Overrated Movies
Out of context: Reply #55
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- allthethings-1
It occurs to me that you could draw a line between "overrated" and "inexplicably popular." I guess sometimes they're the same thing. Popular entertainment...a lot of times people go for the latest summer spectacle, and it's the big thing of the moment, and if you don't really like it as much as other people seem to, well personally I just chalk it up to my being a little off. It doesn't get me all riled up to declare it overrated.
I think I save the kind of outrage that leads me to declare something overrated for movies that seem like their popularity is...fraudulent. Sometimes they're not even popular, but they've been declared worthy of my attention, and I spend ten bucks on it, and seriously, shame on me for falling for it.
So, there are movies that critics gush about because they just refuse to mess with an icon, and then the public just goes along with the subterfuge. As an example, Woody Allen hasn't made a good movie since 1989 (and during that time has had multiple creepy and/or outright illegal things alleged). And yet there are tons of movie critics who just refuse to pan his movies. I long ago learned how to read a Woody Allen review to know what I could spot between the lines that would tell me just how bad the new movie was.
I would name him overrated...I probably wouldn't name any of his movies since 1989 as overrated, though, because I have only seen one or two, fuck me they were awful, and really, only about 10,000 people actually went to any of them...he gets pretty much zero word of mouth going. His audience is the same 10,000 people, every time. His movies are propped up by literally 50 people watching screenings and then making excuses for threadbare plots, underwritten characters, miscasting and cultural cluelessness.
Every year in the run-up to the Oscars you get movies that gain a critical following or consensus when no normal people have yet seen them. Last two weeks of the year, something gets screened for critics to make it Oscar eligible and then there's a huge marketing effort that pushes a movie's or actor's "front-runner" status...and if enough people succumb to the marketing, there's your true overrated movie. For example, "The Remains of the Day." That was a nothing movie, painful to sit though. Seriously overrated, by "Serious People." If people had just ignored it, it would have gone away. Occasionally these sorts of movies gain a following because they become movies "you have to see"...Remains of the Day because it was a) Merchant-Ivory (untouchable icons), and b) an actor's showcase, who cares if they actually have anything to do for 120 minutes. A recent one I can think of was "The Butler," which you supposedly had to run out and see because of its significance (in that case, civil rights). That one was really horrible. Just moronic, with cringe-worthy impersonations of famous people.
The one with Leonardo DiCaprio wrestling grizzly bears? I mean, seriously? I save my wrath for movies like that.
- Match Point was fine.********
- That was one of the two I saw. Absolute rubbish, in my opinion.allthethings
- That is great! Ha********
- Match Point was fine.