The Big Lebowski. It’s got a perfect combination of plodding, boring plot and insufferably obnoxious characters that makes it a physically painful watching experience.
It genuinely confuses me that people like The Fifth Element. The plot is just batshit insane, and it suffers from obnoxious character syndrome just as much as Lebowski does.
Thor: Ragnarok is by far the worst Thor movie, and is in the top 3 worst Marvel movies. It’s an absolute travesty of a film that not only ruined the character of the Hulk to the point where he had to be effectively erased as a character going forward, but turned Thor himself into a Gimli-esque laughingstock, and is also just neither funny nor entertaining. But, then again, neither is anything I’ve seen by Taika. Edit: Actually, that’s not quite true. Here’s a really hot take for y’all: Love and Thunder is the good Taika Thor movie. It wasn’t great, but it was miles better than Ragnarok.
On that note, any movie (or show) where the entire second arc/B-plot is a useless side quest that either fails or does nothing but waste the audience’s time. See, for example: Thor Ragnarok, The Last Jedi, Andor.
Tarantino movies are really overrated, but I wouldn’t say I dislike them.
Edit: Ooh, thought of another one. O Brother Where Art Thou would have been an enjoyable movie if it hadn’t tried to act like it’s an adaptation of the Odyssey. As someone who’s pretty familiar with Homer, it just infuriates me every time I try to watch it.
Edit2: Someone mentioned Skyfall, which has now reminded me that as a huge James Bond fan, I hate all of Craig’s Bond films (except Casino Royale) with a fiery passion, to the extent that I don’t even consider them James Bond movies (they’re “James Bourne” movies at best), and I don’t ever include them in my rankings of the series.
I’m sorry, you’re trolling MCU/super hero movie fans if you think Thor Ragnarok is worse than Thor 2. Your opinion is opinion, but it’s factually incorrect and I think You’re here to troll/hate on the director who you call out by name.
Funnily enough, I watched Thor 2 two weeks ago during my most recent Marvel watch-through, and other than a slightly lackluster final battle, I literally can’t understand what people have against it. Great characterization and development for Loki, Thor, Odin, and Jane, a truly crushing moment with the death of Thor’s mom, Christopher Eccleston’s excellent villain, and a great cliff-hanger ending with Loki replacing Odin - I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here. It’s not amazing, but it’s definitely in the top half of Marvel movies. Much better than crap like Iron Man 3 and Captain Marvel.
If you’re this bothered by someone having a different opinion than yours, maybe a thread about people disliking popular movies isn’t for you.
Downvote away fella, funny you bring up my being “bothered by someone having a different opinion” when I didn’t bother down voting you.
Also you’re casting shade on an accomplished directors entire body of work pretty freely there, might it be that you have some bias against a certain jene c’est quoi that you’d rather not have “shoved down your throat”?
You might be taking crazy pills, or you’re just unhappy with progression of society and digging into the trenches defending more traditionally themed movies, despite their not even close to mediocrity.
That was a hard upvote. Tarantino is my favorite director. I’ve only been lukewarm on one of his movies. And even then, I didn’t dislike it. Respect your opinion though.
Also, my two favorite movies are Pulp Fiction and The Fifth Element.
Question: How do you feel about Edgar Wright? Specifically Hot Fuzz and Baby Driver if you’ve seen those.
I haven’t seen Baby Driver, but I’ve never seen a Simon Pegg film that I enjoyed (which have been two so far: Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).
I swear that there are tons of critically acclaimed movies that I like, including most of the movies people are mentioning in their top-level comments. Also, I actively like Kill Bill, so that’s one Tarantino movie that I do enjoy!
It seems that we may just have complementary tastes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: I love Final Fantasy VIII, so we have that in common!
Wow, that’s my top 3 that you don’t like. I love that you went and found at least something we both like though.
The Big Lebowski may be more fun if you’re already into stoner comedies and classic cinema, because it’s one parodying the other. The cliche in detective novels was a private eye chasing wrong leads but advancing the plot regardless.
but I’ve never seen a Simon Pegg film that I enjoyed (which have been two so far: Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).
… are you maybe just immune to the meta? Like, if you don’t enjoy Airplane!, I am gonna say this is a you problem.
I liked Airplane!, so I don’t think it’s that I just dislike meta movies. I really enjoyed Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, for example, but maybe that’s more of a subversion movie than a meta movie? I also enjoy movies like Spaceballs, but maybe that’s more of a spoof? I dunno…
I think I get the intention of Lebowski, and I’ve often enjoyed the “protag accidentally bumbling his way into success” trope otherwise, so maybe it’s the stoner movie side of things that messes it up for me, since I only rarely enjoy stoner movies.
I think in both cases, Simon Pegg and Lebowski, it might be the characters that get under my skin most.
Either way, I appreciate your help in trying to figure this out.
Both The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou are directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and and it sounds like you might not like their style.
I’m upvoting you for sharing your opinion even though I disagree 100% as all three movies you mentioned are fantastic at what they set out to do, but not for everyone.
The Dark Knight
I think I got about 2 minutes into Forrest Gump before I had to turn it off. Cannot stand that fake accent Tom Hanks has in that movie. And yes, that’s a hill I will die on.
