Author Topic: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love  (Read 22319 times)

Clovis8

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #10 on: October 20, 2010, 09:44:24 PM »
I have to agree 1SO. Vertigo is the only Hitchcock film I dont like. I cant believe a lot of people thinks it's the best.

FroHam X

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #11 on: October 20, 2010, 09:49:36 PM »
I have to agree 1SO. Vertigo is the only Hitchcock film I dont like. I cant believe a lot of people thinks it's the best.

Not just the best. It's one of the 5 best of all time.
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1SO

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2010, 09:51:09 PM »
I have to agree 1SO. Vertigo is the only Hitchcock film I dont like. I cant believe a lot of people thinks it's the best.

Not just the best. It's one of the 5 best of all time.

How do you put it above Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train?  Or is that your Top 5?  All Hitchcock.

FroHam X

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #13 on: October 20, 2010, 09:59:28 PM »
I have to agree 1SO. Vertigo is the only Hitchcock film I dont like. I cant believe a lot of people thinks it's the best.

Not just the best. It's one of the 5 best of all time.

How do you put it above Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train?  Or is that your Top 5?  All Hitchcock.

It has all the sex and thrill of all those great Hitch movies, but it is also deeply psychological and hits on themes of love and obsession in a way thais much more developed and emotional than any of his other films. It's a movie that hits me in a really personal emotional way, whereas his other films never quite get beyond exceedingly well crafted but disconnected entertainments.
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Melvil

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2010, 10:47:40 PM »
This thread can only break my heart, so I suppose I oughta try and break others as well. ;D

I've got two big pairings that I expect most people will disagree with, but I find them all to be rather miserable movies:

1. Raging Bull / Taxi Driver
2. Elephant / Paranoid Park

Others might include The Squid and the Whale, Wendy and Lucy, The Searchers, [REC]...I think that's most of the big ones.

Bondo

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2010, 10:52:07 PM »
Hmm, I overlooked Vertigo. It would make the list with a boring/confusing tab.

Well, Bondo, eight out of ten of these are in my top 50.  But I can still talk to you... in a little bit.

Heh, you left things I like mostly untouched.

MartinTeller

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2010, 10:57:04 PM »
Working from the top of the Filmspotters Pantheon 100 list, movies I don't like very much:

1. Once Upon a Time in the West
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Pan's Labyrinth
4. Yi Yi
5. Magnolia
6. The Matrix
7. Children of Men
8. The Shawshank Redemption
9. American Beauty
10. Paris, Texas

Truth is, I don't hate any of these (although The Matrix comes close).  But I do think they're all very overrated.


Now, out of the 954 films that I've seen from the latest "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?" top 1000 list, these are my lowest rated, movies that I really hate (note: technically Birth of a Nation would be #3 on this list, but my objections to that film are almost entirely on ethical rather than cinematic grounds):

1. Tobacco Road
2. Limelight
3. Amarcord
4. Meshes of the Afternoon
5. Requiem for a Dream
6. The Fountainhead
7. The Party
8. Lancelot du Lac
9. The Thing from Another World
10. It's a Gift

FroHam X

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2010, 11:00:31 PM »
1. Raging Bull / Taxi Driver
2. Elephant / Paranoid Park

I just got to see a double bill of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. It was an amazing experience. Taxi Driver is just such a tonally dreamy film. And Raging Bull just crackles with dialogue, character, tragedy, visuals and editing.

Elephant and Paranoid Park are not for everyone, but I love them both. Elephant is one of the most moving films I have ever seen, and Paranoid Park is excellent as well.

Here's my Top 5 list, hope it annoys peeps:

1. Fight Club - Oh sure, tons of cool style, and some great work by Norton/Pitt, but my God is this film ever poorly paced. It feels so long and dragged out that by the end I hate myself for having sat through it all.

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day - The action sequences are really awesome, but the rest of the movie is long and boring and childish. Just show me the bomb going off and the big truck chase and then helicopter stuff and I'm good. Throw out the rest, please.

3. Aliens - This one is a bit of a cheat. I do actually really get a kick outta this movie. BUT! I think there is way too much boring crap that does nothing in terms of creating suspense or tone or anything (unlike the original). It's all just story flab, and for a story that is actually stupidly simple. I also don't care for the overly macho military cabbage.

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Once again, a film I admire for its craft, and I do like a lot of the stuff with HAL, and a lot of the images are incredibly striking and memorable. BUT! It's too damn boring. There. I said it. It's long and boring. Really boring.

5. Die Hard - This just ain't no Back to the Future   ;)
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1SO

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2010, 11:48:39 PM »
Congrats Fro.  I agree with 1 (and for the same reason) while the other 4 are in my Top 100.

michael x

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Re: Confession Time: Bottom 10 Films Others Love
« Reply #19 on: October 20, 2010, 11:50:30 PM »
I tried to include why exactly I disliked each movie, but, just like with a movie you truly love, it's hard to put into words sometimes.

1. Oldboy. I found it weird yet uninteresting, especially everything after the hammer and octopus scenes. Felt like a clumsy post-Tarantino movie that traded emotional depth and a tight script for attempted shock value. That shock failed to resonate because I didn't know or care about any of the characters.

2. High Noon. The urgency isn't there, and without urgency, the film only has a shootout.

3. Die Hard 2. Wow was this terrible. I was shocked to see it got "two thumbs up" from Siskel & Ebert back in the day. Wouldn't be on the list otherwise

4. Le Cercle Rouge. Better than the previous three by a wide margin, but Melville's sense of pacing is excruciating, and the story wasn't interesting enough.

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Didn't like this when I viewed it years ago. Now that I've read a bit on the symbolism in the film I'd be curious to rewatch it, especially without expecting a traditional plot or characters. I don't expect the acid trip sequence to work any better, though.

6. American Beauty. Laborious, heavy retread of "suburban malaise".

7. All of the Star Wars films. Ok, so A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back are entertaining for long stretches. With that caveat, these are awful films. The dialogue and acting is terrible, the philosophy would be dangerous if it wasn't so laughable, and the world, typified by the cantina sequence, isn't as interesting as it thinks it is. From the beginning, it's pretty clear that the nuts and bolts of this world - politics, economics, religion - haven't been seriously considered and worked out.

8. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Love so many parts of this, but the bizarre depiction of Texas in the first half of the film ruined it for me. I didn't buy this Texas as factual or truthful.

9. Films Clint Eastwood has directed. I don't sense a distinct stamp on his films and I think most of them are pretty silly, especially his more recent work. Love his acting, though.

10. Rashomon. Only Kurosawa I disliked so far. I know others have found the sexual politics disturbing. I was fine with them, in context, but the film generally wasn't very interesting or provoking. If this is the best that film can handle ideas, then I'll stick to the written word.

HM: Magnolia was only ok; Raging Bull escapes the list only because I liked the editing/cinematography so much; The Postman Always Rings Twice had so much wrong with it that I don't know where to start; and Andrei Rublev had a lot of underexplained and uninteresting sequences (at least, for a non-Russian viewer).