ya should have killed off Sandra, Cuarón!

I loved Tinker Tailor too, especially Kathy Burke and Mark Strong. It took a bit of relaxing into – I definitely had to sort of slow myself down and get used to the slow pace.

Shawshank Redemption, it bored me to tears!

I love Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset, but I completely agree about Prometheus and Gravity. Really didn't get the hype about those.

Avatar seemed to go on for ever.

There are quite a few films I expected to love and thought were sort of OK but nothing special - Shawshank Redemption and Burn After Reading spring to mind.

Sidge Nooooooo! Oh brother where are thou is hilarious!

Not RTFT so don't know if it's already been mentioned but for me The Matrix immediately springs to mind!

Awwwwww Zing you're lovely, but you'd get soooo bored. My friends and DH are sometimes 'Where is the OFF BUTTON?!' I can rabbit on for hours about nonsense. Especially film and book nonsense.

I really liked the ending of Gravity, which I watched in the spirit of a very fun B-movie. Having floated around weightlessly and in something approaching black-and-white with the characters for so long, there's this sudden sense of colour, but also this tremendous sense of a return of mass. For a second, you really feel - almost in your gut- what it might be like to have been in space and to find the return of gravity unusual, to feel it pulling you downwards into the earth. I've been meaning to rewatch it for ages to figure out exactly how Cuaron achieves it. I think it might have been connected to the 3D version, because people I know who have seen the 2D one don't seem to have felt it as strongly. But this could be totally wrong!

One of the things I love about his filmmaking in general is that he has this delicacy of touch that can sum up an entire movie's themes in one shot, even when he's making big studio pictures (she says, with a touch of auteur snobbery!!). So in Harry Potter 3, there's this lovely moment where you see Harry looking out of the window, and you also see his face looking back at you. There's something about that doubling of self and reflection that is really powerful in a film that's all about identity and things not being quite as they seem. (Mirrors play such a huge role in those books, too).

Zing sorry but we'll have to agree to disagree! It bored me rigid

It's interesting how so many people hate the films I loved (eg The Matrix, Shawshank, Gravity, Spectre) but I find many films they love incredibly dull.

Eg I hated TTSS, but really enjoyed The King's Speech. Can't bear the Harry Potter films, but love Pixar films.

I still haven't made it through Moulin Rouge

And I hate Mamma Mia with a passion

Think Love Actually is just depressing shit