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Overly appreciated movies?

rjb1

Practically Family
Messages
561
Location
Nashville
"Citizen Kane" is just plain dull. It may have some innovative (for the time) cinematic techniques, but that doesn't make it enjoyable to watch.
'All About Eve" is probably the worst of the lot in terms of over-hype. Everyone (movie critics) says it's great, but I have TRIED to make myself watch it numerous times and have never succeeded in making it beyond about 1/3 (or less). People I don't care about saying things I don't care about and doing things I don't care about...
The best, and perhaps only, good musical is "Cabaret", and it only passes muster since the songs are *in a Cabaret* where they should be. (Except for that Nazi-kid at the picnic who sings "The Future Belongs to Me". That always gives me the shivers from thinking about what it really means.)
 
"Citizen Kane" is just plain dull. It may have some innovative (for the time) cinematic techniques, but that doesn't make it enjoyable to watch.
'All About Eve" is probably the worst of the lot in terms of over-hype. Everyone (movie critics) says it's great, but I have TRIED to make myself watch it numerous times and have never succeeded in making it beyond about 1/3 (or less). People I don't care about saying things I don't care about and doing things I don't care about...
The best, and perhaps only, good musical is "Cabaret", and it only passes muster since the songs are *in a Cabaret* where they should be. (Except for that Nazi-kid at the picnic who sings "The Future Belongs to Me". That always gives me the shivers from thinking about what it really means.)

See? Now this is where singing in a movie makes sense. As soon as it gets out of a possibly real situation and some dumbass just breaks out into song then that movie has jumped the shark and is a screwball musical. I might have seen some dumbass break out in song while walking down the sidewalk but he was either drunk or on dope in The World’s Largest Outdoor Insane Asylum. :p
 
Messages
13,460
Location
Orange County, CA
Nertz to you philistines. You just haven't seen any *good* musicals. Anything postwar is the bunk as far as I'm concerned -- America forgot how to write a decent song after about 1945 -- but the finest music ever written in the United States came out of film and stage musicals in the twenties and thirties. So there.

But yes, I've had all I can stand of "Singin' In The Rain." The individual songs are fine -- all the film is is a "best-of" collection culled from various MGM musicals of the previous twenty years -- but the presentation is terribly cloying in a "look at me, ain't I cute" manner. And it had nothing of the acid edge of actual 1929 film musicals to cut thru all the the smiley-faced postwar sweetness.

Whenever I think of Singin' In The Rain I think of this, not the 1952 Gene Kelly number.

[video=youtube;xe60AkZd0WQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe60AkZd0WQ[/video]
 
Messages
12,006
Location
East of Los Angeles
Since a couple of "modern" movies have already been mentioned, I'll chime in with Scarface (1983) and Avatar (2009). Regarding the latter, I'm convinced it wouldn't have been nearly as successful if it hadn't been released in 3D; I think people were so impressed by the visuals that they mentally blocked out the tired old plot that's already been done repeatedly.
 

Chasseur

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,494
Location
Hawaii
Since a couple of "modern" movies have already been mentioned, I'll chime in with Scarface (1983) and Avatar (2009). Regarding the latter, I'm convinced it wouldn't have been nearly as successful if it hadn't been released in 3D; I think people were so impressed by the visuals that they mentally blocked out the tired old plot that's already been done repeatedly.

Yes on both accounts. I am not sure why Scarface has such a cult following. Several times while apartment and house searching in my life I've stumbled across some pretty scary "homage" homes to the film where people have Al's visage plastered all over and have "gangster dens"...its a little disturbing.

I thought Avatar was one of the worst films I saw in the theatres, right up there with Fantastic Four and Highlander 2...
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,075
Location
London, UK
If eith George Lucas or Spielbefg made a decent film it was by accident. Utter, utter hacks.

Anything Rodgers and Hammerstein ever did, from Oklahoma to The Sound of Music, is overrated. Rodgers and Hart, on the other hand, are woefully underrated.

I hated the von Trapp kids and Maria in Sound of Music so much that I was rooting for the Nazis.

Anything by Stanley Kubrick.

I love Full Metal Jacket and Dr Strangelove. He also made some dreadful rubbish, though... not least 2001.

There is no place for musicals. How about my wife's favorite film, the abhorrent Moulin Rouge? :painkiller:

Kill it with fire! I love a good musical. Moulin Rouge is not a good musical. Or a good anything.

The best, and perhaps only, good musical is "Cabaret", and it only passes muster since the songs are *in a Cabaret* where they should be. (Except for that Nazi-kid at the picnic who sings "The Future Belongs to Me". That always gives me the shivers from thinking about what it really means.)

The stagd dhow is vastly superior. I wish they'd stuck to it, and cast a competent female lead while they were at it.

Two words says it all: Baz Luhrman

Since a couple of "modern" movies have already been mentioned, I'll chime in with Scarface (1983) and Avatar (2009). Regarding the latter, I'm convinced it wouldn't have been nearly as successful if it hadn't been released in 3D; I think people were so impressed by the visuals that they mentally blocked out the tired old plot that's already been done repeatedly.

Avatar was naught but Dances with Wolves in space. With the overgrown lovechildren of Smurfette and Azrael the cat.
 
Messages
17,195
Location
New York City
"The Women". The characters are one dimensional, the acting is hammy and the plot, oh boy don't get me started on the plot. Sure there are a few good lines, but the movie is a real chore to watch.

Agreed completely, I can't sit through it and I love Norma Sheerer movies and movies from the 1930s in general. I am always amazed at how much good press this movie gets.
 
Messages
17,195
Location
New York City
And if you don't like Winnie Lightner, how about Ethel Merman --

[video=youtube;l89fWQ7_EYE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89fWQ7_EYE[/video]

Now *that's* entertainment.

Ethel Merman's voice is like nails on a chalkboard with the volume turned up. I cannot listen to her sing or talk for that matter.
 

Two Types

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,456
Location
London, UK
I don't agree with all this musical bashing! I do think the Sound of Music is dreadful, but West Side Story is one of the greatest films ever made. (Mind you, I recently listed my all time top-ten films and my daughter pointed out I must be the only person whose top-ten includes two films starring Russ Tamblyn: West Side Story and The Haunting).

A few years back, I used to work alongside another big fan of musicals. We used to sing to each other all the time - which was rather perplexing for the rest of the company. As he once pointed out to me What's the chance of two straight, middle-aged men, both loving musicals, and sharing a desk?
 

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