Forrest Gump is super racist revisionist history, where a low-IQ white male accidentally causes all sorts of large political and social historical events that were actually initiated by black people in real life. Plus there’s a ton of other messed up sexist/racist portrayals throughout the film. It’s a pretty awful film. And it stole the Oscar from Shawshank Redemption!
Barbie.
I’m a woman and a feminist. I’m a fan of Greta, and of everyone they cast in that movie.
I was bored for most of it. The parts that were meant to be poignant, I thought completely missed the mark. It was a waste of an opportunity.
I don’t understand the hype. Margot is a gem, one of our exports I’m actually impressed by, and I think her unfailing charm won a lot of people over to this. I think most of us would happily watch Margot read the phone book.
But I found the movie to be dull and shallow in its attempts for depth.
I feel bad because most of my female friends really hold it up as something I don’t think it is. I keep my mouth shut.
I’m not sure if was meant to be “deep”, I think it was meant to be a bit satirical and a lot of tongue in cheek. I don’t think they were setting out to make a masterpiece, but a sharp take on mid life crisis and societys demands of women, including the monotinization of their escapism driven by corporate (men) stooges.
I’m not sure what opportunity was missed in a movie about capitalism utopia as portrayed by glamour dolls.
I’m not sure what opportunity was missed in a movie about capitalism utopia as portrayed by glamour dolls.
Set ups for the punchlines that seemed to come out of nowhere, even a hint as to why having Barbieland go back to a matriarchy was better than something balanced to follow up on the whole Kens being second class citizens. Not that I wanted to spend more time on the Kens, just like a line or two that addresses the weird situation that they explicitly set up.
I’m a man but have the same take, excited about everyone involved and the themes and the style, but it just kind of limped its way through the stereotypical story with a lot of preaching at the audience. My wife actively hated it and didn’t even finish it, bailing out when the mom went on her rant about how unfair everything is which was true but executed really badly.
I did really enjoy Kate’s Crazy Barbie or whatever. If the rest of the film had that kind of nuance and comedic timing it would have been fantastic.
I was in the same page as you, but I think I understood it at the very end, literally at the last scene. I understood that the message is something along the lines of “women should be allowed to be just women, without anything remarkable about them”. It kinda just tries to make that point, right? Women are just people. They are not objects, nor super heroes. They don’t need to be special.
The main goal of feminism is equality right? Well, women today are asked to be a lot of things that men are not asked to, to be exceptional, to break their chains, and fight. To be better than they are now, to change and fight back. And all that is exhausting, sometimes you just need to go to your ginecologist, not change the world. And that brings you happiness and fulfillment. Leave women to be whatever they want to be, don’t put on them YOUR expectations, let them be free. Stop telling women how they should live their lives, let them pick whatever they want. They are just humans. Men are allowed to be regular humans with flaws and virtue, women are not.
I think that’s the message, or I completely missed the point there lol. I don’t think it’s not deep. You could argue that maybe it’s a message a little dangerous, sure. A very individualistic message, even alienating, but what would you expect from something financed by capitalists. The revolution will not be televised. Personally, I found it a little refreshing, sometimes it feels like we are changing one social mandate for another, but in the end we cannot choose freely anyways, just obey. I gave me one or two thing to think about.
Those messages came through to a degree (good write up by the way) but to my mind they didn’t go far enough. Then the comedy was so light touch too.
It all just felt like a first draft of something that might have been hilarious, entertaining and thought provoking. But didn’t land any of those things well. So I thought, couldn’t it have picked one of the 3 and done then well?
When the credits rolled I just said ‘k’. Because I didn’t really take anything away from it. Even without the hype for months, my expectation was built more by the cast and director. So I was just disappointed. I wasn’t even entertained.
It had some good parts, but the ending kinda felt like everyone just boxing up their genders again as the status quo instead of being a society that valued people for more than just their genitals. I kept waiting for the part where they realized equality was what they should strive for to help lead the human world in the best direction.
The queer-coded Allen felt a bit on the nose for 2023, too. I liked parts of it, but it felt very…20th-century feminist and straight to appeal to larger audiences.
I think the part with Margot and the grandmotherly lady at the bus stop was my favorite part. Peaceful, sweet, and exactly where the movie felt like it was heading in a good direction (in addition to the heaven and tearoom scenes). The musical parts were a great reminder of the movies from long ago, and also a great step in the right direction.
The new Dune is so artificially slow and full of itself. The old one with Picard and Mr. Mayor is so much more watchable for me and I genuinely love it. The new Blade Runner did the same thing, being slow for the sake of being slow does not make it deep or philosophical it just makes it boring
I feel the same way, having just left Dune 2 an hour ago. It feels every bit a long as its four hour run time.
Oddly, I enjoy Lawrence of Arabia despite it also having long shots of desert.
I felt the complete opposite. I’ve read all the Frank Herbert books multiple times and loved how in-depth they were. Dune part one was much better than part two because the first part spent so long setting up the universe and exploring different factions which I found really cool. Part two was like “well, all the hard work is done now so we can just have all of the action”. No! The action is the worst part! I’d much rather 70% world building 30% plot.
As an aside, I also like how the technology was very rarely explained. Just the shields and the stillsuits I think. It makes it feel so much more natural and realistic because these characters live all their lives with weird floaty lamps and ornithopters and lazbeams, so why would they explain any of it to us?